Abstract: A windshield wiper blade holder has an auxiliary lever arm having first and second free ends. Each one of the free ends presses against the back of a windshield wiper blade for increasing the force applied to the windshield wiper blade when the curvature of a curved windshield increases. The auxiliary lever arm is preferrably hinged to the armature at a point between the hinging of the armature to a driving arm of a vehicle and an end of the armature to which a compensator is pivotably attached. Various compensators and secondary compensators can be pivotably attached to the armature for holding a wiper blade and for cooperating with the auxiliary arm for enhancing the force pressing the wiper blade against the convex windshield.

Abstract: communications grade glass optical fibers are protected from static fatigue failure by an initial coating that reacts with surface silanol groups, thereby to occupy or tie up water vapor reaction sites. The OH surface radicals may be bonded to by condensation reactions including: esterification, carboxylation, etherification, chlorination and ammination. For speed and simplicity of reaction, silanation with silanes is attractive as, for example, hexamethyldisilizane (HMDS). The reaction is sufficiently fast to use in a continuous fiber drawing and in-line coating process. The barrier coating may be selected to bond relatively strongly to an outer abrasion protection polymeric coating. Bonding is also enhanced by creating an initial minimum, evenly distributed concentration, of surface silanol groups, for example, about 5 groups/100 Angstrom units in any direction. The reaction molecule is also large enough to act as a water vapor barrier.