The present disclosure relates to an asymmetric font pairing system that efficiently pairs digital fonts. For example, in one or more embodiments, the asymmetric font pairing system automatically identifies and provides users with visually aesthetic font pairs for use in different sections of an electronic document. In particular, the asymmetric font pairing system learns visually aesthetic font pairs using joint symmetric and asymmetric compatibility metric learning. In addition, the asymmetric font pairing system provides compact compatibility spaces (e.g., a symmetric compatibility space and an asymmetric compatibility space) to computing devices (e.g., client devices and server devices), which enable the computing devices to quickly and efficiently provide font pairs to users.

Recent years have seen a rapid proliferation in the use of computing devices in creating and editing electronic documents. Indeed, it is now common place for individuals, including businesses, to create digital marketing materials, digital magazines, web pages, e-mails, and other electronic documents utilizing computing devices. In addition, computing devices can assist individuals to generate electronic documents using text, images, and other audiovisual content to convey a chosen message to an indented audience through an electronic document.
Despite the ease at which computing devices help individuals to create electronic documents, there remains challenges with conventional digital publishing systems enabling individuals to craft visually aesthetic electronic documents. Visual aesthetics in an electronic document help to accurately communicate the message of the electronic document to an intended audience. Indeed, a key aspect of aesthetics in an electronic document is the fonts used in the document and how well the fonts used in different parts of the electronic document (e.g., header and body) pair with each other. However, conventional digital publishing systems fail to provide individuals with visually aesthetic font pairs between different sections of an electronic document.
Conventional digital publishing systems struggle to provide visually aesthetic font pairs for many reasons. For example, visually aesthetic font pairs are often different styles. Subtle distinctions between header fonts and body fonts (or between header and sub-header) can be very important. Thus, a conventional digital publishing system that only provides an individual with font pairs that include similar fonts will often fail to achieve the desired visually aesthetic result in an electronic document.
As another example, professional designers have established lists of rules for font pairing; however, these lists are difficult to formalize and can vary from designer to designer. In addition, as mentioned above, font pairing is not simply a problem of similarity matching, professional designers often pair contrasting fonts as well as similar fonts. As a result, not only is font pairing difficult for novice designers, such as everyday individuals who create electronic documents, but it is also a challenge for conventional digital publishing systems.
As a further example, font pairing is an asymmetric problem where two fonts making up a visually aesthetic font pair are not interchangeable. For instance, pairing Font A as a header font with Font B as the body font cam produce a much different visual aesthetic than pairing Font B as the header font and Font A as the body font. Again, simply providing a set of similar fonts to a selected font is insufficient to provide an individual with a font pair that delivers a visually aesthetic electronic document.
Because of the challenges to font pairing, many conventional digital publishing systems do not offer font pair recommendations. Some conventional digital publishing systems offer a limited number of pre-set template font pairs. As a result, an individual wanting a non-standardized font pair often must manually select font pairs they desire to use in an electronic document, based on their personal preferences. Individuals that are not professional designers often struggle to select visually aesthetic font pairs. Furthermore, due to the increasing number of available fonts, font pairing is a time-consuming and difficult task for even professional designers, which results in professional designers defaulting to the same font pairs across a variety of electronic documents.
More recent developments include employing neural networks to perform general font recommendations. While neural network based font recommendations provide various advantages, such system typically require large amounts of memory and computational requirements. As a result, client devices, and particularly mobile ones, typically do not have the ability to execute these neural networks.
These and other problems exist with regard to providing digital font pairs using conventional systems and methods.

Automatically pairing fonts using asymmetric metric learning


A carrier recovery system includes an in-phase mixer for mixing an incoming signal with an in-phase reference signal to produce an in-phase baseband signal; a quadrature-phase mixer for mixing the incoming signal with a quadrature-phase reference signal to produce a quadrature-phase baseband signal; a DC detector for measuring a DC offset of the quadrature-phase baseband signal; and a frequency synthesizer for generating the in-phase reference signal and the quadrature-phase reference signal according to the DC offset measured by the DC detector. The quadrature-phase reference signal is the in-phase reference signal phase-delayed by ninety degrees. The DC offset of the quadrature-phase baseband signal is caused by a pilot tone of the VSB signal for a selected carrier in an Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC) digital television (DTV) receiver. By minimizing the DC offset, the carrier recover system locks the quadrature-phase reference signal and the in-phase reference signal to the selected channel.

1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to electronic communications, and more particularly, to recovering and locking a carrier of a selected channel for a vestigial sideband (VSB) Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC) digital television (DTV) signal.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Electronic communication and, in particular, techniques for broadcasting television video signals continue to be developed. Recently, the Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC) has introduced the Digital Television Standard. The resulting Digital Television (DTV) system described in the ATSC Digital Television Standard has ushered in a new era in television broadcasting. The impact of DTV is more significant than simply moving from an analog system to a digital system. Rather, DTV permits a level of flexibility wholly unattainable with analog broadcasting. An important element of this flexibility is the ability to expand system functions by building upon the technical foundations specified in ATSC standards such as the ATSC Digital Television Standard (A/53) and the Digital Audio Compression (AC-3) Standard (A/52).
Using conventional NTSC, and its PAL and SECAM counterparts, the video, audio, and some limited data information are conveyed by modulating an RF carrier in such a way that a receiver of relatively simple design can decode and reassemble the various elements of the signal to produce a program consisting of video and audio, and perhaps related data (e.g., closed captioning). As such, a complete program is transmitted by the broadcaster that is essentially in finished form. In the DTV system, however, additional levels of processing are required after the receiver demodulates the RF signal. The receiver processes the digital bit stream extracted from the received signal to yield a collection of program elements (video, audio, and/or data) that match the service(s) that the consumer selected. This selection is made using system and service information that is also transmitted. Audio and video are delivered in digitally compressed form and must be decoded for presentation.
The RF transmission subsystems used in DTV are designed specifically for terrestrial and cable applications. The structure is such that the video audio, and service multiplex/transport subsystems are useful in other applications. In RF transmission, the channel coder takes the digital bit stream and adds additional information that can be used by the receiver to reconstruct the data from the received signal which, due to transmission impairments, may not accurately represent the transmitted signal. The modulation subsystem offers two modes being based on vestigial sideband (VBS) modulation: an 8-VSB mode for terrestrial broadcast, and a 16-VSB mode for high data rates such as cable applications.
FIG. 1 shows a diagram illustrating the nominal VSB channel occupancy of an ATSC DTV signal. The 8-VSB terrestrial broadcast mode is optimized for maximum service area and provides a data payload of 19.4 Mbps in a 6 MHz channel. The 16-VSB high data rate mode, which provides twice the data rate at the cost of reduced robustness for channel degradations such a noise and multipath, provides a data payload of 38.8 Mbps in the single 6 MHz channel. Both modes provide a nominal DTV pilot tone located 310 kHz above the lower channel edge. For example, on channel 45 (656-662 MHz), the nominal pilot tone frequency is 656.310 Mhz. In a DTV transmitter, a modulation unit (or physical layer) uses digital bit stream information to modulate a carrier for the transmitted signal. The DTV receiver must recover this modulated carrier in order to lock onto the corresponding 6 MHz channel.
FIG. 2 shows a block diagram of a tuner, intermediate frequency amplifier, and FPLL in the prototype VSB receiver 200 described in the Guide to Use of the ATSC DTV Standard. The operation of the receiver 200 is described in detail on page 88 of the Guide to Use of the ATSC DTV Standard, 4 Dec. 2003, and more specifically, in U.S. Pat. No. 4,072,909, disclosed by Citta and issued on 7 Feb. 1978, which are included herein by reference. As shown in FIG. 2 and described in the above-mentioned documents, the prototype receiver 200 uses pilot carrier components in both the in-phase I and quadrature-phase Q baseband DTV signals for controlling carrier recovery.

Carrier recovery system and method thereof


A method and system in which a Digital Subscriber Line Access Multiplexer (DSLAM) that is part of a DSL (Digital Subscriber Line) system is able to provide synchronous services to end user equipment connected to the DSLAM via a DSL link and Customer Premises Equipment (CPE). A sniffer device having direct or indirect access to a Primary Reference Clock (PRC) of the DSL system calculates the phase difference between the PRC and the DSLAM's Local Timing Reference (LTR). The phase difference is sent to the CPEs requiring accurate reference clock frequency. The CPEs are able to derive the PRC from the phase difference information transmitted by the sniffer device thus enabling synchronous end user equipment operation.

DSL has become the technology of choice for delivery of high bandwidth data over copper access links, replacing legacy TDM (Time Division Multiplexing) services. This is due to the required telephony access infrastructure being almost universally present, and to the continuous increase in DSL bit-rates.
We can distinguish two types of services delivered by DSL:
1. Synchronous services, such as legacy TDM (E1s or T1s), which require distribution of the associated service clock.
2. Asynchronous data services, such as Internet or asynchronous voice applications (e.g., cellular compressed voice calls).
Synchronous services were the first deployed, with DSL lines replacing TDM links. For example, HDSL (ITU-T Recommendation G.991.1) and later SHDSL (ITU-T Recommendation G.991.2) were designed to replace standard T1 (1.544 Mbit/s) or E1 (2.048 Mbit/s) services, and extended the applicability and range of these services. However, the focus rapidly shifted to asynchronous broadband data services. For example, ADSL (Asymmetric DSL) (and all its derivatives) and VDSL (Very High Speed DSL) are commonly used to extend an asynchronous packet network (e.g., Ethernet, IP, or MPLS) to customer sites.
Due to the initial focus on synchronous services, DSL standards include built-in mechanisms to distribute the service clock, referred to as Network Timing Reference or NTR. However, current Digital Subscriber Line Access Multiplexers (DSLAMs) are optimized for asynchronous data services, and are thus often not equipped with NTR functionality. This does not impact their main aim of providing asynchronous services to residential customers, but hinders the provision of synchronous services, such as TDM pseudowires.
For synchronous services the service clock needs to be accurately delivered to the end-application in order to prevent buffer overflow and bit errors. Moreover, even if the service itself is fully asynchronous, the end equipment might still need a good reference clock for its operation. For example, cellular base-stations require a very accurate and stable clock to derive their RF transmission frequency. In the past, such base-stations derived their clock from the incoming TDM link, but with the replacement of TDM links by DSL lines optimized for asynchronous services, this inherent frequency distribution is lost.
FIGS. 1, 2 and 3 depict various prior art clock distribution schemes for DSL technologies. FIG. 1 shows a Network Timing Reference (NTR) clock distribution scheme, such as described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,937,613 to Bedrosian. As can be seen in FIG. 1, at the Central Office (CO) side, the Local Timing Reference (LTR) 30 within the central office DSL Access Multiplexer (DSLAM) 17, is locked to an external timing source 1. Such a timing source is typically a Primary Reference Clock (PRC) with long-term frequency accuracy within ±10−11 of Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). Since the DSL mapper 18, which maps the incoming payload 31 into the transmitted sequence of symbols 19, is fed with the local timing reference, the physical-layer of the transmission is locked to the external timing source. At the remote side, the DSL de-mapper 20 within the Customer Premises Equipment (CPE) 13 recovers the external timing source information from the incoming symbols rate and uses this recovered clock information 15 to transmit the recovered payload 14 to the end-user equipment 16.
A similar approach is used in ITU-T Recommendation G991.2 (SHDSL) where the DSLAM's clock may be locked to a Network Timing Reference (NTR), which is an 8 KHz clock typically traceable to a PRC. The remote modem may then extract NTR timing information from the physical layer. While ITU Recommendation G991.2 does not mandate this NTR functionality, most SHDSL DSLAMs do support it.
FIG. 2 depicts a clock distribution scheme that uses the SRTS (Synchronous Residual Time Stamp) method, as described in Reissued Pat. No. 36,633 to Fleischer et al. This scheme enables remote recovery of a reference clock without locking the physical-layer clock. Instead, the difference between the reference clock and the physical-layer clock is encoded and transmitted, enabling the remote terminal to mathematically reconstruct the desired reference clock frequency. This principle has been extended to general networks, and is now called 'common clock frequency recovery' (see ITU-T Recommendation Y.1413 subclause 10.1.3) or 'differential clock recovery' (see ITU-T Recommendation G.8261 subclause 8.2).
As illustrated in FIG. 2, SRTS encoder 21 within clock distribution 3 has access to both the reference clock that needs to be distributed and network clock 39 (i.e., the common clock). The momentary phase difference between these two clocks is encoded into four bit SRTS words that are periodically delivered to packet assembly 23 (via interface 22) where they are assembled into packets and sent across packet network 4. At the other end of the network in clock recovery 37, the four bit SRTS words are extracted in packet disassembly 38 and periodically delivered to the differential clock recovery 27 (via interface 15) that also has access to the same network clock 39. Using this network clock and the four bit SRTS words, the original service clock can be recovered on output line 29.
The SRTS method generally provides a very accurate recovered clock as it is not affected by impairments introduced by higher network layers such as Packet Delay Variation (PDV). Nevertheless, a basic requirement for its use is CO and customer premises access to a common clock. Having such a common clock is, in many networks and applications, not possible for various reasons; hence, for such cases other clock recovery techniques must be used. ITU-T Recommendation G.992.1 (ADSL), and its later variants ITU-T Recommendations G.992.3, G.992.4, and G.992.5, support an indirect NTR mechanism, based on similar principles. Rather than directly locking the physical-layer symbol clock to the external frequency reference, the physical-layer clock of ADSL and its derivatives is locked to a Local Timing Reference (LTR), and the phase difference between the external reference and LTR is periodically transmitted. The DSLAM encodes this phase difference in four bits, and places these in a fixed location within the ADSL frame. At the CPE these four bits are extracted from the ADSL frame and are used in combination with the recovered physical-layer clock (LTR) to re-generate the original NTR clock. VDSL (ITU-T Recommendation G.993.1) uses the same method of NTR distribution, however it encodes the phase difference between NTR and LTR in eight bytes.
Similar to the situation for SHDSL, the ADSL and VDSL standards do not mandate NTR support. However, unlike the situation described above, where the majority of SHDSL DSLAMs support NTR in practice, ADSL and VDSL DSLAMs most often do not support it. As aforementioned, this is due to ADSL and VDSL being primarily used to provide asynchronous services to end users, where NTR transport functionality is not required.
The lack of NTR transport support within the DSLAM necessitates the deployment of other frequency distribution means for those end applications that require an accurate frequency reference. U.S. Pat. No. 5,440,313 to Osterdock et al. describes the use of a GPS receiver as a frequency reference. GPS receivers can indeed provide a stable and accurate frequency reference to end applications, however they suffer the drawbacks of being relatively expensive, involving costly and complicated installation procedures, and are only applicable where GPS can be reliably received (e.g., where roof-top access is possible). In similar fashion, a dedicated TDM link can sometimes be provided purely for frequency distribution.
FIG. 3 presents the general concept of Adaptive Clock Recovery (ACR) as applied to DSL systems without NTR support. This concept is based on the more general principle of adaptive clock recovery based solely on the arriving data packet flow, such as taught by U.S. Pat. No. 5,396,492 to Lien. That invention includes a destination node that receives data packets from a network and stores them in a buffer. The data packets are read out of the buffer using a locally generated clock. The fill level of the buffer is monitored and used to control the frequency of the locally generated clock, thus adapting the locally generated clock to the reference clock at the source of the packet flow.
Dedicated timing packets are sent from a master clock distribution 3 located somewhere within the core network. This clock distribution unit receives a clock reference traceable to a Primary Reference Clock (PRC) and periodically transmits dedicated timing packets conveying frequency information, to all CPEs 13. Such dedicated timing packets could belong to a constant rate TDM pseudowire flow or could be time distribution protocol packets, e.g., according to IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers) standard 1588-2008 or to the IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force) Network Time Protocol (NTP) described in RFC (Request For Comments) 1305. These timing packets traverse the packet network 4 and are directed by DSLAM 10 to the relevant CPE 13. Arriving at CPE 13 these packets are used by the ACR function 33 to regenerate a frequency reference locked to the source PRC, resulting in the End User Equipment (EUE) 16 receiving frequency traceable to a PRC via clock interface 29.
The scheme of FIG. 3 suffers from a substantial drawback. All ACR methods rely directly or indirectly on the arrival times of timing packets. Packet arrival times are distorted by Packet Delay Variation (PDV) introduced by the end-to-end path. DSL links in particular tend to introduce considerable PDV, precluding ACR-based schemes from conformance to the stringent frequency distribution standards required by some applications.
There is therefore a need for inexpensively providing an accurate and reliable substitute for NTR for DSLAMs that do not support standard NTR.

High quality timing distribution over DSL without NTR support


A pump for inducing flow within a vascular system comprises a cannula having a first configuration for deployment within the vascular system and a second configuration for directing the fluid flow within the vascular system, where the second configuration has a greater diameter than the first configuration. An impeller is configured to induce the fluid flow by rotation about an axis. The impeller has a first radius in the first configuration and a second radius in the second configuration, where the second radius is greater than the first radius.

The present disclosure relates to blood pumps for cardiac support. More particularly, the present disclosure relates to expandable blood pumps and methods of their deployment and use for circulatory support. A variety of cardiac problems result in the need for temporary cardiac support. These scenarios can range from contingency support during high risk cardiac surgery to immediate full support after a myocardial infarction. Acute pumps for temporary cardiac support differ from implantable pumps because the period of use may be measured short-term, in days or weeks, rather than long-term months or years. These situations requiring temporary cardiac support can benefit strongly from quick deployment in a range of anatomical locations.
Thus, there exists a need in the art for blood pumps that can improve aspects of this type of therapy. Particularly, there is a need in the art for improved expandable blood pumps for cardiac support.


A subsequent meeting related to a previous meeting is scheduled, e.g., as a follow-up or forward-to meeting. A session recording of the previous meeting has been generated. Historical data of the previous meeting, e.g., identifiers of attendees, is used to populate fields of an invite form for scheduling the subsequent meeting, along with an indication of the session recording. In some embodiments, the identifiers of the invitees of the subsequent meeting are selected, without user input: from the identifiers of the attendees of the previous meeting, based on a relationship of the invitees of the subsequent meeting to the attendees of the previous meeting, or based on a relationship of the invitees of the subsequent meeting to a subject of the previous meeting. In some embodiments, the session recording of the previous meeting can be presented for review prior to a start time of the subsequent meeting.

Meetings are a primary communication channel for people who are collaborating on a task, project or venture to discuss important topics, reach conclusions, achieve consensus, craft strategy, and assign responsibilities. In many situations, multiple related meetings must be held in order to continue to move the project forward, allow for input from all contributors, or keep various interested parties informed of its progress. However, there are many factors involved in scheduling multiple meetings that complicate the process. For example, it can be difficult or time consuming to coordinate the calendars of multiple different participants or subsets of participants, each person having different constraints with respect to available time and physical location. Such difficulties are further compounded by having to take into consideration the availability of finite resources, such as meeting rooms, conference equipment resources (e.g., tables, chairs, projectors, microphones, speakers, etc.), dial-in numbers, network bandwidth, etc. Even potentially unlimited items, such as electronic documents or presentations to be shared or discussed during the meeting, need to be accounted for by the meeting organizer or one of the participants in order to ensure that the meeting proceeds smoothly. Consequently, although tools have been developed to assist a meeting organizer to coordinate activities to schedule and execute a meeting, the scheduling process is nevertheless prone to error if all of the above factors are not properly taken into consideration. Additionally, the inherent time lag between related meetings and potential differences in participant attendance can lead to some of the participants not being fully up to speed, thereby negatively affecting the continuity and efficiency of the meetings.

Scheduling a subsequent meeting related to a previous meeting


A receiver module for a personal listening device to be fitted in the ear, on the ear, near the ear, or behind the ear, the receiver module having a movable armature, the receiver module comprises a motor assembly and a housing defining a chamber, the housing is made from a material that is corrosion resistant and is biocompatible to human skin contact. The receiver module further comprises at least one motor assembly directly disposed in the chamber. Optionally a communication link adapted to couple or decouple with the motor assembly. At least a portion of the communication link is disposed in the housing.

Various hearing aids and earpiece devices are known in the art. Many take the form of a Behind-the-Ear (BTE), In-The-Ear (ITE), In-the-Canal (ITC), Completely-In-The Canal (CIC), or Receiver-in-the-Ear (RIE) component. In a typical hearing aid, the hearing aid is constructed with a four-piece structure, e.g. internal components for the receiver, receiver housing, surrounding structure, and an ear mold or compliant ear dome/tip. The receiver comprises a housing that is made of metal or a non-biocompatible material. Some wearers may be allergic to metal housing, and the wearer may experience discomfort when the receiver housing is directly in the ear canal.
The tissues covering the bony region of the ear are relatively thin and, therefore, little or no tolerance for expansion exists in this region as compared to the tissues covering the cartilaginous region. Inserting the metal receiver deeply into the ear canal so that it touches the bony region not only damages the tissues in the bony region, but the wearer will experience great pain.
The ear mold or compliant ear dome/tip is attached to the surrounding structure and then inserted into the ear canal for comfort wear. The ear mold and the surrounding structure must be carefully removed in order to reach the receiver, and once the receiver has been repaired or replaced, the receiver is inserted back into the ear mold and the surrounding structure.
The surrounding structure has been used to accomplish several tasks: protect the user from non-biocompatible receiver housing, provide ease of assembling the ear fit device, and protect the electrical and mechanical portions of the device from ear wax, perspiration, and various environmental contaminants.
A disadvantage in using the four-piece structure, e.g. internal components for the receiver, receiver housing, surrounding structure, and ear mold, for the earphone or the hearing aid is that it is very bulky by nature. Also, it is very difficult to design and control the design parameters of the surrounding structure to suit different receiver and hearing aid configurations. It is not suited for low cost mass production. In addition, in some cases, the structure needs to be taken apart in order to repair and or replace the receiver.
Skilled artisans will appreciate that all elements in the figures are illustrated for simplicity and clarity. It will further be appreciated that certain actions and/or steps may be described or depicted in a particular order of occurrence which those skilled in the art will understand that such specificity with respect to sequence is not actually required. It will also be understood that the terms and expressions used herein have the ordinary meaning as is accorded to such terms and expressions with respect to their corresponding respective areas of inquiry and study except where specific meanings have otherwise been set forth herein.


A circuit board includes a plate-shaped dielectric body with a first and a second main surface and including a first area not to be bent and a second area to be bent such that the first main surface becomes an outer side, a first reinforcing member located in the first area nearer the first main surface in relation to a center of the second area in a thickness direction and away from the second area, and a second reinforcing member located in the first area nearer the second main surface in relation to the center of the second area and contacting with a border between the first and the second areas. The first main surface curves from an edge of the first reinforcing member closest to the second area, and the second main surface curves from an edge of the second reinforcing member on the border.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a circuit board, and more particularly to a circuit board that is bent when used.
2. Description of the Related Art
As a conventional circuit board, for example, a printed circuit board disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 2002-305382 is known. FIG. 38 is a sectional view of the printed circuit board 500 disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 2002-305382. FIG. 39 is a sectional view of the printed circuit board 500 in a bent state.
The printed circuit board 500, as illustrated in FIG. 38, includes a four-layer portion 500a, a heat radiating portion 500b, and a connecting portion 500c. The four-layer portion 500a, the heat radiating portion 500b and the connecting portion 500c are preferably formed by laminating insulating base plates 523a through 523f. More specifically, the insulating base plate 523c extends in a right-left direction. In the left-side portion of the insulating base plate 523c, the insulating base plates 523a and 523b are laminated on the upper main surface of the insulating base plate 523c, and the insulating base plate 523d is placed on the lower main surface of the insulating base plate 523c. Thereby, the four-layer portion 500a is formed. Also, in the right-side portion of the insulating base plate 523c, the insulating base plate 523e is placed on the upper main surface of the insulating base plate 523c, and the insulating base plate 523f is placed on the lower main surface of the insulating base plate 523c. Thereby, the heat radiating portion 500b is formed. The connecting portion 500c is a portion between the four-layer portion 500a and the heat radiating portion 500b.
In the printed circuit board 500, the thickness of the four-layer portion 500a and the thickness of the heat radiating portion 500b are greater than the thickness of the connecting portion 500c. Accordingly, the connecting portion 500c is more flexible than the four-layer portion 500a and the heat radiating portion 500b. Therefore, when the printed circuit board 500 is used, the connecting portion 500c is bent.
In the printed circuit board 500 disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 2002-305382, however, the connecting portion 500c is likely to break at a portion near the border with the four-layer portion 500a as illustrated in FIG. 39.
More specifically, when the connecting portion 500c is bent, a tensile stress acts on and around the outer main surface of the bent connecting portion 500c. Accordingly, the portion of the connecting portion 500c around the outer main surface is stretched. As illustrated in FIGS. 38 and 39, in the four-layer portion 500a, the insulating base plates 523a and 523b are laminated on the upper main surface of the insulating base plate 523c, and the insulating base plate 523d is placed on the lower main surface of the insulating base plate 523c. Therefore, the insulating base plate 523c in the four-layer portion 500a is less stretchable than the insulating base plate 523c in the connecting portion 500c. In this structure, when the connecting portion 500c is bent, the insulating base plate 523c in the connecting portion 500c is stretched excessively so as to compensate for the short of stretch of the insulating base plate 523c in the four-layer portion 500a. Thus, there is a risk of breakage of the connecting portion 500c at a portion near the border with the four-layer portion 500a.


This invention has as its object to provide an image processing apparatus and method, which can obtain high image quality by adjusting an image forming parameter or parameters in consideration of a variation in image forming condition. In order to achieve the object, the gradation characteristics of an image to be recorded are adjusted on the basis of information obtained by forming a gradation characteristic adjustment test pattern on a recording medium, and reading the formed test pattern. Subsequently, the color reproduction characteristics of an image to be recorded are adjusted on the basis of information obtained by forming a color reproduction characteristic adjustment test pattern on a recording medium, and reading the formed test pattern.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image processing apparatus and method and, for example, to an image processing apparatus and method for correcting the gradation characteristics of a color image.
2. Related Background Art
A digital color copying machine has mechanisms for correcting the influence of ambient variations and variations caused by aging in a printer unit. As one of such mechanism, an automatic gradation correction function that uses an image scanner unit as a measurement device is known. The automatic gradation correction is performed by the following procedure.
(1) The printer unit prints out a test pattern having predetermined values of C, M, Y, and K colors. PA1 (2) The image scanner unit reads the test pattern. PA1 (3) The gradation characteristics of the printer unit are obtained based on the reading result of the test pattern, and a coefficient or table for correcting the obtained characteristics is calculated. PA1 (4) The calculated coefficient or table is set in a printer gradation correction circuit.
With the above-mentioned automatic gradation correction, the gradation characteristics of the printer unit can be stabilized.
However, the above-mentioned technique suffers the following problem. That is, when a CMYK test pattern is read upon execution of the automatic gradation correction, errors caused by variations in color filters of a CCD may be generated. This problem will be explained in detail below.
FIG. 2A shows the spectral sensitivity characteristics of the R, G, and B channels of a so-called 3-line sensor. To obtain an image with good color reproducibility by faithfully reading a color image, the spectral sensitivity characteristics of the R, G, and B channels have overlapping portions, as shown in FIG. 2A, so as not to form non-detectable wavelength ranges. Therefore, signal processing must be performed under the assumption that the spectral sensitivity characteristics of the R, G, and B channels overlap each other to some extent.
FIG. 2B shows the spectral sensitivity characteristics of the B channel and the spectral reflection characteristics of the Y test pattern. Since the Y test pattern exhibits a high reflectance with respect to the wavelength ranges of the R and G channels, the density of the Y test pattern cannot be detected using the R or G channel, and hence, the density is detected using the B channel. However, when the spectral sensitivity characteristics of the B channel, i.e,. the spectral transmission characteristics of the B color filter vary, as indicated by a broken curve, the density detection precision of the Y test pattern lowers due to the influence of the variation, and as a result, appropriate gradation correction is disturbed.
In another technique, N sets of known input signals An (print signals) are supplied to an image forming apparatus to form N sets of specific color patterns, luminance levels Bn of the formed patterns are read, and N sets of printer output signal values Cn are obtained based on the luminance levels Bn by, e.g., masking calculations. By adjusting image forming parameters such as masking parameters so that the N sets of input signals An roughly equal the output signals Cn, the stability of image quality is improved.
However, the above-mentioned technique suffers the following problem. That is, when image formation is repeated, toner turns into a powder and the toner powder becomes attached to carriers of a developing agent, resulting in a decrease in maximum density of a copied image. The decrease in maximum density narrows the color reproduction range. In this state, even when the image forming parameters such as masking coefficients are adjusted, a good image cannot be obtained. The deterioration of image quality due to deteriorated durability of the developing agent can be eliminated by exchanging the developing agent. However, when the developing agent is periodically exchanged in consideration of the deteriorated durability, the copy cost rises undesirably.
Also, in another technique, a specific pattern is formed on a recording medium in an image forming apparatus, the formed pattern is read to feed back the read data to the image forming condition such as .gamma. correction, thereby improving the stability of the image quality.
However, the above-mentioned technique suffers the following problem. In a device for reading an image, when the characteristics of color separation filters in a CCD deviate from ideal spectral characteristics, different image signals are obtained even when a pattern formed on a single recording medium is read. Therefore, even when the image forming condition is calculated based on such image data, an optimal image output cannot often be obtained from the image forming apparatus.
As is conventionally known, in an image forming apparatus such as a copying machine, which comprises an image reading unit and a print unit for performing image formation on the basis of data read by the image reading unit, as one basic method for faithfully reproducing a read original image in a print out operation, the image processing condition is calibrated. For example, N sets of input signals An having known density values are input as print data, and the print unit forms specific patterns on a recording medium on the basis of the input signals. The patterns on the recording medium are read by the reading unit as luminance data, and the read data are subjected to image processing such as masking processing to obtain signal values Cn as print data. The image processing condition such as masking coefficients are calibrated by, e.g., a method of least square so that the signal values An roughly equal the obtained signal values Cn. With the above arrangement, a read image can be faithfully reproduced, and desired image quality can be obtained in the print out operation.
However, in the conventional image forming apparatus, the reading state and the print state of the reading unit and the print unit may vary even slightly upon calibration of the image processing condition. In particular, the print unit relatively easily causes such variation. For this reason, even when the image processing condition is calibrated, the calibration result depends on, e.g., the state of the print unit at the time of the calibration. Therefore, when the state upon execution of image formation in practice is different from that upon calibration, appropriate image processing is disturbed.
The above-mentioned variation in the image forming apparatus often appears as local spatial errors. That is, the reading state and the print state of the reading unit and the print unit are not uniform, and the reading state may vary in units of portions of, e.g., the reading unit. In this case, the calibrated image processing condition may become improper for a given image forming portion.

Image processing apparatus and method with gradation characteristic adjustment


There is provided a method of plating comprising: a process of bringing a sealing portion of a seal provided to prevent a contact of a substrate holder that holds a substrate from coming into contact with a plating solution, into contact with pure water; and a process of detecting a leak of the seal, based on presence or absence of a short circuit of a leak detection electrode placed inside of the substrate holder after the sealing portion is brought into contact with the pure water and before the substrate is brought into contact with a chemical solution.

A generally employed procedure forms wirings, bumps (salient electrodes) and the like on the surface of a substrate such as a semiconductor wafer or a printed circuit board. An electroplating technique is known as a method of forming such wirings, bumps and the like. A plating apparatus employed for the electroplating technique is provided with a substrate holder that is configured to seal an end face of a circular or polygonal substrate and hold the substrate with a substrate surface (a surface to be plated) exposed. A procedure of plating the substrate surface by such a plating apparatus soaks the substrate holder with the substrate held thereby into a plating solution.
A leak of a seal provided to protect a contact (electrical contact) of the substrate holder from the plating solution is likely to cause a plating failure. It is accordingly desired to detect a leak of the seal of the substrate holder and handle the leak as soon as possible. Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2008-190044 (Patent Document 1) describes a substrate holder that is provided with conducting wires for leak detection placed inside of the substrate holder and that is configured to detect a shortage between the conducting wires caused by a plating solution and thereby detect a leak.


An apparatus includes a spinning nozzle, a fiber drawing device and a water spray device. The spinning nozzle has spinnerets and a spinning solution is filled therein. The spinning solution includes a solvent and a fiber material. The solvent includes N-Methylmorpholine N-Oxide, and the fiber material includes cellulose. The fiber drawing device is disposed under the spinning nozzle and has a gas flow generating device therein for generating a gas flow which is ejected from the top of the fiber drawing device and toward the bottom thereof. The fiber drawing device also has a slit on the top thereof, and the spinning solution from the spinning nozzle would enter the fiber drawing device through the slit. The water spray device is disposed at the slit of the fiber drawing device, and the spinning solution would pass through the water spray device before entering the fiber drawing device.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to an apparatus and a method for manufacturing man-made fiber products, in particular, to an apparatus and a method for manufacturing non-woven fabric.
2. Description of Related Art
Non-woven fabric is an application of the man-made fibers, and the manufacturing process combines techniques and principles such as plastic, chemical industry, paper making, and spinning. As being not manufactured in the conventional weaving manner such as plain weaving or knitting, the man-made fiber application is called "non-woven fabric". The non-woven fabric is characterized by low cost, moisture absorption, dust proof, and being antistatic etc, and thus has a quite wide application. In agriculture, architecture, people's livelihood, industry, medicine, automobile and other industries, the non-woven fabric is used as the material for filtering, obstructing, moisture absorbing, and other functions.
Usually, during the process of manufacturing the non-woven fabric, firstly a polymer material is spun to fiber yarns, and then the continuous yarns are lapped to form the non-woven fabric. A fiber drawing device is used to stretch the fiber yarn to more elongated yarns. The more elongated yarns may make the lapped non-woven fabric more delicate, and on the other hand, the required polymer material may be reduced, so as to lower the production cost of the non-woven fabric. For example, an apparatus for manufacturing non-woven fabric provided in U.S. Pat. No. 3,802,817 has a fiber drawing device using air as the power. That is, after a spinning solution is sprayed from the spinning nozzle, the spinning solution may enter the fiber drawing device through a slit, so as to stretch to a more elongated single yarn. However, the apparatus cannot be applied to viscose fiber material such as Lyocell material. The reason is that the fiber materials have a high viscosity, and may be adhered to each other and overlapped in the apparatus, not only it is impossible to form the elongated single yarn, but also the spinning solution may be adhered to the slit before entering the slit, and results in the jam of the slit. Therefore, as the non-woven fabric material is developed, it is necessary to modify the conventional method of manufacturing non-woven fabric.

Apparatus and method for manufacturing nonwoven fabric


An improved open-ear hearing aid to compensate for hearing loss includes a microphone for picking up incident sound and converting it to an electrical audio signal. An ear insert positionable within a human ear canal is provided for producing an output sound amplified within one or more frequency bands in response to incident sound picked up by the microphone. The in-band gain of the amplified sound output of the ear insert's loudspeaker is dependent on the user's hearing loss characteristics and the sound pressure levels of the incident sound. The form of the ear insert allows transmission of incident sound directly to the eardrum, where it is summed at the eardrum with the amplified sound output from the ear insert. Sound output is maximum at low incident sound pressure levels and minimum when the incident sound exceeds a set cut-off level.

The present invention generally relates to hearing aids and more particularly relates to open-ear type devices that allow incident sound to reach the eardrum directly.
Hearing aids typically consist of a microphone, a signal processor, and an output transducer (sometimes called a "receiver"). The output transducer is placed in the ear canal and can be part of a housing that either leaves the ear canal partially open (i.e., acoustically transparent) or seals the canal completely. Open-ear devices are generally preferred over closed-ear devices by users and are recommended whenever possible for persons with mild or moderate hearing loss. (Open hearing aids have inherent limitations in the amount of gain they can provide, and thus are not well suited for persons whose hearing loss is severe.)
One advantage of open-ear devices is comfort: the soft tip of open-ear designs is less irritating and easier to adapt to than hard-shell closed-ear inserts. There is also less risk of infection or impaction by cerumen (ear wax). No custom ear-mold is required, which substantially decreases the fitting time and allows such hearing aids to be used off the shelf with only minor modifications. Also avoided is the occlusion effect, where the closed ear canal forms a resonant chamber that boosts low frequency sounds generated by the user (such as speech or chewing), causing the user's voice to sound unnatural and boomy. The occlusion effect is one of the primary reasons cited when users reject closed-style hearing aids.
Open-ear designs also allow better processing in complex acoustic environments, because they allow the incident sound to be heard at frequencies where the hearing aid provides no amplification. For example, a hearing aid fit to a high frequency hearing loss (above 1 kHz) doesn't need to amplify low frequencies. The incident sound is worth preserving whenever possible because it carries perceptual cues required for localizing sound sources and rejecting background noise. Such perceptual cues include interaural timing differences, interaural loudness differences, and phase effects.
Despite their advantages, open ear hearing aids have significant drawbacks. One drawback comes from artifacts and distortion that can be produced at the eardrum by the combination of incident and amplified sound at frequencies amplified by the hearing aid. These artifacts and distortion are often noticed by users and result in dissatisfaction that leads many to stop using their hearing aids after a short period of time.
One artifact results from the latency of the hearing aid, that is, the time delay between when a sound is sensed at the microphone and when it is converted to an acoustical sound wave at the hearing aid's output transducer. For modern digital hearing aids, the latency is 3-7 milliseconds; older analog hearing aids have a latency around 1-2 milliseconds. When both the incident and amplified sounds are similar in level, non-zero latency causes comb filtering, a form of spectral distortion. Comb filtering is characterized by a series of regularly spaced spectral peaks and dips in the sound pressure at the eardrum. For longer latencies, the first dip is at a lower frequency and hence a larger portion of the frequency spectrum is affected. Shorter latencies produce less extensive comb filtering. The human ear is very sensitive to this kind of artifact; latencies shorter than 8 milliseconds are perceived as tone coloration, while longer latencies can be perceived as echos, beating, or tone coloration depending on the relative loudness of the delayed sound.
Another recombination artifact arises from phase distortion in the amplified sound. This also produces a structure of spectral dips and peaks; wherever frequencies are 180 degrees out of phase, they recombine destructively and create a dip, while those in phase add constructively, creating a peak. Since phase distortions are often spread non-uniformly over the frequency spectrum, this kind of artifact is potentially much less regular than latency artifacts. The source of phase distortion can be any component in the signal path: the microphone, signal processing components, or the output transducer (loudspeaker).
The above-mentioned artifacts result in spectral distortions to the perceived sound readily apparent to even untrained listeners. In addition to these spectral distortions, hearing aids also distort the phase information when the amplified signal is much louder than the incident signal. It is believed that such phase distortions are themselves noticeable. Recent evidence suggests that phase is used for many tasks, including source localization, speech encoding, and detection of phase modulation.
The present invention addresses the drawbacks associated with conventional open hear hearing aids. It substantially mitigates the artifacts and distortion problems that exist in open-hear hearing aids, and substantially eliminates the source of user dissatisfaction with this type of hear aid design. The invention allows the user to enjoy the well-known benefits of open-ear designs without suffering the perceptible distractions commonly associated with such designs.

Hearing aid having level and frequency-dependent gain


The invention concerns the transmission of data packets in multicast mode, in which method the packets are sent from a sending end of a physical transmission medium and received by terminals at a receiving end of said medium. It finds a typical application in networks whose terminals cannot listen to each other, which is the case in satellite networks, for example, whereas management implies sending a query message to the terminals in order to determine the presence of an active group of terminals as a function of the reception of a response message from a terminal of said group. A signal is then sent to the terminals from the sending end, preferably the returned response, to indicate reception of a response message from a terminal of the group of terminals, so that terminals that have not sent a response message can act accordingly, in particular by interrupting their own process for sending a response. The method can be integrated transparently into the IGMP and the RFC 1112 standard that governs multicast transmission of data packets. A system for implementing the management method is also provided, and possibly integrated into a router.

Multicasting enables a sending source to broadcast the same data packets over a network to each terminal of a designated group of destination terminals in one sending. In the context of the Internet in particular, multicasting is covered by a specific transmission protocol which was produced for terminals connected by cable broadcast local area networks, such as Ethernet networks, which support listening between terminals. The protocol exploits this listening facility to lighten the traffic of acknowledgment messages sent by the destination terminals, as explained below. The object of the invention is to make this facility available to networks of satellite or like terminals that do not support listening between terminals.
The multicast services on offer are at present in their early days, as optimizing the Internet bandwidth has been considered to be of secondary importance compared to growing the network. The galloping increase in the bandwidth required for Internet services, because of the enthusiasm of the public and the rapid growth of the services on offer, is beginning to show up the inevitable limitations of multicast broadcasting.
Satellite systems have the natural advantage of offering point-to-multipoint services (which explains their success in direct video broadcasting by satellite (DVB-S) services, and they are therefore very well positioned for the new multicast market. The present growth of and interest in this market are comparable to the penetration of the web a few years ago. Multicast client applications are numerous:
TV broadcasting,
real-time broadcasting of stock market prices,
videoconferences,
on-line business (bids),
stock distribution,
etc.
Multicasting is already implemented in Internet cable networks, for which it is standardized by Requests For Comments RFC 1112 and RFC 2236 of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), respectively representing versions 1 and 2 of the Internet Group Management Protocol (IGMP).
Under this protocol, the receiver terminals do not have only a passive role, but must send specific messages and listen, with a very short time-delay, to the transmissions of other terminals connected to the same transmission medium.
FIG. 1 is a diagrammatic representation of the multicast data communication principle of the IETF's IGMP on a cable broadcast network such as an Ethernet network.
Multicast data is sent in the form of successive packets ( . . . , DPm-2, DPm-1, DPm, . . . ) over the Internet 2 and in accordance with the IGMP from a source 4 to a multicast edge router 6. The router is responsible for forwarding multicast data packets received from the Internet 2 to the cable subnetwork 8 within which it is responsible for broadcasting. The subnetwork 8, which is an Ethernet network, for example, connects a number r of terminals Tl-Tr to support:
quasi-simultaneous reception by each terminal that is a member of a multicast group of the same multicast data packet DPi forwarded by the edge router 6,
sending of messages from any terminal to the edge router 6,
listening by any terminal to messages sent to the router by any other terminal, and
exchange of data between the terminals.
The following description refers to two ends of the multicast transmission medium:
the multicast data sending end E, which is generally the end at which the router 6 or a medium access gateway is located, and
the multicast data receiving end R, which is generally the end at which the inputs of the terminals Tl-Tn are located.
For a given multicast session, the router 6 identifies the group G of participating terminals to which the data packets must be sent. The group G of participating terminals is identified by an address in each packet DP received by the router 6. The group G may constitute a varied and changing number of terminals, from one terminal to all of the terminals served by the router. In the FIG. 1 example, the group G comprises a number n of terminals Tl-Tn shown receiving the same data packet DPi. Note that a plurality of different multicast groups can be served by the same router 6 and that some terminals can participate in more than one group at a time. Similarly, the multicast source 4 can send data packets to a plurality of different edge routers.
The main problem with the multicast edge router 6 is determining whether it must forward the packets received or not. It is therefore preoccupied with finding out if there is at least one participating terminal in the group identified by the address of the multicast packet that it has just received from the Internet 2.
The IGMP, as defined by the IETF in RFC 1112, includes a mechanism for maintaining groups that enables a local multicast router to find out if there is still at least one member terminal of a given multicast group in the subnetwork 8. This enables it to decide whether it should still route the traffic of that group to the network or stop doing so.
This mechanism simply consists in the router 6 periodically sending a membership query defined by the IGMP. This query is picked up by all the terminals Tl-Tr connected to the local area network 8. A terminal that wishes to remain or to become a member of a group G must respond to the router 6 with a membership report message to indicate to the router that it is still interested in the traffic of that group.
According to the standard, the router has no need of a comprehensive list of all the member terminals, and only needs to know whether there is at least one member terminal or none at all. Consequently, there would seem to be no point in all the member terminals responding to the query, disturbing the other participants to decode their own response, and creating an overload on the network.
Because a single response is sufficient to provide the router 6 with the necessary information, the standard specifies that, on receiving a query, each terminal must start a random time-delay before responding. During this time-delay, each terminal listens to the line to intercept a response coming from any other terminal. If no response has been picked up on the line when the time-delay of one terminal expires, then only that terminal sends its response, which is picked up by the other terminals, which react by interrupting their time-delay without sending their response. This ensures that only one response is returned for each query sent by the edge router 6, regardless of the composition of the group of terminals, which avoids the overload problem.
Clearly the advantage at which the RFC 1112 standard is aimed cannot be obtained if the subnetwork (such as a network of satellite or like terminals) does not enable a terminal to intercept responses sent to the router 6 by another terminal.
The organization of this kind of subnetwork and its operation in multicast mode are described with reference to FIG. 2 in the context of a network of satellite terminals. The communication system is similar to that of FIG. 1, except that the subnetwork 80 includes satellite communication channels.
The example is based on an A 9780 NG satellite access network architecture. The multicast data source 4 is connected to an edge router 6 conforming to the IGMP protocol via the Internet 2, but it is to be understood that the source can be connected to the router by any other communication channel.
The router 6 communicates with the satellite terminals STl-STr via a ground station 10, known as a gateway, comprising a transceiver associated with a satellite antenna, the gateway and the router being connected by a bi-directional transmission cable 9 or the like. The gateway 10 sets up a communication link to a geosynchronous telecommunication satellite 12 which serves as a relay station for all the satellite terminals STl-STr. Each satellite terminal ST includes a parabolic antenna and radio-frequency send-receive circuits 14 connected to a personal computer PC or other communication unit via an IGMP host 15. The router 6 can therefore send multicast data packets to the satellite terminals and receive messages sent by them.
For each local area network 80, characterized by its radio carrier frequency, the satellite 12 provides:
a go link from a gateway 10 to the satellite terminals ST listening to this radio carrier frequency (f1), and
a return link on another radio carrier frequency (f2) associated with the go link, for conveying messages from the satellite terminals ST to the gateway 10.
Each satellite terminal can receive (or to be more precise, listen to) all the messages on the go link, including those addressed to other terminals, but only the gateway 10 can receive messages from a terminal. This is because the channels usually employ a receive frequency f1 common to all the terminals that is necessarily different from their transmit frequency f2, which may or may not be common to all the terminals, and so are not able to listen to the transmissions of other terminals. Note that the idea of adding to the satellite terminal means for listening to the second frequency can be realized only by providing relatively costly hardware, including a second receiver system and a duplexer.
Accordingly, only the gateway 10 can receive membership report responses from the satellite terminals ST, whereas all the terminals receive the membership query sent once only by the gateway 10 and carrying either the multicast address of all the terminals or the multicast address of the group for which it sends the membership query message.
What is more, geosynchronous satellite transmission systems induce a minimum time-delay of approximately 270 milliseconds (ms) between sending by the source (edge router 6) and reception by the destination (terminal ST), which makes the IETF solution even less applicable.
For these reasons, the standard mechanism used for cable subnetworks, based on inter-terminal surveillance and using time-delays to interrupt the sending of responses by the terminals, unfortunately will not work on a satellite or like link which connects the terminals to a central IGMP router (or function), whether it is behind a gateway or in a satellite Network Control Center (NCC). Applying the RFC 1112 standard in the conventional way, the return satellite channels are periodically overloaded by this response traffic to the queries sent (the RFC 1112 standard prevents this in networks supporting broadcast transmission).
To give a more concrete example of the orders of magnitude involved, and considering a system in which 5000 multicast groups use the satellite subnetwork 80 and each group is picked up by 2000 member terminals, in each interrogation period (i.e. on average every minute, according to the average value proposed in the RFC 1112 standard), a response traffic volume of 5000×2000 packets is generated. Taking the somewhat favorable situation of a radio packet having a size of 55 bytes, this induces a mean bit rate—and thus a bandwidth—of approximately 75 Mbit/s.
Moreover, this traffic is not uniformly distributed over the whole of the one minute period. According to IGMP version 2, the router 6 can request a response from the terminals ST within a maximum time-delay of 25.6 seconds. If a lower value is chosen, for example 5 seconds, the traffic is concentrated in this shorter period of 5 seconds.
Now, one fundamental characteristic of radio transmission systems is the limited band of frequencies that can be used for each system. The transmission capacity of these systems is fundamentally related to the allocated frequency band. Optimizing transmission capacity by minimizing the number, size or duration of messages is a constant preoccupation of radio transmission system designers.

Method of and a system for lightening the signaling load of a multicast protocol applied to a network of terminals using a transmission medium that does not support mutual listening between terminals


A retardation plate comprising at least one optically anisotropic layer, wherein at least one of said optically anisotropic layers is formed from a composition containing a liquid crystalline compound represented by the following formula:

The optically anisotropic layer is formed by aligning a discotic liquid crystalline compound (disc-like liquid crystalline compound) and fixing the aligned state. The discotic liquid crystalline compound generally has a large birefringence. Also, the discotic liquid crystalline compound has various aligning modes. When a discotic liquid crystalline compound is used, a retardation plate having optical properties unobtainable by a conventional stretched birefringent film can be produced.
In order to use the liquid crystalline compound for a retardation plate, the entire molecules constituting the optically anisotropic layer must be uniformly aligned, that is, the discotic liquid crystalline compound is preferably oriented in a monodomain alignment. However, conventional discotic liquid crystalline compounds are oriented in a dual-domain alignment and this causes generation of alignment defects at the boundary of domains. Therefore, in many cases, conventional discotic liquid crystalline compounds cannot assure optical properties necessary for the application to a retardation plate. The optical properties are dependent on the chemical structure of the discotic liquid crystalline compound. In this respect, as described in Molecular Crystals and Liquid Crystals, Vol. 370, page 391 (2001), many kinds of discotic liquid crystalline compounds have been studied and developed so as to obtain necessary optical properties.
However, there is a demand for a retardation plate having an optically anisotropic layer formed from a discotic liquid crystalline compound having a wavelength dispersion property lower than that of discotic liquid crystalline compounds known at present.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Retardation plate, elliptically polarizing plate and liquid crystal display

Abstract: wherein Y11, Y12 and Y13 are methine or N; L1, L2 and L3 are single bond or divalent group; H1, H2 and H3 are formula (DI-A) or (DI-B); YA1, YA2, YB1 and YB2 are methine or N; XA and XB are O, S, etc.; R1, R2 and R3 are -(-L21-Q2)n1-L22-L23-Q1; L21 is single bond or divalent group; Q2 is cyclic divalent group; n1 is 0-4; L22 is —O—, —O—CO—, etc; L23 is —O—, —S—, etc.; Q1 is polymerizable group or H.


The invention relates to a water-saving shower head which operates at low and high pressure. The inventive shower head comprises a knuckle consisting of an internally-threaded tubular section which is used to connect same to the tube, said tubular section being connected to a solid sphere containing an upper chamber therein. In turn, the upper chamber comprises a small funnel having three other small longitudinal, concentric and radially-equidistant conduits which are used to regulate the water flow and which flow into a conical cavity. The invention also comprises: a conoidal body containing an intermediate chamber which, in turn, comprises a solid cylinder with an upper conical cavity and four longitudinal, concentric and radially-equidistant conduits; and an inner conical surface of the ring forming the lower chamber which conditions the flow of water for the release thereof through the propulsion system formed by a smooth ring containing a series of four slightly-conical, toothed rings of different diameters, such as to form 52 rectangular, radially-arranged and equidistant conduits which propel the water outwards with sufficient force and density, thereby forming an adequate spray angle in order to produce a spray area that is comfortable for showering.

Water scarcity is a daily topic in the news. It is indispensable for all aspects of life. In international organisms (UN, Kyoto, Japan March 22 March 2003) The topic came to a consensus and it was concluded that water scarcity is something that will accentuate in a few years and it will cause multiple problems amongst humanity.
Many campaigns, trying to make people aware of how important water-saving is, have been spread in Mexico during the past few years despite this little has been achieved.
Many different technologies have been generated in trying to optimize the use if water, but those who have started these programs ended up giving up, some reasons are the small appearance of such devices or by the lose of the normal water pressure when using such devices, which is a main characteristic in our country due to the fact that in most homes the only pressure available is by gravity since big water containers-deposits are located on the roofs and the water flows down to either the bathroom, another reason for low pressure is mineral build up in the piping thus clogging them up easily in turn making them difficult to clean up (unclog). This is why a small minority use hydroneumatic systems to increase water pressure, so when using their shower is not an inconvenience for the people but the water consumption increases dramatically.
In application of utility model MX000712 a water-saving shower head is described, which is characterized by being mainly integrated by a bulb of water distribution chamber that spreads the water flow in a in a propelling form and is joint to an oscillating socket joint that allows it to vary its angle of inclination in reference to the water supply pipe. There is a reference of a water saving system in shower heads in patent MX152549 which is the combination of a funnel and hooks connected to the shower head, in addition to a storage tank located on the wall that distributes the water through an udder regulated by the water faucet located in the inside.
Utility model MX000564 refers to a high efficiency shower head at low pressure that is composed of a reducer connected to the house piping, which is also connected to a water feeding pipe on one end and to an obtruding device triggered by a lever on the other end and the body is incorporated through a thread in the knuckle, for movement it uses a rounded joint that is internally included in the thread that is connected to the chamber, characterized by conical body containing a series of 28, 48 or 71 a plate of radially-equidistant conduits, with an effect of low pressure efficiency that takes advantage of the minimum water flow transforming it in a ray of water, dense enough to provide the user comfort when taking a shower.
On the other hand patent MX 183485 describes flow distributor for shower heads that is composed of a plate with holes, a knuckle, a tubular element and it is characterized because the concentric tubular element is connected to the shower head body in such a longitude that it is located in the holed-plate of the shower head and in the coupling of the water supply of the shower head, this tubular portholes that establish the radial water flow.
In reference to what has been mentioned, with the intention of finding an alternative to avoid the waste of water when showering, we, the applicants, of this register, have created a shower head with this purpose (economize water), We have achieved designing this device with our own new technical characteristics, that reduces the consumption of water by no less than 5 litters per minute, without sacrificing comfort, which used to be offered only by a high consumption of water.

Water-saving shower head which operates at low and high pressure


An isolation proxy server system separates a typical proxy server or reverse proxy server into two physical computing platforms. A first physical platform, a front end proxy server, receives requests from clients on an external network, but is unable to relay requests by originating corresponding requests on an internal network. A second physical platform, a back end proxy client, originates distinct work requests to the front end proxy server. The front end proxy server forwards client requests to the back end proxy client in responses to the distinct work requests it receives from the back proxy client. The back end proxy client relays the client requests to a target server. Thus, the front end proxy server may not originate new requests to the server(s) in the protected zone, and the back end proxy client may not receive new requests from clients or from the front end proxy server.

In a client-server computing environment, an end user of a client computing device may initiate a request for a service provided by another computing device acting as a target server. For example, an end user may use a web browser client on a PC to request a web page. The web page may be stored on a web server and delivered to the PC in response to the request. The web browser may then render the received response on the PC for the end user.
In the client-server computing environment described above, the request from the client contains addresses associated with the client and the target server. Likewise, the response contains addresses associated with the client and the target server. In this way, the target server knows where the request came from; and the client knows where the response came from. If the target server becomes compromised by an attacker, however, the attacker may be able to acquire the client's address and direct an attack at the client. In a similar fashion, when the target server's address is publically known, the target server becomes much more susceptible to attack.
A typical proxy server provides enhanced security to clients in a client-server environment by hiding the clients' real addresses behind the address of the proxy server. The proxy server receives requests from the clients for services provided by target servers. The proxy server then relays the requests on behalf of the clients to the corresponding target server as if the requests originated from the proxy server, by replacing each client address with the address of the proxy server. In this way, the requests appear to be from the proxy server, and the corresponding target server is unaware of the individual clients. This allows the clients some protection from attacks originating from the target servers or other sources outside of the proxy server's internal network.
In a similar fashion, a reverse proxy provides protection to one or more target servers by receiving requests from clients on behalf of the target servers. Clients send their requests to the address of the reverse proxy server, which in turn replaces the address of the reverse proxy server with the address of the corresponding target server and relays the request to the corresponding target server. As such, individual addresses of the target servers are not publically known, and the target servers are better protected.
Hence, proxy servers provide protection for clients and reverse proxy servers provide protection for target servers by obscuring the existence of the clients and target servers, respectively. An attacker is unable to attack an unknown victim (client or target server). Proxy servers and reverse proxy servers, however, are vulnerable to attack and, once compromised, may be used by an attacker to reach the clients and target servers that were once obscured. This is possible because typical proxy servers and reverse proxy servers may originate a request to a client or target server, respectively, without receiving a corresponding request from an outside source.


A printer includes an arm part connected to a printer body part and a paper roll support shaft part having a first end connected to the arm part and a second end to be inserted into a hollow core of a paper roll. The paper roll support shaft includes a first support shaft and a second support shaft. The paper roll support shaft is configured to come into contact with the interior of the core at a first contact point on the first support shaft and a second contact point on the second support shaft.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to printers.
2. Description of the Related Art
Printers that output paper slips such as receipts are used for a wide variety of purposes, such as for registers in shops and automated teller machines (ATMs) or cash dispensers (CDs) in banks. In such printers that output receipts or the like, printing is usually performed on predetermined positions on thermal paper, serving as recording paper, using a thermal head or the like while conveying the thermal paper.
In such printers that perform printing on recording paper using a thermal head, printing is performed with the recording paper positioned between the thermal head and a platen roller. The recording paper, on which printing is performed, is wound in a roll around a hollow core, and is fed toward the thermal head side while being supported by a paper roll support shaft.
For related art, reference may be made to Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No. 2003-19845, Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No. 8-217295, Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No. 2004-292158, and Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No. 2003-246508.


An automated cartridge library (2230) has a cartridge transport system (2240) which transports cartridges of information storage media between a cartridge storage section (2234) and a drive section (2238). The cartridge storage section includes a plurality of stacked magazine-bearing drums (2235) and a entry/exit magazine carrier (2236). The entry/exit magazine carrier linearly reciprocates from a docking position to an entry/exit port position, thereby carrying an entry/exit magazine (70) carried thereby between the docking position and the entry/exit position. The entry/exit magazine is accessible by the cartridge transport system when in the docking position, and manually accessible through a entry/exit door (2310) when at the entry/exit position. At the entry/exit position the entry/exit magazine carrier facilitates removal of the entry/exit magazine or cartridges therefrom through the entry/exit door but precludes manual penetration into the interior of the cabinet beyond the magazine carrier. At the entry/exit position the entry/exit magazine carrier is positioned substantially flush against a cabinet wall wherein the entry/exit door is formed. The entry/exit magazine carrier comprises a multi-paneled carrier housing which is substantially closed except for a face oriented toward the entry/exit door. The library includes a controller (2246) which permits continued operation of the cartridge transport system while the entry/exit door is opened so long as the entry/exit magazine carrier is in the entry/exit position.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention pertains to the storage of information, and particularly to automated cartridge handling systems such as cartridge libraries which store cartridges or cassettes of magnetic tape.
2. Related Art and other Considerations
The economic and compact storage of information is increasingly important in the computer industry, particularly so as the computer unleashes new potentials in numerous fields such as audio visual and/or multimedia.
In the early days of computers, information requiring storage could be transmitted from a computer to a tape drive, whereat the information was magnetically recorded on or read from a large reel of tape. Upon completion of an operation of recording on the tape, for example, the reel would be removed manually from the tape drive and mounted in a rack. Another reel from the rack could then be manually mounted, if necessary, in the drive for either an input (tape reading) or output (recording to tape) operation.
Eventually it became popular to enclose magnetic tape in a cartridge, the cartridge being considerably smaller than the traditional tape reels. While many persons are familiar with tape cartridges of a type which can be loaded into a "tape deck" for reproduction of audio information (e.g., music), it is not as commonly realized that similar cartridges, although of differing sizes, can be used to store such information as computer data. For years now magnetic tape cartridges have proven to be an efficient and effective medium for data storage, including but not limited to computer back-up.
Large computer systems have need to access numerous cartridges. To this end, automated cartridge handling systems or libraries for cartridges have been proposed for making the cartridges automatically available to the computer. Many of these automated libraries resemble juke boxes. Typically, prior art automated cartridge libraries have an array of storage positions for cartridges, one or more tape drives, and some type of automated changer or cartridge engagement/transport mechanism for picking or gripping a cartridge and moving the cartridge between a storage position and the tape drive.
The following United States patents, all commonly assigned herewith and incorporated herein by reference, disclose various configurations of automated cartridge libraries, as well as subcomponents thereof (including cartridge engagement/transport mechanisms and storage racks or magazines for housing cartridges):
U.S. Pat. No. 4,984,106 to Herger et al., entitled "CARTRIDGE LIBRARY SYSTEM AND METHOD OF OPERATION THEREOF"; PA1 U.S. Pat. No. 4,972,277 to Sills et al., entitled "CARTRIDGE TRANSPORT ASSEMBLY AND METHOD OF OPERATION THEREOF"; PA1 U.S. Pat. No. 5,059,772 to Younglove, entitled "READING METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR CARTRIDGE LIBRARY"; PA1 U.S. Pat. No. 5,103,986 to Marlowe, entitled "CARTRIDGE RACK"; and, PA1 U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,237,467 and 5,416,653 to Marlowe, entitled "CARTRIDGE HANDLING APPARATUS AND METHOD WITH MOTION-RESPONSIVE EJECTION". PA1 U.S. Pat. No. 5,498,116 to Woodruff et al., entitled "ENTRY-EXIT PORT FOR CARTRIDGE LIBRARY". PA1 U.S. Pat. No. 5,487,579 to Woodruff et al., entitled "PICKER MECHANISM FOR DATA CARTRIDGES". PA1 U.S. Pat. No. 5,718,339 to Woodruff et al., entitled "CARTRIDGE RACK AND LIBRARY FOR ENGAGING SAME".
Some cartridge libraries have, on a front panel of their housing, a special door or access (sometimes known as an "entry/exit port") through which an operator can manually insert a cartridge for loading into the inventory of the library without opening the entire front panel or main door of the library. For example, in the Exabyte EXB-120 cartridge library, an entry/exit cartridge holder (which held a single cartridge) reciprocated between the entry/exit port at the front panel of the housing and a temporary station in the interior of the library housing. When the entry/exit cartridge holder arrived at the entry/exit port, the entry/exit cartridge holder shoved the cartridge through the entry/exit port door so that the sole cartridge carried thereby partly protruded from the front panel of the library housing, so that an operator could grasp the protruding cartridge. When the entry/exit cartridge holder was at the temporary station, a cartridge picker mechanism could move a cartridge from magazines (or a drive) in the library to the temporary station, or a cartridge newly entered at the temporary station to a magazine (or drive).
Other schemes of entry/exit are also known. For example, in U.S. Pat. No. 5,498,116, an entry/exit transport arm travels and pivots in an entry/exit transport plane, and is extensible in such plane. As another example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,779,151 to Lind et al. shows a receptacle-type scheme for introduction of new cartridges, in which rotary loading and unloading mechanisms are provided in the housing of a cartridge library.
Preferably employment and operation of entry/exit facilities should not interfere with the on-going operation of a cartridge library. In other words, while the entry/exit port is being utilized, the remainder of the cartridge library should remain operational. Moreover, the continued operation of the remainder of the cartridge library should not have the potential of injuring an operator who is using the entry/exit port.
What is needed, therefore, and an object of the present invention, is a cartridge library having an entry/exit port which permits continued and safe use of the remainder of the cartridge library.

Cartridge library with entry/exit port and method of operation thereof


A golf club head has two metal outer ends to and a mid-section composed of multiple side-by-side, polymeric laminations (14) directed substantially transversely to the club face (4). In one version the threaded rod (12) joins the ends compressing the laminations. The laminations allow bands of color or opacity to create a distinctive appearance. In another version the laminations are replaced by a moulded block of polymer (24).

Putters tend to attract experimentation in the use of different materials. If the club head is to impart a different feel when hitting a golf ball, a material, which is more elastic than the metal which is the chief constituent of known putter heads, is required. It is possible to provide this softer material as an insert but the provision of insufficient volume of the insert material to change the feel, means that a compensating quantity of metal must be used to provide reasonable mass.
Some golfers prefer to personalise their clubs but the construction of clubs usually confines distinctive markings to surface embellishments, logos or labels. If these are applied to the club head, wear tends to eventually obscure them.


A method for non-destructive compression of a reactive gas such as ozone employs a liquid used as a compressant or sealant in a compressor where the liquid is substantially free of elements which decompose the gas. Provision is also made for extraction of heat of compression absorbed by the liquid of the compressant or sealant, for addition of chilled and pH adjusted liquid, and for addition of acid, if necessary.

This invention relates generally to gas handling in industrial processes and more particularly to compression of gases which are subject to thermal or catalyzed decomposition, such as ozone.
Compression of gases generates heat of compression which goes to increase the temperature of the gas. Often this heat is removed from the compressed gas by passing it through an aftercooler which exchanges the heat with a reservoir of cool or refrigerated medium. Some gases are unstable and decompose due to the temperature increase attendant upon compression.
Ozone gas is used in many industrial processes. It is produced in ozone generators from air or oxygen in concentrations of up to about 15% by weight of ozone in air or oxygen carrier gas. Ozone generators normally produce ozone at less than about 15 psig in order to minimize capital costs for the generation equipment and to maintain high ozone generation efficiency.
Low pressure ozone is suitable for many processes, but many modern technologies require ozone at higher pressures. Also, many technologies require ozone at high concentrations in a variety of compatible carrier gases such as air, nitrogen, or oxygen.
Compression of ozone by commonly available reciprocating compressors or centrifugal compressors results in adiabatic heating and consequent thermal decomposition of a fraction of the ozone. By cooling the working parts of such compressors, or by providing intercoolers between stages, and aftercoolers for the compressed gas, most of the thermal decomposition can be avoided. However, such measures greatly increase the cost of such compressors; and half-measures still result in too great a loss of ozone to be acceptable.
One example of a technology which requires compressed ozone is bleaching of wood pulp at consistencies lower than about 45%. A typical system for bleaching low to medium consistency, i.e., up to about 18% consistency, may require an ozone pressure of between 30 and 200 psig for effectively contacting the ozone with the pulp or for effectively dissolving the ozone in a pulp bearing fluid. It is to be expected that an increasing number of processes will be and have been developed in a wide variety of technical fields which will require compressed ozone containing gases.
A liquid ring compressor may be used for compression of thermally reactive gas. Such compressors employ a liquid to act as an internal sealant between the casing of the compressor and the rotating vanes. The liquid forms a ring, by centrifugal action, against the compression chamber wall; and, by alternately filling and emptying the spaces between the vanes of the radially offset impeller, the liquid ring also serves as the compressant for the gas being compressed. Heat of compression is quite readily transferred from the gas to the liquid permitting the liquid ring compressor to approximate isothermal operation. This suppresses the thermal decomposition of the compressed gas and causes a corresponding increase in vapor pressure of the liquid ring. A quantity of the liquid may be discharged with the compressed gas and must be replenished for continuing operation.
In the case of ozone and some other gases, suppression of thermal decomposition is not alone sufficient to preserve the compressed ozone. Since ozone is very reactive, it is also subject to consumption and decomposition by reaction with the liquid of the liquid ring. Ozone even reacts with water in a variety of reactions which are well documented. One article dealing with these reactions is Weiss, J., "Reaction of Ozone With Water", Transactions of the Faraday Society, 31, 668 (1935), which is incorporated herein by reference.
Since ozone is a costly gaseous reagent, any measurable loss is to be avoided. Thus, with an ever increasing technological demand for high pressure ozone, the need for a non-destructive compression process becomes more urgent.
The foregoing illustrates limitations known to exist in present devices and methods. Thus, it is apparent that it would be advantageous to provide an alternative directed to overcoming one or more of the limitations set forth above. Accordingly, a suitable alternative is provided including features more fully disclosed hereinafter.

Method for non-destructively compressing ozone gas