An image processing apparatus in which a density band separating circuit separates an image signal having different density levels into two areas as determined by a threshold density level. Image signals above the threshold are defined as shadow section density signals, and those below are defined as other density signals. The shadow section density signals are smoothed in a smoothing filter. The smoothed shadow section density signals and the other density signals are recombined by a look-up table process. The recombined density signals are pulse-width modulated to drive a printing device.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image processing apparatus, having a single-color image reproduction method and a multi-color image reproduction method, that outputs gradational images by digital image processing.
2. Description of the Related Art
In the prior art, digital electrophotographic apparatus processes single color gradations of an input image signal.
Referring to FIG. 1 showing this apparatus, processes of reproducing a single color image will be explained.
In FIG. 1, brightness signals of an image are obtained by a CCD 21, and are provided to a shading circuit 22 which corrects for variations in the sensitivity of each CCD element. To convert corrected brightness signals to density signals, the signals are processed by a LOG converter 23. The density signals are provided to a look-up table (LUT) 24 which compensates for gradational conversion due to influences of electrophotographic development characteristics. A pulse width modulator 25 converts the density signals into signals corresponding to dot widths, which are sent to a laser driver 26 for exposing a print medium (not shown).
According to the above-described digital signal processing, a latent image having gradational characteristics caused by changes in the dot area is formed on a photosensitive body (not shown) by laser scanning. A gradational image is obtained, following development, transferring and fixing.
When a full-color gradational image is reproduced, the additional processes of color separation, removal of a base color, masking, etc. are performed. Although a plurality of color signals undergo parallel processing, the method of reproducing the gradation of each color is the same as for a single color as explained above.
In the above-described prior art, however, brightness signals are usually input in units of eight bits, i.e., 256 different gradations, because of the limited brightness separation levels of the CCD 21.
FIG. 2 is a diagram in which brightness signals undergo a density LOG conversion. As can be seen in this figure, in sections where brightness is high, namely, where density is low, the level of density is the same even if levels of brightness are different. On the other hand, in sections where brightness is low, namely, where density is high, a phenomenon occurs in which the density jumps several levels when brightness is different by only one level.
The above explanation will now be supplemented with reference to the graph shown in FIG. 3, in which an original image density is plotted on a horizontal axis and the level of density converted from start signals by CCD input is plotted on a vertical axis. As can be seen from this graph, the higher the density, the more difficult it is to determine the level of density. Therefore, even if a signal has a brightness level of 256, about 50% of the data is lost when the density is LOG converted.
As can be understood from this phenomenon, there is a problem in that the gradation of a high-density shadow section of an image cannot be accurately reproduced. In a highlighted section, there is a tendency that reproduced densities which are less than a density of 0.1 are apt to be lost.
This phenomenon causes smooth highlighted gradation to be quite poor. This results in a problem that light shades of color cannot be reproduced by multi-color reproduction.
When repeated copies are made from a generation copy used as a manuscript, the density data of the shadow and highlighted sections are considerably diminished. These problems are major factors contributing to overall image deterioration.

Image processing apparatus which separates an image signal according to density level


Methods are provided for performing antibiotic susceptibility testing based on the detection of RNA, such as tmRNA, from microbial cells after exposure to antibiotics. In some embodiments, aliquots are obtained from a sample, one of which contains a selected antibiotic. The aliquots, which include growth media, are incubated under conditions suitable for microbial growth, and the microbial cells in each aliquot are removed and lysed, and the lysate is subjected to reverse transcription and amplification in infer the effect of the selected antibiotic on the microbial cells. In one embodiment, a sample containing microbial cells is incubated in the presence of a selected antibiotic and a stimulus is provided to induce the production of m RNA within the microbial cells. The microbial cells are subsequently lysed without substantial degradation of the m RNA within the lysate, and the m RNA is detected to determine the effect of the antibiotic on the microbial cells.

This disclosure relates to methods of determining the antibiotic susceptibility of microbial cells in a sample. This disclosure also relates to methods of measuring RNA in microbial cells.
Emergence of drug resistant pathogens is a global healthcare crisis that is forcing physicians to treat common infectious diseases with ever more expensive, potent, and sometimes more toxic antibiotics. Unfortunately, pharmaceutical development of new antibiotics has rapidly declined, resulting in a lack of new agents to treat some organisms that are multi-drug resistant. Mainstream clinical microbiology is slow and expensive because it still relies on bacterial growth for colony formation on agar plates, a time-consuming, labour-intensive method requiring skilled technicians who are increasingly in short supply. Antibiotic susceptibility data are typically not available for 2-3 days after specimen acquisition, which is too late to meaningfully impact antibiotic selection. New rapid clinical microbiology methods are urgently needed that can perform identification and antibiotic susceptibility testing (AST) directly on pathogens found in clinical specimens, providing clinicians with real-time information to manage infectious diseases.
In the absence of an expeditious microbiologic diagnosis, clinicians typically initiate "empiric" antibiotic treatment, meaning that antibiotics are chosen based on knowledge of potential organisms and their antibiotic resistance patterns. Empiric antibiotics for bacteremia are typically broad-spectrum antibiotics to treat a wide variety of possible bacterial pathogens. Overuse of broad-spectrum antibiotics contributes to the emergence of antibiotic resistance by applying selective pressure to the patient's microbiota and favoring colonization by resistant organisms. For example, the common use of vancomycin and piperacillin-tazobactam as empiric therapy has contributed directly to the widespread emergence of vancomycin-resistant enterococci (VRE) and extended-spectrum beta-lactamase (ESBL) producing E. coli and Klebsiella pneumoniae organisms. In contrast, fungemia is frequently not suspected or treated until patients receiving antibacterial agents do not respond or experience clinical deterioration. Evidence suggests that the use of early, effective antibiotic therapy improves patient outcomes and shortens hospital length of stay. Therefore, the ability to quickly identify the causative organism(s) and administer appropriate antibiotic therapy should result in improved patient outcomes as well as reduce overall costs to the healthcare system.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Methods of targeted antibiotic susceptibility testing


A ball joint, in particular, an axial joint, having a ball stud, which is enclosed in a ball socket. The ball socket is enclosed in a joint housing and is integrally formed having at least one spring element in a region of the ball socket that faces away from the opening of the joint housing. The spring element has discontinuities, in particular in the form of slots, so that wear compensation is created by the spring element within the ball joint.

Ball joints are frequently used in the prior art in motor vehicles, where the joints are exposed to high loads. Axial and radial joints are known in this connection. As is known, the designation of radial or axial joint refers to the main direction of stress of the ball joint in question. Thus, axial joints are primarily subjected to tensile and/or compressive loads parallel to the longitudinal axis thereof. Radial joints, on the other hand, are primarily subjected to loads transverse to the longitudinal axis thereof.
In the case of high temperatures within the ball joint, which, in the case of axial joints, for example, are caused by a direct coupling to a steering system that is hot from operation, the ball socket expands, which results in an unwanted increase in the torque within the ball joint. In order to overcome the disadvantages of thermal expansion, known ball sockets are provided with specially arranged slots. Furthermore, the ball socket may have different material thicknesses.
Continuously slotted ball sockets that are known from the prior art, for example such as a snap-fit socket, are unsuitable due to the increased tendency of such sockets to creep, as well as to have a reduced support surface, since, due to the slots, the ball socket does not rest against the housing with the entire surface thereof, and thus it is possible for the material to creep into the open space between the slots. The material thickness or, respectively, the thickness of the ball socket decreases, however, as a result of the creeping, which leads to play in the ball joint.
In particular in the case of an axial joint, the slots in the region of the opening in the housing are disadvantageous, since high loads occur, caused by tensile forces in the direction of the opening in the housing. In addition, due to the necessary deflection angle of the stud, the opening of the joint housing must be relatively large. As a result, only a small contact area is available between the ball, the ball socket and the joint housing for transferring the tensile forces. Decisive for the contact area is the area in which the ball and inner wall of the housing overlap.
In order to compensate for wear and to minimize the play within the ball joint, it is known from the prior art that ball joints may be designed having a separate elastic adjustment element such as a rubber ring, for example. DE69407894 T2 discloses an axial joint, in which an adjustment element is formed in a lower, elastic region of the ball socket, which is facing away from the ball stud or, respectively, the opening in the housing.


A hearing enhancement system that enhances a user's hearing based on a directional speaker is disclosed. In one embodiment, the system can include an interface unit that has a directional speaker and a microphone. The microphone captures input audio signals that are transformed into ultrasonic signals. The speaker transmits the ultrasonic signals, which are transformed into output audio signals by interaction with air. At least a portion of the output audio signals are modified to enhance the hearing of the user. Based on the system, the user's ear remains free from any inserted objects and thus is free from annoying occlusion effects. Compared to existing hearing aids, the system is relatively inexpensive. In another embodiment, the system can also be used as a phone. In yet another embodiment, the system can also access audio signals from other portable or non-portable instruments, wired or wirelessly, such as from home entertainment units, phones, microphones at a conference or speakers at a movie theater.

1. Filed of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a hearing enhancement system, and more particularly, to a hearing enhancement system whose audio signals are directional.
2. Description of the Related Art
A significant portion of our population has a certain degree of hearing loss. This can be due to, for example, heredity, noise exposure or simply aging. Hearing aids have been the traditional approach to ameliorate hearing difficulties. However, out of the 26 to 28 million people who are hearing impaired in the United States, only about 20% of them actually wear any hearing aids.
One reason people avoid wearing hearing aids is because hearing aids are not expensive. Typically, they range from about a thousand US dollars for a pair of analog hearing aids to five thousand US dollars for a pair of digital hearing aids.
Another reason for the lack of wide adoption of hearing aids is that there is still a stigma towards wearing them. People who need hearing aids are known as "hearing impaired." When they go to a dispenser for hearing aids, they are still called "patients." If given a choice, most people do not want others to know that they need hearing aids. As a result, many people with mild or moderate hearing loss do not wear one.
Basically, there are three major types of hearing aids—the "behind-the-ear" (BTE) style, the "in-the-ear" (ITE) style, and the completely-in-the-canal (CIC) style. The BTE hearing aids have a number of advantages. They are more applicable for those with severe hearing loss. Through the use of venting, they reduce to a certain degree the effects of occlusion, which is the hollowness, echoic or stuffed sensation of hearing one's own voice as one talks with a hearing aid inside one's ear. The BTE aids are encapsulated in relatively thick-walled housings. The housing serves to protect components in the hearing aids from harsh conditions due to temperature, sweat, pressure and impact. However, for those wearing hearing aids, they usually prefer a more inconspicuous type, such as an ITE (or CIC) hearing aid, which is located inside the ear canal.
The ITE (or CIC) designs have other benefits. People who use a telephone typically prefer them because they do not require a telephone loop to work with telephone conversations. People who wear glasses usually also prefer them because the hearing aids do not interfere with the arms of the glasses.
On the other hand, just like the BTE, individual ear molds have to be made for the ITE and the CIC hearing aids. The shell of the ITE hearing aid has to be individually configured based on an impression of the patient's canal. Not only is the hearing aid individually formed, a technician, through experience and craftsmanship, has to custom fit the hearing aid into the patient's canal. For a BTE hearing aid, an ear mold that fits the individual's ear canal is also made. This makes the hearing aid a custom product. If a hearing aid is lost or damaged, it is not as easily replaced.
The repair process can be annoying as well. If a user's hearing aid has to be repaired, the process can take a significant amount of time. Except for well-known brands or for manufacturers that offer a worldwide service, repair parts may not be immediately available. Since most hearing aids are still dispensed through local or regional clinics, they may not have the available parts. Though there is usually a loaner's program that allows the user to borrow a BTE aid during this period, the user may have to live, for days or weeks, with a hearing aid that may not feel comfortable.
Another challenge of an ITE (or CIC) hearing aid is in positioning its receiver and microphone because slight misalignment can lead to feedback and resonance.
Users want the ITE (or CIC) hearing aids to be small to make them inconspicuous. However, the inherent small size of the hearing aids brings along its problems. Due to the small size, the walls of its shell are thinner, making them more vulnerable to damage from heat, sweat and abuse than BTE hearing aids. Further, due to its small size and shape, ITE (or CIC) hearing aids are more difficult to handle. For example, sometimes it is cumbersome to switch batteries. And, it is also easier to accidentally drop an ITE (or CIC) aid than a BTE hearing aid. Finally, an ITE (or CIC) hearing aid custom-fits into the user's ear canal. The occlusion effects can be quite disturbing, particularly for the first time hearing aid users.
Hearing tends to decrease gradually. A person with mildly-decreased hearing normally does not need the same degree of hearing assistance as would one with severely-impaired hearing. Nevertheless, such a person could benefit from mild or moderate enhancement to their hearing.
It should be clear from the foregoing that there is still a need for improved techniques to assist those who are hearing impaired.


A control apparatus and a control method that controls an electric oil pump that supplies oil to a power transmission device transmitting a drive force to an axle. The control apparatus changes a PWM frequency in a PWM control of the electric oil pump to a lower frequency, when a vehicle is in a pulled state, when a vehicle speed is high, when a power source is operated at a high rotational speed, when a discharge amount from the electric oil pump is large, or when a noise in a vehicle interior is large. Thus, a drive noise of the pump can be reduced, or the amount of heat generated in the pump drive circuit and power consumption can be reduced.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a control apparatus and to a control method that control an electric oil pump that supplies oil to a power transmission device transmitting a drive force to an axle.
2. Description of Related Art
Japanese Laid-open Patent Application Publication No. 2009-293649 discloses a technique, for use in a vehicle provided with a mechanical oil pump driven by an engine and an electric oil pump driven by a motor, as pumps for supplying oil to a power transmission device (such as a transmission and a start-up friction component) connected to the engine, the technique causing the electric oil pump to be driven during an idle reduction, in which the mechanical oil pump is stopped.
Here, as a drive frequency of the electric oil pump increases, a drive noise decreases. Thus, to decrease a noise level noticed by an occupant, it is desired to set a higher drive frequency.
However, if the drive frequency of the electric oil pump is high, an amount of heat generated in a drive circuit may be large compared to that at a lower drive frequency. Thus, in a situation in which the electric oil pump is continuously used, the drive circuit may be damaged by the heat.
The drive circuit can be prevented from being damaged by the heat when a heat-radiating property of the drive circuit is improved.
However, in a system in which the mechanical oil pump driven by the engine and the electric oil pump are provided, and the mechanical oil pump is mainly used while the electric oil pump is secondarily used, there may be the following problems.
That is, if the heat-radiating property of the drive circuit is improved such that sufficient heat-radiating performance can be obtained even when the electric oil pump is continuously used, cost may increase and the drive circuit may become large. Furthermore, if a lower drive frequency is set to suppress the heat generation amount, the noise may increase.

Control apparatus and control method for vehicle electric oil pump


In a cutting insert and a milling tool, where the cutting insert is to be on-edge mounted to the tool, the cutting insert includes a polygonal body of wear resistant material. The body includes a first side surface and a second side surface opposing one another and therebetween a number of end surfaces. The intersection of two end surfaces form a cutting edge at a corner portion. The first side surface is substantially planar and the second side surface connects to raised portions at corner portions. The first side surface is greater than the second side surface.

The present invention relates to a cutting insert, a milling tool and a milling body. The present application is adapted from SE 0501486-5, filed Jun. 22, 2005, which is incorporated by reference.
At slot-milling cutters, the periphery of the milling body is equipped with a number of cutting inserts, every second one of which protrudes in relation to one side of the milling body and every second from the opposite side of the milling body. The relative displacement of the cutting inserts is made in order to obtain clearance and in order to obtain slots having perpendicular or parallel bordering surfaces. The bottom surface of the slot is cut by means of the major cutting edges of the cutting inserts while the side surfaces of the slot are cut by means of the minor cutting edges extending substantially perpendicularly to the major cutting edges. Radii between the bottom surface and the side surfaces are obtained by means of more or less rounded cutting corners at a transition between associated pairs of major and minor cutting edges of each cutting insert. The relative displacement requires that the cutting inserts are formed in particular right hand and left hand embodiments in order to guarantee the requisite clearance between the side wall and the portion of the cutting insert following after the minor cutting edge.
Through EP-A-0 873 808 a single sided cutting insert is previously known, which comprises only two, but different, cutting edges, which should not be possible mix-up by the operator. The known cutting insert means poor utilization of the possibilities of the cutting material. In U.S. Pat. No. 5,454,671, another single sided cutting insert is shown. A double sided slot milling insert is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 5,004,380 having wear reducing lands.
It is desirable to provide a single sided cutting insert for a wide variety of widths of the slots.
It is desirable to provide an easy-cutting single sided cutting insert.
It is desirable to provide a cutting insert, the geometry of which permits that varying corner shapes such as radius, chamfer, wiper or other shapes can be formed thereon.
It is desirable to provide a milling tool and a cutting insert providing a planar bottom surface in the slot.
It is desirable to provide a milling body and a cutting insert directing the chips away from the generated surface of the slot.


The disclosure relates to systems, methods and computer readable for generating double encryption of data through discrete modules that are air gapped at every stage. Furthermore, the transceivers disclosed can operate in “off-line” mode which can be adapted to communicate with any network access terminal regardless of the intermediate connecting network.

The disclosure is directed to systems, methods and computer readable media for enabling secure data transfer through insecure networks. Specifically, the disclosure is directed to the use of a dedicated encryption module to transfer data between secure networks through insecure, or less secure networks, and systems and methods implementing the same.
Communications networks connecting mobile devices, personal computers, servers, mainframes, and other devices have become the accepted mode for communicating information between users. This can include anything from basic sharing of photos to the sophistication and security required by large financial and banking institutions. It is increasingly more evident that securing communications is just as important as getting the information to its intended recipient. There have been many attempts at securing information using various encryption schemes, hiding data in VPN tunnels, using third parties to authenticate the sender of data, and many others.
Various institutions require the transfer of data between secure networks. Financial data, healthcare data and national security data are just some of the data that is transferred between secure networks. With more employees working remotely, the option of transferring segregated data using portable devices, such as FLASH drives and the like, is becoming less and less practical.
These and other issues are addressed by the disclosed technology.

Systems, and methods for transferring data between secure networks through less secure networks


A walk-behind battery-powered lawnmower having an assembly of a reel unit and a traction unit articularly connected together in an arrangement wherein the reel unit can conform in its vertical position to the elevation of the turf which is being mowed. Thus there is an articular connection between the two units, and the reel unit rides up and down in response to the turf undulations. An electric battery is supported on the traction unit, and there is required only an electric wire connection providing the rotation drive power from the battery to the mower reel. Separate electric controls between the battery and to a motor on the traction unit and one on the reel unit provide for operational speed control to thereby select the clip rate of grass cutting in an articular assembly.

This invention relates to an articularly mounted battery-powered walk-behind reel lawnmower, especially lawnmowers used in mowing golf course greens, tee areas, and the like where ultimate precision of mowing is required.
Lawnmowers, such as greensmowers, are known in the art and they commonly employ reel cutters which are used for mowing golf course greens. In mowing present-day greens, it is desired that the grass be cut to a uniform height throughout the entire green. Where the green itself is not completely planar, it is desired that the cutting reel follow the contour of the green even where it has undulations of rises and valleys within the mowing swath presented by the reel.
The present invention provides a lawnmower which is a walk-behind type having minimal impaction of the green; and has maximum manueverability; and is battery powered to have a lack of operation noise; and is arranged to be traction driven while having the cutting reel movable up and down to conform to the undulations of the green. The use of battery power is in contrast to the use of a gasoline powered mower which is inherently noisy and which can drip petroleum onto the green. Also, with a battery there is no air pollution as there is with a gasoline engine.
Another advantage of the present lawnmower is with regard to the modern need of lower cutting heights in order to accommodate increased speeds of the rolling golf ball on the green. Thus the cutting reel must be able to follow the contours of the golf course green. Here there are a traction unit and a reel unit articularly connected together, and the reel unit pivots both fore-and-aft and side-to-side relative to the mowing direction to produce optimum grass cutting.
Still further, the present lawnmower improves upon the gasoline driven mowers which inherently require a mechanical drive connection from the engine to the cutting reel itself. That requires hardware, such as the engine, clutches, gear drives, and a flexible drive shaft, and that prior art tends to restrict the articulation of the reel unit relative to its traction unit which supports the engine. Additionally, in the battery powered lawnmower of this invention, the traction unit and the reel unit each have their own electric drive motors, both of which can be operator-adjustable in speed and thereby select and control the frequency of cut, or clip rate, performed by the reel. That too produces a superior cut of the green.
So, with this battery powered lawnmower, the heretofore mentioned problems are eliminated, and the battery itself can be shifted in its position on the mower to achieve optimum balance for the assembled lawnmower. The reel unit can be easily removed from the traction unit for maintenance and to attach other units to the traction unit.

Articularly mounted battery-powered walk-behind reel lawnmower


Smaller investors can create and manage on a cost-effective basis a complex portfolio of securities using a mechanism that enables the investor to provide to the system the investor's preferences regarding his portfolio, to generate a portfolio, including fractional shares, that reflects the investor's preferences. The system then permits aggregation of the orders, and netting of orders, generated by multiple investors at various times during the day for execution.

The present invention relates generally to methods and apparatuses for electronically trading and investing in securities or other assets, rights or liabilities, such as commodities or futures. More particularly, the present invention relates to a method and apparatus for electronically trading over wired and wireless networks, including over the Internet, and investing in securities or other assets, rights or liabilities that enables a user, at a reasonable cost, to create and manage a complex and diversified portfolio of such securities or other assets, rights or liabilities.
Currently, small investors generally have two choices with regard to making investments in securities. First, they can acquire directly shares or derivatives on shares (for example, buy 1000 shares of Microsoft or an option on Microsoft stock) or can acquire directly a derivative that derives its value from multiple securities (such as an option on the Dow Jones Industrials). In this instance of direct purchases (through "brokerage"), the investor is the actual owner of the particular security or derivative. (Where the investor owns a derivative security, the investor generally has no ownership interest in the underlying securities, which determine the value of the derivative). Second, these investors can purchase an interest in an intermediary (which interest could itself be a security), such as a trust, corporation or other business vehicle that derives its value from multiple other securities (such as a trust that contains a portfolio of stocks like the stocks that comprise the S&P 500, or a portfolio of other stocks). This second category of intermediary products is principally comprised of open-end mutual funds (such as the Fidelity, Vanguard, Scudder and other mutual funds) that invest in other securities, but also includes closed-end mutual funds, unit trusts and other vehicles, and is referred to collectively herein as "funds." In this second case where the investing is done through an intermediary vehicle, the investor owns an interest in the vehicle. That vehicle in turn owns the underlying securities (as in a mutual fund). Each of these two traditional investment strategies—either (i) trading individual securities or derivatives through brokerage, or (ii) investing in funds—has disadvantages for the investor, which are described below.
A. Chief Among The Structural Disadvantages Inherent In the Fund Product Are:
1. Inability to Select Securities or Monitor Selection of Securities. An investor in a fund is precluded from selecting the individual securities (or derivatives, which unless otherwise noted are hereinafter included in "securities") to be included in, or excluded from, the fund's portfolio.
An investor can attempt to select the general type of securities to be included in the investor's overall asset allocation by investing in a targeted fund that, for example, states it will invest exclusively in companies whose business is primarily computer software. But that selection still provides the manager of the selected fund with wide discretion to select from hundreds of securities.
In addition, except for some targeted funds, it is not possible for the investor to express any preferences—even general ones—regarding matters such as social or moral issues (such as not wanting to, or only wanting to, invest in companies that engage in business with certain governments or have operations in certain sectors, such as defense). Even in those few instances where a targeted fund exists for those types of preferences, the preferences that the investor can have reflected are, at best, very general with the investor having no ability to select specific stocks, either to include or exclude, from the portfolio.
It is also not possible for the investor to control what specific securities a fund will hold in its portfolio, or with what weighting or amounts. An investor could select a fund that reflects, for example, an index, but the fund then invests in whatever securities, and with whatever weighting, comprises the index. Consequently, when the investor invests in a fund, the investor may be investing in securities in which the investor would otherwise prefer not to have an interest, or not as much of an interest. In addition, an investor that invests in multiple funds or that holds other investment securities other than solely one fund, will likely be overweighted or under weighted in particular industries or stocks frequently without his knowledge, and without any mechanism to correct the allocation.
2. Inability To Control Tax Effects. An investor in a fund receives ordinary income distributions at the discretion (subject to certain legal constraints), and depending on the management style, of the fund. Funds that churn portfolios generate more transactions than funds that do not, but the taxable distributions are dependent on the fund's activities—not the investor's.
In most funds, such as typical open-end mutual funds (which account for the overwhelming bulk of all diversified investment vehicles with such funds holding a remarkable $4 trillion of investor money), net tax gains "flow through" to the investor. In other words, an investor is saddled with whatever flow through tax gain the manager's activities have generated—and such gains are taxed at ordinary income rates. The investor has no control over these effects whatsoever, and can be in a position of having to pay tax on gains earned by the fund even where the investor has engaged in no transaction in the fund during the year. Moreover, taxable loses cannot be distributed by a fund—only taxable gains. Consequently, an investor can only receive a tax liability from the fund, not a tax benefit.
To attempt to avoid these problems, some investors with sufficiently large holdings to make it worthwhile can engage in complex tax strategies to obtain some flexibility, but those strategies are expensive to implement and not useful for smaller investors.
Alternatively, an investor can invest in a fund that attempts to limit the fund's uncontrollable tax effects. For example, a fund that engages in no selection of stocks—such as an index fund or a fund that simply invests in the largest 500 or 1000 corporations—would have little turnover from a manager buying or selling securities in order to adjust the portfolio's holdings. Even in these funds, however, there are purchases and sales by the fund to reflect redemptions or cash contributions by investors. As more investors buy into the fund, the manager buys more of the specified securities. As redemptions occur, the manager sells some of the securities to obtain cash to pay to the fund holders who are redeeming their interests in the fund. Consequently, if there was a net gain on those transactions, holders in these funds, which are generally tax flow-through funds, will receive a taxable gain, regardless of their desire. (While such a fund has net inflows of investments from investors, there will be no or little tax effect because the fund will, almost exclusively, be acquiring securities. When the fund eventually has net outflows, however, limiting the tax effects will be far more difficult.)
3. Inability To Manage Tax Effects. Invariably, some securities in a fund will have depreciated while the fund overall has appreciated (or vice-versa). It is not possible for the investor in an appreciated fund to make the choice to obtain a capital loss by selling depreciated securities (and the fund itself cannot pass through losses). Conversely, it is also not possible for an investor to make the choice to obtain a capital gain by selling the appreciated assets in a fund that has depreciated overall. Those transactions in particular securities are made at the discretion of the fund manager for the fund as a whole and affect all investors in the fund.
In those few types of diversified investment vehicles where the tax effects do not flow through, the investor does not obtain any gain or loss from the appreciation or depreciation in the underlying assets. The investor can only sell part or all of his interest in the entire fund, which will either result in a gain or a loss depending on whether the fund has appreciated or depreciated as a whole relative to the investor's tax basis in the fund.
In all instances, flow through or not, the investor cannot sell some of the securities in the fund, and therefore has no ability to manage for his own benefit the various tax effects that originate from the underlying securities in the fund.
4. Inability to Exercise Shareholder Rights or Rights Regarding Reinvestment or Distributions, Etc. As noted, securities held in a fund are owned by the fund, not the investor who merely holds an interest in the fund. Consequently, the investor in a fund has no right to vote the underlying securities, tender (or not tender) them in a takeover contest, elect to receive a reinvestment of dividends, elect to receive a dividend as stock instead of cash, exercise any preemptive rights, or otherwise exercise any other shareholder franchise or other shareholder right that may exist with regard to the securities held in the fund.
5. Inability to Modify or Control Costs. With funds, there are two types of charges: Charges levied upon an investor directly for buying, selling or holding interests in the fund, and charges levied against the fund for managing, advising and providing other services to the fund. Although an investor may be in a position to regulate to some degree the charges directly incurred, either by buying or selling less frequently, or by buying directly from a fund as opposed to through a broker or other intermediary (such as a bank or insurance company) that charges a fee or load, the investor cannot affect or control the charges levied against the fund. Those charges which frequently are based on a percentage of assets under management, are paid by the fund and serve to reduce the returns, or increase the losses, of the fund.
6. Inability to Make Intra Day Modifications. An investor in a fund can make only one investment decision—namely to buy or sell interests in the fund. Because of the structure of open-end mutual funds (the overwhelmingly dominant type of fund), that decision is effective only once per day. For example, an investor who believes the market is going down, or who believes it may be going down during the morning but then believes it is going up in the afternoon has no mechanism, through an open-end mutual fund, to buy based on intra-day prices. All open-end mutual funds are priced as of the close of business—in fact prices are available for such funds only once per day; and all investors—whether buying or selling and regardless of when their order was placed during the day—receive a price as of the close of business. This lack of execution flexibility is an important consideration for some investors and one that forces them to use brokerage or other vehicles as opposed to mutual funds for their investing.
Certain funds other than open-end mutual funds, such as closed-end funds or some trusts, as well as derivative securities, do trade during the day and therefore can reflect intra-day price movements. Each of these other vehicles, however, has negative characteristics that have made them unpopular with investors, including discounts to fair market value of the underlying securities, less transparency than open-end mutual funds or relatively unchangeable, static portfolios, and they are not generally viewed as substitutes for an open-end mutual fund. In addition, in these vehicles as well, the investor buys or sells only an interest in the fund, not the securities owned by the fund.
7. Inability to Monitor and Control Risk Levels and "Styles" of Investing. An investor in a fund can receive historical information as to risk and returns for the fund. Mutual funds that are actively managed—as opposed to passively managed indexed funds or static portfolio trusts—are managed by individuals, and frequently by teams of individuals, making buy and sell decisions. When some of those individuals depart the fund, the "style" of investing of the fund may change. Even if those individual managers never depart the fund, the market may present them with fewer or greater opportunities to buy or sell securities under a particular "style" than they had before. Or their views as to the market may change and with it their investment mix. Some investors in these funds accept these changes in style and direction and view that as part of what they are paying for with the management fee. Others, however, attempt to select funds based on the funds' supposed risk, sector of interest and other factors (including previous returns or returns relative to an index). It is not possible to control those factors in these funds in advance, however, unless the fund commits to a mechanical style of investing with extremely limited discretion which is typical for an index fund but very rare for an actively managed fund.
8. Inability to Switch Fund Families or Funds without Consequences. Because funds are organized and managed by particular investment company advisers, they are proprietary to a particular fund complex. Consequently, if for example, an investor were in invested in a Fidelity S&P 500 fund and wished to switch to a Vanguard S&P 500 fund because, for example, the fees were lower or because for example the investor switched jobs and her employer was offering Vanguard instead of Fidelity, then the investor would have to sell all her interest in the Fidelity fund and buy an interest in the Vanguard fund. Unless the interests were held in tax advantaged accounts like a 401(k) account, that transaction would be taxable. Indeed, even switching from one Fidelity fund to another Fidelity fund is taxable (unless the interests were held in tax advantaged accounts).
9. Inability to Manage Multiple Investments As a Whole. When an investor is invested in multiple funds, it is very difficult for the investor to understand the overall portfolio characteristics of their investment. In other words, many investors may have one or a few investments in funds in 401(k) or other retirement accounts, and then a few other fund investments or individual stock investments outside of their retirement accounts. These investors generally do not manage their overall portfolio of multiple funds and individual stock holdings as a whole managed portfolio, because it is very difficult to discern the overall risk and return of the integrated portfolio of multiple funds and individual stocks. Of course, it is that integrated portfolio that will, ultimately, provide returns for the investor. Some investors pay to have multiple funds managed by investing in "funds of funds" that attempt to do that for them. Even here, the investor's portfolio does not include, for purposes of determining whether the investor's overall portfolio is being managed well, those funds that are not part of the "fund of funds" complex, or individual stocks held by the investor.
B. Chief Among the Structural Disadvantages Inherent in the Brokerage Service are:
1. Inability to Create a Diversified Portfolio on a Cost Effective Basis. Under portfolio theory, an investor should seek to create a diversified portfolio when investing. Diversification provides an investor with a similar return with lower risk, or a higher return with the same level of risk, as a non-diversified portfolio. Simply put, portfolio theory dictates that there is no advantage to an ordinary investor in holding a non-diversified portfolio of publicly-traded securities as opposed to a diversified portfolio. Nevertheless, few smaller investors are able to create a diversified portfolio. The obstacles to creating such a portfolio for the smaller investor have been the inability of the ordinary investor to be able to craft such a portfolio on his own, combined with the costs of engaging in the trading necessary to create and maintain such a portfolio, and the inability to consummate trades in small quantities needed to create such a portfolio. Consequently, most investors who have understood the benefits, or at least understood that there is a benefit, from diversification have turned to mutual funds. And that desire for diversification has been a primary factor in the explosive growth of such funds, notwithstanding all of the disadvantages of investing in mutual funds as described above. Simply put, the concept underlying brokerage has been the selection of individual stocks, not the creation of an interacting portfolio of securities (something which has been left to the funds).
Costs
The costs for an individual or smaller investor, or an investor seeking to invest a smaller amount, in attempting to create and maintain a diversified portfolio stem, in part, from the cost of brokerage. An investor buys or sells individual securities by employing a broker. The broker purchases the selected securities for the investor directly or from a dealer or on an exchange. The costs to a retail investor of purchasing or selling a security are reflected in charges that fall generally into two categories. (For larger institutional orders, these two costs generally are far lower on a percentage basis relative to the investment as compared to a smaller order, but there are significant, additional other costs to these larger orders stemming, for example, from the market impact of the order itself—in other words the ability of the existence of a very large buy or sell order to affect the price at which the order will be effected by moving the applicable bid-ask quotes. Other systems (the OptiMark™ trading system, ITG-Posit, noted below) have attempted to address this problem for these large institutional investors.)
The first set of costs are those charged directly to the investor in the form of the broker's trading commission and fees. The second are charges levied upon the transaction itself (in terms of a "mark up" or "spread") between the cost at which the security was acquired by the dealer or the exchange specialist from another investor and the cost of the security as it is sold to the investor. This is a cost that frequently is "hidden" from investors: Investors do not always realize that there is, frequently, a spread even when they are being charged a commission. But it can be a significant cost—even exceeding by multiples the explicit commission charges.
Through technology, increased efficiencies and productivity, competition, etc., these costs have been decreasing over time. Nevertheless, all in all costs (including the mark-up or spread) are still on the order (for the deepest discount broker and for the smallest round-lot of 100 shares) of at least tens of dollars per security traded. This is true even where the explicit commissions have been reduced, in some cases to zero, because the broker-dealer is extracting a high "spread" from the investor that the investor usually is not aware of. Moreover, the current view is that the costs have reached a price floor, and without new systems for engaging in trading, such as the present invention, the costs will not be reduced much further.
To create and maintain a diversified portfolio of individual stocks, an investor would have to purchase at least twenty to fifty stocks, and be in a position to add to that securities portfolio on a proportionate basis as new dollars are received to make additional investments, and to re-balance the portfolio periodically as the markets and the securities change. In other words, an investor would first have to create a diversified portfolio by purchasing say fifty stocks, and then continue to purchase stocks in appropriate proportions with any additional amounts sought to be invested on, say, a monthly basis, and also re-balance the portfolio periodically. Obviously, the basic brokerage costs—even employing the deepest discounted brokerage services—would be prohibitive for the ordinary investor. For example, to create and maintain a diversified portfolio, an investor seeking to invest $2,000 per month (a relatively high amount for the ordinary investor), would likely incur minimum all-in transaction costs for an initial fifty stock purchase of at least (and this would be optimistic) $500—or fully 25% of the initial invested amount. Such charges are obviously prohibitive.
The best that an investor can do with $2,000 per month to invest who does not wish to invest in a fund or a derivative product would be to try to build such a portfolio for lower costs by buying one or two separate stocks each month and thereby, over a number of years, create a diversified portfolio. Such a strategy has a number of drawbacks as well as taking years to implement. An investor could also add to an already diversified portfolio for a lower cost by making subsequent monthly purchases of just one or two stocks. The drawbacks in terms of lack of flexibility, inability to modify the portfolio, etc.—all similar to the problems with a locked-in portfolio stemming from a mutual fund investment—exist with this strategy as well. Only with investments approaching $10,000 per month—a prohibitive level for most investors—could these costs even begin to be viewed as non-prohibitive on a recurring basis. Furthermore, smaller investors with limited funds to invest are biased, as a practical matter, towards stocks whose value are low, i.e., $10–20 per share (which for a round lot would be $1,000–2,000) as opposed to $100–200 per share (which for a round lot would be $10,000–20,000), thereby limiting the possible selection of stocks.
As a practical matter then, brokerage costs and constraints eliminate the possibility that the ordinary investor can create and maintain a diversified portfolio on his own—as opposed to through a fund, even were the investor to have the tools and skill to be able to do so.
Capability
In addition to prohibitive costs, ordinary investors possess neither the skills nor the tools necessary to create and maintain a diversified portfolio with desired risk-return characteristics. To create such a portfolio, an investor needs to understand risk as it is defined from the perspective of portfolio theory, and have the data and the mechanism for analyzing the data to employ the theory. That data then needs to be correctly employed in connection with a trading system to allow for the cost effective creation and maintenance of the portfolio. There is no brokerage (or other system) that deploys, uses and otherwise acts upon the necessary diversification information, combined with a trading system, so as to be accessible by an ordinary investor. There are, and have been a variety of systems (for example, Schwab One Source (www.schwab.com), Financial Engines (www.financialengines.com) and a new Microsoft site (http://beta.investor.com)) that provide advice to investors as to the creation of a portfolio of mutual funds based on, among other things, risk, style, performance, and ratings. These systems, however, are not designed to enable investors to purchase a portfolio of specific securities (as opposed to assisting in the purchase of a few, specific mutual funds, with all the attendant disadvantages of holding mutual funds) in a cost effective manner, or hold fractional shares in securities (as opposed to interests in funds), or obtain any of the other advantages stemming from the ability to invest directly in securities as opposed to funds, all as mentioned above and discussed further below.
2. Inability to Purchase Small and Fractional Share Interests. It is possible to acquire small and fractional interests through specific dividend reinvestment plans direct from certain issuers. These plans, however, are run by selected issuers and have a number of significant limitations, including, for example, average pricing usually over the course of weeks or a month.
Purchasing or selling a security through an ordinary brokerage requires transactions to be effected in minimum units of whole numbers. In other words, an investor can purchase no less than 1 share of IBM or sell no less than 1 share of General Motors, and purchases or sales must be whole numbers such as 27 shares, as opposed to 27.437 shares. In addition, costs are frequently prohibitive for small transactions in a security (such as 1 or 2 shares) or even for transactions in less than a round lot (100 shares). An investor buying a round lot in the ordinary security trading between $20 and $40 would be buying at least $2,000 to $4,000 worth of the security. Buying 50 round lots to create a diversified portfolio requires a greater investment ($100,000 to $200,000) than most investors are able to make. As a specific example, then, an investor wishing to invest $150 per week could, through an ordinary brokerage, at best buy 7 shares of a $20 stock, or 3 shares of a $40 stock, invest the balance in cash, and wait for the next week to buy a different stock or more of the same stock. But at a brokerage cost of, say, just $5 per security traded, the brokerage costs would range from $15 to $35 (a prohibitive 10% to over 23% of the amount to be invested). This is not a practical alternative. The only alternative that has been reasonable to date for an investor in this position has been to invest in a fund.
3. Inability to Select Individual Securities Reflecting Preferences to Be Included Within a Diversified Portfolio. Using a broker, an individual or smaller investor, or a person investing a smaller amount, obviously can select individual securities for purchase and sale. Ordinary brokerage, however, does not provide a mechanism for readjusting an entire portfolio of holdings as a unified portfolio of investments. Consequently, most investors are likely to be overweighted in a particular security or sector because of the costs of re-configuring their portfolio and an inability to determine the overall profile of the portfolio. Even if the overall risk and other profile characteristics are determined, the investor would usually not be in a position to act to make the portfolio diversified because of the cost issue described above.
Moreover, ordinary brokerage frequently does not provide assistance to an investor regarding other factors related to a company, such as social, moral or political considerations that would affect the investor's choice of whether to buy or sell the company's stock.
4. Inability to Obtain Superior Trade Executions. Brokers generally execute trades when received, thereby providing "immediate" executions. There are exceptions, however. For example, a trade can be a "limit" order meaning that it can be executed only at a specific price or better. Limit orders are generally executed immediately whenever the price reaches the limit. Trades can also be set for execution at the "open" or "close," meaning the trade will be executed as part of the opening or closing call auction procedures, or upon the satisfaction of certain other conditions or at certain other times as the customer may specify.
As a general matter, under applicable regulatory requirements, customers are required to receive what is called "best execution." But that execution may not be the best price they could have received if the execution system were different. There is frequently a trade-off between price and liquidity. If a customer seeks immediate execution, then the price may be somewhat less advantageous to the customer than if the customer is willing to wait. In addition, if the customer is willing to delay the attempt to execute the order until there are multiple other orders, then the customer could again obtain a better execution because there will be a greater concentration of order flow against which to try to match the order. A number of specialized brokers (and other trading systems) currently permit institutions to hold order flow and try to match the held orders at various times. In addition, many brokers send order flow to others, such as market makers or exchanges, who concentrate order flow so that purchases can be better matched against sales, thereby providing price improvement or better executions than might otherwise occur.
There are trading systems that attempt to obtain improved trading performance for their customers, but these systems serve exclusively as various forms of "matching" mechanisms (although sometimes with very complicated algorithms) that seek to match buy and sell orders. They hold order flow over time or in accordance with specified preferences, such as the Arizona Stock Exchange, which runs periodic call auctions; ITG-Posit, which operates a crossing system that matches buy and sell orders five times a day; and the OptiMark™ trading system, which matches buy and sell orders according to various algorithms. In addition, these systems primarily, although they need not necessarily, cater to institutions and have not been made available to the individual or smaller investor (although they could be). In any event, as described more fully below, they do not provide the missing capabilities discussed above.
5. Failure to Monitor Portfolio Based Tax Effects. Although brokers obviously could monitor the overall tax effects of a portfolio for their customers, they generally do not. The concept behind brokerage is usually the selection of individual stocks for purchase or sale, not the creation and maintenance of a diversified portfolio. Consequently, recordation of basis and monitoring gains and losses of securities—as components of a portfolio as opposed to as individual investments—would be unusual and is generally not available in most standard brokerage accounts. If a customer does obtain that advice, if it is available at all from the broker, it is usually expensive.
6. Failure to Assist in Exercise of Shareholder Rights. Similar to the problem with tax effects, brokerage is designed to provide assistance regarding individual security transactions, not other matters. Consequently, investors are forwarded materials such as proxy statements without any advice or direction from the broker.
7. Failure to Limit Portfolio Characteristics. Currently, brokerage is permitted in some self-directed retirement accounts established by employers (such as 401(k)s), but not permitted in many. The reason, in part, is that employers are concerned that employees, especially somewhat less sophisticated employees, will not fully appreciate the risks of investing and may invest in too risky a security, or not a sufficiently diversified portfolio, and therefore potentially lose much or all of their expected retirement. Consequently, employers limit the choices that employees may select by offering them a limited number of investment choices, which because employers want to provide diversification within each investment vehicle so offered has generally meant, almost exclusively, various types of funds. Brokerage has not been offered because there was no way to ensure that an employee would invest in a diversified portfolio with specified maximum risk levels (hence the practice of forcing employees to invest in selected funds).

Method and apparatus for enabling individual or smaller investors or others to create and manage a portfolio of securities or other assets or liabilities on a cost effective basis


An application program and an audio or video program may run on an operating system. The audio or video program is integrated with the application program. A user of the application program interacts with the audio or video program as though the audio or video program were part of the application program.

This invention relates generally to an audio or video program, and more particularly to integrating the audio or video program with an application program, such as an email program or another type of program.
The popularity of small video cameras for use with personal computers has been increasing. Such video cameras are sometimes referred to as netcams or webcams. Typically, they connect to the Universal Serial Bus (USB) or other port of a computer, and enable users to record or stream video and audio into the computer. Popular applications of such cameras include small-scale video conferencing, live transfer of video onto a web site, as well as other applications.
Unfortunately, using such cameras in connection with existing application programs, such as and especially existing email programs, is difficult or inconvenient at best. A user, for instance, may wish to record live video and audio for sending to another user over email. Typically this means that the user must use a stand-alone computer program, usually supplied with the video camera, to record the video and audio, and save it as a separate file on the computer's hard disk drive. The user then must manually attach the file to an outgoing email, and hope that the recipient of the email has a computer with the capability to playback the file.
This scenario, however, presents numerous stumbling blocks. The user may not be sophisticated enough to save the recorded video and audio as a file, and may also not be sophisticated enough to manually attach the file to an outgoing email. This is especially the case with complex email programs, such as versions of Microsoft Outlook, available from Microsoft Corp., of Redmond, Wash. Even if the user can perform all this functionality, the end user still may not have a program that can playback the file, and may not know how to obtain one easily. Furthermore, at best this entire process is laborious, which itself may cause users to send video and audio with their emails far less than they otherwise would.
For these and other reasons, therefore, there is a need for the present invention.

Integration of audio or video program with application program


An improvement in a bulk stacker/reclaimer of the type comprising a stacker conveyor for stacking bulk material into a pile, a reclaimer conveyor for removing bulk material from the pile and a removing means for transporting reclaimed material away from the stacker/reclaimer to a remote location. The improvement comprises a breaking means, interposed between the reclaimer conveyor and the removing means, to break apart frozen clumps of bulk material. The inflow to the breaking means is in communication with the discharge of the reclaimer conveyor and the outflow of the removing means is in communication with the breaking means.

This invention relates to an apparatus for stacking and reclaiming loose bulk material such as wood chips, and, more particularly, to an improved stacker/reclaimer for use in connection with frozen bulk material.
Heretofore, various devices for stacking and reclaiming loose bulk material have been developed, as, for example, those disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,244,463 and 4,363,396.
A basic stacker/reclaimer consists of a central tower which concentrically supports an upper stacker conveyor and a lower reclaimer conveyor. The stacker conveyor adds bulk material to a pile while the reclaimer conveyor removes material from the pile.
Two types of stacker/reclaimers are currently being manufactured, the linear travelling type and the circular slewing type. The circular slewing type produces a doughnut-shaped pile by stacking the bulk material with a stacking device located in the center of the pile. The stacking device pivots at the center of the pile, enabling it to add to any part of the pile.
The use of stacker/reclaimers for materials such as wood chips, bark, wastewood aggregate, minerals, grain, etc. has been limited to non-freezing climates. This restriction is due to the fact that conventional technology cannot handle lumpy or frozen material. As the reclaimer boom scrapes material from the surface of the pile in freezing climates, the icy crust will break up in big clumps. These frozen clumps create jamming problems at the in-feed to the exit chute of the conveyor which takes the bulk material away from the stack.

Cold weather bulk stacker/reclaimer apparatus and method


A system including an inspection chip equipped with at least a pump connection having a flow path opening for interconnecting to a micro-pump, a flow path through which a fluid flows, and a fluid mixing section for joining and mixing two or more fluids, and including a system body equipped with at least a base body, a chip connection having a flow path opening for interconnecting to the inspection chip, a micro-pump unit in the base body including micro-pumps in substantially the same shape, a detection processor and a controller for controlling at least the functions of the micro-pump unit and the detection processor, and the joining amount ratio is adjusted to set the mixing ratio of two fluids to be joined in the fluid mixing section to be approximately m:n (not 1:1) by making the drive voltages of the micro-pumps substantially equal to each other.

In recent years, due to the use of micro-machine technology and microscopic processing technology, systems are being developed in which devices and means (for example pumps, valves, flow paths, sensors and the like) for performing conventional sample preparation, chemical analysis, chemical synthesis and the like are caused to be ultra-fine and integrated on a single chip (Patent Document 1). These systems are called μ-TAS (Micro Total Analysis System), bioreactor, lab-on-chips, and biochips, and much is expected of their application in the fields of medical testing and diagnosis, environmental measurement and agricultural manufacturing. In reality, as seen in gene screening, in the case where complicated steps, skilful operations, and machinery operations are necessary, a microanalysis system which is automatic, has high speed and is simple is very beneficial not only in terms of reduction in cost, required amount of sample and required time, but also in terms of the fact that it makes analysis possible in cases where time and place cannot be selected.
For each type of analysis or inspection, since quantitativeness, analysis accuracy, economic efficiency on these analysis chips are considered as important, the task at hand is to ensure a feeding system which has a simple structure and is highly reliable. A micro fluid control element which has high accuracy and excellent reliability is needed. The inventors of this invention have already proposed a suitable micro-pump system and a control method thereof (Patent Documents 2 to 4).
In the micro total analysis system aforementioned, to mix a plurality of fluids, for example, reagents and samples in a fine flow path in a chip is incorporated as a necessary step almost without exception. Conventionally, to mix two liquids at a mixing ratio of m:n, a method for adjusting flow rates of the liquids, thereby controlling the mixing ratio has been adopted while changing drive voltages of micro-pumps for feeding the respective liquids to change generated pressures. In this method, the mixing ratio of 1:1, or any ratio close to it will provide no problem. However, when the mixing ratio is high, it is necessary to lower the drive voltage of one micro-pump considerably, relative to the other, so that a problem arises that the mixing ratio can be hardly stabilized due to the pumping force of the other one. Further, when starting to feed fluids by the micro-pumps in the initial state that there are no fluids in the flow paths, the flow paths are slowly filled with the fed fluids in process of time. Therefore, the flow path resistances which are a load of the micro-pumps are slowly increased with time and as a result, the flow speeds of the fluids fed from the micro-pumps, that is, the flow rates are lowered slowly. Even if target values of the flow rates are determined and drive voltages according to them are supplied to the micro-pumps, a problem arises that the flow rates are varied from the target values due to changes in the flow path resistances. When the flow path is additionally extended downward from the joining part of the flow paths like this case, the flow rates are varied with time due to changes in the flow path resistance of the downstream flow path and liquid feeding pressure, so that it is more difficult to stabilize the mixing ratio.
To establish a highly reliable liquid feeding system having a simple constitution, it is essential to use a micro fluid control element which is highly accurate and reliable, to be able to change freely the mixing ratio aforementioned, and to be able to realize it stably, and thus development of a technology for that purpose is required.
Patent Document 1: Unexamined Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2004-28589
Patent Document 2: Unexamined Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2001-322099
Patent Document 3: Unexamined Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2004-108285
Patent Document 4: Unexamined Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2004-270537


Novel substituted amino acid derivatives are provided which inhibit platelet aggregation and which are useful in pharmaceutical compositions and methods of inhibiting platelet aggregation.

Fibrinogen is a glycoprotein present as a normal component of blood plasma. It participates in platelet aggregation and fibrin formation in the blood clotting mechanism.
Platelets are cellular elements found in whole blood which also participate in blood coagulation. Fibrinogen binding to platelets is important to normal platelet function in the blood coagulation mechanism. When a blood vessel receives an injury, the platelets binding to fibrinogen will initiate aggregation and form a thrombus. Interaction of fibrinogen with platelets occurs through a membrane glycoprotein complex, known as gpIIb/IIIa; this is an important feature of the platelet function. Inhibitors of this interaction are useful in modulating platelet thrombus formation.
It is also known that another large glycoprotein named fibronectin, possesses cell-attachment properties. Various relatively large polypeptide fragments in the cell-binding domain of fibronectin have been found to have cell-attachment activity. (See U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,517,686; 4,589,881; and 4,661,111). Certain relatively short peptide fragments from the same molecule were found to promote cell attachment when immobilized on the substrate or to inhibit attachment when in a solubilized or suspended form. (See U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,578,079 and 4,614,517).
In U.S. Pat. No. 4,683,291, inhibition of platelet function is disclosed with synthetic peptides designed to be high affinity antagonists of fibrinogen binding to platelets. U.S. Pat. No. 4,857,508 discloses tetrapeptides having utility as inhibitors of platelet aggregation.
Other synthetic peptides and their use as inhibitors of fibrinogen binding to platelets are disclosed by Koczewiak et al., Biochem. 23, 1767-1774 (1984); Plow et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. 82, 8057-8061 (1985); Ruggeri et al., Ibid. 83, 5708-5712 (1986); Ginsberg et al., J. Biol. Chem. 260 (7), 3931-3936 (1985); Haverstick et al., Blood 66 (4), 946-952 (1985); and Ruoslahti and Pierschbacher, Science 238, 491-497 (1987). Still other such inhibitory peptides are disclosed in EP Patent Applications 275,748 and 298,820.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,879,313 discloses compounds useful as inhibitors of platelet aggregation having the formula: ##STR1## wherein x=6 to 10,
y=0 to 4, PA1 z=H, COOH, CONH2 or Cl-6 alkyl, PA1 Ar=phenyl, biphenyl or naphthyl, each substituted with 1 to 3 methoxy groups, or an unsubstituted phenyl, biphenyl, naphthyl, pyridyl or thienyl group, and PA1 Asp=aspartic acid residue.
European Patent Application 372,486 discloses N-acyl .beta. amino acid derivatives of the formula: ##STR2## and their salts. Said compounds are useful for inhibiting platelet aggregation in the treatment of thrombosis, stroke, myocardial infarction, inflammation and arteriosclerosis, and for inhibiting metastasis.
European Patent Application 381,033 discloses amidino or guanidinoaryl substituted alkanoic acid derivatives useful for the treatment of thrombosis, apoplexy, cardiac infarction, inflammation, arteriosclerosis and tumors.
European Patent Application 445,796 discloses acetic acid derivatives which have inhibitory action on the bonding of adhesive proteins to blood platelets as well as on blood platelet aggregation and cell-cell adhesion.
European Patent Application 372,486 discloses N-acyl beta amino acid derivatives and their salts. Said compounds are useful for inhibiting platelet aggregation in the treatment of thrombosis, stroke, myocardial infarction, inflammation and arteriosclerosis and for inhibiting metastasis.

Substituted B-amino acid derivatives useful as platelet aggregation inhibitors


A resilient query is provided that is used to search for a desired element in a similar document. A set of stable elements is predetermined or chosen and an original sequence of elements representing an ordered list of elements in an original document is generated. The original sequence of elements is then used in searching for a desired element in a similar document. A second sequence of elements is built from the similar document and compared to the original sequence. From the comparison, the desired element is determined.

The present invention generally relates to searching documents and more specifically to resiliently searching for a desired element in a document.
With the advent of the internetwork of networks generally referred to as the Internet, the amount of information ("content") and the number of web pages on which the content is found has increased enormously. The Internet has allowed users access to information that was previously inaccessible or hard to find. However, the increase in the number of web pages makes finding content more difficult.
One way a user system may easily access content from a variety of web pages is to create a portal page, where a user's desired content is aggregated from various web pages to their portal page. Typically, a user desires a snippet of content from a variety of web pages. A portal gathers the desired content from the web pages and displays the aggregated content in the portal page. Thus, multiple web pages do not need to be accessed and users may just access their portal page to receive the desired content.
The task of aggregating content the user desires is difficult because of the ephemeral nature of the Internet. Web pages may be static information stored on a web server and served upon request or may be dynamic pages that are generated in whole or part in response to a request for the page. Whether static or dynamic, a given web page may change from time to time, such as daily or in real-time. For any given web page, the content, structure, or layout may change, often at irregular times and normally without notice to subsequent requestors of the page, thus making automated querying of the pages difficult.
In one example, a user may desire a snippet of a page that shows the top news stories of the day, but the layout of the page including the snippet and the location of the snippet within that page may change over time. Typically, search methods that aggregate snippets of content rely heavily on the hierarchical structure of software code used for developing the web pages. Thus, relatively small changes in the web page will cause a search query to fail and thus, the desired snippet will not be found. Additionally, defining a search query required to gather the snippets of content may become complex and hard to define, and may require knowledge of the code structure for the web page. Thus, search methods used by portals may not be able to define what content is desired for a user. Accordingly, the portal may not be able to display a user's desired content.


A clock generator for generating an output clock signal synchronized with an input clock signal and having a corrected duty cycle. The clock generator includes an input buffer to buffer the input clock signal and generate a buffered clock signal and an output buffer to generate the output clock signal in response to first and second clock signals applied to first and second inputs. An adjustable delay loop coupled to the output of the input buffer and coupled to the first and second inputs of the output buffer has a single feedback delay loop and is configured to generate a first clock signal and a second clock signal. The second clock signal is out of phase from the first clock signal by 180 degrees.

In synchronous integrated circuits, the integrated circuit is clocked by an external clock signal and performs operations at predetermined times relative to the rising and falling edges of the applied clock signal. Examples of synchronous integrated circuits include synchronous memory devices such as synchronous dynamic random access memories (SDRAMs), synchronous static random access memories (SSRAMs), and packetized memories like SLDRAMs and RDRAMs, and include other types of integrated circuits as well, such as microprocessors. The timing of signals external to a synchronous memory device is determined by the external clock signal, and operations within the memory device typically must be synchronized to external operations. For example, read data are placed on a data bus by the memory device in synchronism with an external clock signal. The memory device must latch and drive the data onto the data bus at the proper times to successfully provide the read data. To latch the read data and drive it onto the data bus, an internal clock signal is developed in response to the external clock signal, and is typically applied to the data latches and data drivers contained in the memory device to thereby clock the data onto the data bus. The internal clock signal and external clock must be synchronized to ensure the internal clock signal clocks the latches and data drivers at the proper times to successfully provide the read data. In the present description, "external" is used to refer to signals and operations outside of the memory device, and "internal" to refer to signals and operations within the memory device. Moreover, although the present description is directed to synchronous memory devices, the principles described herein are equally applicable to other types of synchronous integrated circuits.
Internal circuitry in the memory device that generates the internal clock signal necessarily introduces some time delay, causing the internal clock signal to be phase shifted relative to the external clock signal. As long as the phase-shift is minimal, timing within the memory device can be easily synchronized to the external timing. To increase the rate at which commands can be applied and at which data can be transferred to and from the memory device, the frequency of the external clock signal is increased, and in modern synchronous memories the frequency is in excess of 500 MHz. As the frequency of the external clock signal increases, however, the time delay introduced by the internal circuitry becomes more significant. This is true because as the frequency of the external clock signal increases, the period of the signal decreases and thus even small delays introduced by the internal circuitry correspond to significant phase shifts between the internal and external clock signals. As a result, the commands applied to the memory device may no longer be valid by the time the internal clock signal clocks the latches. Additionally, as the frequency of the external clock increases, variations in the duty cycle of the clock signal introduce a greater duty cycle error. An ideal duty cycle for a clock signal is typically 50 percent. That is, over the period of a clock cycle, the clock signal is HIGH for 50 percent of the period. As the period of the clock signals become shorter due to the increased clock frequency, a clock variation that results in a subtle shift in duty cycle, and which can be ignored at a lower clock frequency, may result in a much more significant shift in the duty cycle of the higher frequency clock signal. In some instances, if the duty cycle of the clock signal is left uncorrected, timing errors may cause the memory device to fail.
To synchronize external and internal clock signals in modern synchronous memory devices, a number of different approaches have been considered and utilized, including delay-locked loops (DLLs), as will be appreciated by those skilled in the art. As used herein, the term synchronized includes signals that are coincident and signals that have a desired delay relative to one another. To correct duty cycle errors in clock signals, duty cycle correction (DCC) circuits are used to generate clock signals having a 50 percent duty cycle. FIG. 1 illustrates a conventional clock generator 100 having a DLL 110 and a DCC circuit 120. An input clock signal CLK represents an external clock signal applied to the DLL. As will be explained in more detail below, the DLL generates an output clock signal CLK0 that is synchronized with the CLK signal. Due to the design of conventional DLLs, a duty cycle error in the CLK signal will be carried through to the CLK0 signal. Thus, the CLK0 signal is provided to the DCC 120 to correct any duty cycle error and generate an output clock signal CLKSYNC that is synchronized with the CLK0 signal and has a duty cycle corrected to 50 percent.
FIG. 2 illustrates the conventional DLL 110 and the DCC circuit 120 in greater detail. The DLL includes an input buffer 202 that provides a buffered clock signal CLKBUF in response to receiving the CLK signal. The CLKBUF signal is delayed relative to the CLK signal due to a propagation delay of the input buffer 202. The CLKBUF signal is provided to a variable delay circuit 204 that has a variable delay Td controlled by an adjustment signal DADJ1 generated by a shift register 206. The output clock signal of the variable delay is the CLK0 signal, which is delayed relative to the CLKBUF signal by the variable delay Td. An output clock signal CLKSYNC is fed back through a model delay 208 to provide a feedback clock signal CLKFB1. The model delay 208 adds a delay Tm to the CLKSYNC signal, which is approximately equal to the total delay of the input buffer 202, an output buffer 240, which is included in the DCC 120, and delay that is injected by the DCC 120 to the CLK0 signal and a CLK180 signal. A phase detector compares the CLKBUF and CLKFB1 signals, and generates a control signal DCONT1 for the shift register 206 in response to the phase difference between the CLKBUF and CLKFB1 signals. The variable delay circuit 204 is adjusted until the variable delay Td is sufficient to synchronize the CLKBUF and CLKFB1 signals. When the CLKBUF and CLKFB1 signals are in phase, the DLL 110 is said to be "locked." Under this condition, the timing of the CLK0 signal is such that the delay of the output buffer 240 is accommodated, and a clock signal output by the output buffer 240 would be in phase with the CLK signal. As known in the art, when the CLKBUF and CLKFB1 signals are in phase, the delay of the DLL feedback loop, generally defined by the variable delay 204 and the model delay 208, is a multiple of the period TCLKBUF of the CLKBUF signal. That is, the feedback loop delay is equal to n*TCLKBUF, where "n" is an integer value.
As previously mentioned, the CLK0 signal is provided to the DCC circuit 120 for duty cycle correction. The DCC circuit 120 includes a first variable delay 230 and a second variable delay 232, which are coupled in series. An output clock signal CLKFB2 of the variable delay 232 is compared with the CLK0 signal by a phase detector 238. The phase detector 238 generates a control signal DCONT2 that is provided to a shift register 234. The shift register 234 generates an adjustment signal DADJ2 based on the DCONT2 signal that is used to adjust both the variable delay 230 and the variable delay 232 to the same delay. When the variable delays 230, 232 have been adjusted so that the phase difference between the CLK0 and CLKFB2 signals is an odd multiple of the clock period of the CLK0 signal an output clock signal CLK180 from the first variable delay 230 is 180 degrees out of phase from the CLK0 signal. As known in the art, the delay of the feedback loop for the DCC 120, which is generally defined by the variable delays 230 and 232, is equal to one period of the CLK0 signal. Thus, one-half the loop delay, that is, the delay of one of the variable delays 230 or 232, will provide a delay equal to one-half the period of the CLK0 signal, which is a clock signal 180 degrees out of phase from the CLK0 signal. The CLK0 and CLK180 signals are used by the output buffer 240 to generate the CLKSYNC signal, which is synchronized with the CLK signal and has a corrected duty cycle.
Although the clock generator 100 provides a synchronized clock signal having a corrected duty cycle, the circuit is slow to generate the CLKSYNC signal upon startup and is cumbersome. The conventional clock generator 100 is slow because two different feedback loops must be locked before an acceptable CLKSYNC signal is generated. That is, upon start up, the DCC 120 must be synchronized before the DLL 110 is activated to provide a clock signal having the appropriate delay relative to the CLK signal or the DLL 110 is synchronized before the DCC 120 is activated for duty cycle correction. In the event the DLL 110 is synchronized before the DCC 120 is activated, the time required to generate a synchronized CLK0 signal can take several hundred clock cycles. The DCC 120 then takes additional time for it to adjust the variable delays 230 and 234 to synchronize the CLK0 signal and the CLKFB signal to provide a suitable CLK180 signal. The time for the DCC 120 to lock can add a significant amount of time to the already lengthy time it takes to lock the DLL 110. The clock generator 100 is cumbersome because the circuit includes nearly two complete DLLs. That is, the clock generator 100 includes three different variable delay circuits 204, 230, 232, two phase detectors 210, 238, and two shift registers 206, 234. A variable delay typically takes up a relatively large amount of space on a semiconductor substrate on which the clock generator and other components of a memory device are formed. Having multiple variable delays only exacerbates the issue and can be undesirable where the general design goal is reducing circuit size. Moreover, a variable delay has relatively high power consumption, which may be particularly undesirable in low-power applications, such as in a portable battery-operated device. Having multiple variable delays only increases power consumption, making a potentially undesirable situation even worse.
Therefore, there is a need for an alternative clock generator that combines the functions of a DLL and DCC circuit and reduces the number of redundant circuits.

Synchronous clock generator including duty cycle correction