When an refresh ink droplet ejected from a nozzle and deflected by an inclined electric field impinges on a orifice electrode/ink receiving member, electric charge is discharged from the refresh ink droplet, thereby an electric current is generated. A current-voltage converter/amplifier detects the electric current and outputs a detection signal. A defective-condition determining circuit determines an ejection condition of a nozzle element based on voltage value of the detection signal.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a detection device and an inkjet recording device, and more specifically to a detection device and a high-speed inkjet recording device that includes the detection device capable of detecting ink-ejection condition of nozzles in precise manner without requiring halt of printing operations.
2. Related Art
Line-scan inkjet printers are a type of high-speed inkjet printer capable of printing on a continuous recording sheet at high speed, and include an elongated inkjet recording head formed with rows of nozzles for ejecting ink droplets. The head is arranged in confrontation with the surface of the recording sheet across the entire width of the recording sheet. The head selectively ejects ink droplets from the nozzles based on a recording signal and impinges the droplets on desired positions across the width of the recording sheet. At the same time, the recording sheet is transported rapidly in its lengthwise direction, which serves as a main scanning operation, so that images can be recorded at any place on the recording sheet.
Various types of line-scan inkjet printers have been proposed, such as printers that use a continuous inkjet type recording head and printers that use a drop-on-demand type recording head. Although drop-on-demand type line-scan inkjet printers have a slower printing speed than do continuous inkjet type line-scan inkjet printers, they have an extremely simple ink system and so are well suited for a general-purpose high-speed printer.
A drop-on-demand type inkjet recording head disclosed in Japanese Patent-Application Publication No. 2001-47622 is formed with a plurality of nozzles each in fluid communication with an ink chamber and ejects ink droplets through the nozzles by applying driving voltages to energy generation elements, such as piezoelectric elements or heat elements.
In this type of recording head having a plurality of nozzles, when ink ejection condition of one of the nozzles becomes poor, then overall printing quality will be greatly degraded due to undesirable while line appearing throughout printed pages, uneven color density, or the like. For example, a nozzle becomes unable to eject ink droplets when the nozzle clogs up or when air bubbles reside in the nozzle. Also, ejected ink droplets are misdirected when the nozzle partially clogs or when a nozzle surface of the head vicinity of the nozzle is unevenly wet with ink.
In order to prevent such ejection failure, there has been proposed to prevent ink from clinging on a nozzle surface by using a water-repellent recording head or to periodically perform purging operations or wiping operations. However, it has been difficult to completely remove causes of ejection failure.
In view of foregoing, there has also been proposed a detection device that monitors ink ejection condition of each nozzle to detect a defective nozzle. For example, Japanese Patent-Application Publication No. 2001-212970 discloses a detection device that detects ink ejection condition for use in a serial printer. The detection device moves a recording head to a predetermined home position and detects ink ejection condition of each nozzle based on ink droplets ejected from the recording head at the home position. Theoretically, it is possible to use the detection device in a line scan printer.
Japanese Patent-Application Publication No. 2002-103627 discloses a different type of detection device for use in a line scan printer. This detection device utilizes minute ink droplets, such as ink mist generated when abnormal ink ejection occurs. That is, even if a nozzle has become defective, the nozzle usually does not become totally incapable of ink ejection at once, and even defective nozzle can eject ink droplets for a while, albeit in defective manner, causing ink splash or misdirected ink droplets. When such a minute ink droplet impinges on a deflection electrode provided in confrontation with a nozzle row, then an air current is generated in the deflection electrode, based on which poor ink ejection condition can be detected.
However, because the detection device disclosed in Japanese Patent-Application Publication No. 2001-212970 moves the recording head to the home position for detecting the ejection condition, it is necessary to stop printing operations. This decreases throughput of printing. Also, it is difficult to precisely stop and restart scanning movement of the recording head during printing operations in a high-speed line scan printer, the printing operation should not be stopped in a middle of printing. Accordingly, using the detection device disclosed in Japanese Patent-Application Publication No. 2001-212970 in a high-speed line scan printer is not practical.
On the other hand, ink ejection condition can be detected without stopping printing operations when the detection device of Japanese Patent-Application Publication No. 2002-103627 is used. However, if a nozzle becomes incapable of ejecting ink all of a sudden, before causing any ink splash or the like, then the detection device cannot detect defectiveness of the nozzle. Also, if ink mist bounces off a sheet surface and clings on the electrode, then the detection device may erroneously detect a normal nozzle as a defective nozzle.

Detection device for detecting ejection condition of nozzles


A dose setting and repeating syringe (2) allows the user to simply and accurately make a series of injections, each of the same dose. The syringe includes a dose programming assembly which permits the dose for each injection to be preset by limiting the distance the piston (16) housed within the barrel (4) of the syringe moves. This can be done in various ways, such as mechanically, using a ratchet assembly (22, 28), or hydraulically, using a generally conventional cartridge (92) containing the pharmaceutical. A user-actuated dose plunger (40) is connected to the piston (16) and is used to drive the piston down the barrel. The axial movement of the dose plunger, and thus the dose dispensed, depends on the axial position of a dose ring (52) threaded to the proximal end (12) of the barrel.

Patients, particularly diabetic patients, often need to use drug self-delivery systems which are operated by the user for routine medication injections during in-home use. Diabetics must often rely on insulin delivery systems which can be used at home or at work to administer necessary insulin. These self-delivery systems must be safe, accurate in dose measurement and easy to use. Conventional syringe devices have been used in the past but place the burden of accuracy for the dose measurement upon the user.
Every diabetic patient is different and may require direct and continued medical supervision. The patient, however, is commonly instructed by the physician as to the strength, type, amount and times at which insulin must be injected on a self-injection basis. The accuracy of the dose of insulin, therefore, is extremely important. Hypoglycemia, commonly referred to as insulin reaction, can occur when the blood glucose level falls very low. Such an event can happen if a diabetic patient delays or misses a meal, exercises at a higher level or for a longer duration than usual without eating or takes too much insulin.
In contrast, not enough insulin may result in diabetic ketoacidosis. Such a condition can create loss of appetite, thirst, drowsiness, illness or infection. In severe cases, a diabetic coma can result.
Obviously, the failure to administer accurate doses of insulin can be extreme. Therefore, diabetic patients can benefit from a reliable and accurate dose setting syringe which provides pre-programmed dose amounts to furnish repetitive and consistent doses of insulin or other medication.


A storage and display rack for two different sizes of video boxes, whereby the bigger of the two boxes will extend lengthwise in a horizontal orientation in the rack and two of the smaller boxes will extend horizontally widthwise in a side-by-side relationship in the rack, with the front ends of the two different size boxes lying in a common vertical plane. The larger boxes are supported lengthwise horizontally on a plurality of first ribs formed on spaced parallel side walls of the rack and extend only partially toward a back wall of the rack. The smaller boxes are supported horizontally widthwise between second ribs formed on both sides of a center partition and selected first ribs on an adjacent side wall, and extend completely to the back wall of the rack. The rack may be formed of two one-piece sections to provide compactness for shipping, and then snapped together in a vertical stacked relationship for use.

TECHNICAL FIELD
The invention relates to storage containers and display racks, and in particular, to a rack for storing and displaying two different size boxes containing video cassettes. More particularly, the invention relates to such a storage rack in which the two different size boxes can be placed interchangeably within the rack with a front end thereof lying in a common vertical plane for ease in viewing the graphics on the end, and to provide a pleasing symmetrical appearance.


A human waste apparatus is disclosed which includes mechanism for removing a cup-like container from a stack of containers, mechanism for moving the container to a use station and mechanism for moving the used container to a storage position where the container is sealed.

The collection and disposal of human waste matter has been a problem of long standing. Early illustration of attempts at solving this problem is found in the Aqueducts, perhaps 3,000 years ago or more. Our solutions today are not much different than those of the Aqueducts.
The ducts that carry sewage are now enclosed and in the form of pipes with treatment plants processing the sewage to reduce incidence of disease. Large amounts of fresh water is consumed in our present transportation of human waste through the pipes and enclosed aqueducts. This is true even in geographical areas where there are major water shortages.
Prior attempts to eliminate the pipe and aqueduct conveyance of human waste have not been successful. Chemical toilets have been available for many years in which human waste is collected in plastic bags containing deodorant and antiseptic chemical compositions. Such chemical toilets have required individual handling of the plastic bags. A plastic bag is generally used several times, thus leaving the waste and fecal matter exposed between uses. Disposal of the plastic bag has not been satisfactory. For example, a twist tie may enclose the bag. The bag may then be discarded in a suitable location. Generally garbage collection has not been deemed a suitable disposal because of possible transmission of disease. Thus one is confronted with finding a suitable disposal location. This may be a pit in which the bag is deposited and covered. Many geographical locations, particularly within metropolitan areas have laws preventing such action. The chemical toilet of this type has not been considered a suitable solution. The present invention uses containers rather than water as the conveyor of the human waste.


A split flywheel and crank pin apparatus having a pair of flywheels held in a preselected spaced relationship to rotate about a common axis by a pin spaced from the axis. The pin has a central section and opposed ends. Each end has an undulating surface with a continuously varying radius for a circumferential path along the surface and a constant radius along a path on the surface parallel to a main axis of the pin. The pin ends are snugly received in bores in respective flywheels that have internal surfaces that mirror the pin end surfaces. The pin ends are separated from the pin central section by shoulders that abut facing surfaces of the flywheels. The pin is held in each flywheel by a nut. The pin includes lubricating passageways for lubricating a journal surface of the pin central section.

The present invention is directed to a flywheel and crank apparatus having a pair of flywheels separated by a non-axially aligned crank for use in motorcycle engines and the like.
Many types of engines, pumps and related devices utilize a pair of flywheels which are mounted so as to rotate a common axis thereof. Also aligned along the axis of rotation of the flywheels is at least one shaft which provides power either from or to the flywheels. The flywheels are spaced by a crank throw, pin or shaft which is offset from the axis of rotation of the flywheels. A piston rod or similar device is attached to and rotates about the crank shaft, normally to convert between linear motion at a piston to a rotary motion at the flywheels. The power taken in and given off may in theory move in either direction across the machine.
For some types of split flywheel motors operating at low RPM's and under comparatively light loads, the power associated with the motor is not extremely great and does not present significant problems at the crank shaft. However, some devices of this type are designed to utilize a substantial amount of power which applies substantial forces at the juncture of the flywheels with the crank shaft. A good example of a motor of this type is a racing motorcycle having an engine of this type placed under substantial strain. Quite substantial power loadings can and are placed upon the motorcycle engine during operation and forces oil to twist the flywheels relative to the connecting crank shaft. Because the crank shaft is offset with respect to the axis of rotation of the flywheels and because of other factors found in engines of this type, it is very difficult to maintain proper coaxial alignment of the flywheels.
In particular, the flywheels may become unevenly spaced therebetween such as when they toein opposite the crank shaft or when they toeout opposite the crank shaft. An example of toein can be seen in FIG. 6 of the drawings showing prior art. The flywheels may also rotate relative to one another about an axis associated with the crank shaft so as to no longer have a common axis of rotation. In all three instances noted, the flywheels have axes of rotation which are no longer commonly aligned which leads to at best an imbalance in the engine and a reduction of power. In a worst case scenario, the misalignment of the axes of rotation of the flywheels can lead to catastrophic destruction of the engine.
Historically, flywheels of this type have often been separated by crank shafts that have tapered opposite ends and which are designed to set in a similarly tapered bore in each of the flywheels. To initially align the flywheels so that they are co-axle relative to one another, they are placed in a trueing stand having plates that hold the flywheels generally parallel to one another while nuts holding the opposite ends of the crank shaft to the flywheels are tightened. Trueing in this manner is a laborious and difficult procedure. Even with use of the trueing stand, it is difficult to get the best alignment. Also, a very high torque must be applied to the nuts in order to try to prevent slippage, for example 600 pounds per square inch torque, which often damages threads associated therewith. Keys or splines are sometimes used to help prevent turning of the crank shaft relative to the flywheels, but this does not prevent slippage such that the crank shaft axes is no longer parallel to the axes of rotation of the flywheels. Even when the torque applied to the nuts is very high, there is normally some slippage that occurs over time during usage.
Even if a manufacturer or mechanic is able to correctly align the flywheels relative to the crank shaft upon assembly of the device, the application of a large load or just extended usage of the device normally leads to misalignment of the flywheels. Consequently, it is desirable to provide a dual flywheel and crank shaft apparatus that effectively and positively properly positions the flywheels relative to one another and which resists misalignment of the flywheels during use.


A method is provided for recovery of lost cells in an ATM network wherein an error recovery scheme is incorporated into the ATM adaptation layer to allow recovery of cells along the network.

A major concern in any communication network is the control of transmission errors. Redundancy is the basis of error control. Automatic Repeat Request (ARQ) schemes are often preferred to Forward Error Correction (FEC) schemes because they are easy to implement and show superior performance at low bit-error rates. The throughput rate of an ARQ scheme strongly depends on the number of requested retransmissions and this falls rapidly with increasing bit error rate (BER). For applications involving real-time video and voice over very high speed networks, ARQ-based schemes impose an unacceptably long transmission delay. The problem is more acute if the data paths are fairly long, as in wide area networks (WANs). On the other hand, since FEC has no retransmissions, the throughput rate of FEC schemes is more or less constant, set by the code rate and to a large extent, independent of the channel error probability. Recovering lost data reduces the need for data retransmissions and enhances the quality of real-time application (video and voice) that cannot rely on acknowledgments (ACKs) and retransmissions because of the large delays involved.
High speed networks, such as Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) and other WANs, are based on the fiber-optic links with very low bit error rates, typically from 10.sup.-10 to 10.sup.-14, over long distance fiber cable. The main cause of data loss in these networks is buffer overflow during congestion, rather than bit errors. In ATM networks, low priority cells are dropped first in the event of congestion. Since a lost cell is just a block of bits in error, essentially some form of FEC is needed.
At present, apart from the techniques of error concealment, there is only the recommendation of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU-T) for error recovery in ATM transmission. ITU-T recommendation I.363 `B-ISDN ATM Adaptation Layer Specification` Rev 1 Geneva 1993. This technique uses either a (128,124) Reed-Solomon (R-S) Forward Error Correction (FEC) method with interleaving or a (94,88) R-S code with interleaving. The first method recovers lost cells in a group of 128 with a 3.1% overhead, while the second can recover 1 lost cell in a group of 16 with a 6.8% overhead. These techniques are specifically for end-end recovery.

High integrity transport for time critical multimedia networking applications


System and method for submitting and performing computational tasks in a distributed heterogeneous networked environment. Embodiments may allow tasks to be submitted and run in parallel on a network of heterogeneous computers implementing a variety of operating environments. In one embodiment, a user on an originating node may advertise code on the network. Peer nodes that respond to the advertisement may receive the code. A job to be executed by the code may be split into separate tasks to distributed to the peer nodes that received the code. These tasks may be advertised on the network. Tasks may be assigned to peer nodes that respond to the task advertisements. The peer nodes may then work on the assigned tasks. Once a peer node's work on a task is completed, the peer node may return the results of the task to the originating node.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to peer-to-peer networking, and more particularly to submitting and performing computational tasks in a distributed heterogeneous networked environment.
2. Description of the Related Art
The Internet has three valuable fundamental assets—information, bandwidth, and computing resources—all of which are vastly underutilized, partly due to the traditional client-server computing model. No single search engine or portal can locate and catalog the ever-increasing amount of information on the Web in a timely way. Moreover, a huge amount of information is transient and not subject to capture by techniques such as Web crawling. For example, research has estimated that the world produces two exabytes or about 2×1018 bytes of information every year, but only publishes about 300 terabytes or about 3×1012 bytes. In other words, for every megabyte of information produced, only one byte is published. Moreover, Google claims that it searches about only 1.3×10^8 web pages. Thus, finding useful information in real time is increasingly difficult.
Although miles of new fiber have been installed, the new bandwidth gets little use if everyone goes to one site for content and to another site for auctions. Instead, hot spots just get hotter while cold pipes remain cold. This is partly why most people still feel the congestion over the Internet while a single fiber's bandwidth has increased by a factor of 10^6 since 1975, doubling every 16 months.
New processors and storage devices continue to break records in speed and capacity, supporting more powerful end devices throughout the network. However, computation continues to accumulate around data centers, which have to increase their workloads at a crippling pace, thus putting immense pressure on space and power consumption.
Finally, computer users in general are accustomed to computer systems that are deterministic and synchronous in nature, and think of such a structure as the norm. For example, when a browser issues a URL (Uniform Resource Locator) request for a Web page, the output is typically expected to appear shortly afterwards. It is also typically expected that everyone around the world will be able to retrieve the same page from the same Web server using the same URL.
The term peer-to-peer networking or computing (often referred to as P2P) may be applied to a wide range of technologies that greatly increase the utilization of information, bandwidth, and computing resources in the Internet. Frequently, these P2P technologies adopt a network-based computing style that neither excludes nor inherently depends on centralized control points. Apart from improving the performance of information discovery, content delivery, and information processing, such a style also can enhance the overall reliability and fault-tolerance of computing systems.
FIGS. 1A and 1B are examples illustrating the peer-to-peer model. FIG. 1A shows two peer devices 104A and 104B that are currently connected. Either of the two peer devices 104 may serve as a client of or a server to the other device. FIG. 11B shows several peer devices 104 connected over the network 106 in a peer group. In the peer group, any of the peer devices 104 may serve as a client of or a server to any of the other devices.
Parallel computation has been an essential component of scientific computing for many years. Traditionally, the most popular type of parallel computation has been fine-grained parallelization, which requires substantial inter-node communication utilizing protocols such as Messaging Passing Interface (MPI) or Parallel Virtual Machine (PVM). Recently, however, there has been a growing demand for efficient mechanisms for carrying out computations which exhibit coarse-grained parallelism. The most common application of such mechanisms is distributed computing for large-scale computations. In these, numerous similar, but independent, tasks are performed to solve a large problem, or ensemble averages, where a simulation is run under a variety of initial conditions which are then combined to form the result, are utilized.
Distributed computing has traditionally been implemented using a small network of computers. While this solution works satisfactorily for many applications, it fails to take advantage of the large capacity in existing desktop computing power and network connectivity. More recently, distributed computing frameworks have been designed to help take advantage of the plethora of processors available over the Internet, many of which are not used a great deal of the time (e.g., personal computers). Existing grid computing mechanisms such as SunGRID and LSF may enable users to run an application over several computers in a network. Typically, there are restrictions on the set of computers that may participate in the computation. In prior art mechanisms for submitting tasks to a network of computers, typically the tasks cannot be run in different operating environments. The protocols used for transmission of data in prior art mechanisms may be restrictive; for example, prior art mechanisms typically do not allow tasks to be run on computers across firewalls, and may severely restrict the types of connection between computers participating in computations. Typically, the computers participating in the computations need to share a common storage area using mount points, etc. Some prior art mechanisms may use NFS mount points to share data, which requires the NFS protocol. While NFS may well within the boundaries of a small network or firewall, the NFS protocol typically does not allow crossing firewalls for security reasons, nor is it supported by most operating environments. Single entry points are typically used in prior art mechanisms to submit tasks; tasks cannot be submitted by any peer in the network. To submit tasks to a cluster of computers, users typically use some standard protocols such as MPI or PVM that enables the users to submit their tasks to a single entry point, which distributes the tasks over nodes in a homogeneous networked environment.
In the SETI@Home project, data from astronomical measurements is farmed out over the Internet to many processors for processing, and when completed returned to a centralized server and post-processed, in an attempt to aid in the detection of alien species. However, the SETI@Home framework has several disadvantages. First, it is only applicable to a single application. While conceivably the SETI@Home project could be modified or re-created to handle an application other than the search for extraterrestrial life, the framework cannot handle more than one application at a single time. Second, it utilizes a centralized server to distribute and post-process tasks over the network. This can create reliability and efficiency issues if the centralized server is not working properly or is bogged down, or if the network connections to the centralized server are lost.


A mechanism for transparently identifying and retrieving an instrument driver to an application development environment tat is associated with a user-selected instrument is disclosed. Following a user selection of an instrument through a user interface generated by the application development environment, an instrument driver associated with the selected instrument is programmatically identified. If the required instrument driver for the selected instrument is missing from the application development environment, an embodiment of the present invention retrieves the instrument driver from a remote location and installs the instrument driver in the application development environment without the involvement of the user. The present invention also generates a user interface from the application development environment which enables a user to see currently installed instrument drivers as well as available instrument drivers that are located both locally and remotely.

Instrument control applications require instrument drivers so that they may be easily utilized by end users. An instrument driver differs from a regular OS driver in that an instrument driver does not extend the capabilities of an application development environment (ADE) in the way OS drivers typically extend an operating system's ability to communicate with new devices. Instrument drivers generally provide a layer of convenience functions that simplify communication with a specific instrument model using an existing communication and hardware interface layer that is already supported by operating system drivers. Current application development environments, such as MATLAB, SIMULINK (both from The MathWorks, Inc. of Natick, Mass.), test and measurement and other ADEs, ship instrument drivers on a CD with the ADE. Alternatively, the instrument drivers may be made available to the end user for download via a website.
Unfortunately, both the technique of pre-shipping the instrument driver on CD with the ADE and the technique of providing the instrument drivers via a web site, fail to leverage the benefits of integrated instrument driver access from within the application development environment. Current techniques of retrieving remotely located instrument drivers require a web interface to browse and download drivers. Additionally, current techniques do not allow the user to verify current instrument drivers in the ADE while determining what other instrument drivers are available. The instrument drivers cannot be used directly from the web interface but rather must be downloaded and installed before use in the application development environment.
Another problem with current techniques of using instrument drivers in an application development environment is that while the user may be notified of instrument driver changes in an instrument driver repository by email or similar manner, conventional methods do not inform the user that an instrument driver in the ADE is out of date. Further, the conventional methods of updating an instrument driver do not allow a user to submit updated drivers from the ADE to a centralized repository. Rather, the user is forced to utilize a web interface and add a lot of information manually that may already be present in the driver. Further, while companies provide web interfaces for their own repositories of instrument drivers, the companies do not provide a mechanism for a customer working with their own repository of drivers that they want to make available internally.


A coating composition based upon at least partially hydrolyzed epoxy-functional alkoxy silanes and having particular utility in forming tintable, abrasion resistant coatings on lenses. Incorporation in the composition of a non-hydrolyzed epoxy-functional alkoxy silane provides a desired reduction in viscosity. Incorporation in the composition of a polyether surfactant provides a cured coating of the composition with increased tintability.

Transparent plastic materials such as eyeglass lenses are subject to becoming dull and hazy due to scratching and abrasion during use. Polycarbonate eyeglass lenses, for example, are strong and shatter resistant but also are relatively soft and susceptible to scratching. Television screen face plates similarly are made of flexible, shatter resistant plastic materials such as polycarbonate and poly (methylmethacrylate), and these also can be scratched or abraded.
Various coatings have been proposed for eyeglasses and other transparent plastic materials to reduce their propensity to become scratched and abraded. One such composition is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,378,250 (Treadway, et al.) granted Mar. 29, 1983. Other coatings are shown in U.S. Pat. No. 5,367,019 (Sawara), U.S. Pat. No. 4,855,180 (Kawamura), U.S. Pat. No. 4,895,767 (Mori et al.) and U.S. Pat. No. 4,719,146 (Hohage et al.) Besides being abrasion resistant, coatings for eyeglass lenses should also be capable of being tinted by treatment with a dye which becomes incorporated in the coating. As a general observation, the tintability of a coating tends to decrease as its hardness and scratch resistance increases, and vice-versa.
Harasta, et al. U.S. Pat. No. 4,426,431 discusses a coating composition referred to as a "hybrid" system because it employs a solution, in a solvent such as propylene carbonate, of an epoxy compound and a cationic initiator for it, and an acrylic compound and a free radical initiator for it. In general, coating compositions suitable for use in forming protective transparent coatings on eyeglass lenses and the like are provided in solution in a volatile solvent, the solvent serving as a low viscosity vehicle to enable the coating composition to be uniformly spread upon a surface and to accept dye treatments. The solvents that are employed are for the most part organic, and must be used and disposed of carefully.
Perkins et al. U.S. Pat. No. 5,221,560 describes a coating composition containing a polyfunctional, polymerizable non-acrylate functional ether, a radiation-sensitive initiator, and colloidal silica in an amount providing at least 25% by weight of the total solids of the composition, the silica being reacted with a small amount of a hydrolyzed acryloxy-functional or glycidoxy-functional silane.
Treadway, PCT Publication WO 98/39390 describes a coating composition that is substantially free of volatiles and that employs a hydrolysis product of an epoxy-functional silane and also a polymerizable ether. The latter is said to impart tintability to cured coatings of the composition.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,866,262 (Galic et al.) teaches the use of fully hydrolyzed epoxy-functional and imine-functional alkoxysilanes in coating compositions for eyeglass lenses, whereas the previously mentioned U.S. Pat. No. 4,378,250 (Treadway, et al.) teaches that such hydrolysis of epoxy-and imine-functional alkoxysilanes may be less than stoichiometric.
Coating compositions of the type used to provide coatings on such substrates as polycarbonate eye glass lenses desirably are of low viscosity. Moreover, as noted earlier, they desirably are capable, upon curing, of forming surfaces that on the one hand are hard and scratch-resistant and on the other hand are tintable, that is, are capable of readily accepting tinting dyes.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Coating composition yielding abrasion-resistant tintable coatings


A charged particle beam treatment apparatus includes: an accelerator configured to emit a charged particle beam by accelerating charged particles; an irradiation portion configured to irradiate an irradiation object with the charged particle beam through a scanning method; a transport line configured to transport the charged particle beam emitted from the accelerator to the irradiation portion; an energy adjusting portion configured to adjust energy of the charged particle beam; an electromagnet which is provided in the irradiation portion or the transport line; an electromagnet power source which is connected to the electromagnet; and a control portion. Semiconductors are connected between the electromagnet power source and the electromagnet in series. When switching a layer of the irradiation object to be irradiated with the charged particle beam, the control portion reduces the energy of the charged particle beam by controlling the energy adjusting portion and increases a resistance of the semiconductors.

1. Technical Field
Certain embodiments of the invention relate to a charged particle beam treatment apparatus and a method of adjusting the path length of a charged particle beam.
2. Description of Related Art
In the related art, for example, a scanning type charged particle beam treatment apparatus disclosed in the related art is known as a charged particle beam treatment apparatus which performs a treatment by irradiating an irradiation object with a charged particle beam. In the related art, there is a disclosure of a charged particle beam treatment apparatus which irradiates one layer which is set in the irradiation object with a charged particle beam along a scanning pattern, and irradiates a next layer with the charged particle beam by changing energy of the charged particle beam when the irradiation of the one layer with the charged particle beam is finished.

Charged particle beam treatment apparatus and method of adjusting path length of charged particle beam


The present invention relates to a group of polyheterocyclic compounds covered by the following formula: ##STR1## wherein each of X.sub.1, X.sub.2, X.sub.3, and X.sub.4, independently, is O, S, NH, or N(C.sub.1-6 alkyl), but one of them must be O, NH, or N(C.sub.1-6 alkyl); each of R.sub.1, R.sub.2, R.sub.5, and R.sub.6, independently, is H or a substituent (e.g., halogen, CN, NO.sub.2, or C.sub.1-4 haloalkyl), but at least one of them must be a substituent; each of R.sub.3 and R.sub.4, independently, is H, C.sub.1-6 alkyl, CHO, CH.sub.2 OH, or CH.sub.2 NH.sub.2 ; and each of m and n, independently, is 0 or 1.

The treatment of cancer can be approached by several modes of therapy including surgery, radiation, chemotherapy or a combination of any of these treatments. Chemotherapy continues to be an indispensable therapy for inoperable or metastatic forms of the disease.
Considering the diversity of tumors in terms of cell type, morphology, growth rate and other cellular characteristics, the U.S. National Cancer Institute ("NCI") has developed a "disease-oriented" approach to antitumor activity screening [M. R. Boyd, in "Principle of Practice of Oncology," J. T. Devita, S. Hellman, S. A. Rosenberg (Eds.) Vol. 3, PPO Update, No. 10, 1989]. This in vitro screening system is based on the measurement of antitumor cytotoxicity against human tumor cell line panels consisting of approximately 60 cell lines of major human tumors (including leukemia and slower growing tumor cells such as lung, colon, breast, skin, kidney, etc.). The most important advantage of the new in vitro screening panels is the opportunity to identify compounds that are selectively more cytotoxic to cells of slowly growing solid tumors than to rapidly growing leukemia cells.
Thiophenes are sulfur containing heterocyclic compounds that are distributed widely among the species of the Asteraceae (Compositaie) family, including many species with known medicinal uses. The natural thiophene compounds are thought to play an important role in the chemical defense of plants against herbivorous insects and other pests. Natural thiophenes have been previously described as having cytotoxic activities upon exposure to long wavelength ultraviolet light. Photochemical studies suggest that thiophene phototoxicity is based primarily on the production of toxic singlet oxygen by a type II photodynamic process.
However, polythiophene compounds also exhibit cytotoxic activity in the absence of light activation.
We have prepared polyheterocyclic compounds (i.e., containing at least two heterocyclic rings) based on natural polythiophenes and tested their efficacy in inhibiting the growth of tumor cells employing the above-described NCI screening system.

Industrial Technology Research Institute


A control assembly for converting a “fail-close” regulator to a “fail-open” regulator, or vice versa, without having to modify or reconfigure a casing of the regulator includes a control member, a central rod, and a spring disposed between first and second spring seats. A regulator including the control assembly includes a valve body and an actuator casing, the valve body defining a fluid flow-path. The control member is slidably disposed within the actuator casing and adapted for displacement relative to the valve body for controlling the flow of fluid through the flow-path. The spring and spring seats are disposed about the central rod, such that the spring biases the control member into a predetermined position relative to the regulator casing.

Fluid control devices include various categories of equipment including control valves and regulators. Such control devices are adapted to be coupled within a fluid process control system such as chemical treatment systems, natural gas delivery systems, etc., for controlling the flow of a fluid therethrough. Each control device defines a fluid flow-path and includes a control member for adjusting a dimension of the flow-path. For example, FIG. 1 depicts a known regulator assembly 10 including a valve body 12 and an actuator 14. The valve body 12 defines a flow-path 16 and includes a throat 18. In FIG. 1, the regulator assembly 10 is configured in a flow-up configuration. The actuator 14 includes an upper actuator casing 20, a lower actuator casing 22, a diaphragm subassembly 30 including a diaphragm 32, and a control member 24.
The control member 24 is disposed within the upper and lower actuator casings 20, 22 and is adapted for bi-directional displacement in response to changes in pressure across the diaphragm subassembly 30. So configured, the control member 24 controls the flow of fluid through the throat 18. Additionally, as is depicted, the regulator assembly 10 includes a seat ring 26 disposed in the throat 18 of the valve body 12. When the outlet pressure of the valve body 12 is high, a sealing surface 28 of the control member 24 may sealingly engage the seat ring 26 and close the throat 18. Similarly, absent any pressure in the actuator 14 or upon the failure of the diaphragm 32, a coil spring 34 disposed within an annular cavity portion 36 of the upper actuator casing 20 biases the control member 24 into the closed position. Such a regulator is commonly known as a "fail close" regulator.
"Fail close" regulators are configured such that upon the occurrence of a leak in the system, which removes pressure from the actuator 14, or a failure of the diaphragm 32 such as a tear, the control member 24 automatically closes the flow of fluid through the regulator 10. Under such a circumstance, fluid delivery to the desired end-location ceases until the regulator is repaired.
To avoid the necessity of terminating fluid delivery under failure conditions, some fluid process or delivery systems incorporate a "fail open" regulator. "Fail open" regulators operate similar to "fail closed" regulators; however, upon failure of the diaphragm, a spring biases the control member open, rather than closed. Thus, even when the diaphragm or other control component fails, fluid continues to flow through the regulator uninterrupted and uncontrolled. Such configurations therefore often include a monitor regulator, which controls the fluid flow when the "fail open" regulator fails.
Conventional regulators are generally configured as either "fail open" or "fail close." To reconfigure a "fail open" regulator to operate as a "fail close" regulator, or vice versa, the control assembly and the regulator casing often must be reconfigured or replaced with a different control assembly and regulator casing. Such reconfiguration and/or replacement of the regulator casing can be costly and time-consuming.

Positioning device for pressure regulator

EMERSON PROCESS MANAGEMENT REGULATOR TECHNOLOGIES, INC.


A martensitic stainless steel has a chemical composition containing, by mass %, C: 0.030% or more and less than 0.20%, Si: 0.01% or more and 2.0% or less, Mn: 0.01% or more and 3.0% or less, P: 0.050% or less , S: 0.010% or less, Cr: 10.0% or more and 16.0% or less, Ni: 0.01% or more and 0.80% or less, Al: 0.001% or more and 0.50% or less, Zr: 0.005% or more and 0.50% or less, and N: 0.030% or more and less than 0.20%, with the balance consisting of Fe and inevitable impurities.

Gaps between exhaust system parts of automobiles are sealed with sealing parts called gaskets for the purpose of preventing leakage of exhaust gas, cooling water, lubricating oil, and the like. Since a gasket must exhibit the sealing performance both in the case where the gap widens and in the case where the gap is narrowed due to the pressure fluctuation in the pipe or the like, a convex portion called the bead is formed in the gasket. As the bead is repeatedly compressed and relaxed during use, high strength is required. Depending on the shape of the bead, severe processing may be applied, and excellent workability is also required for the gasket material. Furthermore, since gaskets are exposed to exhaust gas, cooling water, and the like during use, corrosion resistance is also required. If the gasket material has insufficient corrosion-resistance, fracture may occur due to corrosion.
Conventionally austenitic stainless steels that have both a high strength and a high workability, such as SUS 301 (17 mass % Cr-7 mass % Ni) and SUS 304 (18 mass % Cr-8 mass % Ni), have been widely used. However, since austenitic stainless steels contain a large amount of expensive element Ni, they have a major problem in terms of material cost. Another problem is that austenitic stainless steels have high susceptibility to stress corrosion cracking.
Responding to these problems, there are proposals of martensitic stainless steels such as SUS403 (12 mass % Cr-0.13 mass % C), and stainless steels that comprise a multi-phase structure containing martensite. Both are inexpensive stainless steels because of a low content of Ni, and the strength thereof can be improved by quenching heat treatment.
For example, JP2002-38243A (PTL 1) describes a martensitic stainless steel and a martensite-ferrite dual phase stainless steel which are improved in fatigue resistance by nitriding the surface layer to form an austenite phase by quenching heat treatment in a nitrogen-containing atmosphere.
JP2005-54272A (PTL 2) describes a martensite-ferrite dual phase stainless steel which achieves both hardness and workability by quenching in a dual-phase temperature range of austenite and ferrite.
JP2002-97554A (PTL 3) describes a multi-phase stainless steel having a martensite and retained austenite phase in the surface layer and a martensite single phase in the inner layer after subjection to heat treatment in a nitrogen-containing atmosphere.
In addition, JPH3-56621A (PTL 4) describes a martensite-ferrite dual phase stainless steel improved in spring characteristics after subjection to multi-phase heat treatment followed by aging treatment.
JPH8-319519A (PTL 5) describes a martensite-ferrite dual phase stainless steel having the desired hardness by specifying the cold rolling rate.
JP2001-140041A (PTL 6) describes a stainless steel in which the surface layer is made of two phases of martensite and retained austenite.
JP2006-97050A (PTL 7) describes a stainless steel in which nitrogen is absorbed in SUS 403 or the like to precipitate a nitrogen compound in the surface layer.
JPH7-316740A (PTL 8) describes a multi-phase stainless steel in which a surface layer having a depth of at least 1 μm from the outermost surface is covered with a martensite single-phase layer.


A network security system is provided that receives information from various sensors and can analyse the received information. In one embodiment of the present invention, such a system receives a security event from a software agent. The received security event includes a target address and an event signature, as generated by the software agent. The event signature can be used to determine a set of vulnerabilities exploited by the received security event, and the target address can be used to identify a target asset within the network. By accessing a model of the target asset, a set of vulnerabilities exposed by the target asset can be retrieved. Then, a threat can be detected by comparing the set of vulnerabilities exploited by the security event to the set of vulnerabilities exposed by the target asset.

Computer networks and systems have become indispensable tools for modern business. Today terabits of information on virtually every subject imaginable are stored in and accessed across such networks by users throughout the world. Much of this information is, to some degree, confidential and its protection is required. Not surprisingly then, various network security monitor devices have been developed to help uncover attempts by unauthorized persons and/or devices to gain access to computer networks and the information stored therein.
Network security products largely include Intrusion Detection Systems (IDSs), which can be Network or Host based (NIDS and HIDS respectively). Other network security products include firewalls, router logs, and various other event reporting devices. Due to the size of their networks, many enterprises deploy hundreds, or thousands of these products thoughts their networks. Thus, network security personnel are bombarded alarms representing possible security threats. Most enterprises do not have the resources or the qualified personnel to individually attend to all of the received alarms.

Threat detection in a network security system


Devices, systems, and methods related to prediction of tire performance using existing CAN data to improve overall vehicle performance. Machine learning tools are applied to CAN data, for example pilot data and/or vehicle dynamics data, to predict tire performance factors for use in a vehicle control system to provide vehicle lateral guidance control.

Tire performance can be an important aspect of overall vehicle performance. The ability of the vehicle to corner to its greatest performance standards can be highly dependent on tire performance. However, tire performance can vary considerably based on intrinsic and/or extrinsic factors. For example, the amount and/or type of wear on a particular tire can have significant intrinsic impacts on the tire performance. Moreover, extrinsic factors such as temperature, humidity, and/or loading of the vehicle can incur different tire response. However, conventional tire monitoring systems may apply predetermined assumptions for tire performance that may overlook real world and/or real-time information.

Real-time performance handling virtual tire sensor


This application relates to the field of mobile communications, and in particular, to a technical solution of sharing data with a nearby device by using a wireless communications technology. In a method for printing a photo, a mobile phone first selects a to-be-printed photo, then discovers a nearby device by using the foregoing related wireless communications technology, and displays the discovered device such as a printer or a projector on the mobile phone; and then a user performs a tap operation on the discovered printer, so that one-tap printing can be implemented. In this way, printing efficiency of an electronic device is improved, and user experience is also improved.

With development of wireless communications technologies, electronic devices such as a smartphone and a tablet computer start to support a user in sharing data such as a picture and a document, thereby improving office efficiency and office experience of the user. For example, the user can print a picture and a document in a portable electronic device such as a smartphone without copying data in the portable electronic device such as the smartphone into a computer, and without using a data line to connect the portable electronic device such as the smartphone to a printer.
For example, the user can print data such as a picture in a portable electronic device such as a smartphone in the following several manners:
Existing manner 1: The user first needs to enter a setting interface to enable a default print service, search for a printer, and choose to connect to a found printer. Then, the user needs to install a printer application (APP) corresponding to the printer, open the app, select a picture in the app, and then select printing.
Existing manner 2: The user selects a photo from Gallery, taps a "More" button to open a menu, then selects a "Print or export to PDF" option in the menu to enter a page for printing or exporting to PDF, selects "Add a printer", enables "Default print service" to trigger searching for a printer, selects a found printer for connection, and selects printing after the connection succeeds.
It can be learned that in the foregoing two existing data sharing manners, the user needs to perform many complex operations. This greatly reduces use efficiency of the electronic device.

Data sharing method, graphical user interface, electronic device, and system


In preferred embodiments, the present invention includes computer-implemented methods and computer systems for know-your-customer risk assessment that assemble a plurality of data elements descriptive of the risk characteristics of a designated customer, wherein at least one data element is descriptive or risk characteristics determined by a government, weigh a selected plurality of the assembled data elements relative to the risk indicated by the determined data element values, and combine the weighted data elements into one or more indices representative of the know-your-customer risk of the designated customer. The present invention also includes computer readable media with computer code for performing these methods.

The USA Patriot Act (USAPA) was passed Oct. 26, 2001 immediately following the events of Sep. 11, 2001. The aim of the Act is to combat the threat of terrorist organizations by preventing organizations that assist or carry out terrorist acts from conducting business in the United States and by identifying any attempts to do so.
In particular, Sec. 326 of the Act outlines new requirements for financial institutions to positively identify their potential customers. These requirements include:                establishing a risk based approach to customer identification;        confirming the identity of new customers;        screen against government control lists;        maintaining audit trails of the execution of these requirements.The U.S. Treasury Department has mandated that all Financial Institutions process due diligence on all new commercial customers within a reasonable period of time following account opening". The financial institution must maintain an audit trail that this due diligence was completed.
The prior art appears to provide little assistance in meeting these new regulatory requirements. For example, U.S. 2004/0030649 A1 (Feb. 12, 2004) describes a system and method for processing applications for loans, credit, and the like. Although this publication describes that it is desirable to check for USAPA compliance risk, it provides no teaching concerning how USAPA compliance risk is to be assessed. U.S. 2004/0078321 A1 (Apr. 22, 2004) describes a system and method for providing a clearing house of customer risk information, including USAPA compliance risk. However, this publication also does not teach how USAPA compliance risk is to be assessed.
Citation or identification of any reference in this section or any section of this application shall not be construed that such reference is available as prior art to the present invention.

Systems and methods for USA Patriot Act compliance


An acetabular trial insert is provided in which the appropriate anteversion angle of the acetabular cup of a hip prosthesis may be determined automatically by placing an inner cup within an outer cup and providing a mechanism which will hold the inner cup in position after the trial has been reduced and the hip rotated through an intended range of motion.

Placement of the acetabular cup in a hip replacement surgery is critical to providing a securement of the femoral portion as well as in providing an optimal range of motion for the patient. If the acetabular cup is improperly placed it can result in a limited range of motion or dislocation.
Typically the hip socket or acetabulum of a patient lies 35.degree. to 45.degree. of the midsagittal plane and is rotated forward 15.degree. to 20.degree. off the coronal plane. In hip replacement surgery usually, the cup implant is oriented in the acetabulum by using an acetabular cup positioning instrument. This instrument includes a horizontal arm that will align parallel to the long axis of a patient at a preferred abduction angle, i.e., 40.degree., and is therefore dependent upon the correct positioning of the patient. The cup placement is typically done by visually adjusting the cup to ensure that the horizontal arm of the device is approximately parallel to the long axis of the patient. This is done independent of femoral stem implant placement.
Once the abduction angle is set, the anteversion is then set by rotating the alignment device forward and then ensuring that a second arm on the cup positioner at a preset angle (typically about 20.degree.) is aligned parallel to the long axis of the patient thus selecting a predetermined or standard anteversion angle.
This method is dependent upon correct positioning of the patient and also uses "eyeballing" to position the cup at a preset angle while not taking into consideration the variations from individual to individual. This method also does not take into consideration the acetabular cup interaction with the femoral component which is important for optimizing the range of motion for an individual.
Accordingly, one object of the invention is to provide an acetabular trial that would assist in the determination of optimal positioning of the cup for the best and most normal range of motion, and for a securedly placed acetabular cup. Another object of the invention is to take into consideration the acetabular cup interaction with the femoral component is setting the acetabular cup alignment.


A pump assembly is provided. The pump assembly includes a stator assembly and a piston assembly. The stator assembly includes a rotary winding and a linear winding. The piston assembly is positioned within the stator assembly. The piston assembly translates along a lengthwise axis of the stator assembly and rotates about the lengthwise axis of the stator assembly to create a pumping action.

Typical pumping systems for engine injection applications require a motor mounted to a conventional pump that is not weight optimal. Failure modes of these conventional pumps are dominated by moving components, e.g., bearings that wear out, valves that clog/leak, etc., that if eliminated would significantly increase reliability. Thus, what is needed is a highly accurate, reliable, and compact variable displacement pumping system.


Optical fiber according to the invention comprises a core, with an inner cladding surrounding the core, and an outer cladding surrounding the inner one. The fiber comprises preform-derived glass. The outer cladding comprises a first outer cladding region between the inner cladding region and a second outer cladding region. The first outer cladding region is selected to have an effective refractive index less than 1.35, and such that the optical characteristics of the optical fiber are essentially independent of the second outer cladding, and/or such that the fiber is re-coat insensitive. The first outer cladding typically comprises elongate features extending in the fiber axial direction, with a web material joining the inner cladding to the second outer cladding. The elongate features are filled with a low-index material, exemplarily air, but could of course be evacuated. Fibers according to the invention have many uses, e.g., cladding-pumped optical fiber or fiber with a long period grating.

Conventional optical fibers comprise a region of relatively high refractive index, the core, surrounded by a region of relatively low refractive index, the cladding. The cladding is typically surrounded by a polymer coating that generally plays no role in light guiding in transmission fibers.
There are also known "double clad" optical fibers that have a high-index core, surrounded by a region of intermediate refractive index, which in turn is surrounded by a region (typically polymer) of low refractive index that does play a role in light guiding.
Double clad fibers for instance find use in cladding pumped lasers. Such fibers typically have a silica-based single mode core doped with rare earth (e.g., Er and Yb). The region of intermediate refractive index typically is silica, possibly doped, of radius selected to make the structure a multimode waveguide at the pump wavelength. The low refractive index region could be air, but for practical reasons (e.g., fiber strength) generally is low refractive index polymer.
Pump light from low brightness sources, such as diode arrays, is easily coupled into the inner cladding of double clad fiber due to the inner cladding's large cross-sectional area and high numerical aperture (NA). As the multimode pump light crosses the core, it is absorbed by the rare-earth dopant. To increase the overlap of the pump light with the core, the inner cladding typically is made non-circular. The cladding pumped fiber can be made into a high-power, single-mode fiber laser by providing optical feedback at the appropriate wavelength in the core, typically by fiber Bragg gratings. Alternately, the fiber can be used as an amplifier by passing a signal through the single-mode core.
Cladding pumped lasers are used in the field of telecommunications to pump Raman lasers, Raman amplifiers, remotely located erbium amplifiers in repeaterless communication systems and high power Er/Yb amplifiers. In addition, these compact, solid-state, high-power, high-brightness lasers will undoubtedly find applications in many non-telecommunication fields such as material processing, printing and medical optics. One major advantage of cladding pumped fibers is their ability to convert low-brightness light from sources such as broad-stripe diode lasers into high-brightness light in a single-mode fiber.
Although cladding pumped fiber lasers and other devices that use dual clad optical fiber have advantageous properties, it would generally be desirable to be able to increase the amount of pump light that can be coupled into the fiber. This application discloses cladding pumped optical fiber having a structure that facilitates improved coupling of pump radiation into the fiber. A fiber of similar structure can provide long period gratings that have reduced temperature dependence.
Formation of long period gratings in optical fibers is a demanding process that typically comprises removal of the polymer coating from a length of optical fiber, "writing" of the grating into the fiber core while monitoring the grating properties, and re-coating the fiber. In this process it is frequently observed that re-coating of the fiber causes a change in the optical properties of the long period grating, due to the replacement of air (refractive index 1) with polymer (refractive index >1) as the medium that surrounds the fiber cladding. Thus, it would be desirable to have available optical fiber that is re-coat insensitive, i.e., a fiber whose optical properties do not depend on the refractive index of the region immediately surrounding the outermost (preform-derived) glass cladding layer. This application also discloses optical fiber that is essentially re-coat insensitive.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,902,879 discloses a fiber with improved core-cladding interface, having elongate open channels extending longitudinally in the cladding.
U.S. Pat. No. Re 28,664 discloses a fiber having a transparent central portion attached by means of transparent thin film portions to the inside of a peripheral hollow cylindrical portion.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,712,705 discloses an air clad optical fiber comprising a dielectric core of polygonal cross section disposed within a circular dielectric jacket.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,046,537 discloses a fiber having a light conducting core supported within a protective sleeve by one or more thin support component.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,950,073 discloses an optical fiber comprising a glass core loosely disposed in an outer cylindrical glass jacket.

Article comprising an air-clad optical fiber


Systems and methods of enhancing crude oil recovery include radiating electromagnetic energy in the form of focused electromagnetic pulses into a permeable formation containing the crude oil and/or fluid via an array of antennae transmitting immediately in the far field. The electromagnetic pulses are focused at the depth of the fluid reservoir. Pulses will be reflected by the fluid according to the fluid material (e.g. oil vs. water) and/or the strata (e.g. rock, sand, etc.). An array of receiver antennae may be used to initially establish a reference of the reflected electromagnetic pattern, and then operated in conjunction with the transmit array to monitor the relative horizontal movement of oil and/or water within the subterranean reservoir.

In the oil production industry, an oil well is typically drilled hundreds or thousands of feet within various geological strata to reach a permeable formation containing an oil reservoir. Such permeable formations include any subsurface or subterranean media through which a fluid (e.g. oil or water) may flow, including but not limited to soils, sands, shales, porous rocks and faults and channels within non-porous rocks. Various techniques may be used to increase or concentrate the amount of fluid such as oil in the area of the reservoir, such area being commonly referred to as an enhanced pool.
Generally, during the initial stage of oil production, the forces of gravity and the naturally existing pressure in a reservoir cause a flow of oil to the production well. Thus, primary recovery refers to recovery of oil from a reservoir by means of the energy initially present in the reservoir at the time of discovery. Over a period of time, the natural pressure of a reservoir may decrease as oil is taken at the production well location. In general, as the pressure differential throughout the reservoir and at the production well location decreases, the flow of oil to the well also decreases. Eventually, the flow of oil to the well will decrease to a point where the amount of oil available from the well no longer justifies the costs of production, which includes the costs of removing and transporting the oil. Many factors may contribute to this diminishing flow, including the volume and pressure of the oil reservoir, the structure, permeability and ambient temperature of the formation. The viscosity of the oil, particularly the oil disposed away from the central portion of the production well, the composition of the crude oil, as well as other characteristics of the oil, play a significant role in decreased oil production.
As the amount of available oil decreases, it may be desirable to enhance oil recovery within an existing reservoir by external means, such as through injection of secondary energy sources such as steam or gas into the reservoir to enhance oil flow to the production well location. Such mechanisms tend to forcibly displace the oil in order to move the oil in the direction of the production well. Such methods may also heat the oil in order to increase the oil temperature and its mobility. Such methods, however, often require drilling additional bore holes into the reservoir, heating the secondary materials and flooding the materials into the reservoir, in addition to post processing requirements for removing and filtering the secondary materials from the recovered oil. All of these contribute to additional production costs. Moreover, existing techniques still do not adequately enable complete recovery of all of the oil within the reservoir. Thus, in many cases, oil recovery may be discontinued despite a substantial amount of oil remaining within the reservoir, because extraction of the remaining oil is too expensive or too difficult given the current recovery methods.
Alternative mechanisms for enhancing oil recovery are desired.

System and method to measure and track fluid movement in a reservoir using electromagnetic transmission


A bamboo Chair pad that can be manufactured from 100% Anji Mountain bamboo from China. The bamboo is all treated with various protective coatings to add resistance to natural factors including water, sun and dirt. All bamboo chair pads can be manufactured from the harder portions of the bamboo trunk. (Some bamboo are manufactured from the softer fibers of the inside of the bamboo trunk). This portion of the bamboo trunk is not utilized for this invention. The bamboo utilized in the present invention is taken from the harder part of the bamboo trunk to assure maximum endurance and longevity. The lower trunk portion of the bamboo plant is harder and less porous.

1. Field of Invention
This invention relates generally to chair pads and, more particularly, to wood chair pads.
2. Background Art
Chair pads are used as a protective covering for a floor area on which a chair rests or some other furniture item. The chair pad is utilized to protect the underlying floor from damage due to wear and tear caused by the chair and/or the occupant of the chair moving about within the floor area on which the chair rests. A typical chair pad is made of plastic or other appropriate material that is semi flexible, but resilient enough such that when the chair pad is placed on the floor area a semi rigid surface is provided by the chair pad. The semi rigid surface makes it easier to move about in the floor area with a chair with wheels.
Most chair pads are a unitary one piece flattened body. Some chair pads as indicated are made of plastic. However others are made of a hardwood material to provide a better aesthetic appeal. Hardwood chair pads, however, are not flexible. These chair pads, particularly larger ones, are difficult to move about and very difficult to ship because of the special packaging required. Also, one alternative to hardwood is bamboo, which can also be utilized for a chair pad if processed like a hardwood.
Bamboo is a grass, that belongs to the sub-family Bambusoidae of the family Poaceae (Graminae). Bamboo occurs naturally on every industrialized and populated continent with the exception of Europe. There are over 1000 known species of bamboo plants. It is a durable and versatile material, that has been utilized by various cultures and civilizations for various applications. Bamboo has been an integral part of the cultural, social and economic traditions of many societies. There is a vast pool of knowledge and skills related to the processing and usage of bamboo, which has encouraged the use of bamboo for various applications
Clumping bamboo can be widely grown in tropical climates. The trunk of the plant is called the "culm". The culm is wider at the trunk or bottom and narrows toward the top. In some varieties of bamboo the culm may grow 40 to 60 feet tall. Once established, bamboo plants can replenish themselves in two or three years. Each year a bamboo will put out several full length culms, that are generally hollow, in the form of a tube having "nodes". There are other parts of the bamboo plant that can be utilized other than the culm, including commonly used parts of a bamboo such as branches and leaves, culm sheaths, buds and rhizomes. Some species are very fast growing at the rate of one metre per day, in the growing season.
As mention above, bamboo occurs naturally on most continents, mainly in the tropical areas of a given continent. Its natural habitat ranges in latitude from Korea and Japan to South Argentina. It has been reported that millions tons of bamboo are harvested each year, almost three-fifths of it in India and China. On known source of quality bamboo is found in the Anji Mountains of China.
Bamboo has many uses such as substituting commercially for wood, plastics, and composite materials in structural and product applications. There is a large diversity of species, many of which are available in India, which is the second largest source of bamboo in the world ranking only behind China. These grow naturally at heights ranging from sea level to over 3500. Most Indian bamboo is sympodial (clump forming); the singular exception is Phylostacchus bambuisodes, cultivated by the Apa Tani tribe on the Ziro plateau in Arunachal Pradesh.
Bamboo has to undergo certain processing stages to convert them into boards/laminates. The green bamboo culms are converted into slivers/planks and then to boards. The boards are finally finished by surface coating. The common primary processing steps for making sliver/planks from green bamboo culms are 1. Cross Cutting; 2. Radial Splitting; 3. Internal Knot Removing & Two-side Planing; 4. Four-side Planing; and 5. forming slivers/planks. The common secondary processing steps for making board/laminate from slivers/planks are 1. Starch Removal & Anti-fungal Treatment; 2. Drying; 3. Resin Application; 4. Laying of Slivers/Planks; 5. Hot Pressing & Curing; and 6. form Laminates/Boards. The common surface coating and finishing stages are 1. Surface Sanding & Finishing; 2. Surface Coating with melamine/polyurethane; 3. Curing of Laminate; 4. Fine Sanding; 5. Evaluation of Surface Properties.
There are various types of bamboo flooring including tongue and groove and the type that needs to be butted together. The lacquered flooring tiles are finished using wear resistant UV lacquer and the unlacquered flooring tiles need to be coated/waxed and polished after installation. The strength of Bamboo Boards can be better than common wood board for its special Hi-steam pressure process. The board has good water resistance for its shrinking and expanding rate. Its water-absorbing rate is better than wood and is further humidity resistant and smooth. It has been reported that the strength of 12 mm bamboo ply-board is equivalent to that of a 25 mm plywood board. There are also removable bamboo floor covering having bamboo on one side and carpeting on the other side. Although this type of flooring may be removable, the carpet backing construction makes the overall flooring have limited flexibility.
There are also various types of bamboo chair pads made of flat elongated planks or strips arranged side by side length wise and attached along abutting adjacent edges binding them together in a side by side arrangement. There is also usually a cloth or felt backing or some other fibrous material bonded to the underside. The bamboo chair pad as with any other wood chair pad is rigid.
The bamboo material is very durable for chair pad application, however, the construction of many bamboo pads are rigid lacking the capability to flex or bend. A novel bamboo chair pad construction is needed.


A clock gating cell that comprises a latch in communication with an input enable logic and an output logic circuit, wherein the latch includes a pull-up and/or a pull-down circuit at an input node of the output logic circuit and circuitry preventing premature charge or discharge of the output logic circuit input node by the pull-up and/or the pull-down circuit when the clock gating cell is enabled.

FIG. 1 is an illustration of a conventional clock gating cell (CGC) 100. CGCs are used in many applications to stop the propagation of a clock signal to an unused circuit to reduce the dynamic power by halting computation in the circuit. For instance, in a handheld device that includes MP3 functionality and phone functionality, when a user is playing an MP3 file but not using the phone, one or more CGCs can be used to prevent the clock from propagating to parts of the processor (as well as to other chips) that are not used when the phone functionality is idle. Parts that do not receive the clock use much less power, so that battery life is extended. Furthermore, the un-gated clock signal itself has a high activity factor, making it a major source of dynamic power usage.
The CGC 100 has a clock input and enable inputs. The global clock source is the clock input, and it is labeled Clk_in. A CGC, such as CGC 100, can include any number of enable inputs, examples of which can include a clock enable (Clk_en), and a scan enable (test_en) that activates the clock during scan testing of the circuit. FIG. 1 shows the generic block diagram of a typical CGC standard cell circuit that includes an active low latch 101, a two-input AND gate 102, and enable logic 103. The output of the CGC 100 is Clk, which is the gated clock pulse.
At lower voltages, the edge rate of Clk_in can become significantly degraded and eventually lead to functional failure in the CGC 100. FIG. 2 is an illustration of a more detailed view of a CGC 150 configured according to design of the CGC 100, and FIG. 3 illustrates a timing diagram of key nodes of the CGC 150 during some operations. FIG. 3 shows that the active low latch 101 includes, among other things, an inverter chain (i.e., the inverters 107 and 108) and a pull-down stack (i.e., the NMOS transistors 104 and 106). When the active low latch 101 is enabled (either from test_en or Clk_en signal) initially the pn1 node is set to logic 1 during the transparent phase of the latch 101. Under this condition the CGC 150 passes the input Clk_in signal to the output Clk. Initially the Clk_in is at logic 0, so the pn2 node is at logic 1. For a slow rising input Clk_in signal, the voltage at the internally buffered Clk_net node can rise quickly, even before Clk_in rises halfway to Vdd/2 (where Vdd is system power), thereby turning on the pull-down NFET 104 (FIG. 2) of the pn1 node. This is undesirable. It creates a race condition and provides a discharging path for the pn1 node until the input Clk_in signal is propagated to the output and shuts off the feedback pull-down NFET 105. As shown in FIG. 3, the pn1 node voltage can drop momentarily before being restored to logic 1. The drop in voltage at the pn1 node leads to functional failures at low voltage operation of the chip.
CGCs are not limited to using active low latches. For instance, FIG. 4 is an illustration of a conventional CGC 400 which employs an active high latch and an OR gate at the output. CGC 400 is, essentially, a dual of CGC 100. Potential functional failures can occur during slower Clk_in transitions in the active high-latch based CGC 200 of FIG. 400 when premature charging of the pn1 node occurs (as opposed to the premature discharging issue of CGC 100 of FIG. 1).
Prior art solutions to guard against the functional failure described above include over-designing the clock tree to maintain a good edge rate during low voltage operations or slower lots of the manufactured parts. However, over-designing the clock tree comes at a cost of burning more dynamic power and shorter battery life. Another solution is to upsize a CGC's output logic to quickly propagate the input clock signal to the output node. This approach is conventionally followed in the industry for general purpose clock gating, but it comes at a cost of increasing the area needed for the output logic, burning more dynamic power resulting from the increased area. Moreover, such upsizing of the output logic also increases setup time of enable logic, which is typically an important constraint for any high performance system, e.g., processors and DSP cores.

Systems and methods using improved clock gating cells


An antenna system for producing a millimeter wave beam having a Gaussian distribution uses a high power source and a partial mode converter operatively coupled to the source and reviving from the source a T.sub.m,n mode wave which might either be TE.sub.m,n or TM.sub.m,n'. The converter delivers a mixture of modes including the mode T.sub.m,n at a relative power rate of 70 to 85% and at a relative phase 0, and at least one of the following additional modes, namely T.sub.m,n-1 at a relative power rate of 10 to 20% and at relative phase .pi., and TE.sub.m,n+1 at a relative power rate of 10 to 20% and at relative phase .pi.. The mixture of modes is applied to a collimation reflector (3, 10), having a concentration point (5) constituting the antenna system outlet. The antenna system can convert any T.sub.m,n mode into a linearly polarized narrow beam of very high power (about 1 MW) and and of high frequencies above 100 GHz.

Such sources, which are called cyclotron resonance masers, for example gyrotrons, have successfully been used for plasma build-up, profile control and resonance heating in the field of thermonuclear fusion research at power levels in the MW-range. The oscillation of these sources is in axially symmetric modes TE.sub.On or in high asymmetric modes (TE.sub.mn) with m>>1.
As future fusion devices are planned to be larger and to operate at higher magnetic fields, sources must be developed for higher frequencies (above 100 GHz) and higher microwave power. For these applications, it would be desirable to dispose of an axisymmetric narrow pencil-like beam with well defined linear polarization, as for example a TEM.sub.OO Gaussian beam. In fact, this kind of beam is not only required for efficient electron cyclotron resonant heating of a plasma, but also for low-loss high power millimeter wave transmission.
From IEEE Transactions Microw. Th. Techn., Vol. NTT-26 No. 5, 1978, page 332 to 334, a mode transducing antenna is known, having a corrugation by which a TE.sub.On mode is converted into a linearily polarized beam. However, the microwave radiation issuing from such an antenna still presents considerable sidelobes which reduce the energy concentration in the main lobe and increase the losses of the system.
The main object of the present invention is thus to reduce the energy dissipated in the sidelobes and to provide an axisymmetric, narrow, Gaussian-like main lobe.
According to a particular application of the present invention, the antenna system provides for an output radiation of the linear TEM.sub.OO -mode type.
These objects are achieved according to the invention by the antenna system as defined in the attached claims.
The invention will now be described in greater detail by means of several embodiments and in relation to the attached drawings.

Antenna system producing a millimeter wave beam having a Gaussian-like distribution

European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom)


An organic light-emitting diode includes an anode on a substrate; a first hole transporting layer on the anode; a second hole transporting layer on the first hole transporting layer and corresponding to the red and green pixel areas; a first emitting material pattern of a first thickness on the second hole transporting layer and corresponding to the red pixel area; a second emitting material pattern of a second thickness on the second hole transporting layer and corresponding to the green pixel area; a third emitting material pattern of a third thickness on the first hole transporting layer and corresponding to the blue pixel area; an electron transporting layer on the first, second and third emitting material patterns; and a cathode on the electron transporting layer, wherein the second thickness is less than the first thickness and greater than the third thickness.

1. Field of the Disclosure
The present disclosure relates to an organic light-emitting diode, and more particularly, to an organic light-emitting diode capable of reducing the number of masks required in a fabrication process to thereby reduce a fabricating cost and simplify the fabrication process, and a method of fabricating the organic light-emitting diode.
2. Discussion of the Related Art
A cathode ray tube (CRT) has been used as a display for various electronics for a long time. However, recently, flat panel display devices, such as a plasma display panel (PDP), a liquid crystal display (LCD), and an organic light-emitting diode (OLED) display device, have been developed and widely used.
Among the above-mentioned flat panel display devices, the organic light-emitting diode display device can be fabricated as a lightweight, slim display since it is a self-luminous device requiring no backlight.
Also, the organic light-emitting diode display device has low consumption power, allows direct-current low-voltage driving, has a high response speed, is highly resistant to external impacts since the internal element is solid, and also has a wide operating temperature range.
Particularly, since the organic light-emitting diode display device can be fabricated with a simple fabrication process, it can be fabricated with a lower fabrication cost than a liquid crystal display device.
FIG. 1 is a circuit diagram showing the structure of a pixel of a conventional active matrix type organic light-emitting diode display device.
Referring to FIG. 1, a pixel of the active matrix type organic light-emitting diode display device includes a switching thin film transistor STr, a driving thin film transistor DTr, a storage capacitor StgC, and an organic light-emitting diode E.
Also, gate lines GL are formed in a first direction, data lines DL are formed in a second direction crossing the first direction, and a power line PL for supplying a voltage is formed to be spaced apart from a data line DL.
The switching thin film transistor STr is formed at a crossing of a data line DL and a gate line GL, and electrically connected to the driving thin film transistor DTr.
The driving thin film transistor DTr is electrically connected to the organic light-emitting diode E. That is, a first electrode of the organic light-emitting diode E corresponding to one terminal of the organic light-emitting diode E is connected to the drain electrode of the drain thin film transistor DTr, and a second electrode of the organic light-emitting diode E corresponding to the other terminal of the organic light-emitting diode E is connected to the ground. The power line PL transfers a supply voltage to the organic light-emitting diode E. Also, the storage capacitor StgC is formed between the gate electrode and source electrode of the driving thin film transistor DTr.
Accordingly, if a signal is applied through the gate line GL, the switching thin film transistor STr is turned on, a signal of the data line DL is transferred to the gate electrode of the driving thin film transistor DTr to turn on the driving thin film transistor DTr, so that light is emitted through the organic light-emitting diode E. If the driving thin film transistor DTr is turned on, a level of current flowing from the power line PL to the organic light-emitting diode E is decided so that the organic light-emitting diode E can implement a gray scale. Also, the storage capacitor StgC acts to maintain the gate voltage of the driving thin film transistor DTr constant when the switching thin film transistor STr is turned off, to thereby maintain the level of the current flowing through the organic thin film diode E constant until a next frame even when the switching thin film transistor STr is turned off.
As shown in FIG. 2, the organic light emitting diode E includes an anode 10 on which red, green, and blue pixel areas Rp, Gp, and Bp are defined, a hole transporting layer 12, an emitting material layer consisting of a red organic light-emitting pattern 14, a green organic light-emitting pattern 16, and a blue organic light-emitting pattern 18, an electron transporting layer 20, and a cathode 22. Although not shown in FIG. 2, a hole injection layer may be disposed between the anode 10 and the hole transporting layer 12, and an electron injection layer may be disposed between the cathode 22 and the electron transporting layer 20
In the organic light-emitting diode E, if voltages are applied to the anode 10 and the cathode 22, holes and electrons are transferred to the emitting material layer, and coupled with each other in the emitting material layer to thereby emit light. However, the conventional organic light-emitting diode has limitations in light output efficiency and color properties.

Organic light-emitting diode and method of fabricating the same


An extendable and retractable golf club holding rack, which is designed to be mounted in a stationary position in the ground. In the retracted position, a holding rack is set within an outer wall of an outer housing. A latching mechanism maintains the holding rack inside the outer housing. Upon release of the latching mechanism, the holding rack extends via a spring mechanism above the outer housing and above ground level. The top portion of the holding rack has elongated slotted openings for receiving golf clubs. After use, the holding rack is pushed in a downward motion, which allows the latching mechanism to re-engage, maintaining the holding rack in the retracted position within the outer housing.

This invention relates primarily to a golf club holding rack, which is enclosed in an outer housing assembly and when in use is placed in the ground with only the top surface uncovered. The golf club holding rack extends from the outer housing assembly and provides a means for supporting and securely retaining single or multiple golf clubs in the vertical position for ease of access. The golf club holding rack is then retractable back into the outer housing assembly after the user is finished using the holding rack.


The present disclosure provides a medical device package including a container for receiving a medical device and a self-puncturabie port.

1. Technical Field
The present disclosure relates generally to packaging for medical devices, and more particularly, to a package including a container having an area configured and dimensioned for receiving a medical device and a self-puncturable port including an integral puncturing structure, for permitting the passage of at least one agent between the outside of the container and the area configured and dimensioned for receiving the medical device.
2. Background of Related Art
Combination medical devices, i.e., medical devices coated with drugs or other bioactive agents, have become more prevalent commercially in recent years. There are many of these combination medical devices presently available however medical professionals are limited to using these devices in the specific combinations, dosages and strengths produced, without flexibility to after the product as needed for their respective patients. As a result, medical professionals have been known to independently combine a selected medical device with one of the many agents presently available. Since this practice is normally conducted immediately prior to use of the medical device, the medical professional is required to handle the medical device outside of the packaging, while simultaneously attempting to apply the agent using a syringe or other sharps device.
This activity not only increases the possibility of contamination of the medical device prior to coming in contact with the patient, but also increases the likelihood of a medical professional becoming injured by the sharp device while attempting to combine the agent with the device.
It would be desirable to provide a package configured for receiving a medical device, having a safe, self-puncturable port for permitting the passage of an agent between the outside of the package and the medical device contained therein, without exposing the medical professional to the possibility of a needle stick and yet minimize the likelihood of contaminating the medical device.

Medical device package including self-puncturable port


A floating wave absorber is composed of a main wave-absorber body formed by a construction body floating on the surface of water, wires of which each one end is connected to an end portion of the main wave-absorber body, a first traction member of which one end is connected to the other bound end portion of each wire and the other end is fixed to an anchor, and a second traction member of which one end is connected to the bottom of the main wave-absorber body and fixed to another anchor. The main wave-absorber body is floated on the water according to a so-called "kite flying" principle and absorbs waves. Thus, the wave absorber is more advantageous in economic performance and free from washing-away by abnormally high waves in a typhoon, etc., and can be installed quickly and absorb waves effectively.

Means known in the prior art to attenuate or absorb waves include fixed type breakwaters and mounting types wave absorbing blocks. When the former fixed type breakwater is constructed, a large rubble-mound, etc. is installed at the bottom of the water, on which a concrete breakwater has to be constructed. Therefore, a tremendous amount of materials is needed while the progress of the construction work greatly depends on weather conditions. Hence, there is a problem that much cost and time are spent.
To the contrary, a mounting type wave absorber block is prefabricated somewhere else without being affected by weather, etc., and then mounted in the water. Therefore, said type is more advantageous than the fixed type breakwater in terms of cost and time.
However, even with said conventional mounting type wave absorber blocks, it has to be estimated according to predicted conditions of waves how many wave absorber blocks are to be installed in a predetermined region. Consequently, it often occurs that an excess number of wave absorber blocks is counted. Furthermore, if the blocks encounter abnormally high waves due to a typhoon in a repeated manner, the wave absorber blocks are sometimes lost because of washing-away demanding to supplement the blocks. Hence, also with the mounting type the wave absorber blocks, there is a problem that maintenance cost as well as mounting cost are high.


A charged particle beam lithography machine for exposing a target exposure surface by using a plurality of charged particle beams. The machine includes a charged particle source to emit a charged particle beam, an aperture substrate which has a plurality of apertures to divide the charged particle beam from the charged particle source into a plurality of charged particle beams, a plurality of electron optical systems which have the apertures as pupils, a charged particle beam optical system which projects, to the target exposure surface, charged particle source images formed by the plurality of electron optical systems, a unit adapted to set the apertures of the aperture substrate to an aperture for exposure and an aperture for aberration measurement to make the plurality of charged particle beams strike the charged particle beam optical system at different incident angles, and a detecting unit adapted to detect a position where the plurality of charged particle beams, which have passed through the aperture for aberration measurement, form images on an image surface of the charged particle beam optical system.

Conventional electron beam lithography machines, include machines of a point beam type, which use a spot-shaped beam, and machines of a variable rectangular beam type, which use a beam having a rectangular section with a variable size.
An electron beam lithography machine of a point beam type performs drawing by using a single electron beam. Hence, this machine has a low throughput and is used only for research and development. The throughput of an electron beam lithography machine of a variable rectangular beam type is higher than that of a point beam type by one or two orders of magnitude. However, this type also basically executes drawing by using a single electron beam, so there is still a problem of throughput in exposing a pattern in which fine patterns of about 0.1 μm are integrated at a high density.
As a machine to solve this problem, there is an electron beam lithography machine of a stencil mask type. In this machine, a pattern to be drawn is formed as pattern conduction pores in a stencil mask. Then, the pattern to be drawn is transferred to the sample surface through a reduced electron optical system by irradiating the stencil mask with an electron beam. As another method, a multi-electron beam lithography machine is used. A substrate having a plurality of apertures is irradiated with an electron beam to irradiate a sample surface with a plurality of electron beams from the plurality of apertures through a reduced electron optical system. The sample surface is scanned by deflecting the plurality of electron beams. The plurality of electron beams are individually turned on/off in accordance with the pattern to be drawn, thereby drawing the pattern. In all methods described above, the throughput can be improved because they are to be exposed at once, i.e., the exposure area is wider than before.
Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 9-2145708 discusses a sequence controller which sends an exposure control file stored in a memory to a deflection control circuit. In the deflection control circuit, based on position data in the exposure control file that was transmitted, a deflection control signal, a focus control signal, and a non-point correction signal are transmitted to a deflector, a dynamic focus coil, and a dynamic sting coil synchronized with a blanking control circuit, respectively, and the position of plural light source images is controlled on a wafer.

Aberration measuring apparatus for charged particle beam optical system, charged particle beam lithography machine having the aberration measuring apparatus, and device fabrication method using the apparatus