Systems and methods for connecting devices via a virtual global network across network fabrics using a network tapestry are disclosed. The network system comprises a first access point server in communication with a first backbone exchange server, a second access point server in communication with a second backbone exchange server, and a network tapestry comprising a first communication path connecting the first and second access point servers and a second communication path connecting the first and second backbone exchange servers.

The first deployments of 'networks' typically consisted of a topology with a large central computer core such as a mainframe with slave terminals connected to it directly in the same facility. This manifestation of mainframe and terminals had certain advantages allowing for distributed physical access but in the past, all users needed to be in close proximity to the core. As network transmission over distance improved, slave terminals were able to be located in remote locations further away from the mainframe. Today, this type of topology may be referred to as a central server and thin client devices which connect to it.
Then power and storage were shifted to personal computers (PCs) whose local CPU, RAM and storage allowed for computing to be contained within the PC. Today, the pendulum is swinging back. The rise of personal computers was a driver for the development of wired networking technologies, then laptops (portable computers) were the impetus for wireless networks, and later mobile phones, smart phones, tablets, phablets and other types of mobile and wireless devices were the impetus for improvements in both wired and wireless network infrastructure.
Mobile devices and improved internet connectivity at the last mile spurred a proliferation of services where host clients store, access, and retrieve their data via servers in the cloud. The Internet of Things (IoT) means more and more connected devices—many of these in LANs, PANs, Piconets, etc. and the majority of these devices must not only have an upstream connectivity but must also be found on the Internet.
Line requirements of devices connected to the internet are varied. Some are tolerant of less than ideal connectivity where other devices have an absolute requirement for low latency, zero packet loss and high bandwidth to function properly. And as the proliferation of devices continue, the sheer number of devices will present problems requiring solutions. These problems include how to connect all of these devices reliably, how to efficiently find all of these devices, and how to carry copious amounts of data between them and big data aggregation points.
The internet is comprised of connected devices which constitute a network and the connecting of these networks constitute a network of networks. As networking continues to evolve, core protocols and network types continue to mature and they have expanded to the point where network types can be referred to as a network fabric. Common network fabrics are built upon standard protocols such as IPv4 and IPv6 on top of the Ethernet standard, Fiber Channel, InfiniBand, and various other network protocols and types.
A network fabric may be defined as either a network under administration of one body which is peered to other networks on a one to one basis defined as single honed or as a one-to-many network relationship via a multi-honed peering. A network fabric may also define the scale and scope of a network protocol type from end-to-end. Ethernet defines a type of network but this can also be further classified by Internet Protocol over Ethernet, and then by which version of IP such as IPv4 which stands for Internet Protocol version 4, or IPv6 which stands for Internet Protocol version 6, and other network types. Built on top of Internet Protocol (IP) are protocols such as Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) and User Datagram Protocol (UDP). TCP/IP is more verbose and has a plethora of built-in error checking and handling for reliability of data sent versus UDP which has no stringent error checking combined with a more fluid flow control. This makes UDP more suitable than TCP for the streaming of data such as audio or video casting where a lost packet will not have a dramatically adverse effect on the consumer's experience.
In addition to different protocols and IP versions, built on top of Ethernet, Ethernet itself has different flavors such as Ethernet, Gigabit Ethernet (available in 1 or 10 or 40 or 100 Gigabit) plus other versions of it are expected to be introduced, as line carrying capacity technology improves.
InfiniBand (IB) is an alternative to Ethernet with IB utilizing different physical NIC ports, lines and plugs, and with IB operating in a similar yet different manner to IP.
To connect various computing devices together with the motivating driver for them to be able to talk with or at least pass data to each other, Ethernet is currently the most popular protocol. To connect many nodes into a high performance computing (HPC) environment, InfiniBand (IB) is the preferred choice. IB allows for native remote direct memory access (RDMA) between nodes which bypass the network authentication and elevated process and operating system (O/S) stacks of the host devices where the RDMA storage (or other) devices are connected. This facilitates the hosting of parallel file systems (PFS), providing simultaneous and rapid access for many devices.
To further define scope, each network base protocol such as Ethernet or InfiniBand and the subsequent network protocols running on top of them can be defined as a fabric. At the interconnection point between fabrics, technology such as network address translation (NAT) or equivalent method is necessary for a successful cross connect. One network protocol such as IPv4 may be encapsulated so that its packets run over another protocol such as IB via a "wrapper" protocol such as IP over InfiniBand (IPoIB). If one wanted to connect various distributed nodes of a Parallel File System (PFS) over a network which consists of some non-IB segments such as Ethernet, a wrapper such as RDMA over Converged Ethernet (RoCE) could be utilized.
While RoCE can allow for RDMA access, it is a bit counterproductive because the underlying Ethernet network does not support the true advantages of IB and therefore will present a performance lag compared with RDMA over native IB.
Different types of clients and their users have varied expectations and demands for utilizing the internet today. These expectations also define the quality of service (QoS) requirements for each of these various uses. At the most demanding end of the QoS spectrum are clients & users who require a high quality line characterized by the highest bandwidth at the lowest latency with 100% reliability and availability. Some examples are:
High Performance Computing (HPC)—one of the most demanding situations is HPC where data is huge, distributed across globally disperse locations, and requires 100% lossless transmission at the lowest possible latency. Parallel file systems (PFS) are often utilized with HPC for clients to access central or distributed data stores from both local and distant locations.
Financial Industry—although the traditional communication needs of the financial industry to execute trades utilizes relatively small packets in terms of size, the required bandwidth must be uncongested with the absolute lowest possible latency with 100% reliability. Nanoseconds matter and there can be no loss. Round Trip Time (RTT) is critical because not only does the transaction message have to get through but the confirmation acknowledgement of successful transmission has to be returned as soon as possible.
Mass Media—Live video streams in high definition covering sporting events, news broadcasts, and other purposes require high bandwidth and low latency.
At the other end of the QoS requirements spectrum exist clients & users running applications which can tolerate a certain degree of packet loss and also where latency and/or bandwidth requirements are not mission critical. Some examples are:
Streaming audio—such as internet radio for which bandwidth needs are modest and a little periodic loss will not matter and only present as a momentary bit of static.
RSS text streams—these require very little bandwidth but lossless transmission and in most cases latency is not a materially significant factor.
Data backup (off hours)—requires good enough bandwidth and latency to allow for data to be sent and confirmed but spending extra for premium lines is not justifiable.
Voice calls—where two way audio consumes lower bandwidth, and a bit of loss presents as a momentary bit of static on line.
Email sending/receiving—requires modest bandwidth and "good enough" latency to allow for messages to go through. Higher volume servers and commercial grade messaging need better QoS.
At the lowest QoS requirement demands, bandwidth availability and latency can go up or down but users are tolerant of this fluctuation because they are not willing to pay more money for better service.
At the middle of both extremes are mainstream clients & users who have various levels of QoS expectations and demands. Within the mainstream, there also exists granularity within ranges from low to high levels of expectation. Some examples are:
High end of mainstream—consists of banks, corporations, and various other types of organizations which require WAN connectivity between offices and/or centrally located applications where many distributed "thin clients" connect with a larger central system.
Middle of mainstream—cloud servers in IDC/CDN/etc. which serve consumers and SME clients.
Lower-end of mainstream—budget conscious home users.
In summary, QoS demands often drive which type of network is adopted and budgetary constraints are a factor which influences the standard of quality for the "line" purchased.
Ethernet is a combination of networking technologies and is the most widely used network type deployed from the local area networks within offices, data centers and other clusters of devices to the global backbones across the global internet.
Ethernet became the dominant network type and its widespread use is prevalent both in the LAN and across the broader internet because it was a relatively easy standard to implement and to deploy globally. As more and more devices utilize a protocol or network type, network effects come into play because it makes the decision easier for others to adopt similar technology for compatibility and other reasons.
In the data center, where concentrated computing, storage, processing and other operations spread over various rack-mounted servers, a faster transport than Ethernet was required to back-channel connect these servers together for them to share data.
Fiber channel and Infiniband (IB) are two such technologies offering ultra-low latency and high capacity bandwidth. IB's lossless and parallel transfers offer strong advantages allowing for the use of Remote Direct Memory Access (RDMA) and also offers the opportunity to deploy and utilize globally dispersed parallel file systems (PFS). The limitation of IB was that it was only deployable at a relatively short distance measured in meters. This was then extended to a few kilometers. Until recently, IB "long-distance" links were limited to within a city or between two nearby metro areas connecting data centers to each other via superfast IB over dedicated lines. Technologies now exist which allow IB to be extended over distance and to transit up to 20,000 kilometers between two devices over a dark fiber line. For example, the innovations at the physical layer developed by Bay Microsystems and Obsidian Research offer various advantages such as low latency of IB and the ability for long-distance RDMA via IB over dark fiber between remote regions.
Ethernet Internet from the LAN to Internet to LAN uses TCP/IP, UDP/IP and IPv4, IPv6 addressing protocols. The last mile connectivity refers to linking of a LAN to the network of an ISP via POP to Internet.
Ethernet has a store and forward model where a packet is received, examined and then forwarded only after the payload has been completely received and examined. Latency within a computer/router/network device to handle a packet of Ethernet traffic is approximately 100 microseconds (μs).
Infiniband (IB)—extremely low latency compared with Ethernet. It is also much less verbose than TCP/IP or UDP/IP. It runs on top of Dark Fiber Connections. Compared with Ethernet over Dark Fiber it still is relatively faster and if native IB/RDMA over IB is utilized, latency can be measured as one-way for effective transmission rather than two-way as RTT is for Ethernet. IB bandwidth under load reaches 90 to 96 percent of theoretical BW maximum, approaching true wire speed. IB features cut through switching where it receives the headers of a packet, uses logic for the forwarding decision and pipes the packet payload onward. While IB has traditionally been used within a data center, IB has evolved to break out to become a truly global transport thanks to technologies to extend IB over long distance. These new technologies extent the IB reach over very large distances over dark fiber, up to 20,000 Km.
Remote direct memory access (RDMA) over IB utilizes zero-copy networking where the packet can be directly sent via the IB NIC. This reduces CPU Load and drops latency to 1 microsecond (μs) for a packet.
Parallel File Systems (PFS) offer distributed files and folders across various devices utilizing RDMA and when combined with IB over distance, PFS clusters offer fast file access from remote locations to/from remote file stores at near wire speed.
Reliability is of paramount importance when comparing network types. Main drivers affecting type of network, network protocol, and physical path are time and distance. Latency is a measure of time for data to travel in one direction or for a round trip time (RTT) over a specified distance between two points.
In computing, the main measure of time for networking is milliseconds (ms) and for processing is microseconds (μs) or nanoseconds (ns). The granularity of a tick of time can therefore be measured either as a fraction or as decimals. For example every 1/20th or 1/10th or 1/100th of a millisecond.
TABLE 1measures of timeMillisecondsMicroseconds#DescriptionSeconds(ms)(μs)11/10th of a second0.10000100100,00021/20th of a second0.050005050,00031/100th of a second0.010001010,000410 microseconds0.000010.010105100 microseconds0.000100.10010061,000 microseconds0.001001.0001,000
How fine the granularity of a tick can be is determined by the processing power device and other factors. Measurements of latency are typically measured in milliseconds and are influenced by both network type, protocol, distance, network load, congestion, and other factors.
TABLE 2Fiber line speed taking into account drag of optical fiber latencymiles/secondmiles/secondfiberin a vacuumthrough fiberefficiencySpeed of light186,282.34126,759.8868.05%
Table 2 compares the speed of light in a vacuum versus the speed of light inside of the glass core of an optical fiber. This illustrates the physical limitation of fiber efficiency and establishes a baseline for the theoretical best speed that be achieved through fiber. While the Refractive Index of fiber optic cables may vary slightly, an average is assumed as follows: Average of approx. 203 to 204 m/μs vs. speed of light of 299.792 m/μs for an efficiency of 68.05%.
The maximum number of available IPv4 IP Addresses is limited by the 32 bit IP address practical maximum of 4,294,967,296 (two to the power of thirty-two) IPv4 addresses. Of this sum total, there are approximately 588,514,304 reserved addresses, leaving only 3,706,452,992 public addresses available. While Internet Protocol version four (IPv4) is widely deployed, it can be characterized as a victim of its own success because the number of available IPv4 IP Addresses is almost completely exhausted. While technologies such as NATing for devices in a LAN specifically address this issue, the problem remains unsolved and unassigned IPv4 addresses are scarce.
Where the IPv4 addressing system has reached a point of exhaustion with few to zero available IPv4 IP addresses at a time when more and more are needed, IPv6 IP addresses offer a seemingly inexhaustible supply. IPv6 IP Addresses are 128 bits and therefore, the number of available IP Addresses is huge, approximately 340 undecillion or 340,282,366,920,938,463,463,374,607,431,768,211,456 possible IPv6 addresses available. While the number of available IP addresses under IPv6 is virtually unlimited compared with IPv4 address availability, the technology has been slow to be rolled out on a global basis limiting the utility of its deployment.
Many legacy networks are built with devices which are still only able to handle IPv4 addresses, presenting a conundrum. IPv6 has at its core what appears to be an ample supply of available IP addresses, however, IPv6 has not been deployed universally due to a number of factors, one of them being the CAPEX investment sunk into legacy equipment which only handle IPv4 and not both IPv4 and IPv6. Until legacy systems are replaced or upgraded to accommodate both IPv4 and IPv6, the IPv4 address constraint remains.
The Ethernet protocol has relatively high latency, poor efficiency, and low utilization rate over long distance with less than 25% efficiency with respect to line capacity when compared to InfiniBand. Problems are magnified where long distance transmission of data is negatively impacted by the performance flaws of IP based network protocols, and subsequent backwash of bandwidth delay product (BDP) at uneven peering points, and other drawbacks inherent in the native function of the protocols.
Internet connectivity is shared publically over ISP lines and as such is not as reliable as dedicated lines such as MPLS or DDN. Ethernet bandwidth (BW) under load and over long distance drops to a low percentage of the theoretical BW maximum.
There are also well known connectivity issues with respect to peering across multiple network boundaries over distance, across disparate fabrics of networks, and at network edges. These problems and challenges are addressed by a Global Virtual Network and are described in U.S. Prov. Pat. 62/108,987 the contents of which are incorporated by reference.
TCP/IP is verbose and utilizes a store & forward model which requires confirmation. It is prone to congestion slowdowns and bottlenecks through internet hops between nonequivalent segments. The result is higher latency and/or packet loss due to congestion or other factors. When a TCP/IP packet is lost or otherwise not delivered, the sender attempts to resend to ensure delivery. This can put a high demand on hardware resources including RAM and Processor use. The corollary to this is that more hardware is required to push a large amount of traffic (relative to an equivalent amount of traffic which Infiniband could handle) adding to expense and physical space requirements. Further, it leads to higher levels of energy consumption. UDP/IP is one-way and does not require the receiver to send an acknowledgement packet to the sender. This offers a significant speed advantage over TCP/IP, however the tradeoff for this speed gain is that during times of network congestion or other factors which impact reliability, if a packet is lost in transmission, there is no way for either the sender or the receiver to discover this loss.
Infiniband (IB) over dark fiber has advantages but it requires dedicated expensive equipment at both ends of an exclusive point-to-point fiber. In addition to requiring expensive HW edge devices to be installed at each end, the ongoing relatively high cost per month is required for the dark fiber. There is no automatic failover if this line is cut or fails. It is also an IB only network, therefore necessitating costly IB cards to be installed on each device within a network that will utilize this facility. Technical skill is also required both for installation and subsequent ongoing operations. Therefore, integration skill is required to take full advantage of RDMA over IB and this requires investment both in equipment and manpower both upfront and over time.
A significant CAPEX investment is required for the hardware and integration efforts if one were to build a global InfiniBand-only network. For point-to-multipoint topology integration, technical staff are required to set up the architecture and to remain on duty to monitor and maintain it. While the advantages of an IB multi-honed-backbone-to-last-mile are desirable, the upfront expense in hardware endpoint equipment and the high running cost of recurring fees for dark fiber between each point and the point-to-point typology present both a price and technical barrier which only the largest and best funded organizations can surmount.
Today, organizations have flexibility to deploy many types of networks including IPv4, IPv6, InfiniBand, Fiber Channel and other network types, within the LANs and WANs under their direct control. If they wish to have end-to-end network fabrics over distance, current solutions require them to put dedicated lines in place and to invest in middle devices to power these WAN connections.
To summarize, TCP/IP offers reliability at the cost of being verbose and is consequently slower. It requires packets to be sent and for an acknowledgement to return. Accordingly the latency of Round Trip Time (RTT) is measured as the time it takes for a packet to reach its destination AND for an acknowledgment to be returned back to its source. UDP/IP does not require an acknowledgement to be returned. However, UDP isn't tolerant to errors and loss like TCP is. Without flow control UDP is not prone to the same degree of congestion issues as TCP, however it can still suffer from IP protocol inefficiencies. Therefore, if a UDP packet is lost then neither the sender nor the receiver can know. IB has the advantage of ultra-low latency, with parallel transfer but is not widely deployed and requires its own hardware NICs, cables, routers, and other devices to operate. IP and IB are not plug-and-play compatible. To send IP over IB, it has to be encapsulated as IP over InfiniBand (IPoIB) because is not native to the IB protocol. IB has many advantages but it relatively more expensive.

System and method for network tapestry multiprotocol integration


A system and method for facilitating inventory management in financial transaction instrument distribution is disclosed. The method may include the steps of: receiving information related to the sale of a first transaction instrument, wherein the first transaction instrument is associated with a second transaction instrument, wherein the first and second transaction instruments comprise a group of transaction instruments, and wherein the information identifies a location of the sale of the first transaction instrument; and associating the location of the sale of the first transaction instrument with the second transaction instrument and/or the group of transaction instruments.

Consumers may use a financial transaction account, which may be associated with an account number and/or transaction instrument (e.g., charge card, credit card, debit card, gift card, etc.), as a form of payment or for identification in various transactions. However, sufficient inventory management systems and tracking methods do not exist for distribution of many financial transaction instruments.
Distribution of financial transaction instruments may involve the distribution of physical objects directly to retail locations or through a distribution chain. Distribution of, for example, charge cards may take place through various third party distribution centers and distributors in a supply chain. Such systems are not generally configured for detailed tracking of inventory, and systems are generally not in place or sufficient to facilitate providing timely or useful information to the issuer of the transaction instrument.
These limitations on the ability to track inventory have historically not been a strong concern because the product being distributed and/or the method of distributing the product did not raise significant security, loss prevention, and re-claim issues. For example, distributed cards have typically been closed cards. "Closed cards" are cards that may be restricted to use in a particular store or within a particular chain of a stores. One example of a closed card is a pre-paid gift card that may only be purchased at, and only be accepted at, a clothing retailer, such as The Gap®. In contrast, "Open cards" are cards that are generally accepted at different merchants. Examples of open cards include American Express®, Visa®, and Discover®, MasterCard® cards, which may be used at many different retailers and other businesses.
A relatively low level of concern often exists for loss control and inventory management in the distribution of transaction instruments that are closed system, valueless, and/or non-expiring cards in comparison to open system, pre-paid, and/or expiring transaction instruments. As such, the conventional wisdom has been that detailed tracking of the distribution of prepaid cards, charge cards, credit cards, and the like, may not be cost effective. By way of example, closed cards generally do not have expiration dates; and because of this, there typically has been no reason to reclaim the unsold cards after a period of time has elapsed.
However, it is presently becoming desirable to distribute open financial transaction instruments (e.g., open debit/credit cards) in a publicly accessible manner. For example, it is desirable to hang an open card on a rack in high foot traffic areas of a store. Such a method of distributing may tend to increase the effectiveness of card distribution. However, open cards may have an expiration date associated with the card. Furthermore, the distribution of open cards may increase the need for of security measures.
Thus, there exists a need for systems and methods that facilitate determining the location of a financial transaction instrument (e.g., a card) and reclaiming the financial transaction instrument in advance of its expiration date. More generally, there exist a need for inventory management systems and methods that can track the distribution of open financial transaction instruments.

Transaction instrument inventory management system and method

American Express Travel Related Services Company, Inc.


To provide a composition in which fine particles of solid lipid such as ceramides are emulsified and dispersed in a stable manner without being crystalized. A dispersion of fine lipid particles containing the following components (A) to (E), wherein the dispersion has a pH of 3.5 or more and 8.0 or less and the fine lipid particles have a heat of fusion of 0.30 J/g or less in a temperature range of 45° C. or more and 80° C. or less and an average particle size of less than 200 nm. (A) one or more selected from the group consisting of a sterol and a derivative thereof, (B) a lipid other than the component (A), the lipid being solid or semi-solid at 25° C., (C) an anionic surfactant, (D) a water-soluble solvent and (E) water.

A lipid called stratum corneum intercellular lipid exists in the gap defined between corneocytes constituting the stratum corneum, which exists in the outermost layer of the skin. Ceramide accounts for about 50% of the composition of the stratum corneum intercellular lipid, the rest including cholesterol, cholesterol ester and fatty acid. Of them, ceramide is deeply associated with, for example, rough skin and dry skin, and it is known that the condition of the stratum corneum can be improved by supplementing ceramide externally.
Various cosmetics prepared by compounding solid lipid such as ceramides were reported in this view. These solid lipids, however, are highly crystalline and have high melting point, and thus stabilizing them in a formulation is difficult. Thus, various methods for stabilization were developed. Reports include, for example, a ceramide dispersion prepared by combining ceramide-containing particles, fatty acid having a melting point of 30° C. or less, a nonionic surfactant, an anionic surfactant and other components (Patent Literature 1); a single phase microemulsion composition containing a nonionic surfactant, oil, polyoxypropylene-polyoxyethylene copolymer dialkyl ether and water (Patent Literature 2); a lipid composition prepared by mixing ceramides and aliphatic alcohol having 12 to 30 carbon atoms and compatibilizing them at 90° C. (Patent Literature 3); a thermosensitive cholesteric liquid crystal composition containing five components including cholesterol fatty acid ester (Patent Literature 4); and a technique for preparing a liquid crystal emulsion by heating ceramide, cholesterol and other components at a phase transition temperature or more, adding polyhydric alcohol thereto, and then cooling the mixture (Patent Literature 5).
(Patent Literature 1) International Publication No. 2010/38814
(Patent Literature 2) JP-A-2007-15972
(Patent Literature 3) JP-A-2004-331595
(Patent Literature 4) JP-A-hei 2-191208
(Patent Literature 5) JP-A-hei 9-124432

Dispersion of fine lipid particle dispersion


A image input means 81 inputs a lifeform image which is a captured image of a lifeform sample. A structure standard color storage means 82 stores a standard color of a structure included in the lifeform image. A structure extraction means 83 extracts a target structure from the lifeform image. A structure color computation means 84 computes, from an image of the structure extracted by the structure extraction means 83, a color of the structure. A color distribution conversion means 85 converts a color distribution of the input lifeform image so that a difference between the color of the structure computed by the structure color computation means 84 and the standard color of the corresponding structure stored in the structure standard color storage means 82 is reduced.

Various methods of making a pathological diagnosis from a captured image (hereafter also referred to as "lifeform image" (biological image)) of a lifeform sample are known. For example, Patent Literature (PTL) 1 describes a method of extracting a gland duct from a lifeform image.
PTL 2 describes an image processing device for correcting a lifeform image depending on an image reading device. The image processing device described in PTL 2 determines the type of lifeform (biological) tissue included in the lifeform image, and corrects the lifeform image depending on the identification information of the image reading device and the type of lifeform tissue.

Lifeform image analysis system, lifeform image analysis method, and lifeform image analysis program


A servo-mark search control unit detects in a magnetic disk a servo mark matching a servo mark selected by a servo-mark candidate selecting unit. In this case, according to an instruction from a servo-mark search control unit, a non-volatile memory managing unit writes servo-write-mode identification information corresponding to the detected servo mark in a servo-write-mode identification-information storage unit of a non-volatile memory. In this manner, a magnetic disk device can recognize by itself a servo write mode with which servo patterns were written in a magnetic disk included in the magnetic disk device.

In recent years, demands for storage devices, such as magnetic disk devices, magneto-optical disk devices, and optical disk devices, are expanding. A storage device has incorporated therein a disk-shaped storage medium for reading and writing information via a head. With the expansion of demand for storage devices, information recording density of a storage medium has been significantly improved.
In such a high-density storage medium, to accurately position a head at a target track, auto control called servo control is used. In the storage medium, signal patterns called servo information (servo data) for use in servo control are written.
The servo information is written in the storage medium with a Servo Track Writer (STW) mode using a device called an STW (for example, a self STW mode, a stack-media STW mode, or a copy STW mode, which will be explained further below) or a magnetic printing mode. That is, from a plurality of modes of writing servo information, a manufacturer of the storage medium can arbitrarily use any one of the modes to write servo information in the storage medium.
However, each of these servo-information write modes has advantages and disadvantages in a storage-device manufacturing process. For example, the stack-media STW mode does not require much time to prepare for steps prior to a servo-information write process, allowing servo information to be written in approximately ten storage media at once, but do require much time to write servo information itself.
On the other hand, magnetic printing does not require much time to write servo information, allowing servo information to be written in a large number of storage media at once, but do require much time and cost to generate a model of servo patterns of servo information, which is called a master stamper.
Meanwhile, a manufacturer manufacturing storage devices is required to arrange a plan to produce storage devices in consideration of the number of orders for storage devices from customers and manufacturing yield of storage devices, and is also required to manage parts inventory. An increase in inventory due to excessive manufacturing of storage media is undesirable in view of manufacturing cost. Therefore, the entire manufacturing process from receiving an order for storage devices from a customer through generating servo patterns and then inspecting products before shipping to shipping them to the customer is desirably completed within the shortest possible period of time.
To do this, in consideration of the number of orders for storage devices from customers and manufacturing yield of storage devices, some or all of the servo-information write modes are combined as appropriate to write the servo information in the storage media. With this, production planning for optimizing the period of the entire manufacturing process can be achieved. That is, in one storage-device manufacturing process, storage devices with storage media having servo information written therein with different modes are produced in a mixed manner.
In general, when servo information is written with different modes, a shipping inspector has to recognize in advance which servo-information write mode was used to write the servo information in each storage medium and then perform an inspection process at the time of shipping according to the relevant mode.
However, when storage devices with servo information written therein with different modes are produced in a mixed manner in one storage-device manufacturing process due to the reasons, the servo-information write mode has to be correctly identified for each storage device so as to perform an inspection process at the time of shipping.
As a conventional technology of identifying a servo-information write mode, a storage device has been suggested in which a head that reads information stored in a storage medium selects from a plurality of types of servo information written in one storage medium is the one having the highest affinity for the characteristics of the head and capable of accurately reading information. Also, another storage device has been suggested in which a storage medium is provided with a protective area where information for identifying a device that has recorded servo information in the storage medium is stored. For example, these conventional technologies are disclosed in Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication Nos. 2006-147104 and 2006-221771.
However, in the conventional technologies mentioned above, in an inspection process at the time of shipping performed on a storage device with a storage medium incorporate therein, the inspector has to recognize in advance which servo-information write mode was used to write servo information and conduct an inspection by using an inspection program for each servo-information write mode.
Therefore, in the conventional technologies, in an inspection process, mixed presence of storage devices with different servo-information write modes is not allowed. That is, for each storage device with a different servo-information write mode, the inspection program has to be switched to a corresponding one, and such switching involves a temporary halt of the manufacturing line, thereby decreasing production efficiency.
Moreover, storage devices having storage media with servo information recorded therein with different servo-information write modes are operation-controlled by different control programs and are tested by different test programs. Therefore, different control programs have to be generated for the respective servo-information write modes, thereby inviting an increase in the number of processes for manufacturing storage devices and inhibiting a reduction in manufacturing cost and time of storage devices.

Storage device, control circuit for storage device, and servo-write-mode identifying method


A method of mounting a cable on a headliner and a headliner used therefor, that are capable of simplifying an attachment process by attaching the cable to the headliner using an attaching cloth, and preventing the attached cable from being easily separated from the headliner and securely fixing the cable to reduce generation of noises. The method is capable of easily recognizing a cable mounting position and arbitrarily adjusting the cable mounting position to a width of an attaching cloth. A worker may easily perform an assembly process by attaching the cable using the attaching cloth, separating an incorrectly attached cable and then attaching the cable thereto again.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method of mounting a cable on a headliner and a headliner used therefor, and more particularly, to a method of mounting a cable on a headliner and a headliner used therefor, in which the cable is mounted on the headliner using an attaching cloth having hook and loop fasteners, which is referred to as a VELCRO, to enable easy mounting and change a mounting position to enable re-mounting thereof.
2. Discussion of Related Art
In general, as shown in FIG. 1, a roof panel R of a vehicle includes a headliner H/L formed at an inner side thereof to provide a shock-absorbing function, a mood, or the like. The headliner H/L is fixedly installed at a side roof rail by a clip, and formed by stacking various materials such as vinyl, cotton, or the like to function as an insulating material against a temperature change from the outside.
Korean Patent Application Laid-Open No. 10-2010-0035324 discloses a novel headliner wire fixing method, as shown in FIG. 2, capable of securely fixing an electric wire and increasing a working efficiency. In such a fixing method, an upper surface of a strip-shaped cover sheet 10 formed of a non-woven fabric material is ultrasonic-welded to a headliner 1 formed of a non-woven fabric material to fix an electric wire 2, improving an adhesive force between the cover sheet 10 and the headliner 1 to securely fix the electric wire 2 fixed by the cover sheet 10 and reducing a working time to improve a working efficiency.
Meanwhile, the electric wire fixing method also uses a fixing method of applying hot melt and attaching a cable thereon using a robot or the like. In case of the fixing method, a noise pad is further attached on the cable to prevent a direct contact between a roof panel and the cable.
However, when the cable is fixed to the headliner through fusion or using an adhesive agent, the following problems occur.
(1) Since the noise pad should be added to fix the cable after the cable is attached on the headliner, simple works should be repeated.
(2) When a cable attaching position is incorrect, the headliner may not be assembled onto the roof panel. In this case, it is cumbersome to separate the cable attached to the headliner and then fuse or attach the cable thereto again. Of course, when the cable is securely attached thereto, since the cable cannot be separated from the headliner, the headliner may be wasted.
(3) For this reason, an operator who attaches the cable to the headliner should have skillfulness of a certain level or more with respect to a corresponding work.
(4) When an attachment area of the cable to the headliner is separated, the cable comes in direct contact with the roof panel to cause noises in the inside of the vehicle.

Method of mounting cable on headliner and headliner used therefor

Abstract: The attaching cloth may be at a mounting position of a headliner opposite to a roof panel and at which a cable is mounted, and at an outer circumferential surface of the cable, respectively.


A Schottky barrier diode is employed for temperature sensing, being capable of indicating temperatures above 110° C. or so by the magnitude of its reverse current. The overheat protector is disclosed as incorporated in a dc-to-dc converter in which, connected in series with the primary winding of a transformer, a current control switch is driven by a switch control circuit so as to hold the converter output voltage constant. The Schottky barrier diode is connected to the gate of a thyristor, triggering the same by its reverse current when a preselected part of the converter, to which the Schottky barrier diode is thermally coupled, heats up to a predetermined limit. The conduction of the thyristor results in disconnection of the switch control circuit from its power supply.

This invention relates to an overheat protector for use in a variety of electric instruments or appliances. The overheat protector according to the invention is well adaptable for use in a dc-to-dc converter, although no unnecessary limitations to this particular application are intended.
Dc-to-dc converters and the like have so far been protected against overheating by use of temperature sensors such as thermostats and thermistors. The thermistor is classifiable into two types—positive temperature coefficient (PTC) and negative temperature coefficient (NTC). The PTC thermistor is known as a posistor (tradename). As currently placed on the market, the thermostats, thermistors and posistors are all too expensive for the applications envisaged by the instant invention, by reasons of limited productions and very fine temperature control offered. These familiar temperature sensors have therefore added substantively to the manufacturing costs of overheat protectors, as well as to those of the dc-to-dc converters or the like incorporating such protectors.
Use of the Schottky-barrier diode for temperature sensing has recently been suggested by Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2001-45655. It teaches to measure temperatures on the basis of the temperature-dependent reverse current of a Schottky-barrier diode, switching off the power supply upon detection of a reverse current magnitude in excess of a predetermined limit. This unexamined patent application is silent, however, on how the Schottky-barrier diode is used in an actual dc-to-dc converter or other electric instrument of the type having a current controller and associated control circuit therefore.

Overheat protector for a dc-to-dc converter or the like


A universal friction lining support is affixed on or just under the surface of a friction lining to resist wear and vibrations caused by the road, eliminating the need for a backing plate. The support is configured to fit in the corners of friction linings of various lining assembly sizes. Extensions on the exterior edge of the support locate the friction lining relative to the caliper housing as the piston is engaged. Various attachment features, such as holes or protrusions, can be also added to the support to secure the support to the friction lining.

The present invention relates generally to brake pads for use with vehicle brake calipers, and more specifically, the invention relates to brake pad backing plates.
Disc braking systems use brake pads which have a custom manufactured metal backing plate attached to a friction lining. The backing plate creates a surface which helps the friction lining withstand the reaction force or vibrational impact caused by the road as the brake pads engage the rotor. Friction linings are commonly attached to the surface of a backing plate by rivets. The rivets are received within numerous recesses in the braking surface of the lining. Additionally, locators on the backing plate locate the brake pad relative to the caliper to prevent rotation of the brake pad when the piston is engaged.
Prior art backing plates have several drawbacks. The backing plates are usually manufactured from plates of steel, which requires expensive tooling. Backing plates are specifically manufactured for each brake design, requiring a different backing plate and tooling for different linings.
The thickness of the friction lining decreases over the life of the brake pads due to wear. As a result, the rivets gradually approach the braking surface. A common problem with utilizing rivets is the incidents of the rivets scoring the brake rotors when the friction linings wear down. Additionally, the rivets significantly reduce the surface area of the friction lining which contacts the brake rotor.
Hence, there is a need in the art for a brake pad which does not require custom backing plates that must be riveted to the friction lining.
An inventive embodiment includes a metal friction lining support affixed on or just under the surface of a friction lining. The support is symmetrical such that it can be affixed to either of the corners of the friction lining.
In a first embodiment, the friction lining support is L-shaped and includes a perpendicular extension which locates the friction lining relative to the caliper housing. The support can be affixed to any friction lining, regardless of size, since the support is universal and configured to fit in the corner of a friction lining of any size. In another embodiment, the support is planar and does not include perpendicular locators.
The friction lining support can also includes holes or protrusions located on the surface of the support. The holes or protrusion assist in affixing the support to the friction lining by molding the support in the friction lining and provide more useable lining material compared to rivet fasteners.
Accordingly, the present invention provides a friction lining support composed of metal which is affixed to or just under the surface of a friction lining to create a surface which withstands the reaction force or vibration impact caused by road input.
These and other features of the present invention will be best understood from the following specification and drawings.


A power level identification circuit includes a power interface, a voltage conversion unit, a waveform detection unit, a signal pre-processing unit and a processing unit. The power interface receives electrical power and first signals indicating a level of the power. The voltage conversion unit receives the power from the power interface and converts the power. The waveform detection unit filters the power and obtains the first signals indicating power level. The signal pre-processing unit shapes the waveform of the first signals indicating power level and thereby generates second signals indicating power level. The processing unit identifies a level of the second signals indicating power level and switches to one of modes of the power level identification circuit corresponding to the identified level of the second signals indicating power level. A power level flag circuit and a power level supply system are also provided.

1. Technical Field
The disclosure relates to identification circuits and flag circuits, and particularly to power level identification circuits and power level flag circuits.
2. Description of Related Art
Different voltage or power adapters have similar appearances, and this can easily confuse people. When a small power supply adapter is used on an electronic device needing a large amount of power, or a large power supply adapter is used on an electronic device needing a small amount of power, damage may be caused to the electronic device. Accordingly, there is a need for a circuit that can identify or mark the level of power output by a power adapter.

Power level identification circuit, power level flag circuit and power level supply system


A method for the manufacture of components composed of difficult-to-cut materials for gas turbines, in particular for manufacturing integrally bladed rotors for gas turbine aircraft engines, by producing recesses with one or more side walls, the recesses forming flow channels and the side walls forming blade surfaces, whereby material in the region of the flow channels is removed by a drilling process, and after the drilling process is finished the remaining material in the region of said flow channels is removed by a milling process. The unique combination of a drilling process followed by a milling process completing the material removal reduces significantly the manufacturing time.

Integrally bladed rotors for gas turbines are often called "blisks" or "blings", depending on the cross-sectional shape of the rotor. A disk-shaped rotor having integrated blades is called "blisk" (bladed disk), a ring-shaped rotor having integrated blades is called "bling" (bladed ring).
Several methods for the manufacture of integrally bladed rotors are known from the prior art. These methods include milling methods as well as chemical or electrochemical discharge methods to remove material from between the side walls defining the flow channels. E.g. a milling method for the manufacture of integrally bladed rotors is disclosed in the U.S. Pat. No. 6,077,002. All manufacturing methods known from the prior art are time consuming and result in an expensive manufacturing of integrally bladed rotors.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a method for the manufacture of especially integrally bladed rotors which allows to significantly reduce the material removal time.

Manufacturing method especially for integrally bladed rotors


A series of noble metal organometallic complexes of the general formula (I): MLaXb(FBC)c, wherein M is a noble metal such as iridium, ruthenium or osmium, and L is a neutral ligand such as carbonyl, alkene or diene; X is an anionic ligand such as chloride, bromide, iodide and trifluoroacetate group; and FBC is a fluorinated bidentate chelate ligand such as beta diketonate, beta-ketoiminate, amino-alcoholate and amino-alcoholate ligand, wherein a is an integer of from zero (0) to three (3), b is an integer of from zero (0) to one (1) and c is an 10 integer of from one (1) to three (3). The resulting noble metal complexes possess enhanced volatility and thermal stability characteristics, and are suitable for chemical vapor deposition(CVD) applications. The corresponding noble metal complex is formed by treatment of the FBC ligand with a less volatile metal halide. Also disclosed are CVD methods for using the noble metal complexes as source reagents for deposition of noble metal-containing films such as Ir, Ru and Os, or even metal oxide film materials IrO2, OsO2 and RuO2.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a series of novel volatile noble metal organometallic complexes, and to a method for the preparation thereof. Such complexes are particularly useful as chemical vapor deposition (CVD) precursors for formation of noble metal-containing thin films on substrate assemblies.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Chemical vapor deposition (hereafter indicated as "CVD") is widely used for the deposition of noble metal-containing thin films on a variety of substrate assemblies. CVD is a particularly attractive method for forming thin film coatings in the semiconductor industries because it has the ability to readily control the composition of the thin film and to form a thin film layer without contamination of, or damage to the substrate assembly. CVD may also be applied to deposit the desired thin film into holes, trenches, and other stepped structures. In situations where conformal thin film deposition is required, CVD would also be a preferred method, since evaporation and sputtering techniques cannot be used to form a conformal thin-film layer. However, CVD processes require suitable source reagents that are sufficiently volatile to permit a rapid transport of their vapors into the CVD reactor. The source reagents, which may be called the precursors, should be relatively stable and inert against oxygen and moisture in air at room temperature to allow long-term storage. They also should decompose cleanly in the CVD reactor to deposit a high purity metal component at the desired growth temperature on the substrate assembly.
The tris-acetylacetonato and tris-allyl iridium(III) complexes Ir(acac)3 and Ir(C3H5)3 are two commonly known CVD precursors, for which the commercially available Ir(acac)3 is a better choice due to its excellent air stability. However the high melting point and low volatility of Ir(acac)3 has limited its development as the industrial standard. In addition, other source reagents consist of Ir(I) metal complexes such as Ir(COD)(MeCp), COD=1,4-cyclooctadiene and MeCp=methylcyclopentadienyl, Ir(COD)(hfac), hfac=hexafluoroacetylacetonate, Ir(COD)(amak), amak=OC(CF3)2CH2NMe2, [Ir(COD)(μ-OMe)]2, [Ir(COD)(μ-OAc)]2, OAc=acetate, and [Ir(CO)2(μ-SBut)]2. For this family of iridium CVD precursors, the monomeric metal complexes Ir(COD)(MeCp) and Ir(COD)(hfac) appear to be more useful for iridium deposition due to their enhanced volatility and vapor phase transport properties which are uncomplicated by monomer-dimer equilibria. The physical properties of these iridium CVD precursors are listed in Table 1.
The chemical vapor deposition of osmium was achieved using the commercially available osmocene (C5H5)2Os, osmium tetraoxide OsO4, or even the metal carbonyl complexes such as Os(CO)5, Os3(CO)12, Os(CO)4(hfb), where hfb=hexafluoro-2-butyne, and the tailor-made precursor complexes Os(CO)4I2, Os(CO)3(tfa)(hfac), tfa=trifluoroacetate, and even [Os(CO)3(hfpz)]2, hfpz=3,5-bis(trifluoromethyl) pyrazolate. Osmium-containing thin films with reasonable purity were obtained in most of these studies; however, the usage of these source reagents has encountered difficulties such as the greater toxicity for OsO4, poor thermal stability for Os(CO)5, and lower gas phase transportation capability for the osmocene complex (C5H5)2Os and polynuclear metal complex Os3(CO)12.
Moreover, the known ruthenium CVD precursor complexes include ruthenocene, Ru(C5H5)2, and its alkyl substituted complexes, such as Ru(C5H4Et)2, carbonyl complexes, such as Ru(CO)4(hfb), hfb=hexafluoro-2-butyne, Ru(CO)2(hfac)2 and Ru3(CO)12; tris-β-diketonate complexes, such as Ru(acac)3, Ru(tfac)3 and Ru(tmhd)3; and organometallic olefin complexes, such as bis(2,4-dimethylpentadienyl)ruthenium, bis(2,4-dimethyloxapentadienyl)ruthenium, Ru(η6-C6H6)(η4-C6H8), C6H8=1,3-cyclohexadiene, and Ru(COD)(C3H5)2, COD=1,5-cyclooctadiene. Selected physical properties of these known osmium and ruthenium organometallic reagents are listed in Table 2.
Accordingly, there is a continuing need for highly volatile and relatively air and thermally stable CVD source reagents for various CVD applications, such as the formation of bottom electrodes, diffusion barriers, conductors, superconductors, dielectrics, capacitors, protective coatings and catalytic metal alloy films. More specifically, the iridium as well as the ruthenium source materials are becoming important for fabricating metallic iridium and ruthenium, iridium oxide (IrO2) and ruthenium oxide (RuO2) that have recently gained interest for use as bottom electrodes in both dynamic random access memories (DRAMs) and for ferroelectric-based memory devices (FRAMs), which incorporate perovskite metal oxides as the capacitor layer. Such perovskite dielectric materials include SBT, BST, PZT, PLZT, etc., wherein SBT=strontium bismuth tantalite, BST=barium strontium titanate, PZT=lead zirconium titanate and PLZT=lead lanthanum zirconium titanate. The practical advantages of iridium and ruthenium based materials over other electrode materials include ease of deposition, good adhesion to Si wafer, the ability to form a stable conducting oxide at high temperatures in an oxidizing environment, and the ability to operate at high temperatures in a working device. On the other hand, osmium CVD source reagents may find application in replacing the relatively less stable source reagent Os(CO)5 or the highly toxic compound OsO4 for making the osmium-coated thermionic cathodes and abrasive-resistant osmium hard-coatings.
Generally speaking, CVD of these metal-containing thin film coatings has been limited due to a variety of reasons, including formation of poor film quality, requiring of high processing temperatures, lack of suitable precursor compounds, and instability of the precursors used in the deposition systems. The availability of suitable precursors with moderate volatility and stability appears to be the greatest limiting factors in the CVD applications, as the poor stability against heat and moisture makes them difficult to store and handle, yields inferior thin film coatings and creates serious contamination at the as-deposited thin films in production-scale operations.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide suitable novel CVD precursors that are amenable to use in the chemical vapor deposition of noble metal-containing films.
Based on the need for these noble metal-containing coatings, the prior art has sought to provide new design for the suitable CVD precursors and continued to seek improvements in their basic physical properties that are advantageous for integration with current CVD technology.
It is another object of the present invention is to provide a simplified CVD method for forming a noble metal-containing film on a substrate assembly utilizing these newly prepared precursors. Other objects, features, and advantages will be more fully apparent from the ensuing disclosure and appended claims.
TABLE 1Selected physical properties of known iridium CVD precursorsCompoundM.P. (° C.)CVD TD (° C.)Sublimation ConditionReferencesIr(acac)3300–400° C.subl. at 180–200° C.(a)Ir(C3H5)3dec. at 65° C.100° C.subl. at 50° C./15 torr(b)Ir(COD)(MeCp)38–40° C.270–350° C.subl. at 95° C./0.05 torr(c) and (d)Ir(COD)(hfac)120° C.250–400° C.subl. at 60° C./0.05 torr(e)Ir(COD)(amak)127° C.350° C.subl. at 50° C./0.2 torr(f)[Ir(COD)(μ-135° C.250° C.subl. at 125° C./0.07 torr(c)OAc)]2[Ir(CO)2(μ-SBut)]2128° C.; dec. 160° C.150–450° C.subl. at 80–140° C./0.1 torr(f)Abbreviations:TD = deposition temperature,acac = acetylacetonate,C3H5 = allyl,MeCp = methylcyclopentadienyl,hfac = hexafluoroacetylacetonate,amak = OC(CF3)2CH2NMe2,COD = 1,5-cyclooctadiene,OAc = acetate.(a) Sun, Y.-M.; Endle, J. P.; Smith, K.; Whaley, S.; Mahaffy, R.; Ekerdt, J. G.; White, J. M.; Hance, R. L. Thin Solid Films 1999, 346, 100.(b) Kaesz, H. D.; Williams, R. S.; Hicks, R. F.; Zink, J. I.; Chen, Y.-J.; Muller, H.-J.; Xue, Z.; Xu, D.; Shuh, D. K.; Kim, Y. K. New. J. Chem. 1990, 14, 527.(c) Hoke, J. B.; Stern, E. W.; Murray, H. H. J. Mater. Chem. 1991, 1, 551.(d) Sun, Y.-M.; Yan, X.-M.; Mettlach, N.; Endle, J. P.; Kirsch, P. D.; Ekerdt, J. G.; Madhukar, S.; Hance, R. L.; White, J. M. J. Vac. Sci. Technol. 2000, 18, 10.(e) Xu, C.; Baum, T. H.; Rheingold, A. L. Chem. Mater. 1998, 10, 2329.(f) Chen, Y.-L.; Liu, C.-S.; Chi, Y.; Carty, A. J.; Peng, S.-M.; Lee, G.-H. Chem. Vap. Deposition 2002, 8, 17.(g) Serp, P.; Feurer, R.; Kalck, P.; Gomes, H.; Faria, J. L.; Figueiredo, J. L. Chem. Vap. Deposition 2001, 7, 59.
TABLE 2Relevant physical properties of selective known osmiumand ruthenium CVD precursorsCompoundM.P. (° C.)CVD TD (° C.)Relative volatilityReferencesOsmocene194–198350–500° C.(a)Os3(CO)12226–228° C.225° C.vaporized at 50° C.(b)Os(CO)4(hfb)600° C.subl. at 25° C./0.05 torr(c)Os(CO)4I2450–550° C.subl. at 55° C./0.45 torr(d)Os(CO)3(tfa)(hfac)153–156° C.400–500° C.subl. at 55° C./0.45 torr(d)[Os(CO)3(hfpz)]2189° C.400–550° C.vaporized at 110° C.(e)Ruthenocene194–198225–500° C.yap, pressure 0.01 torr at(a) and (f)85° C.Ru3(CO)12150 dec.150–175° C.vaporized at 50° C.(b)Ru(CO)4(hfb)200–500° C.subl. at 25° C./0.05 torr(c)Ru(tmhd)3210–213250–600° C.subl. at 120° C./0.5 torr(g)Ru(COD)(C3H5)2300° C.vaporized at 75° C.(h)Ru(CO)2(hfac) 55–75° C.400° C.vaporized at 50° C.(i)RuO4 27° C.150–220° C.b.p. = 129° C.highly toxic, (j)Abbreviation:TD = deposition temperature,hfb = hexafluoro-2-butyne,tfa = trifluoroacetate,hfac = hexafluoroacetylacetonate,hfpz = 3,5-bis(trifluoromethyl) pyrazolate,tmhd = 2,2,6,6-tetramethyl-3,5-heptanedionate,C3H5 = allyl andCOD = 1,5-cyclooctadiene.(a) Smart, C. J.; Gulhati, A.; Reynolds, S. K. Mater. Res. Soc. Symp. Proc. 1995, 363, 207.(b) Boyd, E. P.; Ketchumn, D. R.; Deng, H.; Shore, S. G. Chem. Mater. 1997, 9, 1154.(c) Seuzaki, Y.; Gladfelter, W. L.; McCormick, F. B. Chem. Mater. 1993, 5, 1715.(d) Yu, H.-L.; Chi, Y.; Liu, C.-S.; Peng, S.-M.; Lee, G.-H. Chem. Vap. Deposition 2001, 7, 245.(e) Chi, Y.; Yu, H.-L.; Cling, W.-L.; Liu, C.-S.; Chen, Y.-L.; Chou, T.-Y.; Peng, S.-M.; Lee, G.-H. J. Mater. Chem. 2002, 12, 1363.(f) Park, S.-E.; Kim, H.-M.; Kim, K.-B.; Min, S.-H. J. Electrochem. Soc. 2000, 147, 203.(g) Vetrone, J.; Foster, C. M.; Bai, G.-R.; Wang, A.; Patel, J.; Wu, X. J. Mater. Res. 1998, 13, 2281.(h) Barreca, D.; Buchberger, A.; Daolio, S.; Depero, L. E.; Fabrizio, M.; Morandini, F.; Rizzi, G. A.; Sangaletti, L.; Tondello, E. Langmuir 1999, 15, 4537.(i) Lee, F.-J.; Chi, Y.; Hsu, P.-F.; Chou, T.-Y.; Liu, C.-S.; Peng, S.-M.; Lee, G.-H. Chem. Vap. Deposition 2001, 7, 99.(j) Sankar, J.; Sham, T. K.; Puddephatt, R. J. J. Mater. Chem., 1999, 9, 2439.

Volatile noble metal organometallic complexes


The invention relates to a method for synchronizing a receiver (1) with a transmitted code-modulated spread spectrum signal. The method uses at least one reference code (r(x)), which corresponds to a code used in the modulation. The frequency shift of the transmitted signal and the code phase of the code used in the modulation are determined in the method.

The present invention relates to a method for synchronizing a receiver with a transmitted code-modulated spread spectrum signal, in which method at least one reference code (r(x)) is used, the reference code corresponding to a code used in the modulation, a frequency shift of the transmitted signal and a code phase of the code used in the modulation is determined, a receiver which comprises at least a synchronization means for synchronizing the receiver (1) with a transmitted code-modulated spread spectrum signal, the receiver (1) having means (16) for using at least one reference code (r(x)) in connection with synchronization, which reference code (r(x)) corresponds to a code used in the modulation, and means (15) for determining a frequency shift and a code phase of the code used in the modulation, and an electronic device which comprises at least a positioning receiver (1), synchronization means for synchronizing the positioning receiver (1) to a transmitted code-modulated spread spectrum signal, the positioning receiver (1) having means (16) for using at least one reference code (r(x)) in connection with the synchronization, the reference code (r(x)) corresponding to a code used in the modulation, and the electronic device comprising means (15) for determining the frequency shift of the transmitted signal and the code phase of the code used in the modulation.
The GPS system (Global Positioning System) is a well known positioning system, which comprises over 30 satellites, of which a maximum of 12 satellites are simultaneously visible to a receiver. These satellites transmit various information, such as Ephemeris data and clock data parameters which describe the satellite clock and its relationship to GPS time. Normally, the receiver used in positioning determines its location by calculating the transit time of signals transmitted simultaneously from several satellites of the positioning system to the receiver. To determine its location, the receiver must typically receive the signal of at least four visible satellites in order to be able to calculate the location.
Each operational satellite of the GPS system transmits a so-called L1 signal at a carrier frequency of 1575.42 MHz. This frequency is also denoted 154f0, where f0=10.23 MHz. In addition, the satellites transmit an L2 signal at a carrier frequency of 1227.6 MHz, that is 120f0. In the satellite, these signals are modulated with at least one pseudo-random sequence. Each satellite has a different pseudo-random sequence. As a result of modulation, a code modulated wideband signal is formed. This modulation technique makes it possible for the receiver to distinguish between signals transmitted by different satellites, despite the fact that the carrier frequencies used in the transmission are essentially the same. This modulation technique is called Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA). One of the pseudo-random sequences used in each satellite for the modulation of the L1 signal is so-called C/A code (Coarse/Acquisition code), which is so-called-Gold code. Each GPS satellite transmits a signal using a unique C/A code. The codes are formed as the modulo 2 sum of two 1023-bit binary sequences. The first binary sequence G1 is formed using the polynomial X10+X3+1, and the second binary sequence G2 is formed by delaying the polynomial X10+X9+X8+X6+X3+X2+1 so that each satellite has a different delay. This arrangement enables the generation of different C/A codes with a similar code generator. The C/A codes are binary codes, the chipping rate of which in the GPS system is 1.023 MHz. The C/A code comprises 1023 chips, which means that the repetition time of the code is 1 ms. The carrier wave of the L1 signal is further modulated with navigation information at a bit rate of 50 bit/s. The navigation information comprises information about the "health" of the satellite, its orbit and clock data parameters, etc. Each satellite of the GPS system maintains a local time by e.g. atomic clocks.
During operation, the satellites monitor the condition of their equipment during operation. For example, satellites can use so-called watch-dog functions to detect faults in the equipment and provide notification about them. Errors and malfunctions can be either momentary or long-term in nature. On the basis of the health information, some of the errors can be possibly compensated for, or the information transmitted by a malfunctioning satellite can be ignored entirely. In addition, in a situation in which the signals of more than four satellites can be received, information received from different satellites can be weighted in different ways on the basis of the health information. Thus it is possible to minimize errors that satellites which seem to be unreliable may cause in the measurements.
In order to detect the satellite signals and to identify the satellites, the receiver must perform a synchronization operation, in which the receiver searches for the signal of each satellite and tries to synchronize with the signal so that the data transmitted with the signal can be received and demodulated.
In prior art receivers, the time required for this synchronization operation depends among other things on the strength of the received signal. Typically, the weaker the signal to be received, the longer each element of the search space (correlation/frequency) must be integrated in order to detect a possible signal. In prior art GPS receivers, which are typically designed for outdoor use, synchronization with the satellite signals takes some tens of seconds or a few minutes, if the received signal is relatively strong, e.g. in the range of −120 to −130 dBm. However, if positioning is to take place indoors or in a place where the received signal is attenuated by buildings or other obstacles in the terrain, the synchronization time increases substantially. Indoors the signal strength is typically approx. −150 dBm, whereby the time needed for synchronization using a sequential search would be hours. This time is clearly too long for performing a reasonable positioning. FIG. 2a illustrates, by way of example, a CDMA signal transmitted from a satellite, and correspondingly FIG. 2b illustrates this transmitted signal when it reaches the receiver. The signal to be received has been attenuated substantially on the transmission link, and it contains accumulated noise.
The positioning receiver must perform synchronization when, for example, the receiver is switched on, and also in a situation where the receiver has not been able to receive the signal of any satellite for a long time. A situation like this can easily arise in mobile devices, for example, because the device moves and the antenna of the device is not always in an optimal position in relation to the satellites, which weakens the strength of the signal arriving at the receiver. In urban areas, buildings also have an effect on the received signal, and in addition, can cause so-called multipath propagation in which the transmitted signal arrives at the receiver via several different routes, for example straight from the satellite (line-of-sight) and also reflected from buildings. As a result of this multipath propagation, the same signal is received as several signals with different phases.
The positioning system has two main functions:                1. calculating the pseudo range of the receiver to different GPS satellites, and        2. determining the location of the receiver using the calculated pseudo ranges and the satellite position information. At any given time the satellite position information can be calculated on the basis of the ephemeris data and time correction information received from the satellites.
The distances to the satellites are called pseudo ranges, since the time is not known accurately in the receiver. In that case the determination of location and time is repeated, until a sufficient accuracy of time and a sufficient accuracy of location has been achieved. Since the time is not known with absolute accuracy, the location and time must be determined by linearizing a set of equations for each new iteration.
The calculation of the pseudo range can be performed by measuring the average apparent transit times of the different satellite signals. After the receiver has synchronized with the received signal, the information transmitted in the signal is demodulated.
Almost all known GPS receivers use correlation methods for calculating the ranges. The pseudo random sequences of different satellites are stored or are generated locally in the positioning receiver. A down conversion is performed on the received signal, whereafter the receiver multiplies the received signal with the stored (or locally generated) pseudo random sequence. The signal formed as the result of the multiplication is integrated or low-pass filtered, whereby the result indicates whether the received signal contains a signal transmitted by a satellite. The multiplication carried out in the receiver is repeated so that each time the phase of the pseudo random sequence saved in the receiver is shifted. The correct phase is estimated from the correlation result preferably in such a way that when the correlation result is the highest, the correct phase has been found. In this way the receiver is correctly synchronized with the received signal.
After synchronization with the code has been performed, the frequency is fine tuned and phase locking is carried out. The correlation result also reveals the information transmitted in the GPS signal, which means that it is a demodulated signal.
The above mentioned synchronization and frequency adjustment process must be repeated for each satellite signal received at the receiver. Therefore, this process consumes a lot of time especially in a situation where the received signals are weak. In some prior art receivers, several correlators are used in order to accelerate this process, whereby more correlation peaks can be searched for simultaneously. In practical applications, it is not possible to accelerate the synchronization and frequency adjustment process very much by simply increasing the number of correlators, because thir number cannot be increased indefinitely.
Some prior art GPS receivers use an FFT technique to determine the doppler shift of the received GPS signal in connection with ordinary correlators. In these receivers, correlation is used to reduce the bandwidth of the received signal to 10 kHz-30 kHz. This narrow-band signal is analyzed using FFT algorithms to determine the carrier frequency.
A GPS receiver and a method for processing GPS signals are presented in international patent application WO 97/14057. Principally, the receiver presented in this publication comprises two separate receivers, of which the first receiver is intended for use in a situation where the received signal strength is sufficient, and the second receiver is intended for use in a situation where the received signal strength is insufficient to perform a sufficiently accurate determination of position using the first receiver. In the second receiver, the received signal is digitized and stored in a memory means, whereby these stored signals are later processed in a digital signal processing unit. The digital signal processing unit performs convolution operations on the received, digitized signal. The purpose of these convolution operations is to calculate pseudo ranges. The number of code sequences (PM frames) stored in the memory means typically ranges from one hundred to thousand, which corresponds to a signal having a length of 100 ms to 1 s. After this, a stored code corresponding to the code of a satellite to be examined is retrieved from the memory of the receiver to be used in the analysis of the received signal.
The Doppler shift is also removed in the receiver. The amount of Doppler shift is determined using either the first receiver or on the basis of information received from a base station of the GPS system. After this, consecutive frames are coherently summed. A fast Fourier transform is performed on the data set produced as the result of this summing. A multiplication is performed on the Fourier transform result, using the complex conjugate of the Fourier transform of the reference signal stored in the memory means. An inverse Fourier transformis further performed on the result of this multiplication, whereby a number of correlation results are received. Thus, in this publication, a correlation is replaced by a Fourier transform, whereby the number of calculations is reduced. According to the specification, the method accelerates positioning by a factor of 10 to 100 compared with the solutions known at the time of filing the application.

Method of synchronizing a receiver, and a receiver


A bearing assembly is disclosed including an inner race and an outer race that is radially spaced from the inner race for receiving roller elements therebetween. A collar is adjacent to and fixed relative to the inner race. A sealing member is fixed relative to the outer race. The sealing member slidably and sealingly engages the collar axially and radially to maintain a seal between the sealing member and the collar during a misalignment of the inner race relative to the outer race and a predetermined degree of misalignment of the inner race relative to the outer race.

This invention relates to a bearing assembly. In particular, this invention is directed at a seal structure in a bearing assembly which minimizes the internal contamination of the bearing assembly.
Conventionally, bearings include an inner race and a separate outer race which is movable relative to the inner race. To provide fluid rotation of the inner and outer races relative to one another, most bearings aim to smooth and/or minimize the frictional resistance between the components of the bearing. Often, this is achieved by selecting the bearing surfaces of the races and any intermediate bearing elements to have desirable tribological features (i.e., to have low coefficients of friction). In some cases, lubrication may also be provided between the bearing components.
However, when the space between the bearing surfaces becomes contaminated by debris or the like, the operation of the bearing degrades. After a sufficient amount of contamination, the bearing must then either be replaced or subjected to maintenance to clear the contamination. Both replacement and maintenance are costly and require downtime.
Complex bearings are particularly susceptible to contamination from the external environment. For example, in certain applications, a bearing may need to be operable in an misaligned condition in order to accommodate the connected surrounding structure. When conventional bearing structures are moved to operate in a misaligned condition, gaps may temporarily form between the bearing components due to uneven seals or the like, exposing the internal cavity of the bearing.
Hence, a need exists for bearing assembly that can operate in a misaligned condition while minimizing exposure of the internal cavity to contaminants.

Bearing assembly with extended maintenance interval


A processor that can execute both CISC and RISC instructions has an integer pipeline and a floating point pipeline. RISC instructions are sent to the floating point pipeline at the beginning of the integer pipeline, but CISC instructions re-align the floating point pipeline. CISC instructions are sent to the floating point pipeline near the end of the integer pipeline to allow the integer pipeline to fetch memory operands for the floating point pipeline. Thus the floating point pipeline relies on the memory operand fetch facilities of the integer pipeline. Complex CISC fetch-operate instructions pass through the integer pipeline first to fetch a floating point operand, and then begin the floating point pipeline for execution of a floating point operation. However, RISC instructions only use register operands and can begin the floating point pipeline earlier, reducing latency until the floating point result is produced. Rapid re-configuration of the pipeline alignment between a pipeline optimized for RISC instructions and one optimized for CISC instructions is possible with muxes and a mode register. Exception handling and pipeline coordination are also described.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to computer processors, and more particularly to the realignment of a floating point pipeline to an integer pipeline.
2. Description of the Related Art
Pipelined microprocessors are well-known. These processors have a main pipeline or pipelines for executing standard integer operations. However, floating point operations are so complex that the integer pipelines are not able to efficiently process these floating point operations. A separate floating point unit (FPU) such as a co-processor has been used to efficiently process these floating point operations. More recently, the FPU has been integrated onto the microprocessor chip. Thus the FPU, which is itself pipelined, acts as an additional pipeline in the microprocessor.
Dual-Instruction-Set Processor for RISC and CISC
A new type of microprocessor has been invented that can process instructions from two different instruction sets. For example, a complex instruction set computer (CISC) instruction set may be processed on a reduced instruction set computer (RISC) microprocessor, as described in "Dual-Instruction-Set Architecture CPU with Hidden Software Emulation Mode", U.S. application Ser. No. 08/179,926, assigned to this application's assignee. In this dual-instruction-set processor, the second CISC instruction set is not merely emulated in software, but many of the simpler CISC instructions are directly executed in the RISC pipeline. The more complex CISC instructions are emulated by routines of RISC instructions.
This dual-instruction-set processor had a problem that was addressed in the parent application, "Pipeline with Temporal Re-Arrangement of Functional Units for Dual-Instruction Set CPU", U.S. application Ser. No. 08/361,017. The problem was that CISC instructions use memory operands while RISC instructions use only register operands. Thus for RISC operations, the pipeline is most efficient when the memory access stages of the pipeline are located late in the pipeline, such as in the execute stage. However, for CISC operations the memory access stages must be located early in the pipeline, before the execute stage so they can deliver a memory operand to the execute stage.
Efficient Dual-Pipeline Moves Execute Hardware to Different Stages
The solution to the problem of pipeline efficiency was to allow the execute hardware to "move" in the time and sequence of the pipestages to an earlier stage for RISC operations, but move to later stages for CISC operations. Thus the pipeline for CISC was arranged:
D A C M/X W PA1 D A/X C M W
but for RISC was re-arranged to:
where D is the decode stage, A the address generate stage, C the cache access stage, M the memory access stage, and W the write-back stage. X is the execution hardware such as the arithmetic-logic-unit (ALU). The execution hardware appears in the 4th (M) stage for CISC, allowing a memory operand to be fetched from the cache before the ALU. The pipeline is re-arranged for RISC to use the ALU in the 2nd (A) stage. Thus the RISC pipeline arrangement has reduced latency until the execute occurs, which improves performance.
Floating Point Instructions
Floating point instructions also differ with the RISC and CISC instruction sets. RISC floating point instructions use register operands, while CISC floating point instructions first fetch an operand from memory before the operation is performed. Thus the basic pipeline for RISC and CISC floating point instructions also differ in requirements. A simple execute or load-only pipeline works best with RISC, but CISC requires a more complex load-first-then-execute pipeline.
However, the floating point pipeline does not contain load/store hardware. Thus the integer pipelines must be used for load and store operations. While this is not a problem for RISC instructions, since the load operations do not also use the floating point pipeline, CISC instructions must use both the load/store integer pipeline and then the floating point pipeline. Coordination between the integer and floating point pipelines is critical.
What is desired is a processor having a floating point pipeline coordinated with integer pipelines. It is desired to execute both CISC and RISC floating point instructions in the floating point pipeline, but without adding memory fetch stages or hardware to the floating point pipeline.

Temporal re-alignment of a floating point pipeline to an integer pipeline for emulation of a load-operate architecture on a load/store processor


The present disclosure relates to naltrexone sustained release microparticle delivery systems for the treatment of diseases ameliorated by naltrexone. The injectable microparticle delivery system includes naltrexone encapsulated in biodegradable microparticles administered in a pharmaceutically acceptable vehicle.

Substance abuse is a disease that remains prevalent throughout society. Typically thought of as an inner-city issue as it was during the heroin epidemic of the 1960s and 1970s, the issue of opioid abuse has become more prevalent throughout the country, spreading from inner cities to rural communities. The number of substance abusers has risen dramatically in the last few decades, specifically with regards to opioid-based drugs, both pharmaceutical formulations and illicit street drugs.
While oral daily administration of naltrexone is effective, its major problem is very low compliance or noncompliance. The requirement of monthly administration was shown to have high attrition rates (25-36%) post 60 days of treatment initiation [Garbutt et al., Efficacy and tolerability of long-acting injectable naltrexone for alcohol dependence; a randomized controlled trial. JAMA. 293(13): 1617-1625, 2005; Hulse Improving clinical outcomes for naltrexone as a management of problem alcohol use. Br. J. Clin. Pharmacol. 76(5) 632-641, 2013.] Thus, a longer acting naltrexone formulation is expected to improve patient compliance, reduce relapse, and yield more stable patient outcomes over time.
Various slow release naltrexone loaded microparticles have been characterized. Ehrich (U.S. Pat. No. 7,919,499, Naltrexone long acting formulation and methods of use) and Brittain et al. (U.S. Pat. No. 7,279,579 B2, Polymorphic forms of naltrexone) teach long-acting formulations of naltrexone in poly(lactide-co-glycolide) (PLGA) comprising about 310 mg to about 480 mg releasing naltrexone for a period of about four weeks. Tice et al. (U.S. Pat. No. 6,306,425 B1, Injectable naltrexone microsphere compositions and their use in reducing consumption of heroin and alcohol) teach injectable slow release naltrexone formulations in a poly(D,L-lactide) (PDLL) matrix releasing about 10-40% per week of the initial naltrexone amount over a 4-week period. Nuwayser (U.S. Pat. No. 7,157,102 B1, Multi-layered microcapsules and method of preparing same) teaches multi-layered multicapsules with high naltrexone loading (>40% w/w) for one-month delivery. All of the disclosed naltrexone-based microparticle formulations have shown maximum release profiles of about 4 weeks, or a month. Thus, there is a need in the art to prepare long-acting microparticle formulations for delivery greater than 4 weeks or a month.
Slow release naltrexone implant-based long-acting delivery systems have been developed that deliver greater than 4 weeks, or one month. Kuo and Kuzma (U.S. Pat. No. 8,343,528, Long term drug delivery devices with polyurethane based polymers and their manufacture), Saxena and Saxena (WO/2017/033208, Implantable naltrexone tablets), and O'Neil and Liu (U.S. Pat. No. 7,914,804, Slow release pharmaceutical preparation and method of administering the same) all disclose long-acting naltrexone implant-based delivery systems. These implant-based formulations typically require an outpatient surgical procedure to place the implant. While these systems may demonstrate longer release profiles than microparticle-based formulations of naltrexone in some instances, the required surgical procedure and risks of patient self-removal can outweigh the benefits.
Vivitrol® (Alkermes, Inc.) is currently prescribed for the prevention of relapse to opioid dependence following opioid detoxification of about 7-10 days. The recommended dose is 380 mg delivered intramuscularly every 4 weeks or once a month. The injection consists of polymer microparticles suspended in a diluent (an aqueous vehicle) injected with a 20 gauge (G) needle. The 20 G needle is required due to the injection being intramuscularly in the gluteal region, the quantity of microparticles and diluent, and finally the microparticle size and size distribution. The microparticles have been reported to have a d50,volume of 108.49 μm and d50,population of 58.46 μm (Andhariya et al., Accelerated in vitro release testing method of naltrexone loaded PLGA microspheres Int. J. Pharm. 520 (1-2) 79-85, 2017), where d50,volume is where 50% of the particles by volume have a diameter greater than 108.49 μm and 50% of the particles by volume have a diameter less than 108.49 μm. A d50,population value of 58.46 indicates that 50% of the particles by number have a diameter greater than 58.46 μm and 50% of the particles by number have a diameter less than 58.46 μm. Thus, there is a need in the state of the art to prepare naltrexone loaded microparticles with smaller microparticle sizes in an effort to provide patients with a lower needle diameter, or higher gauge needle, for administration purposes.
Serum naltrexone levels of 2.8 ng/mL were shown to be sufficient to block doses of pure diamorphine as high as 500 mg in two patients (C. Brewer. Serum naltrexone and 6-beta-naltrexol levels from naltrexone implants can block very large amounts of heroin: a report of two cases. Addict. Biol., 7:321-323, 2002), 2.4 ng/mL completely antagonized 25 mg of heroin (Verebey et al., Naltrexone: Disposition, metabolism, and effects after acute and chronic dosing. Clin. Pharmacol. Ther., 20:315-328, 1976), and levels of 1-2 ng/mL have been targeted as being sufficient to offer protection from fatal opioid overdose (Hulse et al., Reducing hospital presentations for opioid overdose in patients treated with sustained release naltrexone implants. Drug Alcohol Depend., 79:351-357, 2005 and Comer et al. Depot naltrexone: Long-lasting antagonism of the effects of heroin in humans. Psychopharmacology, 159:351-360, 2002). In a pilot Vivitrex® study, prior to the second injection, the mean trough plasma naltrexone concentration was 1.23 ng/ml (±0.83 ng/ml), and this remained relatively constant for the remainder of the study; the average mean trough naltrexone level was 1.33 ng/ml (±1.74 ng/ml) (Johnson et al., A pilot evaluation of the safety and tolerability of repeat dose administration of long-acting injectable naltrexone (Vivitrex®) in patients with alcohol dependence. Alcohol Clin Exp Res. 28:1356-1361, 2004). In the rat model, a plasma naltrexone concentration of ˜1-2 ng/mL was shown to be effective in a "morphine induced analgesia hot-plate test" (The preclinical development of Medisorb Naltrexone, a once a month long-acting injection for the treatment of alcohol dependence. Frontiers in Bioscience 10: 643-655, 2005). Thus, there is need in the state of the art to provide rapid therapeutic levels of naltrexone, with a minimal initial burst release, with a minimized maximum concentration thereby providing more stable therapeutic naltrexone levels, for longer than one month, and as a dosage form in an injectable format.
Lower naltrexone doses, termed low dose naltrexone (LDN) (1 to 5 mg oral daily), very low-dose naltrexone (VLDN) (1 μg to 1 mg), and ultra-low-dose naltrexone (ULDN) (less than 1 μg) have shown different pharmacodynamic responses than the classically prescribed dose of 50 mg daily oral (Toljan and Vrooman, Low-dose naltrexone (LDN)—Review of therapeutic utilization, Med Sci. 6, 82, 2018). LDN acts as a glial modulator, providing potential benefits to conditions such as fibromyalgia, Crohn's disease, multiple sclerosis, complex-regional pain syndrome, and cancer. ULDN mechanism appears to be related to a bimodal cellular response to opioids, where it has been used in postoperative control of analgesia, reducing the total quantity of opioids. Thus, there is a need in the state of the art to provide stable therapeutic concentrations of low dose naltrexone levels (such as LDN, VLDN, ULDN, etc.).
Many constraints are imposed on formulations having desirable properties: the release of drug must occur over an extended period of time, the loading of drug must be sufficient, the polymeric matrix must be biodegradable and biocompatible, residual chemicals and solvents should be below the maximum acceptable level, and the microspheres must be small enough and capable of passing through patient friendly needles, among others. The physicochemical properties of the microparticles are sensitive to the properties of the drug, polymeric matrix properties, the properties of release modifiers, as well as the processing steps that the microparticles are prepared under.
A variety of methods have been disclosed on how to encapsulate compounds in the form of microparticles. In these methods, the drug or other active compounds are generally dissolved, dispersed, or emulsified using stirrers, homogenizers, or other dynamic mixing elements in a solvent, usually an organic solvent, to form a solution containing the matrix material. Organic solvent is then removed from the drug-matrix material during extraction and/or additional washing steps and the microparticle product is obtained thereafter. Many parameters used in the microparticle preparation affect the properties of the obtained microparticles.
There is a need in the art for a method of preparing microparticles that can release naltrexone longer than one month. The present disclosure, the description of which is fully described below, solves the need for formulations providing naltrexone release for longer than one month.

Injectable long-acting naltrexone microparticle compositions


An impulsive communication activated device for connection to a computer input port for controlling a computer, is disclosed. The disclosed device includes an output connector for communicating with the computer input port, and includes a sensor for detecting an impulsive communication such as a hand clap or other predetermined input, to generate an impulsive signal. The disclosed device includes a comparator for responding to both a reference signal and to the impulsive signal, and to determine if the impulsive signal differs substantially from the reference signal to generate a start signal. The disclosed device includes a logic circuit responsive to the start signal for generating a predetermined computer command signal to control the computer.

There is no admission that the background art disclosed in this section legally constitutes prior art.
There have been a variety of user activated devices for controlling different types and kinds of equipment. For example, sound activated controllers that turn lights on and off when a person claps hands are well known in the art. Such a device has been marketed under the trade name "The Clapper," and has been available from www.drugstore.com.
Another example of prior known use activated control devices include personal computer panic buttons. These are computer programs that, when the user strikes a particular sequence of keys on the personal computer keyboard, the personal computer screen is erased of its contents. Thus, for example, a game screen can be cleared and a substitute screen, such as a spreadsheet, can then appear to indicate that legitimate work is being accomplished on the personal computer in the workplace.

Impulsive communication activated computer control device and method