When using a heating system to provide ambient air at a comfortable temperature indoors, it is often desirable to increase the humidity of the heated air. If the air to be heated is initially very cold, such as outdoor air in winter, the heated air will contain very little moisture. Indeed, indoor air may have a humidity, or moisture content, as low as 10 to 15 percent, which is significantly drier than even desert air. Such dry air can cause skin and mucous membranes to dry out, making people uncomfortable and perhaps increasing their susceptibility to infection by air-borne viruses and bacteria. Dry air can also lead to drying of wood structures, such as flooring and furniture, and it can lead to increased static electricity that may damage electronic equipment, such as computers. Thus, indoor air is often humidified, using one of several types of humidification systems that are currently available for residential and commercial use.
In a bypass type of humidification system, air passes over or through a pad or sheet of wet material that has a large surface area. As the air passes the wet surface, it picks up water that evaporates from the surface. Other systems use nozzles to spray small water droplets into the air. If the droplet size is small enough, the droplets evaporate quickly in the air, thereby preventing significant fogging. These types of systems generally require significant maintenance to prevent scale buildup on the pads or sheets or in the nozzles.
Steam humidifiers use heat to boil water in a reservoir or tank, most commonly with a heating coil located inside the tank. This type of humidifier generally uses tap water, which may contain significant quantities of dissolved minerals. As the water in the tank evaporates, the mineral content of the remaining water increases, and eventually minerals precipitate from the water to form scale deposits on the walls of the tank and the heating coil. Over time, the tank volume decreases, and the scale layer on the heating coil acts as a thermal insulator. As a result, the humidifier becomes increasingly inefficient. Although frequently flushing clean water through the tank can slow down the rate of scale buildup, there is no simple way to remove the scale deposits once they form in the tanks and in associated plumbing, and the tanks must be replaced periodically.
Thus, there is a need for a steam humidifier that operates more reliably over long periods of time and that can be easily maintained, rather than routinely replacing major system components, such as holding tanks, heating elements, and solenoid valves.


Various systems require electrical coupling between electrical devices disposed within a sealed enclosure or housing and devices or systems external to the enclosure. Oftentimes, such electrical coupling needs to withstand various environmental factors such that a conductive pathway or pathways from the external surface of the enclosure to within the enclosure remains stable. For example, implantable medical devices (IMDs), e.g., cardiac pacemakers, defibrillators, neurostimulators and drug pumps, which include electronic circuitry and one or more power sources, require an enclosure or housing to contain and seal these elements within a body of a patient. Many of these IMDs include one or more electrical feedthrough assemblies to provide electrical connections between the elements contained within the housing and components of the IMD external to the housing, for example, one or more sensors, electrodes, and lead wires mounted on an exterior surface of the housing, or electrical contacts housed within a connector header, which is mounted on the housing to provide coupling for one or more implantable leads, which typically carry one or more electrodes and/or one or more other types of physiological sensors. A physiological sensor, for example a pressure sensor, incorporated within a body of a lead may also require a hermetically-sealed housing to contain electronic circuitry of the sensor and an electrical feedthrough assembly to provide electrical connection between one or more lead wires, which extend within the implantable lead body, and the contained circuitry.


1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a cathode-ray tube and a method for manufacturing a cathode-ray tube suitable for use in a projection-type display, for example.
2. Description of the Related Art
For cathode-ray tubes for use in projectors and the like, what is called deposition-type glass (deposited bulbs), in which the panel and funnel sections of the body of the cathode-ray tube are integrally formed, is used.
By reason of glass formation, the inner wall of the funnel section and the side of the panel section generally constitute mirror finished surfaces in cathode-ray tubes of this type.
When an electron beam is irradiated upon the fluorescent surface created on the inner surface of the panel section, part of it is reflected off in the form of reflected electrons.
Since the inner wall of the funnel section and the sides of the panel section constitute mirror-like surfaces, as described above, the reflected electrons are reflected back off the inner wall and are again incident upon the fluorescent surface. This has a marked deteriorating effect on the contrast of the projected image.
In the case where a plurality of cathode-ray tubes are located next to each other, such as cathode-ray tubes in a television receiver using a projector, light leaking from the funnel section and the sides of the panel section of a cathode-ray tube affects each other and causes deterioration of the contrast.
When an excellent quality of displayed image is to be achieved in a monochrome cathode-ray tube like those used in projectors, an especially high degree of intensity and contrast is required.
In order to counteract factors which cause the contrast to deteriorate, one measure that has conventionally been adopted involves coating the inner wall of the funnel and the sides of the panel with a black material, such as carbon, thereby reducing and absorbing the reflection of light as much as possible.
When the measure is employed for a cathode-ray tube using deposition-type glass in which the panel and funnel sections are integrally formed, coating the inner surface is performed by inserting a brush or other coating implement through the neck section and rotating the glass.
Accordingly, it has hitherto been possible to coat only that part of the inner surface of the funnel which has a circular cross-section. It also has been difficult to ensure that the funnel section and the sides of the panel section are coated evenly with the black material.
Meanwhile, if a thick coating is applied to the inner wall in such a manner as to avoid missing anywhere, the black material tends to peel off, thereby causing the withstand voltage properties of the cathode-ray tube to deteriorate.
The inner surface of the funnel section needs a furnished conductive film in order to ensure that high voltage supplied from the anode button is fed to the fluorescent surface and the inner surface of the funnel section of the body of the cathode-ray tube has the same potential.
Since it is possible to coat only that part of the inner surface of the funnel which has a circular cross-section in a cathode-ray tube using deposition-type glass, it has been necessary instead to deposit aluminum over a wide area as a metal backing layer in order to form an inner conductive film.
However, depositing a metal backing layer over a wide area in this manner, in order to form the conductive film, results in the fact that the contrast of the image deteriorates by reason of reflected electrons and stray light caused by not being absorbed sufficiently and reflected off the metal-backing layer.
Examples of stray light which causes the contrast of the image to deteriorate include stray light caused by light reflected off the inner surface of the body of the cathode-ray tube being subject to multiple reflection within the glass thereof and returning to the front surface of the panel and stray light caused by light reflected off the inner surface of the funnel section of the body of the cathode-ray tube returning directly to the front surface of the panel.
In order to solve the abovementioned disadvantages, the present invention proposes a cathode-ray tube having an excellent quality of image with a highly enhanced contrast and a method of manufacturing such a high-contrast cathode-ray tube by reducing stray light and the re-entering of reflected electrons through the fluorescent surface thereof.


Some service providers use conventional risk-based authentication systems to assess risks of processing customer transactions. For example, an online bank may employ a risk engine of such a risk-based authentication system to assign risk scores to banking transactions where higher risk scores indicate higher risk.
In generating a risk score, the risk engine takes, as input values, various transaction attributes (e.g., time of receipt, IP address). For each customer of the online bank, there is an associated history based on values of the transaction attributes associated with previous transactions involving that customer. The risk engine incorporates the history associated with the customer into an evaluation of the risk score. Significant variation of one or more attribute values from those in the customer's history may signify that the banking transaction has a high risk.
For example, suppose that a particular customer historically submitted transaction requests to the online bank at 3:00 PM from a particular internet service provider (ISP), and, under the customer's identifier, a user submits a new transaction request at 2:00 AM from a different ISP. The different ISP would give rise to a different IP address than that historically associated with the particular customer. In this case, owing to the different IP address and the unusual time that the transaction was submitted, the risk engine would assign a larger risk score to a transaction resulting from the new transaction request.


Lewis Acids have been widely used as catalysts in carbocationic polymerization processes to catalyze the polymerization of monoolefins. Examples of Lewis Acid catalysts include AlCl.sub.3, BF.sub.3, BCl.sub.3, TiCl.sub.4, Al(C.sub.2 H.sub.5).sub.3, Al(C.sub.2 H.sub.5).sub.2 Cl, and Al(C.sub.2 H.sub.5)Cl.sub.2. Such carbocationic polymerization catalysts have many advantages, including high yield, fast reaction rates, good molecular weight control, and utility with a wide variety of monomers. However, conventional carbocationic polymerization processes typically employ Lewis Acid catalysts in unsupported form. Hence, these catalysts, typically, cannot be recycled or reused in a cost effective manner.
In a typical carbocationic polymerization process, such as the carbocationic polymerization of isobutylene, a catalyst feedstream in a liquid or gaseous form and a monomer feedstream are fed simultaneously into a conventional reactor. In the reactor, the streams are intermingled and contacted under process conditions such that a desired fraction of the monomer feedstream is polymerized. Then, after an appropriate residence time in the reactor, a discharge stream is withdrawn from the reactor. The discharge stream contains polymer, unreacted monomer and catalyst. In order to recover the polymer, the catalyst and unreacted monomer must be separated from this stream. Typically, there is at least some residue of catalyst in the polymer which cannot be separated. After separation, the catalyst is typically quenched and neutralized. The quenching and neutralization steps tend to generate large quantities of waste which must typically be disposed of as hazardous waste.
The recycling or reuse of Lewis Acid catalysts used in polymer processes is difficult because of the chemical and physical characteristics of these catalysts. For example, most Lewis Acid catalysts are non-volatile and cannot be distilled off. Other catalysts are in a solid particulate form and must be separated from the polymer stream by physical separation means. Some Lewis Acid catalysts are gaseous, such as BF.sub.3. The gases can be recycled and reused, but with considerable difficulty, by utilizing gas-liquid separators and compressors.
There have been several attempts made to support Lewis Acid catalysts on the surface of inorganic substrates such as silica gel, alumina, and clay. Although these approaches are somewhat successful in recycling the Lewis Acid catalysts, there are several disadvantages associated with their use. One particularly strong disadvantage is that these approaches to supported catalysts generally produce only low molecular weight oligomers. Another disadvantage is that the catalysts (supported on inorganic substrates) typically leach out during the reaction since the catalysts tend to not be firmly fixed to the supporting substrates.
Attempts to support Lewis Acid catalysts can be characterized as falling into two basic classes; namely, those which rely on physical adsorption and those wherein the Lewis Acid chemically reacts with the support.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,925,495 discloses a catalyst consisting of graphite having a Lewis Acid intercalated in the lattice thereof.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,112,011 discloses a catalyst comprising gallium compounds on a suitable support such as aluminas, silicas and silica aluminas.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,235,756 discloses a catalyst comprising porous gamma alumina impregnated with an aluminum hydride.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,288,449 discloses chloride alumina catalysts.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,734,472 and 4,751,276 disclose a method for preparing functionalized (e.g., hydroxy functionalized) alpha-olefin polymers and copolymers derived from a borane containing intermediate.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,167,616 discloses polymerization with diborane adducts or oligomers of boron-containing monomers.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,698,403 discloses a process for the preparation of ethylene copolymers in the presence of selected nickel-containing catalysts.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,638,092 discloses organo-boron compounds with strong aerobic initiator action to start polymerizations.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,342,849 discloses novel telechelic polymers formed by hydroborating diolefins to polyboranes and oxidizing the polymeric boranes to form the telechelic dehydroxy polymer. No use of the resulting polymer to support Lewis Acid catalysts is disclosed.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,558,170 discloses a continuous cationic polymerization process wherein a cocatalyst is mixed with a monomer feedstream prior to introduction of the feedstream to a reactor containing a Lewis Acid catalyst.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,719,190, 4,798,190 and 4,929,800 disclose hydrocarbon conversion and polymerization catalysts prepared by reacting a solid adsorbent containing surface hydroxyl groups with certain Lewis Acid catalysts in halogenated solvent. The only disclosed adsorbents are inorganic; namely, silica alumina, boron oxide, zeolite, magnesia and titania.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,605,808 discloses a process for producing polyisobutene using a complex of boron trifluoride and alcohol as catalyst.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,139,417, discloses amorphous copolymers of monoolefins or of monoolefins and nonconjugated dienes with unsaturated derivatives of imides. In the preparation of the polymer the imide is complexed with a Lewis Acid catalyst.
Japanese Patent Application No. 188996/1952 (Laid Open No. J59080413A/1984) discloses a process for preparing a copolymer of an olefin and a polar vinyl monomer which comprises copolymerizing an olefin with a complex of the polar vinyl monomer and a Lewis acid.
European Patent Application No. 87311534.9 (Publication No. EPA 0274912) discloses polyalcohol copolymers made using borane chemistry.
T. C. Chung and D. Rhubright, Macromolecules, Vol. 24, 970-972, (1991) discloses functionalized polypropylene copolymers made using borane chemistry.
T. C. Chung, Journal of Inorganic and Organometallic Polymers, Vol. 1, No. 1, 37-51, (1991) discloses the preparation of polyboranes and borane monomers.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,849,572 discloses a process for preparing polybutenes having enhanced reactivity using a BF.sub.3 catalyst. Polybutene is produced which has a number average molecular weight in the range of from 500 to 5,000. The polymer has a total terminal double-bond content of at least 40% based on total theoretical unsaturation of the polybutene. The polybutene contains at least 50% by weight isobutylene units based on the polybutene number average molecular weight. The process is accomplished by contacting a feed supply comprising at least 10% by weight isobutylene based on the weight of the feed with a BF.sub.3 catalyst under conditions to cationically polymerize the feed in liquid phase to form polybutene. The polymer is immediately quenched with a quench medium sufficient to deactivate the BF.sub.3 catalyst.
There has been a continuous search for catalysts having high efficiency which can be recycled or reused in cationic polymerization processes. The present invention was developed pursuant to this search.


Casual photographers often compose scenes in a manner that is appealing to them when seen through a camera viewfinder, but is later found to be unappealing when seen in a resulting photographic print or other final image. Instruction on how to take better photographs is readily available in books, in classes, and the like; but such modes of instruction are burdensome to access during picture taking and are not much used by casual photographers. This is unfortunate, since the result is that many people repeat the same mistakes over and over, and also miss out on the fun of learning how to take better photographs.
Cameras are known that provide an indicator or lock up the shutter release when a forthcoming shot would be too dark or too close. Verifying cameras provide a verification image to users immediately after capture of a scene on photographic film or other archival media. The verification image is provided on a digital display and portrays the image captured on the archival media. This allows the user to review the verification image and decide if the shot was unsuccessful and should be repeated. Major capture failures, such as a something blocking the lens system, are readily apparent. Other characteristics of the captured image, such as composition, are also shown; but, in view of the small size of the digital display may not be immediately apparent to the user.
Japanese published patent application No. 07-319034 discloses a hybrid camera in which the photographer can change exposure settings to modify a verification image. The photographer then knows whether to repeat the shot with the changed settings.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,640,628 discloses a camera that can change metadata indicating a default number of prints, in response to a determined condition.
Hybrid cameras are known that use an electronic image capture unit having a larger angle of view than a corresponding film image capture unit. U.S. Pat. No. 4,978,983 discloses a camera that uses the larger area of the electronic capture unit to correct for parallax at some focusing distances. A display on the camera shows a digital image that corresponds to the angle of view of the film image capture unit.
Software is widely available that allows for the easy manipulation of digital images. Digital cameras can be used to capture images which are then modified using such software after downloading to a computer. This is a powerful approach, but lacks immediacy, since the images are not manipulated on the camera.
Digital cameras necessarily make some modifications of captured images. Some cameras also allow the user to selectively modify some images. For example, the use of digital zoom is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,172,234. A problem with these approaches is complexity or lack of immediacy or both. A novice is likely to be confused if he or she attempts to modify images during a picture taking session. Modifying images on a camera after a picture taking session is less confusing, but remains complex unless user choices are strictly limited.
One reason for modifying captured images is correction of mistakes by the user and improvement of photographic technique. The widely available educational materials for this purpose are of little help to a user during a picture taking session.
It would thus be desirable to provide an improved camera and method in which the camera displays one or more different suggestions on how to improve on a just captured archival image in a later recapture and the camera sets up in configuration for that improved recapture when one of the suggestions is selected.


The present invention relates to a method for tracking a maneuvering target with a slow scan rate sensor, and, more particularly, to tracking a highly maneuvering target without overburdening the target processing capabilities of a tracking system using such a sensor.
By "slow scan rate" is meant a scan rate, wherein a target monitoring or sensor system, such as a radar antenna or sonar hydrophone, examines a predetermined volume in space and returns to the same volume relative to the sensor in a time interval which is long relative to the anticipated or maximum velocity acceleration and maneuvering capability of a potential target. By way of example and not of limitation, a known radar system employs an antenna which is rotated or slewed through 360.degree. in about ten seconds. Thus for a stationary target, the sensor would return to the subject detection volume nominally every 10 seconds depending on the sensor platform or own ship motion, if any.
For certain current jet aircraft or missiles which may be desired to be detected and tracked, an interval as long as ten seconds between obtaining updated actual target position information may permit the target to maneuver far enough away from its previous historical position and path so that a next interval detection using a conventional system cannot be reliably correlated or determined to be the same target.
Tracking targets through their maneuvers is a classical tracking problem solved by conventional tracking algorithms. Successful target track is typically the result of frequent updates of target position during any maneuver. Slow scanning sensors do not provide the required frequent target updates for conventional trackers to maintain track on maneuvering targets. Within one scan interval of a slow scanning sensor, a maneuvering target, like a cruise missile, can initiate, perform, and terminate a large acceleration or high g turning maneuver away from its previous position and course. The term g is used to refer to acceleration in terms of a multiple of the acceleration due to gravity which is nominally 9.8 m/sec.sup.2 On the next scan, the target location may be a significant distance from the location predicted by the tracker from historical data of a predetermined number of prior scans and the target may be headed on a drastically different course from the one derived from such historical data. Either or both of these events may defeat the performance of conventional target correlation and tracking algorithms when employed in conjunction with a slow scanning sensor.
Previously developed scan-to-scan correlation methods for use with slow scanning sensors have exhibited a number of deficiencies such as excessive false alarms, target tracking limitations and/or intermittent target tracking. Some slow scan tracking methods employ small correlation gates to restrict the probability of false correlation,thereby limiting the false track report rate. These trackers do not have the capability to track maneuvering targets because of the insufficient size of the gates. Other tracker developments for use with such sensors have utilized large, non-optimally shaped correlation gates which can track maneuvering targets but which permit an excessive number of false correlations and false target reports. Further, use of such large gates inefficiently consumes target processing resources of the overall system, such as a radar or sonar by examining portions of a spatial volume where there is a low probability of finding the historically tracked target.


The present invention relates to a portable terminal, an information processing apparatus, a content display system, and a content display method.
Cellular phones capable of browsing internet sites and television (TV) programs have come into wide use today. On the other hand, there have been increasingly employed television sets capable of connecting to networks. In this environment, a technique in which a content received by a cellular phone is viewed by a television set with higher usability and a technique in which a cellular phone is employed as a remote control device to operate a television set are under discussion.
For example, JP-A-2006-286855 describes a cellular phone including a broadcast receiving function. The cellular phone transmits a history of viewed programs and playback indication signals thereof to a video playback device. According to the cellular phone, a program which the user viewed outside his or her house can be again viewed on a large screen after returning home. It is also possible that when the user viewed part a program outside home during a free period of time, the user can view its subsequent part, parts before and after the viewed part, or the entire program from the start point to the end point thereof after returning home by using a recording and reproducing device in the house,
JP-A-2005-135346 describes a technique for use in a system including a cellular phone, an information processing apparatus, and a display. When mail data including Uniform Resource Locator (URL) information is received, the cellular phone transfers the mail data via radio communication to the information processing apparatus. On receiving the mail data, the information processing apparatus displays the mail data on the display. If an operation is conducted for the URL information in the mail data, an operation is conducted to access a radio communication network other than a network used for the radio communication on the basis of the URL information, and resultantly obtained information is displayed on the display.
JP-A-2006-338406 describes a technique in which a communication terminal device including another function is ordinary employed as a remote control device to remotely control other communication terminal devices.
Additionally, JP-A-2007-74265 describes a videoconference system using a cellular phone connected via the internet to a videoconference server to communicate information with the server and a display device capable of, when connected via a communication function to the cellular phone, displaying the information. The videoconference system controls devices connected thereto via the videoconference server and a network. The videoconference system includes an information display module to display on a first display of the cellular phone a first videophone screen on which the information is displayed using letters. The information display module also displays on a second display of the display device a second videophone screen on which image information included in the information communicated as above is displayed. JP-A-2007-74265 describes a system in which a monitor camera is remotely controlled by a cellular phone, and a video image produced from the camera is displayed on a display screen of a Personal Computer (PC).


Some solutions have a relatively short useful life after a solute is mixed with a solvent. Once such solution is a thrombolytic agent which is supplied intravenously to a patient to dissolve blood clots. The solution must be used within a few hours after the thrombolytic agent, in powder form, is dissolved in a liquid carrier such as water. At the present time, when the solution is to be administered, a nurse or other person adds a prescribed quantity of the liquid solvent into a vessel containing a prescribed quantity of the thrombolytic powder and shakes or otherwise mixes the mixture to accelerate the dissolution of the powder in the solvent. The solution must be administered shortly thereafter.
It would be desirable to provide a more sterile and foolproof system for shipping, storing and subsequently mixing a solvent and a solute to insure a precise mixture of premeasured quantities of the solvent and the solute under completely sterile conditions.


1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a hydraulic circuit, and in particular to a hydraulic circuit including an accumulator having an inflow passage which introduces a hydraulic fluid which is discharged from a hydraulic pump into a hydraulic fluid chamber and a discharge passage which discharges the hydraulic fluid from the hydraulic fluid chamber to a hydraulic actuator.
2. Description of the Related Art
An example of this type of hydraulic circuit is disclosed in, for example, Japanese Patent No. 2576998. In the disclosed hydraulic circuit, a hydraulic fluid which is discharged from a hydraulic pump is introduced into a hydraulic fluid chamber of an accumulator through an inflow passage, and then the hydraulic fluid is discharged from the hydraulic fluid chamber of the accumulator to a hydraulic actuator such as a hydraulic booster through a discharge passage. As a result, pulsations of the hydraulic fluid discharged from the hydraulic pump are securely decreased by the operation of the accumulator.
In the case where an accumulator which operates when the pressure in a hydraulic fluid chamber is at least a set pressure is used to decrease pulsations of the hydraulic fluid discharged from a hydraulic pump, in a transient period until the pressure in the hydraulic fluid chamber reaches the set pressure, the accumulator does not operate, and pulsations of the hydraulic fluid which is discharged from the hydraulic pump cannot be decreased.


Various applications of fluorescence techniques to analyze biological samples are known to people skilled in the art. In case of electrophoretic techniques proteins or DNA are labeled with a fluorescence probe to visualize their electrophoretic bands in gels or columns. In addition, most biochip applications so far are based on a fluorescence read-out, whereas the specific binding of a fluorescence-labeled target molecule to a probe molecule immobilized on a solid support is monitored. Applications for DNA analysis in the liquid phase include fluorescence hybridization probes like the double-stranded DNA binding dye SybrGreenI or FRET (Fluorescent Resonance Energy Transfer) probes utilizing two fluorescence probes and energy transfer. A very important application for fluorescence techniques in the liquid phase is the quantification of PCR products in real time, the so-called real-time PCR.
In all these cases, a fluorescence reading device is needed that provides light of a certain wave length to excite the fluorescence label of the assay and that is able to detect the fluorescence light form said label emitted at a somewhat different wavelength. One major problem of all fluorescence reading devices is the enormous intensity of the excitation light in comparison with the fluorescence light emitted by the dye and therefore, one has to assure that the excitation beam does not hit the detector in order to monitor the fluorescence signals accurately. In other words, the optical path of the excitation light has to be different from the optical path of the fluorescence light, at least partially.
The realization of the fluorescence principle is quiet easy, when only one fluorescence probe has to be monitored in the liquid phase of e.g. a capillary. Here, e.g. a white light source together with a set of dichroic mirrors and filters is sufficient to meet the requirements. However, if more than one fluorescence label is present in the sample, a lateral distribution of spots on a solid support or the fluorescence of a microtiter plate has to be monitored, the requirements for the fluorescence reading device are more difficult to fulfill.
In principle, there are two different strategies to excite and monitor the fluorescence of a lateral distribution of sites. The first strategy is to scan the lateral distribution of sites, whereby the individual sites are successively analyzed one at a time. The second strategy is to illuminate the whole distribution of sites simultaneously and to image the corresponding fluorescence e.g. on a CCD chip. The scanning strategy has the obvious drawback that either the support has to be moved in two dimensions (WO 03/069391, DE 102 00 499), the detector has to be moved with respect to the support (US 2002/159057), the detector has to move in one dimension and the support in the other dimension or the optics has to include one or two dimensional scanning means i.e. galvo mirrors. On the other hand, the main difficulty of the strategy to illuminate the whole support simultaneously is to assure a homogeneous illumination across the whole distribution of sites. An alternative to the homogeneous illumination of the whole distribution of sites is the use of an array of light sources, whereby each site is illuminated by its own light source. DE 101 31 687 describes this strategy for the evaluation of PCR in a thermocycler with a plurality of wells using a beam splitter and an array of LEDs for illumination. DE 101 55 142 describes the dark field monitoring of fluorescence signals, wherein the microarray is illuminated by an array of LEDs, too, but in this embodiment no beam splitter is needed.
Concerning the requirement to separate the optical path of the excitation beam and of the fluorescence light at least partially, there are again two different possibilities. The first possibility is the so called epi-illumination, whereby beam splitters are utilized and the excitation beam and the fluorescence light share at least part of the optical train. The second possibility is the use of oblique illumination. Here, the excitation beam is arranged in such a way that it has a certain angle to the normal of the support surface and the corresponding reflection of the excitation beam is outside of the acceptance angle of the detection system (e.g. US 2002/0005493 A1, EP 1 275 954 A2).
US 2003/0011772 A1 describes an optical apparatus to simultaneously observe a plurality of fluorescence dyes in a probe using a beam splitter. DE 197 48 211 A1 discloses a system to monitor the fluorescence signals generated in the wells of a microtiter plate simultaneously using a beam splitter, a field lens and an array of lenses focusing the light into each well. The detection is performed by imaging the light onto an array of photodiodes or a CCD chip. The fluorescence light collected in this embodiment of the system is appointed by the amount of dyes excited by the light cone of the focusing lens and therefore is dependent on the fill level of the well. WO 99/60381 claims an instrument for monitoring PCR reactions simultaneously in a plurality of vials in a temperature cycled block. The optical components of this instrument include again a beam splitter, a field lens, an array of vial lenses focusing individual light beams into each vial and a detection mean focusing the emission light onto e.g. a CCD detector. Due to the necessity of an array of vial lenses, the size and the lateral density of individual sites is limited. The JP 2002014044 describes a fluorometric apparatus to monitor fluorescence generated at a plurality of wells. The optical components comprise a beam splitter and a lens system to illuminate the wells collectively with light being parallel to the direction of the depth of the wells. However, the image forming optical system condenses the light onto a detection mean. U.S. Pat. No. 6,498,690 B1 discloses a method for imaging assays with an objective comprising a telecentric lens. U.S. Pat. No. 6,246,525 B1 claims an imaging device for imaging a sample carrier comprising a Fresnel lens.
Thus, it was the object of the present invention to provide an improved device for simultaneous monitoring of fluorescence signals from a lateral distribution of sites by optimizing the optical path towards homogeneous illumination and accurate detection. In one aspect of the present invention, the problem to be solved relates to improvements in monitoring multiplexed real-time PCR in a microtiter plate format.


A thermoelectric cooler (TEC), also known as a Peltier cooler, is a solid-state electrical device that may be configured to transport heat when current is passed through a number of semiconducting “pellets.” The pellets are typically configured in a series circuit arranged to produce a desired degree of cooling and device resistance. The direction of heat transport in a TEC may be determined by the direction of current flow through the pellets.
TECs provide a convenient and effective means of temperature control in many applications. In one such application, these devices have been used in electronics systems to reduce the operating temperature of electronic components. Such cooling is especially appropriate where system design constraints preclude the use of cooling fins or forced air flow. TECs may also be used to refrigerate a component by cooling the component below the ambient temperature. Also, by coupling the TEC to a feedback system, a TEC may be used to regulate the temperature of a device by operating in both a heating and a cooling mode.


This invention relates to a mattress which provides a sound sleep to a sleeper.
Conventionally, it has been believed that bedding or mattress having a soft feeling assures a sound sleep. Furthermore, with the advent of foam rubber and spring mattresses, the type of bedding used today feels much softer.
However, these types, in general, are so soft that the spinal cord of a sleeper tends to bend downwardly during sleep. Therefore the weight of the sleeper cannot be uniformly supported by the bedding.
Due to the above manner of sleeping, a person often feels pain in his shoulder, waist or spinal cord.
To be more specific, since conventional bedding is made of extremely soft material, such as urethane foam rubber, the central portion (e.g. shoulder, waist or hip) of the sleeper's body sinks into the bedding.
Therefore, sufficient respiration to impart a sound sleep cannot be obtained while the blood is congested and the body temperature is high in those areas which come into direct contact with the mattress. Both of these prevent the sound sleep which also occurs on the part of the body (e.g. shoulder, hip or waist) that sinks into the bedding.
On the other hand, some people believe that a bedding made of hard material assures a sound sleep. However, in practice, this type of bedding is not suitable for any person except youngsters, since it causes the upward curving of the spine and the stretching of muscles.
Therefore, it is of vital importance that the ideal condition of a mattress be such that it is soft to the touch yet firm enough to uniformly distribute the sleeper's weight.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a mattress which can resolve the afore-mentioned defects of conventional beddings, including the spring mattresses.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a mattress which can enhance the circulation of the blood within the body as well as set the sleeper free from pains that occur in the shoulders or areas which come in direct contact with the upper surface of the bleeding.
It is still another object of the present invention to provide a mattress which is further equipped with a desired number of magnets which can effectively cure the deficiency syndrome of magnetic fields, such as the imbalance of autonomic nerve or the stiffness in the shoulders.


1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to the general field of optical instrumentation and, in particular, to methods and mechanisms for adjusting the position of the focal point of optics in the optical path of imaging systems.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Optical telescopes and their basic components (such as the objective, the eye-piece, and the telescopic optical-tube assembly) are some of the oldest types of optical instrumentation known in the art. They are fabricated by very diverse manufacturers and are often built according to custom designs. As a result of this diversity of fabrication, some opto-mechanical standards in the telescope industry have not been established or strictly maintained.
As an illustration, a typical eye-piece 10, shown schematically in FIG. 1, consists of an eye-piece lens 12 mounted inside an eye-piece tube 14. Due to the fact that different manufacturers use eye-piece tubes of various lengths and mount the lenses in different positions inside these tubes, the distance 1 between the focal point FE of the lens 12 and the edge 16 of the tube in otherwise optically equivalent eye-pieces differs from manufacturer to manufacturer. Similarly, as shown in FIG. 2, there is no established standard for positioning the lens 18 of an objective 20 within its housing 21 (known as the objective cell), nor are there standard objective cells. As a result, the exact position of the focal point FO of the objective lens 18 with respect to its housing 21 also differs from case to case.
Therefore, when a typical telescope 30 is assembled conventionally by combining an eye-piece 10 with an objective 20, the focal points FO, FE of the objective lens 18 and of an eye-piece lens 12, respectively, are invariably separated from each other by a distance d, as illustrated in FIG. 2. For proper operation of the telescope 30, it is required that the foci FO, FE of the coaxial objective anti eye-piece lenses 18, 12 coincide in space. Thus, to compensate for the distance d separating the foci (i.e., to re-focus the telescope), a conventional focusing mechanism is used to mechanically translate the eye-piece and/or the objective lenses with respect to each other along the axis 32 of the telescope. Such a focusing mechanism 33 is typically attached externally to the optical tube assembly 34 of the telescope.
For the purposes of this invention, the optical tube assembly (OTA) of a telescope is the portion of the telescope housing connecting the objective cell to the eye-piece. Often additional optical elements are located inside the OTA along the optical train prior to the eye-piece. Conventional focusing mechanisms (not shown in FIG. 2) typically operate as mechanically driven telescope tubes (either threaded, sliding, or geared) adapted to change the dimensions of the telescope (its so-called “foot-print”) by either extending or contracting the OTA.
The optical path of the telescope between the objective lens and its focus is often appropriately folded to reduce the overall dimensions of the instrument. This is typically achieved by positioning secondary mirrors between the objective and the eye-piece at an angle designed to reflect the beam away from its initial direction of propagation. As a result, the length of the OTA is reduced at the expense of increasing its lateral dimension. The need for a focusing mechanism, however, exists regardless of whether the imaging system of the telescope is folded or linear. Therefore, when using a conventional focusing mechanism, it is not possible to have a working telescope of fixed dimensions (foot-print), which represents a problem for miniaturization purposes or when the telescope is part of a larger opto-mechanical system that is subject to dimensional constraints.
To the extent that mere mechanical adjustment of the length of any part of the telescopic housing is used for re-focusing the telescope, this limitation is unavoidable. Thus, there remains a need for a focusing mechanism that allows the manufacture of a telescope of fixed dimension, especially in miniaturized implementations.


This invention relates to an improved picture hanger. More particularly, it relates to an assembly which may be either integral with or attached to a frame during its manufacture to provide both a laterally adjustable, rugged hanger and a decorative backing for the frame. An example of a picture hanger which is somewhat related to the invention herein disclosed may be found in U.S. Pat. No. 2,875,542 to J. R. Peach.


Despite current social and economic advances, there still remains an overabundance of criminal activity in most societies. Unfortunately, the amount of resources for combating such criminal activity is typically limited. Accordingly, when criminal activity occurs, police and other law enforcement agencies typically rely on citizen calling for aid via specific, well-established communications channels. For example, in the United States, the telephone number 911 is utilized almost universally as a means to contact law enforcement agencies and other emergency response services. However, 911-based systems are limited in some aspects.
First, even though 911 services are accessible via virtually any telephone, they still rely on a dialing process. On a landline telephone or a basic mobile phone (i.e., other than a smartphone) the dialing process is trivial. However, on various other types of devices (smartphones, computers, tablet devices, etc. . . . ), additional steps can be required to establishing the call. For example, on a smartphone, a screen unlocking process may be required, followed by selection of an phone application. Still another difficulty is that in some scenarios, even the simple act of dialing 911 can be difficult. For example, an individual being robbed or assaulted may be under high stress conditions and therefore may be unable to properly dial 911 or operate his phone at all in a normal fashion. In another example, an injured individual may be physically unable to dial 911.
Second, seeking assistance via 911 can sometime be an inefficient process. For example, in some circumstances, the closest or most appropriate emergency response service may not be reached by the call. For example, a college or university may have their own on-campus emergency response services. However, a mobile phone call to 911 from a person on the campus would not typically reach such services. Rather, the call would go to a central 911 hub from which the campus emergency response services may be dispatched. As a result, it is possible that life threatening delays can occur while the campus emergency response services are contacted or dispatched.
One solution to the above-mentioned problems is the use of specialized emergency devices. However, such devices are typically limited. For example, some devices are merely act as a distress beacon, which may communicate location information, but no information regarding the present state of the user. For example, it is not uncommon to see the use of call stations on university campuses that provide one-button access to on-campus emergency response services. Thus, location information is provided when such a station is activated, but no information about the victim is provided. Further, such stations are generally fixed, so they rely on the victim being able to reach the station and for the victim to remain in proximity of the station.
Other devices may be associated with specific users, but such devices are restricted to sending a signal that contains a limited amount of vital content about the user or may rely on a third party dispatcher. For example, emergency response services such as the LIFE ALERT system of Life Alert Emergency Response, Inc., provide a remote control device that allows users to cause a speakerphone in their home to automatically place a call to a monitoring service. The monitoring service then contacts appropriate persons for responding to the user's emergency. Unfortunately, such systems typically require the use of specialized equipment. Further, such systems typically lack the capability to directly contact emergency services to begin dispatch of emergency response services immediately. As noted above, delays in dispatching emergency response personnel can have adverse, if not fatal, consequences for the user.


Organic electroluminescent devices (OLEDs) comprise very thin layers of organic substances on top of a glass substrate covered with an electrically conducting but optically transparent oxide, usually Indium-Tin oxide (ITO). ITO forms the substrate electrode, usually the anode and a layer of Aluminum (100 nm) evaporated on top of the organic layer stack forms the counter electrode, usually the cathode. When a voltage between 2 and typically 5 V is applied between the electrodes, current is injected into the organic layers and light is generated. The preparation of OLEDs requires structuring of all individual layers to provide a reliable operation over time, in particular to operate the OLEDs, both electrodes have to be electrically isolated from each other. Therefore at least three masks processes are commonly required: structuring of the substrate electrode deposited on top of the substrate (first mask process), depositing the organic layer stack on top of the pre-structured substrate electrode (second mask process different to the first mask process) and depositing the counter electrode on top of the organic layer stack without providing an electrical contact to the substrate electrode (third mask process different to first and second mask process). The mask processes apply so-called shadow masks having different geometries in order to cover the desired areas with the layer to be deposited and simultaneously shielding the other areas in order to avoid material deposition there. The application of shadow masks for deposition (coating) processes is expensive, because the masks have to be manufactured with high geometric accuracy. Furthermore masks will be coated with the deposited material and have to be cleaned periodically. Misalignments of masks may lead to deposition failures making the operation of OLEDs impossible, e.g. by electrically shortened electrodes due to a misalignment of the counter electrode mask. A lot of additional measures have to be applied in order to achieve a reliable coating process making this process very expensive, see for example EP 1202329 A2. All these measures result in a manufacturing process requiring an enormous effort to achieve a good production yield (low failure ratio).


This invention relates to an evacuated container and method for use in analyzing a centrifuged anticoagulated whole blood sample for the presence or absence of rare events. More particularly, this invention relates to the detection of hematological rare events such as circulating cancer cells, bacteria, hemato-parasites, or other rarely occurring visually or photometrically detectable particles in the blood sample. A preferred embodiment of the container of this invention is an evacuated rectilinear container which contains an insert which container is essentially the same length and width as a microscope slide.
It is known that rare events, such as cancer cells may be present in the blood stream. Co-pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08/976,886, filed Nov. 24, 1997 describes a method for examining a centrifuged sample of anticoagulated whole blood for the presence or absence of cancer cells or other rare events. The method described in the aforesaid patent application involves the use of a capillary tube containing a cylindrical insert or float which restricts the available space in the tube into which the white cells and platelets will settle during centrifugation. This physically elongates the buffy coat portion of the blood sample and forces any cancer cells in the blood sample toward the tube wall where they can be seen under suitable magnification. We have discovered that any cancer cells present in the blood sample will settle into the area occupied by the buffy coat, and particularly in a region above the granulocytes and below the plasma, during centrifugation. The exact location of the cancer cells in the buffy coat will be governed by the density of the cancer cells and other less well-characterized physical forces.
The capillary tubes utilized in connection with the procedure described in the aforesaid patent application are capable of holding about 111 micro liters of blood. The frequency of cancer cells in peripheral blood can be as low as about one cancer cell per milliliter, and will be relatively dependent on the stage of the cancer in the patient being tested. Stated another way, a patient in an early stage of cancer is likely to have a much lower number of circulating cancer cells in an individual""s peripheral blood than a patient in advanced stages of the disease, and a sample of less than about 111 xcexcl of blood stands about a 90% chance of missing a rare event in the blood sample when the rare event occurs at a frequency of about 1 per ml of sample. The ability to examine larger samples of peripheral blood could enable earlier detection of the disease or other rare events. A larger tube and insert could be used to enable the examination of larger blood samples, but tubes produce spherical aberrations due to the curvature of the glass tube wall. It is also noted that the use of tubular containers requires that the container be examined throughout a 360xc2x0 arc for the presence or absence of the rare events. This requires rotating the tube in the microscopical examining instrument.
It would be highly desirable to be able to examine larger blood samples in the same manner as provided by the capillary tubes and inserts, without encountering visual aberrations and without the need to rotate the sample chamber, and in which a standard microscope stage could be used without significant modification. However, tubular specimen sample containers can also be used in the performance of the method aspects of this invention.
This invention relates to an assembly for analyzing larger samples of anticoagulated whole blood for the presence or absence of circulating cancer cells or other rare events. The assembly comprises a hollow sample container which has essentially the same shape, length and width of a microscope slide, but which is thicker than a microscope slide. The hollow interior of the container can hold from about five to about ten milliliters of blood. One end of the container is sealed and the other end is closed by an elastomeric stopper. Obviously, both ends of the container could be closed by elastomeric stoppers if so desired. A relatively flattened rectilinear insert is disposed in the container and occupies between about 80-95%, and preferably about 90% of the volume of the portion of the interior of the container in the area occupied by the insert. The specific gravity or density of the insert is such that the insert will settle into or float in the packed red cell layer and be surrounded by the buffy coat constituents during centrifugation of the blood sample in the container. The interior of the container is evacuated so that blood will flow into the container as the result of a cannula puncturing the elastomeric closure. The container can be used to draw blood directly from a patient, or can be used to obtain the blood from a larger container such as a VACUTAINER(copyright) brand container sold by Becton Dickinson and Company. When the container assembly of this invention is used to draw blood directly from a patient, the testing reagents needed to anticoagulate the blood sample and detect the rare events in the blood sample can be pre-incorporated into the sample container assembly.
Reagents needed to identify rare events can include stains such as acridine orange which can highlight cell morphology; antibodies which are specific to surface receptors on cancer cells or other rare events; and stains which, when irradiated by light of appropriate wavelengths, will emit signals at wavelengths which can be photometrically and/or visually differentially detected over the background noise of emissions from the blood sample constituents such as white cells, cytoplasm, hemoglobin, and the like, which result when the blood sample is irradiated by such light sources.
The insert can include a structure which will skew the location of the insert inside of the container so that the majority of the white cell and platelet constituents will be located on one side of the rectilinear insert thereby enabling that portion of the buffy coat to be examined for the presence or absence of cancer cells, or other rare events without the need of rotating the container about its axis. Suitable skewing structures can include rails, hemispherical bumps, fins, or the like, on the insert or on the interior of the container. The container assembly is preferably sized so as to be positionable in a conventional centrifuge, and also positionable on a conventional microscope stage.
It is therefore an object of this invention to provide an evacuated anticoagulated whole blood sampling container assembly, which can be centrifuged, which container assembly is rectilinear in configuration, and which container assembly includes a volume-occupying insert that restricts the volume available in the container assembly wherein rare events will settle during centrifugation of the blood sample in the container assembly.
It is a further object of this invention to provide a method for examining a centrifuged anticoagulated whole blood sample under suitable sample illumination conditions that will reveal the presence or absence of rare events, such as cancer cells in predetermined areas of the blood sample.


This invention relates, but is not limited, to optical character recognition systems such as optical character readers and, more particularly, to methods and apparatus for correcting for skew conditions in text lines being optically read.
A basic requirement for Optical Character Recognition (OCR) is to locate and bound each line of text on a document. For the usual OCR application, this is a constrained task in that apriori it is known that the page contains one font, all character spaces are defined, and all text line spaces are given. Furthermore, the document usually contains only textual material, or, if non-textual data exists, it is field-formatted to eliminate it from consideration in line finding. Text line tilt is carefully controlled, and many commercial OCR machines utilize the top line of the text on a page for a reference to physically deskew the page prior to line finding.
For many standard fonts, FIG. 1 is illustrative of the basic types of character elements. Generally, capital letters, such as the "A" and "B", are bounded by levels 2 and 4. Lower case such as the "a", is bounded by levels 3 and 4, and is shorter in stature than the capitals. Lower case such as the "b", is constrained by levels 1 and 4, and is taller than the capitals. Lower case such as the "g", is bounded by levels 3 and 5, and is about as tall as the capitals, but with a segment dropping below the capital bottoms. Punctuation marks such as the period, quotations, and commas are short in stature, and are attached to either levels 2 or 4. Arithmetic operators such as the plus sign or asterisk are also short, and congregate around level 3.
A typical situation of skewing is shown in FIG. 2. The document 10 contains lines of text generally indicated as 12. As document 10 moves through an optical character reader in the direction of arrow 14, the scanning optics continually scan across the document 10 in the direction of the arrow 16, which is normal to the document margin 18. If the text margin 20 is parallel to the document margin 18, such a scanning pattern causes each line of text to be scanned along its length as it passes under the optic scanning head. As shown in FIG. 2, however, in the skewed document 10, the text margin 20 is not parallel to the document margin 18 but, rather, is at an angle to it. Thus, the lines of text 12 are at the same angle to the optic scan direction of arrow 16. As a consequence, for example, instead of scanning the first text line 22 and then the second line 24, the right half of line 22 (as FIG. 2 is viewed) is encountered first, followed by the left half of line 22 and the right half of line 24, and finally the left half of line 24. If the data thus scanned are then searched on the normal basis, it yields a meaningless interpretation of the text 12. In a similar fashion, depending on interline spacing and document tilt, the left portion of text line 22 may be encountered on the early part of the scan while the right portion of that line 22 is encountered later in the scan.
In certain optical character recognition applications, it is essential that character line rotational effects be removed prior to processing to avoid the generation of meaningless date. Such rotations are usually caused by document feed skewing or typewriter induced skewed text in the actual source document such as that of FIG. 2.
One prior art method of circumventing the skew problem is to physically rotate the document or the scanning head in the machine. Such an approach is inconvenient at best, however. What would be preferable, and is therefore the object of the present invention, is a completely non-mechanical correction system and method which identifies and bounds lines of text and which:
1. Automatically accommodates to arbitrary fonts and sizes thereof.
2. Automatically accommodates to inter-mixed fonts.
3. Automatically accepts random inter-character and inter-text line spacings.
4. Automatically accommodates to a wide range of document skew angles.
5. Automatically accepts text lines of variable lengths and locations.
6. Automatically recognizes non-textual data and ignores it in text line finding and bounding.


Wireless communication technologies are used in connection with many applications involving laptop computers, cellular telephones, user equipment, tablets, etc. Wireless communication technologies are tasked with handling increased amounts of data traffic, where the types of data being transported through mobile wireless networks have changed dramatically. This is because of device sophistication, which fosters data-intensive activities such as displaying movies, playing video games, readily attaching photographs to e-mails and text messages, etc. Moreover, video file-sharing and other types of usages (more traditionally associated with wired networks) have been gradually displacing voice as the dominant traffic in mobile wireless networks. This data intensive content burdens the network, as bandwidth is a finite resource. There is a significant challenge for system architects and mobile operators to maintain a stable/reliable network environment and, further, to optimize network resources for engendering acceptable device performance for subscribers.


The recent explosion of the popularity of the World Wide Web (“Web” for short, and hereinafter referred to in the lower case as “web” in the context of an adjective or adverb, e.g., web pages) has made the Internet one of the most important media for mass communication. The Web is used for many applications such as information retrieval, personal communication, and electronic commerce and has been rapidly adopted by a fast growing number of Internet users in a large part of the world.
Using the Web, users can access remote information by receiving web pages through the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP). The information in a web page is described using the Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) and eXtensive Markup Language (XML), and is displayed by software called web browser. Web pages of earlier design are considered static because they do not include any logic that can dynamically change their appearances or provide computations based on user input. Subsequently, the Java™ (Sun Microsystems) programming language was incorporated in web pages in the form of applets. An applet is a small Java™ program that can be sent along with a web page to a user. Java™ applets can perform interactive animation, immediate calculations, or other simple tasks without having to send a user request back to the server, thereby providing the dynamic logic in web pages.
Java™ is an object-oriented programming language which can be used for creating stand-alone applications. Writing Java™ programs typically requires different and more extensive skills and training than composing web pages. The learning curve for writing Java™ programs is typically longer than that for writing web pages. Not all web page authors therefore are expert Java™ programmers.
Recently, to make it easier to embed logic in web pages, an easy-to-write script language called JavaScript™ (Sun Microsystems) has been supported by popular web browsers to be incorporated into web pages. JavaScript™, capable of embedding logic for computation based on user input, brings dynamic and powerful capabilities to web pages. JavaScript™, unlike Java™ which is a full-fledged programming language, has a simpler syntax and is much easier to learn. Because of this easy-to-write feature, JavaScript™ has currently become a popular way to embed logic in web pages by many web page authors.
Although JavaScript™ brings easy-to-write logic to web pages, it is limited to browser functions and works with HTML elements only. It can only be used to create simple applications under the contexts of the browser, such as changing the web page's visual presentation dynamically and computing user input quickly without sending a user request back to the server (for such computation). Thus, web pages with JavaScript™ logic cannot be used to create stand-alone applications that require access to a full range of resources on the user's computer such as the file system management and the display area beyond the browser's window. In general, web pages cannot be processed in non-browser contexts.
At the present, stand-alone applications are typically written in traditional programming languages (also called 3GL for 3rd Generation Languages) such as C, C++, and Java™, or Fourth Generation Languages (4GL) such as Visual Basic™. Through these languages, stand-alone applications interact directly with operating systems through operating system APIs (application programming interfaces) or indirectly with library functions which may in turn call these operating system APIs. The capability of accessing the operating system APIs gives an application the control of computing resources in a computer.
If web pages had embedded logic that could access a whole range of computing resources enabled by these operating system APIs, they could then be used to develop stand-alone applications just like any of the aforementioned 3GL and 4GL languages. Using web pages to develop stand-alone applications would have many advantages. First, web page authors who do not possess the skill and experience in writing 3GL/4GL applications could develop stand-alone applications using the web page technology they profess.
Secondly, the web technology components that can process the visual presentation language (e.g., HTML), the data modeling language (e.g., XML), and the communication protocol (e.g., HTTP) are available in most computers, which can connect to the Internet through the Web. This would provide an advantage in that using web pages to develop applications, a developer could very efficiently integrate these components. This is because, whereas 3GL/4GL applications can integrate these components programmatically, web pages could integrate them declaratively through languages such as HTML and XML. In general, the shorter learning curve and development time of web pages, as compared with 3GL/4GL programs, would result in a shorter time and lower cost in the development of software applications. The present invention addresses this issue by providing methods and apparatus in a software system that manage the life-cycle of software applications, which are composed of web pages that are not limited to the browser contexts and that have access to the full range of operating system resources.
Another issue of the processing of computer software addressed by the present invention is the software installation process. Typically, the installation of a software application is achieved by a special-purpose program which comes with this software and is written only for the purpose of installing this software. This is evident in the existence of a “setup.exe” or “install.exe” program in almost all software packages for PCs (personal computers). This method of software installation means that developers for each software application have to write a specific install program just to install their software.
In general, an install program for an application needs to configure a list of settings that are used to establish a proper environment or context for this application before it can be properly installed. These settings may include, for example, the basic operating system setup such as the registry entries, location setup such as the directory or folder in which the application is to be stored, link setup such as the short-cut link to this application, the graphic setup such as the icon of this application, and the dependency setup such as other applications that this application depends on for execution.
To properly setup each setting, e.g., one of the aforementioned settings, the install program typically takes the determined value of this setting and processes an action specific to this setting. For example, the registry entry setup action may be to add the determined registry entry values to the proper registry files, whereas the dependency setup action may be to investigate if all applications that the application to be installed depends on are already installed and, if not, to display an error message. Typically, the value of a setting is either determined by user input during the installation process, such as the directory where the application is to be stored, or predetermined by the install program, such as the list of applications that its application depends on.
In general, an install program first configures each setting by determining its value (by user input or pre-configuration) and then invokes the setup action for this setting. Because applications may have a different set of pre-configured setting values, each application requires a unique install program. Furthermore, if a new version of an application changes the value of one of its install settings, such as a new icon, the install program for this application has to be rewritten to incorporate this new value.
It would be advantageous to the application developers if they did not need to write a new install program for each new version of an application they develop. Instead, it would be desirable, for each version of an application, to construct a list of install settings with pre-configured values for this application using a data modeling language such as XML, which could be provided together with this application for installation. This way, a standardized install program would then be deployed by the user's computer to decode the install settings and values and conduct proper installation for this application based on these values. This standardized install program could then be used to install all applications whose install settings and values are modeled by a language understood by this install program. With many applications installed using a standardized install program, the users would also have a consistent experience in the installation process for all these applications.
The present invention addresses this issue by providing methods and apparatus of software installation in which a standardized install manager exists in a computer system to perform the installation process for all software applications whose install settings and values are modeled by a language understood by this install program.
Yet another issue of today's computer software addressed by the present invention is the security management of software applications. Traditional stand-alone applications based on programming languages such as C and C++ typically have access to all the operating system resources through the calling of operating system APIs. In this case, the security context, i.e., the limit of system resource access, for these applications is the entire system. Based on this security context, it is possible that an application can, inadvertently or maliciously, damage not only its own data but those of other applications that share the same computer system.
In a virtual machine environment, such as the Java™ Virtual Machine, the security context of an application (such a Java™ program) is defined by the virtual machine. A misbehaving application thus can only create external damage allowable by the virtual machine. However, there can be many different types of applications running on the same virtual machine and while each one of them may have a different security need, they are forced to run under the same security context (that defined by the virtual machine).
It would be advantageous if each application had its own security context that is predetermined by the system management policy. Thus, based on its level of security risk, an application could be associated with a security context which regulates the system resources to which this application can or cannot access. This way, a misbehaving program in an application with a restrictive security context would cause minimum damage to the system as a whole. The present invention addresses this issue by providing methods and apparatus of a computer system in which each application has its own security context.
Yet another issue of today's computer software addressed by the present invention is the web cache system for software applications. Web caching is traditionally performed by the web browsers and web proxies whose primary tasks include transmitting web objects over the network. Web pages in the context of a web browser contain hyperlinks to web objects through textual or graphic anchors. The user requests a web object from a web page when this page is displayed by the web browser and the user selects, through the mouse or other pointing mechanism, the anchor of this object.
When a web object is requested through a web browser with the web caching feature, the web browser first checks to see if the object exists in its cache. If so, this object in the browser's cache is returned to the request web page. If the object does not exist in the browser's cache, the browser uses the Uniform Resource Locator (URL) of this object to locate its location in the Internet and retrieves it through a data transfer protocol such as HTTP. When the browser receives this object, it typically displays this object while storing a copy in its cache.
Applications accessing web objects could be composed using web pages. However, if web pages are processed in the context of the browser, the web objects requested by them in a client computer can only be cached by the browser in the computer. In other word, in a client computer, web page based applications under the browser contexts use only the browser's cache for web caching.
Different web applications however may access web objects with different characteristics. For example, one web application may access web objects that rarely change over time whereas another may access web objects that change highly frequently. It would be advantageous to deploy a sizable space to cache static web objects for the first application while little or no space for the second because any cached objects will be outdated immediately. In general, it would be advantageous that each application has its own web cache.
Furthermore, traditional web caching by browsers only cache web objects of certain types that are defined in HTTP. Some applications may need to retrieve objects from the Web with types not defined in HTTP. Examples of object types not defined by HTTP may include executable files, spreadsheet files, and documents with proprietary structures. Caching these non-HTTP-defined objects could provide a performance advantage to applications that retrieve objects of these types through the Web.
The present invention addresses the issue of web caching for applications by providing methods and apparatus to provide each web application a separate cache for both the HTTP-defined and non-HTTP-defined objects from the Web.


1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a magnetic leakage transformer.
2. Description of the Related Art
A magnetic leakage transformer is used, for example, in a discharge lamp operating device used to operate a discharge lamp such as a fluorescent lamp. The magnetic leakage transformer is used in the device not only to generate a high voltage necessary to light a discharge lamp but also to limit a discharge current to be supplied to the discharge lamp as a current-limit inductance while the discharge lamp is operating.
If a nonmagnetic leakage transformer is used instead of the magnetic leakage transformer in the discharge lamp operating device, a choke coil to be used as a current-limit inductance must be associated with the nonmagnetic leakage transformer. In this case, the construction of the circuit of the discharge lamp operating device is complicated, the number of components of the discharge lamp operating device is increased so that its assembling is complicated, and the entire discharge lamp operating device is increased in size.
FIG. 1 schematically shows a conventional magnetic leakage transformer used in a discharge lamp operating device. The conventional magnetic leakage transformer has, as shown in FIG. 2, a core unit 14 in which a pair of cores 10, 12 each having E-shaped plane are combined in a state that extending ends of three legs 10a, 10b, 10c and 12a, 12b, 12c are opposed. A pair of central legs 10a, 102a of a pair of the cores 10, 12 of the core unit 14 are covered with a primary winding spool 16a and a secondary winding spool 18a, and a primary winding 16b and a secondary winding 18b, both of which are consisted of an insulated wire, are respectively wound on the primary and secondary winding spools 16a and 18a. The primary winding spool 16a and the primary winding 16b constitute a primary winding unit 16, and the secondary winding spool 18a and the secondary winding 18b constitute a secondary winding unit 18. The primary and secondary winding spools 16a and 18a respectively have supporting bases 16c and 18c extending along the lower surfaces of a pair of the corresponding cores 10 and 12, and the above-described conventional magnetic leakage transformer is mounted at a predetermined position on a circuit board of a discharge lamp operating device through the bases 16c and 18c.
In the above-mentioned conventional magnetic leakage transformer, a pair of side legs 10b and 10c of the three legs 10a, 10b, 10c of one core 10 have the same length, and a pair of side legs of the three legs 12a, 12b, 12c of the other core 12 also have the same length. The central legs 10a and 12a are shorter than the pair of side legs 10b, 10c or 12b, 12c disposed at both sides thereof. As shown in FIG. 1, a pair of the side legs 10b, 10c and 12b, 12c of a pair of the cores 10, 12 are abutted at their extending ends against each other in a state that the pair of cores 10, 12 are associated with each other as described above, and a magnetic leakage gap "G" is created between the extending ends of the central legs 10a and 12a.
When a current is supplied to the primary winding 16b of the conventional magnetic leakage transformer constructed as described above, a magnetic flux directed from the central leg 10a of one core 10 corresponding to the primary winding 16b to the central leg 12a of the other core 12 corresponding to the secondary winding 18b is generated in the core unit 14, and this magnetic flux is passed through a magnetic passage returned to the central leg 10a of the one core 10 through the pair of side legs 12b, 12c of the other core 12 and the pair of side legs 10b, 10c of the one core 10. A current having a predetermined relationship to the current supplied to the primary winding 16b is generated in the secondary winding 18b by the magnetic flux. A magnetic resistance generated in the magnetic leakage gap "G" between the central legs 10a and 12a of the pair of cores 10 and 12 constitutes a leakage inductance for limiting a discharge current while the discharge lamp connected to the secondary winding 18b is operated.
The transmission efficiency of magnetic energy to be transmitted from the primary winding 16b to the secondary winding 18b in the above-described conventional magnetic leakage transformer is determined by the interlinkaging number of exciting magnetic fluxes generated by the primary winding 16b to the secondary winding 18b. Thus, the lesser the magnetic resistance in the magnetic circuit is and the higher the permeability of the core unit 14 is, the higher the transmission efficiency of the magnetic energy becomes and hence the reduction in size of the transformer can be promoted.
However, in the above-mentioned conventional magnetic leakage transformer, the magnetic leakage gap "G" increases the magnetic resistance. The magnetic leakage gap "G" is necessarily indispensable to prevent magnetic saturation of the above-described conventional magnetic leakage transformer in an inverter operation, but the size of the gap "G" required therefor is smaller than that of the gap "G" necessary to obtain the leakage inductance.
In order to obtain a desired discharge starting voltage for starting the operation of the discharge lamp by compensating a large decrease in the transmission efficiency of magnetic energy generated by the large gap "G" necessary to obtain a leakage inductance, in the above described conventional magnetic leakage transformer the numbers of turns of the primary and secondary windings 16b and 18b are larger than those in the above described conventional magnetic leakage transformer. Accordingly, the primary and secondary winding units 16 and 18 are large in size, and hence the entire magnetic leakage transformer is large in size and weight.
In order to obtain a desired discharge lamp starting voltage by the above-mentioned conventional magnetic leakage transformer having large magnetic resistance, the value of the exciting current to be supplied to the primary winding 16b must be increased as compared with that of the nonmagnetic leakage transformer.


This invention relates to optically interconnecting opto-electric components on different integrated circuit (IC) chips, and also on the same IC chip, using a printed circuit board (PCB) on which the IC chip or chips are mounted.
Many electronics systems, including computer motherboards, include one or more IC chips mounted on PCBs. A PCB provides a surface on which the IC chips are mounted, and also provides electrical interconnections between the IC chips.
Signalling speed requirements between different IC chips in the same electronics system, and perhaps mounted on the same PCB, are ever increasing. In some cases, electrical signaling may not provide the needed, or desired, bandwidth, or may provide the bandwidth with costs. Some of the costs include a more complex design, in terms of multiplexing and demultiplexing the signals into multiple parallel lines. There may also be costs in terms of noise, both because the speed of the signaling may be nearing phyical limits and because of cross-talk between the parallel electrical interconnects.
Optical signaling, as compared to electrical signaling, offers significantly higher bandwidth and eliminates, or greatly reduces, the noise problems inherent with electrical signaling. An example where bandwidth requirements are making optical signaling between IC chips in the same system increasingly attractive, and in fact may require optical signaling, is in computer motherboards. For example, signaling between processor IC chips and memory IC chips on the same motherboard are already in some systems two gigabytes per second, and will certainly only increase in the future.
Optical signaling, however, poses design challenges not posed with electrical signaling. For example, optical signaling requires there to be an optical waveguide interconnection between the signal source and detector. In some cases, the optical interconnection between two IC chips within the same system has been provided with conventional optical fibers. However, this approach has its disadvantages. First, the optical fibers add cost to the system. Also, optical fiber connectors are typically large, and thus consume sometimes precious space, and the labor involved in providing connections to optical fibers is typically significant.
Better approaches to providing optical interconnects between IC chips within the same system, and even between opto-electronic components on the same IC chip, are therefore needed.


Virtual memory allows programmers to use a larger range of memory for programs and data than is provided by the actual physical memory available to a processor. In addition virtual memory allows programs to be loaded in parallel to one another with a memory map that is impassive to the presence of other programs and the location to which it is loaded. A computing system maps a program's virtual addresses (also known as a Linear Address in the IA32 architecture—in this description ‘linear address’ or LA is used synonymously with ‘virtual address’) to real hardware storage addresses (e.g., physical memory addresses) using address translation hardware. The hardware uses a tree of tables in memory as the input data for the address translation. The root of the tree is pointed to by a register that holds the physical address of the first table in the page table tree. An example of such a register is CR3 in the IA32 architecture. Page table entries (PTEs) are addressed using a base and an index. The base is taken from a register or a previous table memory pointer. The index is using a portion of the linear address. The PTE includes either the page, if the rest of the sub tree is not present in memory, or a memory pointer and other information to be discussed below. The memory pointer is for a page in memory that may either include data (that belongs to the application or the operating system) or another level of the page-table. If it is the later case, another portion of the linear address is used to index into the table in a scheme similar to what is described. If the address is for an application page, the physical address is constructed by adding the remaining bits of the address (that were not used for indexing) to the page base address that was retrieved from the page table entry. Also, some embodiments may instantiate several translation schemes (e.g., different table tree indexing structures) as described in a register, for the sake of simplifying this description we will consider such information part of the CR3 register, even though it may be kept in one or more other registers.
Beyond the address translation information, these tables include information such as access rights read, write or execute, presence of the data in memory, caching policy indications, page modified state, etc. In some cases, a page table may include pages of different sizes, where larger pages are pointed to in a lower level of the page table tree (instead of pointing to another page of pointers) The size of the page pointed to is stored as an attribute in the page table tree (typically in the level that points to the data page).
To retrieve the physical address, the page-table entries are read in a recursive manner starting from the root (CR3 in IA32) and properties of the page are retrieved and merged. The IA32 Programmers' Reference Manual (e.g., Volume 3A) provides an example of a conventional approach to retrieving physical addresses. This process requires several memory access operations and is implemented by Page-Table Handling hardware or uCode sequences.
Occasionally, software is required to retrieve the physical memory address. In such cases either an emulated full table walk or a shortened heuristic that is based on the limitations of the setup of the table that the operating system imposes are used.
A translation look aside buffer (TLB) is a cache that holds the result of previous translations such that successive accesses to an address (or a range of addresses) may avoid walking the data structure and can use the results of a previous translation. In many cases the address translation also checks for the operation to meet the conditions set for the memory location. Conventional address translation instructions typically return a physical memory address for a linear address provided as an operand without providing any additional information.


An image display device that includes: a fluorescent screen in which stripe-shaped regions, in which phosphors that are excited by light to emit fluorescent light are formed, are repeatedly formed in the in-plane direction; and a scanning system that scans the fluorescent screen with excitation light is known. Phosphors include a phosphor that emits red fluorescent light, a phosphor that emits green fluorescent light, and a phosphor that emits blue fluorescent light. These color phosphor regions are repeatedly formed in a predetermined order on the fluorescent screen.
Generally, in an image display device of this type, the relative positional relationship between the scanning system and fluorescent screen typically undergoes change due to various causes such as vibrations or distortion, changes in the environment such as in temperature or humidity, the effect of gravity, or changes that occur with the passage of time. In addition, if the scanning system is a resonance mirror or the like, the temperature of the resonance mirror that reflects excitation light that has been intensity-modulated varies depending on the intensity of the excitation light. As a result, the resonance frequency of the resonance mirror also varies. If the resonance frequency of the resonance mirror varies, the phase and amplitude of the scanning system vary and thus the scanning position deviates from the correct position.
If a static variation and a dynamic variation such as variation of the relative positional relationship between the scanning system and the phosphor screen or a variation of the scanning position occurs, stripe-shaped or matrix-shaped color phosphor regions cannot be irradiated with the excitation light at an appropriate timing. As a result, the luminance of fluorescent light which the individual color phosphor regions emit vary and it causes deterioration of color purity of a displayed image.
To solve such a problem, the positions of the individual color phosphor regions on the fluorescent screen need to be accurately detected and the individual color phosphor regions need to be irradiated with excitation light at an appropriate timing.
Patent Literature 1 describes an image display device that can control the irradiation timing at which phosphor regions are irradiated with excitation light.
The image display device described in Patent Literature 1 has a light source, a fluorescent screen, a deflection unit that scans the fluorescent screen with excitation light emitted from the light source, a half mirror located in the traveling direction of the excitation light directed from the deflection device, a photo detector, and a drive circuit that controls the light emission timing at which the light source emits light based on the output signal of the photo detector.
The fluorescent screen has individual color (red, green, and blue) stripe-shaped visible fluorescent phosphors that are repeatedly formed at predetermined intervals in the in-plane direction and stripe-shaped dark lanes formed adjacent to individual visible fluorescent phosphors. Stripe-shaped reflection means made of a cube mirror is formed at every second dark lane. The reflection means reflects incident light in the opposite direction of the direction of the incident light.
The fluorescent screen is irradiated with the excitation light directed from the deflection unit through the half mirror. The light emission timing is controlled in such a manner that the fluorescent screen is scanned with a predetermined quantity of excitation light. When the fluorescent screen is scanned, the individual color visible fluorescent phosphors and the reflection means are irradiated with the excitation light. The excitation light with which the reflection means is irradiated becomes retro-reflection light that travels in the opposite direction of the direction of the incident light. The retro-reflection light reaches the half mirror. Part of the retro-reflection light reflects on the half mirror and then enters the photo detector.
The output signal of the photo detector is supplied to the drive circuit as an index signal that serves to detect the positions of the individual visible fluorescent phosphors. The drive circuit predicts the positions of the individual color visible fluorescent phosphors based on the output signal of the photo detector and controls the light emission timing of the light source such that the visible fluorescent phosphors are irradiated with the excitation light at an appropriate timing.


It has been found, in use of filtering devices of the type disclosed and claimed in my U.S. Pat. No. 3,471,017, that problems can arise in relation to the filtering of polymers having high frictional coefficients and, in particular, polymers which in addition exhibit negligible shrinkage or even positive expansion on solidification, e.g., polystyrene foam (produced for example by the pentane injection process). With such polymers the progressive solidification required to produce efficient sealing plugs in the inlet and outlet ports through which the filter band enters and exits from the filtering passageway would, in the conventional ports (especially the outlet port) as exemplified in my U.S. Pat. No. 3,471,017 cause a progressive setting up of stresses in the continuously forming sealing plugs which, being transmitted to the adjoining walls of the port, might result in the plug binding firmly in the port and, owing to the high frictional coefficient of the material, preventing forwarding movement of the sealing plugs and of the filter band.


Fuel cells which generate electric current by the electrochemical combination of hydrogen and oxygen are well known. In one form of such a fuel cell, an anodic layer and a cathodic layer are separated by an electrolyte formed of a ceramic solid oxide. Such a fuel cell is known in the art as a “solid oxide fuel cell” (SOFC). Hydrogen, either pure or reformed from hydrocarbons, is flowed along the outer surface of the anode and diffuses into the anode. Oxygen, typically from air, is flowed along the outer surface of the cathode and diffuses into the cathode. Each O2 molecule is split and reduced to two O−2 anions catalytically by the cathode. The oxygen anions transport through the electrolyte and combine at the anode/electrolyte interface with four hydrogen ions to form two molecules of water. The anode and the cathode are connected externally through a load to complete the circuit whereby four electrons are transferred from the anode to the cathode. When hydrogen is derived from “reformed” hydrocarbons, the “reformate” gas includes CO which is converted to CO2 at the anode via an oxidation process similar to that performed on the hydrogen. Reformed gasoline is a commonly used fuel in automotive fuel cell applications.
A single cell is capable of generating a relatively small voltage and wattage, typically between about 0.5 volt and about 1.0 volt, depending upon load, and less than about 2 watts per cm2 of cell surface. Therefore, in practice it is usual to stack together, in electrical series, a plurality of cells. Because each anode and cathode must have a free space for passage of gas over its surface, the cells are separated by perimeter spacers which are vented to permit flow of gas to the anodes and cathodes as desired but which form seals on their axial surfaces to prevent gas leakage from the sides of the it stack. The perimeter spacers include dielectric layers to insulate the interconnects from each other. Adjacent cells are connected electrically by “interconnect” elements in the stack, the outer surfaces of the anodes and cathodes being electrically connected to their respective interconnects by electrical contacts disposed within the gas-flow space, typically by a metallic foam which is readily gas-permeable or by conductive filaments. The outermost, or end, interconnects of the stack define electric terminals, or “current collectors,” which may be connected across a load.
A complete SOFC system typically includes auxiliary subsystems for, among other requirements, generating fuel by reforming hydrocarbons; tempering the reformate fuel and air entering the stack; providing air to the hydrocarbon reformer; providing air to the cathodes for reaction with hydrogen in the fuel cell stack; providing air for cooling the fuel cell stack; providing combustion air to an afterburner for unspent fuel exiting the stack; and providing cooling air to the afterburner and the stack. A complete SOFC assembly also includes appropriate piping and valving, as well as a programmable electronic control unit (ECU) for managing the activities of the subsystems simultaneously.
In an SOFC being supplied with fuel from a reformer, the fuel cell supply gas is provided directly from the reformer. The reforming process takes place at an elevated temperature (800° C.-1000° C.) that is somewhat higher than the optimum stack operating temperature. For proper operation of the stack, it is preferable that the anode gas be at a temperature somewhat below the stack operating temperature, preferably between about 550° C. and 700° C. In addition, it is preferable that the inlet temperature of cathode air be about the temperature of the anode gas.
It is a principal object of the present invention to provide optimal tempering of anode gas and cathode air.