A method of manufacturing an anhydrous copper complex of formula C12H10CICuN2O4 and methods of treating neuromuscular and other diseases, including but not limited to fibromyalgia, multiple sclerosis, muscular dystrophy, rheumatoid arthritis, pain, fatigue, sleeplessness, loss of fine motor control, speech loss, inflexibility, Alzheimer's, dementia, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, depression, lyme disease, lyme disease co-infection, gastroparesis (GP), myopathy, chronic inflammation and/or incontinence. The anhydrous copper complex preferably is administered in a pharmaceutical and/or dietary supplement composition of the invention.

The present invention provides a process for the synthesis of substituted phenoxymethylpropionic acid and related compounds. The compounds are useful for inhibiting the formation of AGEs (Advanced Glycation End Products).

The present invention relates to the use of selective adenosine A1 agonists, in particular the dicyanopyridines of formula (I), for the treatment and/or prophylaxis of glaucoma and ocular hypertension as well as the their use for the production of a medicament for the treatment and/or prophylaxis of glaucoma and ocular hypertension.

The disclosure relates to BAX activators and therapeutic uses relates thereto. In certain embodiments, the disclosure relates to methods of treating or preventing cancer, such as lung cancer, comprising administering a therapeutically effective amount of a pharmaceutical composition comprising a compound disclosed herein or pharmaceutically acceptable salt to a subject in need thereof.

Disclosed are compounds which inhibit the activity of anti-apoptotic Bcl-2 or Bcl-xL proteins, compositions containing the compounds and methods of treating diseases during which are expressed anti-apoptotic Bcl-2 protein.

The present invention provides a method for manufacturing a fitting that has a configuration where a fitting plate and a blind nut are integrally formed and also provides a tap tool for use in this method. According to the present invention, performing tap processing to an internal diameter portion to integrally form a portion corresponding to the blind nut, when a tap tool having a protrusion at an end thereof is utilized to be inserted into the bag-like blind hole at a planned part of the blind nut and the tap processing is carried out, the protrusion provided at the end of the tap tool comes into contact with an inner wall at the end of the bag-like blind hole, and a pressed material thereby forms a convex shape on an outer side of the bag-like blind hole.

Techniques for reinforcing concrete using rebar are disclosed. Some example embodiments may include prestressed concrete structures reinforced by twisted, threaded reinforcing bars. An example reinforcing bar for a prestressed concrete structure may include an elongated, generally cylindrical rod; an external thread disposed on the generally cylindrical rod, the external thread formed from an elongated, generally nonlinear channel wrapped about a radial surface of the generally cylindrical rod in a generally helical fashion. A base portion of the nonlinear channel may be disposed substantially against the radial surface of the generally cylindrical rod and/or an upstanding portion of the nonlinear channel may extend generally orthogonally from the radial surface of the generally cylindrical rod.

A process for producing hollow bolts including a longitudinal bore with the hollow bolts being provided with circumferential notches. The hollow bolts are provided with longitudinal grooves extending between elevations determining the bolt diameter, wherein circumferential notches are rolled onto the hollow bolts provided with the longitudinal grooves and the elevations, the longitudinal grooves being of such cross-section that some of the material displaced during rolling-on of the notches flows into the longitudinal grooves.

A polishing pad, having a polishing layer comprising a thermoset polyurethane foam, wherein the polishing layer has an in-plane variation of 12 or less in microrubber A hardness, the variation being obtained by measuring the polishing layer from a polishing surface side of the layer, the thermoset polyurethane foam contains, as raw material components, an isocyanate component and active-hydrogen-containing compounds, and the active-hydrogen-containing compounds comprise a trifunctional polyol having at least one terminated hydroxyl group that is a secondary hydroxyl group, and having a hydroxyl group value of 150 to 1,000 mg KOH/g in an amount of 10 to 50 parts by weight for 100 parts by weight of the active-hydrogen-containing compounds.

The polishing solution for CMP according to the invention comprises abrasive grains, an additive and water, and the polishing solution comprises an organic compound satisfying specified conditions as the additive. The polishing method of the invention is for polishing of a substrate having a silicon oxide film on the surface, and the polishing method comprises a step of polishing the silicon oxide film with a polishing pad while supplying the polishing solution for CMP between the silicon oxide film and the polishing pad.

Disclosed are an apparatus and a method for monitoring a glass plate polishing state. The apparatus may include a location measuring unit for measuring a location on a glass plate being polished by a polishing machine, a current measuring unit for measuring an electric current flowing into the polishing machine, a memory unit for storing a reference value of the electric current flowing into the polishing machine for each polishing location of the glass plate, and a control unit for determining whether a polishing state is faulty, by comparing a value of the electric current measured by the current measuring unit for each polishing location measured by the location measuring unit with a corresponding reference value of the electric current stored in the memory unit for each polishing location.

A grinder for sharpening the blades of reel mowers automatically to grind the underside of the blade of the reel mower.

The present invention relates to a polishing apparatus for polishing an object to be polished (substrate) such as a semiconductor wafer to a flat mirror finish. The polishing apparatus includes a polishing table configured to support a polishing pad, a polishing head having a top ring configured to press an object to be polished against the polishing pad while the object to be polished is rotated, and a dresser head having a dresser configured to dress the polishing pad. The polishing apparatus has a head cover having a purge gas introducing unit configured to introduce a purge gas into the head cover and an exhausting unit configured to exhaust the interior of the head cover. The pressure in the head cover is set to a pressure level slightly higher than the pressure outside the head cover, and main components of the polishing head are housed in the head cover.

A fully symmetric cutter grinding machine with 5-axis includes a grinding machine base and a pillar, sliding rails are vertically arranged on an inside of the pillar, the sliding rails are provided with a grinding wheel head bracket, the grinding wheel head bracket comprises torque motors vertically provided, a lower part of the torque motor is connected to a horizontally provided spindle by means of a bearing of a rotation table, grinding wheels rotating around an axis of the spindle are symmetrically provided at two sides of the spindle, the grinding wheel head bracket further comprises a big rotatable pulley provided at an upper part of the grinding wheel head bracket and driven to rotate by spindle motors, the big pulley is connected to a spindle pulley by a wide synchronous belt.

The present invention provides: a method of polishing an object to be polished for processing a surface of the object to be polished into a concave or convex state with a high degree of accuracy; and a polishing pad. An object to be polished is placed on a polishing pad over the boundary between the first polishing region and the second polishing region, the first polishing region has grooves and the second polishing region has grooves different from those of the first polishing region, and either one of the two regions being formed on a region on the center side, and the other on the outer side in a radial direction on the surface of the polishing pad; and the object to be polished is polished by rotating the polishing pad and the object to be polished.

An automated method for reconditioning a plurality of digital discs within a reconditioning apparatus is disclosed. The method comprises holding the digital discs in a load area, and then transferring each of the digital discs from the load area to at least one workstation with a disc transfer mechanism. The method also comprises reconditioning each of the digital discs transferred to the workstation with at least one worktool operable to remove a portion of the protective coating of each of the digital discs without removal of the data underlying the protective coating. The method further comprises transferring each of the digital discs from the workstation to an unload area with the disc transfer mechanism, and then holding the digital discs in the unload area for manual retrieval. Advantageously, the digital discs may be automatically reconditioned within the reconditioning apparatus without manual manipulation of the digital discs during the reconditioning process. Various exemplary embodiments of the reconditioning apparatus and associated method are provided.

An enclosed polishing apparatus include a housing, a fixing seat, a guiding mechanism, and a chain-driven polishing mechanism. The housing includes a bottom housing and a top housing connected to the bottom housing. The fixing seat is securely placed in the bottom housing. The guiding mechanism is placed in the top housing above the fixing seat. The polishing mechanism is movably mounted on the guiding mechanism above the fixing seat. The polishing mechanism is driven and guided by the guiding mechanism to follow a desired polishing contour on a workpiece.

A grinding disk in particular for rotary fine machining of surfaces has a support plate and a drive connector connecting the grinding disk to a rotary drive machine. The drive connector is provided at a top side of the support plate. An elastically deformable cushion is disposed at a bottom side of the support plate. The cushion is covered with a working medium or with an adhesive coating for detachable attachment of a working medium disk. A cover is disposed on the support plate so as to define an axial intermediate spacing, wherein the cover is embodied as a mechanically loadable structural part and is connected fixedly at least to an outer rim of the support plate. Primarily radially extending ribs are disposed between the support plate and the cover and connected at least at some locations with the support plate and the cover.

A continuously variable transmission oil composition comprising a base oil and at least one phosphorous compound in such an amount that the phosphorus in the phosphorus compound accounts for 0.005 to 0.15 mass % of the total mass of the composition and wherein the continuously variable transmission oil composition has a friction coefficient from 0.146 to 0.164 when tested according to ASTM D2714.

Provided is a magnetic disk comprising a lubricating layer formed of a lubricant. The lubricant constituting the lubricating layer has excellent properties, for example, excellent fluidity, surface energy, and CFT properties. By virtue of the excellent properties, the magnetic disk has a high level of reliability despite a low flying height of a magnetic head due to a recent rapid increase in recording density and a very severe environment resistance requirement due to diversification of applications. The magnetic disk comprises a substrate and at least a magnetic layer, a protective layer, and a lubricating layer provided in that order over the substrate. The lubricating layer is formed of a lubricant that is a mixture of a specific perfluoropolyether lubricant with a lubricant formed of a compound comprising perfluoropolyether groups having a perfluoropolyether main chain in the structure thereof and having a hydroxyl group at the end thereof, the perfluoropolyether groups being bonded to each other through a divalent linking group having at least two hydroxyl groups in the structure thereof.

A lubricant for a magnetic disk that is excellent in heat resistance and is suitably used in a magnetic disk to be mounted on a magnetic recording device of a thermally assisted magnetic recording system and a magnetic disk provided with a lubricant layer containing this lubricant. The lubricant for a magnetic disk contains a compound where perfluoropolyether groups each having a perfluoropolyether main chain in its structure and a phosphazene ring at an end are linked to each other through a linking group. The linking group is an aliphatic group or a phosphazene ring. In a magnetic disk having at least a magnetic recording layer, a protective layer, and a lubricant layer on a substrate, the lubricant layer contains the lubricant for a magnetic disk.

The invention relates to a machine part comprising a first physical component, wherein: the first physical component is configured for moving relative to a second physical component; the first physical component has a first surface with a contact area for physical contact with the second physical component; the first physical component is shaped spatially complementarity to the second physical component at the contact area, and a polyelectrolyte layer is present on the first surface at a location of the contact area. The invention further relates to a machine comprising the present machine part and the second physical component. In addition, the invention relates to the use of a polyelectrolyte layer to reduce the friction between the first physical component and the second physical component, and a rolling-elements bearing.

Polymeric compositions and methods for making and using the same are provided. The polymeric composition can include a first ethylene-based copolymer and a second ethylene-based copolymer. The first ethylene-based copolymer can have a weight percent of ethylene-derived units based on a weight of the polymeric composition (EA) ranging from about 35 wt % to about 52 wt % and a weight-average molecular weight (MwA) of less than or equal to 130,000. The second ethylene-based copolymer can have a weight percent of ethylene-derived units based on the weight of the polymeric composition (EB) ranging from about 65 wt % to about 85 wt % and a weight-average molecular weight (MwB) of less than 130,000.

Provided is a magnetic disk that is excellent in durability, particularly in LUL durability and CFT properties, and thus has high reliability despite the low flying height of a magnetic head following the rapid increase in recording density in recent years and despite the very strict environmental resistance following the diversification of applications. A magnetic disk (10) has at least a magnetic layer (6), a carbon-based protective layer (7), and a lubricating layer (8) provided in this order over a substrate (1). The lubricating layer (8) contains a compound having a perfluoropolyether main chain in a structure thereof and having a polar group other than at ends of a molecule thereof.

A composition is provided for use as a friction modifier for an automatic transmission, which comprises a condensation product of a hydroxypolycarbox-ylic acid, such as 2,3-di-hydroxybutanedioic acid or 2-hydroxybutanedioic acid, with an N,N-di(hydrocarbyl)alkylenediamine, where each hydrocarbyl group contains 1 to 22 carbon atoms, provided that the total number of carbon atoms in the two hydrocarbyl groups is at least about 9, and the alkylene group contains 2 to 4 carbon atoms.

Provided is a lubricating oil composition containing a base oil which includes a mineral oil and/or a synthetic oil, and compounded therein, (A) at least one phosphorus-containing compound selected from phosphoric acid monoesters, phosphoric acid diesters and phosphorous acid monoesters, each having a C1 to C8 hydrocarbon group or groups and (B) a tertiary amine compound having C6 to C10 hydrocarbon groups as substituents thereof. The lubricating oil composition provides both a high metal to metal friction coefficient and an excellent wear resistance and is suitably used in a continuously variable transmission.

The invention relates to a lubricant in the form of grease or thick lubricating gel or transmission oil, as well as motor or universal oils with a myriad of applications. As a result of its contents presented in the patent application is characteristic of low coefficient of friction ranging from 0.055 to 0.062. As the main component, the contents of the discussed lubricant includes three or four stearates of metals or hydroxistearates of metals, which interact and cause a noticeable reduction of friction drag on the lubricated surfaces. Additionally, these substances may include a number of other solid or liquid elements, which maintain low friction drags and, furthermore, improve the lubricant through increasing its load capacity, antirust characteristics, shear strength, etc. The lubricant made according to the invention underwent comparative tests against other greases and greasing oils, the accounts of which are included in the application as diagrams, descriptions of research tests and examples of the contents of the lubricant products.

Provided are a lubricant composition capable of reducing friction between sliding parts at least one of which contains an aluminum-based material in a lubrication section, and a method for lubricating an aluminum-based member with the composition. The lubricant composition is for use in a lubrication section having sliding parts at least one of which contains an aluminum-based material, and contains a lubricant base oil and at least one of a phosphorus-containing carboxylic compound and a metal salt thereof (component (A)) at 0.001 to 1 mass % of the composition in terms of phosphorus. The composition may suitably be used as lubricant such as drive train lubricant for automatic or manual transmissions, grease, wet brake oil, hydraulic actuation oil, turbine oil, compressor oil, bearing oil, refrigerant oil, and the like used in apparatus having the sliding parts.

There is provided an automatic tool changer which, in a precision roll turning lathe which feeds a tool post at a high speed, can automatically change a tool, such as a cutting tool, without stopping the machine, thereby enabling highly efficient ultra-Precision machining of a roll mold for molding of a large-sized plastic sheet. The automatic tool changer includes: a change device including a vertically movable pivot arm having a pivot axis and which pivots in a horizontal plane, a hand portion, mounted at the front end of the arm, for detachably gripping a tool holder, a pivot drive section for pivoting the pivot arm, and a lifting drive section for vertically moving the pivot arm; a tool holder stocker, having a plurality of circumferentially-arranged stages disposed at a predetermined distance from the pivot axis, each stage detachably holding a tool holder; a holder base, mounted to the tool post, for fixing and unfixing a tool holder through the rotation of a clamp shaft; and a clamp shaft operating device including an operating portion for clamping/unclamping the tool holder by rotating the clamp shaft.

A carriage is moved in a direction including a Y axis component in order to move a turning process tool that is attached to a tool spindle along a horizontal line that is perpendicular to a Z axis, and thus, a turning process is carried out on a workpiece which is attached to a workpiece spindle.

A method of voting with your feet is disclosed. A performance of a location-based action by a player of a computer-implemented game is associated with a vote on a matter. The performance of the location-based action by the player is detected. A count of votes corresponding to the vote on the matter is incremented based on the detecting of the performance of the location-based action by the player.

Device for managing the electrodes for electrical discharge machining EDM machine tools comprises at least one magazine (1) that has a series of individual housings (33) designed to accept and hold exchangeable elements (5) consisting of electrodes (6, 22) mounted on an electrode holder (11a, 11b), and a changer device (2) equipped with a gripper (2) intended to move the exchangeable elements (5) from the individual housings (33) towards the machine and vice versa. A first adapter piece (21) is associated with each of the exchangeable elements (5). This adapter piece (21) surrounds the electrode holder (11a, 11b) and is gripped around its periphery by the gripper (9) of the changer (2) so as to guarantee that the exchangeable element (5) is held precisely. The device further comprises a second adapter piece (32) associated with each of the individual housings (33) of the magazine (1) that are likely to be used.

A system and method are disclosed for transporting deterministic traffic in a gigabit passive optical network. A system that incorporates teachings of the present disclosure may include, for example, an Optical Line Termination (OLT) for exchanging data traffic in a Gigabit Passive Optical Network (GPON) having a controller programmed to generate a timeslot schedule for transport of a desired bandwidth of constant bit rate (CBR) data traffic by selecting one or more timeslots from periodic frame clusters operating according to a GPON Transmission Convergence (GTC) protocol. Additional embodiments are disclosed.

A method and apparatus for controlling update of digital pre-distortion (DPD) coefficient is provided. The apparatus is applicable to a digital power control system, wherein the apparatus comprises: an update controlling unit configured to determine a group of fully-trained DPD coefficients among a plurality of DPD coefficients; and a DPD coefficient generating unit configured to update adaptively the group of fully-trained DPD coefficients according to the result of judgment of the update controlling unit. The DPD coefficients are allowed to be updated after being judged as being able to be fully trained according to power distribution information of DPD input signals, or according to address distribution information of an LUT, or according to average power of output of an HPA; otherwise, they may not be updated, thereby efficiently preventing DPD abnormality resulted from unfull training of coefficients in being updated.

Methods and systems for decoding a signal include compensating for impairments in a received signal using at least carrier phase estimation, where residual phase error remains after compensation; calculating symbol log-likelihood ratios (LLRs) for symbols in the compensated signal using Monte Carlo integration; demapping the symbols in the compensated signal using the symbol LLRs and extrinsic information from signal decoding to produce one or more estimated codewords; and decoding each estimated codeword with a decoder that generates a decoded codeword and extrinsic information.

A transmitter and a receiver for an optical telecommunication system of the WDM type are disclosed. In one aspect, the transmitter uses a chromato-temporal encoder which, with each block of symbols to be transmitted, associates a code matrix, where each element of the matrix corresponds to a wavelength and a use of the channel. The transmitter includes multiple modulators, where each modulator modulates a laser beam at a wavelength during a use of the channel by an element corresponding to the code matrix. The beams modulated in this manner are multiplexed in an optical fiber. Another embodiment using both a wavelength and a polarization encoding is also proposed.

An undersea long-haul transmission system includes an optical fiber transmission span and a coherent detection and digital signal processing module for providing dispersion compensation. The transmission span includes at least one fiber pair comprising substantially equal lengths of a positive-dispersion first fiber and a negative-dispersion second fiber that are configured to provide a signal output at transmission distances greater than 10,000 km, in which the combined accumulated dispersion across the operating bandwidth does not exceed the dispersion-compensating capacity of the coherent detection and digital signal processing module. Further described is a fiber for use in an undersea long-haul transmission span. At a transmission wavelength of 1550 nm, the fiber has a dispersion coefficient in the range of −16 to −25 ps/nm·km, and a dispersion slope in the range of 0.04 to 0.02 ps/nm2·km.

A fiber optic data transmission system includes an optical fiber and a data transmitter having a first laser having a first wavelength, a first phase modulator for phase modulating light from the first laser as a function of a first data input stream so as to create a first phase-modulated output data stream, a second laser having a second wavelength different from the first wavelength, and a second phase modulator for phase modulating light from the second laser as a function of a second data input stream so as to create a second phase-modulated output data stream. The transmitter also includes a combiner combining the first and second output data streams into a phase-modulated optical signal for transmission over the optical fiber.

Methods and apparatus related to the detection of low-rate visible light communication (VLC) signals and the recovery of information communicated by the VLC signals are described. Various methods and apparatus are well suited for embodiments in which a device, e.g., a smartphone, including a camera which uses a rolling shutter. The rolling shutter facilitates the collection of different time snapshots of a received low rate time varying VLC signal with different pixel rows in the image sensor of a frame corresponding to different time snapshots. In some embodiments, demodulation is used to recover and identify a single tone being communicated in a frame from among a plurality of possible alternative tones that may be communicated, each different tone corresponding to a different set of information bits.

A pre-emphasis control method includes calculating an average value of transmission characteristics based on transmission characteristics of a plurality of light beams received by a receiver, and determining that, among signals of the plurality of light beams, a wavelength with a deviation from the average value is a wavelength at which control is to be performed, determining that the wavelength at which control is to be performed and a wavelength adjacent thereto are a group of wavelengths at which control is to be performed, obtaining an average of transmission characteristics of the group of wavelengths at which control is to be performed, and based on a difference between averaged transmission characteristics and respective transmission characteristics of the group of wavelengths at which control is to be performed, changing a light intensity output from each transmitter that transmits a group of wavelengths at which control is to be performed.

A signal transmission device drives a light-emitting element and outputs an optical signal depending on a data signal from an electronic device. The device includes an element driving portion which supplies a driving current to the light-emitting element, wherein the driving current is obtained by superimposing a modulation current on a bias current, the modulation current being dependent on the data signal indicating emitting information of the light-emitting element. A temperature compensation portion of the device controls the bias current and the modulation current depending on the temperature so that a temperature-current characteristic of the light-emitting element is reproduced based on the voltage which is dependent on the temperature and the voltage which is independent from the temperature, thereby performing current control depending on the temperature.

An apparatus and method for fault indication and localization in a Passive Optical Network (PON) comprising a multistage power splitter (100, 200, 300) with at least one 1:N splitter (120, 221, 222, 321, 322) followed by N items of 2:M splitters (131, 132, 231-233, 331-336), wherein N and M are integers greater than 1. The apparatus also comprises an Optical Time Domain Reflectometry (OTDR) device (110, 210, 310) capable of inserting an OTDR signal into the power splitter (100, 200, 300), and adapted to insert the OTDR signal between the first stage of the at least one 1:N splitter (120, 221, 222, 321, 322) and the second N items of 2:M splitters (131, 132, 231-233, 331-336).

A WDM optical signal is transmitted through a tunable optical filter and is polarization-nulled to find optical signal to noise ratio of individual WDM channels. The polarization nulling can be performed using a heuristic multipoint extrema search method, such as Nelder-Mead method. A plurality of checkpoints can be included in the search to verify the progress and to improve the overall robustness of a real-time polarization nulling.

An optical transport network system includes a plurality of NEs, each transmitting wavelength-multiplexed optical signals. Each NE includes a routing information DB that is used to store reachable area information, which contains identifiers of other NEs in a range within which the optical signals can be transmitted from the own NE without using an REG. A FROM NE includes a path candidate searching unit that searches for a plurality of path candidates for transmitting optical signals from the FROM NE to a TO NE. The TO NE includes a path selecting unit that selects a path for transmitting optical signals from among a plurality of path candidates. The path selecting unit obtains the number of times for which the REG is used for each of the plurality of path candidates; and, based on each number of times that is obtained, selects a path for transmitting the optical signals.

Additional bandwidth is provisioned to layer 2/3 networks by initially provisioning optical wavelength channels to meet incremental needs for additional capacity. When bandwidth requirements grow large enough, a wavelength-sized channel is provisioned to meet the bandwidth needs, and the previously provisioned optical wavelength channels are freed up to be reused for additional growth. The optical wavelength channels may be channelized VLANs mapped to resizable optical channel data units such as ODUflex units.

Optical fiber-based distributed communications systems that provide and support both RF communication services and digital data services are disclosed herein. The RF communication services and digital data services can be distributed over optical fiber to client devices, such as remote antenna units for example. In certain embodiments, digital data services can be distributed over optical fiber separate from optical fiber distributing RF communication services. In other embodiments, digital data services can be distributed over common optical fiber with RF communication services. For example, digital data services can be distributed over common optical fiber with RF communication services at different wavelengths through wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM) and/or at different frequencies through frequency-division multiplexing (FDM). Power distributed in the optical fiber-based distributed communications system to provide power to remote antenna units can also be accessed to provide power to digital data service components.

A skiving tool for manufacturing a rotationally symmetrical periodical structure on a work piece by means of a power skiving method. The skiving tool comprises a base body comprising a central rotation axis and a plurality of receiving openings and a plurality of cutter bars, fewer than or equal to the number of receiving openings. Each of the receiving openings has an elongate shape having a longitudinal axis, and the receiving openings can be arranged uniformly around the central rotation axis. The longitudinal axes of the receiving openings are generators of a rotation hyperboloid, which is arranged rotationally symmetrical to the central rotation axis.

Milling cutter and method of operating same, and other machine tools, and an adjustment mechanism therefor. A cutting insert is adjusted by moving a resilient web with an adjusting screw.

A cutting insert (14) is formed with an insert aperture (32) opening out to insert top and bottom surfaces (14A, 14B) of the cutting insert (14). In a plan view of the insert top surface (14A), the cutting insert (14) and the insert aperture (32) both have oblong shapes which are elongated along a common insert longitudinal axis (AIL). The aperture (32) includes first and second side surfaces (32A1, 32A2) which each extend along the insert longitudinal axis (AIL), and aperture first and second end surfaces (32B1, 32B2) which each extend transverse relative to the insert longitudinal axis (AIL). At least one of the aperture first and second end surfaces (32B1, 32B2) is formed with a clamping lip (32C1, 32C2).

An apparatus for storing and dispensing a test strip includes a container configured to store a stack of test strips. The container maintains appropriate environmental conditions, such as humidity, for storing the test strips. An engaging member is disposed in the container and is adapted to contact one test strip of the stack of test strips. An actuator actuates the engaging member to dispense the one test strip from the container. Since one test strip is dispensed at a time, the remaining test strips are not handled by the user. Accordingly, the unused test strips remain free of contaminants such as naturally occurring oils on the user's hand.