A battery having a housing assembled from multiple parts, of which one housing part is implemented like a vessel having an initially open front side and the other housing part is a closure part, which closes the vessel-like housing part on its initially open front side, and having at least one first and at least one second electrode, each of which is formed by a planar material, of which the first electrode is electrically connected to an electrically conductive housing part of the battery, while the second electrode is electrically connected to an electrically conductive contact, which is electrically insulated from the remaining housing, the battery comprising a molded part which is provided with at least one first recess for receiving and positioning at least one section of the first electrode or the first electrodes at a time.

The present invention relates to a galvanic cell, also referred to as a battery in the following, which is particularly suitable for use in electromedical implants such as pacemakers, defibrillators and the like.
Special implants of this type place high demands on a battery, since the power supply of the implant is typically only provided by the battery. If the battery is exhausted or also in case of a technical problem with the battery, the entire implant must typically be replaced. This typically requires surgery and a hospital stay. Therefore, high demands are placed both on the energy density of the galvanic cell and also on its reliability.
Typically, hermetically sealed galvanic cells of high energy and power density are used as batteries for implants such as pacemakers or defibrillators. Galvanic cells of this type are especially suitable for use in implantable medical devices. Corresponding batteries are, for example, described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,587,258 and DE 44 38 784. The manifold possibilities for implementing a corresponding battery result, for example, from the publication of Boone B. Owens (editor) "Batteries for Implantable Biomedical Devices" Plenum Press, New York and London, 1986 and from D. Linden, T. B. Redy "Handbook of Batteries" McGraw-Hill Professional Publishing, New York 2001.
Known batteries have a housing which is typically first open and is hermetically sealed after completion of the battery, of which, for example, one housing part may first be implemented as a vessel having an initially open front side, while the other housing part is a closure part which finally hermetically seals the vessel-like housing part on its initially open front side.
Two types of electrodes are positioned in such a housing, namely anodes and cathodes, which are each formed by planar material and are layered into a stack in one embodiment variation. The first type of electrode is frequently electrically connected to an electrically conductive housing part of the battery, while the second type of electrode is electrically connected to an electrically conductive contact which is electrically insulated from the remaining housing. This contact is frequently a component of a housing bushing, which may also be a filter bushing. An image of a corresponding battery known from the related art is founding FIG. 1.
The present invention is based on the aspect of providing a battery optimized in regard to energy density and reliability, which is also to be produced as favorably as possible.


A semiconductor device, includes: a wiring substrate having a wiring pattern on a front surface thereof; a first semiconductor chip mounted on the front surface of the wiring substrate; a first heat radiator having a first recess housing the first semiconductor chip and making contact with the front surface of the wiring substrate and the first semiconductor chip directly or with a first insulation layer; a second heat radiator making contact with a rear surface of the wiring substrate directly or with a second insulation layer; and a first fixing member passing through the first heat radiator, the wiring substrate, and the second heat radiator, and pressing the first heat radiator and the second heat radiator to the wiring substrate.

1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a semiconductor device including a wiring substrate having a semiconductor chip mounted thereto, and a heat radiator. In particular, the invention relates to a semiconductor device having high heat radiation performance and high reliability.
2. Related Art
Semiconductor chips, such as drivers for display panels, need to secure a sufficient heat radiation ability in being mounted on wiring substrates due to the high heat value. For example, a technique for enhancing heat radiation performance is disclosed in JP-A-2002-124607 (19 to 21 paragraphs and FIG. 2), in which the upper surface of a semiconductor chip is adhesively bonded to a metallic chassis with a heat radiation sheet interposed therebetween, and a heat radiator is fixed to the rear surface of a flexible substrate in a semiconductor device including the flexible substrate having a semiconductor chip mounted on its surface.
In the technique disclosed in JP-A-2002-124607, all most all forces applied either the semiconductor chip or the metallic chassis are directed to a connected portion between the upper surface of the semiconductor chip and the metallic chassis. As a result, a connected portion between the semiconductor chip and the wiring substrate may be peeled off.
In order to solve the problem, there is also a method in which the heat radiator positioned on the surface of the wiring substrate is adhesively bonded to the surface of the wiring substrate. In this case, however, a force applied either the heat radiator or the wiring substrate in the face direction is directed to wiring lines formed on the surface of the wiring substrate. As a result, the wiring lines may be peeled off from the base of the wiring substrate.
In this manner, it is difficult to satisfy both the heat radiation performance and the reliability.


The present invention discloses a decorative film comprising a colored polymer film layer and a micro/nano-structure layer on a surface of the colored polymer film layer, wherein the micro/nano-structure layer comprises a plurality of colored polymer micro/nano-structures. Due to the colored polymer film layer and the plurality of colored polymer micro/nano-structures, a color with an optical effect can be displayed, the color modulation is reduced and the process is simplified.

Decorative films are often used in the decoration of the surface of various articles to embellish the surface of the decorated objects. Especially in the electronic product and home appliance industries, attempts are made for technological innovation and functional innovation to meet the development trend of environmental protection, energy conservation and differentiation. Many designers have turned their attention to the design of appearance.
For example, a decorative film has been proposed that includes a coloring layer, a reflective layer, and a cylindrical lens layer stacked in this order. The decorative film achieves an ideal color by modulating color of the coloring layer and the reflective layer, and realizes an optical effect such as a light column by the cylindrical lens layer, so that the color of the decorative film is not monotonous and the effect is vivid, which is in line with the current popular trend. However, the color of the decorative film is formed by modulating color of the coloring layer and the reflective layer, which involves a complicated process.
In view of this, the present invention aims to solve the existing technical problems by improving the decorative film.

Shine Optoelectronics (Kunshan) Co., Ltd.


A heat exchanger for an aircraft engine includes: a body including a plate-like first member and a plate-like second member that are stacked in a thickness direction of the first and second members and joined together, and a channel which is defined in the body and in which the cooling target fluid flows; and a corrugated fin plate disposed in the channel in the body. The body is bent along a curved surface to which the heat exchanger is attached. A plurality of heat dissipation fins stand on an outer surface of at least one of the first member or the second member.

Patent Document 1 describes a heat exchanger attached to a gas turbine engine for an aircraft and cooling fluid to be cooled, which will be hereinafter referred to as cooling target fluid, such as lubricating oil of the engine. The heat exchanger has an arcuate shape attached to, and extending along, for example, the inner peripheral surface of a fan casing of the gas turbine engine, and is exposed to an airflow passing through the gas turbine engine. In the arcuate heat exchanger, a plurality of channels in which cooling target fluid flows are arranged side by side along the airflow. A large number of heat dissipation fins stand on the outer surface of the heat exchanger. An inflow header for allowing cooling target fluid to flow into the inside channels and an outflow header for allowing cooling target fluid to flow out of the inside channels are attached to both ends of the arcuate heat exchanger.
Such an arcuate heat exchanger advantageously has a miniaturized size and a reduced resistance of an airflow flowing in a gas turbine engine.


A microprocessor includes a barrel shifter, a rewrite section, and a control section. The barrel shifter serves as a shift unit which is controlled by a microprogram and operated by microinstructions for performing extraction, insertion, and comparison of consecutive bit strings in word data. The rewrite section directly rewrites output data from the barrel shifter into its input. The control section controls the rewrite section by using the microprogram.

The present invention relates to a microprocessor and, more particularly, to a technique for performing high-speed processing of instructions (to be referred to as bit field operation instructions hereinafter) to perform extraction, insertion, and comparison of consecutive bit strings (to be referred to as bit fields hereinafter) in word data.
A microprocessor has bit field operation instructions, as macro instructions, to perform extraction, insertion, and comparison of bit fields. In a conventional system, bit field operation instructions are executed by operating a barrel shifter using a microprogram. FIG. 4 shows a conventional barrel shifter. Referring to FIG. 4, reference numeral 101 denotes a data bus in a microprocessor; 102 and 103, registers (to be respectively referred to as an SFT0 and an SFT1 hereinafter) for holding input data; 104, a selector (to be referred to as a BSEL hereinafter) as a main body of the barrel shifter; 105, a register (to be referred to as an SFTOUT hereinafter) for holding output data from the barrel shifter; 106, a control section of the barrel shifter; 107, a microinstruction latch (to be referred to as an MI hereinafter) for storing microinstructions to operate the control section 106; 108, a register (to be referred to as an SFTOP hereinafter) for holding a shift amount to be supplied to the barrel shifter; 109, a register (to be referred to as an SFTOPR hereinafter) for holding various types of shift operations (e.g., "logic left shift", "logic right shift", "arithmetic left shift", "arithmetic right shift", "left rotate", and "right rotate"); 110, select information (to be referred to as an SFTSL hereinafter) to be generated for the BSEL 1-4 in accordance with values held in the SFTOP 108 and the SFTOPR 109; and 111 and 112, strobe signals (to be respectively referred to as an SFT0WR and an SFT1WR hereinafter) used to latch the value of the data bus 101 in the SFT0 102 and the SFT1 103.
When a shift operation is to be performed in the barrel shifter in FIG. 4, values are respectively set in the SFT0 102, the SFT1 103, the SFTOP 108, and the SFTOPR 109, and data is read out from the SFTOUT 105 at a predetermined timing by using a microprogram. FIG. 5 shows a microprogram used to perform a shift instruction in the barrel shifter in FIG. 4. Referring to FIG. 5, the following operations are performed in the respective steps:
First step: setting a shift amount COUNT in the SFTOP 108, and setting a shift type in the SFTOPR 109 PA1 Second step: setting data SRC (to be shifted) in the SFT0 102 and the SFT1 103 PA1 Third step: extracting a shift result from the SFTOUT 105, storing it in a destination DST, and terminating the microprogram
Referring to FIG. 5, "SFTOPR" is a control instruction to set a value in the SETOPR 109 shown in FIG. 4. More specifically, "SFTOPR" includes: SHL . . . logic left shift; SHR . . . logic right shift; SAL . . . arithmetic left shift; SAR . . .arithmetic right shift; ROL . . . left rotate; and ROR . . . right rotate.
In addition, referring to FIG. 5, "END" represents the end of a microprogram, and "="represents transfer of data to a register. In this case, "SFTIN"in the second step is a virtual register for indirectly designating the SFT0 102 and the SFT1 103. The value of the data SRC (to be shifted) is stored in the SFT0 102 and the SFT1 103 in accordance with the value of the SFTOPR 109, as shown in FIG. 7. Note that in the microprogram, values can be independently set in the SFT0 102 and the SFT1 103. In this case, "SFT0" and SFT1" are to be described in the microprogram in place of "SFTIN".
FIG. 6 is a timing chart of the barrel shifter in the execution of the microprogram shown in FIG. 5. Signal names in FIG. 6 correspond to signal names in FIG. 4, although "CLOCK", "SFTUOP", and "SFTDIR" are not shown in FIG. 4. "CLOCK" indicates a clock. "SFTUOP" is the absolute value of "SFTOP". If the value of "SFTOP" is negative, it indicates a shift direction (left or right) opposite to a direction designated by "SFTOPR". "SFTDIR" indicates a final shift direction determined by the signs of "SFTOPR" and "SFTOP". In this conventional system, the positive/negative sign of "SFTOP" influences a shift direction. Otherwise, "SFTDIR" is directly determined by "SFTOPR", and "SFTUOP" and "SFTOP" are set to be the same value. However, such a difference is not an essential matter. Referring to FIG. 4, the BSEL 104 regards the SFT0 102 and the SFT1 103 as linked data of two words (e.g., 64 bits), extracts consecutive one-word data (e.g., 32 bits) from a specific bit position in the two-word data, and stores it in the SFTOUT 105. This one-word data is determined in accordance with the values of "SFTUOP" and "SFTDIR", as shown in FIG. 8.
Bit field operation instructions can be performed by the above-described barrel shifter. Three types of operations, i.e., "extract", "insert", and "compare", can be considered as bit field operations. In this case, insertion of a bit field will be considered as an example. Bit field insertion is an operation of inserting data of consecutive several bits (LEN bits) extracted from one-word data SRC in a range of consecutive LEN bits starting from a given bit position (bit BIT) of another one-word data DST. Assume, in this case, that lower LEN bit data is extracted from the data SRC to be inserted in the data DST. In this case, insertion of a bit field can be performed by the barrel shifter in accordance with a procedure shown in FIG. 9. FIG. 10 shows a microprogram which describes this procedure. FIG. 11 is a timing chart of the execution of the microprogram. Referring to FIG. 11, the value of "SFTOUT", which is changed three times, is read out in the minimum procedure. This is the minimum procedure for inserting a bit field. That is, the minimum procedure for bit field insertion using the conventional barrel shifter has 6 steps (6 clocks), as shown in FIG. 10.
As described above, bit field insertion using the conventional barrel requires at least 6 clocks. In practice, however, a microprogram is required to perform exception detection and the like as well as an operation of a barrel shifter. For this reason, it is difficult to perform bit field insertion using only 6 clocks. In addition, with recent applications to a postscript operation of a microprocessor and a laser printer, bit field operation instructions are required to be executed at higher speed. High-speed bit field operations cannot be performed by using the conventional barrel shifter.

Microprocessor having barrel shifter and direct path for directly rewriting output data of barrel shifter to its input


A moisture sensing system for use with a bale loading vehicle. The moisture sensing system includes one or more probes that are inserted into the center of a hay bale or other agricultural product that obtain moisture readings of the product. The moisture readings are stored in memory, and may be printed in a report of moistures over a certain period of time, in a certain location, in a certain lot number, in a certain truckload, or other grouping of bales.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to moisture sensors, and more particularly relates to moisture sensors mounted on vehicles for moving agricultural products.
2. Background Information
Agricultural products such as hay, alfalfa, grass, straw, cotton, and other fibrous materials are packed into bales of various shapes during part of their processing. The bales can be large cylindrical bales, small rectangular bales, or large rectangular bales. These agricultural products will be referred to as hay bales, but may include any type of baled agricultural product. The bales are typically stacked either side-by-side or in a multi-layer configuration. The bales may be covered by plastic or placed under a covering or left out in the open. The moisture content of the agricultural product can be a problem with such baled products. If the moisture content is too high, the wet areas of the bale can produce heat, and the heat can be sufficient to start a fire therein. When a bale catches fire, it can cause neighboring bales to catch fire and the entire haystack, along with the barn or shed it is in, can be destroyed by fire. This is a problem for people who grow such agricultural products, transport, store, buy, and insure them.
Such fires usually occur within six weeks of baling, but may occur in hay several years old. Fire can occur in loose hay and all types of bales or stacks. Fires can occur in hay stored inside or outside. The fires are caused by the growth of microorganisms in the hay. As a microorganism feeds and multiplies, they generate heat. If the moisture content of the hay is high enough, this allows the microorganisms to grow. If the moisture content is in the center of the bale, then heat begins to be produced, which is slow to dissipate from the center of a large bale. Certain bacteria grow well in hot conditions. These are called thermophilic (heat loving) bacteria. When microorganisms cause an elevated temperature, the presence of thermophilic bacteria allows them to begin growing in the more intense temperatures and they can then boost temperatures to a higher level. At these higher temperatures, carbon in the hay combines readily with oxygen and the heated hay can self ignite in the presence of air. This process causes spontaneous combustion of the hay.
Therefore, it is important to know the moisture content of the hay, especially in the center. There are numerous moisture sensors in the prior art, such as moisture probes that are inserted by hand into a hay bale, or which are mounted on the hay baler itself. The hay baler mounted moisture sensors have a sensor on the side of a chute down which the hay bale travels. As the hay bale travels down the chute, the moisture sensor determines the moisture of the hay on the exterior of the bale. However, it does not sense the moisture of the hay in the interior of the bale. After baling, the bale may gradually dry over a period of time.
One step in the operation that would make the most difference in preventing hay fires is the step of loading, transporting, or stacking hay bales. If at this step the moisture content in the interior of a hay bale could be sensed, bales that have moist centers could be segregated and dealt with. This would have the advantage of eliminating hay fires and thus eliminating the loss of the agricultural product as well as the barn or structure that it is enclosed within.
This would also be of benefit to insurance companies. If the insurance company knew the moisture content of a group of bales, the insurance company could insure the agricultural product at a lower price, thus saving the grower money in premiums.
The ideal time to take the moisture sensing step is when a bale loading vehicle is moving the bale from one place to another, as the bales are loaded into a truck, stacked in a barn, or moved from the field to a shed. In addition to sensing the moisture while a bale is being moved, such a moisture sensing vehicle could test the moisture of bales merely by driving up to the bale and taking a moisture reading.
What is missing in the prior art and therefore what is needed, is a moisture sensing system that is operated in conjunction with a bale lifting vehicle. Such a moisture sensing system would be able to sense the moisture of an interior of a hay bale, preferably at more than one point. It would also have a moisture readout that is visible to the vehicle's operator, so that moisture readings could be taken and evaluated without the operator leaving the seat of the vehicle. Ideally such a system would have a way to record moisture and enter information about bale numbers, lot numbers, bale locations, barn numbers, and other information related to identifying such bales. Such a device would also have the ability to store such information in memory, and print it out when a report was necessary. The report could be utilized by the farmer to obtain better insurance rates, by the shipper to know that the shipping container would not be destroyed by fire, by transporters to ensure that their equipment is not at risk by fire, and by the grower to verify that the hay is not in danger of burning. They hay purchaser would also benefit by this report, whether generated by the farmer or by the purchaser.


A plant cultivating pot is disclosed. The pot has top and bottom wall spaced apart by a sidewall or panel. The cross-section of the top is larger than the bottom wall so that the sidewall is inwardly sloped from the bottom wall to the top. Openings in the sidewall provide points for planting a plant in media for supporting plant growth from within the interior volume of the body of the pot. The increasing cross-section of the pot from the top to the bottom maximizes exposure of each plant to sunlight. A frusto-pyramidal shaped, non-woven geotextile material provides an optimal shape and material for the body of the pot for growing strawberries.

With the increasing interest in gardening but with a limited amount of time and space to dedicate to it, container gardens have become very popular. Coincidentally, growing your own vegetables has become trendy. Traditional gardening requires time to till, prepare, plant, and nurture soil that may not contribute directly to the overall success of a plant. Traditional gardening also requires horizontal space that may not be available and the added time required to dig up the harvest. The inefficiencies of traditional gardening are also becoming more difficult to justify. For example, a large amount of soil is watered and fertilized that may not necessarily contribute to the growth and success of a plant. Controlling the growing environment and characteristics of a traditional garden, such as aeration, drainage, heat dissipation, etc., also highlights some of the added inefficiencies of traditional horizontal gardening. Direct exposure to sunlight can also be blocked by larger plants in traditional horizontal gardening. And, in limited planting spaces, unwanted shading and weeding is often a concern.


Aspects described herein include a method of fabricating an optical component. The method comprises electrically coupling different laser channels of a laser die to different electrical leads, testing a respective optical coupling of each of the different laser channels, optically aligning an optical fiber with a first laser channel of the different laser channels having the greatest optical coupling, and designating a second laser channel of the different laser channels as a heater element for the first laser channel.

Optimal performance of semiconductor-based lasers occurs within a limited temperature range. For example, the laser efficiency (e.g., an emitted optical power for an electrical bias power) may be reduced at temperatures above the range, and spectral performance can degrade at temperatures below the range due to the emergence of out-of-band parasitic lasing modes.
To facilitate understanding, identical reference numerals have been used, where possible, to designate identical elements that are common to the figures. It is contemplated that elements disclosed in one embodiment may be beneficially used in other embodiments without specific recitation.

Package self-heating using multi-channel laser


The system for protecting a building (10,100) includes a rigid flat structure (11,101) on which the building (10,100) rests; a sunken garage (12,110) below ground level (15); vertical telescopic hydraulic jacks (30-33,102,103) extending from the bottom of the sunken garage (12,110) for supporting the flat structure (11,101) at any of a number of positions relative to ground level (15); a device for connecting electrical and telephone lines including at least one flexible cable (70) suspended in the sunken garage (12,110) so as to have a U-shaped bend, at least one pulley (71) arranged at the U-shaped bend and by which the at least one flexible cable (70) passes and at least one traction spring (73) connected to the at least one pulley (71) to act on the at least one flexible cable (70); a device for connecting water supply pipes including at least one flexible tube (80) suspended in the sunken garage (12,110) so as to have a U-shaped bend; and a device for providing drainage including a vertical pipe (91) arranged in the sunken garage (12,110) or near the sunken garage and having fixed couplers (92,93,94) arranged at respective heights relative to ground level corresponding to the allowed positions of the building, at least one telescopic connector (25) connected to at least one horizontal branch pipe (24) in the building and at least one manual or automatic control device (26) for operating the at least one telescopic connector (25).

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention concerns a system for protecting buildings where environmental or other needs make this necessary.
2. Prior Art
The greatest problems that our planet has to face, and against which man is almost powerless, are created by natural catastrophies such as hurricanes, flooding, fires, earthquakes.
Other problems that are hard to solve are those caused by criminals and by vandals and these are steadily increasing by evolution both of social customs and by the tactics adopted by those committing such crimes. Further problems still are created by particularly adverse climatic conditions such as exceptional temperatures. As regards the disasters caused by natural calamities the cost of remedying them has now risen as high as thousands of billions of dollars.
It is another object of the present invention to make a contribution towards preventing the above-described type of damage at least for comparatively smaller buildings as will be explained below.
The U.S. Pat. No. 2,653,468 discloses a structure for a building designed especially to provide protection against bombardment.
This protection is obtained by a box-type structure made in the ground, open at the top, able to contain the building constructed on a continuous rigid flat structure supported by a central hydraulic jack, situated in the bottom of the box, by means of which the building can be stood at ground level or be sunk entirely inside the box.
Connection between services inside the box and external branch lines for electricity, telephone, water and drainage essentially consist of rigid pipes joined by elbow joints nearly all of which extend substantially below the building.
Said box can be closed, when the building has been lowered inside it, by a very thick covering slab able to protect the building from bombardment. The above structure has considerable drawbacks, mainly in the oversized central hydraulic jack and the heavy structure of the box especially the covering slab, reflected in the cost of the construction and in its operation because of the complexity of the devices for these purposes.
Connections for electricity, phone, water, drainage by piping with elbow joints are highly complex and present problems of maintenance.
Material will inevitably accumulate at all elbow joints of pipes for fluids.
All connections for electricity and telephone show weak points likely to cause breakdowns, these too at the elbow joints in these connections.
Such problems are increased because about ten articulated joints are needed for each connection. It is well-known that articulations constitute weak points wherever moving parts are joined.

System for protecting a building, especially from natural disasters, theft and vandalism


A new lettuce variety designated Icon is described. Icon is an iceberg lettuce variety exhibiting stability and uniformity. Icon seeds are deposited with the American Type Culture Collection and have ATCC deposit number PTA-4011.

This invention relates to the field of plant breeding. In particular, this invention relates to a new lettuce, Lactuca saliva, variety, Icon.
Lettuce is an increasingly popular crop. Worldwide lettuce consumption continues to increase. As a result of this demand, there is a continued need for new lettuce varieties. In particular, there is a need for improved iceberg lettuce varieties that exhibit vigorous growth, increased weight and yield.
In order to meet these needs, the present invention is directed to an improved iceberg lettuce variety that exhibits vigorous growth, increased weight and yield. In particular, the present invention is directed to lettuce, Lactuca sativa, seed designated as Icon having ATCC Accession Number PTA-401 1. The present invention is further directed to a lettuce, Lactuca sativa plant produced by growing Icon lettuce seed having ATCC Accession Number PTA-4011. The present invention is further directed to a Lactuca sativa plant having all the physiological and morphological characteristics of a Lactuca sativa plant produced by growing Icon lettuce seed having ATCC Accession Number PTA-4011. The present invention is further directed to an F1 hybrid lettuce, Lactuca sativa plant having Icon as a parent wherein Icon is grown from Icon lettuce seed having ATCC Accession Number PTA-4011.
The present invention is further directed to pollen and ovules isolated from Icon lettuce plants. The present invention is further directed to tissue culture of Icon lettuce plants.
The present invention is further directed to a method of selecting lettuce plants comprising a) growing Icon lettuce plants wherein the Icon plants are grown from lettuce seed having ATCC Accession Number PTA-4011 and b) selecting a progeny plant from step a) wherein the progeny plant is phenotypically distinguishable from the parent plant. The present invention is further directed to lettuce plants and seeds produced by the lettuce plants wherein the lettuce plants are isolated by the selection method of the invention.
The present invention is further directed to a method of breeding lettuce plants comprising crossing a lettuce plant with a plant grown from Icon lettuce seed having ATCC Accession Number PTA-40 11. The present invention is further directed to lettuce plants and seeds produced therefrom where the lettuce plant is isolated by the breeding method of the invention.


Disclosed herein is a condenser connector for a vehicle, in which a condenser is installed at a position which is nearest or virtually nearest to a noise source, thus effectively eliminating or reducing noise. The condenser connector includes a housing having an insertion part. One end of a terminal is connected to a wire, and the other end thereof is fitted into and secured to one end of the insertion part. A holder is fitted into and secured to the other end of the insertion part. A condenser has a contact terminal which is in contact with the terminal, and is mounted to the holder.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates, in general, to condenser connectors for vehicles that can remove or reduce vehicular noise.
2. Description of the Related Art
Generally, a vehicle is provided with a wire harness and a connector to connect power supplied by a battery to various kinds of electric components, for example, an electric component of an engine for the starting and ignition of the engine and an electric component for illumination.
As shown in FIG. 6, a conventional connector 10 includes a male housing 21, a female housing 31, and terminals 24 and 34. A plurality of insertion parts 23 is formed in the male housing 21. The female housing 31 has a structure corresponding to the male housing 21 and is inserted into the male housing 21, with a plurality of insertion parts 33 formed in the female housing 31. The terminals 24 and 34 are inserted into the insertion parts 23 of the male housing 21 and the insertion parts 33 of the female housing 31. That is, in the state where the terminals 24 and 34 are connected, respectively, to wires 25 and 35, the terminals 24 and 34 are inserted into the insertion parts 23 and 33 formed in the male housing 21 and the female housing 31, and thereafter, the female housing 31 is fitted into the male housing 21. Thereby, the wires 25 and 35 are electrically connected to each other.
Further, an engine condenser has been used as the electric component of an engine of a vehicle to eliminate or reduce vehicular noise. However, the conventional engine condenser is problematic in that there are many restrictions on the layout of a vehicle when the engine condenser is used, and the noise eliminating performance of the engine condenser is insufficient.


An amplifier circuit including a first transistor and a biasing circuit. The biasing circuit includes a process compensation circuit. The biasing circuit being coupled to a gate of the first transistor. A method for biasing an amplifier circuit is also included.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to power amplifier circuits, and more particularly, to methods and systems providing and controlling bias voltage to a power amplifier circuit to compensate for the effects of process and temperature induced variations.
2. Description of the Related Art
Portable transmitting devices are becoming more and more common, led first by the popularity of cellular telephones and increasingly by wireless networking products that embody standards such as Bluetooth and 802.11. High volume integrated circuits intended for consumer use promote robust competition and a continuous drive to lower manufacturing costs. Presently, these needs are best met for wireless products by fully integrated transceivers in CMOS technology. Furthermore, architectures favoring simplicity and small size are often more economical than elaborate architectures with higher performance. These principles are applied in the present invention
Unfortunately, transmitters in fully integrated transceiver suffer output power drift due to manufacturing process variations of the amplification circuits (e.g., transistors, resistors, etc.). Transmitters in fully integrated transceivers can also drift due to temperature changes in varying environments and over time as the transmitter generates heat. These variations can cause manufacturing yield loss and/or variable link performance, all undesirable effects. In view of the foregoing, what is needed is a system and method for dynamically compensating for the effects of drift caused by thermal and process variations.

Methods and systems for biasing a power amplifier


A system for controlling communications among a computer processing unit and a plurality of peripheral devices which are arrayed in operative connection with a plurality of external buses. The system comprises a bus control circuit for effecting operative routing of address information regarding a respective peripheral device from the computer processing unit to an appropriate external bus, the respective peripheral device being in operative connection with the appropriate external bus. The bus control circuit also effects operative routing of data information from the respective peripheral device to another of the plurality of peripheral devices or to the computer processing unit according to the address information. The system further comprises a plurality of buffers for establishing operative interfaces between the system and each of the plurality of external buses and an internal bus for facilitating communications among the plurality of buffers, the bus control circuit, and the computer processing unit. The bus control circuit enables operative interconnections to the internal bus by the plurality of buffers and the computer processing unit and includes an information storage unit for retaining stored routing information representing all operative interconnections which can operatively occur, the bus control circuit effecting such enabling according to the stored routing information.

The present invention is a system for controlling communications among a computer processing unit and a plurality of peripheral devices, which peripheral devices are arrayed in operative connection with a plurality of external buses. Specifically, the present invention provides an internal bus routing controller that generates buffer control signals in order to correctly route all possible transfers between the plurality of buses and the computer processing unit on the internal bus provided.
Prior art designs generally have used variations of a bus-central array for a plurality of external buses. Such a bus-central configuration requires that all transfers cross a central bus, with transceivers operatively attached to the central bus for operative connection of other buses to the computer processing unit through the central bus.
There are significant shortcomings associated with such a bus-central design. Principal among the shortcomings is the unsuitability of such a bus-central design for single-chip integration of a computer processing system such as is contemplated by the present invention.
Further, a bus-central design involves increased board trace lengths for all buses because all buses require additional bus runs to be routed to the central bus. Such additional bus runs, in addition to occupying board space ("real estate", in industry parlance) and thereby mitigating against miniaturization of a computer processing system, also provide a greater susceptibility to noise and a greater propensity for electromagnetic signal generation.
Still further, employment of a bus-central design inherently includes in every bus in the bus array the capacitance presented by the central bus. This relatively large capacitance has the detrimental effect of slowing down signal propagation throughout the entire bus array, thereby mitigating against high-speed operation by any peripheral or other component associated with the bus array.

System for controlling communications among a computer processing unit and a plurality of peripheral devices


A game apparatus provided with a touch panel that a player can use to enter an instruction by touching a touch panel with a stick or a finger. A touch panel image, including multiple button switch images, is displayed on the touch panel, and the player can enter a desired instruction by touching a button switch image associated with the desired instruction. Thus, the player is able to provide an instruction concerning the action of a selected character with a simple operation.

Conventionally, there have been game apparatus in which actions of game objects are controlled by operating button switches, e.g., by simultaneously or sequentially depressing button switches or by repeatedly depressing a button switch. For example, a soccer game apparatus including button switches, such as A button, B button, L button, R button, a cross key, a start button, a select button, etc., is disclosed by the instruction manual of "GAMEBOY ADVANCE J.LEAGUE Winning Eleven ADVANCE 2002", issued by Konami Corp., Oct. 10, 2002, pp. 10-14 (hereinafter, referred to as "Non-Patent Document 1"). In this game apparatus, as disclosed on pages 10-14 of Non-Patent Document 1, a character that is operated by the player acts in various ways including dribbling, passing, centering, shooting, tackling, sliding, etc. Moreover, there are numerous variations in each type of action. For example, there are various types of passes, e.g., "short pass", "long pass", "through-pass", "fly through-pass", "one-two pass", "fly one-two pass", etc. While the character that is operated by the player acts in various ways, there are only a small number of button switches which can be used to control the action of the game object. Accordingly, this game apparatus is configured such that a number of actions can be selected by simultaneously or sequentially depressing a plurality of button switches or by repeatedly depressing a button switch. For example, a long pass is made by repeatedly depressing the B button, a through-pass is made by simultaneously depressing the A button and the B button, a fly through-pass is made by simultaneously depressing the L button, A button, and B button, a one-two pass is made by simultaneously depressing the L button and B button, and a fly one-two pass is made by repeatedly depressing the B button with L button depressed.
Also, a fighting game apparatus including A button, B button, X button, Y button, a cross key, a control stick, etc., is disclosed by the instruction manual of "NINTENDO GAMECUBE SOUL CALIBER II", issued by Namko Ltd., Mar. 27, 2003, pp. 47-55 (hereinafter, referred to as "Non-Patent Document 2"). In this game apparatus, as disclosed on pages 47-55 of Non-Patent Document 2, a number of characters are configured, and a number of martial art techniques are set for each character. For example, in the case of a character named "Raphael Sorel", in order to use a technique called "Rapid Tack Plus", a control stick (or a cross key) must be pressed to the right and B button repeatedly depressed three times. Also, in order to use a technique called "Serpentine", the A button must be depressed, the control stick (or the cross key) down must be pressed down, and then the A button must be depressed again.
In the game apparatus disclosed by Non-Patent Document 1, in order to control the action of the game object so as to act in various ways, it may be necessary to memorize a significant number of operation patterns of simultaneous and sequential depressing of buttons. Even if it is possible to memorize a large number of operation patterns, it may be difficult to perform various patters of simultaneously or sequentially depressing buttons during actual gameplay.
Accordingly, in the game apparatus disclosed by Non-Patent Document 1, those who can spend a long time enjoying gameplay are better able to perform all the actions, and those who cannot spend a long time (i.e., light users, etc.) may only be able to perform a small number of actions For example, in the soccer game disclosed by Non-Patent Document 1, in the situation where a fly one-two pass is effective, a player who has not mastered how to make such a pass might only be able to make a one-two pass.
Also, in the game apparatus disclosed by Non-Patent Document 2, it is necessary to memorize a number of operation patterns in order to appropriately control the action of the game object in various ways. In particular, those who are not familiar with the game and have memorized only the operation patterns for a few specific techniques are typically only able to use such techniques as they have memorized.


Methods and computer systems are provided for data assignment. A computing unit and a data object component for managing a set of data objects are provided. Data objects of the set of data objects can be divided into segments according to selectable criteria. An interface unit may also be provided to interconnect the computing unit and the data object component. The interface unit may be arranged and constructed to include an inventory assignment of segments created in the data object component such that, in case of an assignment inquiry by the computing unit, an assignment of one or more segments being inquired for is carried out in the interface unit.

In inventory-oriented software solutions that find use in inventory data objects in various business fields, a data object component manages a set of (inventory) data objects. A computing unit is interconnected with the data object component via an interface. Data objects may be classified into segments according to selectable criteria so that the computing unit can access selected/classified data objects via specific segment access in order to perform certain tasks.
One example of an inventory-related software solution can be found in the field of insurance companies, which use software solutions to manage their insurance contracts and their clients' data. Inventory in this specific example could mean the sum of all insurance contracts and/or the clients of a given insurance company. The data objects describing the insurance contracts and/or the clients are called business objects. A segment is then a subset of business objects of a given business object type. These subsets, i.e., segments, are created by individual assignment or by classifying the business objects according to one or several criteria, such as geographical criteria (e.g., region, county, district), product related criteria (e.g., health insurance, life insurance, car insurance, etc.) or client group criteria (e.g., private client, business client, industrial client). Depending on a given context, a business object can be classified into one or more segments, i.e., belong to one or several subsets. However, within a given context, the relation between the business object and the segment(s) must be unequivocal.
Another example for inventory-related software solutions is in the field of commission systems containing a plurality of commission contracts between a company and its employees or contracting agents.
In order to be able to perform different tasks concerning statistical and evaluational aspects as well as concerning responsibilities and tasks or targets within the organizational structure of a company, it is important that business objects can be easily related to an employee or a contracting agent, or that a relation between a single contract and an inventory (subset) can be created. For example, typical relations can be the responsibility for all life insurance contracts in a given postal code area, the management of all car insurance contracts or the advisory function for all clients with profession physicists in the field of health insurance. It is easily understood by these examples that the segments are not directly created or classified but in connection with a given responsibility or task ("being in charge of", "managing", "advisory function", "contact person" etc.).
In order to be able to create an assignment between a given employee or contracting agent, i.e., the data object of that employee or contracting agent, and a segment, the business data objects in the data object component must contain pointer structures or other suitable reference information. If there are changes to either the business data objects or the employee/agent data objects, the corresponding reference information in the business data object has to be updated, i.e., the data contained in the data object component has to be attended to regularly and reliably. In practice, this is a potential source of malfunctioning as data attendance (or data maintenance) is not always performed in a reliable manner as it is an additional task to be performed by a human operator, and very often there is no direct understanding for the need to perform data maintenance.

Methods and computer systems for data assignment


There is provided a pump system including; a plurality of hydraulic pump bodies arranged in parallel; a plurality of pump shafts respectively driving the plurality of hydraulic pump bodies; a power transmission mechanism operatively connecting the plurality of pump shafts; and a pump case which accommodating the plurality of hydraulic pump bodies and the power transmission mechanism, and supports the plurality of pump shafts in a rotatable manner about an axis line, the pump case including a port block formed with supply/discharge oil passages for the plurality of pump bodies. One pump shaft of the plurality of pump shafts has a first end extending outward from the pump case so as to form an input end operatively connected to a driving source. The one pump shaft is directly or indirectly supported by the pump case at a region which is closer to the input end via a plurality of bearing members.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a pump system having hydraulic pump bodies arranged in parallel, a charge relief mechanism and an oil pressure control mechanism.
2. Related Art
A pump system comprising a plurality of hydraulic pump bodies arranged in parallel with respect to each other, and forming a transmission path in cooperation with a hydraulic actuator such as a hydraulic motor unit arranged spaced apart from and fluidly connected with the pump system, has been used in various fields of a travel transmission mechanism of a working vehicle and the like (see, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,425,244).
Specifically, such a conventional pump system includes a plurality of hydraulic pump bodies arranged in parallel, a plurality of pump shafts respectively driving the plurality of hydraulic pump bodies, a power transmission mechanism for operatively connecting the plurality of pump shafts with respect to each other, and a pump case for accommodating the plurality of hydraulic pump bodies and the power transmission mechanism and, also, supporting the plurality of pump shafts in a rotatable manner about an axis line.
The pump case has a center section (or port block), with which the plurality of hydraulic pump bodies are brought into contact in a rotabable manner. The port block forms a supply/discharge oil passage for the plurality of hydraulic pump bodies therein.
One of the pump shafts of the plurality of pump shafts has one end which is supported to the pump case so as to extend outward and is operatively connected to a driving source via a transmission mechanism such as a pulley.
The conventional pump system has a possibility that a sliding face of one hydraulic pump body driven by one pump shaft is tilt with respect to an inner surface (a face facing the hydraulic pump body) of the port block.
In other words, a force in a direction orthogonal to an axis line direction is applied to the one pump shaft operatively connected to the driving source via the pulley or the like.
That is, the force orthogonal to the axis line direction is constantly applied to the one pump shaft, thereby causing this pump shaft to deflect.
The deflection of the one pump shaft causes an operating oil leak between the hydraulic pump body (hereinafter, referred to as one hydraulic pump body) driven by the one pump shaft and the port block, thus lowering transmission efficiency.
Further, in the case of using the conventional pump system as a travel transmission mechanism of a vehicle, the straight advancement of the vehicle degrades due to the operating oil leak.
That is, since the force in the orthogonal direction as described above does not act on the pump shafts other than the one pump shaft, the operating oil leak does not occur at the other hydraulic pump bodies (hereinafter, referred to as the other hydraulic pump bodies) driven by the other pump shafts.
Therefore, even when the hydraulic pump bodies are operated so that oil supply/discharge rates of the one hydraulic pump body and the other hydraulic pump bodies are the same to advance the vehicle straightly, the oil supply/discharge rates will differ due to the operating oil leak from the one hydraulic pump body, thus worsening the straight advancement of the vehicle.
The present invention has been made in view of the prior art, and one object of the present invention is to provide a pump system having a plurality of hydraulic pump bodies arranged in parallel and a plurality of pump shafts respectively driving the plurality of hydraulic pump bodies, and capable of preventing an operating oil leak from the hydraulic pump body driven by one pump shaft operatively connected to a driving source as much as possible.

Pump system, charge relief mechanism and oil pressure control mechanism


A connector is mateable with a mating connector including a mating shell. The connector includes a maintaining member. The maintaining member has a first portion and a second portion. The first portion has a first arm and a first maintaining portion supported by the first arm. The second portion has a second arm and a second maintaining portion supported by the second arm. When the connector and the mating connector are mated with each other, a side portion of the mating shell is inserted between a front end of the first portion and a front end of the second portion. When the connector is in a mated state where the connector is mated with the mating connector, the maintaining member holds the side portion of the mating shell by the first maintaining portion and the second maintaining portion to maintain the mated state.

This invention relates to a connector mateable with a mating connector including a mating shell.
In many cases, this type of connector has a mated-state maintaining structure for maintaining a mated state thereof with a mating connector. For example, JP-A 2008-527651 (Patent Document 1) discloses a connector having the mated-state maintaining structure which is constituted of a friction lock; the content of Patent Document 1 is incorporated herein by reference.
Referring to FIG. 13, Patent Document 1 discloses a Universal Serial Bus (USB)-socket (connector) 910 as an existing connector. The USB-socket 910 is mateable with a USB-plug (mating connector) 950 including a metal housing (mating shell) 960. The metal housing 960 has an upper surface 962. At least the upper surface 962 is formed with two openings 964. The USB-socket 910 includes a receptacle shell 920. The receptacle shell 920 has an upper surface, wherein at least the upper surface is formed with two leaf springs 922 which are resiliently deformable in an upper-lower direction (Z-direction). When the USB-plug 950 is mated with the USB-socket 910, the metal housing 960 is inserted into the receptacle shell 920. In the meantime, ends of the leaf springs 922 are moved upward to slide on the upper surface 962 of the metal housing 960. Under a mated state where the USB-plug 950 is mated with the USB-socket 910, the ends of the leaf springs 922 are engaged with the openings 964 of the metal housing 960, respectively, to maintain the mated state.
When the USB-plug 950 is mated with the USB-socket 910, the ends of the leaf springs 922 are moved upward to project beyond the upper surface of the receptacle shell 920. Accordingly, in a case where the USB-socket 910 is installed in a host device 900 to be used, the host device 900 is required to be provided with a space where the ends of the leaf springs 922 are moved. In other words, the host device 900 is required to become larger in the upper-lower direction by the size of the aforementioned space. As can be seen from the above explanation, the existing mated-state maintaining structure is not suitable to reduce the size of the host device 900 in the upper-lower direction.

Connector mateable with a mating connector including a mating shell and having a mated-state maintaining structure

Japan Aviation Electronics Industry, Limited


A method for acquiring quality of experience QOE of a telecommunication service is provided. The method includes: acquiring multiple groups of original KQI vectors and a QOE value corresponding to each group of original KQI vectors in the multiple groups of original KQI vectors; analyzing a relationship between the multiple groups of original KQI vectors and QOE values corresponding to the multiple groups of original KQI vectors to establish a function relationship between KQI vectors and QOE values corresponding to the KQI vectors; acquiring a current KQI vector, and applying the function relationship between the KQI vectors and the QOE values corresponding to the KQI vectors to obtain a current QOE value corresponding to the current KQI vector.

Quality of experience (Quality of Experience, QOE) indicates subjective experience of a user on the satisfaction of a certain product or service. It usually serves as one of the key indicators for evaluating the quality of a communication service, such as telecommunication, and is used to assess the service quality of various telecommunication services (such as conversation, short message, and Internet access through Wi-Fi) from the view of a user. Currently, a method for evaluating quality of experience widely used in the industry is to assess the relationship between quality classes by establishing indicators of quality of service (Quality of Service, QoS) and through dial test, where the indicators of quality of service indicate key performance indexes (Key Performance Indexes, KPIs) of network elements, the key performance indexes include time delay jitter and packet loss, and the quality of experience classes (MoS scores) are acquired by means of subjective assessment through dial test. By inputting the acquired key performance indexes and the quality of experience classes into a pre-defined neural network model for training, the mapping between the key performance indexes and the quality of experience classes can be acquired. When it is required to evaluate the quality of experience of a certain service, the corresponding quality of experience can be predicted by acquiring a certain or multiple key performance indexes of the service. However, the scores for the quality of experience classes reflect the assessment of dial test personnel, but not assessment of local common users. The key performance indexes cannot directly evaluate the objective quality of service, and accordingly service parameters cannot be accurately adjusted according to the quality of experience classes to ensure QOE of a telecommunication service.

Method and apparatus for acquiring quality of experience and method and apparatus for ensuring quality of experience


A fluid transfer device for accessing fluid from vials and ampoules includes a cannula assembly including a cannula having a lumen therethrough connected to a hub having an open proximal end. A filling straw includes a housing at its proximal end, a needle portion at its distal end and a shaft portion therebetween. The housing includes a cavity in its proximal end in fluid communication with a passageway running through the filling straw. A cutting edge is provided at the distal end of the needle portion for piercing a vial stopper. The cannula assembly is removably engaged with the housing so that the open proximal end of the hub is in fluid communication with the passageway of the filling straw. An elongate shield having an open proximal end and a recess therein is removably connected to the straw so that the shaft portion and the needle portion of the straw are contained within the recess.

A typical hypodermic syringe includes a syringe barrel with a mounting collar for threadedly engaging the hub of a needle cannula. The hub and the needle cannula are connected to one another or are maintained separately from the syringe barrel until shortly prior to use. In cases where the needle is maintained separately, the medical practitioner selects an appropriate needle assembly for the procedure being carried out. The needle assembly is removed from its sterile package, and the hub of the needle assembly is threadedly engaged with the mounting collar of the syringe barrel.
Liquid pharmaceuticals and other injectable liquids are often stored in rigid containers which can be accessed using a hypodermic syringe. Some containers for liquid pharmaceuticals are plastic or glass vials with an elastomeric closure that can be penetrated by the needle of a hypodermic syringe. To access the liquid in a vial, the medical practitioner moves the plunger of the hypodermic syringe in a proximal direction to draw into the syringe barrel a volume of air substantially equal to the volume of medication that is desired. The open distal end of the needle is then urged through the elastomeric closure of the vial, and the air in the syringe barrel is injected into the vial. The distal tip of the needle and the vial engaged therewith are then pointed gravitationally upwardly. The practitioner ensures that the distal tip of the needle is covered by the medication in the vial by manipulating the needle and the vial with respect to each other. The plunger of the hypodermic syringe is then moved proximally to draw the medication through the needle and into the chamber of the syringe barrel.
After withdrawing a desires dose of medication from a vial, the medical practitioner may inject the medication into either a patient, another vial or into an injection site of an intravenous set or catheter. There is a trend toward needleless I.V. systems which do not require a pointed needle cannula to piece the injection site of an I.V. set. There are many systems that have injection sites covered by a pre-slit septum which can be accessed by a blunt cannula. Accordingly, after withdrawing medication from a vial using a sharp needle the user must remove the needle and install a blunt cannula if the medication will be used with an I.V. set. The user runs thy risk of accidental needle stick using the needle to draw the medication into the syringe and in the act of removing the needle to replace it with a blunt cannula. Also, there is the potential of contaminating the components when they are installed and removed during the filling and delivery process. Accordingly, there is a need for a device which will allow filling of a syringe from a vial having a pierceable stopper without the use of a very sharp needle and the subsequent delivery of the medication to an I.V. set through a blunt cannula without having to handle or reshield sharp needles.
Plastic vials and elastomeric closures for vials are somewhat gas permeable. Some pharmaceutical products will degrade rapidly in the presence of even small amounts of gas. Hence, these pharmaceuticals typically are stored in glass ampoules. The frangible end of a glass ampoule can be snapped off to enable access to the medication stored therein. The medical practitioner may withdraw the medication by inserting the tip of the needle on a hypodermic syringe into the medication stored in the ampoule. The plunger of the hypodermic syringe is then moved proximally to draw the liquid medication in the ampoule through the needle and into the barrel of the hypodermic syringe. The hypodermic syringe may then be withdrawn from the ampoule and used in substantially the manner described above. The ampoule typically is held with the open top gravitationally upwardly while the hypodermic syringe is being filled. This needle length required for ampoule filling may substantially exceed the length of the needle conveniently required for subsequent use for injections. Likewise, the same or similar problems exist where the medication obtained from an ampoule will be subsequently injected into an injection site having a pre-slit septum since the needle must be installed and removed from the syringe and the new blunt cannula installed. Thus, there are risks with accidental contamination and needle sticks before the properly filled syringe and blunt cannula combination are prepared.


A computing system can include a plurality of clients located outside a cloud-based computing environment, where each of the clients may be configured to encode respective original data with a respective unique secret key to generate data hypervectors that encode the original data. A collaborative machine learning system can operate in the cloud-based computing environment and can be operatively coupled to the plurality of clients, where the collaborative machine learning system can be configured to operate on the data hypervectors that encode the original data to train a machine learning model operated by the collaborative machine learning system or to generate an inference from the machine learning model.

Internet of Things (IoT) applications often analyze collected data using machine learning algorithms. As the amount of the data keeps increasing, many applications send the data to powerful systems, e.g., data centers, to run the learning algorithms. On the one hand, sending the original data is not desirable due to privacy and security concerns. On the other hand, many machine learning models may require unencrypted (plaintext) data, e.g., original images, to train models and perform inference. When offloading theses computation tasks, sensitive information may be exposed to the untrustworthy cloud system which is susceptible to internal and external attacks. In many IoT systems, the learning procedure should be performed with the data that is held by a large number of user devices at the edge of Internet. These users may be unwilling to share the original data with the cloud and other users if security concerns cannot be addressed.
An existing strategy applicable to this scenario exploits Homomorphic Encryption (HE). HE encrypts the raw data and allows certain operations to be performed directly on the ciphertext without decryption. However, this approach can significantly increase the computation burden and costly learning procedures. For example in one case, Microsoft SEAL, a state-of-the-art homomorphic encryption library, took about 14 days to encrypt all of the 28×28 pixel images in the MNIST dataset, and increased the data size by 28 times. More recently, another case presented a protocol that enabled training Deep Neural Networks (DNN) when data is distributed over different users. In this technique, the users' devices performed the DNN training task locally to update the global model.
FIG. 1 shows a conventional approach where clients, e.g., user devices, send either their sensitive data or partially trained models in an encrypted form to the cloud. The cloud performs a learning task by collecting the encrypted information received from the multiple clients. When requested by the user, the cloud sends back the encrypted data to clients. The client then decrypts the data with a private key.
Homomorphic encryption also enables processing on the encrypted version of data. FIG. 2 shows the execution time of a state-of-the-art homomorphic encryption library, Microsoft SEAL, for MNIST training dataset, which includes 60000 images of 28′28 pixels. The library was executed on two platforms that a client in IoT systems may use: a high-performance computer (Intel i7-8700K) and a Raspberry Pi 3 (ARM Cortex A53). The result shows that, even with the simple dataset of 47 MBytes, it takes significantly large execution time, e.g., more than 13 days on ARM to encrypt.
Another approach is to utilize secure Multi-Party Computation (MPC) techniques. In theory, any function, which can be represented as a Boolean circuit with inputs from multiple parties, can be evaluated securely without disclosing each party's data to another. For example, by describing the machine learning algorithm as a Boolean circuit with learning data as inputs to the circuit, one can securely learn the model. However, such solutions are very costly in practice and are computation and communication intensive.

Systems, circuits and computer program products providing a framework for secured collaborative training using hyper-dimensional vector based data encoding/decoding and related methods

The Regents of the University of California


A color correction apparatus and method are provided. The color correction apparatus includes: a chromatic region determination module determining a first chromatic region to which an input pixel constituting an input image belongs and a second chromatic region neighboring the first chromatic region on a basis of specified chromatic region division information; a polynomial regression operation module performing polynomial regression on the first chromatic region and the second chromatic region; and a blending module providing corrected pixel information for the input pixel by giving weight values to results of the polynomial regression on the first chromatic region and the second chromatic region. The color correction method includes: determining the first and second chromatic regions; performing polynomial regression on the first and second chromatic regions; and providing corrected pixel information for the input pixel by giving weight values to results of the polynomial regression on the first and second chromatic regions.

1. Field of the Invention
Apparatuses and methods consistent with the present invention relate to color correction, and more particularly to performing color correction using chromatic region division and blending.
2. Description of the Related Art
Generally, a digital image sensor provided in an imaging apparatus such as a digital camera converts light energy reflected from an object into an electric signal form in order to display a taken image to a user.
However, in some cases, a color of an object that is actually seen by a user and a color of the object that is seen through an imaging apparatus may differ, and this difference cannot satisfy user's requirements.
In this case, a technique that corrects the color of an image collected by the imaging apparatus to a desired color is needed. This technique is generally called a "color correction" technique.
The color correction technique is to reproduce a color distorted due to individual color representation characteristics of an image collection and display device to match the characteristic of the device. U.S. Pat. No. 5,321,797 discloses a color correction method using a three-dimensional lookup table.
This color correction method is based on a reference color correction table, in consideration of three-dimensional color space information. This method has a superior color correction performance, but has a problem that many hardware resources are required. That is, this method is efficient for a system having sufficient hardware resources, but it is difficult for the method to be applied to a system that is relatively poor in hardware resources such as a portable digital camera.
In addition, U.S. Pat. No. 6,476,877 discloses a color correction method that divides a color space into plural regions and corrects colors using color correction coefficients considering characteristics in the divided color space regions. However, this method has a problem that contour artifacts may occur among the divided color space regions.
Accordingly, a color correction apparatus and method that is more efficient and can provide an improved performance has been required.


When the worn state of the webbing is lifted, current of a current value I0 corresponding to the appropriate storing speed of the webbing is supplied to the motor, whereby a take-up shaft rotates and the webbing is taken up. At a point in time when the webbing has been taken up to the extent that the webbing does not hinder the exiting of a vehicle by a passenger, the size of the supply current to the motor is reduced from the initial current value I1 to a current value I1. A reference current value IL of a stall current for determining whether to stop the motor when a foreign object or the like has become entangled between the webbing and an in-vehicle part can also be set to be small in correspondence to the reduced current value I1.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a webbing take-up device, and in particular to a motor retractor that can take up a webbing by a motor causing a take-up shaft to rotate.
2. Description of the Related Art
Seat belt devices that restrain passengers seated in seats with a long band-like webbing are attached to vehicles such as passenger cars, and a retractor (webbing take-up device) that stores the webbing in a state where the webbing is taken up such that it can be pulled out is disposed in so-called 3-point seat belt devices.
The retractor is disposed with a take-up shaft, to which the longitudinal-direction base end side of the webbing is fastened and which takes up the webbing from its base end side by rotating, and a biasing member such as a spiral spring, which biases the take-up shaft in the take-up direction of the webbing. Additionally, in a seat belt device disposed with this retractor, the take-up shaft is biased in the take-up direction of the webbing by the biasing force of the biasing member when a passenger wears the webbing, whereby the webbing from which slack has been removed restrains the passenger. Further, the webbing is taken up on the take-up shaft by the biasing force of the biasing member when the passenger lifts the worn state of the webbing.
Here, when the biasing force of the biasing member is small, the webbing is not able to be completely taken up and becomes slack, which causes the worsened appearance of the webbing when the webbing is not in use. On the other hand, when the biasing force of the biasing member is large, this imparts a feeling of tightness to the passenger wearing the webbing.
For this reason, a motor retractor is being considered which is disposed with a mechanism (so-called "storage assist mechanism") that drives the take-up shaft by the drive force of a motor in order to reduce the biasing force of the biasing member and alleviate (control) the feeling of tightness imparted to the passenger and to assist the lowering of the webbing take-up force on the take-up shaft resulting from this reduction of the biasing force (e.g., see Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2004-244011).
A motor retractor disposed with such a storage assist mechanism is usually disposed with a control circuit that controls the supply current to the motor. The control circuit is configured to supply current to the motor when it is detected that the worn state of the webbing has been lifted and to cut off the supply of current to the motor when it is detected that the webbing is completely stored and stall current is flowing to the motor, for example.
Incidentally, in a motor retractor of this configuration, it is necessary to stop the motor when a foreign object becomes entangled in the webbing while the webbing is being taken up. In this case, for example, it is conceivable to detect the stall current occurring in the motor by the entanglement of the foreign object and stop the motor. It is preferable for the motor retractor to be configured such that the motor is stopped by the detection of the stall current in this manner, because the supply current can be controlled by an existing control circuit.
However, because the current value of the current supplied to the motor is set to be somewhat large on the basis of an appropriate storing speed of the webbing, the current value of the detectable stall current also ends up becoming inevitably large. When the current value of the detectable stall current is large in this manner, the motor cannot be stopped in a low torque state when a foreign object has become entangled in the webbing, and for this reason, a measure to solve this has been sought after.

Motor retractor and drive control thereof


Apparatus and method improving the performance and allowing increased directionality and bandwidth via display-like software defined antenna. A surface is composed of an array of interconnected pixels which are capable of either becoming conducting or resistive allowing arbitrarily sized and shaped antenna structures. Each pixel is controlled by biasing the base which alters the conductivity on the top portion of the pixel. The specific pattern which is active on the display style antenna is based on the desired direction, frequency range, and waveform necessary for a required transmit and receive function.

This invention relates generally to software definable antennas capable of functioning across a wide range of frequency ranges and environmental conditions.
That there is a need for a software defined antenna system to pair with the growth in software based radios is well known across both government and industry. Efforts have been started through both public agencies such as DARPA as well as private, corporate entities. In order to gain the full benefit of these novel radios, flexible antenna hardware is urgently in need.
It is desirable to provide geometrically flexible antenna hardware capable of functioning efficiently across a broad range of frequencies, signal types, and environmental conditions.
An optimal solution to the problem of building communications hardware that is functional across a wide bandwidth, with variable power transmit and receive and capable of functioning in degraded or cluttered environments, is a maximally adaptive radio system. The prior art has embarked upon a quest to engineer this very approach but while it has succeeded in building a software defined (thus highly adaptive) radio, it has failed to generate an antenna system which would allow the software radio to function to its full potential. Specifically, the prior art still utilizes such standard hardware as patch antennas and as such, the prior art forms are still unable to gain full usage from these novel software defined radio systems. Additionally, the majority of the explorations into the field of reconfigurable antennas have been in one or two forms: either a short antenna which can be connected to a longer antenna section via a switch (see U.S. Pat. No. 6,195,065 B1) or narrow bandwidth antennas at the lower end of the size and power scale, leaving unaddressed the needs of larger, higher power applications.
The other background from which the motivation for this invention is drawn is nonemissive display technology as described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,930,026 and utilized in several electronic book systems. These displays utilize electrically charged ink (with opposite charges and different colors) suspended in spheres of fluid. When an electrode beneath the sphere becomes positively or negatively charged it draws a specific color of ink to the bottom of the sphere while forcing the other color to the top. In this way each sphere becomes a pixel on the display controlled by the matrix of electrodes set beneath the spheres. While these displays are quite effective at visible wavelengths they are all completely ineffective at interfering with longer wavelength radio frequencies as used in communications antennas.

Radio frequency emissive display antenna and system for controlling

The United States of America as represented by the Secretary of the Air Force


An improved spiral wound element for separations is disclosed wherein the improvement comprises using as the feed/retentate space one or more layers of a material having an open cross-sectional area in the range 30 to 70% and as the permeate spacer material at least three layers of material two of which are fine and have an open cross-sectional area of about 10 to 50% surrounding a coarse layer having an open cross-sectional area of about 50 to 90%.

Summary of the Invention
An improved spiral wound membrane element comprising layers of membrane material fluid tight sealed along 3 edges enclosing a permeate spacer creating at least one permeate envelope upon which a feed/retentate spacer layer is laid, along at least one membrane face, the entire multi layer arrangement being wound around a hollow central mandrel (which may be closed at one end) and to which the permeate envelope is in fluid communication through the fourth unsealed edge, creating a spiral wound module element is disclosed which is useful in separation processes wherein a pressure gradient is maintained across the membrane from a feed side to a permeate side, the improvement comprising using as the feed/retentate spacer at least one layer of a material having an open cross-sectional area of at least 30-70% and using as the permeate spacer at least three layers of material characterized in that the outer layers are a fine material having an open cross-sectional area of about 10 to 50% and a coarse layer having an open cross-sectional area of about 50 to 90% interposed between the aforesaid fine outer layers and wherein the fine outer layers are in interface contact with the membrane layers enclosing the permeate spacer.


This invention relates to combinatorial libraries of potentially biologically active mainly monosaccharide compounds and to methods of preparing same. These compounds are variously functionalized, with a view to varying lipid solubility, size, function and other properties, with the particular aim of discovering a drug or drug-like compound, or compounds with useful properties. The invention provides intermediates, processes and synthetic strategies for the solution or solid phase synthesis of monosaccharides, variously functionalized about the sugar ring, including the addition of aromaticity and charge, and the placement of amino acid and peptide side chain units of isosteres thereof.

From a drug discovery perspective, carbohydrate pyranose and furanose rings and their derivatives are well suited as templates. Each sugar represents a three-dimensional scaffold to which a variety of substituents can be attached, usually via a scaffold hydroxyl group, although occasionally a scaffold carboxyl or amino group may be present for substitution. By varying the substituents, their relative position on the sugar scaffold, and the type of sugar to which the substituents are coupled, numerous highly diverse structures are obtainable. An important feature to note with carbohydrates, is that molecular diversity is achieved not only in the type of substituents, but also in the three dimensional presentation. The different stereoisomers of carbohydrates that occur naturally (examples include glucose, galactose, mannose etc, FIG. 1), offer the inherent structural advantage of providing alternative presentation of substituents.

FIG. 1
The first example of a combinatorial approach employing carbohydrate chemistry, was a symposium report on the design and synthesis of a peptidomimetic using a glucose scaffold in the early 1990's1. The results, revealed that the glucose based structures designed as mimetics of a potent somatostatin (SRIF) agonist acted as agonists at low concentration, and at high concentration became the first known antagonists of SRIF. Although hardly the production of a library, the results were unique.
Continuing in part the work commenced in the early 1990's, Nicolaou and co-workers began developing carbohydrate based peptido-mimetics targeting integrins. Many integrins recognize an Arg-Gly-Asp (RGD) sequence in ligands such as fibronectin, vitronectin and fibrinogen, each binding with different affinities to the individual integrin receptors. Through a process of rational design a number of carbohydrate based RGD mimetics were synthesized. The chemical synthesis of nine different compounds by this group with very few common intermediates required a considerable amount of chemical effort. It was evident from such results, that in order to generate a number of different structures in a facile manner new chemistries needed to be developed to streamline and enable what at this stage was unfortunately a protracted and arduous methodology.
Since 1998 researchers in the group of Kunz2 have been developing a number of carbohydrate building blocks with a similar purpose in mind. In general the building blocks that they have developed are coupled to a solid support to effect the desired chemical transformations. The chemistry developed can be employed to achieve, like the work of Hirschmann and co-workers3, the introduction of peptidomimetic side chains to carbohydrate scaffolds in an effort to produce glyco-based mimetics of cyclic peptides. Admittedly, with the chemistry they have developed, there are inherent limitations in the types of functional groups that they are able to introduce and the range of stereoisomeric building blocks that they are able to employ.
It is now becoming reasonably established in the art that relates to the solid phase production of combinatorial carbohydrate based libraries, that one of five protecting groups on a carbohydrate scaffold is a protecting group modified as a linker, so as to allow coupling of the block to a solid support. The strategy that then follows is simple, remove a protecting group and effect coupling at the freed functionality with a peptidomimetic or other reagent. Remove another protecting group and couple with the next reagent, and so on.
Following this generally accepted principle, a system has been developed that allows the chemical synthesis of highly structurally and functionally diverse derivatised carbohydrate and tetrahydropyran structures, of both natural and unnatural origin. The diversity accessible is particularly augmented by the juxtaposition of both structural and functional aspects of the molecules. In order to access a wide range of diverse structures, stereo-center inversion chemistry is required, so as to achieve non-naturally occurring and hard to get sugars in a facile manner. Other chemistries are also required that provide unnatural deoxy or deoxy amino derivative which impart greater structural stability to the drug-like target molecules. With a suite of reagents to effect a suitable range of chemistries on a solid support, allowing such things as; wide functional diversity, highly conserved intermediates, a limited number of common building block to be required, and with suitable chemistry to allow access to unusual carbohydrate stereo-representations and including access to deoxy and deoxy amino analogues, a methodology is then established that can create focused libraries for a known target, or alternatively diversity libraries for unknown targets for random screening.
Many of the traditional methods of carbohydrate synthesis have proved to be unsuitable to a combinatorial approach, particularly because modem high-throughput synthetic systems require that procedures to be readily automatable. The compounds and processes described herein are particularly suited to the solid and solution phase combinatorial synthesis of carbohydrate-based libraries, and are amenable to automation. The methods of the invention yield common intermediates that are suitably functionalized to provide diversity in the structure of the compounds so generated. In this way the technology described can produce many and varied compounds around the basic structure shown in FIG. 1. Using this method, it is possible to introduce varied functionality in order to modulate both the biological activity and pharmacological properties of the compounds generated.
Thus the compounds and methods disclosed herein provide the ability to produce random or focused combinatorial-type libraries for the discovery of other novel drug or drug-like compounds, or compounds with other useful properties in an industrially practical manner.
It will be clearly understood that, although a number of prior art publications are referred to herein, this reference does not constitute an admission that any of these documents forms part of the common general knowledge in the art, in Australia or in any other country.


A method for allowing a number of wireless transceivers to exchange information (data, voice or video) with each other. A first frame of information is multiplexed over a number of wideband frequency bands at a first transceiver, and the information transmitted to a second transceiver. The information is received and processed at the second transceiver. The information is differentially encoded using phase shift keying. In addition, after a pre-selected time interval, the first transceiver may transmit again. During the preselected time interval, the second transceiver may exchange information with another transceiver in a time duplex fashion. The processing of the signal at the second transceiver may include estimating the phase differential of the transmitted signal and pre-distorting the transmitted signal. A transceiver includes an encoder for encoding information, a wideband frequency division multiplexer for multiplexing the information onto wideband frequency voice channels, and a local oscillator for upconverting the multiplexed information. The apparatus may include a processor for applying a Fourier transform to the multiplexed information to bring the information into the time domain for transmission.

This patent document presents a new multiple access technique for Personal Communication Networks (PCN). Personal communication networks are networks that allow individuals and equipment to exchange information with each other anywhere at anytime through voice, data or video. PCN typically include a number of transceivers, each capable of transmitting and receiving information (voice, data or video) in the form of electromagnetic signals. The transceivers may be fixed or portable, and may be identical or one or more of them may be more complex.
The system must allow the transceivers to access each other to enable the exchange of information. When there are a number of transceivers, multiple access, that is, access by more than one transceiver to another transceiver, must be allowed.
One of the constraints of designing a PCN is that a transceiver, or portable radio unit, must be small in size. The smaller the unit, the better for portability. The small size of the units means only small and light-weight power sources can be used. If the portable is to be used for any length of time, it must therefore consume minimal power.
Also, to allow use of the radio frequency spectrum without obtaining a license in North America, the system must use a spread spectrum and satisfy federal regulations. In part, these regulations impose limits on the power and the frequency spread of the signals exchanged between the transceivers. An object of an aspect of this invention is to satisfy those requirements.
Also, transceivers talk to each other over a fixed bandwidth. Because of the limited availability of the RF spectrum, the system must be bandwidth efficient yet at the same time maintain high quality exchange of information at all times in one of the most hostile channels known in communication. The new multiple access technique proposed here addresses all these issues.
The new access technique has a low Bit Error Probability (BER) as well as a low probability of dropped and blocked calls. This is due to the fact that the access technique is robust against multipath, Doppler shifts, impulse noise and narrowband interference. It has a low cochannel interference and little or no intersymbol interference.
The new access technique can offer up to 38 times the capacity of analog FM. It includes in one aspect wideband orthogonal frequency division multiplexing of the information to be exchanged, and may include slow Frequency Hopping (FH). The technique is implemented using Digital Signal Processors (DSP) replacing conventional analog devices. The system operates with relatively small cells. In other aspects, dynamic channel allocation and voice activation may be used to improve the capacity of the system.
Advantages of the present invention include:
1. It can be used indoors as well as outdoors using the same transceivers. If data is to be exchanged, as opposed to voice, the transceiver preferably contains an estimator to allow pre-distortion and post-distortion of the transmitted signal. PA0 2. The system, as compared with prior art systems omits the clock or carrier recovery, automatic gain control or passband limiter, power amplifier, an equalizer or an interleaver-deinterleaver, and therefore has low complexity. PA0 3. The system offers good speech quality, as well as low probabilities of dropped and blocked calls. It is robust against Doppler and multipath shifts. It is also robust against both impulse noise and narrowband interference. PA0 4. The system is flexible, such that at the expense of increased complexity of the DSP receiver it can be applied over noncontiguous bands. This is accomplished by dividing a 100 MHz (in one of the exemplary embodiments described here) band into several subbands each accommodating an integer number of voice channels. PA0 5. The system offers low frame delay (less than 26.2 ms in the exemplary cellular embodiment described here). The transceiver requires low average transmitted power (of the order of 20 .mu.W in the exemplary cellular embodiment described here) which means power saving as well as enhanced biological safety. PA0 6. The system offers up to a 38 fold increase in capacity over the North American Advanced Mobile Phone System (AMPS) which uses analog frequency modulation.
Operation of the system in accordance with the techniques described in this disclosure may permit compliance with technical requirements for spread spectrum systems.
There is therefore disclosed in one aspect of the invention a method for allowing a number of wireless transceivers to exchange information (data, voice or video) with each other. In the method, a first frame of information is multiplexed over a number of frequency bands at a first transceiver, and the information transmitted to a second transceiver. In a cellular implementation, the second transceiver may be a base station with capacity to exchange information with several other transceivers. The information is received and processed at the second transceiver. The frequency bands are selected to occupy a wideband and are preferably contiguous, with the information being differentially encoded using phase shift keying.
A signal may then be sent from the second transceiver to the first transceiver and de-processed at the first transceiver. In addition, after a preselected time interval, the first transceiver transmits again. During the preselected time interval, the second transceiver may exchange information with another transceiver in a time duplex fashion.
The processing of the signal at the second transceiver ma include estimating the phase differential of the transmitted signal and predistorting the transmitted signal.
The time intervals used by the transceivers may be assigned so that a plurality of time intervals are made available to the first transceiver for each time interval made available to the second transceiver while the first transceiver is transmitting, and for a plurality of time intervals to be made available to the second transceiver for each time interval made available to the first transceiver otherwise. Frequencies may also be borrowed by one base station from an adjacent base station. Thus if one base station has available a first set of frequencies, and another a second set of distinct frequencies, then a portion of the frequencies in the first set may be temporarily re-assigned to the second base station.
In an implementation of the invention for a local area network, each transceiver may be made identical except for its address.
Apparatus for carrying out the method of the invention is also described here. The basic apparatus is a transceiver which will include an encoder for encoding information, a wideband frequency division multiplexer for multiplexing the information onto wideband frequency voice channels, and a local oscillator for upconverting the multiplexed information. The apparatus may include a processor for applying a Fourier transform to the multiplexed information to bring the information into the time domain for transmission.

Method and apparatus for multiple access between transceivers in wireless communications using OFDM spread spectrum


Disclosed herein are provided a routing device and method for configuring a Low Power Wireless Mesh Network (LPWMN) including a channel hopping time multiplexing wireless link. The routing device includes a control unit and a communication unit. The control unit sets up a virtual link, a shared link, or a dedicated link to an external device or router. The communication unit forwards a data frame to the device or router based on the set-up link.

1. Technical Field
The present invention relates generally to a routing device and method and, more particularly, to a routing device and method for a low power wireless network.
2. Description of the Related Art
With the development of low power wireless communication technology, wireless communication functionality can be provided to everyday electronic devices, and accordingly the number of devices connected to the Internet is increasing.
Conventional low power wireless communication technology aims at wirelessly connecting devices, such as a disposable sensor and a toy, with low communication reliability and at low cost.
At present, it is necessary to configure a wireless network using low power with high communication reliability, as in industrial equipment or medical equipment. In particular, there is an increasing demand for a device and method for configuring a wireless network having constant point-to-point transfer delay using low power.

Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute