A vehicle door/tailgate handle assembly for unlatching either a combined door/tailgate and window as a unit or the window unit alone provides an improved centering/alignment feature which avoids reliance on prior known spirally wrapped, low tolerance, low cycle life springs. The handle assembly includes a handle grip, mounting base and a centering member which centers and aligns the handle grip on the mounting base. The handle grip is rotatably mounted in a shaft receiving passage on the mounting base and a centering member is slidably disposed on shaft for movement along and rotation with the shaft for slidable engagement with the rear side of the mounting base. When a rotational torque is applied to the handle grip, the centering member slides along the shaft away from the rear side of the mounting base to permit the handle grip to rotate between a first unlatching position and a second unlatching position. The centering member aligns the handle grip with the mounting base in a third, centered position when the rotational torque is removed from the handle grip. Preferably, the handle grip, mounting base and centering member include cooperating camming surfaces which are urged toward one another by a compression/coil spring having a high cycle life and low failure rate. Stop surfaces are preferably included on the handle grip and mounting base to limit the extend of rotational movement.

The present invention relates to handle assembly especially suited for vehicle doors and on tailgates on sport utility vehicles, vans, mini-vans, station wagons, and the like, and, more particularly, to a rear tailgate handle with improved centering and alignment with a mounting base.
Handles that are used to unlatch the tailgate of a vehicle are quite often also used to unlatch a window unit housed in the tailgate. Typically, the handle grip of the assembly assumes a neutral position in which both the window unit and the tailgate are latched. The handle must be rotated from its neutral position to one of two positions, with one position unlatching the tailgate and the other position unlatching the window unit in the tailgate. The direction of the handle grip's rotation dictates which of the two is unlocked for opening. For example, a counterclockwise rotation could unlock the tailgate while a clockwise rotation of the handle would then unlock the window unit in the tailgate. The un-rotated center position of the handle grip defines the neutral position of the assembly in which both the tailgate and the tailgate window are latched.
Conventional tailgate handles include spirally wrapped springs to center a handle grip on the handle mounting base in its neutral position. The spirally wrapped spring has distal ends which engage both the handle mounting base and the handle grip, with the spring being coiled around the handle mounting base to bias the handle grip to the center position, wherein the handle grip is aligned with the handle mounting base.
Several problems have developed with the conventional handles, however. As best shown in FIG. 1 of the drawings, over time the spirally wrapped spring can relax or its distal ends can bend and, eventually, no longer fully bias the handle grip to the center position. This results in a handle grip that is no longer aligned with the handle mounting base by an angular amount X (FIG. 1). Moreover, wrapped spring suppliers do not generally guarantee their springs for a tolerance less than .+-.7 degrees of play. While this particular non-aligned condition does not seriously affect the latching/unlatching function of the handle, the handle does have the appearance of being broken and is not aesthetically pleasing.
Second, the installation of a spirally wrapped spring is labor intensive and difficult. Conventionally, during installation, a first end of the spring is inserted through a slotted opening provided in a collar of the mounting base and into a receiving structure provided in the shaft, with the first end of the spring abutting a first side of the slotted opening to fix the end of the spring in a unilateral direction. The spring is coiled around the collar of the mounting base, and, then, the second end of the spring is inserted through the same opening in the mounting base, abutting a second side of the opening, and into the same receiving structure on the shaft. During such installation, the spring is easily bent; therefore, the quality of the installation and handle performance can be jeopardized. In addition, the spring is hard to grasp during such coiling and requires a significant level of manual dexterity to complete the assembly. During operation, when the handle grip is rotated, the shaft, which is fixed to the handle grip, rotates, pulling the first end of the spring while the second end of the spring is seated against the second side of the slotted opening. This causes the spring to twist and compress until the first end of the spring is rotated from the first side to the second side of the slotted opening, so that both ends of the spring abut the same side of the slotted opening. At this point the spring cannot undergo further twisting or compression, and the handle grip is fully turned in one direction. When the handle is released, the spring will expand and induce rotation in the shaft until the first end of the spring is again abutting the first side of the slotted opening. Similarly, when the handle is rotated in the opposite direction, the same operation occurs except that the second end of the spring will travel from the second side of the slotted opening to the first side of the slotted opening. When operated in this way, the wrapped spring tends to lose tension over time. Coupled with the imprecise tolerance levels in the manufacture of such springs, the loss in tension prevents full return of the shaft and handle grip, resulting in the above non-centered position.
Lastly, a spirally wrapped spring has a relatively low cycle life. The wrapped spring is typically mounted to the mounting base and the shaft of the handle grip at its free ends, but the free ends are bent inward to grip the sides of the slotted opening in the mounting base and the receiving structure in the shaft. The bends at the free ends increase stress concentration factors on the spring and, ultimately, may lead to breakage. When combined with the necessary cycles associated with a tailgate handle over the life span of a vehicle and environmental factors, such as exposure to extreme temperatures and corrosive substances, the overall cycle life of the spring is significantly reduced and, often, reduced to unacceptable levels for automobile manufacturers.
Consequently, there is a need for a door/tailgate handle that can maintain the alignment of the handle grip with its mounting base, perform all required latching/unlatching functions, and yet have a significantly longer cycle life.

Vehicle door/tailgate assembly with centering feature


A step apparatus for a vehicle and a vehicle are provided. The step apparatus for the vehicle includes a step; a lifting device connected to the step and configured to be unfolded and folded to adjust a height of the step; and a driver connected to the lifting device and configured to drive the lifting device to be unfolded and folded.

A vehicle step is usually arranged on a chassis under a door to assist a person in getting into or out of a vehicle. The vehicle step is driven by an extension and retraction mechanism to move between an extended position and a retracted position, and the extension and retraction mechanism is connected to the chassis of the vehicle. In the related art, the vehicle step is driven by the extension and retraction mechanism, and the extended position is located below and at an outer side of the retracted position. Such design may attribute the vehicle step with poor stability, as the extension and retraction mechanism has a complex structure, poor flexibility, and poor applicability.


A saddle tee connector assembly for making a tee connection to a copper tube comprises a saddle tee connector with a bottom clamping portion, a top clamping portion with an outwardly extending boss which has a bore, an annular chamber in the bottom of the bore, a cutting pin positioned in the bore, and a drive nut which is rotated to move the cutting pin downwardly in the bore to cut a hole in the tube and is rotated in the opposite direction to retract the cutting pin from the hole in the tube. The drive nut and pin are removed to permit the attachment of a tube to the boss to form a tee connection. A method is provided for using the saddle tee connector assembly to make a tee connection to a tube.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to making a tee connection to a copper tube without cutting out a portion of the tube to form two cut ends which are spaced-apart, inserting a tee connector between the two cut ends, and soldering the tee connector to the two cut ends. The present invention contemplates using a saddle tee connector assembly that clamps a saddle tee connector around a tube, cuts a hole into the side wall of the tube by piercing it with a cutting pin, and then withdraws the cutting pin and its drive mechanism from the saddle tee.
2. Description of the Prior Art
It is conventional in the prior art, when it is desired to make a tee connection to a copper tube, to cut out a portion of the copper tube, insert a tee connector in the space between the two cut ends of the copper tube, and then solder the tee connector to the two cut ends of the tube.
This procedure has a number of disadvantages. Cutting out a portion of the copper tube and replacing it with a tee connector by soldering is time consuming, and the tee connector may leak if the soldering is not done properly. The old procedure also requires more equipment, like a saw, and soldering apparatus, and some skill in its use.
It is also conventional in the plumbing industry to use saddle tee connectors, and there are perhaps a dozen different designs available. However, few if any of them are easy to install and are reliable, and few offer relatively high flow rates, i.e., relatively low pressure loss. Many are made of metals that corrode easily. Some require drilling with an electrical or other hand drill. In other words, there are many self-tapping and/or saddle tee connectors, but none that provide all the advantages that most drinking water systems manufacturers are seeking.


Proposed is a novel composite material consisting of carbon as the matrix phase and particles of silicon carbide having an acicular or needle-like particle configuration uniformly and isotropically dispersed in the matrix phase as the reinforcing dispersed phase, in which the needle-like silicon carbide particles are formed by the in situ crystal growth from particles of .beta.-silicon carbide in a shaped body of a powder blend consisting of particles of carbon and the powder of .beta.-silicon carbide with further admixture of boron or a boron compound which promotes crystal growth of silicon carbide to have an acicular particle configuration.

The present invention relates to a novel carbon-silicon carbide composite material and a method for the preparation thereof. More particularly, the invention relates to a carbon-silicon carbide composite body consisting of carbon as the matrix phase and silicon carbide as the dispersant phase dispersed in the matrix phase in an intimate state to serve as a reinforcing material so as to impart the composite material with greatly improved properties such as toughness, mechanical impact strength, resistance against heat shock, mechanical strengths, sliding characteristic, resistance against abrasion, resistance against erosion and so on as well as a method for the preparation thereof.
As is well known, shaped bodies of carbon are widely used as an engineering material by virtue of their excellent properties in many respects. One of the serious disadvantages of a shaped body based on carbon alone, however, is that the mechanical strength thereof is so low as not to be used as a constructing part. In this regard, many attempts and proposals have been made for developing a carbon-based composite material consisting of carbon as the matrix phase and a fibrous material, e.g., fibers and whiskers, as a reinforcing agent dispersed in the matrix phase. While such a carbon-based composite material is prepared usually by using a precursor of carbon such as a pitch or resin, to be carbonized by a heat treatment, a problem in such a carbon-based composite material is that the shaped body under the carbonization treatment exhibits great shrinkage and the resultant composite body is necessarily very porous.
A method has been proposed to solve the above mentioned problems in which a carbon-matrix composite material is formed with carbon fibers as the reinforcing agent and the composite body is subjected to a number of cycles each consisting of impregnation of the composite with a pitch and calcination of the pitch-impregnated composite so as to increase the density and improve other properties of the composite material. The application fields of this method, however, are limited because the procedure is very complicated and the method is not versatile in respect of the limited composite textures.
Another problem in carbon fiber-reinforced carbon-matrix composite materials is that, while the carbon fibers used as the reinforcing agent are usually in the form of long filaments, the composite material compounded with such long filaments is more or less anisotropic with limited applications so that it is desirable to use short fibers or whiskers in order to obtain an isotropic composite material. It is, however, not always a simple matter to obtain a fully uniform blend from a particulate or granular material for the matrix phase and a fibrous or acicular material for the reinforcing agent even in the use of short fibers or whiskers of carbon so that the mechanical strengths of the composite material cannot be as high as desired or expected. Even if uniformity could be ensured in blending of the matrix phase and the dispersed phase, the carbonaceous matrix material and the short fibers or whiskers are necessarily different in the behavior of thermal shrinkage in the course of calcination of the composite material which accordingly cannot be dense enough. Moreover, fibers embedded in the matrix phase of a composite material have a trend to be aligned, when the composite material is molded by compression, in the direction perpendicular to the direction of the compressive force not to give a fully isotropic shaped body of the composite material.
As is described above, carbon-based composite materials reinforced with a fibrous or acicular reinforcing agent prepared by the conventional method in the prior art have several problems and disadvantages. This is the reason for the very limited application fields of such composite materials despite the expected excellent and desirable properties thereof when the preparation process could be ideally performed. In addition, it is unavoidable in the preparation of conventional composite materials compounded with a fibrous or acicular reinforcing agent that the fibers or whiskers are more or less damaged to adversely affect the properties of the composite material.
The inventors have previously proposed (1) a method for the preparation of a composite material consisting of the matrix phase of carbon and the dispersed phase of particles of a ceramic material such as boron carbide and silicon carbide very uniformly dispersed in the matrix phase in Japanese Patent Publication No. 58-38386 and (2) an oxidation-resistant carbonaceous material prepared by the simultaneous compounding with particles of both boron carbide and silicon carbide to exhibit extremely high resistance against oxidation in Japanese Patent Publication No. 62-12191 and also discovered that a carbon-based composite having excellent resistance against oxidation and a large fracture energy can be obtained by compounding the above mentioned composite material further with short fibers of carbon.
Though with excellent oxidation resistance and a large fracture energy to be noteworthy for many applications, this last mentioned composite material has a problem due to the difference in the thermal expansion or shrinkage between the matrix phase and the dispersed phase that the denseness of the composite material cannot be high enough and the bulk density thereof after calcination is unavoidably low as compared with similar composite materials not compounded with short carbon fibers. The problems of damage in the fibrous material and low uniformity of dispersion thereof are of course not solved therein. Moreover, the high oxidation resistance of the composite material can be obtained only by the simultaneous compounding with silicon carbide particles so that the manufacturing process is necessarily complicated. As a possible alternative way, oxidation resistance could be imparted to the composite material by compounding with whiskers of silicon carbide in place of carbon fibers. However, silicon carbide whiskers have high rigidity as compared with carbon fibers so that silicon carbide whiskers are damaged more in the process blending than carbon fibers. It is reported, in Journal of the Japan Society for Composite Materials, volume 9, No. 3 (1983), that a composite material prepared from a graphite powder, a thermosetting resin as a binder and 2.5% by weight of acicular silicon carbide particles has a greatly improved abrasion resistance but the above mentioned problems are not solved therein.

Carbon-silicon carbide composite material and method for the preparation thereof

Japan as represented by Director General of Agency of Industrial Science and Technology


A bipolar plate for fuel cell has an electrochemical reaction region and a non-electrochemical reaction region connected together. The electrochemical reaction region is at the center position of the bipolar plate. The non-electrochemical reaction region is made of non-conductive material and is located around the electrochemical reaction region. The bipolar plate reduces loss, raises work efficiency, and is easy to produce. The material cost of the bipolar plate is effectively reduced.

Fuel cells are typically composed of a plurality of cell units with each comprising two electrodes (anode and cathode). These two electrodes are separated from each other by an electrolyte element and assembled with each other in series to form a fuel cell stack. Electrochemical reaction is implemented by supplying proper reactants to each electrode, i.e., supplying fuel to one electrode and oxidant to the other electrode, as a result, potential difference is formed between the electrodes and accordingly, electric energy is generated.
In order to supply reactants to each electrode, a particular interfacial element which is usually known as "bipolar plate" and disposed at two sides each individual cell is used. The bipolar plate is usually in the form of individual element disposed in the vicinity of anode or cathode support body. The bipolar plate is a key element for fuel cell pack. In the operating process of the fuel cell stack, the bipolar plates perform the following functions for the purpose of maintaining the optimal working state and service life of the fuel cell stack: (1) electrical conductor of cell, cathode and anode are formed at the two sides of the bipolar plate respectively, thus plenty of cell units are connected in series to form the fuel cell stack; (2) reaction gas (mass transfer) is supplied to the electrodes through channels; (3) managements for water and heat are coordinated so as to prevent medium cooling and leakage of reaction gas; and (4) structural strength support is offered to membrane electrode assembly (MEA).
To perform the functions above, the material of the bipolar plate requires high electrical conductivity, sufficient mechanical strength, excellent thermal conductivity, low air permeability and corrosion resistance, and is capable of being chemically stable in a working environment of cell for a quite long time. Furthermore, in view of the requirements on design as well as processing and manufacturing easiness, the material of the bipolar plate should also have the features of light weight, small size, low cost, and even recyclability, etc.
The material adopted must be electrochemical corrosion-resistant and superior in structural strength and stability owing to the electrochemical reaction working environment of fuel cell. Hence, factors in all respects must be taken into full consideration when a high-performance bipolar plate for cell is designed. Typically, the materials of the bipolar plate for cell include: carbon plate, metal plate and the like. Traditionally, the use of carbon plate as polar plate for cell is attributed to its good electrical conductivity, heat transfer property and corrosion resistance. And the reason for using metal plate lies in its excellent electrical conductivity, structural strength and formability and in the fact that it is still a good material of electrode plate even after anti-corrosion surface treatment.
In addition, considering that the manufacturing cost of polar plate for cell is high, to lower the cost of fuel cell, one of the attempting directions in fuel cell's design is to seek for the design and manufacturing method for optimizing the bipolar plate for cell.

Bipolar plate for fuel cell including non-electrochemical reaction region comprising a non-conductive material


An optical tunable laser design (100) for the optic telecommunication industry is disclosed in this invention. This new design is economical, reliable, robust and with superior optical performances. The design offers broadband tunability, high output power, narrow laser line-width and high SMSR. And in addition, the tunable laser is distinguishable from conventional designs by the mere facts that there are no moving parts, therefore, making it very reliable, and the tuning method of this invention is non-thermal and non-mechanical making its tuning very fast in the sub-millisecond range. In the manufacturing front, it is low cost and easy to produce. It can be achieved with automation equipment like those used in the IC placement and PC assembly industry, therefore, the products as that disclosed in this invention can be provided with significantly reduced production costs and marketed with very competitive price. The side-mode-suppression ratio (SMSR) is further increased by implementing an etalon (128) having a specific fineness to cooperate with the Acousto-optical tuning filter (AOTF) (120).

Conventional technologies of ECL based tunable lasers commonly implemented with mechanical actuators are still confronted with several technical challenges and difficulties due to the limitations of slower tuning speed, susceptibility to environmental vibrations and poor long-term stability/reliability. These shortcomings limit the applications of the ECL based tunable lasers to optical-fiber telecommunication systems. In the meantime, there is an ever-urgent demand to resolve these limitations and difficulties. Another technical difficulty faced by the tunable laser supplier is the requirement of a high side-mode-suppression-ratio (SMSR) that is demanded by the telecommunication industries for the purpose of providing high quality signal transmissions.
Specifically, in fiber telecommunications, tunable lasers are essential to provide system reconfiguration and reprogramming and the key parameters in optical networks are the speed, range, stability, and flexibility of wavelength tuning. Particularly, as digital video, audio and wide varieties of digital data and signals are transmitted via broadband networks, the lack of flexibility in network management becomes an ever-increasing headache for network managers among carriers. As optical network deployment approaches saturation and becomes ever so complicated and expensive, re-deployment and re-configuration become necessary. Therefore, flexible/tunable optical components become essential for next generation optical telecomm equipment. Different network systems implemented with tunable components are being developed currently or in the near future at major equipment makers. Furthermore, future applications may also require a laser with a higher power to compensate the components losses and a narrower line-width to battle with chromatic dispersion. An ECL based laser can potentially meet all these requirements.
Wada et al. disclose in U.S. Pat. No. 573,466 entitled "Method for Selecting Wavelength in Wavelength-tunable Lasers and Laser Oscillators Capable of Selecting Wavelengths in Wavelength-Tunable Lasers", a laser resonator with a mirror on the input side and output side. A laser medium is placed in the resonator and can be oscillated in a predetermined range of wavelengths. A crystal to which is piezoelectric element is attached, the crystal receiving acoustic waves from the piezoelectric element in accordance with a desired wavelength; and a polarizing plate which is placed in the laser resonator and transmits only the output light beam having a prescribed plane of polarization or having a prescribed direction of light propagation among the output light beams from the laser medium. The apparatus thereby outputs only the desired wavelength. The tunable lasers disclosed by Wada et al. is limited by using a collinear configuration of the AO crystal, in which an acoustic wave and light wave propagate along the same direction that has shown very limited usefulness in the technology fields of telecommunication. The filtering line-width produced by such laser is very wide, much wider, e.g., an order of magnitude wider, than the channel spacing of 0.2 nm of a 25 Ghz spaced telecom tunable laser or 0.4 nm for a 50 Ghz spaced telecom tunable laser. And the size of the crystal would likely be an order of magnitude longer then a size that would fit into a miniaturized tunable laser package suitable to be implemented in the modern telecommunication systems. Furthermore, Wada's tunable laser is still limited by the inherent characteristics of an Acousto-optical filter that there will be wavelength shifts introduced by the acoustic wave. If a backward path is applied, there would be double shifts and the tunable laser as disclosed by Wada et al. would not be able to sustain a viable oscillation suitable for application in modern telecommunication systems.
Gutin disclosed in a Patent Application 20020018496, entitled "Tunable Diode Laser System Apparatus and Method", a tunable laser system wherein the tuning of the laser is accomplished by a micro-mirror array (MMA) formed as two-dimensional linear array of micro-mirrors manufactured by applying the micro-electromechanical system (MEMS) technologies. Due to the limitation of the speed of movements of the micro-mirrors, the tuning speed of the diode laser system is limited to a microsecond range, in actuality, with electronic servos and complicated servo and tuning algorithms, the tuning speed can hardly reach below the millisecond barrier as most of the MEMS based switching components have demonstrated. Furthermore, potential problems associated with moving parts, such as problems of long-term reliability and stability, also hinder practical applications of the diode lasers as disclosed by Gutin in the fiber network systems that demand a high level of reliability and stability over long term operations.
Another difficulty of the ECL based tunable lasers is a critical problem with mode hopping and it often limits the manufacturability in terms of cost and yield, and in most cases, becomes its limiting factor for optical and tuning performances. It is much more difficult to make an ECL-based laser provided with an operational feature to tune continuously across the entire optical telecommunications bands. It is often discretely tunable only on the ITU grids. The mechanism of mode hoping can be understood with a phenomenon that the selected laser cavity mode corresponding to the longitudinal oscillation wavelength and the narrow-band filter mode corresponding to a center wavelength do not align with each other. The mode hopping problem results in a competition of adjacent laser cavity modes, both allowable within the narrow-band filter line-width that leads to the laser cavity to be in an unstable state thus causing an alternating oscillation. Such a problem is unavoidable if in a tunable ECL laser, the only tuning mechanism is the tuning of filter center frequency, as in the cited configurations of the referenced patents. In most ECL-based tunable lasers, often more then one tuning mechanisms are implemented where the motions are coordinated for continuous tuning without mode hope. That is the reason why it becomes very difficult and costly to provide an ECL-based tunable laser with continuously tunable capability over the entire optical band.
For these reasons, an ECL based laser when limited by the technical difficulties even with several performance advantages, the conventional ECL-based lasers are still of limited usefulness for application to the fiber networks. Therefore, a need still exists in the art of optical fiber system and component manufacturing and design, particularly those related to ECL-based lasers, to provide new and improved system and component configurations and designs to overcome the above-mentioned technical difficulties and limitations.

High performance compact external cavity laser (ECL) for telecomm applications


A selective call receiver (100) comprises a receiver (104) for receiving a message and a controller (112) having the capability of determining the length of a received message. At least one of at least two displays (110, 120) is selected to display the received message according the received message length.

Typically, a selective call receiver includes a display device for displaying a message. Such a display is usually adequate for displaying short messages, such as, telephone numbers. However, selective call receiver users require the selective call receiver to be capably of receiving longer messages. One of several techniques currently available for presenting a long message to the user comprises displaying the message in a line-by-line (or segment-by-segment) manner to achieve a "scrolling" of the message on the display. However, certain messages, such as graphics or a long character string, are not easily presented by scrolling.
Of course, simply replacing the small display for a larger display may allow presentation of long messages, but such an arrangement wastes energy and reduces battery life when short messages are received. That is, selective call receivers are power-limited devices that may not be able to supply the higher current requirements of larger displays without significantly reducing battery life. Regrettably, a selective call receiver having a selectable display has been heretofore unavailable, thus failing to satisfy the need for efficiently displaying both long and short messages without over-burdening the power supply of the selective call receiver. Accordingly, a need exists for a selective call receiver having selectable displays.
Summary of the Invention Briefly, according to the invention, a selective call receiver comprises a receiver for receiving a message and determining the length of the received message. According to the invention, one of at least two displays is selected to display the received message according the received message length.

Selective call receiver having selectable displays


Disclosed herein are various genes that can be included in immunogenic compositions specific for pathogenic E. coli strains. The genes are from uropathogenic strains but are absent from non-pathogenic strains, and their encoded proteins have cellular locations which render them accessible to the immune system.

Few microorganisms are as versatile as E. coli. As well as being an important member of the normal intestinal microflora of mammals, it has been widely exploited as a host in recombinant DNA technology. In addition, however, E. coli can also be a deadly pathogen.
E. coli strains have traditionally been classified as either commensal or pathogenic, and pathogenic strains are then sub-classified as intestinal or extraintestinal strains. More recent taxonomic techniques such as multilocus enzyme electrophoresis (MLEE) classify E. coli into five phylogenetic groups (A, B1, B2, D & E), and these groupings do not match the traditional ones. For instance, MLEE group B1 includes both commensal and pathogenic strains, and group D includes both intestinal and extraintestinal strains.
The extraintestinal pathogenic strains (or 'ExPEC' strains [1]) of E. coli fall into MLEE groups B2 and D, and include both uropathogenic (UPEC) strains and meningitis/sepsis-associated (MNEC) strains. UPEC strains cause urinary tract infections (UTIs), and are the most common form of cystitis. They also cause pyelonephritis (and its complications such as sepsis) and catheter-associated infections. MNEC strains cause neonatal meningitis (0.1 cases per 1000 live births) with case fatality rates ranging from 25 to 40%, and are also responsible for around ⅙ of sepsis cases.
Most previous ExPEC vaccines have been based on cell lysates or on cellular structures. SOLCOUROVAC™ includes ten different heat-killed bacteria including six ExPEC strains, and a successful phase II clinical trial was reported in reference 2. URO-VAXOM™ is an oral tablet vaccine containing lyophilized bacterial lysates of 18 selected E. coli strains [3]. Baxter Vaccines developed a UTI vaccine based on pili from 6 to 10 different strains, but this product has been abandoned. MedImmune developed a product called MEDI 516 based on the FimH adhesin complex [4], but phase II clinical trials shows inadequate efficacy. Moreover, there was a risk with this vaccine that it would also affect non-pathogenic FimH+ve strains in the normal intestinal flora, and it was expected that this vaccine would be effective against UPEC strains only, because of its bladder-specific adherence mechanism, leaving other ExPEC strains uncontrolled.
There is thus a need for improved ExPEC vaccines, including a need to move away from crude cell lysates and towards better-defined molecules, and a need to identify further antigens that are suitable for inclusion in vaccines, particularly antigens that are prevalent among clinical ExPEC strains without also being found in commensal strains.
One way of addressing these needs was reported in reference 5, where the inventors looked for genes present in genomes of MLEE types B2 and D but absent from MLEE types A and B1. Further comparative approaches, based on subtractive hybridization, were reported in references 6 and 7. Virulence genes in ExPEC strains have also been identified in reference 8. Reference 9 discloses an analysis of four pathogenicity islands in UPEC E. coli strain 536.
Reference 10 used the genome sequence of UPEC (O6:K2:H1) strain CFT073 [11,12] to identify sequences not present in non-pathogenic E. coli strains. Reference 13 discloses a comparison of the genome sequence of E. coli human pyelonephritis isolate 536 (O6:K15:H31), an UPEC, with sequence data for strains CFT073 (UPEC), EDL933 (enterohemorrhagic) and MG1655 (non-pathogenic laboratory strain). Genome sequences of pathogenic strains are available in the databases under accession numbers AE005174, BA000007 and NC-004431. A sequence from a non-pathogenic strain is available under accession number U00096.
It is an object of the invention to provide further antigens for use in immunization against pathogenic E. coli strains, particularly ExPEC strains, and more particularly UPEC strains.


A system and method use an open-circuit voltage (OCV) method of calculating a state-of-health (SOH) of a chemical battery. The OCV system and method includes charging the battery to a maximum charge potential, determining an open-circuit voltage (OCV) of the battery after waiting a predetermined period of time after completion of the charging, and determining the SOH of the battery based on the determined OCV of the battery. Another system and method use a time-to-charge (TTC) method of calculating a state-of-health (SOH) of a chemical battery. The TTC system and method includes monitoring and storing a charge time of the battery in a memory and scaling the stored charge time to form an SOH indication.

This disclosure relates to the determination of the state-of-health (SOH) of a battery. Specifically, the invention relates to systems and methods for determining the SOH of a rechargeable battery and, in particular, a lithium battery. The invention, however, is not limited to lithium batteries but is applicable to any rechargeable battery that degrades over time, thus necessitating the determination of the battery's SOH.
Over time, rechargeable batteries age and degrade causing a decrease in the batteries' ability to hold a charge and to deliver its rated current to a load. Eventually, a battery will need to be replaced after it has degraded to the point that it no longer effectively holds a charge. The SOH of a battery indicates the returnable (usable) or net capacity of a battery cell through its cumulative stress-life. The SOH of a battery is also an indication of how closely the battery meets its design specifications.
Rechargeable batteries are used in many different fields where it is critical that the battery have a minimum capacity following charge so that the battery may perform its intended function. Capacity is the maximum charge that a battery is capable of holding. The capacity of a brand new battery should be approximately that which is indicated by the manufacturer. Determining the minimum capacity of a battery is of particular importance in applications such as medical devices, military weapons, and aircraft emergency power applications where failure of the battery due to insufficient charge may result in disastrous consequences.
The monitoring of the battery's state-of-charge (SOC) is desirable in rechargeable battery cells. The SOC is the quantification (in percentage (%)) of the usability of the cell in terms of its relative charge level. A traditional SOC indication for a lithium cell is generally related to the terminal voltage of the cell during a stabilized open-circuit stand. The open-circuit voltage (OCV) functions much like a fuel gauge to convey when the cell is fully charged, fully depleted, or at some other usable state between those two end points. However, as discussed above, the cell will age and degrade over time such that the degradation mechanism causes the cell's impedance to increase. During charge, an aged cell will reach a specified end-of-charge voltage (EOCV) and correctly report 100% SOC, as the correct indication that the cell has received its maximum available charge. As the battery ages, however, even though the battery indicated 100% SOC at the completion of charging, after some settling time has elapsed, the subsequent OCV response for an aged cell will decline and indicate SOC of less than 100% due to the rise in the cell's impedance. Thus, it has been found that there is a need for a separate measure from the SOC "charge status" fuel gauge that will directly capture the returnable or net capacity of the cell through its cumulative stress-life.
There are a number of approaches that have been posited for determining the SOH of a battery. For example, a first approach calculates the SOH by measuring the internal resistance of a battery. When a battery is experiencing high internal resistance, this is an indication that the SOH of the battery is low (i.e., poor). However, this measurement alone does not provide a true estimation of the battery's SOH. Specifically, this estimation disregards various factors (i.e., the decrease in internal resistance over time as well as the effect of temperature and protective circuits) that affect the SOH of the battery. While this estimation is good for laboratory uses or infrequent stationary uses, it is generally unable to be applied directly to an application.
Additionally, the type of battery to be measured causes a number of problems when trying to determine the SOH of a battery using the above method. Different rechargeable batteries behave in different manners, have different battery chemistries, and are available in different types from different manufacturers. Some common examples of rechargeable batteries include lithium, lithium ion, lithium nickel, nickel metal hydride, nickel cadmium, and lead-acid.
Another approach to determining the SOH of a battery is the full/partial discharge test. In this approach, the battery is either fully or partially discharged by subjecting the battery to a constant load. During the discharge time, the battery voltage is monitored such that the time it takes for the battery to drop to a certain voltage is compared with that of a healthy battery. This comparison allows for the calculation of the SOH of the battery. However, there a number of drawbacks associated with this approach. This method is expensive, time consuming, and requires the battery to be off-line during testing.
Yet another approach to determining the SOH of a battery involves the use of stand-alone battery monitoring systems. During the aging of a battery, these systems measure the value of one or more electrochemical parameter(s) of the battery. The SOH of the battery is then determined based on the way the parameter(s) changes over time. However, because a history of measurements of the parameter(s) must accumulate before the degradation of these parameter(s) can be determined, the stand-alone battery monitoring systems cannot determine the SOH of the battery without first acquiring these measurements over time.
It is desirable to provide a system for measuring the SOH of a battery which ameliorates the disadvantages discussed above. There is a need for determining the absolute minimum capacity required to perform the intended function of the battery after the battery has been charged in various applications, as discussed above, without the need to perform a running computation of the SOH.

Systems and methods for determining battery state-of-health


The present invention relates to an improved golf putter head with a unique shape and sighting and alignment system. The head has an annular-like body with an undulating rim edge. A transparent plate extends across the opening of the annular body bearing the alignment aid. The alignment aid may have a crosshair component. The surface of the annular body is provided with a camouflage pattern. The putter shaft additional has a vertical plumb line indicia to aid reading the green.

Golf is both a physical and psychological endeavor. Many attempts have been made in designing a putter that minimize visual errors that plague putting by the golfer and improve player confidence in this aspect of golfing. Improved visual and faster acquisition of proper sighting and alignment of the putter have been elusive goals of these attempts.
Visual distraction, which arises from the physical appearance of the putter head, affects the accuracy of the stroke during the act of putting. Efforts to minimize this source of distraction on such factors as shape and/or texture and/or color or color pattern of the top surface of the putter head itself in order to highlight the alignment aid or indicia on the putter head. One solution was proposed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,962,931 (Jazdzyk). This solution involved providing the upper surface of putter head with a camouflaging texture simulating the color and texture of grass covering the putting green. Jazdzyk's camouflaging pattern on the putter head according to Jazdzyk, rendered "the shape of the club head in some degree indistinguishable from the green as observed by a putting golfer and because of the camouflaging effect of the upper surface contrasting and readily observable indicia on the club head is more effective for addressing a golf ball and squaring the putter head with the intended line of putt and stroking of the club head for putting the ball along the intended line on the green." More recent attempts at using color pattern or camouflaging pattern the putter head may be found in the disclosures of GB 2335149A and U.S. Pat. No. 7,022,030.
Accurate reading of the natural lie or break of the green has been a long sought after goal. One such well known method of reading the green is plumb bobbing using the putter or golf club to obtain the true vertical reference or vertical plumb line to determine the natural lie or break has been long practiced and the practice published in numerous articles. It is discussed for example in Green (U.S. Pat. No. 4,317,568), which is hereby incorporated by reference. As is well known practice in plumb bobbing using the putter, the golfer holds the putter at arm's length in front of his or her face with handle or grip of the putter held loosely between his or her fingers and allowing the putter to freely dangle like a pendulum such that the shaft serves as the vertical plumb line. However, due to the shapes of different putter heads and thus, differing center of gravities of the putter heads, true vertical plumb cannot be consistently achieved and accurate reading of the green is thwarted. In order to solve this problem prior attempts to read the natural lie or break of the green by plumb bobbing have involved devices that were internally or externally attached to a putter as exemplified by levels disclosed in Garrett (U.S. Pat. No. 3,242,582) and Murtha (U.S. Pat. No. 6,716,109); by plumb devices attached or inserted into a putter, Brucker (U.S. Pat. No. 5,112,053) and Koch (U.S. Pat. No. 4,114,886); and indicia on or in the putter shaft, Shiratori (U.S. Pat. No. 4,212,467) and Green (U.S. Pat. No. 4,317,568).

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.


A lock includes a casing, a cylindrical rod and a key, the casing having a longitudinal hole for the cylindrical rod received therein. The casing and the cylindrical rod have a main transverse hole device defined radially respectively therein and are in alignment with each other for receiving a main pin device therein, the cylindrical rod having a key hole defined longitudinally therein, at least one offset transverse hole device defined between the key hole and the main transverse hole device which is parallel to the offset transverse hole device so as to communicate with the main transverse hole device and the key hole, the offset transverse hole device having an offset pin device received therein, the offset pin device being lifted by a movement of the key inserted in the key hole to operate the main pin device to open the lock. In addition, the main pin device includes two hollow cylindrical pins for receiving two cylindrical pins and a ball-shaped pin, a recess defined in a periphery of the cylindrical rod for cooperating with the main pin device which is adjusted by a specific key.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a lock in which at least one pin means is disposed.
2. Brief Description of the Prior Art
Some of traditional locks comprise a casing having a tubular hole defined longitudinally therein for receiving a cylindrical rod rotatably disposed therein. The casing and the rod each have a plurality of receiving holes in alignment with each other for biasedly receiving a plurality sets of pin means therein. Generally, each of the pin means consists of two cylindrical pins which are located in alignment with each other, or each of the pin means is composed of two hollow cylindrical pins which are located in alignment with each other, each of the two hollow cylindrical pins having a central hole defined therein for receiving a cylindrical pin. The cylindrical rod has a key hole defined therein which communicates with the receiving holes of the cylindrical rod such that a part of each pin means extends into the key hole. A suitable key has an engaging means which is generally formed to be a serrated configuration or recesses or cone-shaped recesses or protrusions. When a suitable key is inserted into the key hole, the engaging means can adjust the locations of the pin means so as to adjust the contacting surface of each pair of two cylindrical pins of each set of the pin means (or two hollow cylindrical pins) coincides with the inter-connecting surface between the casing and the cylindrical rod such that the lock can be unlocked and the cylindrical rod can be rotated corresponding to the casing by rotating the key.
The factors considered to ensure a safety feature and the numbers of assemblies of the pin means include: the positions and numbers of every single pin means which is treated as an unit, such as the configuration, the length and the size of each of the cylindrical pins or hollow cylindrical pins; the configuration and size of the key hole in the cylindrical rod, the configuration and structure of the key and by what manner the engaging means of the key is disposed.
Although these factors have been considered and utilized by the manufacturers in the art, it is not good enough for a need of having a safe and expandable lock.


A package, system and method for the protective covering and immobilization of an article for packaging. The package comprises a base with tension-biased flaps to support the article within the base and side panels from the base to extend above the packaged article. The package includes end-secured, overlapped film layers with an overlap area and an overlap slot to permit the article to be inserted in or removed from the suspension position in the base.

There are a wide variety of suspension and tension-type packaging kits, systems and methods for the immobilization of articles and packages used for shipment in an outside container; and which packaging kits are designed to provide for protection of the article during shipping and handling, and particularly where such articles may be fragile in nature, subject to static, or conductive damage. More particularly, packaging kits, systems and methods for mobilizing, suspending and protecting electronic-type articles.
Some forms of packaging kits, systems and methods where an article is immobilized in a film tube on a base, are as set forth, for example, in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,323,896, issued Jun. 28, 1994, and 5,676,245, issued Oct. 14, 1997, and 5,694,744, issued Dec. 9, 1997, both incorporated by reference, wherein a thin film, typically transparent film material is tension-biased about a stiff sheet of corrugated cardboard material to immobilize the article on the stiff sheet material. The packaging of articles may also be accomplished by suspension-type packages wherein an article is suspended within a frame, more particularly, as illustrated in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,769,235, issued Jun. 23, 1998; 5,722,541, issued Mar. 3, 1998; 5,669,506, issued Sep. 23, 1997; and 5,579,917, issued Dec. 3, 1996.
It is therefore desirable to provide for a new, effective, and improved, suspension film-type package, system and method for the immobilization and protection of articles; particularly fragile and sensitive articles, wherein the article may be rapidly and easily inserted within the package and easily removed therefrom, as required, and yet be fully protected during shipment and handling.

Article suspension package, system and method


A computer-printer Internet terminal adapted to produce under the control of its user a composite greeting and gift certificate card redeemable by the named recipient at a retail establishment linked to Internet which authorizes the issuance of the certificate. The terminal is provided with greeting card and gift certificate software which is selectively downloaded by the user of the terminal into the computer, making it possible for the user to compose and print out the composite card which carries a message of greeting addressed to the recipient and a gift certificate entitling the recipient to receive a gift from the retail establishment.

1. Field of Invention
This invention relates generally to greeting cards and gift certificates, and more particularly to a computer-printer Internet terminal adapted to produce under the control of the user of the terminal a composite greeting and gift certificate card redeemable by the named recipient at a retail establishment linked to Internet.
2. Status of Prior Art
Internet is a world-wide information highway interlinking millions of computer terminals, each having many users. Associated with Internet are various commercially-operated on-line services, such as Prodigy, CompuServe and Online. One important use to which Internet is put is the retrieval of information from electronic libraries and other data bases, thereby giving each terminal access to a vast treasury of information. Another popular use for Internet is electronic or E-mail making it possible for terminals linked to Internet to communicate with each other.
E-mail communication may take the form of a greeting card composed at one terminal and transmitted to another terminal linked to Internet. Thus the 1995 U.S. Pat. No. 5,426,594 to Wright entitled "Electronic Greeting Card Store and Communication System" discloses a method by which a user of a personal communicator can select and pay for an electronic greeting card and to send it to another personal communicator for presentation to its user.
As noted in the Wright patent, the usual practice in sending a greeting card appropriate to a given occasion, such as a birthday or wedding anniversary, is for the individual to go to a retail store carrying greeting cards for various occasions and to select from what is available a card having an image and message printed thereon suitable for the occasion. The individual would pay for and take possession of the card and then write a personal message on the card before sending it to the party for which the card is intended.
This procedure may be inconvenient to the purchaser of the card, for it requires this individual to go to a greeting card store, search through the many cards there available to find an appropriate card, pay for the card, write a personal message thereon and then mail the card.
In the Wright system a first personal communicator accepts off-line selection of an electronic greeting card from a user, and then transmits a request message corresponding to the off-line selection of the electronic greeting card, the request message including at least an electronic greeting card identifier and a destination identifier. The electronic mail server receives the request message, and processes the request message by wireless transmission of an electronic greeting card message to the second personal communicator. The electronic greeting card includes a representation of an electronic greeting card image being identified by the electronic greeting card identifier. The second personal communicator is also identified by the destination identifier included with the request message. The electronic mail server updates billing information associated with an account of the first personal communicator in response to the electronic greeting card message being transmitted for billing the user of the first personal communicator therefor.
When a person is celebrating a birthday or other special occasion, it is common practice not only to send that person a greeting card appropriate to the occasion, but also a gift. In recent years a gift certificate has emerged as a viable alternative to the purchase of the gift itself.
Gift certificates offer many advantages over the purchase of a gift. If the gift giver is unsure of the needs of the recipient, a gift certificate offers a wide range of goods or services from which the recipient can choose. Currently, gift certificates can be purchased only at retail locations or through catalog houses. This is a drawback, for it is often inconvenient for one to have to travel to a store in order to purchase a gift certificate. To overcome this drawback, the 1993 U.S. Pat. No. 5,243,174 to Veeneman et al. "Method and Apparatus for Generating Gift Certificates" discloses an electronic gift certificate dispenser for printing and dispensing a gift certificate purchased by a credit card. A consumer approaches the dispenser and inserts a credit card into a magnetic card reader. The consumer then chooses a retailer from a menu of participating retailers and enters the gift certificate value.
The machine automatically verifies the credit card, causes the account to be debited and prints the gift certificate. A plurality of gift certificate dispensers devices can be connected in a network under the control of a central processing unit. Information regarding gift certificate purchases is transferred from the dispensers to the central processing unit to be collated and billed to credit card accounts. The central processing unit also informs merchants of the purchase of gift certificates that will be redeemed at their stores.
With the Veeneman et al. electronic gift certificate dispenser, it is no longer necessary to go to the selected retail establishment issuing the certificate to obtain it. But one must travel to the mall or center at which the dispenser is installed; hence the certificate certificate cannot be produced at home.

Computer-printer terminal for producing composite greeting and gift certificate card


A system comprises a vehicle communication application hosted on a portable device. The application generates a traffic control log on screen; generates a free text screen accessible by a user; generates standard traffic control message screens; generates a connectivity services and status screen; provides a regulatory standard communication protocol converter that formats messages to a regulatory standard communication compliant protocol; and provides for regulatory standard communication over Internet protocol processing for communication of regulatory standard communication protocol messages to a datalink device. The system also comprises a ground data center that receives and transmits messages from and to a vehicle, through the application. The data center communicates with a traffic control center, and processes messages received from the vehicle to meet protocol requirements prior to transmitting messages to the traffic control center. The data center also receives responses from the traffic control center for transmission back to the vehicle.

Navigation of vehicles such as aircraft is being changed, such as with the advent of Future Air Navigation System (FANS) 1/A. The objective of FANS 1/A is to enable more aircraft to safely and efficiently travel in congested airspace. For example, the FANS 1/A+ protocol leverages modern nonverbal standard communications protocols for a variety of aircraft navigation tasks.
A FANS 1/A compliant aircraft must be properly equipped in order to support the communication and related functionality that is provided by FANS 1/A. This equipment includes compatible radio systems, cockpit interface devices, and surveillance systems. A compliant FANS 1/A system then allows flight crews to communicate nonverbally with air traffic control (ATC). Clearances and messages are exchanged according to required standards and protocols via the on-board radio system.
A fully compliant FANS 1/A system requires significant investment in equipment and subsequent services costs depending on the type of communication system used for the aircraft to ATC connection. A FANS 1/A system is currently only affordable for higher end general aviation/business jet owner/operators and commercial aircraft.

Vehicle communication and navigation system


A breathable elastic laminate is formed by bonding a film including an elastic water vapor-soluble polymer to a neckable nonwoven web such that when the film is relaxed, the web is in a necked state. The breathable laminate is stretchable in a direction parallel to the narrowing or necking of the web. The laminate possesses excellent water vapor permeability but acts as a barrier to the passage of odor-causing chemicals including ammonia.

Various types of vapor permeable, liquid impermeable polymeric films are known in the art. One method of making a polymeric film vapor permeable, involves mixing a matrix polymer with a substantial quantity (e.g., 10-70% by weight) of an organic or inorganic particulate filler such as, for example, calcium carbonate, and extruding a film from the blend. The matrix polymer may include a polyolefin, such as polyethylene or polypropylene, or various olefin copolymers. The film may be a monolayer film, a multilayer film which contains the filled layer as a primary layer along with thin breathable skin layers, or a multilayer film having more than one filled layer. Then, the film is heated and stretched, causing voids to form in the film.
Breathable films are employed as backsheets, or as a backsheet component laminated to a nonwoven web and/or other layers, in many of today's personal care absorbent articles, diapers being one example. Filled, stretched polyolefin films provide good water vapor transmission, making the diapers more comfortable to the wearer. As a result, the relative humidity and temperature within the diaper or other product can be reduced by using breathable films and laminates.
One drawback of the voided filled polyolefin films and laminates is that they transmit ammonia and other odor-causing vapors as well as water vapor. Ammonia is the primary odor-causing ingredient in urine, for instance. Also, the voided polyolefin films and laminates are generally not elastic to any significant extent. Also, any particle agglomerates in the film before stretching can cause large pores which will leak. Fluids which wet such films (alcohols, water with surfactants, etc.) will pass through the holes. Bacteria and viruses can pass through the holes as well. Also, the voids generated during stretching weaken the film.

Breathable elastic film/nonwoven laminate


An example method for forming a strengthened additive manufacturing material includes coating a surface of an additive manufacturing material with a solution including reinforcement particles, and causing a solvent of the solution to evaporate and the reinforcement particles adhere to the surface of the additive manufacturing material. An example strengthened filament includes a polymer filament having a surface, and reinforcement particles included on the surface of the polymer filament in a substantially uniform coating.

Additive Manufacturing (AM) refers to a process that produces complex geometries by layers manufacturing, and is sometimes referred to as three-dimensional (3D) printing. Various AM processes have been developed including fused filament fabrication (FFF), which is a layer additive manufacturing process that uses a thermoplastic filament of fused deposition to builds a part geometry along trajectories generated by slicing.
Parts that are made by methods such as FFF can have a lower fracture toughness than similar parts made by other traditional methods. For increased used of polymer AM parts for semi-structural applications, the toughness properties need to be improved.
Currently, to improve fracture toughness, parts are produced using specific deposition patterns that satisfy a certain stress criterion. The criterion requires that a direction of the filaments follow a principal direction of stress in the part. However, this method may not work well for complex shapes as principal stress directions may not be aligned to one particular direction.

Methods for forming strengthened additive manufacturing materials and strengthened filaments for use


A computerized system comprising a social robot for interacting with a patient in order to improve the patient's adherence to a health or medical regime. A patient is instructed to perform a health activity (e.g., take medication, step on scale, measure glucose, play a game) at certain intervals in order to reach a specified goal or expected result. The results of the health activity are recorded in a wireless health device and transmitted to a computer. The computer interprets the result of health activity and communicates an action to the robot. If the patient performs the activity within a specified interval and results are consistent with the specified goal or expected result, the robot communicates a positive reaction. If the patient does not perform the activity within a specified interval, or if the results are not consistent with the specified goal or expected result, the robot communicates a negative reaction.

As the aging baby boomer generation approaches retirement age, healthcare providers are searching for ways to ease the burden of an increasingly older population. Subsequent generations are migrating away from their parents and grandparents which significantly increases the relevance of assisted living facilities in the lives of elderly patients. Moreover, a rising life expectancy and dependence on a greater number of health professionals is contributing to a more expensive healthcare system. Social robotics is a technology proposed to assist caregivers in menial tasks as well as extend the independence and quality of life for aging individuals.
A social robot is an autonomous robot that interacts and communicates with humans or other autonomous physical agents by following social behaviors and rules attached to its roles. The field of social robotics was started in the 1940s-1950s. Autonomy is a requirement for social robots. A completely remote controlled robot cannot be considered to be social because it does not make decisions by itself. In this vein, a remote-controlled robot is merely the extension of its human controller. This does not mean however that a robot must be completely autonomous to be considered a social robot. A robot with only partial autonomy is often times still considered to be social.
For many elderly patients, loneliness is a most serious condition. Many senior citizens have been left widowed and/or in a nursing home or other facility with no one to come and visit. Many of these individuals suffer physical ailments and set-backs due to a lack of social stimulation. Some institutions have recognized the benefits of domestically trained pets in these situations and provide such companions to their elderly patients. It has been concluded that pets can satisfy many of the needs of elderly patients and encourage them to hold on to the world of reality and of intense emotional relationships.
One object of the present invention is to simulate the type of social interactivity elderly patients receive through developing a relationship with a pet through a social robot that is capable of providing additional care-giving utilities. One exemplary embodiment of the present invention utilizes a robot, such as the PLEO™, previously manufactured by robotics developer UGOBE, as a platform for robotic technology. The robotic dinosaur is an autonomous social robot which imitates a baby Camarasauras maturing into a young adult. To perform exemplary embodiments of the system and method of the present invention, the robotic dinosaur, is reprogrammed to perform the roles of both a healthcare tool and companion. In many exemplary embodiments, the reprogrammed robotic dinosaur may provide an interface to technology that is more approachable to the elderly. Additional exemplary embodiments implement social robots other than a robotic dinosaur that have been programmed to exhibit the desired applications.
In exemplary embodiments of the system and method of the present invention, a social robot is programmed so that it is capable of socially interacting with an elderly patient in order to improve the patient's adherence to a health or medical regime. This interaction can be carried out in such a way that the relationship formed between the elderly patient and the social robot increases the likelihood of the patient taking his or her medication as scheduled. For example, in one exemplary embodiment where a reprogrammed robotic dinosaur is being utilized as the social robot interface, the robotic dinosaur may begin to exhibit symptoms of illness, discontent, etc., unless the elderly patient takes his or her medication as scheduled. Because the elderly patient has developed a relationship with the robotic dinosaur and cares for its wellbeing, the patient will take his medication to benefit his robotic dinosaur. In exemplary embodiments, an intended consequence of the relationship formed between the elderly patient and the social robot is the improved healthcare of the elderly patient. In other exemplary embodiments, the social robot may also be programmed to remind an elderly patient of important events as well as play games with the elderly patient. In a preferred exemplary embodiment, a social robot is capable of interacting with an elderly patient and performing a memory game.
In some exemplary embodiments, a social robot is at least partially controlled remotely by an application run on a computer. The computer may be equipped with programs which make possible the monitoring of various healthcare related statistics of an elderly patient. For example, the computer may have a program which monitors the patient's weight and is able to produce various graphs and figures depicting the patient's weight history. Some exemplary embodiments of the program keep track of a patient's weight goal and provide a healthcare provider with statistics related to their patient's progress in meeting that goal. If for example a given patient is under weight, the program may be capable of providing the healthcare provider with information relating to the average number of calories the patient has been consuming per day and how many additional calories should be added to the patient's diet to help the patient meet his or her ideal weight.
In one exemplary embodiment where a social robot is controlled remotely by an application executing on a computer, the social robot acts as the primary interface to the elderly patient that assists in the collection of data utilized by the computer's application. In the exemplary embodiment where the computer program is able to monitor a patient's weight history, the social robot may be able to upload data from a scale which the patient uses to weigh him or her self. Additionally, the robot may be able to react to the data which it uploads in order to encourage the patient's compliance with a certain regimen. The regimen may include performing certain health activities at particular times or at particular frequencies in order to reach a particular health goal. For example, if a certain patient using the present system is overweight, the health activity may include regular weigh-ins (e.g., weekly, bi-weekly, etc.). The health goal may be a target weight. The patient may be encouraged to follow a special diet in order to lose weight. After performing the health activity (i.e., weigh-in), data uploaded into the robot from the patient's scale may indicate that the patient has gained weight since his or her last weigh-in. The robot may then respond to this result by conveying that it is disappointed. The patient is ideally encouraged to get back on his or her diet in order to receive a satisfied response from the robot at the next weigh-in. If the patient does not perform the health activity within an expected timeframe, the robot may be programmed to act in manner that serves as a reminder to the patient to perform the health activity. In preferred exemplary embodiments, data from a wireless healthcare device is not actually uploaded into the robot, but rather is uploaded directly into the computer which then sends a signal to the robot where the signal causes the robot to exhibit a certain behavior.
In some exemplary embodiments where a social robot is controlled remotely by an application executing on a computer, the application utilizes data relating to many different healthcare issues. For example, the application may utilize data relating to a patient's blood pressure, heart rate, sleep schedule, physical activity, etc. A regiment for performing health activities may be established for each of these health conditions. For example, a patient may be instructed to measure his or her blood pressure daily. Results are compared to a target to determine whether the patient is making progress toward a goal or within an expected or preferred range. In a preferred embodiment, a social robot is programmed to exhibit responses based on all the data recorded in the computer's application. The responses exhibited by the social robot based on the data recorded in the computer's application may de different for each data set, but this is not required.

System and method for improving healthcare through social robotics


In a sound waveform synthesizer, a waveform data supplying section reads the waveform data from a storage medium for supplying the waveform data to a waveform buffer in response to a first transfer request. A waveform data processing section retrieves the waveform data from the waveform buffer in response to a second transfer request. The waveform data processing section performs sound waveform synthesis based on the retrieved waveform data and given control parameters, while notifying a state and progress of the sound waveform synthesis to a control data processing section. The control data processing section issues the first transfer request based on the notified progress of the sound waveform synthesis. The control data processing section receives waveform control information from an outside and creates the control parameters based on the waveform control information and the notified state of the sound waveform synthesis. The control data processing section issues the second transfer request corresponding to the first transfer request together with the created control parameters to the waveform data processing section.

1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a sound waveform synthesizer for synthesizing waveform data to produce a sound waveform, such as a musical sound or voice.
2. Background Art
Electronic music apparatuses having a sound generation system of waveform memory type (waveform table type) are known, which process waveform data as materials according to performance data to synthesize a musical sound waveform.
FIGS. 4(a), 4(b) and 4(c) are block diagrams showing some electronic music apparatuses having a waveform memory type sound generation system.
In FIG. 4(a), a CPU (Central Processing Unit) 102 for control of the sound generation, a work RAM (Random Access Memory) 103, and a sound generation LSI (Large Scale Integrated Circuit) 104 are connected to a CPU bus 101. The sound generation LSI 104 is connected to a waveform ROM (Read Only Memory) 106 via a waveform memory bus 105.
A processing program for operating the CPU 102 is loaded in the work RAM 103. On the other hand, the performance data (musical waveform control information) is inputted to the work RAM 103 through the CPU bus 101 from a keyboard or the like, not shown. The CPU 102 creates sound generation parameters (control parameters) based on the performance data, and outputs them to the sound generation LSI 104. The sound generation LSI 104 reads out waveform data as materials from the waveform ROM (Read Only Memory) 106 according to the sound generation parameters. Then the LSI processes the waveform data to synthesize a musical sound waveform. The synthesized musical sound waveform is converted to an analog signal by a CODEC (coder/decoder), not shown, to generate a musical sound signal.
As shown in FIG. 4(b), a DSP (Digital Signal Processor) 107 for sound generation may be used instead of the sound generation LSI.
The DSP is a microprocessor dedicated to digital signal processing. It features high-speed summation and multiplication operations. It can also replace the sound generation system with another system or upgrade it by changing the microprogram codes. The musical sound waveform synthesized by the DSP 107 is converted by the CODEC, not shown, to the analog signal so that the analog signal will be outputted.
The DSP 107 may be of the type that shares a bus (DSP bus 108) and a work RAM 110 between processed waveform data used in the signal processing and the signal processing program instructions.
However, since the CPU 102 and the DSP 107 both have a function for assigning bus access right, so-called arbitration function, they cannot share the bus.
It is generally known that a shared memory connects two buses as disclosed in Japanese patent laid-open application No. 6-59678. Therefore, a shared memory 109 is provided in FIG. 4(b), with the work RAM 110 connected to the DSP bus 108.
On the other hand, the waveform ROM 106 is scaled up to increase a capacity to store the waveform data enough to reproduce high-quality musical sound waveforms.
However, there is a cost limit for such a large-capacity waveform ROM to store waveform data for diverse tone colors of various musical instruments.
To solve this, there is yet another configuration as shown in FIG. 4(c), in which an HDD (Hard Disk Drive) 113 is connected to the CPU bus 101 through a HDC (Hard Disk Controller) 112, while using a waveform RAM 111.
In this case, the CPU 102 transfers waveform data from the HDD (Hard Disk Drive) 113 to the work RAM 103 prior to starting the music performance. Then the CPU 102 transfers and stores the waveform data into the waveform RAM 111. Practically, the CPU 102 accesses the HDD 113 to transfer the waveform data of the tone color of a required musical instrument from the HDD 113 to the waveform RAM 111 through the work RAM 103. However, when changing the tone color to another, waveform data of the tone color of another musical instrument needs to be transferred to the waveform RAM 111. This causes another problem that it takes time to change the waveform data. There is also a limit to the data size storable in the waveform RAM 111 at a reasonable cost.
Therefore, there is another method called sampler method. In the musical sound synthesis processing after starting the performance, waveform data necessary for musical sound synthesis is supplied one by one from the HDD 113 to the waveform RAM 111 through the work RAM 103. According to this system, users can access virtually unlimited amounts of waveform data. This system is implemented as a "sampler" program running on a personal computer.
However, since the latency from receiving a request to read waveform data to actual reading from the HDD 113 is too important to neglect, large amounts of waveform data necessary for musical sound synthesis need to be read out and prestored in the work RAM 103.
The CPU bus 101 is mainly used for sound generation parameter synthesis. This processing requires a relatively large-scale program with a complicated algorithm, the processing load of which is very high.
However, the CPU bus incorporated in the system is slower than CPU bus for a personal computer. Further, the speed of the CPU bus is just a fraction of the speed of the internal operation of the CPU. The CPU 102 is designed to use 70 to 80 percent of the data transfer capacity at worst to execute the command "fetch" at its busiest time.
Therefore, if too much of the data transfer capacity of the CPU bus 101 is taken up by the transfer of waveform data between the HDC 112 and the work RAM 103, the CPU 102 cannot provide enough computing power.
A musical sound data recording/reproducing apparatus is known as disclosed in Japanese patent laid-open application No. 6-51776, in which an HDD is connected to a bus other than a bus on the reproduction side and the CPU bus so that waveform data read out from the HDD will be transferred to the bus on the reproduction side through a shared buffer.
FIG. 5 is a block diagram showing such a conventional musical sound data recording/reproducing apparatus. In this configuration, other block for recording waveform data on the HDD is not shown.
A personal computer 121 and a reproduction control device 122 are connected via a serial cable. Further, the personal computer 121, the reproduction control device 122, and an HDD 123 are connected via SCSI (Small Computer System Interface) buses, respectively.
The personal computer 121 allows users to perform selection and setting operations on file names, and sends out information for specifying the location of the data file to the reproduction control device 122 via the serial cable.
The reproduction control device 122 reads out musical sound waveform data stored in the HDD 123 via the SCSI bus to reproduce the musical sound waveform data.
In the reproduction control device 122, a microcomputer consisting predominantly of a CPU 126, a RAM 127, and a ROM 128 are connected to a CPU bus 125. A serial input/output interface 124, a SCSI interface 129, a reproduction/transfer controller 130, and a sound generator 131 are also connected to the CPU bus 125. The operation of these components is controlled by the CPU 126.
The reproduction/transfer controller 130 is provided with a capture buffer 134. The capture buffer 134 is connected to the SCSI interface 129 through a waveform data bus 132, and to a reproduction buffer 135 through a bus 133.
The musical sound waveform data read out from the HDD 123 are stored in the capture buffer 134. After removing unnecessary header parts and rearranging the data, the capture buffer 134 transfers one block (16K words) of musical sound waveform data, a suitable unit for reproduction and reading, to the reproduction buffer 135 (two 4K words). The writing/reading operations of the capture buffer 134 are switched by a system clock pulse 1 or 0, respectively.
The reproduction sound generator 131 reads out and outputs one block of musical sound waveform data from the reproduction buffer 135 in response to a sampling clock. During this processing, the pitch of the read waveform can be controlled.
As disclosed in Japanese patent laid-open application No. 6-51776, such a configuration that the capture buffer 134 is provided between the waveform data bus 132 and the waveform reproduction bus 133 allows both of the buses to transfer musical sound waveforms independently of each other.
The transfer function disclosed in Japanese patent laid-open application No. 6-51776 is to read out and reproduce a predetermined block size of waveform data from the HDD 123.
In other words, Japanese patent laid-open application No. 6-51776 does not teach how each bus transfers waveform data read out from a storage with large latency such as the HDD 123 when the amount of waveform data necessary for musical sound waveform synthesis varies according to time-varying factors such as performance data (musical waveform control information).


A parallel transport apparatus for transporting sheets side by side along a plurality of transport paths is provided with a feed roller which is brought into contact with uppermost sheets of a plurality of stacks of sheet contained side by side in a cassette and is adapted for feeding the uppermost sheets side by side; a separation roller pair arranged at a specified position of each of the plurality of transport paths and adapted for separating the sheets fed side by side so that one each of sheets are transported along the respective transport paths simultaneously; a sheet detector arranged downstream from the separation roller pair with respect to a sheet transport direction and adapted for detecting the presence or absence of sheets being transported side by side; and a multifeed discriminator for discriminating whether the multiple feeding has been occurred along any of the transport paths in accordance with an output from the sheet detector. Accordingly, the multiple feeding of sheets being transported side by side can be detected and coped with automatically.

This invention relates to a parallel transport apparatus provided with a function of detecting the multiple feeding of sheets transported side by side along a plurality of transport paths.
There have been known image forming apparatuses including copying machines and printers. In these image forming apparatus, sheets contained in a cassette are dispensed therefrom by a feed roller and are transported to a pair of separation rollers including a forward roller rotating along with the transport of sheets and a retard roller rotating against the transport of sheets. The fed sheets are separated by the separation rollers and are transported one by one to a specified position where registration rollers are arranged.
Downstream from the separation rollers is arranged a multifeed sensor for detecting the multiple feeding of sheets. In other words, there is arranged such a sensor as to confirm whether two or more sheets have been fed by the feed roller while being placed one over another. If the multiple feeding of sheets is detected, the rotation of the feed roller is stopped and a multifeed state is cleared manually, i.e., the sheets placed one over another are removed manually.
Recently, there has been known a printer, or like image forming apparatus in which data such as addresses output from a data storage provided in a personal computer are printed. In the image forming apparatus of this type, two stacks of sheets are contained side by side in the cassette. After the sheets are fed side by side from the cassette, toner images formed on a photosensitive member or the like are transferred to the sheets being transported side by side.
In this image forming apparatus including a parallel transport apparatus, the probability that the multiple feeding of sheets occurs increases as much as the number of transport paths is increased. If the multiple feeding occurs along either one of the transport paths, the rotation of the feed roller is stopped to clear the multifeed state. In addition, it is required to adjust the synchronization with the feed of sheets along the other transport path again. Accordingly, it has been very cumbersome to clear the multifeed state at an occurrence of the multiple feeding, compared to a sheet transport apparatus in which the sheets are transported along only a single transport path.
Further, if the rotation of the feed roller is stopped at each occurrence of the multiple feeding, the image forming apparatus cannot meet a recent demand of users to carry out a printing operation at a high speed. Thus, a device for transporting the sheets in the multifeed state automatically has been desired earnestly.


This invention provides an optical transmitter in which reduced power consumption is achieved by, when a signal generator needs data transmission, driving a laser emitting device to perform emission. An optical transmitter includes a receiver, a laser driving circuit, a light emitting unit constituted by a plurality of laser emitting devices, and an EDID memory. The receiver and the laser driving circuit are supplied with power from a dedicated external power supply through a power-supply line, and the power-supply line is provided with a switch. The contact of the switch is controlled to open and close based on a power-supply voltage supplied from the DDC controller to the EDID memory.

1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates to an optical transmitter having a function in which, when electric signals, such as picture data from a signal generator, such as a computer, are transmitted to a display unit by using an optical cable, the electric signals are converted into optical signals.
2. Description of Related Art
In the related art, this type of optical transmitter includes laser diodes as laser emitting devices and a laser driving circuit to drive the laser diodes. It is common for the laser driving circuit to use a method in which input data is superimposed as pulse-modulated signals on a direct-current bias current, as described in, for example, Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2000-138415.
This type of optical transmitter can also use a power supply separately from a signal generator, as described in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 9-270749.


The present invention is an inverted III-nitride light-emitting device (LED) with enhanced total light generating capability. A large area device has an n-electrode that interposes the p-electrode metallization to provide low series resistance. The p-electrode metallization is opaque, highly reflective, and provides excellent current spreading. The p-electrode at the peak emission wavelength of the LED active region absorbs less than 25% of incident light per pass. A submount may be used to provide electrical and thermal connection between the LED die and the package. The submount material may be Si to provide electronic functionality such as voltage-compliance limiting operation. The entire device, including the LED-submount interface, is designed for low thermal resistance to allow for high current density operation. Finally, the device may include a high-refractive-index (n greater than 1.8) superstrate.

The present invention relates to semiconductor light emitting devices, and more particularly to III-nitride based light-emitting devices with improved light generating capability.
A xe2x80x9cIII-nitridexe2x80x9d material system is any combination of group III and group V elements, with nitrogen being the primary group V element, to form semiconductors used in the fabrication of electronic or optoelectronic devices. This material system includes, but is not limited to, GaN, AlGaN, AlN, GaInN, AlGaInN, InN, GaInAsN, and GaInPN. The III-nitride material system is suitable for the fabrication of light-emitting devices (LEDs) that generate light with photon energies from the ultra-violet to the red spectral wavelength regimes. These LEDs include light-emitting diodes and laser diodes.
A III-nitride LED typically includes epitaxial layers deposited upon a suitable growth substrate to form a p-n junction via growth techniques, e.g. organometallic vapor-phase epitaxy. There are some unique challenges in the fabrication of III-nitride semiconductor devices. Because III-nitride substrates are not commercially available, the epitaxial growth is forced to occur upon non-lattice-matched substrates, e.g. sapphire or SiC. The epitaxy-up orientation of the conventional III-nitride LED die requires that light be extracted out the top surface, i.e. out through the p-type III-nitride layers. But, the high resistivity of p-type III-nitride layers, e.g. GaN, requires that metallization be deposited on the p-type material surface to provide sufficient current spreading. Because such metals absorb light, a very thin p-electrode metallization (e.g., Ni/Au) is typically used to allow light to escape through the top surface. However, even these thin semi-transparent layers absorb a significant amount of light. Assuming a typical thickness of 100 xc3x85 of Au and neglecting Ni (which may be oxidized to form transparent NiOx), the amount of light absorbed in this semi-transparent p-electrode is xcx9c25% per pass at xcex=500 nm. At high current densities, the metallization thickness may need to be increased to maintain uniform current injection into the active region, and to avoid generating most of the light in the vicinity of the wirebond pad. Increasing the metal thickness increases light absorption and reduces the extraction efficiency of the device. Clearly, this tradeoff should be avoided in the design of III-nitride LEDs for operations at high current densities ( greater than 40 A/cm2, which is xcx9c50 mA into a xcx9c0.35xc3x970.35 mm2 junction area).
In FIG. 1, Nakamura et. al., in U.S. Pat. No. 5,563,422, disclosed a typical prior art III-nitride LED employing a sapphire substrate. Undoped and doped III-nitride layers surround an active region. A non-planar device geometry is necessary where contact to both p and n regions occur on the same side (top) of the LED since the substrate is electrically insulating. Also, two wirebond pads are required on the top of the device. The n-side wirebond pad is also an Ohmic electrode for making electrical connection to the III-nitride epi layers. The high resistivity of the p-type III-nitride layers requires current spreading to be provided by a thin semi-transparent (partially absorbing) NiAu Ohmic electrode that is electrically connected to the p-type III-nitride layers. Light extraction efficiency is limited by the amount of surface area covered by this Ohmic electrode and by the bonding pads. The optical losses associated with the Ohmic and bondpad metal layers are accentuated by the light-guiding nature of the III-nitride materials (nxcx9c2.4) on the sapphire substrate (nxcx9c1.8).
Inoue, et. al., in EP 0 921 577 A1, disclosed a prior art III-nitride LED having an epitaxy-side down or inverted structure where the light escapes predominantly upwards through a superstrate, i.e. the sapphire growth substrate. The device design conserves active junction area and provides for the smallest possible die size. The p electrode is made of Ni and Au, which are quite absorbing to visible light. Since this device lacks a highly reflective p-electrode metallization, it is limited in terms of light extraction efficiency and does not offer a significant improvement over the conventional (epitaxy-side up) device. Also, because the devices are small ( less than 400xc3x97400 xcexcm2) and use a small solder connection area to the package, they are limited in their light generating capability. Finally, this device suffers in efficiency from having guided light trapped within the III-nitride epi layers because of the low-refractive-index sapphire superstrate.
Kondoh et. al., in EP 0 926 744 A2, disclosed a prior art inverted III-nitride LED using a sapphire superstrate. The p-type electrode is silver, which is very reflective in visible light and results in a device with higher light extraction efficiency compared to the device disclosed by Inoue et. al. However, Ag adhesion to III-nitride material is poor. Upon annealing, Ag can conglomerate and destroy the integrity of the sheet Ohmic contact behavior and the reflectivity. Since the device is relatively small ( less than 400xc3x97400 xcexcm2) and uses a small solder connection area to the package, it is limited in its light generating capability. Finally, this device suffers in efficiency from having guided light trapped within the III-nitride epi layers because of the low-refractive-index sapphire superstrate.
Mensz et. al., in Electronics Letters 33 (24) pp.2066-2068, disclosed a prior art inverted III-nitride LED using a sapphire superstrate. This device employs bi-layer metal p-electrodes, Ni/Al and Ni/Ag, that offer improved reflectivity compared with Ni/Au. However, these devices exhibited high forward voltages of 4.9 to 5.1V at 20 mA in 350xc3x97350 xcexcm2 devices. This yields a series resistance of xcx9c100xcexa9, which is more than three times higher than that of devices with good Ohmic electrodes. The high series resistance severely limits the power conversion efficiency. Since these devices are small ( less than 400xc3x97400 um2) and not mounted for low thermal resistance, they are limited in their light generating capability. Finally, these devices suffer in efficiency from having guided light trapped within the III-nitride epi layers because of the low-refractive-index sapphire superstrate.
Edmond et.al., in WIPO WO96/09653, disclosed a vertical injection III-nitride LED on a conducting SiC substrate, shown in FIG. 2. A conductive buffer layer is required for Ohmic conduction from the III-nitride layers to the SiC substrate. The growth conditions required for a conductive buffer layer limits the growth conditions available for subsequent layers and thus restricts the quality of the III-nitride active region layers. Also, the conductive buffer layer may introduce optical loss mechanisms that limit light extraction efficiency. Furthermore, the SiC substrate must be doped to provide high electrical conductivity (xcfx81 less than 0.2 xcexa9-cm) for low series resistance. Optical absorption resulting from SiC substrate dopants limits the light extraction efficiency of the device. These conditions result in a trade-off between series resistance and light extraction efficiency and serve to limit the electrical-to-optical power conversion efficiency of the LED in FIG. 2.
The present invention is an inverted III-nitride light-emitting device (LED) with enhanced total light generating capability. A large area ( greater than 400xc3x97400 um2) device has at least one n-electrode which interposes the p-electrode metallization to provide low series resistance. The p-electrode metallization is opaque, highly reflective, Ohmic (specific contact resistance less than 10xe2x88x922 xcexa9cm2), and provides excellent current spreading. Light absorption in the p-electrode at the peak emission wavelength of the LED active region is less than 25% per pass. An intermediate material or submount may be used to provide electrical and thermal connection between the LED die and the package. The submount material may be Si to provide electronic functionality such as voltage-compliance limiting operation, protection from electrostatic discharge (ESD), series-string LED arrays, and feedback-controlled light output. The entire device, including the LED-submount interface, is designed for low thermal resistance to allow for high current density operation. Finally, the device may include a high-refractive-index (n greater than 1.8) superstrate in which further improvements in light extraction efficiency are obtained.

III-nitride light-emitting device with increased light generating capability