An actuation assembly including a sleeve member having a radially outwardly extending projection and a piston having an axis, the piston operatively coupled to the projection of the sleeve member and arranged to exert an actuation force on the projection of the sleeve member for actuating the sleeve member, the actuation force positioned about radially aligned with the axis or radially outwardly from the axis.

Pressure-controlled pistons are used to operate subsurface safety valves and other systems in the borehole drilling industry. Some systems include a piston to actuate a flow tube in order to open a closure mechanism, such as a flapper valve. Often, there is a length of the piston that is circumferentially unsupported, which can result in deflection of the piston due to the pressure necessary to keep the closure mechanism in an open position. Deflection is often exacerbated because a radial offset exists between an axis of the piston and an axial surface of the flow tube that engages a coupling on the piston, which results in a bending moment on the piston. Subsurface safety valves are important features in downhole systems and the industry is accordingly desirous of any improvements in the operation of such safety valves.

Method of reducing deflection through a rod piston in a subsurface safety valve


Operability, accuracy, and safety when fitting a glass-made pipette tip to a pipette are improved. A pipette tip fitting adapter includes a hollow body having one end portion configured to serve as a tip inserting portion into which a pipette tip is inserted, and the other end portion configured to serve as a pipette inserting portion into which a pipette is inserted, and at an opening side of an inner circumferential surface of the tip inserting portion, seal portions projecting inward are formed in a circumferential direction. Accordingly, a pipette tip that is long and heavy like a glass tip can be held.

A manual or electric liquid dispenser (hereinafter, simply referred to as a pipette) handheld takes a volume change caused by a movement of a movable piston equipped inside the pipette as an air volume change, and sucks a volume of liquid corresponding to the air volume change into a pipette tip fitted to the pipette and discharges the liquid.
A pipette tip that is made of a resin such as polypropylene, and is disposable, is mainly used. However, there are various work scenes using pipettes, and in some cases such as analysis of endocrine disrupters, elution of chemical substances from plastic is a concern. In this case, by using a glass-made pipette tip, dispensing can be performed without concern for elution of chemical substances.


A method for managing collected data in a semiconductor processing environment. The collected data can include: raw data collected during a process, trace file data received during a process, and process log file data received during a process. The raw data is synchronized with the trace file data and process log file data to create wafer data and summary data, and a file is created containing the wafer data and the summary data.

Computers are generally used to control, monitor, and initialize manufacturing processes. A computer is ideal for these operations given the complexities in a semiconductor manufacturing plant from the reentrant wafer flows, critical processing steps, and maintainability of the processes. Various input/output (I/O) devices are used to control and monitor process flows, wafer states, and maintenance schedules. A variety of tools exist in a semiconductor manufacturing plant to complete these complicated steps from critical operations such as etching, to batch processing, and inspections. Most tool installations are accomplished using a display screen that is part of the graphical user interface (GUI) of a control computer containing the installation software. Installation of a semiconductor processing tool is a time consuming procedure.
Semiconductor processing facilities require constant monitoring. Processing, conditions change over time with the slightest changes in critical process parameters creating undesirable results. Small changes can easily occur in the composition or pressure of an etch gas, process chamber, or wafer temperature. In many cases, changes of process data reflecting deterioration of processing characteristics cannot be detected by simply referring to the process data displayed.
Facility control is often performed by a number of different control systems having a variety of controllers. Some of the control systems may have man-machine interfaces such as touch screens, while others may only collect and display one variable such as temperature. The monitoring system must be able to collect data tabulated for the process control system. The data collection of the monitoring system must handle univariate and multivariate data, the analysis and display of the data, and have the ability to select the process variables to collect. Various conditions in a process are monitored by different sensors provided in each of the process chambers, and data of the monitored conditions is transferred and accumulated in a control computer.

Method for processing data based on the data context


The present disclosure provides methods for adjusting the dosage of PAA prodrugs (e.g., HPN-100, PBA) based on measurement of PAA and PAGN in plasma and calculating the PAA:PAGN ratio so as to determine whether PAA to PAGN conversion is saturated.

Nitrogen retention disorders associated with elevated ammonia levels include urea cycle disorders (UCDs), hepatic encephalopathy (HE), and advanced kidney disease or kidney failure, often referred to as end-stage renal disease (ESRD).
UCDs include several inherited deficiencies of enzymes or transporters necessary for the synthesis of urea from ammonia, including enzymes involved in the urea cycle. The urea cycle is depicted in FIG. 1, which also illustrates how certain ammonia-scavenging drugs act to assist in elimination of excessive ammonia. With reference to FIG. 1, N-acetyl glutamine synthetase (NAGS)-derived N-acetylglutamate binds to carbamyl phosphate synthetase (CPS), which activates CPS and results in the conversion of ammonia and bicarbonate to carbamyl phosphate. In turn, carbamyl phosphate reacts with ornithine to produce citrulline in a reaction mediated by ornithine transcarbamylase (OTC). A second molecule of waste nitrogen is incorporated into the urea cycle in the next reaction, mediated by arginosuccinate synthetase (ASS), in which citrulline is condensed with aspartic acid to form argininosuccinic acid. Argininosuccinic acid is cleaved by argininosuccinic lyase (ASL) to produce arginine and fumarate. In the final reaction of the urea cycle, arginase (ARG) cleaves arginine to produce ornithine and urea. Of the two atoms of nitrogen incorporated into urea, one originates from free ammonia (NH4+) and the other from aspartate. UCD individuals born with no meaningful residual urea synthetic capacity typically present in the first few days of life (neonatal presentation). Individuals with residual function typically present later in childhood or even in adulthood, and symptoms may be precipitated by increased dietary protein or physiological stress (e.g., intercurrent illness). For UCD patients, lowering blood ammonia is the cornerstone of treatment.
HE refers to a spectrum of neurologic signs and symptoms believed to result from hyperammonemia, which frequently occur in subjects with cirrhosis or certain other types of liver disease. HE is a common manifestation of clinically decompensated liver disease and most commonly results from liver cirrhosis with diverse etiologies that include excessive alcohol use, hepatitis B or C virus infection, autoimmune liver disease, or chronic cholestatic disorders such as primary biliary cirrhosis. Patients with HE typically show altered mental status ranging from subtle changes to coma, features similar to patients with UCDs. It is believed that an increase in blood ammonia due to dysfunctional liver in detoxifying dietary protein is the main pathophysiology associated with HE (Ong 2003).
ESRD results from a variety of causes including diabetes, hypertension, and hereditary disorders. ESRD is manifested by accumulation in the bloodstream of substances normally excreted in the urine, including but not limited to urea and creatinine. This accumulation in the bloodstream of substances, including toxins, normally excreted in the urine is generally believed to result in the clinical manifestations of ESRD, sometimes referred to also as uremia or uremic syndrome. ESRD is ordinarily treated by dialysis or kidney transplantation. To the extent that urea, per se, contributes to these manifestations and that administration of a phenylacetic (PAA) prodrug may decrease synthesis of urea (see, e.g., Brusilow 1993) and hence lower blood urea concentration, PAA prodrug administration may be beneficial for patients with ESRD.
Subjects with nitrogen retention disorders whose ammonia levels and/or symptoms are not adequately controlled by dietary restriction of protein and/or dietary supplements are generally treated with nitrogen scavenging agents such as sodium phenylbutyrate (NaPBA, approved in the United States as BUPHENYL® and in Europe as AMMONAPS®), sodium benzoate, or a combination of sodium phenylacetate and sodium benzoate (AMMONUL®). These are often referred to as alternate pathway drugs because they provide the body with an alternate pathway to urea for excretion of waste nitrogen (Brusilow 1980; Brusilow 1991). NaPBA is a PAA prodrug. Another nitrogen scavenging drug currently in development for the treatment of nitrogen retention disorders is glyceryl tri-[4-phenylbutyrate] (HPN-100), which is described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,968,979. HPN-100, which is commonly referred to as GT4P or glycerol PBA, is a prodrug of PBA and a pre-prodrug of PAA. The difference between HPN-100 and NaPBA with respect to metabolism is that HPN-100 is a triglyceride and requires digestion, presumably by pancreatic lipases, to release PBA (McGuire 2010), while NaPBA is a salt and is readily hydrolyzed after absorption to release PBA.
HPN-100 and NaPBA share the same general mechanism of action: PBA is converted to PAA via beta oxidation, and PAA is conjugated enzymatically with glutamine to form phenylacetylglutamine (PAGN), which is excreted in the urine. The structures of PBA, PAA, and PAGN are set forth below:

The clinical benefit of NaPBA and HPN-100 with regard to nitrogen retention disorders derives from the ability of PAGN to effectively replace urea as a vehicle for waste nitrogen excretion and/or to reduce the need for urea synthesis (Brusilow 1991; Brusilow 1993). Because each glutamine contains two molecules of nitrogen, the body rids itself of two waste nitrogen atoms for every molecule of PAGN excreted in the urine. Therefore, two equivalents of nitrogen are removed for each mole of PAA converted to PAGN. PAGN represents the predominant terminal metabolite, and one that is stoichiometrically related to waste nitrogen removal, a measure of efficacy in the case of nitrogen retention states.
In addition to nitrogen retention states, PAA prodrugs may be beneficial in a variety of other disorders for which PBA and/or PAA are believed to modify gene expression and/or exert post-translational effects on protein function. In the case of maple syrup urine disease (MSUD, also known as branched-chain ketoaciduria), for example, the apparently beneficial effect of NaPBA in lowering plasma levels of branched chain amino acids is reported to be mediated by PBA-induced inhibition of the kinase that regulates activity of branched chain alpha-keto acid dehydrogenase complex or BCKDC. BCKDC is the enzyme that normally breaks down branched-chain amino acids and is genetically defective in MSUD patients (Bruneti-Pieri 2011). Similarly, the putative beneficial effects of PAA prodrugs for the treatment of cancer (Chung 2000), neurodegenerative diseases (Ryu 2005), and sickle cell disease (Perrine 2008) all involve alteration of gene expression and/or post-translational effects on protein function via PBA and/or PAA.
Numerous publications reports adverse events following administration of PBA and/or PAA (Mokhtarani 2012), and PAA is reported to cause reversible toxicity when present in high levels in circulation. While many of these publications have not recorded PAA blood levels and/or temporally correlated adverse events with PAA levels, toxicities such as nausea, headache, emesis, fatigue, weakness, lethargy, somnolence, dizziness, slurred speech, memory loss, confusion, and disorientation have been shown to be temporally associated with PAA levels ranging from 499-1285 μg/mL in cancer patients receiving PAA intravenously, and these toxicities have been shown to resolve with discontinuation of PAA administration (Thiebault 1994; Thiebault 1995). Therefore, when administering PAA prodrugs for treatment of nitrogen retention disorders and other conditions, it is important to optimize dosing so as to achieve the desired therapeutic effect while minimizing the risk of PAA associated toxicity.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Methods of therapeutic monitoring of phenylacetic acid prodrugs


There is provided an information processing device including an acquirer that acquires second data obtained by converting first data constituted by bit data having a first number of bits into symbols having a second number of bits greater than the first number of bits, with respect to each of the bit data, a comparator that compares a first symbol string constituted by a plurality of symbols contained in the second data prior to reverse conversion of the acquired second data into the first data, to a second symbol string representing a code targeted for detection, and a detector that detects the first symbol string as the code targeted for detection from the second data, on the basis of the result of the comparison by the comparator.

For example, an image sensor and a DSP (digital signal processor) are incorporated in a digital camera. The image sensor generates an image signal obtained by photoelectrically converting light received through a lens, and the DSP performs image processing on the image signal output from the image sensor.
When outputting the image signal to the DSP, the image sensor packetizes (partitions) the image signal into a plurality of packets, and adds a control code to each packet. Incidentally, as an example of the control code, a start code representing a start position of the packet or an end code representing an end position of the packet, and the like are added.
Then, the image sensor performs an 8B10B conversion to convert the packet, to which the control code is added, into a bit string of 10 bits for every 8 bits, and outputs the packet after the 8B10B conversion to the DSP.
On the other hand, the DSP performs a 10B8B conversion (8B10B reverse conversion) to convert the packet after the 8B10B conversion, which is output from the image sensor, into a bit string of 8 bits for every 10 bits.
Also, the DSP previously holds a bit pattern representing the control code, and detects the control code from the packet after the 10B8B conversion, on the basis of the held bit pattern.
That is, for example, the DSP detects a hit string matched with the previously held bit pattern, as the control code, among bit strings contained in the packet after the 10B8B conversion.
Then, the DSP extracts an image signal from the packet after the 10B8B conversion, on the basis of the detected control code, and performs image processing on the extracted image signal.
Incidentally, the 8B10B conversion and the 10B8B conversion are performed using, for example, a previously held conversion table (see, for example, Patent Literature 1).

Information processing device, information processing method, and program


A bone cement mixing and delivery assembly is disclosed for mixing a powdered copolymer and a liquid monomer to form a bone cement and delivering the bone cement. The assembly includes a cartridge having a distal end and a proximal end and defining a mixing chamber between the distal end and the proximal end. A transfer mechanism having a cap and a stem supporting a piston and a plunger is connected to the distal end. The transfer mechanism includes a first advancement mechanism for advancing the piston and plunger in unison and a second advancement mechanism for moving the plunger independent of the piston. The assembly further includes a removable handle having a shaft for attachment of a mixing blade and a quick-release connector and a release button for locking and unlocking the mixing blade from the removable handle.

In many surgical procedures, particularly orthopedic procedures, it is common practice to affix a prosthesis to a bone or joint structure for improving the strength, rigidity and movement of the bone/joint structure. Such prosthetic devices have been widely used, hip joints and knee joints are the most common examples of areas where prosthetic devices are used to reduce or eliminate pain and suffering that exists from typical leg movements.
As part of these surgical procedures, it has become common practice to secure the prosthesis to the bone or joint using a cement formed by mixing a polymer powder and a liquid monomer. The two components must be thoroughly blended together to achieve the required consistency for the fully mixed cement. The fully mixed cement is then loaded into a separate dispensing apparatus for placement in the desired area and affixing of the prosthesis to the desired site.
Other uses of bone cement include repairing or mending bone fractures or shattered bone occurring from extreme trauma. Bone cement may also be used during cosmetic or dental surgery. Moreover, bone cement may be used as a drug delivery or release system, whereby the bone cement is mixed with antibiotics or other desired drugs and applied to a specific surgical site such that the drugs leach out and are delivered directly to the surgical site. Some bone cements are also designed to be absorbed by the body over time.
Because of the necessity for a fairly quick setting material, the cement is almost universally prepared by a surgical assistant during the course of the operation in the sterile operating room. Conventional bone cements are generally polymeric materials which are prepared by copolymerization of the components as needed. Bone cement is prepared by copolymerizng the liquid monomer and the powdered copolymer, such as methyl methacrylate and polymethyl methacrylate or methyl methacrylate styrene. In order to provide a bone cement having the desired properties, the compounds must be uniformly and thoroughly mixed so that a homogeneous reaction product is produced.
During the mixing and subsequent chemical reaction various vapors are produced. Due to the noxious and toxic nature of such vapors, it is highly undesirable to be exposed to them, particularly for extended periods of time in the course of multiple preparations. Since it is necessary that the mixing be carried out for extended periods of time to ensure a uniform reaction product and a minimum of concentration of volatile reactants, the period of exposure to harmful vapors can be substantial. Moreover, during the mixing of the constituent components of the cement, air bubbles may be formed within the cement.
Most often, the two components forming the cement are mixed in a mixing vessel and, once fully mixed, the cement is manually transferred from the mixing vessel to a dispensing member of a dispensing device. Typically, devices similar to caulking guns are employed for dispensing the fully mixed cement to the desired location in the patient. These devices have a piston which allows the bone cement to remain in the dispensing member.
In some other prior art systems, the cement is mixed in one vessel which is then directly connected to a feeding system that enables the mixed cement to be added to a holding tube for use with the dispensing device. The dispensing system, however, is separate and exposes the mixed cement to the surrounding personnel. Furthermore, care must be exercised during the transfer of the mixed cement to the dispenser to avoid introducing air into the cement or to avoid dropping, spilling, or contaminating the cement.
Other prior art systems utilize a handle that operates mixing paddles in a closed cylinder for combining the cement constituents. Upon mixing the bone cement, the handle must be removed. Conventional systems incorporate frangible handles that when broken may produce fragments that could contaminate the bone cement.
One such device is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,551,778 to Hauke et al. The '778 patent discloses a device having a mixing cylinder and a mixing plunger extending therethrough. The standard powder and liquid components are introduced into the chamber to form a bone cement and the mixing plunger mixes the two components. The mixing plunger has a predetermined break point for breaking the mixing plunger and allowing for its removal from the mixing cylinder. A discharge nozzle is then connected to the mixing cylinder and the mixing chamber is connected to a drive mechanism. The drive mechanism includes a discharge plunger that is passed through the mixing cylinder forcing the bone cement from the mixing cylinder out the nozzle. A portion of the bone cement remains in the discharge nozzle and thus the system does not ensure complete delivery of the bone cement into the patient.
Another such device is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,879,116 to Barker et al. The '116 patent discloses a device having a mixing chamber integral with a delivery chamber. The bone cement components are introduced into the mixing chamber and a paddle having a handle extending from the mixing chamber is utilized to mix the components and form the bone cement. Once the components are adequately mixed, a passage way is opened between the mixing chamber and the delivery chamber. The handle is actuated causing rotation of the paddle and of an auger disposed within the delivery chamber. The paddle transfers the bone cement from the mixing chamber to the auger. The auger has threads, which taper away from the mixing chamber for pulling the bone cement from the mixing chamber into the delivery chamber. One disadvantage of this system is that the bone cement must have a relatively low viscosity to be pulled by the auger into the delivery chamber. Additionally, the bone cement may remain on the walls of the mixing chamber where the paddle is unable to reach it.
Accordingly, it would be advantageous to provide a bone cement mixing and delivery assembly that includes a mechanism to transfer all of the bone cement from a mixing chamber to an delivery cartridge and to deliver all of the bone cement from the delivery cartridge into the patient.

Bone cement mixing and delivery device with releasable mixing blade


Negative outcomes experienced by a user in a live software system can be automatically, deterministically, and contemporaneously traced back to the root conditions that caused those outcomes, by generating causal event entries in a database for those root conditions as they occur, assigning unique causal IDs to those causal events, and propagating causal IDs alongside the software system state changes that are known to produce negative outcomes and which are effected by those root conditions. By selectively passing causal IDs based on the input and output values of the operation, subsequent causal events and negative outcomes can be linked accurately to causal IDs of parent events, making it simpler to trace negative outcomes for the user back to their root cause events in a software system.

Root causes of errors reported by software can be difficult to track. This can be especially true when the software relates to a hardware system, where errors reported by the software can be caused by hardware errors in the real world, but where useful diagnostic information regarding the hardware errors are not necessarily fully communicated forward in the software to the error reporting point. Such systems, as well as most large software environments, where reported errors can more often be caused by pure software components unrelated to hardware, can benefit from better error tracking. While such error tracking methods have utility on many software or hardware/software systems, it is easiest to describe these concepts with a specific example, in this case a clinical chemistry analyzer. An exemplary clinical analyzer is a Dimension Vista Clinical Analyzer, available from Siemens Healthcare Diagnostics. Such an analyzer typically performs medical tests on patient fluid samples and accepts blood, urine, and plasma in test tubes, with an exemplary maximum average throughput of 1500 tests per hour. To accomplish this, the exemplary analyzer contains more than 400 computer-controlled hardware actuators and sensors including motors (for controlling arms, probes, pumps, positioners), solenoids (for activating valves, latches, locks), lights (for indicators), sensors (for applications such as photometer, nephelometer, electro-chemical, chemi-luminescence, pressure, barcode, obstruction, encoders, switches, etc.)
FIG. 1 shows an exemplary mechanism map of an analyzer to illustrate the interplay of physical components that can relate to one another and share a physical space that can cause collisions or thread locks. For example, a cuvette ring can interact with an IMT probe, multiple sample arms, and multiple reagent arms. Sample arms can interact with aliquot lanes, which interact with various aliquotter systems. Reagent arms can interact with reagent servers, which include various reagent subsystems.
FIG. 2A shows an exemplary prior art screenshot of a user interface for a clinical chemistry system displaying a failure to successfully complete execution of the user's prior request to run an NA test (i.e. sodium test) on patient Sample 04. The results for that test request display "Error" and "Measurement Error", but do not display the actual root cause of that error. In this particular system, there are literally millions of possible root causes for this general error outcome. While details of the actual root cause that caused this particular error, from among those millions of possibilities, are recorded and displayed elsewhere in the system, via general display of an event database, and via developer-oriented trace logs, there is no connection between the negative outcome displayed here to the user and that root cause information recorded elsewhere. This lack of connection between negative effect and specific root cause details is a common failing of software designs and systems for users.
FIG. 2B shows an exemplary prior art screenshot of a user interface displaying multiple "unavailable" conditions, where certain capabilities for the ESDSH module state are displayed with a red triangle, indicating that any future requests from the user which require these capabilities will fail until the root causes of non-availabilities are resolved. Again, there are literally millions of possible reasons the capabilities could be down, but no specific root cause information is made available for why the capabilities are down. Also, in this particular case, different capabilities are down for different root cause reasons. This is not made apparent at all. A user could easily and incorrectly assume that the capabilities are down for the same root cause reason. Again, this lack of connection between negative effect and specific root cause is a common failing of software designs and systems for users.
FIG. 2C shows an exemplary prior art screenshot of multiple errors where five different threads which control separate mechatronic hardware detected hardware "homing" errors at startup. In this particular case, only one hardware error was actually responsible for the entire set of failures. That is, one root cause physical hardware failure caused four other nearly identical hardware failures to be reported, all on different hardware mechanism subsystems. It is not clear from this prior art screen shot which error could be a root cause, as all errors occurred at the same time stamp and error code. Only one mechanism had a physical problem and is the root cause. The other four mechanisms encountered software time out errors waiting for the first mechanism to physically move out of the way. These problems can be made worse by extended dependency between mechanisms. This is a common scenario during system reset.
Many prior attempts to solve the main problem of reporting the actual root software conditions that caused any negative outcome experienced in a software system first start with an attempt to statically predetermine all possible paths of causes and effects in the software system, and therefore all possible failure modes and non-failure modes. The assumption in these attempts is that if all of the possible paths of causes and effects could be determined for a software system, or some "sufficient" subset of causes and effects could be determined, then some system could be built on top of this static list of causes and effects that would allow the cause for any negative outcome to be reported to the user.
However, for a complex system, attempting to determine all possible causes and effects in the system, and therefore all possible causes of negative outcomes in the system, can cause an intractable problem. That is, it is far too resource-intensive and therefore effectively impossible for any software development organization to determine all of the possible paths of cause and effect for software of even moderate complexity. Or it is frequently found that many, many different kinds of causes can each contribute to many, many different kinds of negative outcomes, which effectively renders the information useless for troubleshooting by a user.
Even if all the possible causes and effects, and all of the possible paths between them, were able to be determined for a software system, traditional methods for mapping these causes are insufficient. Consider a software system for which a static, directed graph of all possible causes and effects in the system is constructed, which diagrams every possible root cause and every possible negative outcome for each root cause. Often, such a graph will show overlapping paths between root causes and possible outcomes, where root causes may share one or more outcomes, and different outcomes may share one or more root causes. Arbitrary changes to data and execution states at runtime can, and often do, change the observed end results of a given root cause condition. That is, normal runtime changes of the various states in a program can cause different subsets of the static graph to be active at any given time. This can then cause different occurrences of the same root cause conditions to result in different negative outcomes at different points in time, in seemingly arbitrary ways. This effectively renders the knowledge captured in the static graph of all possible causes and effects useless: at runtime, the knowledge cannot be leveraged, since the paths of cause and effect at any given time are often variable. These problems often represent a hard "stopping point" to any solution that tries to build a system on top of a static list of causes and effects. Attempts to solve the problem simply cannot be built on top of static knowledge about all of the possible paths of cause and effect, because the actual paths of cause and effect observed in running software at any point in time are often not static. Instead, they are typically a varying subset of that total list of all possible paths of cause and effect. That is, how would the software know which possible path(s) were in effect, in order to inform the user what the ultimate root cause(s) were? What matters to the user when troubleshooting an observed issue is what actually happened (the list of causes and effects active at that time), not what could have happened (the list of all possible cause and effects at any time).
Details of root cause conditions are often logged out to a separate database or log file, but there is no direct connection for the user from the negative outcome displayed in the UI back to this detailed root cause information. Users are required to dig through these databases or logs and effectively make guesses on which of the listed possible root cause conditions caused their particular negative outcomes. Root cause conditions that occur in other applications or nodes make this problem even more difficult, since the users have to know which other applications or nodes may have an effect on the current application, and this is rarely easily known.
Root cause conditions may sometimes be displayed in a pop-up dialog window when they occur, but still often contain no direct connection back to possibly multiple downstream negative outcomes. Software developers also occasionally engage in trying to develop automated heuristics to report root cause conditions for negative outcomes, but by the nature of heuristic systems, the results are often inaccurate and prohibitively expensive to develop.
Based on the information provided in software by developers above, users and businesses attempt the following general classes of actions to troubleshoot: searching the root cause condition databases (event databases); manual heuristics (analyzing symptoms, user actions, and software output for known patterns); checking the documentation; looking at trace log files; and asking other people, including repeated escalations. All of these methods can have problems that result in highly incomplete coverage of the main problem, and therefore significant wasted time and money. First, events in event databases are often not connected by the software back to the negative outcome in any meaningful way for the user and often contain many unrelated events, which effectively hide the events of interest. The actual cause-and-effect relationship between any root cause event and its negative outcome may be highly obscure to the user and therefore non-obvious, resulting in troubleshooters ignoring the actual root cause event. Second, heuristics are by definition imprecise and subject to error (e.g., misdiagnosis). Effective heuristic analysis requires prior experience with (and memory of) the particular failure and its symptom patterns in order to diagnose. This is frustrated by many different types of root cause conditions exhibiting the same exact symptoms and negative outcomes at the user level, preventing them from being diagnosed heuristically. Third, documentation cannot adequately capture the multitude of combinations of arbitrary events. Fourth, operators typically do not have ready access to trace log files because they are intended for in-house use by software developers and often are not easily interpreted by users. Finally, asking others often adds communication delays and does not necessarily resolve the problem due to diagnostic limitations; this can be an expensive service cost for the manufacturer providing technical support.

Method for deterministically reporting cause and effect in software systems


When drawing wire, and particularly wire of highly tenacious material which s difficult to deform, such as tungsten or molybdenum, through a die (4), lubricant is applied to the surface of the wire (1) by generating a curtain or sheet of lubricant (6, 16) emitted from a slit-like nozzle (14), and passing the wire essentially transversely through said curtain or sheet of liquid lubricant. Preferably, the wire is preheated before being passed through said sheet of lubricant so that the lubricant will dry on the preheated wire from the inside out prior to the wire being heated to optimum drawing temperature in advance of being pulled through the die. Suitable preheating temperatures are from 100.degree. C. to 500.degree. C., and the thickness of the curtain of lubricant can be between 0.05 to about 0.3 mm, with a wire thickness in the order of about 0.1 mm, permitting drawing speeds which can vary widely and can be about double of previously obtainable drawing speeds. The lubricant can be a standard lubricant formed essentially as an aqueous suspension of colloidal graphite.

It is well known to draw wire to a fine diameter by sequentially passing the wire through drawing dies, so that the diameter and the cross section of the wire are reduced in steps.
The referenced U.S. Pat. No. 4,366,695 describes, for example, a wire drawing system in which a cold wire is coated with a liquid lubricant, especially a water-graphite suspension. This lubricant must dry before the wire reaches the dies. To reduce wear, the wire is then heated so that it reaches an optimum working temperature at the die. This temperature may vary between about 450.degree. C. to 800.degree. C., in dependence on drawing speed.
Coating can be done by passing the wire through a container filled with lubricant, as described, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 3,262,293, MacInnis; as an alternative, lubricant can be sprayed on the wire by projecting lubricant from a nozzle, see for example, the referenced German Patent Publication DE 30 48 980, Weinhold et al.
It has been found that these processes have some disadvantages in that the quantity of lubricant applied to the wire, with a given operating or running speed of the wire, can be controlled only by controlling the viscosity of the lubricant. The quantity of lubricant per surface of the wire increases undesirably upon increase of drawing speed. It may occur that the drying time is thereby increased undesirably, so that optimum operating temperatures at the drawing die will no longer be reached. These constraints limited the maximum drawing speed to about 75 m/min., when it is desired to reach a wire diameter of 0.090 mm.

Method and system of lubricating wire being drawn through a die

Patent-Treuhand-Gesellschaft Fuer Elektrische Gluehlampen mbH


The present invention is to provide a combination antenna having multi-mode and multi-band arrangements, which comprises a conductive seat; a non-uniform helical antenna extending from one end of the conductive seat; and a pole antenna extending from one end of the conductive seat through the helical antenna, enabling to be tuned to three or more resonant frequencies through tuning the helical antenna to a plurality of resonant frequencies and tuning the pole antenna to a plurality of resonant frequencies different from that to which the helical antenna is tuned.

A wide variety of portable communication products (e.g., cellular phones, PDAs (personal digital assistants), Internet phones, etc.) are commercially available in an even faster pace in recent years as electronics industry advances. Moreover, such portable communication products are provided with many advanced features. Each group of the portable communication products is able to operate in predetermined frequencies due to its specific functions and wireless communication system involved. Currently, dominant wireless communication systems are GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) (i.e., so-called Pan-European digital mobile phone system) and CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access). For GSM, its frequency bands are 850 MHz, 900 MHz, 1800 MHz, and 1900 MHz. For CDMA, its frequency bands are 800 MHz and 1900 MHz.
Different wireless communication systems are currently employed throughout the world. Thus, a cellular phone user may have to carry another type of cellular phone if he/she travels to another country due to different specifications. For example, GSM is employed in USA and its frequency bands are 850 MHz and 1900 MHz, GSM is employed in European countries and its frequency bands are 900 MHz and 1800 MHz, CDMA is employed in Korea and its frequency bands are 800 MHz and 1900 MHz, GSM is employed in Australia and its frequency bands are 900 MHz and 1800 MHz, and GSM is employed in South East Asian countries and its frequency bands are 900 MHz and 1800 MHz respectively.
In view of the above discussion, cellular phones of single operating frequency are somewhat outdated. Currently, a number of major portable communication product manufacturers (e.g., Motorola, Nokia, Sony Ericson, etc.) have developed dual-band or triple-band portable communication products (e.g., triple-band cellular phones) for solving the above drawback. For a triple-band cellular phone, it is capable of operating in bands including 900 MHz, 1800 MHz, 1900 MHz, and 2.4 GHz and is adapted to operate in GSM, CDMA, or wireless Internet. Alternatively, it can be used as a PHS (Personal Handy-phone System) or Bluetooth cellular phone, or can operate in GPS (Global Positioning System) or other wireless networks. By using the triple-band cellular phone, a user does not have to change his/her cellular phone or any carried portable communication product when the user travels from one country to another country.
For a multi-mode portable communication product employing dual-band or triple-band for operating in bands including 1800 MHz, 1900 MHz, and 2.4 GHz, the most important component thereof is antenna. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,112,102 discloses a multi-band non-uniform helical antenna as shown in FIG. 1. The helical antenna 1 comprises a first coil section 10 and a second coil section 20 having a spiral angle, a coil diameter, a length, turns, and a pitch all different from that of the first coil section 10. Thus, each of the first and second coil sections 10 and 20 is formed as a helical antenna operating in dual-band or triple-band mode. In a case of the helical antenna 1 installed in a multi-mode portable communication product employing dual-band or triple-band, it is possible of tuning the helical antenna 1 to a plurality of resonant frequencies by changing parameters including spiral angle, coil diameter, length, turns, and pitch of the helical antenna 1. As an end, the purpose of operating in different frequency bands is achieved.
Taiwanese Patent No. 549,621 discloses a multi-band helical antenna for communication equipment as improvement of U.S. Pat. No. 6,112,102 entitled "Multi-band Non-uniform Helical Antenna". As discussed in background of the Taiwanese Patent No. 549,621, predetermined parameters such as spiral angle and pitch of the antenna in U.S. Pat. No. 6,112,102 may be changed due to carelessness in the manufacturing process. Thus, in often times the antenna in U.S. Pat. No. 6,112,102 either may not be able to operate normally in receiving or transmitting signals or cannot achieve the performance of a desired multi-band antenna. Therefore, a positioning member 2 is provided in a helical antenna 1 as disclosed in Taiwanese Patent No. 549,621 in which the positioning member 2 is firmly retained in the antenna 1 and thus the antenna 1 is able to operate in a third frequency band as shown in FIG. 2.
Above Taiwanese Patent No. 549,621 entitled "Multi-band Helical Antenna for Communication Equipment" employs the positioning member 2 as means for operating in a third frequency band in which the positioning member 2 comprises a metal patch 20 on its surface for cooperating with the helical coils. That is, the purpose of tuning the antenna 1 to a plurality of resonant frequencies by the positioning member 2 depends on parameters of the helical antenna 1. This means that location and shape of the metal patch 20 are constrained by the antenna 1. That is, the provision of the positioning member 2 is trouble-prone and unreliable in use. For example, a plurality of recesses 22 on both sides of the positioning member 2 must be conformed to coil pitches. Incorrect location of the recesses 22 will cause incompatibility of the antenna 1 and the positioning member 2. As a result, it is impossible of tuning the antenna 1 to a plurality of resonant frequencies during operation. Moreover, shapes of the recesses 22 must be snugly fitted between two adjacent coils. It is impossible of fastening the antenna 1 in the recesses 22 if the recess 22 is sufficiently larger than coil pitch. To the contrary, it is also impossible of mounting coils of the antenna 1 in the recesses 22 if the recess 22 is much smaller than coil pitch. Thus, the need for improvement still exists.

Multi-mode antenna and multi-band antenna combination


An electronic device includes a main body, a cover, and a keyboard. The main body includes a receptacle having an opening. The cover is coupled to the main body. The keyboard is positioned in the receptacle of the main body. The keyboard is slidable in the receptacle and is detachable from the main body via the opening.

1. Technical Field
The present disclosure relates generally to electronic devices and, more particularly, to an electronic device with a detachable keyboard.
2. Description of Related Art
Notebook computers have become popular alternatives to desktop computers because of their portability. A typical notebook computer includes a display body and a main body. The display body is rotatably attached to the main body so that the display body can be opened and closed relative to the main body. The main body has a housing, a keyboard module, and a circuit board. The circuit board is disposed in the housing. The keyboard module is generally fixed to the housing.
However, if the keyboard of the typical notebook computer malfunctions and needs to be repaired or replaced, disassembling and removing the keyboard module from the housing is difficult because the keyboard module is fixed to the housing. In addition, the circuit board and electrical components may be damaged.
Therefore, there is room for improvement within the art.

Electronic device with detachable keyboard

Shenzhen Futaihong Precision Industry Co., Ltd.


The disclosure has: a detection electrode (2) that detects an electrostatic capacitance; a shield electrode (3); a shield drive circuit (31) that switches between a first electric potential and a second electric potential to apply the first or second electric potential to the shield electrode; a detection circuit (21) that outputs a detection signal depending on the electrostatic capacitance detected; and a determination circuit (6) that obtains a first detection signal and a second detection signal as the basis to determine whether an abnormality of the detection electrode (2) or the shield electrode is present or absent. The first detection signal depends on the electrostatic capacitance detected when the shield drive means (31) applies the first electric potential to the shield electrode (3). The second detection signal depends on the electrostatic capacitance detected when the shield drive means (31) applies the second electric potential to the shield electrode.

1. Technical Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electrostatic capacitance sensor and a method for determining a failure of an electrostatic-type capacitance sensor.
For those designated countries which permit the incorporation by reference, the contents described and/or illustrated in the documents relevant to Patent Application No. 2010-217316 filed with Japan Patent Office on Sep. 28, 2010 and Patent application No. 2010-291780 filed with Japan Patent Office on Dec. 28, 2010 will be incorporated herein by reference as a part of the description and/or drawings of the present application.
2. Description of the Related Art
An electrostatic capacitance detection apparatus is known which detects an object on the basis of an electrostatic capacitance between an electrode and a grounded section and which is provided with an independent auxiliary electrode that functions as a dummy object, thereby to self-diagnose a failure of the electrostatic capacitance sensor (Patent Literature 1: Published Patent Application No. 2001-264448).

Electrostatic capacitance sensor and method for determining failure of electrostatic capacitance sensor


A cable connector assembly for being mounted on an external device for docking a mating connector, the cable connector assembly including a shield shell having a plurality of metal shrapnel, an insulative housing received in the shield shell, a plurality of connectors received in the insulative housing, and a cable connecting with the connector. The connector has a metal shell. The metal shrapnel is movable by the external device to be elastically pressed between the connector metal shell and the external device.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a cable connector assembly and especially relates to a shield shell having a number of metal shrapnel.
2. Description of Related Art
Taiwan Utility Model No. 346200 discloses a cable connector assembly for being mounted to a panel of a computer casing. The cable connector assembly includes a number of connectors, an insulative housing receiving the connectors, and a shield shell enclosing the insulative housing. The connector includes a metal shell. The shield shell has a top wall and a front wall perpendicular to the top wall. The top wall has a number of metal shrapnel connectable with the computer casing panel. The front wall has a number of tabs connectable with the connector metal shell. The metal shrapnel elastically contacts the panel to realize grounding of the connector, but does not contact the metal shell. Another tab is needed for the shield shell to contact the metal shell.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,722,924 discloses a cable connector assembly including a dielectric housing, a pair of first connectors, a pair of second connectors, and a shield member. The shield member includes a front wall and a pair of sidewalls. The dielectric housing has an elongate base having a pair of positioning slits. Each sidewall is stamped to form a plurality of engaging tabs protruding outwardly and a pair of contacting tabs protruding inwardly. The engaging tabs are devised for electrically engaging with a panel of a computer when the cable connector assembly is assembled in the computer. The second connector further includes a grounding terminal The contacting tabs extend through the positioning slits of the housing and electrically contact the grounding terminals.
In the above prior art designs, extra stamping process is required for producing two sets of grounding pieces and a distance of circuit back becomes longer. Such design does not ensure a low grounding resistance of the cable connector assembly but increases EMI of the cable connector assembly.
An improved cable connector assembly is desired.

Cable connector assembly having a shield shell with a metal shrapnel


An improved lock device for the automatic shift lever of a car, and especially a lock device which still has a theft-proof effect after it is broken by limiting a limiting rod, wherein, in a receiving hole of a knob, a rear and a front hole is provided respectively on a protruding portion on the front end of an operating rod and at a position position on the periphery of an inner end of a push button to exactly receive the limiting rod which is surrounded by a spring, when the push button is pressed or released, the end of the limiting rod abuts against a plateform in the receiving hole, while the other end can freely slide to and fro relatively to the rear and front holes; and when in locking, the lever lock is rotated to render a stop piece provided between the push button and the protruding portion to rotate to the position between the rear and front holes to limit and to reduce the stroke of the limiting rod to the range between the plateform and the stop piece, thus an object of locking is attained.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an improved lock device for the automatic shift lever of a car, wherein, a stop piece is provided between a protruding portion of an operating rod and a push button, when a protruding end of the stop piece is rotated, the limiting rod capable of sliding freely can be located in position to obtain an object of securely locking.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Theft-proof devices for automobiles in the markets are divided into three kinds, theft-proof bells, steering wheel locks (namely the stick shaped lock), and shift lever locks, we hereby discuss the principles and disadvantages thereof:
1) A theft-proof bell uses balancing principle to allow the switch of a buzzer to be turned on for scaring a thief; however, if a passenger inadvertently touches the car body, or even when vibrating is effected by a car passing by, the bell will make a loud noise, this can break quiet and peaceful mood of people, and the theft-proof bell is operated by taking advantage of the battery of the car, so that the car is subjected to electricity leakage when in parking. PA0 2) A steering wheel lock provides a lock head in the middle of a bar, it can be used to lock on the periphery of the steering wheel, length of the bar is longer than the diameter of the steering wheel, so that rotating of the steering wheel can be limited thereby; or an extendible hooking bar can be used to lock the steering wheel by locking of the lock head with one end of the bar hooking the steering wheel and the other end hooking the pedal of the accelerator and having the length therebetween of the bar been adjusted; however, these are bothersome in use, some drivers hate to use the steering wheel lock with too much time when in parking, while theft of a car often happens in such a short parking time, this is awfully a pity. PA0 3) A shift lever lock provides a lock head at the rear side of a body portion of the car behind the shift lever (referring to FIG. 16), with a pivotally connecting hole on the lock head facing to the shift lever and engaged by a U shaped locking hook to lock the shift lever. However, when the lock is opened or closed, a driver must turn his body to operate with two hands in a narrow space in a car and this is quite inconvenient for use.
In view of the above stated disadvantage on a conventional theft-proof car lock, the inventor of the present invention has developed a theft-proof lock device for an automatic shift lever on an automobile, which can still have a theft-proof effect after it is broken based on his experience of years in manufacturing and selling of locks, such a theft-proof lock device can get rid of the disadvantages of the conventional theft-proof lock devices and can still have a theft-proof effect after it is broken.

Lock device for an automatic shift lever


A disc drive data storage system according to the present invention includes a housing, a central axis, a stationary member which is fixed with respect to the housing and coaxial with the central axis, and a rotatable member which is rotatable about the central axis with respect to the stationary member. A stator is fixed with respect to the housing. A rotor is supported by the rotatable member and is magnetically coupled to the stator. At least one data storage disc is attached to and is coaxial with the rotatable member. A hydro bearing interconnects the stationary member and the rotatable member and includes a blend of a base fluid having a viscosity index of at least 110, an anti-oxidant additive, anti-corrosion additive and an anti-wear additive, which are effective for resisting catalytic degradation in the hydro bearing.

The present invention relates to spindle motors for disc drive data storage devices and, more particularly, to optimized lubricating fluids for a hydrodynamic bearing within the spindle motor.
Disc drive data storage devices, known as "Winchester" type disc drives, are well-known in the industry. In a Winchester disc drive, digital data is written to and read from a thin layer of magnetizable material on the surface of rotating discs. Write and read operations are performed through a transducer which is carried in a slider body. The slider and transducer are sometimes collectively referred to as a head, and typically a single head is associated with each disc surface. The heads are selectively moved under the control of electronic circuitry to any one of a plurality of circular, concentric data tracks on the disc surface by an actuator device. Each slider body includes a self-acting air bearing surface. As the disc rotates, the disc drags air beneath the air bearing surface, which develops a lifting force that causes the slider to lift and fly several microinches above the disc surface.
In the current generation of disc drive products, the most commonly used type of actuator is a rotary moving coil actuator. The discs themselves are typically mounted in a "stack" on the hub structure of a brushless DC spindle motor. The rotational speed of the spindle motor is precisely controlled by motor drive circuitry which controls both the timing and the power of commutation signals directed to the stator windings of the motor. Typical spindle motor speeds have been in the range of 3600 RPM. Current technology has increased spindle motor speeds to 7200 RPM, 10,000 RPM and above.
One of the principal sources of noise in disc drive data storage devices is the spindle motor. Disc drive manufacturers have recently begun looking at replacing conventional ball or roller bearings in spindle motors with "hydro" bearings, such as hydrodynamic or hydrostatic bearings. A hydro bearing relies on a fluid film which separates the bearing surfaces and is therefore much quieter and in general has lower vibrations than conventional ball bearings. A hydrodynamic bearing is a self-pumping bearing which generates a pressure internally to maintain the fluid film separation. A hydrostatic bearing requires an external pressurized fluid source to maintain the fluid separation. Relative motion between the bearing surfaces in a hydro bearing causes a shear element which occurs entirely within the fluid film such that no contact between the bearing surfaces occurs.
This situation is unlike typical boundary or elastohydrodynamic lubrication applications such as roller, ball and sliding bearings, where the solid bearing surfaces are often in contact with one another and sheer stress occurs at the interface. In these boundary applications, the primary purpose of the lubricant is to modify the interface to reduce wear and friction. The interfacial chemical properties of the lubricant are the most important.
In hydro bearing applications, entirely different fluid properties are of importance to the function of the bearing. The boundary properties are important only during the starting and stopping of the disc rotation. During normal operation, the most important properties are bulk properties. The hydro bearings that are being considered for use in disc drive applications are miniature units which require small power dissipation and a limited oil supply that must be adequate for a long life without escaping from the bearing. Commercially available lubricants are mostly unsuitable in some way for application in miniature hydro bearings in a disc drive.
The lubricant properties that must be controlled and the degree of control that must be obtained are unique to miniature hydro bearings for disc drives. These properties include power dissipation, viscosity and it's temperature dependence, migration, vapor pressure and evaporation rate, resistance to oxidation and corrosion, rheology, boundary properties and system compatibility. Viscosity determines power dissipation and bearing stiffness, which should be relatively constant over various operating conditions. The lubricant should have low migration so the lubricant does not creep out of the bearing. The lubricant should have a high resistance to oxidation and reactivity to provide a long life for the bearing. Rheology is the deformation and flow response to sheer.
The lubricant should also be compatible with the other materials of the disc drive. For example, migration or outgassing of the lubricant should not impair the interface between the head and the disc, such as by causing an increase in the sticking friction between the head and the disc or a degradation of the head structure or operation. Formulation of fluids for appropriate hydro bearing properties therefore requires different considerations than for fluids intended as general purpose lubricants. Another disadvantage of commercially available lubricants is that the exact composition of the lubricants is often not provided by the manufacturer and may include one or more additives that are incompatible with the sensitive operation of the disc drive.

Disc drive spindle motor having hydro bearing with lubricant optimized with disc drive compatible additives


An object is to provide a semiconductor device including an oxide semiconductor, which has stable electric characteristics and high reliability. A semiconductor device includes an oxide semiconductor film, a source electrode and a drain electrode which are electrically connected to the oxide semiconductor film, a metal oxide film which is partly in contact with the oxide semiconductor film, a gate insulating film which is over and in contact with the metal oxide film, and a gate electrode over the gate insulating film. With such a structure, effect of charge on the oxide semiconductor film can be relaxed; thus, shift of the threshold voltage in the transistor, due to charge trapping at an interface of the oxide semiconductor film, can be suppressed.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a semiconductor device and a method for manufacturing the semiconductor device.
In this specification, a semiconductor device generally means a device which can function by utilizing semiconductor characteristics, and an electrooptic device, a semiconductor circuit, and an electronic device are all semiconductor devices.
2. Description of the Related Art
A technique by which transistors are formed using semiconductor thin films over a substrate having an insulating surface has been attracting attention. The transistor is applied to a wide range of electronic devices such as an integrated circuit (IC) or an image display device (display device). A silicon-based semiconductor material is widely known as a material for a semiconductor thin film applicable to a transistor. Besides, an oxide semiconductor has been attracted attention.
For example, a transistor whose active layer includes an amorphous oxide containing indium (In), gallium (Ga), and zinc (Zn) and having an electron carrier concentration of lower than 1018/cm3 is disclosed (see Patent Document 1)
A transistor including an oxide semiconductor is known to have a problem of low reliability because of high possibility of change in electric characteristics, although the transistor including an oxide semiconductor can be operated at higher speed than a transistor including amorphous silicon and can be manufactured more easily than a transistor including polycrystalline silicon. For example, there are shifts of the threshold voltage in the transistor before and after a BT test performed under light. On the other hand, Patent Documents 2 and 3 each disclose a technique of preventing charge trapping at the interface of an oxide semiconductor layer by providing an interfacial stability layer which is in contact with a channel formation region of the oxide semiconductor layer, in order to suppress the shift of the threshold voltage in the transistor including an oxide semiconductor.

Semiconductor device having an oxide semiconductor

Semiconductor Energy Laboratory Co., Ltd.


Methods and systems for secure communications are provided. Secure end-to-end connections are established as separate multiple secure connections, illustratively between a first system and an intermediate system and between a second system and an intermediate system. The multiple secure connections may be bound, by binding Internet Protocol Security Protocol (IPSec) Security Associations (SAs) for the multiple connections, for example, to establish the end-to-end connection. In the event of a change in operating conditions which would normally require the entire secure connection to be re-established, only one of the multiple secure connections which form the end-to-end connection is re-established. Separation of end-to-end connections in this manner may reduce processing resource requirements and latency normally associated with re-establishing secure connections.

Internet Protocol Security (IPSec) Protocol provides for secure communications over inherently insecure networks, for secure Virtual Private Network (VPN) services, for example. Secure communication using IPSec involves negotiating security parameters using IPSec messages and then establishing IPSec Security Associations (SAs) between IPSec clients at an access system and a host system or a security gateway. The process is normally initiated by the access system and requires prior knowledge of an address of the host system or security gateway and either a pre-shared key or mutual public key certificates between the client and the host or gateway.
Security parameter negotiation is typically performed using the Internet Key Exchange (IKE) protocol and consists of two phases. Phase one is the process of creating a secure tunnel for IPSec SA negotiation and is identified by the Internet Security Association and Key Management Protocol (ISAKMP) SA. The second phase is the Authentication Header (AH) or Encapsulating Security Protocol (ESP) SA negotiation process, depending upon the data security services to be supported. IPSec AH provides for data authentication but not protection. ESP, on the other hand, protects data.
The ISAKMP SA negotiation is used to agree upon security attributes such as an encryption algorithm, a hash algorithm for signing, and an authentication method, and for Diffie-Hellman (DH) key exchange. The access system initiates negotiations, which are completed once mutual keys have been derived at both the access system and the host or gateway and upon the verification of the identity of the two parties.
IKE phase two is performed by using the ISAKMP SA to negotiate ESP SAs which will protect actual data traffic, for example. Again, the IPSec client at the access system initiates, keys are agreed upon, and the SAs are created, one for each direction. Each SA is uniquely identified by a Security Parameter Index (SPI).
User traffic originating at the access system or at the host system or a system associated with the security gateway is protected by an SA that is identified by the specific SPI. As described above, two SAs are created for 2-way communication. Any time a network address of an access system changes, where the access system is a mobile communication device and a handoff is made to a new location which assigns the access system a different network address, the IPSec SAs must be re-negotiated.
IPSec was designed primarily for fixed networks and therefore is not very "mobile friendly". Some of the primary drawbacks of IPSec for application to clients on mobile communication devices include latency and resource burden. Latency involved in re-negotiation of IPSec SAs every time a network layer handoff is performed can lead to substantial loss of data, and potentially greater impact in the case of real-time services. In addition, depending upon the frequency of handoffs, the amount of overhead and processing required for creating and re-negotiating SAs by a host system or security gateway could potentially be very large, which may occupy or overload available resources.
One mechanism which avoids having to re-negotiate SAs every time a handoff occurs is to have an IPsec client, operating on a mobile communication device, for example, create SAs using a permanent home address as one of the endpoints of the SAs instead of an obtained IP address. This ensures that SAs do not have to be re-negotiated, since the client used its permanent identity to create the SAs even though a new address is obtained every time a handoff is performed. The main drawback of this approach is that traffic now would be routed via the mobile device's home network and then re-routed to the access network where the device is located. This causes not only increased traffic to the home network but also inefficient routing (not shortest path) in both the directions. Depending upon the IPSec mode used, this technique can cause lot of wireless resource consumption because of multiple-tunnelling.

Secure communication methods and systems


A will call system for automating the management of storage and retrieval of items, preferably medical prescriptions. The automated system provides informational control of all items in the system. The automated will call monitors the length of time an item remains in the system, and into which location an item is placed. An article sensor provides absolute confirmation that an item has been placed or removed from a designated location in the storage units. The automated will call system uses a controller to permit users to monitor and optimize the storage and retrieval procedures.

Will call systems and automated storage and retrieval systems are widely used to store, retrieve, and dispense articles. A benefit of such systems is in the speed and efficiency with which items can be stored, retrieved, and dispensed. However, automation has primarily been reserved for the vending machine and central warehouse environments.
Storage and retrieval systems including rotatable storage and retrieval receptacles are known. In such systems, a main platter or shelf is rotated to a window that makes all the storage positions on the shelf available to the window. U.S. Pat. No. 4,814,592 (Bradt et al.), and U.S. Pat. No. 5,212,649 (Pelletier et al.) all show storage systems with circular arrangements of receptacles in the context of systems designed to store specific articles, such as video tapes and magnetic tapes. The systems shown in those patents cannot, however, accommodate articles of different size. U.S. Pat. No. 4,864,438 (Munro) and U.S. Pat. No. 5,343,403 (Beidle et al.) disclose storage and retrieval systems having a stationary storage unit with a moving retrieval system, such as a moving arm. Such a retrieval system takes up a large amount of floor space, which is usually at a premium. Another disadvantage of the systems disclosed in those patents is the length of time necessary to retrieve an article.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,337,920 (Clausen) shows such a device further including a computer system to control the drive assembly to automate the storage and retrieval process. Clausen also provides for the replacement of an item on a storage shelf. However, Clausen does not provide a way to ensure that an item is replaced in the correct location. There is no way to check or supervise the user to keep errors in storage and retrieval to a minimum. The Clausen system may reduce the time for retrieval of an item, but there is no way of checking if items are misplaced.
All of the above cited patents have several drawbacks. First, there is no efficient way to remove articles from the system that remain longer than necessary. In the systems disclosed in those patents, there is no way of determining the age of articles stored. If articles are perishable or otherwise have a value which diminishes the longer the articles remain in the system, there will be waste, loss of potential revenue, and other problems. Second, there is no mechanism to ensure that items are stored and retrieved correctly, i.e., there is no way to minimize operator error. Finally, no system has addressed the handling of controlled articles such as prescription drugs.
To reduce costs, the central fill method of dispensing prescriptions is a growing trend. Demographics indicate that between now and the year 2004, the volume of centrally filled prescriptions will grow from 2.4 billion prescriptions per year to 4.0 billion prescriptions per year, a 40% increase. However, the number of pharmacists will increase by only slightly more than 6% over the same period.
Some systems do exist for batch filling of prescriptions on a volume basis. U.S. Pat. No. 5,208,762 (Charhut et al.), U.S. Pat. No. 5,839,257 (Soderstrom et al.), and U.S. Pat. No. 5,597,995 (Williams et al.) disclose automated systems for prescription filling at a central location, such as for mail order or for batch filling and later delivery to a local pharmacy. Prescriptions are entered into the automated system, automatically filled, packed and labeled, and then delivered to a location for distribution and subsequent patient pickup. Those patents disclose high volume prescription filling systems, but the systems disclosed do not address the problems related to the pick-up of completed prescriptions, where prescriptions could be misplaced, never picked up, or, even worse, dispensed to the wrong patient.
Currently prescriptions enter the pharmacy by several common methods. 1) Hard copy prescriptions are physically brought to the pharmacy by the patient or the patient's representative. The patient either waits for the prescription (or, "script") to be filled, or drops off the script and returns at a later time to retrieve the filled prescription. 2) A doctor or the doctor's representative phones in a new prescription to the local pharmacy and the patient goes to the pharmacy to pick it up after it has been filled. 3) A patient or the patient's representative brings in a previously filled prescription that is renewable or otherwise requests that a renewable prescription be refilled. This request may be made in person or over the phone. For those prescriptions physically brought into the pharmacy, the patient either waits for the prescription to be refilled, or drops off the prescription and returns at a later time to retrieve the refilled prescription.
Almost every retail chain, independent drug store, and outpatient/clinic pharmacy setting currently has some form of manual will call system. The basic functions of a manual will call system are to retrieve a previously filled prescription and hand it to the patient when the patient comes to the pharmacy. There are various physical forms and methods for manual will call. The most common procedure has prescriptions being individually filled and placed into bags, the bags then being filed, alphabetically by last name, in a series of bins or trays located near the point of sale terminals in the pharmacy. This procedure is highly inefficient and prone to error. Disruptions are common to this process and can create a high level of chaos resulting in one or more of the following problems.
Prescriptions can be placed in the wrong bin or tray for pickup. Time is lost looking for a prescription that has been misfiled. When prescriptions are misfiled, the productivity of pharmacy personnel is reduced, the patient faces increased waiting time, and, in extreme cases, the prescription has to be filled a second time (double fill). In high customer demand periods, this can be extremely disruptive and expensive.
The risk of giving a patient the wrong medication is increased in manual will call systems. It is not uncommon for a clerk, particularly during a busy period, to pick up the wrong bag and hand it to the patient without noticing the error. It is not unusual for a patient to also overlook the mistake. The risk of a patient receiving and taking the wrong medication is quite serious and, unfortunately, very real.
Many patients require multiple medications. They may be filled at different times, and placed separately in the bins for pick up. With manual will call systems, there is an increased likelihood that the pharmacy will fail to give the patient all of his prescriptions, since the prescriptions may not always be grouped together in the bins for pick-up. If the patient is not able to pick up all of his prescriptions at once, an additional trip by the patient to the pharmacy is necessary or, even worse, the patient does not realize that there are multiple prescriptions and will not be in compliance with the drug therapy established by the physician.
In addition, most current pharmacy management systems (PMS) do not provide electronic ordering or family grouping of prescriptions. Different members of a household may individually require different medications. With most existing systems, there is no way of assuring that all of the prescriptions for a given household are placed together for pick-up. This can lead to multiple trips to the pharmacy by members of the same household, when all prescriptions could have been collected at one time if they had been grouped together.
From the pharmacy's point of view, unclaimed prescriptions present a problem. An increasing number of prescriptions presented to the pharmacy for dispensing are never picked up by the patient. In most retail pharmacy settings, the pharmacy staff may not necessarily know that a patient has not picked up a prescription and/or does not have the time to call the patient to provide as many reminders as necessary to have the prescription picked up. This lack of a means to remind the patient that a prescription is ready for pickup increases the likelihood that it will never be picked up at all and, therefore, never sold. If unclaimed prescriptions accumulate, they can clog pick up locations and slow down retrieval and increase patient waiting time. They can also represent a loss of revenue to the pharmacy, since medications already dispensed cannot be reused and, if not picked up, constitute waste. Moreover, some medications are perishable, and must be used quickly. If such medications remain unclaimed for too long, they must be discarded and, in some cases, re-dispensed when a patient finally appears to claim them. This leads to increased cost to the pharmacy and, ultimately, to the patient. To clear out unclaimed prescriptions, manual removal or purging of unclaimed prescriptions is required, which is very time consuming and tedious. Most pharmacies do not have the staff or the time to conveniently perform a purge function, thus exacerbating the tendency of the manual will call system to become clogged.
Floor space within a retail chain or independent pharmacy, as well as outpatient and clinic pharmacies, is at a premium. Many of the current will call systems fail to provide a high storage density.
Also, the confidentiality of patients is given a very high priority. Accordingly, the current manually operated bins must be placed far enough away from the sales counter so that the prescription information on the labels cannot be read by other customers. This, of course, runs counter to the need to use less floor space within the pharmacy area, and reduces the efficiency of the will call process. Related confidentiality issues may require that one family member not learn of prescriptions dispensed to other family member. Thus, in some cases there may be a good reason not to group together multiple prescriptions from the same household. Manual will call systems are vulnerable to inadvertently grouping together prescriptions which should remain separate.
The present invention remedies the above disadvantages through automated electronic monitoring of the storage and retrieval of the filled prescriptions.


A method of training a subject to improve anticipatory timing includes presenting the subject with multiple sequences of stimuli, receiving sensor signals associated with responses by the subject to the stimuli, and recording response times in accordance with the sensor signals, wherein the recorded response times are associated with the responses by the subject to the multiple sequences of stimuli, and wherein the response times have an associated distribution. The method further includes analyzing the distribution of response times for the subject to determine variability in anticipatory timing of the subject with respect to the stimuli, and generating a subject feedback signal corresponding to a result of the analyzing so as to train the subject to improve anticipatory timing of the subject.

Anticipation or expectation of a sensory event that must be paired with an action is essentially a form of attention that is crucial for an organism's interaction with the external world. The accurate pairing of sensation and action, assuming these functions are intact, is dependent on timing and is called sensory-motor timing, one aspect of which is anticipatory timing. Anticipatory timing is essential to successful everyday living, not only for actions but also for thinking. Thinking or cognition can be viewed as an abstract motor function and therefore also needs accurate sensory-cognitive timing. Sensory-motor timing is the timing related to the sensory and motor coordination of an organism when interacting with the external world. Anticipatory timing is usually a component of sensory-motor timing and is literally the ability to predict sensory information before the initiating stimulus.
Anticipatory timing is essential for reducing reaction times and improving both movement and thought performance. Anticipatory timing only applies to predictable sensory-motor or sensory-thought timed coupling. The sensory modality (i.e., visual, auditory etc.), the location, and the time interval between stimuli, must all be predictable (i.e., constant, or consistent with a predictable pattern) to enable anticipation movement or thought.
Without reasonably accurate anticipatory timing, a person cannot catch a ball, know when to step out of the way of a moving object (e.g., negotiate a swinging door), get on an escalator, comprehend speech, concentrate on mental tasks or handle any of a large number of everyday tasks and challenges. This capacity for anticipatory timing can become impaired with aging, alcohol, drugs, hypoxia, infection, clinical neurological conditions including but not limited to Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), schizophrenia, autism and brain trauma (head injury or concussion). For example, brain trauma may significantly impact a person's cognition timing, one aspect of which is anticipatory timing. Sometimes, a person may appear to physically recover quickly from head or brain trauma, but have significant problems of concentration, memory, headaches, irritability and other symptoms as a result of impaired anticipatory timing. In fact, impaired anticipatory timing may cause the person to suffer further injuries by not having the timing capabilities to avoid another accident.

Method for improving cognition and motor timing


A method of manufacturing super-absorbent polymer (SAP) which is powdery, insoluble in water, and able to absorb water, blood and urine with slight soluble substances. The method includes at least the following steps: mixing a monomer solution having at least 50 mol % of neutralized acrylic acid with polymerization initiators to synthesize a sticky precursor, wherein the monomer can be selected from acrylic acid, methacrylic acid, 2-acrylamido-2-methyl-propane sulfonic acid, or the mixtures thereof; mixing high hydrophilic epoxy compounds and polymerization initiators with the precursor and producing a gel via UV cross-linking; drying the gel at temperature of 100 to 250° C. to obtain a polymer; grinding and screening the polymer into constant particle size; coating the polymer with surface cross-linking agents; heating the polymer at temperature of 80 to 230° C.; and adding powdery inert inorganic salts into the polymer.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method of manufacturing super-absorbent polymer (SAP), particularly a method of manufacturing super-absorbent polymer (SAP) which is powdery, insoluble in water, and able to absorb water, blood and urine with slight soluble substances.
2. Description of the Related Prior Art
Super-absorbent polymer (SAP) is of great water holding capacity, which is able to absorb water of hundred- and even thousand-fold of its weight, and is swelled after absorption so that water is kept in immobile state and from leaking out, even under pressure; by the way, the absorbed water is released to atmosphere slowly. Due to having the above-mentioned characteristics, SAP was used as water holding agent for soil in forest and agriculturally at early date. Recently, it is widely used in sanitary products, such as diapers, adult incontinence products, and feminine sanitary products as absorbent, and in applications for preserving foods, owing to the progressing of method of manufacturing SAP.
The constituent materials of SAP comprise hydrolyzed starch-acrylonitrile grafted polymers (JP-Kokoku-49(1974)-43,395);neutralized starch-acrylic acid grafted polymers (JP-Kokoku-51(1976)-125,468); saponified propenyl vinylacetate co-polymers (JP-Kokoku-52(1977)-14,689); hydrolyzed acrylonitrile polymers or acrylamide co-polymers (JP-Kokoku-53(1978)-15,959); partially neutralized polyacrylic acids (JP-Kokoku-55(1980)-84,304), etc. Among them, the SAP obtained by the cross-linking reactions between acrylic acids and acrylates are most common and economical, because acrylic acids are readily commercial available, the manufactured SAP are of excellent absorption ability, and the manufacturing processes are low cost with economical benefits.
The absorbent polymer is an insoluble hydrophilic polymer. Generally, polymer is of homogeneous bridging structure internally. A further bridging is conducted on surface of polymer after screening for given particle diameter in order to improve the properties, for example, to increase absorption rate, gel strength, blocking resistance, and liquid permeability. Such surface cross-linking is conducted by means of multifunctional cross-linking agents capable of reacting with acidic groups, as disclosed in many patent literatures, for example, the surface cross-linking is done with the dispersive absorbent polymers and the cross-linking agents conducted in organic solvent (JP-Kokoku-56(1981)-131608, JP-Kokoku-57(1982)-44627, JP-Kokoku-58(1983)-42602, and JP-Laid-open-58(1983)-117222); treating with mixing cross-linking agents and cross-linking agent solutions in the form of inorganic powders into SAP (JP-Kokoku-60(1985)-163956, JP-Kokoku-60(1985)-255814); treating with vaporization after addition of cross-linking agents (JP-A-1(1989)-113406); surface cross-linking with organic solvent, water and polyatomic alcohol (JP-Kokoku-63(1988)-270741, JP-Kokoku-64(1989)-50707, JP-Kokoku-1(1989)-292004); processing with solvent, water and ether (JP-Laid-open-2-153903), and the like. Though these processes increase the absorption rate of polymer (resin) or the magnification of absorbing water under pressure, yet they tend to excessively decrease holding capacity and consequently lower the performance on practical uses.
Methods of manufacturing SAP with polyacrylic acids and acrylates have been well developed and applied in the industry. The polymerization processes can be mentioned as followings, such as: cast film polymerization (JP-Kokoku-48(1973)-42,466); polymerization conducted on conveyer belt (JP-Kokoku-58(1983)-49,714); polymerization conducted in kneader with stirring blades for comminuting (JP-Kokoku-57(1982)-34,101); reserve phase suspension polymerization (JP-Kokoku-59(1984)-37,003); or polymerization conducted by spraying or coating monomers on fiber matrix (JP-Kokoku-62(1987)-53,309).
However, the above-mentioned conventionally polymerization processes are basically directed to the radical polymerization of monomers, polymerization initiators and cross-linking agents to form SAP as gel-like solid, so that it is difficult to control the reaction of polymerization and thus, the soluble substances will be higher.

Method of manufacturing the super-absorbent polymer (SAP) which is powdery, insoluble in water, and able to absorb water, blood and urine and has slight soluble things


A method for embedding metadata into a media file (100) comprises providing (204) a metadata schema file (204) and a metadata instance file (206). Providing a media file having a binary capable user field. Then compressing (208) the metadata schema by a first compression method; and assembling (210) the compressed metadata schema fragments. Also, compressing (212) the metadata instance file and assembling (210) the compressed metadata instance fragments. Setting a media file header (214) or footer to indicate binary data payload. The method further comprises appending (216) a data start label to the assembled metadata schema and the assembled metadata instance and inserting (218) the assembled metadata schema and the metadata instance into the binary capable user field of the media file.

Media files generally contain the media content data as well as other information that may describe the media file such as headers or information that describes the content contained therein such as metadata. Metadata pertaining to a still image, for example, can be embedded into a header of the image file which in one exemplary embodiment is an image e using the JPEG format having and EXIF (Exchangeable Image File Format) header. The EXIF standard supports metadata related to attributes of the image's content. These attributes are stored in tags incorporated into the EXIF. Semantic image metadata, for example, is carried in either the "ImageDescription" or "UserComment" tags of the file. In order to enrich the metadata vocabulary and therefore the features available to applications, it is only possible to use a formatted-text syntax in "UserComment" tag. The ImageDescription tag is not appropriate, since it cannot carry binary payloads. While this solution is simple, it is constrained by the amount of metadata tags that can be efficiently used. Richer metadata vocabularies exist and can be expressed in textual format. Such is the case of MPEG-7, for example, which is expressed in XML. However, a textual MPEG-7 XML description is typically too verbose to be efficiently carried in the User-Comment tag of an EXIF header. Therefore, a better solution is necessary to embed rich metadata in a metadata header capable of binary data payloads.
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 and/or relative positioning of some of the elements in the figures may be exaggerated relative to other elements to help to improve understanding of various embodiments of the present invention. Also, common but well-understood elements that are useful or necessary in a commercially feasible embodiment are often not depicted in order to facilitate a less obstructed view of these various embodiments of the present invention. It will further be appreciated that certain actions and/or steps may be described or depicted in a particular order of occurrence while those skilled in the art will understand that such specificity with respect to sequence is not actually required. It will also be understood that the terms and expressions used herein have the ordinary meaning as is accorded to such terms and expressions with respect to their corresponding respective areas of inquiry and study except where specific meanings have otherwise been set forth herein.

Method and apparatus to bind media with metadata using standard metadata headers


An auto-irrigation apparatus is provided. A control panel and a water-level indicator light are inserted in a side of an irrigating case. A water pump, a cell box, and a control circuit are inserted in the irrigating case. The control panel, water-level indicator light, cell box, and water pump are coupled to the control circuit. A solar panel is embedded in each of two cover panels. Each of the two cover panels are mounted on opposite sides of the irrigating case. The embedded solar panels are coupled to the cell box. A water conduit adapter is connected to an outlet of the water pump. A planter box is placed in the irrigating case above a built-in water reservoir so that the water conduit adapter passes through an aperture in the planter box. Then, the water conduit adapter is connected to a spray pipe positioned above the planter box.

1. Field
The disclosure relates generally to an improved auto-irrigating apparatus and more specifically to an auto-irrigating case that includes a submersible water pump and solar panels for automatically providing water to plants in a planter box.
2. Description of the Related Art
It is well-known that people enjoy looking at plants because they find it very soothing and relaxing. Consequently, many cities provide arboretums, botanical gardens, nature preserves, and parks where a wide variety of plants are grown for the public's viewing enjoyment. Also, many people enjoy planting and growing their own flowers and plants as a hobby.
Flowers and plants in order to grow and flourish require adequate amounts of water. Providing too little or sporadic watering impedes the growth process or may cause the plants to wither and die. Further, it is time consuming for plant owners to manually supply the necessary water.
In addition, many people do not have a plot of land in which to grow plants because they live in an apartment or an urban setting. As a result, an increasing number of urban agriculturists use self-irrigating planters (SIPs) or self-watering planters as a plant growing tool. SIPs automatically provide water to plants.


A hanger for suspending tiles or panels from a ceiling or roof, and a ceiling system incorporating the hanger, is provided. The hanger comprises a suspension member securable to the ceiling, having a longitudinal axis, and a panel mount coupled to the suspension member and releasably securable to each of a multiple panels to hold the multiple panels in a spaced relation from the ceiling on a common plane.

Suspended ceiling systems typically employ T-bars or rails to hold ceiling panels or tiles in place adjacent to the ceiling. Commonly, the ceiling tiles in a suspended ceiling rest with their edges in contact with a lateral flange or a T-bar rail such that all four sides of a typical rectangular tile are framed by the T-bar. Where a ceiling tile has a side that is adjacent to a wall, an L-bracket fixed to the wall surface, replaces the T-bar along the wall side of the tile. The net result is a rectangular grid of T-bars and L-brackets, with individual ceiling tiles placed and suspended within the individual rectangular openings in the grid.
As is also typically the case with suspended ceiling systems, lighting devices, sprinklers and other fixtures are often integrated into the ceiling tiles or below the ceiling tiles so the light, water, or air flow etc. from the fixture has access to the room below. In this manner, however, the fixture is commonly visible to an individual in the room.

Ceiling system and hanger for suspending ceiling tiles or panels therefrom