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1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a film, a manufacturing method thereof, and a substrate structure including the film. More specifically, the present invention relates to a manufacturing method of a nitride crystalline film, a nitride film, and a substrate structure including the nitride film.
2. Description of Related Art
With the development of electronic technology, the thin film deposition technique has been widely used in the manufacture of electronic devices. The thin film deposition is mainly categorized into two groups, physical vapor deposition (PVD) and chemical vapor deposition (CVD), where the former is mainly applied in deposition of metal materials, and the application scope of the latter includes deposition of dielectric materials, conductive materials, and semiconductor materials. The technique of semiconductor thin film deposition can be utilized in the manufacture of light emitting diode (LED). Moreover, the quality of semiconductor thin film deposition directly affects the optoelectronic property, the reliability, and the lifetime of an LED chip.
FIG. 1 is a schematic view of a conventional LED chip. Referring to FIG. 1, sequentially from bottom to top, the conventional LED chip 100 includes a sapphire substrate 110, a buffer layer 120, an undoped gallium nitride epitaxial layer 130, an N-type gallium nitride epitaxial layer 140, a light emitting layer 150, and a P-type gallium nitride epitaxial layer 160. In addition, a positive electrode 172 is disposed on the P-type gallium nitride epitaxial layer 160, and a negative electrode 170 is disposed on the N-type gallium nitride epitaxial layer 140. Since the lattice constants of the gallium nitride lattice and the sapphire lattice do not match, in order for the N-type gallium nitride epitaxial layer 140 to obtain a stable lattice structure, the buffer layer 120 is formed on the sapphire substrate 110. Thus, the undoped gallium nitride epitaxial layer 130 formed on the buffer layer 120 then forms a stable lattice structure, and the N-type gallium nitride epitaxial layer 140 formed on the undoped gallium nitride epitaxial layer 130 also obtains a stable lattice structure.
The conventional LED chip 100 is also used to produce a thin LED (vertical type) chip, of which the manufacturing method includes first removing the sapphire substrate 110. In the conventional LED chip 100, the buffer layer 120 and the undoped gallium nitride epitaxial layer 130 are still present between the N-type gallium nitride epitaxial layer 140 and the sapphire substrate 110. Therefore, the buffer layer 120 and the undoped gallium nitride epitaxial layer 130 still need to be removed sequentially after the removal of the sapphire substrate 110. Thereby, the manufacturing steps of the thin LED (vertical type) chip increase, thus resulting in long manufacturing time and difficulty in reducing manufacturing costs. | {
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The administration of pharmacologically active agents by inhalation is a widely used technique especially for the treatment of reversible airway obstruction, inflammation and hyperresponsiveness. The technique is also used for the administration of certain active agents having systemic action, which are absorbed via the lungs into the bloodstream.
Some of the most widely used systems for the administration of drugs to the airways are the dry powder inhalers (DPI's).
DPI's can be divided into two basic types: i) single dose inhalers, for the administration of pre-subdivided single doses of the active compound; ii) multidose dry powder inhalers (MDPI't) either with pre-subdivided single doses or pre-loaded with quantities of active ingredient sufficient for multiple doses each dose is created by a metering unit within the inhaler.
On the basis of the required inspiratory flow rates (1/min) which in turn are strictly depending or their design and mechanical features DPI's are also divided in: i) low-resistance devices (>90 l/min); ii) medium-resistance devices (about 60 l/min); iii) high-resistance devices (about 3 l/min).
The reported flow rates refer to the pressure drop of 4 KPa (KiloPascal) in accordance with the requirements of the European Pharmacopoeia (Eur Ph) 4th Ed 2004, page 3375.
Drugs intended for inhalation as dry powders should be used in the form of micronised powder so they are characterised by particles of few microns (μm) particle size. In powders for inhalation, the evaluation of particle size both of the active ingredient and of possible excipients or carriers is of primary importance. The particle size is quantified by measuring a characteristic equivalent sphere diameter, known as mass diameter (MD or volume diameter (VD), depending on the used technique. Particle size distribution is described by the mass median diameter (MMD) or the volume median diameter (VMD) which correspond to the diameter of 50 percent by weight or volume respectively, of the particles. The VMD is related to the MMD by the density of the particles (assuming a size independent density or the particles). In the case of active ingredients for inhalation purposes, the particle size is also expressed as mass aerodynamic diameter (MAD) and the particle size distribution as mass median aerodynamic diameter (MMAD). The MAD indicates the capability of the particles of being transported suspended in an air stream. The MMAD corresponds to the mass aerodynamic diameter of 50 percent by weight of the particles. In the prior art the term MMAD has also been improperly used for quantifying the diameter of the carrier particles The particles of active ingredient must have such a particle size as to reach the low respiratory tract. Respirable articles are generally considered to be those with MAD from 0.5 to 10 micron, as they are able of penetrating into the lower airways, i.e. the bronchiolar and alveolar sites, which are the sit of action for the pulmonary drugs and where absorption takes place for the systemic drugs. Larger particles are mostly deposited in the oropharyngeal cavity so they cannot reach said sites, whereas the smaller ones deem to be exhaled.
Hereinafter the terms drug, active ingredient, active and active substance are used as synonymous.
Although micronisation of the drug is essential for deposition into the lower respiratory tract during inhalation, it is also know that the finer are the particles, the stronger are the cohesion forces Strong cohesion forces hinder the handling of the powder during the manufacturing process (pouring, filling). Moreover they reduce the flowability of the particles while favouring in the multidose DPI's the agglomeration and the adhesion thereof to the walls. Said phenomena impair the loading of the powder from the reservoir to the metering chamber. Therefore, strong cohesion forces give rise to handling and metering accuracy problems.
Poor flowability is also detrimental to the respirable fraction of the delivered dose being the active particles unable to leave the inhaler and remaining adhered to the interior of the inhaler or leaving the inhaler as large agglomerates; agglomerated particles, in turn cannot reach the bronchiolar and alveolar sites of the lungs. The uncertainty as to the extent of agglomeration of the particles between each actuation of the inhaler and also among inhalers and different batches of particles leads to poor dose reproducibility as well. | {
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The present invention relates to a drum motor of the type defined in the introductory portion of claim 1.
1. Field of the Invention
The invention thus relates to an electrically driven drum motor comprising a substantially cylindrical drum of stainless steel, said drum having annular end edges and being connected to two circular end caps to define, together with these, an internal space to receive an electric motor, said end caps being provided with a central opening for a rigid shaft for the drum motor.
2. Description of the Related Art
Drum motors of this type are frequently used in connection with conveyor systems, in particular for driving a conveyor belt of e.g. rubber which directly engages the cylindrical drum.
In this connection, the drum motor is mounted on a support frame by means of the rigid shaft which extends through the interior of the drum motor and out through the opening in each end cap. The wires for feeding electrical power to the motor are usually run either axially or radially into the shaft at the outer side of one of the end caps.
With the drum motor placed correctly on the support frame, the conveyor belt of the conveyor system is mounted, engaging at least a part of the surface of the cylindrical drum and being driven forwards when the drum rotates with respect to the rigid shaft.
In certain applications of such conveyor systems, special requirements are made with respect to the hygienic conditions which must prevail at the location of use. This is the case in the food industry in particular, where it must be ensured at all times that there is a minimum risk of contamination of the processed products. In these cases, special consideration must be given to the structure of the drum motor to avoid areas on the surface which may be difficult to clean, and which may therefore cause contamination.
In the construction of drum motors for use in the food industry, particularly in the meat industry, it has been found to be of further importance that the material of all the surfaces which come into contact with the food products have such properties that they do not per se contribute to contamination of the food products. However, until now it has not been possible to allow for this while ensuring a profitable production of the drum motors at a competitive price. | {
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1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates, in general, to technology for designing fold lines in sheet material and more particularly to a method, a computer program product and a method for designing fold lines in sheet material.
2. Description of Related Art
A commonly encountered problem in connection with bending sheet material is that the locations of the bends are difficult to control because of bending tolerance variations and the accumulation of tolerance errors. For example, in the formation of the housings for electronic equipment, sheet metal is bent along a first bend line within certain tolerances. The second bend, however, often is positioned based upon the first bend, and accordingly, the tolerance errors can accumulate. Since there can be three or more bends which are involved to create the chassis or enclosure for the electronic components, the effect of cumulative tolerance errors in bending can be significant. Moreover, the tolerances that are achievable will vary widely depending on the bending equipment, and its tooling, as well as the skill of the operator. The problem of controlling the positioning of bend lines, of course, can occur in connection with may other three-dimensional products.
One approach to this problem has been to try to control the location of bends in sheet material through the use of slitting or grooving. Slits and grooves can be formed in sheet stock very precisely, for example, by the use of computer numerically controlled (CNC) devices which control a slit or groove forming apparatus, such as a laser, a water-jet cutting apparatus, a punch press, a knife or other tool. Such slits and grooves have been used in prior systems as a basis for bending sheet material. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,640,605 to Gitlin et al. describes a method of bending sheet metal to form three-dimensional structures. The bend forming techniques of such prior slitting-based systems may, however, significantly weaken the resulting structure.
Industrial Origami, Inc. (IOI), the assignee of the present invention, is presently developing new and improved approaches to overcome the disadvantages of prior sheet material bending systems. Namely, by providing sheet materials with new and improved slit configurations, IOI has developed an approach that allows bending of the sheet material along a fold line that results in a three-dimensional structure having edge-to-face engagement along the fold line. Such edge-to-face engagement greatly increases the strength of the resultant three-dimensional product compared with prior art slitting methods. Additionally, IOI's new slit-based bending designs result in structures that may be more rigid than traditionally bent structures that are un-slit. Furthermore, IOI's new and improved slit designs advantageously reduce stress concentrations in the three-dimensional structure along the fold lines.
While it is possible to draw IOI's new and improved slit configurations with the standard sketch tools of conventional computer-aided design (CAD) systems, a CAD user may find that drawing, locating, scaling and shaping individual compound-shaped slits that constitute IOI's slit configurations rather repetitive and challenging. What is needed is a method, computer program product and system that is able to readily allow a CAD designer to determine an improved fold geometry based on IOI's new and improved slit configurations and efficiently apply such fold geometry to a sheet material design. | {
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One type of x-ray tube is a computerized tomography (CT) x-ray tube which is used in CT scanners.
FIG. 1 shows one type of CT scanner which is described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,086,449. The CT scanner includes a stationary patient receiving region 10. A gantry 12 is mounted for rotation around the patient receiving region 10. An x-ray tube assembly 14 which produces a radiation beam through an x-ray port across the patient receiving region 10 is mounted to gantry 12 for purposes of rotation. Coolant fluid is circulated between x-ray tube assembly 14 and a cooling system 17 (including heat exchanger and pump) which is also mounted on the gantry 12. The coolant fluid flows through x-ray tube assembly 14 to remove heat created during x-ray generation. Finally, an arc or ring of radiation detectors 28 surround the patient receiving region.
During operation, typically, x-ray tube assembly 14 generates a planar beam of radiation which is then rotated around the body. Various detectors 28, located around the patient, detect the intensity of the beam. Detectors 28 are connected to a computer which, based on intensity readings, generates an image of a slice of the body. The patient is then moved longitudinally through the gantry with the x-ray tube assembly 14 generating slices so that the computer can generate a three-dimensional image of the body.
In the course of generating slices, much heat is generated by x-ray tube assembly 14 and this heat must be removed if the service life of the x-ray tube is not to be unduly reduced. As described above, it is known to cool x-ray tubes by circulating a fluid, typically oil, within the tube and externally through a cooling system to remove as much heat as possible. In addition to being used as vehicle for cooling, the fluid is also used for its dielectric properties in order to insulate the anode connection from ground (and/or the cathode connection).
Even employing this type of fluid for purposes of cooling and electrical insulation, x-ray tubes have a finite service life. There are several causes of x-ray tube failure, most of which are related to thermal characteristics of the x-ray tube. Hence, heat removal is an important concern in attempting to extend the service life of an x-ray tube.
A first type of tube failure is related to excessive anode temperature during a single exposure which may result in localized surface melting and pitting of the anode.
A second type of tube failure results from maintaining the anode at elevated temperatures for prolonged periods. If the thermal stress on an x-ray tube anode is maintained for prolonged periods, such as during fluoroscopy, the thermal capacity of the total anode system and of the x-ray tube housing is the limitation to operation.
During fluoroscopy, the rate of heat dissipation from the rotating target attains equilibrium with the rate of heat input. Although this rate is rarely sufficient to cause surface defects in the target, the tube can fail because of the continuous heat delivered to the coolant fluid, the rotor assembly, and/or the x-ray tube housing.
Coolant fluid, due to continuous heat and repeated arcing, will eventually break down. When the oil breaks down its dielectric properties as well as its ability to carry away heat (i.e. viscosity) are adversely affected. This results in less electrical insulation between the anode connection and ground connections (and/or the cathode connection) which leads to more arcing and, eventually, tube failure. Hence, proper electrical insulation (i.e., maintaining the proper dielectric property of the coolant fluid) is also an important concern in attempting to extend the service life of an x-ray tube.
A third type of failure involves the filament. Because of the high temperature of the filament, tungsten atoms are slowly vaporized and plate the inside of the glass envelope, even with normal use. This tungsten, along with that vaporized from the anode, disturbs the electrical balance of the x-ray tube, causing abrupt, intermittent changes in tube current, which often leads to arcing and tube failure.
Due to the above-described potential problems in current x-ray tube designs, manufacturers of CT x-ray tubes, which generally cost approximately $25-40,000, typically include a warranty for 40,000 slices, where a slice is a single picture taken by the CT scanner.
In a typical radiology center, one CT scanner running full time uses any where from 1-4 x-ray tubes a year which becomes very expensive. Obviously, it would be very advantageous, in terms of time and money, for a radiology center or the like to be able to extend the service life of an x-ray tube. | {
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Light-weight, thermoplastic polymer-coated woven fabrics are in wide use today as roof covering membranes consisting of a plurality of strips which are electrically heat-welded in the factory to form unitary membranes which fit the contour of what may be termed "minimum pitched" roofs. Frequently, such membranes are installed over old roofing, and provide a roof covering which is reliably sealed, has excellent dimensional stability even with severe humidity and temperature changes, and does not become stiff, inflexible, or cracked when subjected to weathering, ultra violet rays, abrasions, and micro-organism attack.
Particularly on industrial roofs, provision must be made for the protrusion of large air-conditioning units, or make-up air units, which project from the roof surface. It is necessary that the membrane fabricated to fit the roof be provided with a vertically walled enclosure around the opening which is cut in the membrane so that the projecting unit may extend therefrom. The vertical walls which surround the air conditioning unit must then be sealed to the membrane and sealed to the air conditioning, or other unit, to absolutely prevent the entrance of any moisture, and provide an over-all, water-tight membrane which covers the roof.
The problem of enclosing vent pipe members which project from a roof structure has been solved recently for vent pipe enclosures, with the invention of the enclosure described in the present assignee's U.S. Pat. No. 4,652,321. However, it would be impractical to seek to form an enclosure, in the manner indicated in that patent, to surround and seal a housing as large as the casing of an air conditioning unit. | {
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Recently, studies have been made on a gas turbine facility in which CO2 in exhaust discharged from a turbine is partly circulated to a combustor. In this gas turbine facility, studies have been made on achieving a thermal power generation system that performs power generation simultaneously with the separation and recovery of CO2.
In this highly environmental-conscious gas turbine facility, studies have been made on a thermal power generation system in which, for example, oxygen is used as an oxidant and supercritical-pressure CO2 is circulated to a combustor. This thermal power generation system achieves no-emission of NOx by effectively using CO2.
In this thermal power generation system, for example, a fuel (natural gas or methane) and the oxidant (mixture of oxygen and CO2) are introduced into the combustor to be combusted, and CO2 as a cooling medium is also introduced to the combustor. Then, a turbine is rotated by high-temperature combustion gas generated by the combustion to generate electricity. The combustion gas (CO2 and vapor) discharged from the turbine is cooled by a heat exchanger and is then deprived of the moisture to become CO2. This CO2 is compressed into high-pressure CO2 by a high-pressure pump. Most of the high-pressure CO2 is heated by the heat exchanger and is circulated to the combustor. The rest of the high-pressure CO2 is recovered to be used for other purposes.
In the combustor in this thermal power generation system, mixed gas of the fuel and the oxidant mixed in the combustor is ignited using an ignition device. At the time of the ignition, a flow rate of the oxidant and a flow rate of the fuel are set low in order to reduce a sudden heat load to devices. Then, after the ignition, the flow rate of the oxidant is increased, thereby increasing the pressure in the combustor, and the flow rate of the fuel is increased, thereby increasing the temperature of the combustion gas in the combustor. The pressure in the combustor is thus increased up to, for example, a rated load condition of the turbine, for instance.
A typical ignition method in a conventional gas turbine combustor is to use spark discharge caused by the application of voltage to an ignition device disposed on a wall surface of the combustor. A leading end of the ignition device where the spark discharge occurs is exposed to flame after the ignition.
As a solution to this, studies have been made on a structure to make the ignition device advance/retreat into/from the combustor, from a viewpoint of durability and the like of the ignition device. This ignition device is made to advance/retreat into/from the combustor by, for example, an air cylinder using air jetted from a compressor. Then, after the ignition, the leading end of the ignition device, which is a spark discharge portion, is pulled out from the inside of the combustor. At this time, the leading end of the ignition device is pulled out up to, for example, an insertion hole which is formed in a combustor liner to allow the ignition device to advance/retreat therethrough, or pulled out up to a position between the combustor liner and a casing.
In the above-described thermal power generation system using the supercritical-pressure CO2, the pressure at the turbine rated load in the combustor is ten times or more as high as that in the conventional gas turbine combustor. If the conventional structure of the ignition device is used, the leading end of the ignition device is exposed to this high-pressure condition even after pulled out from the inside of the combustor.
This high-pressure condition greatly exceeds a withstand pressure specification of the ignition device in the conventional gas turbine combustor. This does not permit the specification of the conventional ignition device to be applied as it is to the thermal power generation system using the supercritical pressure CO2. | {
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1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to an image forming apparatus, such as a printer, a copying machine or a facsimile, an image forming method and a storage medium storing a program for forming an image, and particularly to an image processing in an image forming apparatus, an image forming method and a storage medium storing a program for forming an image.
2. Related Art
In recent years, in an image forming apparatus such as a printer or a copying machine, an intermediate transfer member is often used in a transfer part. As the intermediate transfer member, a belt formed into an endless shape is generally used. Besides, transfer from a photoconductor to an intermediate transfer member is referred to as first transfer, and transfer from the intermediate transfer member to a sheet is referred to as second transfer. As a mechanism used for the second transfer, for example, a bias transfer roll (BTR) system and a bias transfer belt (BTB) system are known.
FIGS. 15A and 15B are views for illustrating a second transfer mechanism, in which FIG. 15A shows the BTR system, and FIG. 15B shows the BTB system. As shown in FIG. 15A, the BTR system is such a mechanism that an intermediate transfer member 201 is supported by a backup roll 202 from its inside, a second transfer roll 203 is brought into contact with the opposite surface, a voltage is applied therebetween, and transfer is performed. On the other hand, as shown in FIG. 15B, the BTB system is such a mechanism that instead of the opposite roll, a second transfer belt 213 made of an elastic endless belt is provided, and transfer is performed, and a poor peeling property for thin paper, which is a defect of the BTR system, is improved by causing the paper to be attracted to the belt.
The intermediate transfer member system as stated above can improve productivity and can expand the versatility of a transfer medium, and is the main stream in the transfer system of a high quality printer. However, in the image forming apparatus using the intermediate transfer member, there are plural factors to degrade the quality of an image.
For example, in the first transfer, according to a stable rotation position of an intermediate transfer belt stretched over plural rolls, the rotation direction of a photoconductor and the traveling direction of the intermediate transfer belt do not coincide with each other, and as shown in FIG. 16A, an intermediate transfer belt 16 sometimes skews with respect to photoconductor drums 152K, 152Y, 152M and 152C. As a result, as shown in FIG. 15B, an image transferred on the belt is sometimes distorted into a parallelogram. Besides, in the second transfer, as shown in FIG. 17, the stable position of the belt is changed by the entry of a sheet and the skewing of the belt sometimes occurs similarly during the transfer. Besides, since the transfer is performed while the sheet itself is rotated, an image is sometimes distorted as shown in FIG. 18.
The distortion of the image as stated above has been conventionally dealt with by providing a mechanical adjustment mechanism. For example, with respect to the skewing of the intermediate transfer belt, a mechanism is provided by which the tension of the roll over which the belt is stretched can be changed between one end and the other end in the lateral width direction of the belt, and the stable position of the belt can be changed. Besides, with respect to the rotation of the sheet at the time of second transfer, an adjustment mechanism of nip pressure is provided in the BTR system, and an adjustment mechanism between shafts on which the second transfer belt is stretched is provided in the BTB system. Both of these adjustment mechanisms require a considerably large space for mounting, and the cost is also relatively expensive.
On the other hand, in the fixing unit, heat is applied, and at the same time, force to draw the sheet is applied so far. That is, in the fixing unit, the roll is formed so that the diameter in both ends is slightly larger than that in the center, and the force to expand the sheet outward is applied. This force serves to smooth the wrinkles of the sheet. The method as stated above is a technique generally used as a countermeasure against paper wrinkles. However, by this, the sheet is slightly deformed as shown in FIG. 19, and an image on the sheet is also deformed as shown in the figure. Besides, to be exact, with respect to the influence of heat given on the sheet, the quantity of the influence is different between the leading end of the sheet and the trailing end, and as shown in FIG. 20, the width of the sheet sometimes becomes different between the leading end and the trailing end depending on moisture content distribution. Besides, by the influence of the eccentricity of the roll, as shown in FIGS. 21A and 21B, the sheet sometimes cockles.
With respect to the deformation caused in the fixing unit, in view of a trade-off with other basic performances, a positive correction has not been preformed so far.
The defect of the image as described above degrades the quality of the image, and particularly influences the registration performance in printing. | {
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Various embodiments relate generally to a semiconductor memory device and a method of operating the same.
Either non-volatile or volatile type of semiconductor memory devices utilizes a semiconductor material such as silicon Si, germanium Ge, gallium arsenide GaAs, indium phosphide InP, etc.
A volatile memory device would lose the stored data if power is not supplied. The volatile memory device includes a static RAM ‘SRAM’, a dynamic RAM ‘DRAM’, a synchronous DRAM ‘SDRAM’ and so on. A non-volatile memory device on the other hand retains the stored data even though power is not supplied. The non-volatile memory device includes a read only memory ‘ROM’, a programmable ROM ‘PROM’, an electrically programmable ROM ‘EPROM’, an electrically erasable and programmable ROM ‘EEPROM’, a flash memory, a phase-change RAM ‘PCRAM’, a magnetic RAM ‘MRAM’, a resistive RAM ‘ReRAM’, a ferroelectric RAM ‘FeRAM’, etc. Flash memory devices are generally of a NOR or NAND type.
In recent, implementing a three-dimensional array structure in a semiconductor memory device has been an area of study to enhance its integrity and high integration. | {
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This invention relates to a men""s disposable urine holding bag adapted to be suitably used by, for example, bedridden patients, aged men or incontinent patients.
Japanese Utility Model Application Disclosure No. 1985-69114 describes a men""s disposable urine holding bag dimensioned to be longitudinally long and comprising a liquid-pervious topsheet, a liquid-impervious backsheet and a liquid-absorbent core disposed between these two sheets. The bag is formed at its upper end with a penis insertion mouth and the penis is inserted into the bag through the insertion mouth.
In the bag disclosed in the aforesaid Disclosure, the portions of the top- and backsheets extending outward beyond the peripheral edge of the core are continuously bonded together along the bond zone extending along the longitudinally opposite ends as well as the transversely opposite side edges of the bag by means of hot melt adhesive or heat-sealing technique. Such continuously bonded periphery creates a feeling of discomfort and irritation against the wearer when the bonded periphery is in contact with the wearer, since the bonded periphery might be excessively hardened, depending on a width of the bonded periphery.
An object of the invention is to provide a men""s disposable urine holding bag that is designed so as to be free from a possibility that a bond zone of the bag might create a feeling of discomfort and irritation against the wearer and an amount of discharged urine might leak out through the bond zone.
According to this invention, there is provided a men""s disposable urine holding bag comprising: a flexible liquid-impervious base sheet; a mouth for insertion of the penis defined by bonding transversely opposite side edges of the base sheet; a body fluid absorbent panel attached to an inner side of the base sheet; the side edges of the base sheet being intermittently bonded to define a bond zone along the side edges of the base sheet; and the bond zone having a water pressure resistance of 50-1500 mm.
With the men""s disposable urine holding bag according to this invention, there is no possibility that the bond zone of the bag might be excessively hardened and therefore create a feeling of discomfort and irritation against the wearer and an amount of urine having reached the bond zone of the bag might permeate the bond zone. | {
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Semiconductors are widely used in integrated circuits for electronic devices such as computers and televisions. These integrated circuits typically combine many transistors on a single crystal silicon chip to perform complex functions and store data. The need to integrate more functions and more storage capacity onto a chip has caused the semiconductor industry to search for ways to shrink, or scale, the size of individual transistors and other devices commonly integrated on a chip. However, scaling devices to smaller dimensions can create a multitude of undesirable effects. One of these effects is an increase in the capacitive coupling between conductors in a circuit, since the capacitive coupling is inversely proportional to the distance between the conductors. This coupling may limit the ultimate speed of the device or otherwise inhibit proper device operation, if steps are not taken to reduce the coupling.
The capacitance between conductors is also highly dependent on the insulator, or dielectric, used to separate them. Conventional semiconductor fabrication commonly employs silicon dioxide as a dielectric, which has a dielectric constant of about 3.9. The lowest possible dielectric constant, 1.0, is the dielectric constant of a vacuum. By substituting a partial vacuum for a silicon dioxide dielectric between conductors, capacitive coupling would be reduced by a rough factor of 3.9, as one example.
Others have devised methods for creating partial vacuum dielectrics on semiconductor devices to reduce capacitive coupling. One method in particular (U.S. Pat. No. 4,987,101) comprises depositing a temporary dielectric layer of a material such as poly-para-xylylene between conductors, capping the structure with a layer of oxide, etching holes through the cap layer, selectively removing the temporary dielectric layer, and patching the holes. This method is rather complex and requires a large number of processing steps to create partial vacuum dielectrics. The process may also adversely affect the structural strength and heat transfer capability of the device. | {
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Field
The present disclosure relates to methods, systems, apparatuses and/or non-transitory computer readable media for validating coded information, and more specifically to systems and apparatuses for formatting and/or validating encoded information, and methods and non-transitory computer readable media for validating the same.
Description
Various techniques currently exist for encoding and/or validating coded information. Coded information may be used to express various types of information for use in many different types of applications, such as data gathering applications, real-time tracking applications, transmittal of information to stand alone electronic appliance applications, etc. While there is a great range of applications that encoded information may be used with, and great utility may be derived from the use of encoded information, one particular challenge faced with the use of a new encoded information system is generating wide adoption of the new encoded information system by various stakeholders/actors. More particularly, some of the issues that prohibit and/or decrease the adoption of a new encoded information system are directly caused by the expense and inconvenience of having to acquire and install new hardware elements compatible with the new encoded information system and/or upgrading existing hardware elements to be compatible with the new encoded information system. Another issue inhibiting the adoption of new encoded information systems pertains to issues where pre-existing hardware systems for validating encoded information may use proprietary and/or customized hardware elements that have limited to no upgrade capability. For example, a pre-existing hardware system may not have sufficient memory capacity, processing capability, networking capability, etc., to support a new and/or updated encoded information system. This is particularly worrisome when a particular encoded information system requires new, additional, and/or updated security functionality, rule sets, procedures, etc., to account for or deter potential attacks, hacks, fraud, etc., from being performed on the hardware system. Therefore, there exists a demand for formatting and/or validating apparatuses, systems, methods, and non-transitory computer readable media that enable the upgrading of pre-existing encoded information systems to be compatible with new encoded information systems. There also exists a demand for formatting and/or validating apparatuses, systems, methods, and non-transitory computer readable media that may operate in conjunction with future encoded information hardware systems without requiring special modification and/or customization of the future encoded information hardware system. | {
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This invention relates generally to the field of containers, and more particularly to a plastic floatable container for holding live bait or the like while being towed behind a boat, customarily referred to as a trolling bucket.
Trolling buckets are well known in the art and generally comprise a container in which live bait such as minnows, together with a quantity of water, may be carried as by towing the same behind a boat, in order to keep the live bait fresh until ready for actual use. A highly desirable form of trolling buckets will be seen in U.S. Pat. No. 3,728,812, commonly assigned with the instant application, the entire disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference. From the foregoing U.S. patent it will be seen that trolling buckets ordinarily are substantially closed, although they include an access opening to permit bait or the like to be placed within, or removed from, the interior chamber. Normally, such opening is closed or blocked by a door member which is capable of being pivoted to an opened position within the interior of the bucket.
Prior devices of the type described require that the door means be held in an opened position against a spring loading when access to the interior is necessary. Maintaining the door in such an opened position is sometimes difficult, and limits the ability of the user to perform other functions during loading of the trolling bucket. | {
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To enable intelligent man-machine interaction, attention control and object recognition are widely recognized as important issues. Due to the difficulty of scene segmentation and object recognition in real-world scenes, most work in this area has concentrated on explicitly or implicitly constrained scenarios, e.g. uncluttered background, homogenous coloring of foreground objects, or predefined objects classes. It remains difficult, however, to bridge the gap between the low level perceptual cues and the symbolic levels of object representations.
Current approaches for object learning are based on probabilistic and Bayesian methods (Krishnapuram B., C. M. Bishop, and M. Szummer, Generative models and Bayesian model comparison for shape recognition, Proceedings Ninth International Workshop on Frontiers in Handwriting Recognition, 2004, which is incorporated by reference herein in its entirety. J. Winn and N. Joijic, Locus: Learning object classes with unsupervised segmentation, Intl. Conf. on Computer Vision, 2005 which is incorporated by reference herein in its entirety. These demonstrate learning prototypic object categories together with their varying shape from natural images, but their methods are computationally extremely demanding and are not suitable for online and interactive learning.
To facilitate visual processing and to reduce search spaces, cognitive vision systems can use attention based vision control to generate fixations. On the lower level, attention control can be based on topographically ordered maps to focus the system resources to certain points of interest. For example in Joseph A. Driscoll, Richard Alan Peters II, and Kyle R. Cave, A visual attention network for a humanoid robot, Proceedings of the IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS-98), Victoria, B.C., Oct. 12-16 1998, which is incorporated by reference herein in its entirety. These maps primarily use simple stimuli like color, oriented edges, or intensity, although mechanisms to integrate higher level information have also been proposed, for example, in J. J. Steil, G. Heidemann, J. Jockusch, R. Rae, N. Jungclaus, and H. Ritter, Guiding attention for grasping tasks by gestural instruction: The gravis-robot architecture, Proc. IROS 2001, pages 1570-1577. IEEE, 2001, which is incorporated by reference herein in its entirety. One approach to reach the semantic level is to search for known objects at the current fixation point with a holistic object classification system (for example in J. J. Steil and H. Ritter, Learning issues in a multi-modal robot-instruction scenario, IEEE Int. Conf. Robotics, Intelligent Systems and Signal Processing, 2003, which is incorporated by reference herein in its entirety) and to store objects recognized in a symbolic memory (for example in G. Heidemann, A multi-purpose visual classification system, B. Reusch, Editor, Proc. 7th Fuzzy Days, Dortmund, 2001, pages 305-312, Springer-Verlag, 2001; and in G. Heidemann and H. Ritter, Combining multiple neural nets for visual feature selection and classification, Proceedings of ICANN 99, 1999, which are incorporated by reference herein in their entirety). Due to the need for a large amount of training images from different views, the object classification itself has to be trained offline beforehand.
It is generally believed that segmentation and recognition are closely connected and some authors try to solve both approaches concurrently (see, for example, Stella X. Yu, Ralph Gross, and Jianbo Shi, Concurrent object recognition and segmentation by graph partitioning, Online proceedings of the Neural Information Processing Systems conference, 2002, which is incorporated by reference herein in its entirety), which results in rather complex architectures without online capabilities. In more classical approaches, segmentation is treated as an independent preprocessing step towards recognition. However, in such learning contexts it is crucial to use unsupervised segmentation, because a priori knowledge about the object to segment is not available.
To enable unsupervised segmentation, several cluster based segmentation approaches use different color spaces and sometimes the pixel coordinates as feature space. Such approaches are found in: Guo Dong and Ming Xie, Color clustering and learning for image segmentation based on neural networks, IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks, 16(14):925-936, 2005; and Y. Jiang and Z.-H. Zhou, Some ensemble-based image segmentation, Neural Processing Letters, 20(3):171-178, 2004, which are incorporated by reference herein in their entirety. They apply a vector quantization method like k-means or self organizing maps (SOM) to partition this space and segment the image with respect to the codebook vectors. Similarly, some approaches index the colors, quantize this index space, and back project this quantization to segments. For example in Jung Kim Robert Li, Image compression using fast transformed vector quantization, Applied Imagery Pattern Recognition Workshop, page 141, 2000; and Dorin Comaniciu and Richard Grisel, Image coding using transform vector quantization with training set synthesis, Signal Process., 82(11): 1649-1663, 2002, which are incorporated by reference herein in their entirety. Though such quantization methods can potentially be fast, they assume that objects have to be homogeneously colored and can be covered by one segment. If stereo images are available, disparity information can be used as segmentation cue (see N. H. Kim and Jai Song Park, Segmentation of object regions using depth information, ICIP, pages 231-234, 2004 which is incorporated by reference herein in its entirety) and some approaches try to support unreliable disparity information by additional color segmentation (see, Hai Tao and Harpreet S. Sawhney, Global matching criterion and color segmentation based stereo, Workshop on the Application of Computer Vision, pages 246-253, 2000 which is incorporated by reference herein in its entirety). In these schemes color segmentation is not learned and uses strong underlying homogeneity assumptions. Implicitly it is also assumed in these approaches that the objects to segment are isolated from each other, which in real scenarios often not the case, in particular not if humans manipulate and present objects to be learned to the machine.
Some approaches have been made to combine unsupervised color clustering methods with top down information about the object derived from other sources (see E. Borenstein, E. Sharon, and S. Ullman, Combining top-down and bottom-up segmentation, 2004 Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition Workshop (CVPRW'04), 4:46, 2004; and M. J. Bravo and H. Farid, Object segmentation by top-down processes, Visual Cognition, 10(4):471-491, 2003 which are incorporated by reference herein in their entirety). This approach has the advantage that in the unsupervised step smaller segments can be generated which may over-segment the objects. Thus homogeneity assumptions can be relaxed, however, the top down information must be sufficient to resolve the resulting ambiguities.
In Borenstein (cited above) therefore, the unsupervised step consists of generating a hierarchy of segments ordered in a tree and a successive optimization procedure to label the segments as belonging to the object with respect to a cost function based on the top-level information.
The complexity of this method is linear in the number of pixels, but still not sufficiently fast to allow real-time performance processing with several frames per second. | {
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(1) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a developing unit which is used in an image forming apparatus for forming images based on electrophotography and which develops a static latent image into a developed image by supplying the developer to the photosensitive member by way of a developer support having a developer magnetically attracted to the peripheral surface thereof.
(2) Description of the Prior Art
An image forming apparatus for forming images based on electrophotography has a developing unit which supplies a developer to the surface of the photosensitive member after it has been exposed to light of an image. The developer supplied from the developing unit develops the static latent image which has been formed on the surface of the photosensitive member by the photo-conducting effect into a developer image. For example, a typical developing unit which develops the static latent image using a dual-component developer consisting of a toner powder of thermoplastic resin and a magnetic carrier powder is comprised of a cylindrical developing sleeve that incorporates fixed magnets and rotates opposing the surface of the photosensitive member and an agitator for agitating the dual component developer stored therein.
Inside the developing unit, the toner which has been agitated by the agitator electrostatically adheres to the surface of the carrier while the carrier having the toner electrostatically adhering on the surface thereof is mainly magnetically attracted to the surface of the developing sleeve under the magnetic fields of the fixed magnets. The carrier attracting the toner thereon is conveyed by the rotation of the developing sleeve to the developing position where the sleeve opposes the surface of photosensitive member. When the toner on the surface of the developing sleeve faces the static latent image on the surface of the photosensitive member, it transfers from the carrier to the static latent image on the surface of the photosensitive member while the carrier alone remains attracted to the surface of the developing sleeve and returns into the developing unit. Accordingly, the adherence of the toner becomes irregular in the axial direction of the developing sleeve after the sleeve has passed by the surface of the photosensitive member. If this situation is left as it is, it will produce density unevenness in the image causing degradation of image quality in subsequent image formation.
In general, in a developing unit, two magnetic poles of a like polarity are arranged adjacent to each other as the fixed magnets incorporated inside the developing sleeve, on the downstream side of the developing position with respect to the rotational direction of the developing sleeve so that a repulsive magnetic field may be generated between these two magnetic poles to temporarily remove the dual-component developer from the developing sleeve. Then the dual-component developer thus removed from the developing sleeve is agitated by an agitator arranged in the repulsive magnetic field to make the toner concentration uniform, in the axial direction of the developing sleeve. Thereafter the dual-component developer is re-attracted to the surface of the developing sleeve by the magnetic pole which is positioned on the more downstream side.
However, it is difficult to completely remove the dual-component developer from the surface of the developing sleeve by only the action of the repulsive magnetic field which is generated by the fixed magnets inserted within the developing sleeve, so some part of the dual-component developer having passed through the developing position cannot be removed from the surface of the developing sleeve and may be conveyed again to the developing position for the subsequent image formation. In such a case, it is impossible to completely negate image density unevenness due to irregularity of the toner concentration. A dual-component developer adheres to the surface of the developing sleeve not only by magnetic attraction but also by electrostatic attraction. For example, if a dual-component developer is composed of a small-sized toner having a mean particle diameter of about 4 to 10 .mu.m and a small-sized carrier having a mean particle diameter of about 20 to 50 .mu.m, the static charge per unit weight of the toner or the carrier becomes relatively high so that the electrostatic attraction of the developer to the surface of the developing sleeve becomes stronger, thus further making it difficult to remove the dual-component developer from the surface of the developing sleeve.
When as in the above way the dual-component developer having passed through the developing position cannot be removed from the developing sleeve and is repeatedly used for image formation, it is impossible to avoid degradation of image quality due to image density unevenness. In particular, the reproducibility of the image during image formation at a high resolution using a micro-toner will be deteriorated. Further, the carrier which has remained attracted to the surface of the developing sleeve and hence has continuously received mechanical loads, so that the dual-component developer becomes degraded at an early stage, which poses problems of a further lowering of the image density and fogging in the image.
To deal with these problems, in a conventional developing unit, for example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Hei 6 No.194962 has offered a configuration in which a magnetic member is arranged in the repulsive magnetic field formed by the fixed magnets within the conveyance path of the dual-component developer attracted to the surface of the developing sleeve so that it is magnetized by magnetic induction of the fixed magnets, whereby the dual-component developer is fully removed from the surface of the developer support by using a magnetic brush formed between the developer support and the magnetic member.
Another method has also been proposed in which a cleaning member is arranged so as to abut the surface of the developing sleeve in the repulsive magnetic field formed by the fixed magnets within the conveyance path of the dual-component developer attracted to the surface of the developing sleeve in order to mechanically remove the dual-component developer from the surface of the developing sleeve.
However, when a magnetic member or cleaning member is laid out in the conveyance path of the dual-component developer, they will hinder the normal flow state of the dual-component developer in the developing unit. So it becomes impossible to uniformly attract an adequate amount of the dual-component developer to the surface of the developing sleeve, thus defeating the object and contributing to disadvantages such as degradation of image quality, etc. In particular, in the configuration in which a cleaning member abutting the surface of the developing sleeve removes the dual-component developer from the surface of the developing sleeve, the dual-component toner receives heavy mechanical loads, which not only causes toner aggregation and early degradation of the dual-component developer but also a considerable increase of the driving torque of the developing sleeve and/or frictional heat due to rubbing between the developing sleeve and the cleaning member.
Since in all the conventional configurations it is assumed that a repulsive magnetic field generated by the fixed magnets inserted within the developing sleeve is used in order to remove the dual-component developer from the surface of the developing sleeve, if the developing sleeve is made smaller as to its diameter with the demand for making the image forming apparatus compact, high precision is needed for setting the polarizing positions of the fixed magnets, resulting in increased cost.
These problems occur not only in developing units using a dual-component developer containing a toner and a carrier but also in a developing unit which magnetically holds a mono-component developer of a magnetic toner on a developer support and supplies the photosensitive member with it. | {
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Selectors are devices that may control the electrical properties of electronic devices containing said selectors. Selectors may be combined with memristors to form crossbar arrays of memory devices. Memristors are devices that can be programmed to different resistive states by applying a programming energy, such as a voltage. Large crossbar arrays of memory devices can be used in a variety of applications, including random access memory, non-volatile solid state memory, programmable logic, signal processing control systems, pattern recognition, and other applications. | {
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1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to a device for securing containers, food items, bottles, cartons, etc. from moving on refrigerator shelves. There are thousands of recreational vehicles, motor homes, travel trailers, camping trailers, boats, etc. having refrigerators, where retention of stores items on refrigerator shelves is important.
2. Description of the Prior Art
A common problem of recreational type vehicles equipped with refrigerators for the preservation of food is that the food contained therein, is normally contained in bottles, cans, cartons, etc. Such containers are placed on the shelves within said refrigerators and adequate means to retain them on said shelves during vehicle movement is not normally provided.
Refrigerators installed in such type vehicles and not provided with any device for holding the food items in position while the vehicle is in motion can cause serious inconvenience to the vehicle user. That is if the food is spilled, then most of the food in the refrigerator must be removed for cleaning purposes and/or special handling or packing of some sort must be done to prevent future breakage and spilling. If this is not done, many times spillage, breakage and losses do occur. There is a serious need for a simple adjustable device that can be attached to refrigerator shelves to secure the food containers in place while the vehicle is in motion. The prior art shows various adjustable refrigerator retaining devices for the shelves thereof such as shown by the patent to Bishop, U.S. Pat. No. 2,280,371; the patent to Moser, U.S. Pat. No. 3,752,324 and the patent to Hammar, U.S. Pat. No. 3,877, 580. The patent to Field, U.S. Pat. No. 3,497,081 also shows a shelf device which may be pertinent to this invention. The U.S. Pat. Nos.; to Campbell, 3,063,567; Kretizburg, 3,739,918; and Dorn, 3,800,958; all show adjustable retainers for book racks or cloth bolts which may be pertinent to this invention. None of the known patents teach the new and novel structure as disclosed by this invention herein. | {
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1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to digital microscopy and more specifically relates to the processing and analysis of digital slides.
2. Related Art
In the growing field virtual microscopy, the first challenges to be overcome were related to the digital imaging of microscope slides (“scanning”). Conventional image tiling is one approach that is widely prevalent in the virtual microscopy industry. The image tiling approach to scanning microscope slides employs a square or rectangular camera called a fixed area charge coupled device (“CCD”). The CCD camera takes hundreds or thousands of individual pictures (“image tiles”) of adjacent areas on the microscope slide. Then the thousands of image tiles are each separately stored as a bitmap (“bmp”) or a JPEG (“jpg”) file on a computer. An index file is also required in order to identify the name of each image tile and its relative location in the overall image. As would be expected, the taking of thousands of individual pictures and storing each picture as an image tile along with creation of the index files takes a significantly long time. A conventional image tiling approach is described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,101,265. Although slow and cumbersome, conventional image tiling solutions did succeed in scanning microscope slides to create a digital slide.
Once the digital slide was present in a computer system, computer assisted image analysis became possible. Two significant drawbacks of processing image tiles are the computational expense of aligning tiles and correlating overlaps, and the presence of image artifacts along the seams between tiles. These problems each prevented practical application of automated image analysis to digital slide images. It has also proved difficult to maintain accurate focus for each of thousands of tiles in a digital slide produced in this way, reducing image quality.
A radical change in the virtual microscopy field has recently been developed by Aperio Technologies, Inc. that uses a new line scanning system to create a digital slide in minutes. It also creates the digital slide as a single TIFF file. This revolutionary line scanning system employs a line scan camera (i.e., called a linear-array detector) in conjunction with specialized optics, as described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,711,283 entitled “Fully Automatic Rapid Microscope Slide Scanner,” which is currently being marketed under the name ScanScope®.
In addition to rapid data capture and creating a single file digital slide, the line scanning system also benefits from several advantages that ensure consistently superior imagery data. First, focus of the linear array can be adjusted from one scan line to the next, while image tiling systems are limited to a single focal plane for an entire image tile. Second, because the linear array sensor in a line scanning system is one-dimensional (i.e., a line), there are no optical aberrations along the scanning axis. In an image tiling system, the optical aberrations are circularly symmetric about the center of the image tile. Third, the linear array sensor has a complete (100%) fill factor, providing full pixel resolution (8 bits per color channel), unlike color CCD cameras that lose spatial resolution because color values from non-adjacent pixels must be interpolated (e.g., using a Bayer Mask).
The creation of a single file digital slide is an enormously significant improvement. Managing a single image file for a digital slide requires significantly less operating system overhead than the management of thousands of individual image tiles and the corresponding index file. Additionally, alignment of component images may be computed once, then re-used many times for automated processing.
Therefore, introduction of the superior line scanning system for creating single file digital slides has created a need in the industry for efficient digital slide image analysis systems and methods that meet the unique needs imposed by the new technology. | {
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This invention relates generally to injection molding and more particularly to multi-cavity thermal gated injection molding apparatus to coinject melt from two or more melt sources having a melt distribution plate mounted between the common manifold and the nozzle leading to each gate.
Coinjection of more than one type of melt is known in the art, as shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,894,823 to Hanning which issued July 15, 1975, 4,373,886 to Hehl which issued Feb. 25, 1983, 4,657,496 to Ozeki et al. which issued Apr. 14, 1987 and 4,717,324 to Schad et al. Which issued Jan. 5, 1988. Thermal gated apparatus having heating and cooling in a cavity forming insert separate from the nozzle as shown in the applicant's Canadian patent application serial number 2,030,287 filed Nov. 19, 1990 entitled "Injection Molding Apparatus having Separate Heating Element in the Cavity Forming Insert".
While the above coinjection systems show each melt passage having only a single channel, the applicant's German patent application serial numbers P40 32499.0 entitled "A Method of Producing a Multi-Component Injection Moulded Part and a Multi-Cavity Injection Moulding System", P40 32500.8 entitled "A Method of Producing a Multi-Component Injection Moulded Part and a Multi-Cavity Injection Moulding System", P40 32508.3 entitled "An Injection Nozzle" and P40 32509.1 entitled "An Injection Nozzle for an Injection Moulding System and a Method of Producing the Same", all filed Oct. 12, 1990 show valve gated coinjection molding systems having an outer passage which extends through a pair of spaced channels in each nozzle. In order to thermal gate larger volumes of materials, it is preferable to have a heated cavity forming insert separate from each nozzle, and that each outer melt passage have more than two channels. However, it is also necessary to maintain balanced melt flow, avoid dead spots and minimize shear stress. | {
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Higher Order Ambisonics (HOA) offers the advantage of capturing a complete sound field in the vicinity of a specific location in the three dimensional space, which location is called ‘sweet spot’. Such HOA representation is independent of a specific loudspeaker set-up, in contrast to channel-based techniques like stereo or surround. But this flexibility is at the expense of a decoding process required for playback of the HOA representation on a particular loudspeaker set-up.
HOA is based on the description of the complex amplitudes of the air pressure for individual angular wave numbers k for positions x in the vicinity of a desired listener position, which without loss of generality may be assumed to be the origin of a spherical coordinate system, using a truncated Spherical Harmonics (SH) expansion. The spatial resolution of this representation improves with a growing maximum order N of the expansion. Unfortunately, the number of expansion coefficients 0 grows quadratically with the order N, i.e. 0=(N+1)2. For example, typical HOA representations using order N=4 require 0=25 HOA coefficients. Given a desired sampling rate fS and the number Nb of bits per sample, the total bit rate for the transmission of an HOA signal representation is determined by 0·fS·Nb, and transmission of an HOA signal representation of order N=4 with a sampling rate of fS=48 kHz employing Nb=16 bits per sample is resulting in a bit rate of 19.2 MBits/s. Thus, compression of HOA signal representations is highly desirable.
An overview of existing spatial audio compression approaches can be found in patent application EP 10306472.1 or in I. Elfitri, B. Günel, A. M. Kondoz, “Multichannel Audio Coding Based on Analysis by Synthesis”, Proceedings of the IEEE, vol. 99, no. 4, pp. 657-670, April 2011.
The following techniques are more relevant with respect to the invention.
B-format signals, which are equivalent to Ambisonics representations of first order, can be compressed using Directional Audio Coding (DirAC) as described in V. Pulkki, “Spatial Sound Reproduction with Directional Audio Coding”, Journal of Audio Eng. Society, vol. 55(6), pp. 503-516, 2007. In one version proposed for teleconference applications, the B-format signal is coded into a single omni-directional signal as well as side information in the form of a single direction and a diffuseness parameter per frequency band. However, the resulting drastic reduction of the data rate comes at the price of a minor signal quality obtained at reproduction. Further, DirAC is limited to the compression of Ambisonics representations of first order, which suffer from a very low spatial resolution.
The known methods for compression of HOA representations with N>1 are quite rare. One of them performs direct encoding of individual HOA coefficient sequences employing the perceptual Advanced Audio Coding (AAC) codec, c.f. E. Hellerud, I. Burnett, A. Solvang, U. Peter Svensson, “Encoding Higher Order Ambisonics with AAC”, 124th AES Convention, Amsterdam, 2008. However, the inherent problem with such approach is the perceptual coding of signals that are never listened to. The reconstructed playback signals are usually obtained by a weighted sum of the HOA coefficient sequences. That is why there is a high probability for the unmasking of perceptual coding noise when the decompressed HOA representation is rendered on a particular loudspeaker set-up. In more technical terms, the major problem for perceptual coding noise unmasking is the high cross-correlations between the individual HOA coefficients sequences. Because the coded noise signals in the individual HOA coefficient sequences are usually uncorrelated with each other, there may occur a constructive superposition of the perceptual coding noise while at the same time the noise-free HOA coefficient sequences are cancelled at superposition. A further problem is that the mentioned cross correlations lead to a reduced efficiency of the perceptual coders.
In order to minimise the extent these effects, it is proposed in EP 10306472.1 to transform the HOA representation to an equivalent representation in the spatial domain before perceptual coding. The spatial domain signals correspond to conventional directional signals, and would correspond to the loudspeaker signals if the loudspeakers were positioned in exactly the same directions as those assumed for the spatial domain transform.
The transform to spatial domain reduces the cross-correlations between the individual spatial domain signals. However, the cross-correlations are not completely eliminated. An example for relatively high cross-correlations is a directional signal, whose direction falls in-between the adjacent directions covered by the spatial domain signals.
A further disadvantage of EP 10306472.1 and the above-mentioned Hellerud et al. article is that the number of perceptually coded signals is (N+1)2, where N is the order of the HOA representation. Therefore, the data rate for the compressed HOA representation is growing quadratically with the Ambisonics order.
The inventive compression processing performs a decomposition of an HOA sound field representation into a directional component and an ambient component. In particular for the computation of the directional sound field component a new processing is described below for the estimation of several dominant sound directions.
Regarding existing methods for direction estimation based on Ambisonics, the above-mentioned Pulkki article describes one method in connection with DirAC coding for the estimation of the direction, based on the B-format sound field representation. The direction is obtained from the average intensity vector, which points to the direction of flow of the sound field energy. An alternative based on the B-format is proposed in D. Levin, S. Gannot, E. A. P. Habets, “Direction-of-Arrival Estimation using Acoustic Vector Sensors in the Presence of Noise”, IEEE Proc. of the ICASSP, pp. 105-108, 2011. The direction estimation is performed iteratively by searching for that direction which provides the maximum power of a beam former output signal steered into that direction. However, both approaches are constrained to the B-format for the direction estimation, which suffers from a relatively low spatial resolution. An additional disadvantage is that the estimation is restricted to only a single dominant direction.
HOA representations offer an improved spatial resolution and thus allow an improved estimation of several dominant directions. The existing methods performing an estimation of several directions based on HOA sound field representations are quite rare. An approach based on compressive sensing is proposed in N. Epain, C. Jin, A. van Schaik, “The Application of Compressive Sampling to the Analysis and Synthesis of Spatial Sound Fields”, 127th Convention of the Audio Eng. Soc., New York, 2009, and in A. Wabnitz, N. Epain, A. van Schaik, C Jin, “Time Domain Reconstruction of Spatial Sound Fields Using Compressed Sensing”, IEEE Proc. of the ICASSP, pp. 465-468, 2011. The main idea is to assume the sound field to be spatially sparse, i.e. to consist of only a small number of directional signals. Following allocation of a high number of test directions on the sphere, an optimisation algorithm is employed in order to find as few test directions as possible together with the corresponding directional signals, such that they are well described by the given HOA representation. This method provides an improved spatial resolution compared to that which is actually provided by the given HOA representation, since it circumvents the spatial dispersion resulting from a limited order of the given HOA representation. However, the performance of the algorithm heavily depends on whether the sparsity assumption is satisfied. In particular, the approach fails if the sound field contains any minor additional ambient components, or if the HOA representation is affected by noise which will occur when it is computed from multi-channel recordings.
A further, rather intuitive method is to transform the given HOA representation to the spatial domain as described in B. Rafaely, “Plane-wave decomposition of the sound field on a sphere by spherical convolution”, J. Acoust. Soc. Am., vol. 4, no. 116, pp. 2149-2157, October 2004, and then to search for maxima in the directional powers. The disadvantage of this approach is that the presence of ambient components leads to a blurring of the directional power distribution and to a displacement of the maxima of the directional powers compared to the absence of any ambient component.
Invention
A problem to be solved by the invention is to provide a compression for HOA signals whereby the high spatial resolution of the HOA signal representation is still kept. This problem is solved by the methods disclosed in claims 1 and 2. Apparatuses that utilise these methods are disclosed in claims 3 and 4.
The invention addresses the compression of Higher Order Ambisonics HOA representations of sound fields. In this application, the term ‘HOA’ denotes the Higher Order Ambisonics representation as such as well as a correspondingly encoded or represented audio signal. Dominant sound directions are estimated and the HOA signal representation is decomposed into a number of dominant directional signals in time domain and related direction information, and an ambient component in HOA domain, followed by compression of the ambient component by reducing its order. After that decomposition, the ambient HOA component of reduced order is transformed to the spatial domain, and is perceptually coded together with the directional signals.
At receiver or decoder side, the encoded directional signals and the order-reduced encoded ambient component are perceptually decompressed. The perceptually decompressed ambient signals are transformed to an HOA domain representation of reduced order, followed by order extension. The total HOA representation is re-composed from the directional signals and the corresponding direction information and from the original-order ambient HOA component.
Advantageously, the ambient sound field component can be represented with sufficient accuracy by an HOA representation having a lower than original order, and the extraction of the dominant directional signals ensures that, following compression and decompression, a high spatial resolution is still achieved.
In principle, the inventive method is suited for compressing a Higher Order Ambisonics HOA signal representation, said method including the steps: estimating dominant directions, wherein said dominant direction estimation is dependent on a directional power distribution of the energetically dominant HOA components; decomposing or decoding the HOA signal representation into a number of dominant directional signals in time domain and related direction information, and a residual ambient component in HOA domain, wherein said residual ambient component represents the difference between said HOA signal representation and a representation of said dominant directional signals; compressing said residual ambient component by reducing its order as compared to its original order; transforming said residual ambient HOA component of reduced order to the spatial domain; perceptually encoding said dominant directional signals and said transformed residual ambient HOA component.
In principle, the inventive method is suited for decompressing a Higher Order Ambisonics HOA signal representation that was compressed by the steps: estimating dominant directions, wherein said dominant direction estimation is dependent on a directional power distribution of the energetically dominant HOA components; decomposing or decoding the HOA signal representation into a number of dominant directional signals in time domain and related direction information, and a residual ambient component in HOA domain, wherein said residual ambient component represents the difference between said HOA signal representation and a representation of said dominant directional signals; compressing said residual ambient component by reducing its order as compared to its original order; transforming said residual ambient HOA component of reduced order to the spatial domain; perceptually encoding said dominant directional signals and said transformed residual ambient HOA component,said method including the steps: perceptually decoding said perceptually encoded dominant directional signals and said perceptually encoded transformed residual ambient HOA component; inverse transforming said perceptually decoded transformed residual ambient HOA component so as to get an HOA domain representation; performing an order extension of said inverse transformed residual ambient HOA component so as to establish an original-order ambient HOA component; composing said perceptually decoded dominant directional signals, said direction information and said original-order extended ambient HOA component so as to get an HOA signal representation.
In principle the inventive apparatus is suited for compressing a Higher Order Ambisonics HOA signal representation, said apparatus including: means being adapted for estimating dominant directions, wherein said dominant direction estimation is dependent on a directional power distribution of the energetically dominant HOA components; means being adapted for decomposing or decoding the HOA signal representation into a number of dominant directional signals in time domain and related direction information, and a residual ambient component in HOA domain, wherein said residual ambient component represents the difference between said HOA signal representation and a representation of said dominant directional signals; means being adapted for compressing said residual ambient component by reducing its order as compared to its original order; means being adapted for transforming said residual ambient HOA component of reduced order to the spatial domain; means being adapted for perceptually encoding said dominant directional signals and said transformed residual ambient HOA component.
In principle the inventive apparatus is suited for decompressing a Higher Order Ambisonics HOA signal representation that was compressed by the steps: estimating dominant directions, wherein said dominant direction estimation is dependent on a directional power distribution of the energetically dominant HOA components; decomposing or decoding the HOA signal representation into a number of dominant directional signals in time domain and related direction information, and a residual ambient component in HOA domain, wherein said residual ambient component represents the difference between said HOA signal representation and a representation of said dominant directional signals; compressing said residual ambient component by reducing its order as compared to its original order; transforming said residual ambient HOA component of reduced order to the spatial domain; perceptually encoding said dominant directional signals and said transformed residual ambient HOA component,said apparatus including: means being adapted for perceptually decoding said perceptually encoded dominant directional signals and said perceptually encoded transformed residual ambient HOA component; means being adapted for inverse transforming said perceptually decoded transformed residual ambient HOA component so as to get an HOA domain representation; means being adapted for performing an order extension of said inverse transformed residual ambient HOA component so as to establish an original-order ambient HOA component; means being adapted for composing said perceptually decoded dominant directional signals, said direction information and said original-order extended ambient HOA component so as to get an HOA signal representation.
In other embodiments, an apparatus for decompressing a Higher Order Ambisonics (HOA) signal representation is disclosed. The apparatus includes an input interface that receives an encoded directional signal and an encoded ambient signal and an audio decoder that perceptually decodes the encoded directional signal and encoded ambient signal to produce a decoded directional signal and a decoded ambient signal, respectively. The apparatus further includes an extractor for obtaining side information related to the directional signal and an inverse transformer for converting the decoded ambient signal from a spatial domain to an HOA domain representation of the ambient signal. The apparatus also includes a synthesizer for recomposing a Higher Order Ambisonics (HOA) signal from the HOA domain representation of the ambient signal and the decoded directional signal. The side information includes a direction of the direction signal selected from a set of uniformly spaced directions.
Advantageous additional embodiments of the invention are disclosed in the respective dependent claims. | {
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} |
1. Field
The following description relates to object recognition using an artificial neuron network.
2. Description of Related Art
In order to recognize an object, RGB data from camera sensors may be received, and handcrafted features may be extracted from the data to perform image processing. If the image processing depends only on the handcrafted features extracted from the image data obtained by the camera, the accuracy of recognition may be sensitive to changes in weather or illuminance. In some circumstances, even object recognition may not be possible, such as, for example, when driving on an unpaved road or in traffic congestion. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
Presently public places, such as restaurants, make available to the consumers dispensers of tissue paper items such as serviettes table napkins, towels or sanitary paper.
In general, a napkin dispenser comprises an open-ended case having a substantially parallelepiped shape and including a front panel fitted with a transverse slot through which the napkins are extracted. The napkins are assembled as a pack inside the dispenser either in a mere juxtaposed manner, or independently of each other, or interleafed with each other. Such dispensers can be set down flat or vertically against a wall.
Common standard dispensers of this type are usually assembled from multiple sections. A body may comprise up to four separate parts, which are assembled by rivets, welds or other means, depending on the material used. In addition, the body may include an end wall and guiding means for a push plate for napkins or the like. These components must also be attached to selected parts of the inner walls of said body. As a rule, the cost of the dispenser and the assembly thereof is directly related to the number of component parts.
In order to refill a dispenser, a user must remove the front panel to access the space into which a stack of napkins is to be loaded. This may either be done by simply removing the front panel, to expose the pus-plate, whereby a new stack of napkins is inserted into the body of the dispenser against the action of the spring loaded push plate. A problem with this type of loose front panel is that it may be difficult to remove, as there is no obvious way to grip the panel. Also, when replacing the front panel after filling, the stack of napkins must be pushed back while the front panel is repositioned and re-attached. This relatively complicated procedure will more often than not cause at least the outermost napkin of the stack to be damaged or displaced relative to the dispensing opening.
In an alternative dispenser, a user must locate and release one or more latches positioned inside the dispenser in order to allow the front panel and an associated holder to be withdrawn from the dispenser for re-filling. Such a dispenser is known from U.S. Pat. No. 4,329,001. As in the above example, a problem with this type of dispenser is that it may be difficult to remove, as there is no obvious way to grip the panel. The user must first know that the front panel is retained by a latch (or latches), and second know where to find said latch. This is not obvious, as the latch is accessed through the dispensing opening, requiring the user to be trained for opening the dispenser, or that the body of the dispenser is provided with instructions for refilling. Apart from detracting from the design and general appearance of the dispenser, such instructions may be worn away with time. A user not familiar with the dispenser may therefore cause damage to the retaining mechanism trying to force the front panel of the dispenser open.
Hence there exists a need for a dispenser provided with means for facilitating an improved method of opening and closing of such a dispenser for the purpose of re-filling. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
Most flush tanks are provided with tank covers to cover the reservoir of water stored in the flush tanks. Typically, such tank covers are made of the same material as the flush tanks, which is porcelain. Such porcelain flush tank covers are heavy and undecorative. Moreover, it is common to place articles on top of the flush tank covers. However, the articles oftentimes fall off of the flush tank covers because cf the lack of back and side rails. Before washing one's hands or before bathing, it is common to remove jewelry from one's body and place such jewelry on the counter of the sink in the bathroom or on top of the flush tank cover. Therefore, it is highly desirable to provide a bathroom with a hidden compartment for storing therein valuables such as, jewelry to prevent misplacement of such jewelry. Moreover, a hidden compartment is highly desirable for storing dentures, contact lenses, or other personal items. Such a hidden compartment is particularly advantageous for a bathroom which does not have a medicine cabinet. Thereby, such a hidden compartment would provide a storage compartment for the placement of articles to reduce clutter on the counter around the bathroom sink.
Several devices have been patented which are aimed at flush tank covers.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,181,176, to Nagy et al., entitled "ARTICLE RETAINING BAND FOR FLUSH TANKS" discloses a retaining guard for use on and in conjunction with a porcelain or equivalent lid or cover which is commonly used on a flush tank. The retaining guard serves to prevent miscellaneous articles from being displaced from the top surface of the cover and falling into an uncovered bowl. As shown the retaining guard is disposed in the front of the tank lid.
U.S. Pat. No. 1,835,540, to Tilden, entitled "COVER FOR FLUSH TANKS" discloses a flush tank cover adapted to operatively support one or more toilet paper rolls. The flush tank cover is provided with detachable cores or spindles upon which the roles of toilet paper are usually mounted and freely rotate. U.S. Pat. No. 1,030,059, to Schoenthaler, entitled "FLUSH TANK COVER" discloses a flush tank cover made of porcelain which has a hollow portion to reduce the dead weight of such flush tank cover.
U.S. Pat. No. 909,965, to Thompson, entitled "FLUSH TANK FOR WATER CLOSETS" discloses a wooden case having a sheet metal lining spaced apart therefrom, a corrugated member interposed between the lining and the wooden case.
U.S. Pat. No. 825,921, to Miller, entitled "TANK FOR WATER CLOSETS" discloses a casing made of veneer which is shaped to enclose the front and end walls of a reservoir-box.
U.S. Design Pat. No. Des 351, 463, to McCormick, entitled "TOILET TANK VENTILATING COVER" illustrates an ornamental design for a toilet tank ventilating cover.
While each of the above flush tank covers function as desired, none of them have a flush tank cover which is preferably constructed of wood and includes a spindle railing to prevent items placed on the flush tank cover from slipping off the back and sides of the flush tank cover and a hidden storage compartment accessible through a top mounted trap door. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a toll pass display assembly and system and, more particularly, pertains to removably retaining a toll pass in position for being scanned when driving a vehicle.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The use of other vehicle pass holders of known methods and apparatuses is known in the prior art. More specifically, other known vehicle pass holders of known methods and apparatuses previously devised and utilized for the purpose of holding toll pass card in place are known to consist basically of familiar, expected, and obvious structural configurations, notwithstanding the myriad of designs encompassed by the crowded prior art which has been developed for the fulfillment of countless objectives and requirements.
By way of example, U.S. Pat. No. 3,531,880 issued Jan. 8, 1969 to Ramee discloses a combination identification display and gate key card. U.S. Pat. No. 3,533,178 to Strohmair issued Jun. 3, 1968 discloses a holder for registration certificate. U.S. Pat. No. 5,016,145 issued May 14, 1991 to Singleton discloses an illuminated display vehicle ornament with various coupling means. U.S. Pat. No. 5,099,594 issued MaR. 31, 1992 to Reas et al discloses a vehicle mounted message display with suction cups and interposed hook and loop fasteners. U.S. Pat. No. 5,423,140 issued Jun. 13, 1995 to Nuspl discloses a two sided display for changeably displaying identical indicia. U.S. Pat. No. 5,960,572 issued Oct. 5, 1999 to DeVito discloses a toll pass holder for temporarily retaining the housing to an interior surface of a windshield. U.S. Pat. No. 5,679,045 issued Aug. 13, 1991 to Adams discloses a suction cup for use in windows.
While these devices fulfill their respective, particular objectives and requirements, the aforementioned patents do not describe a toll pass display assembly and system that allows removably retaining a toll pass in position for being scanned when driving a vehicle.
In this respect, the toll pass display and assembly system according to the present invention substantially departs from the conventional concepts and designs of the prior art, and in doing so provides an apparatus primarily developed for the purpose of removably retaining a toll pass in position for being scanned when driving a vehicle.
Therefore, it can be appreciated that there exists a continuing need for a new and improved toll pass display system which can be used for removably retaining a toll pass in position for being scanned when driving a vehicle. In this regard, the present invention substantially fulfills this need.
In view of the foregoing disadvantages inherent in the known types of other known vehicle pass holders of known methods and apparatuses now present in the prior art, the present invention provides an improved toll pass display system. As such, the general purpose of the present invention, which will be described subsequently in greater detail, is to provide a new and improved toll pass display system and method which has all the advantages of the prior art and none of the disadvantages.
To attain this, the present invention essentially comprises a toll pass display and assembly system for removably retaining a toll pass in position for being scanned when driving a vehicle through a toll booth. The system comprises, in combination, a mounting plate, a suction cup, a gripping tab physically part of the suction cup, a suction cup coupler physically part of the suction cup, a pair of hook and loop fastener strips and a toll card. The mounting plate is fabricated of a relatively hard transparent elastomeric material. The preferred material is a clear acrylic. It and has a generally rectangular configuration with a front surface and a rear surface. There is also a long top edge and a parallel bottom edge and two parallel side edges there between. The mounting plate has a horizontal width between the side edges of between about 3 and 4 inches, preferably about 3.5 inches. It has a vertical height between the top and bottom edges of between about 1.5 and 2.5 inches, preferably about 2 inches. The mounting plate has a central aperture there through. Next provided is a suction cup which is fabricated of a flexible elastomeric material. The preferred material is an ultraviolet (UV) resistant polyvinyl chloride (PVC) compound light-diffusing safety ring so there is no hot focal point to damage nearby surfaces for UV and heat protection of the pass. The suction cup has an internal generally spherical concave surface and an external generally spherical convex surface. There is provided a round circumferential edge there between. The concave depth of the suction cup is between about 0.25 and 0.75 inches in depth, and preferably about 0.50 inches. The round circumferential edge has a diameter of between about 2.0 and 2.75 inches, and preferably about 2.25 inches. The round circumferential edge is greater than the plate height but less the plate width. Next there is provided a gripping tab extending radially outwardly from the round circumferential side edge of the suction cup. The tab physically part of the suction cup is integrally formed with the suction cup and protrudes laterally between about 0.125 and 0.375 inches, and preferably about 0.25 inches from the round circumferential side edge in a direction parallel with the side edges of the suction cup. There is next provided a suction cup coupler physically part of the suction cup which is fabricated of the same type of flexible elastomeric material as the suction cup. It is formed integrally therewith. The coupler has a front section coupled to the center of the convex surface of the suction cup and a rear section extending through the aperture of the mounting plate. The suction cup, tab and coupler are fabricated of a transparent flexible elastomeric material. The mounting plate is fabricated of a rigid elastomeric material. There is next provided a pair of hook and loop fastener strips fabricated of a transparent elastomeric material. The strips are coupled to the front surface of the mounting plate and extend from between adjacent to the bottom edge and adjacent to the top edge of the mounting plate. Each strip is between about 0.25 and 0.75 inches in width, preferably about 0.50 inches. Lastly there is provided a generally rectangular toll card. The card has a front and a rear. There is also an upper edge and parallel lower edge and two parallel side edges there between. The toll card has a pair of hook and loop fastener strips on the rear face to releasably mate with and attach to the hook and loop fastener strips of the mounting plate. The card is able to be scanned by an electronic device as the card passes through a toll booth scanning station. The card is also readily separable from the mounting plate when a driver leaves the vehicle in which it is mounted, to facilitate security of the card. In the alternative, the suction cup is detached from the vehicle so that the assembly and system may be removed from the vehicle.
There has thus been outlined, rather broadly, the more important features of the invention in order that the detailed description thereof that follows may be better understood and in order that the present contribution to the art may be better appreciated. There are, of course, additional features of the invention that will be described hereinafter and which will form the subject matter of the claims attached.
In this respect, before explaining at least one embodiment of the invention in detail, it is to be understood that the invention is not limited in its application to the details of construction and to the arrangements of the components set forth in the following description or illustrated in the drawings. The invention is capable of other embodiments and of being practiced and carried out in various ways. Also, it is to be understood that the phraseology and terminology employed herein are for the purpose of descriptions and should not be regarded as limiting.
As such, those skilled in the art will appreciate that the conception, upon which this disclosure is based, may readily be utilized as a basis for the designing of other structures, methods and systems for carrying out the several purposes of the present invention. It is important, therefore, that the claims be regarded as including such equivalent constructions insofar as they do not depart from the spirit and scope of the present invention.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a new and improved toll pass display system which has all of the advantages of the prior art other known vehicle pass holders of known methods and apparatuses and none of the disadvantages.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a new and improved toll pass display system which may be easily and efficiently manufactured and marketed.
It is further object of the present invention to provide a new and improved toll pass display system which is of durable and reliable constructions.
An even further object of the present invention is to provide a new and improved toll pass display system which is susceptible of a low cost of manufacture with regard to both materials and labor, and which accordingly is then susceptible of low prices of sale to the consuming public, thereby making such toll pass display system economically available to the buying public.
Even still another object of the present invention is to provide a toll pass display system for removably retaining a toll pass in position for being scanned when driving a vehicle.
Additional objects and advantages of the invention include:
a) single suction cup for easy, one-handed operation;
b) no moving parts; becomes part of toll pass and is removed as an assembly;
c) additional ultraviolet and heat shielding for toll pass;
d) easy portability between vehicles, rentals, lease and commercial;
e) requires no modification to the toll pass for use.
Lastly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a new and improved toll pass display assembly comprising a mounting plate, a suction cup and coupler. The mounting plate is fabricated of a relatively hard material and has a generally rectangular configuration. It has a front surface and a rear surface. There is a long top edge with a parallel bottom edge and two parallel side edges there between. There is next provided a suction cup which is fabricated of a flexible elastomeric material. The suction cup has an internal generally spherical concave surface and an external generally spherical convex surface with a round circumferential edge there between. Lastly, there is provided a suction cup coupler. The coupler is fabricated of the same type of flexible elastomeric material as the suction cup and formed integrally therewith. The coupler has a front section coupled to the mounting. A pair of hook and loop fastener strips are coupled to the front surface of the mounting plate.
These together with other objects of the invention, along with the various features of novelty which characterize the invention, are pointed out with particularity in the claims annexed to and forming a part of this disclosure. For a better understanding of the invention, its operating advantages and the specific objects attained by its uses, reference should be had to the accompanying drawings and descriptive matter in which there is illustrated preferred embodiments of the invention. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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Wireless communication may be used as a means of accessing a computer network and have certain advantages over wired communications for accessing a computer network. One of those advantages is a lower cost of infrastructure to provide access to many separate locations or addresses compared to wired communications. This is the so-called “last mile” problem. To use wireless communication to access a network, a customer premises needs to have at least one transceiver in active communication with another transceiver that is connected to the network. Typically, the cost of purchasing and installing these transceivers is much less than a wired connection to the customer's premises.
To facilitate wireless communications, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) has promulgated a number of wireless standards. These include the 802.11 (WiFi) standards and the 802.16 (WiMax) standards. These standards may include specifications for various aspects of wireless communication with a network including processes for registering on the network, carrier modulation, frequency bands of operation, and message formats. Another term for frequency bands is channels.
Overview
A method of operating a communication system is disclosed. The method comprises acquiring a first frequency band for a first device to wirelessly communicate a first data stream. The center frequency of the first frequency band is f1. A second frequency band is acquired for a second device to wirelessly communicate a second data stream. The center frequency of the second frequency band is f2. A third frequency band is found that is below the first frequency band and is available. The center frequency of the third frequency band is f3. A fourth frequency band is found that is above the first frequency band and is available. The center frequency of the fourth frequency band is f4. If a frequency determination factor of (f1−f3)/(f4−f1) is greater than one, the third frequency band is acquired for the second device.
A communication system is disclosed. The communication system comprises a controller that assigns a first wireless communication device to exchange communication in a first frequency band. The controller also assigns a second wireless communication device to exchange communication in the first frequency band. The center frequency of the first frequency band is fC. A scanner finds a lower available frequency band and an upper available frequency band. The center frequency of the lower available frequency band is fL. The center frequency of the upper available frequency band is fU, and fL<fC<fU. If a frequency determination factor of (fC−fL)/(fU−fC) is greater than one, the controller reassigns the second wireless communication device to exchange communication in the lower frequency band. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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Various methods are available for attaching proteins to solid surfaces. Most rely on either (1) non-specific adsorption, or (2) the reaction of chemical groups within proteins (e.g., amino and carboxylic acid groups) with surfaces containing complementary reactive groups. In both cases the protein is attached to the surface in random orientations. The use of recombinant affinity tags addresses the orientation issue, but the interactions of the tags are often reversible. Therefore, the recombinant affinity tags require large mediator proteins in order to remain stable over the course of subsequent assays.
Methods for the chemoselective attachment of proteins to surfaces have been developed. (See J. A. Camarero, “Chemoselective Ligation Methods for the Ordered Attachment of Proteins to Surfaces”, in Solid-fluid Interfaces to Nanostructural Engineering, J. J. de Yoreo, Editor. 2004, Plenum/Kluwer Academic Publisher New York and C. L. Cheung et al., Fabrication of Assembled Virus Nanostructures on Templates of Chemoselective Linkers Formed by Scanning Probe Nanolithography, J. Am. Chem. Soc. 125, p. 6848, 2003.) These methods rely on the introduction of two unique and mutually reactive groups on the protein and the support surface. The reaction between these two groups usually gives rise to the selective attachment of the protein to the surface with total control over the orientation. However, these methods, although highly selective, rely on uncatalyzed pseudo-bimolecular reactions with little or no entropic activation at all. This lack of entropic activation means that the efficiency of these bimolecular-like reactions will depend strongly on the concentration of the reagents (i.e., the protein to be attached). | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
1. Field of the Invention
This invention is related to the field of integrated circuits and, more particularly, to command processing in a peripheral component in an integrated circuit.
2. Description of the Related Art
In a peripheral interface controller that has significant data bandwidth, one of the challenges that can occur is providing the control input to the peripheral interface controller from an external processor. Typically, the same internal interface to the peripheral controller that transfers data between the peripheral interface controller and memory is used to provide the control input from the external processor (e.g. via a series of writes to control registers in the peripheral interface controller). While the data transfers are occurring, the memory to peripheral interface can be saturated with the data transfers. Accordingly, control inputs to arrange for the next set of data transfers can be effectively locked out until the current data transfers complete. During the time that the control inputs are being provided, the external peripheral interface controlled by the peripheral interface controller can be idle.
One mechanism for reducing the contention on the peripheral to memory interface is to include a processor in the peripheral interface controller, executing a program to control the peripheral interface controller hardware. However, such a mechanism is expensive in a number of ways: in monetary terms to acquire the processor (either as a discrete component or as intellectual property that can be incorporated into the peripheral interface controller design); in terms of space occupied by the peripheral interface controller when the processor is included; and in terms of power consumed by the processor. Additionally, the program to be executed is stored in the system memory, and thus instruction fetches can compete with the data transfers on the peripheral to memory interface. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
In modern automotive applications, various control systems are interested in positional information for the clutch. To determine such positional information, position encoders have been used to monitor the position of a control gear of the clutch actuation system, thereby determining positional information for the clutch. However, these conventional encoders are designed to operate over the entire range of motion of the control gear. Since clutch actuation only occurs at the end of this range of motion, the full resolution of the encoder is not being utilized to monitor the area of interest within the range of motion exhibited by the control gear.
In order to increase precision of the positional information reported by the encoder, it is desirable to provide an adjustable encoder suitable for use with a clutch actuation system. Preferably, a position indicator associated with the encoder may be adjustable so that the range of motion detected by the encoder can be correlated to an area of interest within the range of motion exhibited by the control gear. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
Heretofore, a hybrid electric vehicle and an electric vehicle use a high-power brushless motor. To control the brushless motor of the hybrid electric vehicle, it is necessary to accurately ascertain the rotation position (angle) of a motor rotating shaft. This is because, for switching control of energization to each coil of the motor stator, the rotation position of a motor rotor has to be accurately ascertained. In vehicles, specifically, drivability is apt to deteriorate due to motor cogging. Reducing the cogging is therefore desired. Accordingly, there is a large demand for accurate switching of coil energization.
Herein, for detection of the position of the rotating shaft of each motor mounted in the hybrid electric vehicle and the electric vehicle, a resolver is used to satisfy such functions as high-temperature resistance, noise resistance, vibration resistance, and high-humid resistance. The resolver is built in the motor and directly mounted to the motor rotating shaft.
FIG. 33 is a cross sectional view of a motor 200 with rotation detector disclosed in JP 2007-124757A. A motor stator 202 is fixed on the inner periphery of a motor casing 208. A bus bar 201 is connected to one end of the motor stator 202. A resolver stator 203 is fixed to the inner peripheral end face of the bus bar 201. The resolver stator 203 includes a resolver stator coil 204 in a wound form.
On the other hand, a pair of bearings 209 are fixed in the motor casing 208 and rotatably support a rotating shaft 205 of the motor rotor 206. On the rotating shaft 205, a resolver rotor 207 is fixedly mounted so as to face the resolver stator 203. The resolver stator 203 and the resolver rotor 207 constitute a resolver serving as a rotation detector.
JP 9(1997)-65617A also discloses a similar invention to JP 2007-124757A. A difference between the '617 invention and the '757 invention is that the resolver stator 203 of the '757 invention is attached to the bus bar 201 while the resolver stator of the '617 invention is fixed to a casing.
On the other hand, JP 2000-292205A discloses an invention using an exciting signal modulated onto a high frequency carrier, thereby reducing the number of turns of a coil in the resolver stator to achieve cost reduction. This invention enables a reduction in the number of turns of a coil and thus can use a sheet coil without using a winding coil. The resolver therefore can be made compact. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a pole assembly of a tent and, more particularly, to a pole assembly of a tent which prevents sagging of the tent thereby maintaining the tent to be tight and makes it possible to control the height of the tent thereby easily disjointing the tent.
2. Description of the Conventional Art
In general, pole assemblies constituted frames of a tent, on which tent cloth is disposed to make man's space of action, are provided in pole rests.
As is generally known, these pole assemblies join with a plurality of poles and joining means formed on each end of the poles, and elastic members are inserted inside poles to easily joint and disjoint the tent whereby a plurality of poles constitute one assembly.
The tent is jointed by inserting the pole assemblies through the pole rests, and symmetrically connecting ends of the pole assemblies fixing the tent cloth by passing therethrough with pole holes mounted on lower side of the tent and formed in tent joint rings.
However, in these pole assemblies of the tent, each pole is joined by the joining means whereby the whole length of the pole assemblies is constantly fixed.
Accordingly, there are defects that, as the tent cloth is sagged by external force or the pole rests are extended and so on, the tent is not maintained to be tight so that man's activity is discomforted inside the tent and, in case that the tent is maintained to be tight, disjointing is difficult. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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The invention is based on a speed governor of the generic type described hereinafter. A speed or rpm governor of this kind is the subject of German Patent Application P No. 33 01 416.7, in which the governor spring is a pre-stressed compression spring disposed between the two supporting parts with those parts being embodied such that they are pressed against one another under the influence of a compression spring. To maintain spacing and accommodate the compression spring, one of the supporting parts is embodied as an actuating rod guided on the other supporting part and coupled to the governor lever.
In this embodiment of the speed governor, the fuel injection pump must be shut off and opened up in order to vary the spring characteristic, that is, the effective length or pre-stressing of the spring. Because of manufacturing tolerances of the various parts of an rpm governor such as the flyweights, and because of the governor spring characteristic, component part tolerances and installation tolerances, deviations in the speed droop, or P degree, occur--that is, deviations in the breakaway curve upon attaining the maximum rpm. Especially in internal combustion engines provided for driving engine-generator sets, the associated fuel injection pump must be regulated very accurately, and the P degree in particular must be adhered to very exactly. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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Cars include many different electro-mechanical and electronic applications. Examples include braking systems, electronic security systems, radios, Compact Disc (CD) players, internal and external lighting systems, temperature control systems, locking systems, seat adjustment systems, speed control systems, mirror adjustment systems, directional indicators, etc. Generally the processors that control these different car systems do not talk to each other. For example, the car radio does not communicate with the car heating system or the car braking system. This means that each one of these car systems operate independently and do not talk to the other car systems. For example, separate processors and separate user interfaces are required for the car temperature control system and for the car audio system. Many of these different car processors may be underutilized since they are only used intermittently.
Even when multiple processors in the car do talk to each other, they are usually so tightly coupled together that it is impossible to change any one of these processors without disrupting all of the systems that are linked together. For example, some cars may have a dashboard interface that controls both internal car temperature and a car radio. The car radio cannot be replaced with a different model and still work with the dashboard interface and the car temperature controller.
Integration of new systems into a car is also limited. Car systems are designed and selected well before the car is ever built. A custom wiring harness is then designed to connect only those car systems selected for the car. A car owner cannot incorporate new systems into the existing car. For example, a car may not originally come with a navigation system. An after market navigation system from another manufacturer cannot be integrated into the existing car.
Because after market devices can not be integrated into car control and interface systems, it is often difficult for the driver to try and operate these after market devices. For example, the car driver has to operate the after market navigation system from a completely new interface, such as the keyboard and screen of a laptop computer. The driver then has to operate the laptop computer not from the front dashboard of the car, but from the passenger seat or the car. This makes many after market devices both difficult and dangerous to operate while driving.
The present invention addresses this and other problems associated with the prior art. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
Acute coronary and cerebrovascular accidents are currently the first death cause in the world. In addition, the global incidence of recurrence and death in the 6 month post-treatment period after an acute coronary syndrome is still 8-15%. In the case of acute coronary syndrome with ST segment elevation, mechanical treatment with coronary angioplasty and introduction of a stent is highly efficient to urgently restore coronary artery flow, but does not prevent morbidity/mortality for about 15% of patients in the next 6 months.
Thrombolytic treatments, which are based on long term fibrinolytic, anticoagulant and anti-aggregating drugs associations, give even less encouraging results. Indeed, despite improvements in medical treatment of thrombosis, morbidity/mortality at 6 months is similar to that observed for acute coronary syndrome without segment ST elevation.
Concerning cerebrovascular ischemic accidents, treatments are still very limited due to the generally late caring of most patients and to the hemorrhagic risk of currently available anti-thrombotic treatments.
There is thus a real pressing clinical need for improving treatments for cardiovascular diseases, and especially for new molecules with improved features compared to available molecules, in particular for molecules with a reduced hemorrhagic effect.
Platelets-collagen interactions are critical in the appearance of acute arterial thrombosis and post-thrombotic vascular remodeling. Glycoprotein VI (GPVI), the main receptor for platelets activation by collagen, has been demonstrated in animals to play a role in experimental thrombosis, vascular remodeling, atherothrombosis and acute myocardial ischemia.
Contrary to WIND integrin antagonists, which are currently used in thrombosis treatment and inhibit platelets final activation phase, GPVI is implicated into platelets initial activation phase, and GPVI antagonists should thus prevent not only platelet aggregation, but also secondary agonists liberation as well a growth factors and cytokines secretion resulting into vascular lesions development. In addition, GPVI deficit is not associated with a high hemorrhagic risk, which is a crucial feature for patient's safety. Finally, GPVI expression is limited to platelets, and thus represents a perfectly specific target for anti-thrombosis treatment.
GPVI antagonists should thus be efficient for specifically and efficiently preventing primary or secondary thrombosis, while involving only a low hemorrhagic risk.
Various kinds of potential GPVI antagonists have been generated. In one approach, a soluble GPVI recombinant protein has been generated, which is a fusion protein between GPVI extracellular domain and human Ig Fc domain (see for instance WO 01/00810 (1) and WO 03/008454 (2)). Thus soluble recombinant GPVI protein competes with platelet GPVI for binding collagen. Encouraging results were first obtained with this soluble GPVI protein in a thrombosis murine model (3), but these results were not confirmed (4). In addition, this approach involves structural, functional and pharmacological disadvantages. First, this compound is a high molecular weight protein (˜160 kDa) the half life of which is expected to be short. Since GPVI contains at least one cleavage site for proteases, the hydrolysis of the soluble recombinant GPVI-Fc protein has to be envisaged. When bound to collagen, the protein will expose its Fc domain to the blood stream. Human platelets (but not mice platelets) and leucocytes express the low affinity Fc receptor (FcγRIIA) at their surface. Cross-linking of the platelet FcγRIIA by immobilized GPVI-Fc is susceptible to activate platelets and thus to have an opposite effect to the one expected. The timing and the dose to which the protein should be administrated also cause problem. Once bound to collagen platelets are rapidly and irreversibly activated. Thus, to be effective GPVI-Fc should be administrated before platelet activation that is before the thrombotic event, a situation rare in current medicine. Furthermore, the amount of protein that should be administrated will vary as a function of the size and the nature of the vascular lesion, a parameter impossible to predict.
Many others have tried to develop neutralizing monoclonal antibodies directed against human GPVI. For instance, EP 1224942 (5) and EP 1228768 (6) disclose a monoclonal anti-GPVI antibody JAQ1, which specifically binds to mouse GPVI, for the treatment of thrombotic disease. JAQ1 antibody induces irreversible internalization of the GPVI receptor on mouse platelets.
EP1538165 (7) describes another monoclonal anti-GPVI antibody hGP 5C4, which Fab fragment was found to have marked inhibitory effects on the main physiological functions of platelets induced by collagen stimulation: stimulation of collagen-mediated physiological activation parameters PAC-1 and CD 62P-Selectin was completely prevented by hGP 5C4 Fab, and hGP 5C4 Fab potently inhibited human platelet aggregation ex vivo without any intrinsic activity.
WO 2005/111083 (8) describes 4 monoclonal anti-GPVI antibodies OM1, OM2, OM3 and OM4, that were found to inhibit GPVI binding to collagen, collagen-induced secretion and thromboxane A2 (TXA2) formation in vitro, as well as ex vivo collagen-induced platelet aggregation after intravenous injection to Cynomolgus monkeys. OM4 also appears to inhibit thrombus formation in a rat thrombosis model.
WO 01/00810 (1) also describes various monoclonal anti-GPVI antibodies named 7I20.2, 8M14.3, 3F8.1, 9E18.3, 3J24.2, 6E12.3, IP10.2, 4L7.3, 7H4.6, 9O12.2, 7H14.1, and 9E18.2, as well as several scFv fragments named A9, A10, C9, A4, C10, B4, C3 and D11. Some of these antibodies and scFv fragments were found to inhibit GPVI binding to collagen, including antibodies 8M14.3, 3F8.1, 9E18.3, 3J24.2, 6E12.3, IP10.2, 4L7.3, 7H4.6, and 9O12.2, and scFv fragments A10, A4, C10, B4, C3 and D11.
In addition, 9O12.2 Fab fragments were found to completely block collagen-induced platelet aggregation and secretion, to inhibit the procoagulant activity of collagen-stimulated platelets and platelet adhesion to collagen in static conditions, to impair platelet adhesion, and to prevent thrombi formation under arterial flow conditions (9).
However, none of the currently known anti-GPVI antibodies have proven really efficient in vivo for preventing and/or treating cardiovascular diseases implicating platelet aggregation such as arterial and venous thrombosis, restenosis, acute coronary syndrome, and cerebrovascular accidents due to atheroscleroris. Until recently the different anti-GPVI antibodies that have been reported appeared not fitted for the development of an antithrombotic for medical use in human. Only few antibodies have been reported to have inhibitory properties. This is the case of JAQ1 that is directed to mouse GPVI and does not cross react with human GPVI (10). Human scFvs directed to human GPVI have also been reported to be inhibitory (11,12) but their affinity appears to be low. Very recently, new inhibitory antibodies with a good affinity for human GPVI have been characterised (13) and proposed to be developed as therapeutic tools.
However, cross-linking of GPVI at the platelet surface by a divalent or multivalent ligand results in platelet activation. This is the case of the 9O12.2 IgGs that activate platelets via GPVI dimerisation and via cross-linking of GPVI to the low affinity Fc receptor (FcγRIIA) (9). Fab′2 also activate platelets via GPVI dimerisation (9). In contrast, monovalent 9O12.2 Fab fragments are inhibitory. However these fragments could not be used in therapeutic due to their size and their animal origin which makes them immunogenic in human patients.
There is thus still a need for an efficient neutralizing GPVI antagonist, which would inhibit with high efficiency the initial phase of platelets aggregation, with a low hemorrhagic risk, as well as a low immunogenic effect. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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When a device such as a smart phone provides directions to a destination, use of the device's GPS transceiver to output the directions can drain the device's battery undesirably fast. As recognized herein, this can be frustrating to a user because the drain on the battery can leave the device without enough battery power to execute other tasks and because the battery may run out of power before another opportunity to charge it arises. There are currently no adequate solutions to the foregoing computer-related, technological problem. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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Glass sheets and other substrates can be coated with a stack of transparent, metal-containing films to vary the properties of the coated substrates. Particularly desirable are coatings characterized by their ability to transmit visible light while reducing the transmittance of other wavelengths of radiation, especially radiation in the infrared spectrum. These characteristics are useful for minimizing radiative heat transfer while controlling visible transmission. Coated glass of this nature is useful as architectural glass and as automotive glass.
Low-emissivity coatings and other controlled transmission coatings typically include one or more infrared-reflective films and two or more antireflective transparent dielectric films. The infrared-reflective films reduce the transmission of radiant heat through the coating. The infrared-reflective films commonly are conductive metals (e.g., silver, gold, or copper), although transparent conductive oxides (e.g., ITO) or conductive nitrides (e.g., TiN) may also be used. The transparent dielectric films are used primarily to reduce visible reflection, to provide mechanical and chemical protection for the sensitive infrared-reflective films, and to control other optical coating properties, such as color. Commonly used transparent dielectrics include oxides of zinc, tin, and titanium, as well as nitrides and oxynitrides of silicon. Such coatings can be deposited on glass sheets through the use of well-known magnetron sputtering techniques.
It is known to deposit a thin metallic layer directly over an infrared-reflective silver film to protect the silver film during deposition of a subsequent dielectric layer and/or during tempering or any other heat treatment. These protective layers (sometimes called “sacrificial layers” or “blocker layers”) have been formed of various materials, such as titanium, niobium, niobium-titanium, or NiCr.
The particular material from which the blocker layer is formed impacts various properties and characteristics of the coating. Titanium blocker layers, for example, have been found to impart excellent scratch resistance in low-emissivity coatings. They also adhere well to both an underlying silver film and an overlying oxide film. Niobium has been found to be an advantageous blocker layer material as well. In addition, niobium-titanium has been found to be particularly beneficial in certain respects.
It is sometimes necessary to heat coated glass sheets to temperatures at or near the softening point of glass (726 degrees C.), e.g., to temper the glass or enable it to be bent into desired shapes. Tempering is important for glass used in automobile windows, and particularly for glass used in automobile windshields, as well as in various architectural glazing applications. Upon breaking, tempered glass exhibits a break pattern in which the glass shatters into many small pieces, rather than into large dangerous shards. During tempering, coated glass is typically subjected to elevated temperatures on the order of about 700 degrees C. Moreover, the coated glass must be able to withstand such temperatures for substantial periods of time. Certain film stacks having silver as the infrared-reflective film are not able to withstand such high temperature processing without unacceptable deterioration of the silver film.
To avoid this problem, glass sheets can be heated (e.g., bent or tempered) before they are coated. The desired films can then be applied after heating. This procedure, however, tends to be complicated and costly and, more problematically, may produce non-uniform coatings.
In many cases, it is desirable for temperable low-emissivity coatings to have only an upper blocker layer (i.e., without any lower blocker layer). In other cases, a reflective silver film is protected from deterioration at high temperatures by sandwiching the silver between two metallic blocker layers. In such cases, the two blocker layers are thick enough and reactive enough that when the coated glass is heated to high temperatures, these films capture oxygen and/or nitrogen that would otherwise reach and react with the silver.
In addition to the infrared reflection provided by low-emissivity coatings, these coatings can provide desired shading properties. As is well known, the solar heat gain coefficient (SHGC) of a window is the fraction of incident solar radiation that is admitted through a window. There are a number of applications where low solar heat gain windows are of particular benefit. In warm climates, it is especially desirable to have low solar heat gain windows. For example, solar heat gain coefficients of about 0.4 and below are generally recommended for buildings in the southern United States. Further, windows that are exposed to a lot of undesirable sun benefit from having a low solar heat gain coefficient. For example, windows on the east or west side of a building tend to get a lot of sun in the morning and afternoon. For applications like these, the solar heat gain coefficient of a window can play a vital role in maintaining a comfortable environment within the building. Thus, it is beneficial to provide windows of this nature with coatings that establish a low solar heat gain coefficient (i.e., high shading ability coatings).
Tradeoffs are sometimes made in low-emissivity coatings in order to obtain the desired shading properties. For example, the films selected to achieve a low SHGC may have the effect of restricting the visible reflectance to a higher level than is ideal. As a consequence, windows bearing these coatings may have a somewhat mirror-like appearance. It would be desirable to provide a high shading ability coating that has sufficiently low visible reflectance to obviate this mirror-like appearance problem.
In addition to having undesirably high visible reflectance, the reflected or transmitted colors of conventional high shading ability coatings may be less than ideal. For example, these coatings may exhibit hues that are more red or yellow than is desired. To the extent a coating has a colored appearance, it is pleasing if the coating exhibits a transmitted and reflected hue that is blue or blue-green. The chroma of these coatings may also be greater than is desired. In most cases, it is preferable to provide a coating that is as color neutral (i.e., colorless) as possible. Thus, the reflected or transmitted colors of conventional low solar heat gain coatings may be less than ideal, both in terms of hue and chroma.
Some high shading ability low-emissivity coatings that provide advantageous properties have been commercially available for years. While some of these coatings have been more than acceptable, it would be desirable that they have even better mechanical durability, chemical durability, or both.
It would be desirable to provide controlled transmission coatings based on a blocker layer material that can provide exceptional mechanical durability. It would be particularly desirable to provide such a controlled transmission coating based on a blocker layer material that also provides exceptional moisture resistance. Further, it would be desirable to provide controlled transmission coatings that also exhibit pleasing color in reflection, transmission, or both. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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Balloon catheters are used in a variety of medical procedures. For example, in the well-known procedure of percutaneous translumenal coronary angioplasty (PTCA) a balloon catheter is inserted into a coronary artery. Then, the balloon of the catheter is inflated, to force expansion of the walls of the coronary artery to increase the blood flow capacity of the artery, which has been typically reduced by arteriosclerotic lesions.
Catheter balloons for PTCA must be quite strong, to withstand significant inflation pressures. Accordingly, they tend to be somewhat stiff, since their wall thickness must be sufficient to provide the necessary strength. Thus, when deflated, such catheter balloons can flatten in a phenomenon known as "winging", in which the flat, lateral portions of the deflated balloon project laterally outwardly well beyond the rest of the catheter. This is deemed to be undesirable by many practitioners, because of a concern that the flat wings may damage the artery wall as the deflated balloon is advanced through the arterial system into the desired position for inflation. Also, such flat wings can interfere with the manipulation of the catheter and its easy advancement through the arterial system.
In accordance with this invention, an improved balloon configuration for a balloon catheter is provided, to eliminate the undesired "winging" phenomenon which is encountered when the catheter balloon is in deflated condition. Also, the catheter balloon may be stronger than prior art catheter balloons, with improved tensile strength, while exhibiting a reduced wall thickness to improve the flexibility of the balloon. Thus, with the catheter balloon of this invention, PTCA procedures can be performed more effectively, with less concern about damage to coronary arteries by the "winging" phenomenon of the deflated catheter balloon, and with greater ease of catheter advancement through the arterial system. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to an image forming apparatus (e.g., printer) and an image forming system in which information can be transmitted from the image forming apparatus to users who use information processing apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
One conventional system configuration is such that a plurality of personal computers and a printer are linked through a network and the personal computers are always informed of the status of the printer.
Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2001-239725 discloses one such system. A personal computer requests a printer to send information on the current status of the printer and the printer sends the information to the personal computer. The information is displayed on a display of the personal computer. The users receive messages from the printer through, for example, an e-mail message. Such messages include a message that a system maintenance operation will be conducted at a specific date and a time and a message that the printer will be busy at a specific time frame.
The aforementioned information on the current status of the printer and messages are sent through different means, and therefore cause the following inconvenience.
E-mail messages require involvement of maintenance personnel to be sent to individual users on a recipient-to-recipient basis. Some of the users may be omitted inadvertently. One way of ensuring that the messages are delivered to individual recipients is to send the same messages a plurality of times. This increases the mail-handling time of the system and imposes a heavy load on the network. Moreover, the users receive the same e-mails many times.
Users may well forget the information sent through an e-mail if the e-mail is sent many days earlier than a scheduled event that the mail is intended to inform the users. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to the downloading of application programs over a wireless network. More particularly, the invention concerns the individual estimating and display of a length of time to download an application program over a wireless network to a remote module, such as a wireless device, based on calculated data transfer rates.
2. Description of the Related Art
Wireless technology is rapidly evolving and is playing an increasing role in the lives of people throughout the world. Ever-larger numbers of people are relying on this technology directly or indirectly. Wireless technology involves telecommunications in which electromagnetic waves (rather than some form of wire) carry signals over part or all of a communication path. Wireless devices constitute a visible implementation of wireless technology.
Today's wireless devices contain special circuits, such as application-specific integrated circuits (“ASICs”), capable of running a variety of application programs including some that would otherwise run on computers. These application programs include games, books, and information content programs (such as news information, stock quotes, up-to-date weather information, or air flight times and information). These applications may be downloaded onto the wireless devices at the time they are manufactured or later over-the-air using electromagnetic waves.
With the anticipated proliferation of the downloading of programs over-the-air, it will be increasingly important for a user of a wireless device to know how much time is required to download the programs. For example, if the user pays per minute of air-time, the user will want to know how long the download will take, so that the user will have some idea of how much the download will cost (in addition to the cost of the application program, if a charge is associated with the download itself).
However, the length of time required to download application programs over-the-air is extremely variable. The data transfer rate (the rate at which data is transferred wirelessly to a wireless device) changes, in part, due to the inherently dynamic nature of signal-to-noise ratios. In analog and digital communications, the signal-to-noise ratio (“S/N”) is a measure of signal strength relative to background noise. “Noise” is unwanted electrical or electromagnetic energy that degrades the quality of signals and data. Noise can affect any communications regardless of content, such as text, programs, images, audio, and telemetry. The higher the SIN ratio, the faster the wireless device will be able to download an application program.
One reason for changes in S/N ratio is that wireless devices are mobile, leaving the S/N ratio subject to change because the user of the wireless device is moving (such as in a vehicle) either away from a signal, into a tunnel where the signal cannot reach, or in some other manner adversely affecting the S/N ratio.
In addition to the mobile nature of wireless devices, another factor that influences S/N ratio (and thus data transfer rates) is the communications mode of the wireless device. For example, wireless devices utilizing cdmaOne technology, developed by QUALCOMM Incorporated, are capable of achieving a maximum data transfer rate of up to 14.4 kilobits per second. Telephones utilizing the next generation of wireless devices (3G), such as those using CDMA2000 technology, developed by QUALCOMM Incorporated, will be capable of achieving data transfer rates of 115 kilobits per second. Other new products, such as those using the 1×EV technology, developed by QUALCOMM Incorporated, have data transfer rates of 2.4 megabits per second.
Still another factor that influences S/N ratio is electromagnetic interference. Any device or system that generates an electromagnetic field in the radio frequency spectrum may potentially disrupt the operation of wireless devices. Wireless transmitters (such as radio or television transmitters) can produce electromagnetic fields strong enough to severely affect the S/N ratio. For example, although the maximum data transfer rate for cdmaOne technology is 14.4 kilobits per second, due to interfering electromagnetic energy and an uncontrollable radio frequency environment, the average actual data transfer rate for the cdmaOne technology is 9.6 kilobits per second.
For these reasons, it is impossible to determine, in advance, the data transfer rate for wireless devices, as data transfer rates are greatly affected by the mobile nature of wireless devices, the communications mode of the telephone, and electromagnetic interference. Consequently, it would be extremely difficult to provide an accurate estimate, in advance, of the length of time required to download an application program over-the-air onto a wireless device.
In addressing the foregoing concerns, one approach might be to look at download estimates displayed by personal computers. However, computer estimates for the length of time to download application programs have traditionally been calculated based on the size of the application program and the modem speed, both of which are constant numbers. In addition, download estimates for computer programs over the internet are often inaccurate. The computer has no information about the data transfer rates between various outside components of the internet (for example, other outside servers) that may affect the downloading time for a particular program. Thus, in download estimates for computer programs, there is no examination of the data transfer rates immediately preceding a download that might significantly affect the estimate.
As discussed above, the data transfer rates for wireless devices are not constant and vary depending on different factors affecting the S/N ratio. Consequently, certain unsolved problems are to be expected in future attempts to estimate download times of application programs onto wireless devices. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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Carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions have been identified as a major contributor to the phenomenon of global warming and ocean acidification. CO2 is a by-product of combustion and it creates operational, economic, and environmental problems. It is expected that elevated atmospheric concentrations of CO2 and other greenhouse gases will facilitate greater storage of heat within the atmosphere leading to enhanced surface temperatures and rapid climate change. CO2 has also been interacting with the oceans driving down the pH toward 8.0. CO2 monitoring has shown atmospheric CO2 has risen from approximately 280 parts per million (ppm) in the 1950s to approximately 380 ppm today, and is expect to exceed 400 ppm in the next decade. The impact of climate change will likely be economically expensive and environmentally hazardous. Reducing potential risks of climate change will require sequestration of CO2.
SUMMARY
In some embodiments, the invention provides a method for producing a formed building material comprising producing a CO2-sequestering component from divalent cations and a gaseous waste stream comprising CO2, and forming a building material comprising the CO2-sequestering component, wherein the formed building material comprises 5% to 90% (w/w) CO2-sequestering component. In some embodiments, the formed building material comprises 5% to 75% (w/w) CO2-sequestering component. In some embodiments, the formed building material comprises 5% to 50% (w/w) CO2-sequestering component. In some embodiments, the formed building material comprises 5% to 50% (w/w) CO2-sequestering component. The CO2-sequestering component of the formed building material comprises carbonates. In some embodiments, the gaseous waste stream further comprises NOx, SOx, VOCs, particulates, mercury, or a combination thereof. As such, in some embodiments the CO2-sequestering component further comprises co-products of NOx, SOx, VOCs, particulates, mercury, or a combination thereof resulting from conditions used to convert carbon dioxide to carbonates. In some embodiments, the formed building material has a carbon footprint that is neutral or negative. In some embodiments, the formed building material has a carbon footprint that is neutral. In some embodiments, the formed building material has a carbon footprint that is negative. Water for forming the formed building material may be provided by the CO2-sequestering component. In some embodiments, the CO2-sequestering component provides at least 50% of the water for forming the formed building material. Due to the high albedo of the formed building material, the formed building material may continuously reduce carbon emission via reduced lighting demands.
In some embodiments, the invention also provides a formed building material produced by any of the preceding methods. In some embodiments, the formed building material is a brick, a block, a tile, a cement board, a conduit, a beam, a basin, a column, drywall, fiber-cement siding, a slab, an acoustic barrier, or insulation.
In some embodiments, the invention also provides a formed building material comprising a CO2-sequestering component, wherein the formed building material comprises 5% to 90% (w/w) CO2-sequestering component. In some embodiments, the formed building material comprises 5% to 75% (w/w) CO2-sequestering component. In some embodiments, the formed building material comprises 5% to 50% (w/w) CO2-sequestering component. In some embodiments, the formed building material comprises 5% to 50% (w/w) CO2-sequestering component. The CO2-sequestering component of the building material comprises carbonates. In some embodiments, the CO2-sequestering component further comprises carbonate co-products from NOx, SOx, VOCs, particulates, mercury, or a combination thereof. In some embodiments, the CO2-sequestering component further comprises co-products from SOx. In some embodiments, the CO2-sequestering component further comprises co-products from mercury. The formed building material may be a brick, a block, a tile, a cement board, a conduit, a beam, a basin, a column, drywall, fiber-cement siding, a slab, an acoustic barrier, or insulation. In some embodiments, the formed building material is a brick or block. In some embodiments, the brick or block has a compressive strength of 5 to 100 MPa. In some embodiments, the formed building material is a tile. In some embodiments, the tile has a compressive strength of 5 to 75 MPa. In some embodiments, the formed building material is a slab. In some embodiments, the slab has a compressive strength of 10 to 100 MPa.
In some embodiments, the invention also provides a formed building material comprising a CO2-sequestering component. In some embodiments, the CO2-sequestering component is a carbonate compound composition. In some embodiments, the carbonate compound composition comprises a precipitation material from an alkaline earth metal-containing water. In some embodiments, the alkaline earth metal-containing water comprises CO2 derived from an industrial waste stream. In some embodiments, the CO2-sequestering component is a cementitious component. In some embodiments, the formed building material is a brick, a board, a conduit, a beam, a basin, a column, drywall, a tile, fiber siding, a slab, an acoustic barrier, or insulation.
In some embodiments, the invention also provides a method of producing a formed building material, the method comprising obtaining a CO2-sequestering component and producing a formed building material comprising the CO2-sequestering component. In some embodiments, the CO2-sequestering component is a carbonate compound composition. In some embodiments, the carbonate compound composition comprises a precipitation material from an alkaline earth metal-containing water. In some embodiments, the alkaline earth metal-containing water comprises CO2 derived from an industrial waste stream. In some embodiments, the CO2-sequestering component is a cementitious component. In some embodiments, the formed building material is a brick, a board, a conduit, a beam, a basin, a column, drywall, a tile, fiber siding, a slab, an acoustic barrier, or insulation.
In some embodiments, the invention also provides a method of fabricating a built structure, the method comprising employing a formed building material comprising a CO2-sequestering component. In some embodiments, the CO2-sequestering component is a carbonate compound composition. In some embodiments, the carbonate compound composition comprises a precipitation material from an alkaline earth metal-containing water. In some embodiments, the alkaline earth metal-containing water comprises CO2 derived from an industrial waste stream. In some embodiments, the CO2-sequestering component is a cementitious component. In some embodiments, the formed building material is a brick, a board, a conduit, a beam, a basin, a column, drywall, a tile, fiber siding, a slab, an acoustic barrier, or insulation.
In some embodiments, the invention also provides a method of sequestering carbon dioxide, the method comprising precipitating a CO2-sequestering carbonate compound composition from an alkaline earth metal-containing water and fabricating a formed building material comprising the CO2-sequestering carbonate compound composition. In some embodiments, the alkaline earth metal-containing water is contacted to an industrial waste stream prior to the precipitating step. | {
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With reference to FIG. 1, a conventional pipe coupler 9 for interconnecting joining regions 81 of two pipes 8 is shown to include a first jaw member 91, a second jaw member 92, a screw member 93, and a tightening member 94. Each of the first and second jaw member 91, 92 has a hinged end 901 and a locked end 902, and has an inner peripheral surface 903. The hinged ends 901 of the first and second jaw members 91, 92 are hinged to each other. The screw member 93 has a pivot end 931 mounted pivotably to the locked end 902 of the first jaw member 91, and a threaded body 933 which extends from the pivot end 931 through the locked end 902 of the second jaw member 92, and which has a male threaded region 934. The tightening member 94 includes an abutment segment 940 which is disposed to abut against the locked end 902 of the second jaw member 92, and which has a through hole 941 and a female threaded region (not shown) in the through hole 941. The female threaded region is configured to threadably engage the male threaded region 934 to permit the abutment segment 940 to rotatably sleeve on the threaded body 933. When the tightening member 94 is driven to rotate to move toward the locked end 902 of the first jaw member 91, the locked ends 902 of the first and second jaw members 91, 92 are forced by the abutment segment 940 to move toward each other and the inner peripheral surfaces 903 of the first and second jaw members 91, 92 are tightened against the joining regions 81 of the two pipes 8 to thereby provide a fluid-tightness between the joining regions 81 of the two pipes 8.
However, for providing a sufficient fluid-tightness between the joining regions 81 of the two pipes 8, a tool is used to apply on the tightening member 94 a relatively large force, which may cause wearing of the male threaded region 934 or the female threaded region. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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Field
Exemplary embodiments relate to a display device, and, more particularly, to a display device integrated with a touch sensor.
Discussion of the Background
A touch sensor, which allows a user to input information by contacting a screen using a finger, a pen, etc., may be applied as an input device of a display device. Among various sensing types of the touch sensor, a capacitive type utilizes two electrodes spaced apart from each other, to sense a position where the capacitance has changed from a contact.
To implement a flexible display device, a display device may be formed to have a thin thickness. To this end, a touch sensor may be integrated into a display device. An on-cell type touch sensor may not include a substrate for the touch sensor, and, thus a sensing electrode may be directly formed on any one component of the display device.
A touch driving unit controls an operation of the touch sensor. The touch driving unit may transmit a sensing input signal to the touch sensor, or may receive a sensing output signal to process it. The touch driving unit may process the sensing output signal to generate touch information, such as the occurrence of a touch, a touch position, and the like. The touch driving unit may be disposed on a separate printed circuit board (PCB), and may be connected to a touch pad portion. However, in the touch pad portion, a portion of touch wires connected to the touch electrodes may be exposed. When the touch wires are exposed to the outside, corrosion may occur on the touch wires from moisture and the like.
The above information disclosed in this Background section is only for enhancement of understanding of the background of the inventive concept, and, therefore, it may contain information that does not form the prior art that is already known in this country to a person of ordinary skill in the art. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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Gaming machines have been developed having various features to capture and maintain player interest. Some features are directed to increasing or providing the player with the opportunity to win larger sums of money. For example, gaming machines may include second chance games that provide a player with additional opportunities to obtain a winning outcome. Alternatively, gaming machines may be tied into progressive gaming systems that award large progressive jackpots.
In addition to providing players with more opportunities to obtain a winning outcome or win a large sum of money, gaming machines have increased the number of features and grown in sophistication in order to increase player participation or interest in a game. For example, the mechanical reels of traditional gaming machines have been replaced with video depictions of spinning reels. These video gaming machines provide a richer gaming experience for players by including graphics or animation as part of the game. However, overly complex video displays on a gaming machine may turn off player participation because players become frustrated with the game or are unwilling to learn or decipher all the information provided on the video display. Accordingly, there is a continuing need for slot machines variants that provide a player with enhanced excitement without departing from the original slot machine gaming concept. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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Asphalt is a common material utilized for the preparation of paving and roofing materials and also for coatings such as pipe coatings and tank liners. While the material is suitable in many respects, it inherently is deficient in some physical properties which it would be highly desirable to improve. Efforts have been made in this direction by addition of certain conjugated diene rubbers, ethylene containing plastics like EVA and polyethylene, neoprene, resins, frillers and other materials for the modification of one or more of the physical properties of the asphalt. Each of these added materials modifies the asphalt in one respect or another but certain deficiencies can be noted in all modifiers proposed. For example, some of them have excellent weather resistance, sealing and bonding properties but are often deficient with respect to warm tack, modulus, hardness and other physical properties; and some of them improve only the high temperature performance- of asphalt, some only improve the low temperature performance of asphalt, while some lack thermal stability or mixing stability with asphalt.
Since the late 1960s, diene polymer rubbers such as styrene-butadiene rubber and styrene-rubber block copolymers such as styrene-butadiene-styrene and styrene-isoprene-styrene block copolymers have been used to dramatically improve the thermal and mechanical properties of asphalts. Practical application of the rubber addition approach requires that the blended product retain improved properties and homogeneity during transportation, storage and processing. Long term performance of elastomer-modified asphalts also depends on the ability of the blend to maintain thermal and chemical stability.
To be suitable for paving materials, the asphalt polymer mixtures should meet the following requirements:
(a) The polymer must be mixable in asphalt and stay mixed during subsequent processing--compatibility. In a modified asphalt composition, compatibility is important. The polar asphaltene fraction of the asphalt is generally incompatible with the polymer and phase separates over time. This phase separation leads to a serious deterioration in physical properties.
(b) The mixture must have the right rheological (flow) properties to prevent rutting which is the permanent deformation of a road caused by repetitive traffic loads. Viscosity is important but elasticity is the most important aspect since the material must be able to recover rather than just resist deformation. This characteristic is most important in warm climates.
(c) The mixture must have good low temperature properties, i.e. resistance to cracking. As a road cools, stresses develop because it cannot shrink uniformly and eventually this will cause cracking. Traffic-caused stresses also contribute. The polymer will lower the temperature at which cracking will occur. This characteristic is more important in cold climates.
(d) Temperature susceptibility of a polymer modified asphalt is a major consideration. Ideally, one would want a binder (asphalt and polymer) which would be "hard" and elastic at elevated temperatures to resist permanent deformation.
To be suitable for synthetic roofing materials, the asphalt polymer mixtures should meet the following requirements:
(a) sufficient resistance to flow at high temperatures, PA1 (b) sufficient flexibility at low temperatures, PA1 (c) workability according to the conventional methods used in the roofing technique, PA1 (d) adequate hot storage stability, PA1 (e) adequate hardness to prevent deformation during walking on the roof, and PA1 (f) if it is to be used as an adhesive, sufficient adhesion.
British Patent 1,584,504 made bituminous emulsions which were made with an aqueous solution of a polyamine. The emulsion optionally contained a functionalized polymer but the bitumen was modified by functionalizing it with carboxylic acid anhydride groups. The functionalization of asphalt is a difficult and impractical step and is not used commercially.
At the present time, unfunctionalized polymers are being used in paving and roofing applications. Unfunctionalized polymers have certain disadvantages which can cause problems when used in applications such as these. Such disadvantages include undesirably low adhesion to polar materials such as some asphalts, fillers, aggregates, substrates, reinforcing mats, and the like. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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The present invention generally relates to a recording head for an optical storage system, and more particularly, to a recording head employing a solid immersion lens and a method for forming such a recording head.
Optical data storage systems are known. These systems store a high density of information onto an optical recording medium such as an optical disc.
Generally, in optical recording systems employing an optical head, a light source is used to read and write information to/from the optical recording medium. Data is accessed by focussing the beam of light onto one of the data layers of the disc, and then detecting the reflected light beam. The light beam may be focussed onto one of the data layers of the optical recording medium by a lens spaced from the medium.
The data density in optical disc drives is determined in part by the diameter of the focussed beam of light on the disc surface, i.e., the spot diameter. The spot diameter may be reduced in order to increase the data density of the optical storage medium. Several methods are known to decrease the spot diameter. One technique is to use light having a shorter wavelength, for example, in the blue region.
Another technique is to increase the effective numerical aperture (xe2x80x9cNAxe2x80x9d) of the lens configured in the optical head. One approach to achieving a high NA lens is to use a lens of high index of refraction (xcex7) material. The lens may be positioned in close proximity to one of the data recording layers on the disc surface. One such lens is a near-field lens, for example, a high refractive index lens with a flat bottom portion, e.g., a solid immersion lens (xe2x80x9cSILxe2x80x9d). In a SIL system, the optical recording medium is spaced from the base of the SIL by a distance of less than one wavelength of the light that is used. This forms a near-field configuration in which the light is coupled by evanescent coupling. The SIL may have the shape of a hemisphere or a supersphere. An air gap typically separates the solid immersion lens and the disc surface. A hemispherical SIL includes a flat portion and a hemispherical portion. For a super-hemispherical lens, the thickness may be less than or about r+r/xcex7, where r is the radius of the partial spherical section. Further details of a hemispherical or super-hemispherical SIL lens may be found in co-pending and commonly owned and assigned U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08/026,907.
A slider can be coupled to the head. The slider may include an air-bearing surface for lifting the slider above the optical disc surface. As the optical recording medium spins, air flows under the air-bearing surface to raise the slider relative to the optical disc surface during read and write operations.
One conventional way of forming an optical head having a SIL is as follows. A sphere of optically transparent material is cut to form a cap lens having a spherical portion and a flat portion. The height of the cap lens may be less than the radius of the original sphere. The flat portion of the cap lens is then positioned into a partial cavity formed in a slider body. Next, the cap lens is secured in the partial cavity by a glue bond formed between the flat portion of the cap lens and the slider body. The slider body and the cap lens may then form a hemispherical SIL. A super-hemispherical lens may also be used, as discussed above. In both configurations, the optical light path includes the SIL, the glue bond, and the slider body.
The above system has certain drawbacks. One drawback is that the material which forms the glue bond may have different optical characteristics than the material of the slider body and the SIL. The phase of the light entering through the spherical surface of the SIL can tend to distort at the glue bond surface because the bond material has a different index of refraction than the slider body and SIL. This causes aberrations in the focussed spot in the optical recording medium, and thus, may reduce the performance of the head. The glue bond may also adversely effect the resolution of the spot diameter. Further, this may result in faulty read and write operations between the optical head and the recording medium.
Another disadvantage is that the SIL is formed separate from the slider body. This requires additional machining tools and components to form the resulting optical head. This tends to increase the cost and labor needed to form these heads.
A coil may also be included in the optical head. A magnetic field generated in the coil can switch magnetic domains in the optical recording medium during a write operation. Heat is generated in each turn of the coil when it is energized by an applied current. In order to achieve a desired magnetic field, the number of turns must be specified.
However, heat generated by the energized coils can cause head distortion. Also, the outermost turns of the coil may not be sufficient to generate a magnetic field in the coil center because they have an increased resistance and inductance.
In one aspect, the present invention is directed to an optical head that includes an optical portion that receives and focuses incoming optical radiation. The optical portion may have a bottom surface adapted to face an optical disk. A magnetic coil may be wound on the bottom surface to have a plurality of turns that have different effective perimeters. The magnetic coil may have a varying property for the different turns such that each of the different turns has substantially the same resistance.
In another aspect, the present invention is directed to an optical head that includes an optical portion that receives and focuses incoming optical radiation. The optical portion may have a bottom surface adapted to face an optical disk. A magnetic coil may be wound on the bottom surface, and may have a plurality of turns that have different effective perimeters. The magnetic coil may have a varying property for the different turns such that the different turns have substantially the same temperature.
Implementations of the above aspects include one or more of the following. The optical portion may include a slider body, a void formed in the slider body, and a solid immersion lens. The solid immersion lens may include a processed flat portion and a spherical portion. The solid immersion lens may be positioned in the void to place the processed flat portion coplanar with the bottom surface. A mesa may be optically coupled to a portion of the processed flat portion of the solid immersion lens, and the coil may be wound around the mesa. The optical head may also include a preformed structure to secure sides of the solid immersion lens to side walls of the void. The preformed structure may be formed from an opaque, a transparent, or a colored glass material. A glue bond may be employed to secure sides of the lens to the sidewalls of the void. The slider body may be formed from a material that is different from the material of the solid immersion lens. The slider body may be formed form the same material as a material of the solid immersion lens. The slider body may be formed from a ceramic material or glass. The solid immersion lens may be formed from cubic zirconia, titanium oxide, beta-silicon carbide, or gallium phosphide. The slider body may be formed from aluminum oxide, calcium titanate, magnesium titanate, silicon, carbide, silicon carbide, or alumina-titanium-carbide. The coil may be rectangular, elliptical, circular, or square. The coil may be a planar coil. The optical head may also include an insulation layer configured to contact the mesa.
In a further aspect, the present invention is directed to a method for fabricating a plurality of optical recording heads. The method includes processing a substrate to form a plurality of voids through the substrate. A sphere of optically transparent material may be placed within each of the voids such that a desired portion of each sphere protrudes from the surface of the substrate. The sphere may be secured to side walls of the void. A portion of the desired protruded portion of the sphere may be removed to form a near field lens, and a mesa may be optically coupled to a portion of the near field lens. A coil may be formed around the mesa, and the substrate may be sliced to form a plurality of optical heads.
Implementations of the invention include one or more of the following. The near field lens may be processed to include a flat portion that is substantially coplanar with the substrate surface. The substrate may be processed to form a plurality of slider bodies such that each of said slider bodies includes one of said voids. The sphere may be secured to said void by a preformed structure. The coil may be formed with a plurality of turns having different effective perimeters. Each of the different turns may have substantially the same resistance. Each of said different turns may have substantially the same temperature. The coil may include a plurality of planar layers. A via may be formed proximate to the mesa to form an electrical contact to the coil.
In a further aspect, the present invention is directed to a method for forming an optical head that includes forming an optical portion that receives and focuses optical radiation. The optical portion may have a bottom surface adapted to face an optical disk. A magnetic coil may be wound on the bottom surface to have a plurality of turns that have different effective perimeters. The turns such that the different turns have substantially the same resistance.
In a further aspect, the present invention is directed to a method for forming an optical head that includes forming an optical portion which receives and focuses incoming optical radiation. The optical portion may have a bottom surface adapted to face an optical disk. The magnetic coil may be wound on the bottom surface to have a plurality of turns that have different effective perimeters. The magnetic coil may have a varying property for the different turns such that the different turns have substantially the same temperature. | {
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1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an AM multiplexing broadcast apparatus for multiplexing a digital modulated signal independent of an AM modulated signal, in the same frequency band as the AM modulated signal.
2. Description of the Related Art
Such an AM multiplexing broadcast apparatus for multiplexing a digital modulated signal independent of an AM modulated signal, in the same frequency band as the AM modulated signal, is still not known. Conventionally, for such multiplication, both an AM transmitter and a digital transmitter are prepared and radio waves transmitted from respective antennas are synthesized in the air.
A single antenna shared by both an AM transmitter and a digital transmitter may be used for addition of radio waves of small power transmitters. However, it is very difficult to apply this method to transmitters of several kW to several hundreds kW.
In multiplexing a digital modulated signal independent from an AM modulated signal, in the same frequency band as the AM modulated signal, two antennas for an AM transmitter and a digital transmitter are required as in the above conventional case. This results in a bulky system of apparatuses. | {
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The Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) is a third-generation (3G) mobile phone technology standardized first by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) and now by the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP). UMTS carries both circuit switched (CS) and packet switched (PS) traffic using Wideband Code Division Multiple Access (W-CDMA) as its air interface. The description of the network components and protocols used in UMTS are well known to those of ordinary skill in the art and are available to the public from 3GPP, ETSI, and other sources. The UMTS network architecture consists of three domains: Core Network (CN), UMTS Terrestrial Radio Access Network (UTRAN), and User Equipment (UE).
The UTRAN provides the air interface access to subscribers' UE. Base stations in the UTRAN are referred as Node-Bs, and the control equipment for the Node-Bs is called a Radio Network Controller (RNC). The UMTS User Equipment communicates via the WCDMA air interface to the Node-Bs. The UE may be attached to either the PS domain or CS domain or both. The UE is capable of simultaneously using PS services and CS services.
The Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) is used for data transmission in UMTS. The ATM layer multiplexes and demultiplexes and routes ATM cells, and ensures their sequence from end to end. The ATM Adaptation Layers (AAL) are responsible for the creation and reception of payloads through the lower layers of ATM on behalf of different applications. ATM Adaptation Layer type 2 (AAL2) handles circuit switched connections and packet connection protocol AAL5 is designed for data delivery.
One disadvantage of the prior art is the difficulty in identifying messages related to the same call for individual subscribers. Because multiple UEs are communicating with Node Bs and RNCs at the same time, thousands of data and control messages per second can be passed between a Node B and an RNC and between the RNCs. These messages follow several different protocol formats depending upon the purpose of the message. As a result, the messages passing on interfaces in the UTRAN do not provide sufficient information to determine which messages are related to the same subscriber.
A second disadvantage of the prior art is the difficulty in identifying related call records that are associated with different protocols. Individual call records may be established for messages of a particular protocol type. However, call records for different protocols may be related to the same call, but the call records do not comprise information that allows correlation across protocol types. | {
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This description relates to an approach to compiling graph-based program specifications.
One approach to data flow computation makes use of a graph-based representation in which computational components corresponding to nodes (vertices) of a graph are coupled by data flows corresponding to links (directed edges) of the graph (called a “dataflow graph”). A downstream component connected to an upstream component by a data flow link receives an ordered stream of input data elements, and processes the input data elements in the received order, optionally generating one or more corresponding flows of output data elements. A system for executing such graph-based computations is described in prior U.S. Pat. No. 5,966,072, titled “EXECUTING COMPUTATIONS EXPRESSED AS GRAPHS,” incorporated herein by reference. In an implementation related to the approach described in that prior patent, each component is implemented as a process that is hosted on one of typically multiple computer servers. Each computer server may have multiple such component processes active at any one time, and an operating system (e.g., Unix) scheduler shares resources (e.g., processor time, and/or processor cores) among the components hosted on that server. In such an implementation, data flows between components may be implemented using data communication services of the operating system and data network connecting the servers (e.g., named pipes, TCP/IP sessions, etc.). A subset of the components generally serve as sources and/or sinks of data from the overall computation, for example, to and/or from data files, database tables, and external data flows. After the component processes and data flows are established, for example, by a coordinating process, data then flows through the overall computation system implementing the computation expressed as a graph generally governed by availability of input data at each component and scheduling of computing resources for each of the components. Parallelism can therefore be achieved at least by enabling different components to be executed in parallel by different processes (hosted on the same or different server computers or processor cores), where different components executing in parallel on different paths through a dataflow graph is referred to herein as component parallelism, and different components executing in parallel on different portion of the same path through a dataflow graph is referred to herein as pipeline parallelism.
Other forms of parallelism are also supported by such an approach. For example, an input data set may be partitioned, for example, according to a partition of values of a field in records of the data set, with each part being sent to a separate copy of a component that processes records of the data set. Such separate copies (or “instances”) of a component may be executed on separate server computers or separate processor cores of a server computer, thereby achieving what is referred to herein as data parallelism. The results of the separate components may be merged to again form a single data flow or data set. The number of computers or processor cores used to execute instances of the component would be designated by a developer at the time the dataflow graph is developed.
Various approaches may be used to improve efficiency of such an approach. For example, each instance of a component does not necessarily have to be hosted in its own operating system process, for example, using one operating system process to implement multiple components (e.g., components forming a connected subgraph of a larger graph).
At least some implementations of the approach described above suffer from limitations in relation to the efficiency of execution of the resulting processes on the underlying computer servers. For example, the limitations may be related to difficulty in reconfiguring a running instance of a graph to change a degree of data parallelism, to change to servers that host various components, and/or to balance load on different computation resources. Existing graph-based computation systems also suffer from slow startup times, often because too many processes are initiated unnecessarily, wasting large amounts of memory. Generally, processes start at the start-up of graph execution, and end when graph execution completes.
Other systems for distributing computation have been used in which an overall computation is divided into smaller parts, and the parts are distributed from one master computer server to various other (e.g., “slave”) computer servers, which each independently perform a computation and which return their result to a master server. Some of such approaches are referred to as “grid computing.” However, such approaches generally rely on the independence of each computation, without providing a mechanism for passing data between the computation parts, or scheduling and/or sequencing execution of the parts, except via the master computer server that invokes those parts. Therefore such approaches do not provide a direct and efficient solution to hosting computation involving interactions between multiple components.
Another approach for distributed computation on a large dataset makes use of a MapReduce framework, for example, as embodied in the Apache Hadoop® system. Generally, Hadoop has a distributed filesystem in which parts for each named file are distributed. A user specifies a computation in terms of two functions: a map function, which is executed on all the parts of the named inputs in a distributed manner, and a reduce function that is executed on parts of the output of the map function executions. The outputs of the map function executions are partitioned and stored in intermediate parts again in the distributed filesystem. The reduce function is then executed in a distributed manner to process the intermediate parts, yielding the result of the overall computation. Although computations that can be expressed in a MapReduce framework, and whose inputs and outputs are amendable for storage within the filesystem of the map-reduce framework can be executed efficiently, many computations do not match this framework and/or are not easily adapted to have all their inputs and outputs within the distributed filesystem.
In general, there is a need to increase computational efficiency (e.g., increase a number of records processed per unit of given computing resources) of a computation whose underlying specification is in terms of a graph, as compared to approaches described above, in which components (or parallel executing copies of components) are hosted on different servers. Furthermore, it is desirable to be able to adapt to varying computation resources and requirements. There is also a need to provide a computation approach that permits adapting to variation in the computing resources that are available during execution of one or more graph based computations, and/or to variations in the computation load or time variation of load of different components of such computations, for example, due to characteristics of the data being processed. There is also a need to provide a computation approach that is able to efficiently make use of computational resources with different characteristics, for example, using servers that have different numbers of processors per server, different numbers of processor cores per processor, etc., and to support both homogeneous as well as heterogeneous environments efficiently. There is also a desire to make the start-up of graph-based computations quick. One aspect of providing such efficiency and adaptability is providing appropriate separation and abstraction barriers between choices made by a developer at the time of graph creation (at design-time), actions taken by a compiler (at compile-time), and actions taken by the runtime system (at runtime). | {
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The present invention pertains to a process for biologically utilizing carbon dioxide and heat that are generated in exothermic aerobic fermentation processes in which carbon dioxide is formed for the growth of chlorophyllose plants in greenhouses.
It is known that, in exothermic aerobic fermentation processes, especially those used for the production of yeast cells and similar protein-containing products that are to be used for food and fodder by the cultivation of yeasts and other microorganisms, large quantities of carbon dioxide as well as correspondingly large quantities of heat are generated. Dependent upon the medium that is cultured, between 3000 and 10,000 kilogram-calories of heat and a correspondingly large quantity of carbon dioxide are generated for each kilogram of solid material that is produced in most such aerobic fermentation processes. This heat must be withdrawn by cooling means and the carbon dioxide is generally released or vented from the fermentor with the exhaust air. As an example, it might be mentioned that, in a fermentor having a capacity of 200 cubic meters, in which approximately 20,000 kilograms of solid yeast is produced daily for fodder, and in which 300 cubic meters of air are charged per minute, 432,000 cubic meters of exhaust air are vented daily. This exhaust air contains between 2 and 10% by volume of carbon dioxide gas, dependent upon the products being made. This is an enormous amount of carbon dioxide which is normally vented or released to the atmosphere as waste.
On the other hand, likewise dependent upon the product being made, between approximately 60 and 200 million kilogram-calories of heat must be withdrawn daily by the said cooling means. As is known, such yeast, or bacterial or fungal, products are being produced in increasingly greater quantities for use as food and animal fodder by fermentation in this manner. Many times in those regions in which such fermented protein-containing products must be produced, or in which the chlorophyllose vegetational type of food and fodder crops have failed, or at least are available only in inadequate amounts, it would be of great importance to achieve a symbiosis or mutual cooperation between the growth of yeasts in such exothermic aerobic fermentation processes in which carbon dioxide is produced and the cultivation and growth of chlorophyllose plants and vegetation. | {
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This invention relates generally to floating docks, and more particularly, to methods and apparatus for assembling floating docks.
Floating docks are generally known and may be constructed from a variety of materials and formed into a variety of shapes and sizes. At least some known floating docks include a plurality of floating members coupled together to form the floating dock. Generally, the floating members are designed to withstand a variety of environment and weather conditions. More specifically, within at least some known floating members, pockets or cavities are defined that facilitate increasing the buoyancy of the dock, and thus facilitate maintaining the dock afloat. However, because pockets or cavities rely on trapped air, catastrophic events, for example, a collision with the dock, may rupture the pockets and submerge the dock.
At least some known floating docks have coupling systems that enable multiple configurations of the floating members to be assembled such that the dock can accommodate a variety of boat sizes and other uses. Generally, such coupling systems include couplers designed to facilitate ease of assembly and disassembly of floating members, and coupler receivers or sockets designed to receive a variety of couplers and dock accessories. More specifically, within at least some known coupling systems, the couplers include multiple components. Although the couplers generally ensure the floating members remain connected, couplers that include multiple components may increase the assembly time of the docks and may reduce the reliability of the entire dock system.
Accordingly, it would be desirable to have a docking system that would allow the user to choose multiple configurations and was simple to assemble and disassemble. Moreover, it would be desirable to have a docking system that was cost-effective to maintain and reliable in variety of environmental and catastrophic events. | {
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It is well know that many canned goods such as canned food. canned pet food, and the like require to be sterilised after canning to prevent the growth of toxic bacteria in the can. This is a relatively energetic process and considerable efforts have been made to improve the energy efficiency of processes for the heat sterilising of canned goods. A further requirement of such processes is that, at least in the case of foods for human consumption, it is important to retain the flavour, texture and nutrient status of the contents of the can. Typically this requires the minimum heating possible consistent with the proper sterilisation of the food. A difficulty that then arises is that the rate at which heat can be transmitted to the canned product will affect the total heating time for the food. Many foods also have a tendency to burn onto the inside of the can if heated too quickly. The canner must then heat the can slowly to the sterilisation temperature which results in the contents of the can being maintained at all elevated temperature for considerably longer than is desirable for optimum taste, texture and nutrient status.
It has been proposed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,961,150 to heat canned goods by the application of heat to the can by the use of induction coils. The cans are described as being rotated in a reciprocating fashion beneath a flat induction coil. This arrangement was found in practice to be unsatisfactory. The time at which the contents of the can were maintained at an elevated temperature was excessive due to the problems of heat transfer rates, despite the reciprocating rotation of the cans.
French patent specification 2 501 631 describes an alternative arrangement in which cans are passed through the lumen of each of a plurality of helically wound induction coils. The cans are described as being rotated about their own axes between successive induction coils to allow homogenisation of the temperature of the contents of the cans. It is believed by the present inventors that in this design, where the cans are not rotated while they are actually being heated that either the rate of heating would have to be very low or there would be unacceptable burning of the contents against the can wall during the heating steps.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,256,922 describes the heating of loose foodstuffs on a rotating metallic tube surrounded by a helically wound coil. In this case the beat transfer problems are rather different due to the fact that the food is free to tumble and rotate relative to the tube unconstrained by a surrounding can.
The present invention is directed to an alternative method of heating canned product which offers an alternative to the known processes described above. | {
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Typically, a varnishing unit in a printing machine is constructed as a separate unit disposed after the printing units and before the delivery unit of the machine. In many printing machines of this kind perfecting is possible only by turning the sheet over; for example, German Auslegeschrift No. 2,608,661 discloses a printing machine of this type. But in such printing machines the perfecting process subjects the previously applied varnish to pressure which destroys the smooth sheet surface produced by varnishing. Other printing machines which include varnishing as a final operation have no provision for perfecting; therefore, varnish can be applied without difficulty. Examples of such printing machines are disclosed in German Patentschrift Nos. 2,020,584 and 2,345,183. | {
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1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to channel letters, and more specifically, to generating channel letters using profiles.
2. Background
FIG. 1 shows a conventional machine 1 for folding a metal strip or rule 10 of a flat type into a predetermined shape. The structure and operation of a typical conventional machine is described in Korean Patent Registration No. 10-0233335, filed Nov. 20, 1996; Korean Patent Registration No. 10-388889, filed Apr. 3, 1999; U.S. Pat. No. 5,787,750, filed Jun. 21, 1996; and other related patents, all assigned to the same assignee as the present application. However, the conventional folding machine 1 shown in FIG. 1 can be used mostly for folding flat strip or rule 10. Thus, to fold a strip or rule of other shapes, a new design is desirable. | {
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The invention relates to an adaptor for mounting one instrument on another instrument so that both are pivotably movable together about a horizontal axis.
Often it is desirable to be able to mount one instrument atop another so that both can be used simultaneously. For example, electronic distance measuring devices are instruments which transmit a beam of light to a distant object, receive the reflected beam, and determine and display the distance to the object. Such devices are commonly used for surveying and it is convenient to use them in conjunction with conventional otpical devices such as telescopes and theodolites. Preferably, the electronic distance measuring device is mounted atop the optical instrument for pivotable movement therewith.
An instrument such as an electronic distance measuring device cannot simply be attached to a theodolite or the like because the balance of the two instruments together will be unsatisfactory. An adaptor must be used to attach the upper instrument to both the lower instrument and the stand and to provide compensating forces as the instruments are tilted.
One type of adaptor now in use for such systems utilizes three downwardly extending male members attached to the upper instrument which must be received in corresponding female portions in a lower member and engage springs which are horizontally compressed to produce compensating forces as the two instruments pivot together about a horizontal axis. The device must be locked in place and is unwieldy to assemble. In addition, some torque is produced by the device, and it is difficult to find springs which will compensate exactly for the forces produced by the pivoting motion of the upper instrument.
The present invention relates to an improved adaptor of the type which utilizes at least one and preferably two supporting members adapted to be coupled to the stand which supports the lower instrument for pivotable movement. Each of these supporting members engages a cam surface of the adaptor which is attached to the upper instrument. A compressible spring engages each of the support members and produces a force which varies as the support members engage different portions of the cam surface and move vertically in accordance therewith. No torque is produced and the supporting members ride on the cam surfaces rather than engage female or other portions thereof. The contour can be linear or nonlinear and can be specifically designed to exactly counteract the forces produced by any given upper instrument as it moves with the lower instrument about a horizontal axis.
Other objects and purposes of the invention will be clear from the following detailed description of the drawings. | {
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1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to the prevention of outer skin puncture of thin skin sandwich laminates by direct lightning attachment.
This invention relates to lightning protection systems and, more particularly, to such a system for protecting electrically conductive composite material aircraft structures from puncture that have thin outer skin structure or thin skin sandwich structure. The protection method is to place a controlled electrically conductive layer outwardly of the conductive skin layer and in electrical contact with the conductive skin so as to disperse the current from severe lightning direct attachment, and that has means for preventing puncture of the outer skin surface and minimize damage to the structure.
2. Background Art
Conventional aluminum aircraft structures typically have inherent lightning protection. An aluminum skin structure has uniform and predictable material properties, including the electrical properties. Thus, protection against skin puncture by lightning can be provided simply by sizing the aluminum skin thickness to a range of 0.404 to 0.060 inch. In areas of conventional aircraft structure where the skin is electrically non-conductive, such as radomes and aerodynamic fairings, metal bus bars can be applied to the exterior surface to direct the lightning currents to the aluminum structure.
Providing lightning protection for electrically conductive composite material structure, such as carbon fiber reinforced plastic, is much more difficult and complicated than for typical aluminum structure. Conductive composites are nonhomogeneous and are considerably less conductive than aluminum. In thick skin structure, i.e., greater than 0.10 inch, the skin may be thick enough to resist puncture but the structure is still subject to severe skin surface damage, which can be minimized by applying relatively heavy metal or insulating coatings, or a combination in layers, to provide adequate protection as noted in previous patents that deal with thick skin electrically conductive composite structure.
Intuitively, one would expect to use heavier metal meshes to protect thin skin electrically conductive composite structure. However, for electrically conductive thin skin and sandwich composite structure, the structure is easily punctured by lightning attachment even when the heavy metal mesh coatings are used. Using heavier weight coverings comparable to aluminum skin thickness would provide adequate protection but would negate the weight saving advantages of composite structure over that of aluminum.
It is the object of this invention to provide a lightweight single layer protection system that will provide surface protection and prevent puncture of thin skin electrically conductive composite aircraft structure. Previously the primary considerations for the selection of the lightning protection material has been based more upon the mechanical, corrosion and weight aspects of the material.
It is further the object of this invention to select the material based primarily on the electrical properties of the protection layer wherein a narrow window of an electrical property, that is surface conductivity, provides optimum protection for thin skin electrically conductive structure. It is fortuitous that this leads to a lighter weight solution for thin skin conductive composite structure than the current methods used to protect thick skin composite structure. By applying a lighter weight metal mesh that has a controlled electrical surface conductivity which is less than that used for thick skin composite structure, skin puncture from severe lightning strike attachment can be prevented for thin skin electrically conductive composite structure.
The lighter weight conductive coatings would also provide protection for thin skin structure that is non-electrically conductive, with or without electrically conductive core structure. | {
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This invention relates in general to radiant energy imaging systems and more particularly, to a novel method and apparatus for selectively enhancing the image of objects or voids having circular cross section, such as agricultural and like-shape objects of voids, to distinguish them from objects or voids having rectangular cross section (manufactured objects or cracks).
A common method of dissemination of plant or animal disease vectors or pests such as the Mediterranean fruit fly to areas not yet infested is by the transport of agricultural items such as infected fruit, vegetables, plants, packaged meats and birds. In particular airline travelers pose a hazard in that large distances are rapidly traversed promoting the introduction of a pest into a region devoid of its natural enemies. Such dissemination can have serious economic impact on agricultural production. Currently, the primary methods for detecting agricultural contraband in passenger baggage are by passenger questioning, and manual baggage search. Such methods are unreliable and time consuming.
In a few locations, X-ray imaging systems used for inspection of passenger baggage for security reasons and digital X-ray scanners have been introduced to inspect baggage for agricultural contraband. These methods have the disadvantage that they rely on the ability of a human operator to recognize contraband items objects solely on the basis of shadow shape and density. Thus while agricultural objects such as pineapples, pears and papayas which have distinctive shapes, can be readily distinguished from manufactured objects, other agricultural contraband such as tangerines, apples, mangos, sausages and the like which have image shapes similar to non-contraband objects cannot be readily detected. Furthermore, even in those cases where it is possible to distinguish images of agricultural objects by their shape, such an inspection requires intense operator effort resulting in operator fatigue. Furthermore, such a procedure is time-consuming. This is a disadvantage for to be successful in a commercial setting, the monitoring system must monitor a piece of luggage in about 2-4 seconds.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,808,444 discloses an automatic high energy X-ray monitoring system for detecting dense metallic objects such as guns or bullets in baggage. Objects in the density range of agricultural objects are not detected by this method.
In medical studies, X-ray imaging is commonly used to image internal organs or other objects contained in human or animal bodies. A single X-ray projection minimizes the dose and apparatus cost but does not allow depiction of the cross sectional shape of the imaged organ. Such shape information is desirable but can generally only be obtained through multiple angled exposures and reconstruction (tomography), which is expensive and exposes the patient to undesirable radiation doses. Alternatively, a very extensive analysis of the density of a single exposure is time consuming and difficult.
In industrial inspection of materials for cracks and voids X-rays are the method of choice. Single exposures are used for speed and economy, but the image does not reveal the cross sectional shape of the cracks and voids, nor does it allow automatic recognition and counting of such cross sectional shapes which are desired for quality control. | {
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This invention relates generally to condition sensors and more particularly to accelerometers having mechanically movable means responsive to acceleration for providing a corresponding electrical signal.
Condition sensors such as capacitive accelerometers and the like of various types as shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,483,194 to Rudolph; 4,435,737 to Colton; 31,549 to Block and 3,240,073 to Pitzer are commonly used or proposed for use in aircraft and vehicular applications and the like where the sensors are likely to be subjected to shock, vibration and severe temperature changes but where it would be desirable for the sensors to be inexpensive and to display reliable and accurate performance characteristics over a long service life. However, many such sensors have limited performance capability or are manufactured at excessive cost. It would be desirable if such sensors could be provided with improved reliability in performance and could be made at reduced cost to find wider application.
In application, Ser. No. 07/790,956, now U.S. Pat. No. 5,345,823 assigned to the assignee of the present invention, compact, rugged and inexpensive accelerometer devices are disclosed comprising a stiff, rigid, electrically insulating ceramic substrate having a recess in the form of a groove formed in one substrate surface. Electrically conductive film means are deposited on that surface to define a capacitor detect plate inside the recess, a capacitor source plate connector pad outside the recess and circuit paths which are connected to the detect plate and source plate connector and to respective terminal pads along an edge of the substrate surface. The accelerometer device further includes a flat, electrically conductive plate or blade member of stiffly resilient metal which is formed with an attachment portion, a capacitor source plate portion and integral resilient beam means in a common plane. The attachment portion of the member is secured in electrically conductive relation to the source plate connector on the substrate with a thin layer of solder. Spacing between the upper surfaces of the detect plate and the source plate is determined by the depth of the recess. In one embodiment, glass frit including a bonding glass meltable at one temperature and glass rods of a small, precisely determined diameter which remain shape-retaining at the melting temperature of the bonding glass is deposited over two spaced portions of the source connector to provide a precise level of attachment of the source plate to the source plate connector.
Although devices made in accordance with the teachings of the above referenced patent application are very effective and perform well, the use of solder as a means of attachment involves a relatively time consuming reflow process and requires flux cleansing. In addition, there is a tendency for elements connected by solder to move slightly over time due to so-called solder creep thereby adversely affecting calibration of the device.
In application, Ser. No. 07/628,249, now U.S. Pat. No. 5,239,871 assigned to the assignee of the present invention, another accelerometer device is shown comprising an essentially flat electrically insulating substrate with a detect plate and a source plate connector disposed thereon and with a similar conductive blade member secured to the substrate in electrically conductive relation to the capacitor source plate connector. Spacing between the source plate portion and the detector plate is accomplished by using a shim between the attachment plate portion and the source plate connector in one embodiment and in another embodiment by reducing the thickness of the metal plate. However, use of a shim adds an additional part and process step which adds to the cost of the device as well. Further, when using a shim it is difficult to obtain close dimensional control from device to device. Use of a metal plate having a reduced thickness portion results in a more expensive blade member and one for which it is difficult to provide a properly balanced and mounted source plate portion. | {
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1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a new and improved unitary system and process for recycling contaminated material such as plastic chips which are in ground-up or shredded form obtained from plastic containers, retainers, wrappers, bags, films, and the like, so that the material may be used again. The system provides a unitary apparatus capable of operating with a wide variety of variables in terms of hot or cold liquid media with or without chemicals and different drying processes. Essentially, the present invention is directed toward a tremendous ecological problem caused by the wide usage of a wide variety of different types of plastic materials for containing and packaging foodstuffs, liquids of all types, films, wrappers, bags, and the like, employing resinous plastic material as the basic forming medium.
2. Background of the Prior Art
Present day efforts at removing contaminants from reground and/or shredded plastic materials are fraught with difficulty in that there is not available a unitary machine for handling the material after a grinding up or shredding process to provide an output that is suitable for reuse in plastic products. Moreover, material handling systems that are currently used tend to introduce air into washing mediums, thereby creating unwanted foam which is difficult to remove. Moreover, there is no acceptable system for recycling or reprocessing spent or dirty liquid media so that the liquid can be re-used in treating successive batches of plastic chips to be recycled. In addition, a substantial quantity of energy in the form of heat is lost and the overall efficiency of many processes is reduced thereby.
Oftentimes special solvents or chemicals are needed for dissolving certain substances or contaminants on the surface of reground plastic material and presently there are no efficient systems for saving these chemicals and cleansing the same for re-use in treating subsequent batches of material or for utilizing the chemicals in other areas.
In general, the fragmented approach of the industry to the monumental problem of recycling the great volume of plastic material from used containers, retainers, films, wrappers, bags, and the like, has not been dealt with in an environmentally sound and cost effective manner. Moreover, there are no systems currently available that are efficiently handling the dirt, dried milk, foodstuffs, oils, detergents, paper labeling adhesives, glues and films which are removed from the plastic materials in a recycling process.
One system that is in use involves the introduction of shredded or ground-up plastic chips into a large vat of liquid medium. The vat is provided with a plurality of propeller-type agitators to move the liquid over the surface of the chips. This system is not effective for a number of reasons which include, (1) the introduction of air into the process producing unwanted foam which later on requires an anti-foaming compound or some mechanical foam breaker means of destroying the foam that is produced. (2) The action of the propeller is sometimes effective to further grind-up or greatly reduce the size of plastic chips to be recycled and some of the chips are reduced to a consistency of fine powder which is then lost and not available for re-use. Some systems can discharge large volumes of soiled, solids-laden, liquid medium from a recycling operation into a sanitary system or sewage treatment system in a manner that is not an environmentally desirable procedure. This results in the need for further treatment and removal of the process liquid medium to eliminate and separate out the contaminants removed from the plastic chips and from the liquid medium.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,011,637 discloses a device including a rotatable drum having means for discharging and separating heavy and light fractions of materials known as float and sink particles.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,516,841 discloses a system for separating and reclaiming components from metallic-plastic laminate structures wherein wider and heavier components are separated out after shearing and grinding of the input material.
Gulzow et al. U.S. Pat. No. 3,707,858 discloses a washing machine having a drum rotatable about a horizontal axis and divided axially into a plurality of washing and rinsing compartments.
The Pearson U.S. Pat. No. 3,811,568 discloses a machine for separating plastic parts from runners used in molding the parts for collecting the runners to use again in plastic molding operations.
The Brown U.S. Pat. No. 3,852,046 discloses a method for recycling waste plastics and products by first grinding the materials into particulate form and thereafter washing the same to remove non-plastic material therefrom. The remaining materials are then heated to a temperature above the softening point of the lower melting thermoplastics but below the temperature of the softening point of the highest melting thermoplastics contained in the mixture. The resulting recycled material may then be used with asphaltic compositions or cellulosic material as a filler.
The Emil et al. U.S. Pat. No. 3,859,404 discloses a method for densifying styrene foam by heating and exposure to air pressure followed by clenching to produce a high density resin from scrap foam material.
Iseman U.S. Pat. No. 3,928,181 discloses a cottonseed and cockleburr separator where material is fed into a trough containing liquid wherein the cottonseeds sink towards the bottom and the lighter cockleburr material tends to move to the top. Screw conveyors are utilized in sloping trough enclosures.
Kolbus U.S. Pat. No. 4,000,031 discloses a method and apparatus for recovery of plastics and non-plastics from plastic coated waste material employing a helical screw flight within a perforated drum rotatable in a tank.
Bober U.S. Pat. No. 4,009,235 discloses a process for reclaiming extruded plastic resins by forming a plastic rope of resin with a rotating funnel or other device used to gather the hot molten plastic waste and twist it into the shape of a rope which is then passed through a cooling bath and pinch rolls.
U.S Pat. No. 4,033,907 discloses a system for reclaiming waste plastic material of a molecularly oriented type to facilitate subsequent washing, separating and melt processing steps. This system also discloses the use of a hot caustic solution for eliminating the growth of bacteria and mold on the recyclable plastic material.
Arendt U.S. Pat. No. 4,094,172 discloses a device for adding and/or removing fluid media from a rotating drum such as a washing machine
Saitoh et al. U.S. Pat. No. 4,119,533 discloses a method of separating hydrophobic plastics from a plastics mixture wherein the plastics having a high hydrophobicity tend to float on the aqueous liquid mixture surface.
Hobbs, Jr., et al. U.S. Pat. No. 4,162,880 discloses a scrap plastic recovery system wherein a hammer mill and separator are used for removing foreign objects and melting batches of homogeneous chips for a pelletizer used to make solid pellets.
Detsinko et al. U.S. Pat. No. 4,187,172 discloses an apparatus for separating trash from less heavy firm articles in a flow of liquid employing a rotary perforated element with helical flights on the inner and outer surface thereof.
Barnsbe U.S. Pat. No. 4,194,926 discloses an apparatus and method for selectively reclaiming parts from plastic film cartridges using a series of specific gravity separation tanks.
Dettmar U.S. Pat. No. 4,200,967 discloses a system for reclaiming plastic polymer from scrap plastic film rolls by cutting and splitting the same while on a paper core.
Cerrone U.S. Pat. No. 4,207,986 discloses apparatus for separating plastic film from paper, particularly useful in waste recycling systems and employing flighted belt conveyors with rotary reels used for picking up lighter components of a mixture of scrap.
Detwoyadesusso U.S. Pat. No. 4,234,415 discloses an apparatus for separating solids of different specific gravities out of a mixture thereof including frustoconical separation chambers rotatable about a horizontal axis.
Cerroni U.S. Pat. No. 4,314,674 discloses a process for separating paper from plastic existent in solid urban waste by partially tricurating the mixture to reduce the paper components to small particle size ground condition while the plastic film component is generally unchanged.
Fagnant et al. U.S. Pat. No. 4,342,396 discloses a separator for separating small parts from a mixture of parts of various different sizes and includes a drum rotatable about a vertical axis.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,362,276 discloses a method and apparatus for recovering and separating metal and plastic material from plastic insulated wiring.
Nowicki et al. U.S. Pat. No. 4,379,525 discloses a batch process for recycling plastic container scrap including a water process for removing labels and eventually floating plastic granules over a weir collected for deep watering.
Fish U.S. Pat. No. 4,433,925 discloses a method of separating plastic bottles and caps or portions thereof by mechanically cutting through both the bottle and the bottle cap.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,448,737 discloses a method and apparatus for producing foamed products from a mix of reclaimed plastic foam material and foamable version plastic resins. The Johnson patent discloses a feed hopper having a rotatable cyclical agitator for moving and mixing reclaimed plastic material and new virgin material prior to introduction into a twin screw compressor.
Young U.S. Pat. No. 4,454,030 discloses a separating machine for separating acceptable molded parts from the material output from a molding machine so that the sprues and other runners and defective parts can be recycled.
Grimm et al. U S. Patent No. 4,617,111 discloses a method for the separation of a mixture of polyvinylchloride and polyethylene teraphalate utilizing a chemical solution which is absorbed in the polyvinylchloride.
Morrass et al. U.S. Pat. No. 4,619,121 discloses a sealing system for tunnel washing machines for removal of gas or liquid media from a rotating drum.
The West et al. U.S. Pat. No. 4,635,862 discloses a rotary granulator for communuting waste plastics material for recycling.
Fagnant U.S. Pat. No. 4,723,717 discloses a rotary shearing/cutting machine for cutting, shearing and shredding or otherwise communuting objects and articles for disposal purposes such as thermoplastic materials from molding operations, sprues, runners and defective molded articles.
Tomaszek U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,728,045 and 4,809,854 disclose a method and apparatus for reclaiming bonded together tube resin articles for reclaiming the reusable resin materials from bottles and other scrap items.
Grimm U.S. Pat. No. 4,746,422 discloses a method for the separation of a mixture of plastic material and contaminants utilizing a two phase solution composed of a halogenated hydrocarbon and water.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,830,188 discloses a system for plastic separation and recycling methods wherein light and heavy plastic fractions are separated from one another and contaminants are removed therefrom.
The Hunter et al. U.S. Pat. No. 4,844,106 discloses a method and apparatus for cleaning shards such as clay pigeons for fragments of debris and contaminant articles ready for recycling.
Holloway U.S. Pat. No. 4,844,351 discloses a method for separation recovery and recycling of plastics from municipal solid waste wherein a rotating drum mounted on a sloping axis includes a plurality of generally helically extending flights for mechanical agitation of the municipal solid waste material.
Lee U.S. Pat. No. 4,940,187 discloses a systematic equipment system for recycling raw materials from waste wires so that metallic wire material is separated from plastic insulating materials on the wire.
Jay, Sr., et al. U.S. Pat. No. 4,944,868 discloses a process and apparatus for separating plastics from contaminants employing a separation tank, a wash tank, a rinse tank a lift conveyor and a material dryer.
Ingram et al. U.S. Pat. No. 4,964,512 discloses a recyclable film package for photographic film so that the material therein may be reused.
Placzek U.S. Pat. No. 4,974,781 discloses a method and apparatus for preparing paper containing and plastic containing waste materials for component fraction separation and utilizes an elongated rotary drum mounted on a sloping axis and employing a plurality of radially inwardly extending flights around the surface of a first portion and a plurality of helical flights around a second portion of the drum.
Volker U.S. Pat. No. 4,979,682 discloses a system for reclaiming synthetic material and metal from a synthetic metal scrap combination but first communuting the scrap and pulverizing the particles to obtain a fluidized bed of synthetic fibers and metal and utilizing air flow to separate the fibers from the metal.
Rimmer U.S. Pat. No. 4,981,876 discloses a process for separating vinyl skin from foam backing material and recovering the separated components by mixing the small chips of composite plastics with a quantity of water to swell and break the cell structure of the foam at the foam vinyl interface.
Richardson et al. U.S. Pat. No. 5,011,087 discloses a method of az apparatus for continuously treating communuted synthetic plastic containers and products having contaminants bonded thereto for recycling purposes. The system includes an elongated horizontal drum or vessel employing one or more elongated helical screws therein for agitation of a liquid medium in which the material is contained.
Bridge et al. U.S. Pat. No. 5,644,000 discloses a bent inlet deflector for use with a granulator wherein scrap plastic is to be fed into a granulating device.
Nugent U.S. Pat. No. 5,022,985 discloses a process for the separation and recovery of mixtures containing plastics and other materials using flotation and aqueous dispersion. The process is said to be useful for separating polyethylene and polyvinyl chloride from communuted wire and cable scrap. | {
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The present invention relates to an impact-absorbing, load-limiting connection device, especially for connecting components or modules of a rotary-wing aircraft, as well as to a rotary-wing aircraft having such a connection device.
Over the past 30 years, major efforts have been made in automotive as well as aviation technology to improve the crash safety of automobiles and airplanes in order to protect the passengers in case of an accident, a hard emergency landing or a crash. Especially high demands are made of the crash safety of airplanes since, in comparison to automobiles, this type of machine is exposed to far greater loads in case of an accident. Developments in aviation so far have been aimed primarily at designing the undercarriage structures of passenger airplanes and helicopters so as to be more crash-safe. Here, fiber composite techniques are being used more and more often, especially carbon fiber composites with Kevlar composites as surface protection.
Among the various types of aircraft, the rotary-wing aircraft such as, for example, helicopters, are especially at risk in case of a crash due to their design and flight-specific attributes in comparison to conventional fixed-wing airplanes.
Whereas in case of a crash, fixed-wing airplanes generally follow a relatively flat angle of impact relative to the horizontal, the angle of impact of rotary-wing aircraft or helicopters is usually quite steep and can be at a value of 90° (vertical impact). Consequently, the main stress directions or main impact directions are very different with the above-mentioned types of aircraft. Unlike fixed-wing aircraft, rotary-wing aircraft or helicopters, for example, have massive and heavy structural components, such as gears, engine(s) and rotor(s) located at or on the top of the passenger cabin. In a crash, high accelerations and forces are exerted on these upper structural components, which thus greatly endanger the cabin and the passengers seated in the cabin. The high loads generated in case of a crash have to be transmitted and absorbed by the cabin structures such as, for example, the frame, which are subjected to far less of a load during normal operations. For this purpose, massive structural reinforcements are needed which, in turn, lead to unwanted high weights of these structures. Therefore, it would be desirable to be able increase the crash safety while reducing the structural weight.
Moreover, it should be taken into account that, in conventional airplanes, especially rotary-wing aircraft, even in case of a minor crash, quite considerable damage is done to so-called primary structures such as, for example, the cabin, or to other components that are not directly involved in a direct impact or the like. As a result, these components likewise have to be replaced after the crash, which leads to extremely high repair costs or ultimately even to a total loss. Hence, it would be desirable, also in the case of a fairly minor crash, to be able to reduce the severity of the damage or to limit this damage. | {
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The present invention relates to a process of an enzymatic reaction in a low water content condition (a system containing a very small amount of water) wherein the reaction is carried out with adjusting the water concentration in the reaction system to a suitably very low value in order to effectively take advantage of the activity of enzyme and in order to suppress the formation of by-product, in an interesterification of a fat or oil for obtaining desired useful products by utilizing a enzymatic reaction.
As an use of technique of enzymatic reaction in a low water content condition, a production of substitutional fats for cacao butter known as a raw material of chocolates is exemplified. Further, by choosing kind of substrate and of lipase, various highly purified products having optional constitution of fatty acids can be produced.
In recent years, active studies on a process for preparing valuable a fat or oil by interesterification using lipase have been made.
The interesterification by lipase is generally considered to be caused by a reversible reaction of a hydrolysis in which triglyceride (TG) is hydrolyzed into diglyceride (DG), monoglyceride (MG) or glycerin and fatty acid (FA), and of synthesizing triglycerde again from the hydrolysates. Thus existence of water is necessary in an interesterification system, and therefore some amount of water is added to the reaction system.
However, it is impossible to inhibit the proceeding of the hydrolysis if the amount of water added is excess, and therefore by-products such as released fatty acid, monoglyceride and diglyceride are formed in a large amount and the yield of the desired triglyceride is lowered. And consequently, there arises a problem that the quality of triglyceride as the product is Therefore, in order to effectively carry out an interesterification, the reaction system should be maintained in a low water content condition constantly.
In case, however, the amount of water in a reaction system is too little, there arises a that the catalytic activity of enzyme cannot be sufficiently invigorated and the rate of reaction is lowered.
As a means of solving the above problem in the conventional process of interesterification, there is disclosed, for instance, an addition of a water-soluble polyhydroxy compound, and a protein or a peptide in an emulsion system (Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 111398/1982), or an addition of a surface active agent (Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 198798/1982) to increase the rate of reaction.
On the other hand, some processes for industrial production, in which an immobilized enzyme or a microorganism is used, have been proposed. For instance, a process in which an enzyme is immobilized onto an adsorbent such as Celite (Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 71797/1980, Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 104506/1977, Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 84397/1980 and Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 78496/1982); a process in which an enzyme is immobilized onto various water-absorptive materials such as saccharides (Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 116688/1983, Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 116689/1983, Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 187195/1983 and Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. No. 28482/1984); a process in which a dried microbial cell is used as a catalyst (Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 34189/1985); and the like are exemplified.
For industrially carrying out an interesterification using an immobilized enzyme or a microorganism, however, in both cases of batch reaction system and continuous reaction system, it is indispensable -to-. constantly adjust the water concentration in the vicinity of the enzyme to a suitably very low concentration in order to maintain a high yield. In an interesterification, since water is consumed by a hydrolysis, it is necessary to supply water properly. For instance, a process in which the reaction is proceeded with supplying a reaction liquid in which water is dissolved in an amount of 40 to 70% by weight of the saturated amount is disclosed (Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 154951/1981 and Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 500649/1984). In such a process, however, it is difficult to highly precisely adjust the water concentration in the vicinity of the enzyme to a suitably very low concentration, and therefore the industrialization of this process is obstructed.
As described above, an interesterification is caused by a combination of a hydrolysis and a synthesis. In a reaction system of interesterification, when the water concentration is high, water is consumed by a hydrolysis. That is, the water concentration in the reaction system is changing every moment with the proceeding of the reaction. Therefore, the determination of the water concentration in the beginning of the reaction is meaningless, and the constant adjustment of water concentration to a suitable concentration during the reaction is the important subject in an invention.
Moreover, in a process using an immobilized enzyme or microorganism (hereinafter referred to as "immobilized enzyme catalyst"), there is required a technique for constantly adjusting the water content held in the immobilized enzyme catalyst (hereinafter referred to as "water content of catalyst") to the optimum.
In almost all the conventional processes, however, attention is paid only to the water concentration at the beginning of the reaction and there is no suggestion about a method of adjustment of the water concentration to a suitable during the reaction. Such adjustment has been said to be technically difficult.
Since the starting materials of interesterification such as a triglyceride, a fatty acid and a fatty acid ester with a lower alcohol or solvents for dilution contains a small amount of water, a diglyceride or a monoglyceride is produced by a hydrolysis, when the starting material or the solvent is used without taking any measures. It is known that diglyceride forms an eutectic mixture with triglyceride to suppress the crystallization of triglyceride. And consequently, there arise problems that the yield of triglyceride as product is lowered, and that the quality of product is deteriorated. Therefore, a technique for carrying out the reaction with lowering the water concentration in the reaction system to a lower value was required.
For an industrialization of interesterification, it is an inevitable problem that the rate of reaction is increased by utilizing a high-cost immobilized enzyme catalyst as effectively as possible, and at the same time the yield and quality of the product are improved by suppressing the proceeding the hydrolysis. And there is desired a technique for determining the water concentration in catalyst suitable for a desirable reaction and for carring out a reaction efficiently with adjusting the water concentration to the determined suitable value constantly.
The object of the present invention is to provide a process for efficiently preparing valuable a fat or oil as described above. | {
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A centrifugal fan also referred to as a blower fan or squirrel-cage fan is a mechanical device which brings a fluid, frequently air, into an inlet surrounding the axis of a fan wheel. The wheel forces the air out into the fan housing, creating increased pressure in the air. The air then exits though an outlet on the fan housing. Centrifugal fans have numerous applications including heating and cooling systems, and more specifically including swamp coolers. While centrifugal fans are common, compact solutions using a centrifugal fan as a heating, cooling, and/or refrigeration source are not. | {
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1. Field
The present disclosure relates to a fuel cell.
2. Description of the Related Art
For example, a solid polymer electrolyte fuel cell includes a membrane electrode assembly (MEA), which includes a solid polymer electrolyte membrane and an anode electrode and a cathode electrode sandwiching the solid polymer electrolyte membrane therebetween. The solid polymer electrolyte membrane is made from a polymer ion-exchange membrane. The membrane electrode assembly and separators that sandwich the membrane electrode assembly therebetween constitute a power generation cell (unit cell). In fuel cells, ordinarily, a few tens of to a few hundred power generation cells are stacked, and used as, for example, a vehicle fuel cell stack.
For supplying a fuel gas and an oxidant gas, which are reactive gases, to an anode electrode and a cathode electrode of each of power generation cells that are stacked, fuel cells often have a so-called internal manifold structure.
Fuel cells having an internal manifold structure include reactive gas inlet manifolds (a fuel gas inlet manifold and an oxidant gas inlet manifold) and reactive gas outlet manifolds (a fuel gas outlet manifold and an oxidant gas outlet manifold). These manifolds extend through the fuel cells in a stacking direction thereof. The reactive gas inlet manifolds and the reactive gas outlet manifolds are connected to reactive gas channels (a fuel gas channel and an oxidant gas channel) for supplying a reactive gas along electrode surfaces. An inlet side and an outlet side of each reactive gas channel are connected to the corresponding reactive gas inlet manifold and to the corresponding reactive gas outlet manifold, respectively.
In this case, an opening area of each reactive gas inlet manifold and an opening area of each reactive gas outlet manifold are relatively small. Therefore, in order to cause smooth flow of the reactive gas over entire electrode reaction surfaces, a buffer that disperses the reactive gas needs to be provided in the vicinity of each reactive gas inlet manifold and each reactive gas outlet manifold.
For making it possible to uniformly and reliably supply a reactive gas over an entire reactive gas channel from a reactive gas inlet manifold via a buffer, for example, a fuel cell that is disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2012-164467 is known. In this fuel cell, one of surfaces of a separator is provided with a first buffer through which a first reactive gas manifold is connected to a first reactive gas channel. In addition, the other surface of the separator is provided with a second buffer through which a second reactive gas manifold is connected to a second reactive gas channel.
The first buffer includes a first dedicated buffer region that is adjacent to the first reactive gas manifold and allows one of reactive gases to flow, and that restricts a flow of the other reactive gas at a side of the second buffer. The second buffer includes a second dedicated buffer region that is adjacent to the second reactive gas manifold and allows the other reactive gas to flow, and that restricts the flow of the one of the reactive gases at a side of the first buffer.
Here, the first buffer and the second buffer include a common buffer region that allows the one of the reactive gases and the other of the reactive gases to flow. Further, the depth of the first dedicated buffer region and the depth of the second dedicated buffer region are greater than the depth of the common buffer region.
This makes it possible to uniformly and reliably supply the corresponding reactive gas from the first reactive gas manifold to the entire first reactive gas channel via the first buffer, and the corresponding reactive gas from the second reactive gas manifold to the entire second reactive gas channel via the second buffer. | {
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1. Technical Field
The present disclosure generally relates to image capturing, and especially relates to a device and method for capturing images.
2. Description of Related Art
Nowadays, a digital camera or a mobile phone is used to capture images. Most of the cameras and the mobile phones use an autofocus technology. However, sometimes happens the area being captured by the camera or mobile phone is out of focus, especially when different subjects are at different distances in the scene.
To overcome the shortcoming described above, a method of capturing images with multiple focuses through infrared automatic focus or contrast automatic focus is used. A plurality of images is captured from the far object distance to the near object distance to form an image array. Each area of the view is checked and the clear image from the image array is picked according to the object distance of the selected area. However, in many cases, when taking a plurality of images from the far object distance to the near object distance, there will be many unused images, resulting in wasted time, storage space, and increased cost of the image capturing device. | {
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Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) is the leading cause of serious lower respiratory tract disease in infants and children (Feigen et al., eds., 1987, In: Textbook of Pediatric Infectious Diseases, W B Saunders, Philadelphia at pages 1653-1675; New Vaccine Development, Establishing Priorities, Vol. 1, 1985, National Academy Press, Washington D.C. at pages 397-409; and Ruuskanen et al., 1993, Curr. Probl. Pediatr. 23:50-79). The yearly epidemic nature of RSV infection is evident worldwide, but the incidence and severity of RSV disease in a given season vary by region (Hall, C. B, 1993, Contemp. Pediatr. 10:92-110). In temperate regions of the northern hemisphere, it usually begins in late fall and ends in late spring (Halt C. B., 1995, In: Mandell G. L, Bennett J. E., Dolin R., eds., 1995, Principles and Practice of infections Diseases. 4th ed &, Churchill Livingstone, New York at pages 1501-1519). It is estimated that RSV illness results in 90,000 hospitalizations and causes 4,500 deaths annually in the United States. Primary RSV infection occurs most often in children from 6 weeks to 2 years of age and uncommonly in the first 4 weeks of life during nosocomial epidemics (Hall et al., 1979, New Engl. J. Med. 300:393-396). RSV is estimated to cause as much as 75% of all childhood bronchiolitis and up to 40% of all pediatric pneumonias (Cunningham, C. K. et al., 1991, Pediatrics 88:527-532). Children at increased risk from RSV infection include preterm infants (Hall et al., 1979, New Engl. J. Med. 300:393-396) and children with bronchopulmonary dysplasia (Groothuis et al., 1988, Pediatrics 82:199-203), congenital heart disease MacDonald et al., New Engl. J. Med. 307:397-400), congenital or acquired immunodeficiency (Ogra et al., 1988, Pediatr. Infect. Dis. J. 7:246-249; and Pohl et al., 1992, J. Infect. Dis. 165:166-169), and cystic fibrosis (Abman et al., 1988, J. Pediatr. 113:826-830). The fatality rate in infants with heart or lung disease who are hospitalized with RSV infection is 3%-4% (Navas et al., 1992, J. Pediatr. 121:348-354).
RSV infects adults as well as infants and children. In healthy adults, RSV causes predominantly upper respiratory tract disease. It has recently become evident that some adults, especially the elderly, have symptomatic RSV infections more frequently than had been previously reported (Evans, A. S., eds., 1989, Viral Infections of Humans. Epidemiology and Control, 3rd ed., Plenum Medical Book, New York at pages 525-544). Several epidemics also have been reported among nursing home patients and institutionalized young adults (Falsey, A. R., 1991, Infect. Control Hosp. Epidemiol. 12:602-608; and Garvin et al., 1980, Br. Med. J. 281:1253-1254). Finally, RSV may cause serious disease in immunosuppressed persons, particularly bone marrow transplant patients (Hertz et al., 1989, Medicine 68:269-281).
Treatment options for established RSV disease are limited. Severe RSV disease of the lower respiratory tract often requires considerable supportive care, including administration of humidified oxygen and respiratory assistance Fields et al., eds, 1990, Fields Virology, 2nd ed., Vol. 1, Raven Press, New York at pages 1045-1072). The only drug approved for treatment of infection is the antiviral agent ribavirin (American Academy of Pediatrics Committee on Infectious Diseases, 1993, Pediatrics 92:501-504). It has been shown to be effective in the treatment of RSV pneumonia and bronchiolitis, modifying the course of severe RSV disease in immunocompetent children (Smith et al., 1991, New Engl. J. Med. 325:24-29). However, ribavirin has a number of limitations including high cost need for prolonged aerosol administration and potential risk to pregnant women as well as to exposed health care personnel. The American Academy of Pediatrics Committee on Infectious Diseases revised their recommendation for use of ribavirin. The current recommendation is that the decision to use ribavirin should be based on the particular clinical circumstances and physician's experience (American Academy of Pediatrics. Summaries of infectious Diseases. In: Pickering L. K, ed., 2000 Red Book: Report of the Committee on Infectious Diseases. 25th ed., Elk Grove Village, Ill., American Academy of Pediatrics, 2000, pp. 483-487).
While a vaccine might prevent RSV infection, no vaccine is yet licensed for this indication. A major obstacle to vaccine development is safety. A formalin-inactivated vaccine, though immunogenic, unexpectedly caused a higher and more severe incidence of lower respiratory tract disease due to RSV in immunized infants than in infants immunized with a similarly prepared trivalent parainfluenza vaccine (Kim et al., 1969, Am. J. Epidemiol. 89:422-434; and Kapikian et al., 1969, Am. J. Epidemiol. 89:405-421). Several candidate RSV vaccines have been abandoned and others are under development (Murphy et al., 1994, Virus Res. 32:13-36), but even if safety issues are resolved, vaccine efficacy must also be improved. A number of problems remain to be solved. Immunization would be required in the immediate neonatal period since the peak incidence of lower respiratory tract disease occurs at 2-5 months of age. The immaturity of the neonatal immune response together with high titers of maternally acquired RSV antibody may be expected to reduce vaccine immunogenicity in the neonatal period (Murphy et al., 1988, J. Virol. 62:3907-3910; and Murphy et al., 1991, Vaccine 9:185-189). Finally, primary RSV infection and disease do not protect well against subsequent RSV disease Henderson et al., 1979, New Engl. J. Med. 300:530-534).
Currently, the only approved approach to prophylaxis of RSV disease is passive immunization. Initial evidence suggesting a protective role for IgG was obtained from observations involving maternal antibody in ferrets (Prince, G. A, Ph.D. diss., University of California, Los Angeles, 1975) and humans (Lambrecht et al, 1976, J. Infect Dis. 134:211-217; and Glezen et al., 1981, J. Pediatr. 98:708-715). Hemming et al. (Morell et al., eds., 1986, Clinical Use of Intravenous Immunoglobulins, Academic Press, London at pages 285-294) recognized the possible utility of RSV antibody in the treatment or prevention of RSV infection during studies involving the pharmacokinetics of an intravenous immune globulin (IVIG) in newborns suspected of having neonatal sepsis. They noted that one infant, whose respiratory secretions yielded RSV, recovered rapidly after IVIG infusion. Subsequent analysis of the IVIG lot revealed an unusually high titer of RSV neutralizing antibody. This same group of investigators then examined the ability of hyperimmune serum or immune globulin, enriched for RSV neutralizing antibody, to protect cotton rats and prima against RSV infection (Prince et al., 1985, Virus Res. 3:193-206; Prince et al., 1990, J. Virol. 64:3091-3092; Hemming et al., 1985, J. Infect. Dis. 152:1083-1087; Prince et al., 1983, Infect. Immun. 42:81-87; and Prince et al., 1985, J. Virol. 55:517-520). Results of these studies suggested that RSV neutralizing antibody given prophylactically inhibited respiratory tract replication of RSV in cotton rats. When given therapeutically. RSV antibody reduced pulmonary viral replication both in cotton rats and in a nonhuman primate model. Furthermore, passive infusion of immune serum or immune globulin did not produce enhanced pulmonary pathology in cotton rats subsequently challenged with RSV.
A humanized antibody directed to an epitope in the A antigenic site of the F protein of RSV, SYNAGIS®, comprising variable heavy (VH) complementarity determining regions (CDRs) having the amino acid sequences of SEQ ID NO:1-3 and variable light (VL) CDRs having the amino acid sequences of SEQ ID NO:4-6, is approved for intramuscular administration to pediatric patients for prevention of serious lower respiratory tract disease caused by RSV at recommended monthly doses of 15 mg/kg of body weight throughout the RSV season (November through April in the northern hemisphere). SYNAGIS® is a composite of human (95%) and murine (5%) antibody sequences. See, Johnson et al., 1997, J. Infect Diseases 176:1215-1224 and U.S. Pat. No. 5,824,307, the entire contents of which are incorporated herein by reference. The human heavy chain sequence was derived from the constant domains of human IgG1 and the variable framework regions of the VH genes of Cor (Press et al., 1970, Biochem. J. 117:641-660) and Cess (Takahi et al., 1984, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 81:194-198). The human light chain sequence was derived from the constant domain of C6 and the variable framework regions of the VL gene K104 with J6-4 (Bentley et al., 1980, Nature 288:5194-5198). The murine sequences were derived from a murine monoclonal antibody, Mab 1129 (Beeler et al., 1989, J. Virology 63:2941-2950), in a process which involved the grafting of the murine complementarity determining regions into the human antibody frameworks.
SYNAGIS® has high specific activity against RSV in vitro (approximately 50-100 times that of RESPIGAM® (respiratory syncytial virus immune globulin, human) and is known to neutralize a broad range of RSV isolates. Since it is not derived from human plasma, prophylactic treatment with SYNAGIS® does not carry potential risk of transmission of blood borne pathogens.
SYNAGIS® was initially formulated as a liquid for IV use, at a concentration of 10 mg/ml SYNAGIS® in phosphate buffered saline. A lyophilized formulation of SYNAGIS®, which allows a higher concentration (100 mg/ml after reconstitution, in 50 mM histidine and 3.2 mM glycine buffer with 6% (w/v) mannitol at pH 6.0) of the antibody than this initial liquid formulation, was produced later to allow intramuscular use. The lyophilized formulation of SYNAGIS® is prepared by lyophilizing SYNAGIS® at 54 mg/ml in an aqueous solution containing 25 mM histidine, 1.6 mM glycine, and 3% (w/v) mannitol at pH 6.0. The initial liquid formulation in PBS and the lyophilized formulation of SYNAGIS® have been tested in phase I clinical studies in healthy adults. The lyophilized formulation was tested in phase I through phase IV studies in pediatric patients. SYNAGIS®, at doses of 15 mg/kg to 30 mg/kg for adults is found to be well tolerated, and 15 mg/kg for children is found to be safe and efficacious for RSV prophylaxis. The lyophilized formulation was approved in 1998 by the FDA for use in the prevention of serious lower respiratory tract disease caused by RSV in children at high risk of RSV disease.
However, the lyophilized formulation has a number of limitations, including a prolonged process for lyophilization and resulting high cost for manufacturing. In addition, the lyophilized formulation has to be reconstituted aseptically and accurately by healthcare practitioners prior to administering to patients. The reconstitution step itself requires certain specific procedures: (1) a sterile diluent (i.e., water or 5% dextrose in water for intravenous administration and water for intramuscular administration) is added to the vial containing lyophilized SYNAGIS®, slowly and aseptically, and the vial must be swirled very gently for 30 seconds to avoid foaming (2) the reconstituted SYNAGIS® needs to stand at room temperature for a minimum of 20 minutes until the solution clarifies; and (3) the reconstituted preparation must be administered within six (6) hours after the reconstitution. Such reconstitution procedure is cumbersome and the time limitation after the reconstitution can cause a great inconvenience in administering the formulation to patients, leading to significant waste, if not reconstituted properly or if the reconstituted dose is not used within six (6) hour and must be discarded.
Thus, a need exists for a liquid formulation of SYNAGIS® at a concentration comparable to or higher than the reconstituted lyophilized formulation so that there is no need to reconstitute the formulation prior to administration. This allows health care practitioners much quicker and easier administration of SYNAGIS® to a patient.
Prior liquid antibody preparations have short shelf lives and may lose biological activity of the antibodies resulting from chemical and physical instabilities during the storage. Chemical instability may be caused by deamidation, racemization, hydrolysis, oxidation, beta elimination or disulfide exchange, and physical instability may be caused by antibody denaturation, aggregation, precipitation or adsorption. Among those, aggregation, deamidation and oxidation are known to be the most common causes of the antibody degradation (Wang et al., 1988, J. of Parenteral Science & Technology 42(Suppl):S4-S26; Cleland et al., 1993, Critical Reviews in Therapeutic Drug Carrier Systems 10(4):307-377). Thus, there is a need for a stable liquid formulation of SYNAGIS® or an antigen-binding fragment thereof effective to prevent RSV infection. | {
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It is well-known that real-estate signs positioned in front of residential or commercial real-estate properties are an important method of indicating to the public the availability of the real-estate property for sale, lease, or rent. Unfortunately, there exists a period during the evening where this marketing opportunity is not utilized because the real-estate sign is no longer clearly visible to passersby.
Lighted real-estate signs are known. Unfortunately, there are drawbacks to existing lighted real-estate sign solutions. Real-estate sign assemblies exist that illuminate the real-estate sign by traditional light bulbs. However, these light bulbs tend to blend in with similar bulb-based lights in a neighborhood and thereby may be easily missed by a passerby. For example, porch lights, yard lights, street lights, incandescent light bulbs emitting through a window from within a home may make the sign difficult to see from certain angles where surrounding lights obscure it.
In addition, real estate signs are typically not very attention-catching, particularly to passersby by who are focused on driving or may otherwise be occupied while traveling past the real-estate property. Even if the sign is lighted at night, the passersby may still not notice the real-estate sign and an opportunity to market the property is missed.
Existing solutions are cumbersome, complicated, and expensive. Relators desire an apparatus or method that allows them to market their numerous real-estate properties in an effective and efficient manner that does not require a large investment or a large deviation from a standard thin panel sign 100 attached to a horizontal cross-arm 102 that is affixed to a vertical post 104 (see FIG. 1). For example, some prior art lighted real-estate signs require the marketing indicia to be integrated into the lighted assembly, which requires relators to waste their existing real-estate signage and purchase the expensive lighted assembly with the marketing indicia integrated into the assembly. Accordingly, what is desired is an apparatus that allows relators to illuminate their existing real-estate signs, without a large deviation from the standard vertical post-horizontal cross-arm configuration, and using a unique type of illumination that attracts the attention of passersby during the night.
Therefore, a need exists to overcome the problems with the prior art as discussed above. | {
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1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to computer-based tools for manipulating digital images. More specifically, the present invention relates to a method and an apparatus for efficiently applying a bilateral filter to an image.
2. Related Art
A major problem in displaying a real-world scene is that the dynamic range of color intensity values which are present in the real-world scene often greatly exceeds the dynamic range of a specific display medium which is used to display the real world scene. To solve this problem, many systems perform “HDR (High Dynamic Range) tone mapping” to reduce the dynamic range of such scenes so that they can be effectively displayed on media, such as hard-copy prints, CRT/LCD displays, and projectors. More specifically, systems that perform HDR tone mapping attempt to reduce the contrast of a natural scene so that it can be displayed on a specific display medium, while preserving image details which are critical to appreciate the original scene content.
One of the most popular techniques for HDR tone mapping is to apply a “bilateral filter” to an image. A bilateral filter is a filter that computes a new value of a pixel in the image based on the spatial closeness as well as the photometric similarity of other pixels in the image. For example, a bilateral filter may compute a new pixel value based on the values of neighboring pixels (spatial closeness) which have values that are similar (photometric similarity) to the original pixel.
Unfortunately, existing techniques for applying a bilateral filter to fan image can require a large amount of computation. More specifically, existing techniques typically use an approximation to a Gaussian function as the spatial component of the bilateral filter. Hence, to update a given pixel these existing techniques need to compute the individual contributions of each neighboring pixel during the bilateral computation. Because the range of interest is a two-dimensional area, these existing techniques typically require O(n2) operations for each pixel, where n is the radius (in number of pixels) of the filter. (Note that, big “O” notation, e.g., O(n2), is commonly used to describe the asymptotic complexity of software processes.) This is why existing techniques can be very slow, especially when the filter radius is large.
Hence, what is needed is a method and an apparatus for applying a bilateral filter to an image without the above-described performance issues. | {
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Hitherto, the technology disclosed in Non-Patent Document 1 has been known as a demodulation method using a plurality of antennas. The contents disclosed in this Non-Patent Document 1 are briefly described below using an accompanying drawing.
In FIG. 1, in a transmitting apparatus 30, a transmit signal A digital signal 1 and transmit signal 13 digital signal 2 are input to a modulated signal generation section 3. Modulated signal generation section 3 executes BPSK (Binary Phase Shift Keying), QPSK (Quadrature Phase Shift Keying), 16QAM (Quadrature Amplitude Modulation), or suchlike modulation on transmit signal A digital signal 1 and transmit signal B digital signal 2, thereby obtaining a transmit signal A baseband signal 4 and transmit signal B baseband signal 5, and sends these signals to a radio section 6.
Radio section 6 executes predetermined radio processing such as frequency conversion and amplification on transmit signal A baseband signal 4 and transmit signal B baseband signal 5, thereby obtaining a transmit signal A modulated signal 7 and transmit signal B modulated signal 8, and supplies these signals to an antenna 9 and antenna 10 respectively. By this means, transmit signal A modulated signal 7 is emitted as a radio wave from antenna 9, and transmit signal B modulated signal 8 is emitted as a radio wave from antenna 10.
In a receiving apparatus 40, a radio section 13 executes radio processing such as frequency conversion and amplification on a received signal 12 received by an antenna 11, thereby obtaining a baseband signal 14, and sends this signal to a maximum likelihood detection section 19. Similarly, a radio section 17 executes radio processing such as frequency conversion and amplification on a received signal 16 received by an antenna 15, thereby obtaining a baseband signal 18, and sends this signal to maximum likelihood detection section 19.
By detecting baseband signals 14 and 18, maximum likelihood detection section 19 obtains a transmit signal A received digital signal 20 and transmit signal B received digital signal 21. At this time, maximum likelihood detection section 19 performs Maximum Likelihood Detection (MLD) as shown in Non-Patent Document 1. Non-patent Document 1: IEEE WCNC 1999, pp. 1038-1042, September 1999. | {
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The invention relates to swimming pools and more specifically to a portable skimmer that can be pulled around the perimeter of the swimming pool.
The present method of cleaning debris from the water surface of a swimming pool is done by one of two methods. One involves running the swimming pool pump that draws the water in through the skimmer located adjacent one side of the swimming pool. To do this may require several hours of running the pump.
A quicker method of cleaning the debris off the surface of the swimming pool is to manually dip a hand skimmer into the water picking up the debris and remove it. This may be done with the hand skimmer held in a person's hand while standing on the edge of the pool or the hand skimmer can be attached to the end of a telescopic pole. This method requires physical energy and it is slow and tedious to get the top surface of the pool clean.
It is an object of the invention to provide a novel portable swimming pool skimmer that can be dragged along the top surface of the swimming pool and which merely requires the person to walk around the perimeter of the pool while dragging it.
It is also an object of the invention to provide a novel portable swimming pool skimmer that is economical to manufacture and market.
It is another object of the invention to provide a novel portable swimming pool skimmer that requires minimal instruction on how to use it and which can be used by adults and children alike.
It is an additional object of the invention to provide a novel portable swimming pool skimmer that dramatically reduces the amount of time required to remove debris from the top surface of a swimming pool. | {
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There are many electrical and electronic devices in the modern household some of which can become dangerous if the user, for example, forgets to turn off one of the devices, such as an iron, or forgets to close the refrigerator door. There is a need for a reliable and effective way to monitor and assist individuals who are prone to forget to turn off such devices or otherwise cannot handle the devices in a safe manner. | {
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The invention relates to a device for optically measuring the height of a surface of an object, which device comprises a radiation source unit for generating a radiation beam and for forming an essentially stationary radiation spot on the surface by means of said beam, means for selecting a reflected beam from the radiation reflected by the surface in the radiation spot, and a position-sensitive radiation detection system arranged in the radiation path of the reflected beam. An essentially stationary radiation spot is understood to mean that movement of the spot during a measurement is not necessary.
Such a device is used, for example, to check whether a surface has the desired profile, for example, whether a flat plate is really flat and does not have any grooves or projections. The device may also be used to check whether holes and elevations are provided at the correct positions on a substrate plate and it may further be used, for example, for inspecting electronic circuits comprising electrically insulating plates provided with conducting metal strips and electronic components.
A device as described in the opening paragraph is known, inter alia, from EP-A 0,134,597. This document describes a device for performing a triangulation so as to determine the distance between the surface of an object and a reference level. The known device comprises a radiation source from which a narrow radiation beam is incident on the surface where it forms a radiation spot. The radiation spot is focused on a linear radiation-sensitive detector surface by means of one or more objective lenses. The pupil of the objective system selects a reflected beam coming from the radiation spot. The position where the radiation spot is imaged on the detector surface indicates where the radiation beam incident on the object surface impinges upon the latter surface, and hence indicates the height of this surface. A displacement of the position of the radiation across the detector surface involves a change of the surface height of the object to be measured.
The sensitivity of the height measurement, i.e. the ratio between the change of the surface height and the displacement of the position of the incident radiation across the detector surface is dependent, inter alia, on the focusing of the image of the radiation spot on the surface of the position-sensitive radiation detection system. In order to maintain this image focused at any height, the detector surface should be tilted with respect to the direction from which radiation is incident on the surface. Due to such a tilt the fraction of the radiation which contributes to the electric output signal of the detector will decrease, thus rendering the detection system more insensitive. | {
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Aerial refueling is a process of transferring fuel from one aircraft (the tanker airplane or the refueling airplane) to another airplane (the receiving airplane) during flight. The procedure allows the receiving aircraft to remain airborne longer, extending its range or loiter time on station.
Refueling airplanes can either be originally manufactured as refueling planes (i.e. the original purpose of the airplane is to serve as a refueling airplane), or alternatively, be converted from an existing airplane originally intended to serve a different purpose, e.g. a passenger airplane.
An example of a refueling airplane that is originally manufactured as a refueling airplane is the military aerial refueling and strategic transport aircraft Boeing KC-767 developed by Boeing from its B767-200 jet airliner.
An example of a refueling airplane converted from a passenger airplane is the B767 Multi-Mission Tanker Transport (MMTT) that was converted by Israel Aerospace Industries from secondhand B767-200ER airplane.
A known parameter related to the take-off and the landing attitudes of airplanes is a tail-strike pitch attitude that is defined as a critical attitude between a longitudinal axis of the airplane and the ground line, at which the tail section of the airplane contacts and strikes the ground. Such a strike can happen if the attitude of the airplane is equal to or above the tail-strike pitch attitude during take-off or landing of the airplane. Therefore, when operating the airplane during take-off or landing, the pilot has to pay attention that the attitude of the airplane is below the tail-strike pitch attitude, so as to prevent a tail-strike event.
Tail strike is an aviation term that describes an event in which the rear end of an aircraft strikes the runway. This can happen during takeoff of an affixed-wing aircraft if the pilot pulls up too rapidly, leading to the tail of the airplane's body touching the runway. It can also occur during landing if the pilot raises the nose too aggressively.
FIG. 1A illustrates a typical take-off procedure of an airplane, and FIG. 1B illustrates a table including data taken from flight manuals of different airplane models such as: B767-200, B767-300 and B767-400, and their corresponding flight parameters, such as: Liftoff Attitude, Minimum tail clearance and Tail Strike Pitch Attitude (discussed above). The Liftoff Attitude is the preferred attitude of the airplane at which the airplane should take-off, and the Minimal Tail Clearance, which is shown in FIG. 2B, is the minimal distance between the lowermost point of the airplane's tail section and the ground during take-off. A tail clearance below the minimum tail clearance can result in tail-strike.
In order to prevent tail-strikes during take-off of the airplane, the pilot has to follow flight performance and operation procedures related to parameters such as: a pitch rate, a decision speed (V1), rotation speed (VR) and a take-off speed (VLOF). The pitch rate is the rate at which the yoke of the airplane is pulled. The decision speed (V1) is a calibrated airspeed on the ground at which, as a result of engine failure or other reasons, the pilot assumed to have made a decision to continue or discontinue the takeoff. The rotation speed (VR) is the speed at which the aircraft's nosewheel leaves the ground. The take-off speed (VLOF) is the speed of the airplane at which it leaves the ground. By following the flight performance and operation instructions, the values of the Liftoff Attitude, the Minimal Tail Clearance, and Tail Strike Pitch Attitude can be controlled, and a tail-strike can be prevented accordingly. | {
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FIG. 9 is a basic circuit diagram of a phase locked loop (PLL) circuit 30 using a VCO 20. In the VCO 20, an oscillation frequency fo of an output signal line 42 can be changed by a control voltage Vc input, that is, a control voltage line 46. Generally, in the PLL circuit 30, a phase frequency comparator 26 detects a phase difference between a signal (fo/N) obtained by dividing the oscillation frequency fo output from the VCO 20 by N with a variable frequency divider 22 and a signal (fi/D) obtained by dividing a reference frequency fi input from an input signal line 44 by D with a variable frequency divider 24. To eliminate this phase difference, the control voltage Vc is fed back to the VCO 20 through a charge pump 32.
In this feedback loop, however, if an initial value of control voltage Vc of the VCO 20 or an initial oscillation frequency of the VCO 20 is far from a target frequency ft whose minimum value is ft_L and whose maximum value is ft_H, it will cause a problem that a frequency of an output signal does not correspond with that of an input signal, that is, a problem of unlocking of the PLL. Therefore, a range of Vc (the minimum value is Vclamp_L and the maximum value is Vclamp_H) is controlled in a clamp circuit 34 or the like so that an initial value of the control voltage Vc is not far from the predetermined range. In a conventional method, voltage is corrected in a charge pump 32 so as to oscillate in the middle frequency of the predetermined frequency range when control voltage Vc is the middle of its voltage range.
However, as shown by a characteristic curve in FIG. 10, even if voltage is calibrated only with the charge pump 32, a clamp range (Vclamp_L.about.Vclamp_H) of the control voltage Vc does not necessarily cover a whole range of target frequency ft (ft_L.about.ft_H). In the circuit, only the charge pump 32 in the feedback loop can control oscillation frequency fo, therefore, if a characteristic curve of the VCO 20 goes into a too-fast zone or to too-slow zone due to such as process variation, VCO 20 can not oscillate in the required frequency.
As shown by a characteristic curve in FIG. 10, if the VCO 20 has a nonlinear characteristic, the VCO 20's response can be changed according to its operating point. Therefore, the locking time of the PLL varies widely. Moreover, the clamp voltage can be changed by itself. Therefore, considering all these factors, it is necessary to set the most suitable oscillation characteristic of the VCO 20 by adjusting an operating point at the maximum or the minimum frequency (ft_L, ft_H) of the target frequency ft.
Therefore, it is an object of the present invention to calibrate an oscillation frequency versus a control voltage characteristic in a VCO so that the VCO can oscillate in a target frequency securely within a control voltage range. | {
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The discovery of the hepcidin peptide and characterisation of its gene, HAMP,4 has led to the revision of previous models for the regulation of iron homeostasis and the realisation that the liver plays a key role in determining iron absorption from the gut and iron release from recycling and storage sites. Perhaps the most striking example has been to change the pathogenic model of HFE-related hereditary haemochromatosis from the crypt-programming model centered on the duodenal absorptive enterocyte to the hepcidin model centered on the hepatocyte.5,6 In summary, the hepcidin model proposes that the rate of iron efflux into the plasma depends primarily on the plasma level of hepcidin; when iron levels are high the synthesis of hepcidin increases and the release of iron from enterocytes and macrophages is diminished. Conversely when iron stores drop, the synthesis of hepcidin is down-regulated and these cells release more iron.
In order to describe the postulated major role of hepcidin it is necessary to understand the function of ferroportin, a protein first characterised in 2000. Ferroportin is the major iron export protein located on the cell surface of enterocytes, macrophages and hepatocytes, the main cells capable of releasing iron into plasma for transport by transferrin.7
The major iron recycling pathway is centered on the degradation of senescent red cells by reticuloendothelial macrophages located in bone marrow, hepatic Kupffer cells and spleen. The exit of iron from these macrophages is controlled by ferroportin. The role of the hepatocyte is central to the action of ferroportin, because the hepatocyte is proposed to sense body iron status and either release or down-regulate hepcidin, which then interacts with ferroportin to modulate the release of cellular iron. Hepcidin directly binds to ferroportin and decreases its functional activity by causing it to be internalized from the cell surface and degraded.8
Increased hepcidin synthesis is thought to mediate iron metabolism in two clinically important circumstances, shown schematically in FIG. 1. In individuals who do not harbour mutations causing haemochromatosis, the hepatocyte is thought to react to either an increase in iron saturation of transferrin or to increased iron stores in hepatocytes themselves, by inducing the synthesis of hepcidin by an as yet unknown mechanism. Thus the physiological response to iron overload under normal circumstances would be the hepcidin mediated shut down of iron absorption (enterocyte), recycling (macrophage) and storage (hepatocyte).
The synthesis and release of hepcidin is also rapidly mediated by bacterial lipopolysaccaride and cytokine release, especially interleukin-6. Thus the hepcidin gene is an acute-phase responsive gene which is overexpressed in response to inflammation. Cytokine mediated induction of hepcidin caused by inflammation or infection is now thought to be responsible for the anaemia of chronic disease, where iron is retained by the key cells that normally provide it, namely enterocytes, macrophages and hepatocytes. Retention of iron leads to the hallmark features of the anaemia of chronic disease, low transferrin saturation, iron-restricted erythropoeisis and mild to moderate anaemia.9 The nature of the hepcidin receptor is presently unknown, however an exciting future prospect may be the development of agents to block the receptor with the aim of treating the anaemia of chronic disease, a common often intractable clinical problem.
Down-regulation of hepcidin synthesis results in increased iron release, which arises in the two situations shown schematically in FIG. 2. The main causes of non-HFE haemochromatosis are mutations in either ferroportin, transferrin receptor 2, hepcidin or hemojuvelin genes. Classical HFE haemochromatosis, and all types of non-HFE haemochromatosis thus far studied with the exception of ferroportin related haemochromatosis, are characterised by inappropriate hepcidin deficiency. In these circumstances, hepatocytes become iron loaded, because their uptake of transferrin bound iron from the circulation is assumed to exceed that of ferroportin mediated export. Hepcidin deficiency causes increased ferroportin mediated iron export, resulting in increased enterocyte absorption of iron and perhaps quantitatively more important, enhanced export of recycled iron onto plasma transferrin by macrophages. Hepcidin is also suppressed in thalassaemic syndromes, both β thalassaemia major and intermedia and congenital dyserythropoetic anaemic type 1, where iron absorption is inappropriately stimulated despite the presence of massive iron overload.10
As shown in FIG. 2, anaemia and hypoxia both trigger a decrease in hepcidin levels. These discoveries were made in animal models and need to be further studied to show they are applicable in humans. Two animal models of anaemia in mice were used to demonstrate a dramatic decrease in hepcidin synthesis where anaemia was provoked either by excessive bleeding or haemolysis.11 This is postulated to permit the rapid mobilisation of iron from macrophages and enterocytes necessary to allow for the increased erythropoietic activity triggered by erythropoietin release. The same study showed down-regulation of hepcidin synthesis can be triggered by hypoxia alone, and mice housed in hypobaric hypoxia chambers simulating an altitude of 5,500 m also showed a rapid decrease in hepcidin.
In summary, hepcidin provides a unifying hypothesis to explain the behaviour of iron in two diverse but common clinical conditions, the anaemia of chronic disease and both HFE and non-HFE haemochromatosis. The pathophysiology of hepcidin has been sufficiently elucidated to offer promise of therapeutic intervention in both of these situations. Administering either hepcidin or an agonist could treat haemochromatosis, where the secretion of hepcidin is abnormally low. 1. Park C H, Valore E V, Waring A J, Ganz T. Hepcidin, a urinary antimicrobial peptide synthesized in the liver. J Biol. Chem. 2001; 276:7806-10. 2. Pigeon C, Ilyin G, Courselaud B, et al. A new mouse liver-specific gene, encoding a protein homologous to human antimicrobial peptide hepcidin, is overexpressed during iron overload. J Biol. Chem. 2001; 276:7811-9. 3. Ganz T. Hepcidin, a key regulator of iron metabolism and mediator of anemia of inflammation. Blood. 2003; 102:783-8. 4. Roetto A, Papanikolaou G, Politou M, et al. Mutant antimicrobial peptide hepcidin is associated with severe juvenile hemochromatosis. Nat. Genet. 2003; 33:21-2. 5. Fleming R E. Advances in understanding the molecular basis for the regulation of dietary iron absorption. Curr Opin Gastroenterol. 2005; 21:201-6. 6. Pietrangelo A. Hereditary hemochromatosis—a new look at an old disease. N Engl J. Med. 2004; 350:2383-97. 7. Donovan A, Brownlie A, Zhou Y, et al. Positional cloning of zebrafish ferroportin1 identifies a conserved vertebrate iron exporter. Nature. 2000; 403:776-81. 8. Nemeth E, Tuttle M S, Powelson J, et al. Hepcidin regulates cellular iron efflux by binding to ferroportin and inducing its internalization. Science. 2004; 306:2090-3. 9. Weiss G, Goodnough L T. Anemia of chronic disease. N Engl J. Med. 2005; 352:1011-23. 10. Papanikolaou G, Tzilianos M, Christakis J I, et al. Hepcidin in iron overload disorders. Blood. 2005; 105:4103-5. 11. Nicolas G, Chauvet C, Viatte L, et al. The gene encoding the iron regulatory peptide hepcidin is regulated by anemia, hypoxia, and inflammation. J Clin Invest. 2002; 110:1037-44.
The anemia of inflammation, commonly observed in patients with chronic infections, malignancy, trauma, and inflammatory disorders, is a well-known clinical entity. Until recently, little was understood about its pathogenesis. It now appears that the inflammatory cytokine IL-6 induces production of hepcidin, an iron-regulatory hormone that may be responsible for most or all of the features of this disorder. (Andrews N C. J Clin Invest. 2004 May 1; 113(9): 1251-1253). As such, down regulation of hepcidin in anemic patients will lead to a reduction in inflammation associated with such anemia.
Recently, double-stranded RNA molecules (dsRNA) have been shown to block gene expression in a highly conserved regulatory mechanism known as RNA interference (RNAi). WO 99/32619 (Fire et al.) discloses the use of a dsRNA of at least 25 nucleotides in length to inhibit the expression of genes in C. elegans. dsRNA has also been shown to degrade target RNA in other organisms, including plants (see, e.g., WO 99/53050, Waterhouse et al.; and WO 99/61631, Heifetz et al.), Drosophila (see, e.g., Yang, D., et al., Curr. Biol. (2000) 10: 1191-1200), and mammals (see WO 00/44895, Limmer; and DE 101 00 586.5, Kreutzer et al.). This natural mechanism has now become the focus for the development of a new class of pharmaceutical agents for treating disorders that are caused by the aberrant or unwanted regulation of a gene.
Despite significant advances in the field of RNAi and advances in the treatment of pathological processes which can be mediated by down regulating HAMP gene expression, there remains a need for agents that can inhibit HAMP gene expression and that can treat diseases associated with HAMP gene expression such as anemia and other diseases associated with lowered iron levels. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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Electromechanical switches, in other words relays or contactors, are often employed in order be able to switch electric power. As a rule, relays are inexpensive. Moreover, they stand out for their high switching capacity, low power loss and insensitivity with respect to brief overloads. However, due to their mechanical structure, which comprises movable armatures and movable normally open contacts, relays are prone to wear and tear. This is why electronic relays, in other words, semiconductor relays, are being used more and more often in applications that require a high switching frequency. Such electronic switches are also known as solid-state relays. Semiconductor relays are characterized by very little wear and tear, low sensitivity to vibration as well as a high switching frequency. | {
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The present disclosure relates to cloud computing, and more specifically, to self-terminating and/or self-shelving virtual machines and workloads in a cloud computing environment.
A virtual machine (VM) may be hosted by a hypervisor which, in a cloud computing environment, is managed by a cloud server. Conventionally, in order for a cloud user to delete or shelve the VM, the user must log into the cloud server and issue a delete or shelve request that targets the specific VM. The shelving of a virtual machine includes capturing the virtual machine's disk state (and optionally its memory state) and removing the virtual machine definition to free the compute, memory, network, and similar resources being consumed. Shelving is used in some cases in places of deleting, such as when the virtual machine or its workload may not be needed for some amount of time, and unshelving is faster than rebuilding the VM, reinstalling its software, reconfiguring its networking, etc.
However, the conventionally available solutions require the user to navigate to the cloud server user interface, locate the correct VM, and then issue the delete or shelve request. This becomes tedious and error prone in a large environment with multiple cloud servers, often causing the VM or workload to not be promptly deleted or shelved, failing to free valuable system resources.
Another conventional solution provides workloads and VMs that may auto-delete or auto-shelve after a given period of time (i.e., time-out). The drawback of this conventional solution is that it encourages a user to not manually remove VMs once they no longer need them, wasting resources until the VM or workload eventually times out. | {
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The present invention relates to a universal fixing member for a device for driving of a bicycle wheel.
Driving systems for bicycles offer assistance for pedalling by means of an additional motor. This assistance generally consists of a drive mechanism arranged on one of the wheels of the bicycle. Thus the power of the motor drives the wheel and is added to the power exerted by the pressure on the pedals, which enables the cyclist to supply less effort.
Unlike the drive system illustrated in European Patent application EP-A-0.155.185, in addition to the familiar drive system the new invention introduces a technological innovation as regards the fixing of the drive device. The fixing member of the drive device comprises a single mounting connecting this element either, in the case of a bicycle, to the seat post or to the handlebars, or to the frames of another non-motorised vehicle. The said system is thus different since rather than being fixed permanently or in a non-adjustable manner to the frame of a non-motorised vehicle, this case provides a truly universe system. | {
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Mobile devices may notify their users of incoming calls, text messages, emails, calendar events, or alarms through visual, audible, or haptic indications. Mobile devices expend energy to notify users, and such notifications may frustrate users if the notifications are provided too frequently. Accordingly, the use of notifications should be limited. Yet, notifications that are provided too infrequently may cause users to examine or otherwise interact with their mobile devices too frequently to identify events that may have occurred, which may again expend energy of the mobile devices or frustrate users. | {
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The present invention relates generally to the field of differential amplifiers and operational amplifiers and more particularly to an amplifier of this kind fabricated in integrated circuit technology and having a rail-to-rail common mode range at the amplifier input and output.
There are times when an operational amplifier is required which can linearly amplify an input signal over nearly the full supply voltage range, especially in the case of a supply voltage as low as 1.5 volts. Operational amplifiers to be used with low supply voltages should utilize as much as possible of the available supply voltage range in order to obtain the best signal-to-noise ratio. This requirement is especially severe in the case of low power applications or when the supply voltage is low as in battery powered systems.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,555,673 issued Nov. 26, 1985 in the name of J.H. Huijsing et al and an article by J.H. Huijsing et al in the IEEE JSSC, vol. SC-20, No. 6, 12/85, entitled "Low Voltage Operational Amplifier with Rail-to-Rail Input and Output Ranges", describe circuits which generally work well to amplify an input signal while using a large part of the supply voltage range. The Huijsing et al article describes an operational amplifier having rail-to-rail input, a so-called folded cascode stage and a rail-to-rail class A-B output stage. The input stage with a rail-to-rail common-mode input voltage range provides a constant transconductance over the full common-mode range. However, this operational amplifier also requires an intermediate stage to increase the gain and a completely separate class A-B quiescent bias network. Another disadvantage of the Huijsing et al operational amplifier is that it requires a fairly large number of integrated circuit components.
In the Huijsing et al patent and article the rail-to-rail common-mode voltage swing at the amplifier input is obtained by using two differential amplifier input stages in parallel and operating same such that the common mode (CM) voltage of one stage can reach the positive supply voltage rail and that of the other the negative supply voltage rail. Three common-mode input voltage ranges are present in these circuits. In a first range, which extends from the negative supply voltage to an intermediate range, only one differential amplifier input stage is operative. In a second range extending from the positive supply voltage to the intermediate range, the other differential amplifier input stage is operative. In the intermediate range, both differential amplifier stages are in operation.
The Huijsing et al patent describes an improved differential amplifier with a rail-to-rail input capability which attempts to correct the problem of a variation in the amplifier transconductance as the input common-mode voltage varies across the supply voltage range. The patent describes a current steering control circuit that regulates the operating currents for the two differential amplifiers such that the overall amplifier transconductance is controlled to be substantially constant as the common-mode voltage of the amplifier input signal varies across the supply voltage range. A summing circuit selectively combines internal currents supplied by the two differential amplifiers so as to derive at least one output signal representative of the input signal.
Another prior art operational amplifier is described in an article by D.M. Monticelli entitled "A Quad CMOS Single-Supply Op Amp with Rail-to-Rail Output Swing, in the IEEE JSSC, Vol. SC-21, No. 6, December 1986. This article describes a Quad CMOS amplifier which includes a class A-B output stage with quiescent current biasing. This op-amp circuit does not have a rail-to-rail input and does not use a folded cascode arrangement. It also requires two independent matched internal current sources for class AB quiescent current biasing so that any mismatch therebetween will result in a contribution to the input offset voltage. Furthermore, the Monticelli circuit does not eliminate the dependence of the quiescent bias current in the output transistors of the class A-B output stage on the voltage supply.
Further background information can be obtained from a review of U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,893,091 (Jan. 9, 1990); 4,958,933 (Sep. 18, 1990) and 4,797,631 (Jan. 10, 1989) U.S. Pat. No. 4,797,631 describes a rail-to-rail input stage and folded cascode stage. The circuit does not include a class A-B output stage or floating current source. Although this patent shows an input stage and a folded cascode stage, it does not include the current steering transistor of the Huijsing et al patent in the differential input stage and which transfers current from one current source transistor to the other as the input signal traverses the input common mode range. Thus, it does not maintain a constant current gain in the input stage, as is accomplished in the op-amp described in Huijsing et al patent discussed above.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,958,133 also describes a rail-to-rail input stage and a folded cascode stage, but again does not include a class A-B output stage, floating current source or current steering transistors in the input stage. A disadvantage of this circuit is that it does not maintain the bias currents constant.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,893,091 describes an amplifier with a class A-B output stage. However, this patent uses an intermediate gain stage between the input and output and wherein the output is a common collector driver. The requirement of an intermediate amplifier stage is a major disadvantage of this patent. | {
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This is the first application filed for the present invention.
Not applicable.
The present invention relates to the multiplexing of SONET/SDH data streams and, in particular, to a method of interleaving tributary data streams and recovering the tributary data streams, using unique, independent encoding schemes.
Optical fiber, because of its data transfer capacity and reliability, has become a commonly used medium for data transport. Synchronous Optical NETwork (SONET) and Synchronous Digital Hierarchy (SDH) standards are used to enable network devices, made by different manufacturers, to receive and transmit data streams through optical networks. Certain optical fibers have the capacity to convey independent data streams on multiple wavelength channels. The transmission of data streams onto different wavelength channels of a single fiber is familiar to those skilled in the art, and referred to as Wave Division Multiplexing (WDM).
The data stream with a lowest density defined by current SONET standards is a stream of frames transmitted every 125 microseconds. Each frame includes three 9-byte columns of transport overhead and 87 9-byte columns of payload. This least dense SONET stream is called a Synchronous Transport Signal (STS-)1. A stream of STS-n frames convey n byte interleaved columns of STS-1 frames respectively, at the same rate of 8000 frames/s. For example, the first nine 9-byte columns of an STS-3 frame are transport overhead, and the remaining 261 columns are referred to as the Synchronous Payload Container. The transport overhead consists of section overhead, as defined by the SONET standard.
The first bytes of the an STS-1 frame are A1 and A2 bytes. These bytes are used to detect the beginning of frames, which permits SONET devices to parse SONET frames into constituent bytes.
The SONET standard defines the structure of a the frames, and the key to extracting data from the frames. A set of virtual tributaries (VTs) that make up the payload of a frame are indexed by pointer fields in the section overhead. The SONET standard also provides a protocol for producing higher bit-rate streams from STS-1 frames m Synchronous Transport Signal (STS)-n frames can be byte interleaved to produce an STS-(nxc3x97m) data stream, or can be concatenated to produce an STS-(nxc3x97m)c data stream. The transport, section, line and path overheads of higher bit-rate streams are also defined by the SONET standard. The section and line overhead of higher bit rate SONET frames are not identical to those of the constituent frames, and so when an STS-(nxc3x97m) data stream is formed, the overhead of the component data streams must be replaced. The byte interleaving and replacing of section and line overhead is referred to as xe2x80x9creframingxe2x80x9d.
SONET signals are received by a class of SONET network elements (which includes line and section terminating equipment and routers), and the beginning of a SONET frame is detected by A1 and A2 byte filters.
The SDH protocol is very similar to the SONET protocol, but the two are not compatible to an extent that network elements adapted to propagate or terminate frames can be interchangeably used for either protocol. Consequently, if SONET frames are to be converted to SDH frames, or vice versa, a complex reformatting process is required. An example of a reformatting process is described in Assignee""s co-pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/494,518 which was filed on Jan. 31, 2000 and entitled METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR CROSS-CONNECTING DATA STREAMS WITH EFFICIENT MEMORY UTILIZATION AND TRANSPARENT PROTOCOL CONVERSION.
As is well known in the art, the speed of data transmission over optical fiber has been increasing at a steady and rapid rate. Consequently, as new high-speed equipment is connected into optical networks, it is often desirable to multiplex lower speed data streams for transport across the network in order to take advantage of the transport capacity of high-speed links. This gives rise to certain problems, however. First, in order to multiplex data streams in either SONET or SHD format, the frames must be pointer processed and reformatted as described above. The pointer processing changes certain frame header information, however, and this is not always acceptable to transport service customers. Second, SONET and SHD frames cannot be multiplexed together because of well understood incompatibilities between the two protocols.
It is therefore desirable to provide a method and apparatus that permits a plurality of low-speed data streams to be multiplexed onto a high-speed data channel without pointer processing, so that the multiplexing demultiplexing process is completely transparent to transport service customers. It is also desirable to provide a method and apparatus that permits synchronous data streams that conform to different protocols to be transparently multiplexed together without protocol conversion or pointer processing.
It is therefore an object of the invention to provide a method and apparatus for multiplexing/demultiplexing synchronous data streams in either SONET or SDH protocol, or any combination of the two protocols.
It is a further object of the invention to provide a method and apparatus for transparently multiplexing/demultiplexing synchronous data streams without pointer processing or protocol conversion.
Accordingly, the invention provides a method and system for encoding and multiplexing source data streams to form an aggregate data stream that is demultiplexed into component data streams using a self-inverting encoding scheme.
This is accomplished using a set of self-inverting encoding schemes, one for each of the data streams. The self-inverting encoding schemes are applied to the respective data streams. Each of the self-inverting encoding schemes must adhere to certain criteria. First, the encoding schemes of any given set must be unique. Second, the framing bytes of one data stream encoded by the encoding scheme associated with that stream must not, when decoded by any one of the other data streams, be identical to a framing byte of the one of the other data streams. The restriction of independence of a set of encoding schemes is ensured if the operation of any one of the set of encoding schemes does not influence the operation of the others in the set.
The method begins with parsing each of the m synchronous data streams into data units. This is accomplished by detecting respective framing bytes of each data stream. The data units of respective synchronous data streams are encoded using a respective encoding scheme, and then the encoded data units are interleaved to produce a serialized aggregate data stream.
The recovery of any one of the m synchronous data streams is performed by copying the aggregate data stream and applying a decoding scheme to data units of the copy of the aggregate data stream. The decoded data stream is then passed to a framer, which detects one or more framing bytes. After the framing bytes are detected, the remaining data units are recovered using a simple counting process in which every mth data unit is selected to recover the one of the m synchronous data streams. | {
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Heretofore, the structure of automotive doors above the belt line of the door, or the door glass frame, has been trimmed, sealed, and styled with numerous components which have been combined to form the window seal. The door glass has been sealed with a separate glass run assembly, and inner and outer belt strip assemblies. The glass run and belt strip assemblies have been trimmed on the interior of the automobile or other vehicle with separate trim components or the glass run assembly itself has provided the trim effect. The glass run on the exterior of the vehicle has been likewise trimmed with separate assemblies, escutcheons or separate appliques designed to meet the specific styling requirements of the vehicle. However, construction of the sealing, trimming and styling article for the upper window frame of an automotive door has been relatively expensive and particularly cumbersome to accomplish given the numerous components comprising the assembly. In the instance where an integral cutline seal/glass run/channel sealing strip has been used, it has failed since the function of the cutline seal often interferes with the sealing strip. | {
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1. Technical Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electronic fence, and more particularly, to an electronic fence capable of guiding animals under training to return to a predetermined restricted area.
2. Description of the Related Art
FIG. 1 shows a conventional electronic fence. In FIG. 1, transmitter 100 is connected to a transmission wire antenna 110 for transmitting an electric wave. Transmitter 100 includes an electric shock level control 101 for setting the level of an electric shock to be applied to animals, an antenna checking lamp 102, a power switch 103, and a transmitter power level control 104.
The operation of the conventional electronic fence will now be explained. A user turns on the power switch 103 included in the transmitter 100 and operates the shock level control 101 of the transmitter 100 to set the level of the electric shock to be applied to the animals. In addition, the user operates the transmitter power level control 104 to set a predetermined transmitter power level. Then, the transmission wire antenna 110, included in the electronic fence to prevent the animals from escaping, is operated to generate a signal.
In this state, when an animal wearing a receiver approaches the fence, a receiving antenna receives the signal transmitted from the transmitter 100 and a detector demodulates the received signal into the original signal. When the demodulated signal is an electric shock, the receiver generates a electric shock, having the level corresponding to the level of the transmitted signal, through a pair of electrodes. Accordingly, the animal cannot get out of the transmission wire antenna 110.
However, the aforementioned electronic fence generates an electric shock having a constant level when the animal escapes from a restricted area, and thus it is not efficient. Furthermore, the electric shock is generated when the escaped animal returns to the restricted area. Thus, the animal cannot enter the electronic fence due to the electric shock and the animal may run away.
When excited, some animals can run at speeds up to 100 Km/hour (62 miles/hour). At these speeds, the animal can escape the restricted area before an electric shock is applied to them. Furthermore, when the animals calm down and return home they typically return at a much slower pace. The conventional electronic fence cannot detect the direction the animals are moving relative to the restricted area and will generated the electronic shock as the animals attempt to enter the restricted area. If an electric shock is given to the animals when they are returning to the restricted area, the animals are deterred from entering the conventional electronic fence and may run away and become lost or injured in car accidents. | {
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As is well known, electrical enclosures exposed to corrosive or other contaminant laden air are susceptible to and may corrode or otherwise be attacked thereby. Contaminated atmospheres exist in many chemical plants and frequently where corrosive and other chemicals are used in the manufacture or processing of various products. The use of plastic enclosures in such atmospheres is a decided advantage because, depending upon airborne contaminant concentration and time, enclosures made of economically feasible metals may chemically react with those contaminants so as to freeze cover to box or become so eaten away as to become useless for their intended purpose.
Where electrical enclosures containing arcing devices are used in and around explosive atmospheres, various codes and standards prescribe that they be of explosion proof design to avoid potential injury to life and property. The underlying philosophy of explosion proof design where arcing could occur inside the enclosure is not to prevent explosive gases from gaining entry into the enclosure, but rather to contain any explosion that does occur therein so that the explosive flame front cannot propagate outside of the enclosure and ignite the surrounding atmosphere. Thus, explosion proof enclosing permit, but contain, a limited explosion therein rather than attempt to exclude an explosive gas.
Two principally plastic enclosures displaying somewhat different explosion proof design philosophy are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,927,249 to Pearse and 4,260,863 to Appleton. Both patents show a box and cover having a common interface when assembled that is not airtight and that can thus breathe so as to admit and expel whatever atmosphere surrounds the device, that atmosphere potentially containing contaminants. Various code requirements dictate the design of this interface, and when the interface is flat, some minimum amount of the material forming the interface must be metal. The Pearse patent incorporates a flat interface, and therefore this largely plastic enclosure incorporates metallic inserts that form a large part of the interface to satisfy this requirement of having metal at the interface. However, to satisfy explosion proof design requirements, the maximum allowable gap at the interface is so small that the Pearse device would more than likely require a secondary machining or grinding operation to achieve the necessary gap restrictions between box and cover where they join. Yet, some gap is desirable because any explosion occurring within the enclosure is vented through the gap to hold down internal pressure and prevent the enclosure from rupturing and thereby releasing the flame front to the surrounding atmosphere. Thus, the internal pressure is rather quickly relieved by venting expanding internal gases through the gap, and the flame front is quenched by the metallic surfaces defining the gap as it escapes therethrough.
If the contaminated atmosphere acts to eat away at the metallic interface, the interface gap between box and cover may so increase that the box loses its ability to quench any flame front attempting to escape. Alternatively, if the contaminated atmosphere reacts with the metal at the interface to fill up the gap, such as by products of corrosion, the vent may close up tightly that a later explosion within the box might create a pressure so intense as to rupture or blow the largely plastic box apart, thus also causing it to fail in its explosion proof function.
But even in applications where the electrical enclosure need not be explosion proof, the necessity to occasionally get inside the enclosure renders it most desirable to construct the enclosure of materials that are not attacked by corrosive or caustic gases. And although the use of plastic electrical enclosures and plastic sheathed cable is widespread under these conditions, many local building codes (such as in the City of Chicago) do not allow the use of plastic enclosures in conjunction with plastic sheathed cable.
In those locations where caustic, corrosive or otherwise contaminated atmospheres are present, and where local codes do not restrict the use of plastic enclosures, it would be desirable to use plastic electrical enclosures that can be conventionally connected into a metallic conduit system, yet provide all of the ground continuity advantages of a completely metallic electrical enclosure. Such an enclosure would have essentially all of the advantages, yet few or none of the disadvantages, of both plastic and metallic electrical enclosures. And, when such an electrical enclosure is designed for explosion proof applications, the absence of metal at the explosion proof interface ensures that the enclosure will not be altered in time by the effect of atmosphere laden contaminants so as to lose its explosion proof characteristics. | {
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1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an optical disk apparatus for recording and/or reproducing information on an optical disk, or for reproducing information recorded on an optical disk. More particularly, the invention relates to an optical disk apparatus which has a function of displaying and reproducing previews on a display device for respective titles or chapters of information recorded on an optical disk.
2. Background Art
Currently, a DVD (digital versatile disk) as an optical disk having a high recording density has been increasingly used as a device for recording picture and audio information obtained from TV programs or the like. When certain TV programs are recorded on a DVD, for example, a DVD recorder for recording information on the DVD records the TV programs together with the recording year, month and date when the programs are broadcasted for each title. At the time of reproduction of the DVD, the DVD recorder displays a disk menu screen on a display device, and reproduces the titles or chapters of the DVD on the disk menu screen through small windows (preview windows).
For example, preview windows A, B, C, D, E and F are displayed on a disk menu screen M as illustrated in FIG. 3. The preview window A shows a preview of a title T1. Similarly, the preview windows B, C, D, E and F show previews of title T2, title T3, title T4, title T5, and title T6, respectively. The recording dates of the titles T1, T2, T3, T4, T5 and T6 are Jul. 2, Jul. 8, Jul. 9, Jul. 12, Jul. 18, Jul. 20, all in 2004, respectively.
[Patent Reference No. 1] JP-A-11-184867
[Patent Reference No. 2] JP-A-2001-283570
In a conventional optical disk apparatus such as a DVD recorder and a DVD player, for example, the preview windows A, B, C, D, E and F corresponding to respective titles (or chapters) are shown on the disk menu screen M, and the contents in each title are reproduced from its initial part. However, since most TV programs include commercials, the contents of the titles cannot be easily recognized when commercials are recorded at the top. Even when the program is reproduced from its initial part without commercial break, the same opening pictures such as names of the cast are shown every time the program is reproduced in case of a drama. Thus, the contents of the title in this case are also difficult to be recognized.
In a related art disclosed in Patent Reference No. 1 which uses multiplexed closed caption data as picture signals of movie titles recorded on a DVD or the like, spoken words which are included in a movie are selected as a retrieval key and the movie is instantly reproduced from a target scene using the selected words. However, since this related-art device is not designed to skip commercials and the same scenes, contents of a preview displayed on a disk menu screen are difficult to be recognized.
Another related art disclosed in Patent Reference No. 2 pertains to a media contents management apparatus capable of efficiently deleting desired media contents stored in storage unit, and is not associated with an optical disk apparatus such as a DVD recorder and a DVD player.
Accordingly, it is an object of the invention to provide an optical disk apparatus for overcoming the above problems, which has a function of improving recognizability of previews on a disk menu. | {
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1. Field
This disclosure relates to methods for image compression, more particularly to lossless compression method for computer-generated document images.
2. Background
Efficient storage and transmission of electronic images typically require some sort of compression. Compression techniques are generally referred to as lossless or lossy. Lossless compression means that the resulting image is identical to the input image. Lossy compression techniques may have some slight variation between the output image and the input image. The amount of variation between the input image and the output image is determined by the quality of the compression technique. The overall amount of compression achieved is determined by the efficiency of the compression technique. Generally, lossless techniques do not achieve as high efficiency as lossy techniques.
Examples of compression techniques are wide and varied. Compression techniques may compress binary text images, such as run-length encoding used in CCITT (Coinite International Telephonique et Telegraphique) group 3/4 standards and binary adaptive arithmetic coding used in JBIG (Joint Bi-level Image Experts Group) standard for facsimile transmission. Others may compress graphic images, such an Lempel-Ziv-Welch (LZW) compression, used in the Graphics Image File format (GIF). Still photographic images are typically compressed using the JPEG (Joint Photographic Experts Group) standard. However, JPEG is used mostly for lossy compression of photographic images, in which there will be a variation between the output image and the input image. Lossless compression methods for photographic images include JPEG-LS standard and a process called CALIC.
JPEG-LS is based upon the Low Complexity Lossless Compression for Images (LOCO-I) and is optimized for photographic images only. CALIC (Context-based Adaptive Lossless Image Coding) switches between either binary or continuous-tone and thus is capable of compressing both binary text and photographic images. More information on CALIC can be found in U.S. Pat. No. 5,903,676, issued May 11, 1999.
None of above-described methods are particularly designed to handle compound images, which are typically comprised of a mix of text, graphics, and photographic images. The few existing compression algorithms for compound image sources belong to the Mixed Raster Content (MRC) model-based approaches. MRC model employs a layer representation to decompose a document into three layers, e.g. background, foreground and mask. An example of this technique is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 5,778,092, issued Jul. 7, 1998. However, MRC-based approach is a lossy technique and suffers from the intrinsic redundancy of layer representations.
Therefore, it would seem that a lossless image compression technique that can efficiently handle compound images would be useful. | {
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Field of the Invention
This invention relates to the bonding of two dissimilar polymeric resin composition surfaces. In a particular embodiment, the invention relates to a process for bonding an epoxy resin matrix reinforced with glass fibers to the surface of polyvinyl chloride pipe whereby the pipe is reinforced and withstands high pressures without rupture of the interface bond between the epoxy resin and the polyvinyl chloride surface.
For some time plastic pipe made of one or more layers each of polyvinyl chloride and epoxy-impregnated glass fibers has been widely used in the construction and plumbing industries. Light weight and resistance to corrosion have been among the desirable properties of this type of pipe. This pipe conventionally consists of an inner hollow cylinder of polyvinyl chloride overlaid with a wrapping of epoxy-impregnated glass fibers. In some cases only a single layer of each material is used; in other cases, however, the first layer of epoxy-impregnated glass fibers is overlaid with a second polyvinyl chloride layer, which is itself then overlaid with a second layer of epoxy-impregnated glass fiber. Any number of such multiple alternating layers may be thus built up.
Bonding between each pair of dissimilar surfaces of the alternating layers of epoxy-impregnated glass fiber and polyvinyl chloride has, however, been a serious problem, often reaching critical dimensions where the pipe consists solely of a relatively thin polyvinyl chloride inner cylinder overlaid with only one or two layers of an epoxy-impregnated glass fiber wrapping. Since polyvinyl chloride and epoxy do not substantially chemically bond with each other, mechanical forces were depended upon to maintain the integrity between the layers of the pipe. However, these mechanical forces were insufficient to withstand the countervailing forces produced by the fluid pressure within the pipe, and the layers of the pipe would become separated. This was particularly aggravated whenever it was necessary to cut into the pipe, as with a conventional pipe joint, thereby exposing the interface in the cut cross-section of the pipe to the full line pressure carried within the pipe. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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Reference to any prior art in the specification is not, and should not be taken as, an acknowledgement of any form of suggestion that this prior art forms part of the common general knowledge in Australia or any other jurisdiction or that his prior art would reasonably be expected to be ascertained, understood and regarded as relevant by a person skilled in the art.
Conventional techniques for production of fine particulate preparations (also called particulate products) suffer from many disadvantages. These conventional methods involve either mechanical comminution (crushing, grinding, and milling), or precipitation or recrystallisation of the solute from liquid solutions. The production of particles of less than 5 μm is most usually achieved by comminution of larger crystal material.
Micronisation by high energy processes such as grinding and milling can result in mechanically induced damage to the crystal structure manifesting as amorphous regions on the surface of the particles. As a result the particles are usually highly charged, hygroscopic and/or cohesive.
Conventional recrystallisation (eg U.S. Pat. No. 6,221,398) of solutes from liquid solutions exploits the dependence of a compound's solubility on temperature and/or mixture composition. Crystallisation by either solvent evaporation or solvent extraction of a solute usually requires the use of toxic organic antisolvents and surfactants, and yields wet particles that require further drying to remove traces of adsorbed solvent residues. Furthermore there is limited scope to control the precipitation process, and thus the particles produced are commonly larger than required, and of a broad particle size range distribution.
Freeze drying is another technique for the production of solid preparations and products. A solution or suspension of pharmaceutical ingredients is snap-frozen, and then the solvent is removed by sublimation under conditions of low pressure and/or temperature. However, this process usually results in a product that is described as an amorphous cake, which does not normally comprise discrete particles which would be required, for example, for effective inhalational delivery.
Another alternative method is spray drying, where a solution or suspension of pharmaceutical ingredients is sprayed into a chamber, the particles being produced though evaporation of the solvent in a hot air-fluidized bed. The high temperatures can degrade sensitive drugs and polymers, and the technique does not lend itself to the close control of product morphology during process scale-up. The method may also produce amorphous particles, which may have stability problems and a high tendency towards moisture re-absorption.
Supercritical Fluid (SCF) Technologies have advanced over the last decade, driven by the need for high purity drugs with controlled morphology. The most frequently used SCF process is the Aerosol Solvent Extraction System (ASES) process. The typical ASES process involves a continuous flow of solution containing a substance to be precipitated and the supercritical fluid being co-introduced into a particle formation vessel. This leads to simultaneous dispersion and mixing of the solution, rapid supersaturation and particle nucleation and formation of particles. Process conditions such as temperature, pressure, flow rates and type of solvent and antisolvent determine the morphology of the resulting particles. An example of an antisolvent commonly used in this process is carbon dioxide and the solvent may be chosen from a wide range of solvents in which the drug is soluble, and where the solvent is miscible with the antisolvent.
The simplest approach for the preparation of a particulate product containing two or more pharmaceutical ingredients is to mix the individual components by physical blending. Physical blending is commonly used to prepare particulate preparations for inhalation by dry powder inhalers. The difficulty in achieving consistent, homogenous mixtures using this approach is well recognised by the pharmaceutical industry and regulatory bodies.
Furthermore, the individual components of a physical mixture may separate over time; especially with processing, handling and administration, because of differences in particle morphology of the different ingredients. Such separation of components within a bulk mixture may lead to dosage inconsistencies and is therefore problematic.
An example of an existing method for the production of a combination particulate product is contained in US patent application no 20040028619. Therein a method is described where two drugs were dissolved in a mutual solvent in the desired ratio and the resultant liquid feed stock was atomised using an ultrasonic atomiser. The resultant droplets were suspended in a nitrogen carrier gas which was passed through a heated flow reactor. The particles that formed were collected using an electrostatic precipitator. However, there was evidence that the particles were of inconsistent morphology which is not desirable for many drug delivery applications.
Accordingly, it would be an advance in the art if a process could be developed for the production of particles of a combination product (ie, a product containing two or more pharmaceutically active compounds); the particles preferably having a small particle size, a narrow particle size distribution, and the active compounds in a crystalline form. It would be a further advance in the art if the combination product could be produced in essentially one step, and, for example, have superior aerodynamic properties over a combination product for inhalation produced by physical mixing. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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Nerve myelination is an essential process in the formation and function of the central nervous system (CNS) and peripheral nervous system (PNS) compartments. The myelin sheath around axons is necessary for the proper conduction of electric impulses along nerves. Loss of myelin occurs in a number of diseases, among which are Multiple Sclerosis (MS) affecting the CNS, Guillain-Barre Syndrome, CIDP and others (see Abramsky and Ovadia, 1997; Trojaborg, 1998, Hartung et al, 1998). While of various etiologies, such as infectious pathogens or auto-immune attacks, demyelinating diseases all cause loss of neurological functions and may lead to paralysis and death. While present therapeutical agents reduce inflammatory attacks in MS and retards disease progression, there is a need to develop therapies that could lead to remyelination and recovery of neurological functions (Abramsky and Ovadia, 1997, Pohlau et al, 1998).
The synthesis of myelin is a function of specialized glial cells: the oligodendrocytes in the CNS and the myelinating Schwann cells in the PNS. These two cell types in their fully differentiated state may be called myelinating cells. Myelin is a lipid membrane structure containing a number of different proteins. Myelin basic proteins (MBP) represent the major components (30%) of CNS and also of PNS myelin proteins. Expression of the MBP and other genes encoding the various myelin proteins (e.g. P0, PMP-22, MAG in PNS, PLP, MOG in CNS), is turned on during the terminal differentiation of oligodendrocytes and myelinating Schwann cells. The origin of these cells is in the embryonal neural crest (Fraser, 1991) from which they migrate, and undergo a differentiation that proceeds in a number of steps. Schwann cell (SC) development appears to involve three main steps: 1) the generation of precursors (pSC) from migrating cells; 2) the proliferation and transition to embryonic SC (eSC) expressing the S1100 protein; 3) the postnatal terminal differentiation of part of the eSC population into myelinating SC that express MBP and other myelin proteins (Kioussi and Gruss, 1996). The cells migrating from the neural crest give rise not only to pSC but also to sensory and sympathic neurons, to smooth muscle cells and to cells which reach the skin and hair follicles and become pigmented melanocytes. The fate of the neural crest cells is affected by various inducing factors: differentiation to glial cells, to neurons and to muscles is promoted by Neuregulins such as glial growth factor (GGF), by BMP2/4 and by TGF-β respectively (Anderson, 1997). The differentiation to melanocytes may be promoted by growth factors such as bFGF or PDGF or SDF (Stocker et al., 1991; Anderson, 1997).
The ultimate differentiation of Schwann and oligodendrocyte progenitors into actively myelinating cells and myelination itself seems to depend on signals generated by the interaction between neuronal axons and the glial cells (Lemke and Chao, 1988; Trapp et al, 1988). When axon-Schwann cell contact is interrupted, as after nerve damage, the cells reverse to a non-myelinating state and expression of myelin protein genes is lost (Jessen and Mirsky, 1991). To be able to stimulate myelination or remyelination, after neural diseases or trauma, it would be extremely important to identify factors that are able to induce the synthesis of myelin.
Injury to CNS induced by acute insults including trauma, hypoxia and ischemia can affect both neurons and white matter. Although most attention has been paid to processes leading to neuronal death, increasing evidence suggests that damage to oligodendrocytes, which myelinate axons, is also a specific component of CNS injury. Thus oligodendrocyte pathology was demonstrated at very early phase after brain ischemia (3 hours) in rats, suggesting that these cells are even more vulnerable to excitotoxic events than neuronal cells (Pantoni et al. 1996). One potential candidate mediating cell death is the marked elevation of glutamate concentration that accompanies many acute CNS injuries (Lipton et al. 1994). Indeed, beside neurons even oligodendrocytes were found to express functional glutamate receptors belonging to the AMPA/kainate subtype. Moreover oligodendrocytes display high vulnerability to glutamate application (McDonald et al. 1998).
Neuregulins such as GGF, which act on embryonic Schwann cell precursors, are also survival, growth and maturation factors for postnatal oligodendrocytes and Schwann cells in damaged nerves, and GGF is one of the mitogenic factors provided by axonal contact (Topliko et al, 1996). Recombinant hGGF2 could enhance remyelination upon prolonged administration in a murine model for Multiple Sclerosis (Cannella et al, 1998) or in crushed peripheral nerve (Chen et al, 1998). Another cytokine that is induced in Schwann cells by axonal contact is the Ciliary neurotrophic factor CNTF (Lee et al, 1995). CNTF, as well as leukemia inhibitory factor (LIF), was shown to promote survival of oligodendrocytes from optic nerve cultured in vitro with bFGF or PDGF, and to increase the number of MBP expressing oligodendrocytes in these cultures (Mayer et al, 1994). However, when added to glial precursor cells, CNTF and LIF appear rather to favor astrocyte differentiation and induce expression of the astrocyte GFAP marker, while on oligodendrocytes it would have mainly a survival action with little effect on the level of MBP gene expression (Kahn and De Vellis, 1994, Bonni et al, 1997). Nevertheless, combinations of CNTF with brain-derived neurotrophic factor BNDF improve recovery of an injured peripheral sciatic nerve (Ho et al, 1998).
CNTF and LIF are cytokines acting through a common receptor system which comprises the LIF receptor (LIFR) and the gp130 chain, the latter being also part of the Interleukin-6 (IL-6) receptor complex (Ip et al, 1992). CNTF and LIF are, therefore, part of the IL-6 family of cytokines. In the case of CNTF and LIF, signal transduction operates through dimerization of LIFR with gp130, whereas in the case of IL-6 the signal is generated by the dimerization of two gp130 chains (Murakami et al, 1993). In order to bind gp130, IL-6 makes a complex with an IL-6 Receptor chain, which exists on certain cells as a gp80 transmembrane protein but whose soluble form can also function as an IL-6 agonist when provided from outside the cell (Taga et al, 1989, Novick et al, 1992). By fusing the entire coding regions of the cDNAs encoding the soluble IL-6 receptor (sIL-6R) and IL-6, a recombinant IL6RIL6 chimera can be produced in CHO cells (Chebath et al, 1997, WO99/02552). This IL6RIL6 chimera has enhanced IL-6-type biological activities and it binds with a much higher efficiency to the gp130 chain in vitro than does the mixture of IL-6 with sIL-6R (Kollet et al, 1999).
A review of the effects of IL-6 on cells of the central and peripheral nervous system indicates that the cytokine may have protective effects on neuronal cells as well as participate in inflammatory neuro-degenerative processes (Gadient and Otten, 1997, Mendel et al, 1998). On glial cells, CNTF and LIF were much more active than IL-6 to stimulate astrocyte differentiation and there was no effect on myelin protein producing cells (Kahn and De Vellis. 1994). IL-6 was found to prevent glutamate-induced cell death in hippocampal (Yamada et al. 1994) as well as in striatal (Toulmond et al. 1992) neurons. The IL-6 mechanism of neuroprotection against toxicity elicited by NMDA, the selective agonist for NMDA subtype of glutamate receptors, is still unknown. In fact IL-6 was found to enhance the NMDA-mediated intracellular calcium elevation. In transgenic mice expressing higher levels of both IL-6 and soluble IL-6R (sIL6-R), an accelerated nerve regeneration was observed following injury of the hypoglossal nerve as shown by retrograde labeling of the hypoglossal nuclei in the brain (Hirota et al, 1996). In that work, the addition of IL-6 and sIL-6R to cultures of dorsal root ganglia (DRG) cells showed increased neurite extension in neurons, but no effect on myelinating cells was reported.
In the light of the data presented above, CNTF, LIF or a mixture of IL-6 and sIL-6R have not been shown to induce the terminal differentiation of glial cells into myelinating cells. However, as outlined above, stimulation of myelinating cells differentiation would be of great benefit for patients suffering from demyelinating or neurodegenerative diseases.
Citation of any document herein is not intended as an admission that such document is pertinent prior art, or considered material to the patentability of any claim of the present application. Any statement as to content or a date of any document is based on the information available to applicants at the time of filing and does not constitute an admission as to the correctness of such statement. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to quantum computing and to solid state devices that use superconducting materials to create and maintain coherent quantum states such as required for quantum computing.
2. Description of Related Art
Research on what is now called quantum computing traces back to Richard Feynman, [R. Feynman, Int. J. Theor. Phys., 21, 467–488 (1982)]. Feynman noted that quantum systems are inherently difficult to simulate with conventional computers but that observing the evolution of a quantum system could provide a much faster way to solve the some computational problems. In particular, solving a theory for the behavior of a quantum system commonly involves solving a differential equation related to the Hamiltonian of the quantum system. Observing the behavior of the quantum system provides information regarding the solutions to the equation.
Further efforts in quantum computing were initially concentrated on “software development” or building of the formal theory of quantum computing. Software for quantum computing attempts to set the Hamiltonian of a quantum system to correspond to a problem requiring solution. Milestones in these efforts were the discoveries of the Shor and Grover algorithms. [See P. Shor, SIAM J. of Comput., 26:5, 1484–1509 (1997); L. Grover, Proc. 28th STOC, 212–219 (1996); and A. Kitaev, LANL preprint quant-ph/9511026 (1995)]. In particular, the Shor algorithm permits a quantum computer to factorize natural numbers. The showing that fault-tolerant quantum computation is theoretically possible opened the way for attempts at practical realizations of quantum computers. [See E. Knill, R. Laflamme, and W. Zurek, Science, 279, p. 342 (1998).]
One proposed application of a quantum computer is factoring of large numbers. In such an application, a quantum computer could render obsolete all existing encryption schemes that use the “public key” method. In another application, quantum computers (or even a smaller scale device, a quantum repeater) could allow absolutely safe communication channels, where a message, in principle, cannot be intercepted without being destroyed in the process. [See H. J. Briegel et al., LANL preprint quant-ph/9803056 (1998) and the references therein.]
Quantum computing generally involves initializing the states of N qubits (quantum bits), creating controlled entanglements among the N qubits, allowing the quantum states of the qubits to evolve under the influence of the entanglements, and reading the qubits after they have evolved. A qubit is conventionally a system having two degenerate quantum states, and the initial state of the qubit typically has non-zero probabilities of being found in either degenerate state. Thus, N qubits define an initial state that is a combination of 2N degenerate states. The entanglements control the evolution of the distinguishable quantum states and define calculations that the evolution of the quantum states performs. This evolution, in effect, performs 2N simultaneous calculations. Reading the qubits after evolution is complete determines the states of the qubits and the results of the calculations.
Several physical systems have been proposed for the qubits in a quantum computer. One system uses chemicals having degenerate spin states. Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) techniques can read the spin states. These systems have successfully implemented the Shor algorithm for factoring of a natural number (15). However, efforts to expand such systems up to a commercially useful number of qubits face difficult challenges.
Another physical system for implementing a qubit includes a superconducting reservoir, a superconducting island, and a dirty Josephson junction that can transmit a Cooper pair (of electrons) from the reservoir into the island. The island has two degenerate states. One state is electrically neutral, but the other state has an extra Cooper pair on the island. A problem with this system is that the charge of the island in the state having the extra Cooper pair causes long range electric interactions that interfere with the coherence of the state of the qubit. The electric interactions can force the island into a state that definitely has or lacks an extra Cooper pair. Accordingly, the electric interactions can end the evolution of the state before calculations are complete or qubits are read. This phenomenon is commonly referred to as collapsing the wavefunction, loss of coherence, or decoherence.
Research is continuing and seeking a structure that implements a quantum computer having a sufficient number of qubits to perform useful calculations. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to automatic code symbol reading (i.e., recognition) systems, and more particularly to an automatic code symbol reading device having a control system which permits multiple modes of fully automated operation while conserving power and providing versatility in its method of use.
2. Brief Description of the Prior Art
Hitherto, a number of techniques have been proposed for reading bar code symbols using hand-held devices. Despite variety amongst prior art bar code symbol reading devices, the various techniques incorporated into prior art devices can be classified into two principally distinct classes, namely, manually operated or triggered bar code symbol reading devices, and automatic bar code symbol reading devices.
Representative of prior art manually operated bar code symbol reading devices are U.S. Pat. No. 4,387,297 to Swartz, et al., U.S. Pat. No. 4,575,625 to Knowles, and U.S. Pat. No. 4,845,349 to Cherry. While such prior art devices are capable of successful bar code symbol reading, they nevertheless suffer from several significant shortcomings and drawbacks. In particular, the user is required to manually pull a trigger or push a-button each time scanning and decoding is to be cyclically initiated and terminated. The requirement is most fatiguing on the user when large numbers of bar code symbols are to be read. Also, in certain symbol reading applications, such as warehouse inventory, pulling the trigger to initiate scanning of bar code symbols may be extremely difficult for the user due to the physical location of the objects bearing the bar code symbols.
An alternative to manually operated a bar code symbol reading devices is use of automatic bar code symbol readers, which incorporate techniques for automatically initiating and terminating scanning and decoding operations. Representative of prior art automatic bar code symbol devices are U.S. Pat. No. 4,639,606 to Boles, et al. and U.S. Pat. No. 4,933,538 to Heiman et al. While capable of automatically initiating scanning of bar code symbols, such prior art devices and incorporated techniques nevertheless also suffer from significant shortcomings and drawbacks.
In particular, U.S. Pat. No. 4,639,606 to Boles, et al. discloses laser emission control circuitry for use in implementing a hand-held triggerless bar code scanner. The laser is operated in a pulsed "find paper" mode until a reflected signal is obtained, indicating the presence of an object (e.g., paper) in the search field. Thereupon, the circuitry is changed to a "search mode" in which the power of the laser is increased to above the safety limits for a period of time, and the return signal is monitored for signal transitions corresponding to the black bars of the code. On detection of the first black bar, the circuitry is changed to an "in-code" (decode) mode as long as successive symbols are received within a given period of time. If the decode mode terminates within a predetermined time interval (e.g., one second after the beginning of the search mode), then the search mode is re-entered, otherwise the decode mode will change to find paper mode.
While the triggerless bar code symbol reader proposed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,639,606 possesses three modes of operation, this prior art bar code symbol reader nevertheless suffers from several significant shortcomings and drawbacks. In particular, this prior art bar code symbol reader requires continuous use of a pulsed laser beam to determine the presence of an object within the scan field, which, in hand-held portable battery power devices, undesirably drains limited power reserves, especially in extended time duration bar code reading applications. Furthermore, by its very design this prior art automatic bar code symbol reader, by its very design, will reread the same bar code symbol every 40 milliseconds provided the bar code symbol is decoded each time within a 1 millisecond or less time period. Consequently, when using this prior art bar code symbol reader, the user has no ability to manually control its operation in order to selectively read a bar code symbol one or more times as desired.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,933,538 discloses a bar code symbol scanning system, which in the "object sensor mode" the scanner is triggerless and the constantly on laser beam normally emits at a narrow angle and low power. When an indicia pattern indicative of a bar code symbol has been detected, the laser beam will widen, the power of the beam will increase, and the beam will read the entire symbol. While this prior art scanning technique permits detection of bar code symbols within the scan field in order that the power of the laser beam may be automatically increased to a higher level for collecting scan data for use in decoding operations, this prior art system nevertheless suffers from several significant shortcomings and drawbacks as well. In particular, this prior art system requires continuous use of laser emission to determine the presence of both objects and bar code symbols within the scan field, which necessarily results in drain of limited power reserves in portable battery power applications. Furthermore, when using this prior art bar code symbol reader, the user is incapable of manually controlling the reading of the same bar code symbol one ore more times, as desired or required in a particular bar code symbol reading application.
In general, prior art automatic bar code symbol reading devices also suffer from other shortcomings and drawbacks. For example, unlike manually operated devices which rely on the user to activate a trigger, once for each bar code to be read, prior art triggerless (i.e., automatic) bar code symbol reading devices also lack programmed intelligence capabilities which are necessary to prevent undesired multiple reading of bar code symbols, particularly when the scanning beam is permitted to dwell on a bar code symbol for extended periods of time.
Furthermore, prior art automatic bar code symbol reading devices have generally lacked control capabilities which permits diverse modes of programmable system-control operation which ensure power conservation, while preventing inadvertent or undesired multiple reads of the same bar code symbol.
Thus, there is a great need in the code symbol reading art for a fully automatic code symbol reading device which overcomes the above shortcomings and drawbacks of prior art devices and techniques. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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In imaging methods as e.g. electro(photo)graphy, magnetography, ionography, etc. a latent image is formed that is developed by attraction of so called toner particles. Afterwards the developed latent image (toner image) is transferred to a final substrate and fused to this substrate. In DEP the so called toner particles are imagewise deposited directly on a final substrate and fused to this substrate.
Toner particles are basically polymeric particles comprising a polymeric resin as main component and various ingredients mixed with said toner resin. Apart from colourless toners, which are used e.g. for finishing function, the toner particles comprise at least one black and/or colouring substances, e.g., coloured pigment.
In the different imaging methods, described above, the toner particles can be present in a liquid or in a dry developer composition.
In most cases the use of dry developer compositions is preferred. The main advantage of using a dry developer composition resides in the absence of the need to eliminate the liquid phase after development. The avoidance of the need to evacuate (mainly organic) liquids is desirable both from an economical standpoint and from an ecological standpoint.
However, in all techniques using dry particulate material to form an image, the images are built up by application of particulate marking elements in multiple, superimposed layers onto the substrate. The problems associated with multiple, superimposed layers of particulate marking particles that are in one way or another fixed on a substrate are manifold, not only with respect to image quality but also with respect to image stability and with respect to mechanical issues.
In, e.g. EP-A 471 894, EP-A 554 981, U.S. Pat. No. 4,828,950 and U.S. Pat. No. 4,885,603, it has been disclosed to apply a layer of transparent toner particles on top of the toner image to provide better resistance to physical damage.
In, e.g., U.S. Pat. No. 3,723,114 the problem of storage properties of fused toner images is addressed, the main problem being the fact that the toner images can, depending on the storage conditions, become tacky after storage. The problem is solved by using in the toner resin a substantial portion of thermosetting polymers.
The use of photo-curable toners has been suggested in, e.g., U.S. Pat. No. 5,470,683 to produce toner images having better weather resistance. In that application, a capsule toner is provided having a core comprising a polymerizable compound, a polymerization initiator and other normal toner ingredients. The core is surrounded by a hard shell that breaks during the fixing step. After the fixing step the polymerizable compound is polymerized, in this particular disclosure, by low energy visible light. Although following the teachings of these disclosures leads to the production of toner layers that are not easily damaged, the nature of the solutions itself limits the variety of resins that can be used in the manufacturing of the toner. Therefore further improvements along the lines of the disclosures referred to above are desirable. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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The invention relates to novel complexes and complex salts, agents containing these compounds, their use in diagnostics and therapy, as well as processes for preparing these compounds and agents.
Metallic complexes have been scrutinized as early as at the beginning of the fifties as contrast media for radiology. The compounds then employed were, however, of such toxicity that utilization on human patients could not be considered. It was, therefore, entirely surprising to find that certain complex salts exhibit adequate compatibility for considering routine administration to human patients for diagnostic purposes. The first representative of this class of compounds was the dimeglumine salt of Gd DTPA [gadolinium(III) complex of diethylenetriaminepentaacetic acid] described in the European Patent Application, Publication No. 71564, which proved itself very well in the form of a contrast medium for nuclear spin tomography. This compound has been registered, under the name of "Magnevist", worldwide as the first NMR diagnostic agent.
Contrast media exhibiting an at least partial extrarenal excretion would be desirable, in particular for patients with limited kidney function.
Consequently, there is a need for NMR contrast media exhibiting various pharmacokinetic behaviors. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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This invention relates to a communication system of the multiplex type, that is with an information channel which is accessible to a plurality of users, provided between a master processing unit and slave units with the possibility that information exchange can be initiated from one of the slave units. In particular the communication system according to this invention can be applied to a plurality of units associated with the electrical devices in a vehicle, and especially for activation and control of the electrical devices fitted to a vehicle door, for example, the window winding device, the door locking device, the device actuating various electrical components in an outside rear-view mirror and the manual control switch device for operating the components of the various abovementioned devices as described in Italian patent application No. 67158-A/89 lodged on the Mar. 7, 1989 entitled: "Activation and control system for a plurality of electrical devices in a vehicle".
As known, multimaster systems in which each unit has the characteristics of a master unit and is therefore capable of communicating directly with every other unit are used in communication systems between various units. This has disadvantages in that:
all the units must be approximately equal in complexity PA1 because all the units are connected by means of a single data transmission line. A fault in the latter may cause failure of the entire system if redundancy is not provided, but this entails costly duplication and operational difficulties.
The structure of the messages is complex, either because they have to include double addressing, or because of the need to interpret all messages by a single unit.
Master-slave systems have therefore been constructed in which there is a central master unit which controls all communication sending commands to, interrogating or synchronizing the slave units, which in turn can only transmit after these communications have been received. A result of this however is that the master unit must always be active whenever communication is required with any slave unit. In order to overcome this disadvantage while maintaining the structure of the master-slave system additional transmission lines dedicated to communication requests are required. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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Many vehicles utilize keyless entry devices. Presently, the industry standard for powering most keyless entry devices, such as a key fob, is to use a small battery cell, such as a lithium ion cell that is intended to sustain devices having a low electric current requirement (e.g., 10 mA). However, in some instances, the small battery cell cannot provide enough electric current for keyless entry devices that have higher electric current requirements (e.g., 80 mA), such as keyless entry devices that send high powered wireless long range transmissions. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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Field
This disclosure relates to a positive active material, a positive electrode and a lithium battery including the positive active material, and a method of manufacturing the same.
Description of the Related Technology
With the advancement of small high tech devices such as digital cameras, mobile devices, notebook computers, and personal computers, demand for lithium secondary batteries, which are an energy source for the small high tech devices, has dramatically increased. Also, a stable lithium ion battery having high capacity is currently being developed for electric cars, which includes hybrid electric vehicles (HEV), plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEV), and electric vehicles (EV).
Various positive active materials have been investigated to develop a lithium battery that is suitable for the purpose described above.
As a positive active material for a lithium secondary battery, a single-component lithium cobalt oxide (LiCoO2) has been used; however, use of lithium composite metal oxide (Li(Ni—Co—Mn)O2, Li(Ni—Co—Al)O2, or the like) having a layer-structure and high capacity has been increasing. Also, a spinel-type lithium manganese oxide (LiMn2O4) and an olivine-type iron phosphate lithium oxide (LiFePO4) having high safety are receiving attention.
In particular, research is being conducted to increase the amount of nickel included in the lithium composite metal oxide to increase capacity of a battery.
However, as the amount of nickel included in the lithium composite metal oxide increases, an amount of Ni2+, which may substitute lithium site, increases, which facilitates the formation of NiO an impurity. NiO is highly reactive and thus, may react with an electrolyte and two or more NiOs may be connected to locally form a three dimensional structure preventing diffusion of lithium ions. As a result, structural stability of the battery degrades to decrease the capacity of the battery.
Accordingly, a method of improving charge and discharge efficiency and lifespan properties of a lithium battery by improving structural stability of a positive active material having high nickel content is needed. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is generally in the field of electronic circuits and systems. More specifically, the present invention is in the field of amplifier circuits and systems.
2. Background Art
Audio power amplifiers form an important part of many mobile communications devices, such as cellular telephones and MP3 players. Because these mobile communications devices are typically battery-operated, it is highly desirable that the audio power amplifiers implemented in such devices consume low quiescent currents in order to extend the life of the battery. For example, a Class-A amplifier continuously consumes a large current even in the absence of an audio signal, which makes it unattractive for battery-operated hand-held devices. An alternative conventional amplifier, the Class-B amplifier, although designed so as not to consume any current when there is no signal, suffers from large cross-over distortion. This cross-over distortion may significantly degrade the output signal quality of a Class-B amplifier implemented to provide audio amplification.
A conventional approach to achieving a compromise between the relatively high fidelity of the Class-A design and the efficiency achieved by Class-B amplifiers is the Class AB amplifier, which consume a small current in the quiescent state to improve cross-over distortion. However, typical Class-AB amplifiers employ large output-stage transistors that are sized to handle peak load currents. This can create large variations in the output stage currents due to process mismatch, which may cause a stability problem if the output stage current is significantly reduced. In addition, the large output stage transistors and the small quiescent current reduce the headroom allocated to the first stage.
Thus, mobile communications devices may benefit from an audio amplifier that combines the good cross-over distortion performance of Class-AB amplifiers and the low quiescent current of Class-B amplifiers, without incurring stability problems due to current variations or headroom limitations. Accordingly, there is a need to overcome the drawbacks and deficiencies in the art by providing a Class-AB/B amplifier and a quiescent control circuit for implementation with the Class-AB/B amplifier. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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There are many remote ordering systems available that allow a user to place an order for goods using a networked mobile wireless telecommunication computing device, such as a smartphone. However, these systems do not account for the fact that the travel time and the preparation time may be different, resulting either in loss of quality or the customer having to wait. For example, before leaving work a user could use his or her smartphone to place an online order for a pizza to be picked up on the way home. However, in most cases the user will arrive at the pizzeria either to find that the pizza has been ready for some time and is rapidly losing heat and freshness, or else the user will have to wait for the pizza to be ready, wasting valuable time. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to power feeding devices and wireless power feeding systems including the power feeding devices.
2. Description of the Related Art
A variety of electronic devices have spread, and a wide range of products are shipped to the market. In recent years, portable electronic devices such as mobile phones and digital video cameras have spread widely. Further, electric propulsion vehicles that are powered by electric power, such as electric cars, are coming on the market as products.
Mobile phones, digital video cameras, and electric propulsion vehicles include batteries which are energy storage means. At the moment, the batteries are charged in most cases by being directly connected to home AC sources which are power feeding means. Other devices that have no battery or do not use power charged in a battery are directly supplied with power from a home AC source through a wiring or the like.
On the other hand, methods by which batteries are charged wirelessly or power is transmitted to loads wirelessly have been researched and developed. Typical methods are an electromagnetic induction method (also referred to as an electromagnetic coupling method), a radio wave method (also referred to as a microwave method), and a resonance method. An electromagnetic induction method comes into wide use for some electronic device, such as small consumer electronics.
A resonant wireless power feeding system has attracted attention since it provides high transmission efficiency at middle and long distance. In the resonant wireless power feeding system, however, it is known that the power transmission efficiency changes enormously depending on the distance between a resonant coil included in a device that receives power (hereinafter “power reception device”) and a resonant coil included in a device that supplies power (hereinafter “power feeding device”). For that reason, structures for maintaining high transmission efficiency even when the distance between the power reception device and the power feeding device is changed have been actively researched and developed (e.g., see Patent Documents 1 and 2). | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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The bones and connective tissue of an adult human spinal column consists of more than 20 discrete bones coupled sequentially to one another by a tri-joint complex that consists of an anterior disc and the two posterior facet joints, the anterior discs of adjacent bones being cushioned by cartilage spacers referred to as intervertebral discs. These more than 20 bones are anatomically categorized as being members of one of four classifications: cervical, thoracic, lumbar, or sacral. The cervical portion of the spine, which comprises the top of the spine, up to the base of the skull, includes the first 7 vertebrae. The intermediate 12 bones are the thoracic vertebrae, and connect to the lower spine comprising the 5 lumbar vertebrae. The base of the spine is the sacral bones (including the coccyx). The component bones of the cervical spine are generally smaller than those of the thoracic spine, which are in turn smaller than those of the lumbar region. The sacral region connects laterally to the pelvis. While the sacral region is an integral part of the spine, for the purposes of fusion surgeries and for this disclosure, the word spine shall refer only to the cervical, thoracic, and lumbar regions.
The spinal column is highly complex in that it includes these more than 290 bones coupled to one another, housing and protecting critical elements of the nervous system having innumerable peripheral nerves and circulatory bodies in close proximity. In spite of these complications, the spine is a highly flexible structure, capable of a high degree of curvature and twist in nearly every direction.
Genetic or developmental irregularities, trauma, chronic stress, tumors, and degenerative wear are a few of the causes that can result in spinal pathologies for which surgical intervention may be necessary. A variety of systems have been disclosed in the art that achieve immobilization and/or fusion of adjacent bones by implanting artificial assemblies in or on the spinal column. The region of the back that needs to be immobilized, as well as the individual variations in anatomy, determine the appropriate surgical protocol and implantation assembly. With respect to the failure of the intervertebral disc, the interbody fusion cage has generated substantial interest because it can be implanted laparoscopically into the anterior of the spine, thus reducing operating room time, patient recovery time, and scarification.
Referring now to FIGS. 6 and 7, in which a side perspective view of an intervertebral body cage and an anterior perspective view of a post implantation spinal column are shown, respectively, a more complete description of these devices of the prior art is herein provided. These cages 10 generally comprise tubular metal body 12 having an external surface threading 14. They are inserted transverse to the axis of the spine 16, into preformed cylindrical holes at the junction of adjacent vertebral bodies (in FIG. 7 the pair of cages 10 are inserted between the fifth lumbar vertebra (L5) and the top of the sacrum (S1)). Two cages 10 are generally inserted side by side with the external threading 14 tapping into the lower surface of the vertebral bone above (L5), and the upper surface of the vertebral bone (S1) below. The cages 10 include holes 18 through which the adjacent bones are to grow. Additional materials, for example autogenous bone graft materials, may be inserted into the hollow interior 20 of the cage 10 to incite or accelerate the growth of the bone into the cage. End caps (not shown) are often utilized to hold the bone graft material within the cage 10.
These cages of the prior art have enjoyed medical success in promoting fusion and grossly approximating proper disc height. it is, however, important to note that the fusion of the adjacent bones is an incomplete solution to the underlying pathology as it does not cure the ailment, but rather simply masks the pathology under a stabilizing bridge of bone. This bone fusion limits the overall flexibility of the spinal column and artificially constrains the normal motion of the patient. This constraint can cause collateral injury to the patient's spine as additional stresses of motion, normally borne by the now-fused joint, are transferred onto the nearby facet joints and intervertebral discs. It would therefore, be a considerable advance in the art to provide an implant assembly which does not promote fusion, but, rather, which nearly completely mimics the biomechanical action of the natural disc cartilage, thereby permitting continued normal motion and stress distribution.
It is, therefore, an object of the invention to provide an intervertebral spacer that stabilizes the spine without promoting a bone fusion across the intervertebral space.
It is further an object of the invention to provide an implant device that stabilizes the spine while still permitting normal motion.
It is further an object of the invention to provide a device for implantation into the intervertebral space that does not promote the abnormal distribution of biomechanical stresses on the patient's spine.
It is further an object of the invention to provide an artificial disc that has a plat attachment device 9 for attaching the plates of the artificial disc to the vertebral bones between which the disc is implanted) with superior gripping and holding strength upon initial implantation and thereafter.
It is further an object of the invention to provide an artificial disc plate attachment device that deflects during insertion of the artificial disc between vertebral bodies.
It is further an object of the invention to provide an artificial disc plate attachment device that conforms to the concave surface of a vertebral body.
It is further an object of the invention to provide an artificial disc plate attachment device that does not restrict the angle at which the artificial disc can be implanted.
It is further an object of the invention to provide an artificial disc that supports tension loads.
It is further an object of the invention to provide an artificial disc that provides a centroid of motion centrally located within the intervertebral space.
Other objects of the invention not explicitly stated will be set forth and will be more clearly understood in conjunction with the descriptions of the preferred embodiments disclosed hereafter. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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The present invention relates generally to operations performed and equipment utilized in conjunction with subterranean wells and, in an embodiment described herein, more particularly provides methods of casing multilateral wells and apparatus for use therein.
It is well known to those skilled in the art that it is very difficult to provide a seal between large diameter linings (casings and liners) for lateral or branch wellbores extending outwardly from an intersection between the lateral or branch wellbore and a main or parent wellbore. This due to the fact that it is generally deemed favorable to position a wellbore xe2x80x9cjunctionxe2x80x9d at the intersection of the wellbores to provide sealing for the formations intersected by the wellbores, to stabilize the wellbore intersection, to provide facilities for sealing and connecting linings extending into the wellbores, etc. In order for the junction to be installed at the wellbore intersection, it must pass through the main or parent wellbore and must, therefore, be smaller in diameter than the main or parent wellbore.
Several solutions to this problem have been proposed. One solution is to collapse the junction before it is installed in the well, and then inflate or otherwise expand the junction after it is positioned at the wellbore intersection. Unfortunately, it is difficult to ensure that the expanded junction will have a particular desired geometry after it is expanded, and the expanded junction, by its very nature, is susceptible to being again collapsed due to forces experienced in the well.
Another solution is to provide the junction with a relatively short lateral branch tube extending from a side thereof. The branch tube must be short so that the junction will fit within the diameter of the main or parent wellbore. However, this short lateral branch tube makes it difficult to reliably secure and seal casings or liners thereto. Furthermore, the fact that the branch tube extends laterally from the junction restricts its diameter (due to the necessity of transporting the junction through the main or parent wellbore), such that more than one standard casing size must be skipped in the transition to the lateral or branch wellbore as compared to a normal well casing program for normally pressurized formations. Still further, the wall thicknesses of the branch tube and the new lining of the main or parent wellbore take up space and restrict the inner diameter available through them.
A third solution is to create a junction by attaching two or more divergent tubes to the bottom of a casing. This solution utilizes an orienting cam type seal assembly that stabs into a seal bore located on top of each of these tubes, and extends back to surface to direct access to a desired tube. These tubes are limited in size by their divergence, their wall thickness, the upset created by the seal bore, and by the necessity that the inside of the casing must completely circumscribe the attached seal bores in order for an orienting cam type seal assembly to stab into a seal bore. Several standard casing sizes must be skipped in the transition from the casing to the lateral or branch wellbore as compared to a normal well casing program for normally pressurized formations.
Accordingly, it may be clearly seen that a method of casing multilateral wells is needed which resolves the problems in the art at present. Specifically, it would be highly advantageous to provide a method of casing multilateral wells in which it is not necessary to initially collapse the wellbore junction and then to expand the wellbore junction downhole, the wellbore junction has a known geometry which is, for example, well suited for connecting and sealing casings and/or liners thereto, the wellbore junction does not require the skipping of more than one standard casing size, and the wellbore junction conveniently utilizes standard wellbore and casing sizes to achieve these objectives.
In carrying out the principles of the present invention, in accordance with an embodiment thereof, a method of sealing the junction of subsea multilateral wells which have a large 20xe2x80x3 surface casing is provided in which a uniquely configured casing splitter forms a wellbore junction. The casing splitter is dimensioned so that only one standard casing size is skipped in providing the wellbore junction, and yet the casing splitter conveniently fits through standard main or parent wellbores, does not require collapse or expansion thereof, and provides ample facilities for connecting and sealing casing strings thereto.
In one aspect of the present invention, the casing splitter is dimensioned so that it fits within and through an existing 18.565xe2x80x3 wellhead bore and 20xe2x80x3 surface casing. This size of wellhead and surface casing is typical of those installed on the ocean floor for subsea production. In this manner, the casing splitter may be attached at a lower end of an otherwise standard 13xe2x85x9cxe2x80x3 intermediate casing string. The casing splitter has two 8xc2xdxe2x80x3 diameter bores formed in a lower end thereof, of a length sufficient to anchor and seal subsequent liners therein, and which share and are separated by a single wall thickness of preferably no more than 0.435xe2x80x3. The splitter is attached to the bottom of the 13xe2x85x9cxe2x80x3 casing string before it is installed.
In another aspect of the present invention, wellbores may be drilled through one or more lower connections of the casing splitter. Since only one standard casing size is skipped when utilizing the casing splitter, multiple standard liner sizes are available for use in wellbores drilled below the casing splitter. Because the lower bores of the casing splitter are parallel, they may be of any convenient length to anchor the liners therein. Multiple liner strings in the wellbores drilled through the casing splitter would typically be telescoped in progressively stepped down wellbore diameters.
In a further aspect of the present invention, the casing splitter may have a 13xe2x85x9cxe2x80x3 threaded casing connection formed on an upper end thereof, and a 9⅝xe2x80x3 flush joint threaded casing connection formed on a lower end thereof. Recesses may be machined outwardly from one or both of the 8xc2xdxe2x80x3 bores orthogonally to the other 8xc2xdxe2x80x3 bore to aid in locating and securing the subsequent liners.
In a still further aspect of the present invention, access to individual laterals may be achieved using a bent sub, or a diverter may be disposed in the casing splitter. The diverter may be positioned to permit access between the 13xe2x85x9cxe2x80x3 casing connection and one of the 8xc2xdxe2x80x3 bores while preventing access between the 13xe2x85x9cxe2x80x3 casing connection and the other bore. A latch or mule-shoe may be placed on the outside of the diverter, and a matching profile machined on the inside of the casing splitter, to assist in orientation.
These and other features, advantages, benefits and objects of the present invention will become apparent to one of ordinary skill in the art upon careful consideration of the detailed description of a representative embodiment of the invention hereinbelow and the accompanying drawings. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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The invention relates to methods of generating THz (terahertz) radiation, in particular by irradiating a conversion crystal device with optical input radiation providing and generating the THz radiation by an optical-to-THz-conversion process. Furthermore, the invention relates to a THz source apparatus, being adapted for generating THz radiation and comprising an input radiation source device and a conversion crystal device for generating the THz radiation by the optical-to-THz-conversion process. Applications of the invention are available in driving strong field processes and especially acceleration of particles. According to a preferred application of the invention, the THz source apparatus is employed in a THz accelerator of charged particles, e.g., electrons.
In the present specification, reference is made to the following publications cited for illustrating prior art techniques. [1] U.S. Pat. No. 7,764,422 B2; [2] U.S. Pat. No. 7,400,660 B2; [3] U.S. Pat. No. 8,554,083 B2; [4] S. Carbajo et al. in “Optics Letters”, vol. 40, p. 5762-5765, 2015; [5] K. Vodopyanov et al. in “Applied Physics Letters”, vol. 99, p. 041104, 2011; [6] EP 2 309 325 A1; [7] U.S. Pat. No. 7,953,128 B2. [8] C. Klieber et al. in “Applied Physics Letters”, vol. 98, p. 211908, 2011; [9] Z. Chen et al. in “Applied Physics Letters”, vol. 99, p. 071102, 2011; [10] S. R. Tripathi et al. in “Optics Letters”, vol. 39, no. 6, p. 1649, 2014; [11] K. Kawase et al. in “Journal of Physics D: Applied Physics”, vol. 35, pp. R1-R13, 2002; [12] U.S. Pat. No. 8,699,124 B2; [13] U.S. Pat. No. 8,305,679 B2; [14] T. D. Wang et al. in “Optics Express”, vol. 21, no. 2, p. 2452, 2013; [15] J. R. Danielson, et al. in “Journal of Applied Physics”, vol. 104, p. 033111, 2008; [16] M. Cronin-Golomb in “Optics Letters”, vol. 29, no. 17, page 2046, 2004; [17] K. Vodopyanov et al. in “Optics Express”, vol. 14, no. 6, page 2263, 2006; and [18] L. Pengxiang et al. in “Journal of Lightwave Technology”, vol. 31, no. 15, pages 2508-2514, 2013.
It is generally known that THz radiation can be generated with free-electron lasers, vacuum electronic devices, such as gyrotrons, molecular lasers, or photoconductive switches. These techniques have disadvantages with regard to at least one of complexity and costs, limited frequency ranges, low conversion efficiencies, limited THz pulse energy ranges and limited peak power and/or average power ranges. Furthermore, THz radiation can be generated with laser-based approaches which use laser pulses from an input radiation source to pump a nonlinear crystal with non-zero second order nonlinearity and generate THz radiation via an optical-to-THz-conversion process, including difference-frequency-generation (DFG) or optical rectification. DFG employs two distinct narrowband input lasers for THz generation, while optical rectification is based on a single broadband input pulse creating THz radiation by intra-pulse DFG in periodically poled crystals.
Proposals for low power terahertz generation systems based on the optical-to-THz-conversion process have been described e.g., in [1], [2] and [3]. However, these systems have not so far generated THz radiation with 10 MW to GW peak powers and mJ to several mJ pulse energies as required e.g. for particle accelerator applications. The best optical to THz energy conversion efficiencies (or energy conversion efficiency or conversion efficiency) reported with the conventional laser-based THz generation methods is 0.1% [4]. Limitations for scaling conversion efficiencies to higher levels mainly result from details of the employed input radiation source, the nonlinear crystals and the optical-to-THz-conversion processes as described in the following.
Firstly, high energy laser sources for scaling conversion efficiencies with sufficient 0.1 kHz to few kHz repetition rates of interest and Joule level pulse energies are most accessible with wavelengths below 1.1 μm, e.g., 1.1 μm to 800 nm. However, a common feature of nonlinear crystals conventionally used for laser-based THz generation, like e.g., Gallium Arsenide (GaAs), Gallium Phosphide (GaP), other semiconductor materials or organic materials, is the requirement of input radiation sources of wavelengths greater than 1.3 μm. In particular, GaAs with a bandgap energy of 1.42 eV and GaP or Zinc Telluride (ZnTe) with bandgap energies of 2.26 eV are unrealistic candidates for scaling THz energies and conversion efficiencies since they are prone to multi-photon absorption of 1 μm/800 nm lasers. It is extremely challenging to engineer laser sources at the 1.3 μm or longer wavelengths producing a fraction of 1 J, let alone more of pump energy.
Phase-matching or velocity matching in the nonlinear crystal is required for efficient THz generation. Conventionally employed phase-matching techniques comprise phase-matching of the optical input and THz radiation by e.g., tilted-pulse-front technique, quasi phase-matching, and waveguide based phase matching. Limitations for scaling conversion efficiencies exist in particular for the tilted-pulse-front technique having a high complexity for high energy pump pulses and the waveguide based phase matching using engineering the phase velocity of the THz radiation. In particular, as waveguide dimensions have to be on the order of the THz wavelength (about mm), waveguide structures (in particular optical fibers) cannot be pumped by Joule level optical pulse energies due to damage limitations.
Conventional input radiation sources for pumping the nonlinear crystal and generating THz radiation by DFG use e.g., two or more quasi-monochromatic lasers having frequencies that are separated by the THz frequency to be generated and having synchronized laser pulse repetition rates and phases. However, applications of these input radiation sources using at least two lasers have been limited to low power THz generation systems.
An example of optical rectification with intra-pulse DFG is described in [4]. As schematically illustrated in FIG. 26 (prior art), a single pass configuration is provided, wherein optical input radiation, like e.g., a single broadband laser pulse, from an input radiation source 10′ is imaged with an imaging system 20′ into the nonlinear crystal 30′, where the THz radiation is generated by a single passage of the optical input radiation. The input radiation source 10′ includes an ultra-short pulsed mode-locked oscillator, which is amplified to high energies, typically of several mJ at kHz repetition rates by using state-of-the art solid-state amplifiers. However, even by cryogenic cooling and optimization of the pulse bandwidth, conversion efficiency is limited to the 0.1% for terahertz generation in periodically poled lithium niobate crystals (PPLN) [4].
Numerical simulations of the conversion efficiency as a function of transform limited pulse duration of the pump laser for various terahertz frequencies in cryogenically cooled Lithium Niobate (with quasi phase matching period of crystal optimized for this THz frequency) show that the peak conversion efficiency occurs at shorter transform limited pulse durations for larger THz frequencies. This is natural since THz radiation is basically generated by beating of spectral components of the optical spectrum. At long pulse durations, there is not enough spectral content for efficient generation of the higher terahertz frequencies. However, in practice obtaining compressed pulses smaller than 500 fs at joule level pump energies and high repetition rates is very challenging and virtually unprecedented. Practically, ps long pulses are more feasible at high pulse energies. However, in this parameter range, the conversion efficiency is well below the 1% level.
As an alternative, THz generation can be based on conventional DFG using optical parametric oscillators (devices based on cavities) (OPO) specifically close to degeneration [6]. However, this also places limitations on the optical-to-THz energy conversion efficiency. According to [5] and as schematically shown in FIG. 27 (prior art), a series of frequency lines was generated with an input radiation source 10′ including an optical parametric amplifier to generate THz radiation in the nonlinear crystal 30′ made of GaAs using light at wavelengths between 1.3 and 2 μm. The nonlinear crystal 30′ is arranged in a resonant cavity 20′ creating multiple passages of the optical input radiation in the nonlinear crystal 30′. The disadvantages with this approach are firstly that lower repetition rates on the order of kHz are hard to realize using an OPO configuration. Furthermore, this demonstration produced only 200 μW of average THz power for 20 to 30 W of average optical pump power. This corresponds to low conversion efficiencies on the order of 0.001%. Finally, the resonant cavity 20′ restricts the range of optical pump frequencies which can be used for THz generation. This is because the cavity shall be stable only for a small set of frequencies. This limits the optical-to-THz energy conversion thus achieved. Therefore, even if the challenge of producing high energy Joule-level 2 μm optical input radiation were to be solved, the approach is fundamentally limited in its conversion efficiency.
Another parametric amplifier system using terahertz as a seed in a non-collinear phase matched generation process in bulk lithium niobate crystals pumped by a 1.064 μm optical pump source at room temperature (i.e. 300 K) was demonstrated, producing 10 nJ THz pulses ([10], [11], [12], and [13]). The optical-to-THz energy conversion efficiencies of such configurations are very low due to the pJ to nJ level THz seed. Secondly, the non-collinear configuration is experimentally tedious. Thirdly, the use of a THz seed offers limited possibilities in achieving high conversion efficiencies since THz seed energies of high value are hard to obtain. In [14], OPA behavior in periodically poled lithium niobate was studied (but not demonstrated) under conditions of large absorption (corresponding to room temperature operation) for generation at the 0.1% level or within the Manley-Rowe limit.
A THz generation system using difference frequency generation with one of the pump signals generated by an optical parametric oscillator scheme was introduced [7]. Multiple terahertz generation stages were included providing multiple DFG stages driven by OPO sources. However the construction of many OPO's is cumbersome and impractical.
Finally, with a chirp and delay approach, an ultrafast broadband optical pulse is chirped, split into two and then re-combined with a relative delay to generate an interferometric pattern tuned to the desired terahertz frequency. This technique has been demonstrated in ZnTe [15] and also for the tilted-pulse-front technique in lithium niobate [9]. For ZnTe, the conversion efficiency was about 0.0003%. However as discussed, ZnTe does not lend itself to being amenable for scaling to very high conversion efficiencies due to its incompatibility with the most probable 800 nm/1 μm laser technology. Furthermore, as discussed the tilted-pulse-front technique has fundamental limitations which prevent its use with high energy beams.
Further studies of THz generation based on DFG are described in [16] and [17], wherein the DFG process is based on two lines of equal strength. Furthermore, if ωP is the frequency of the pump photon and ωTHz is the frequency of the generated terahertz frequency, the cascaded DFG regime obtained by [16] has a conversion efficiency of
η = N ω THz ω P ,with maximum N, that can be theoretically achieved is around 2 only.
According to the THz generation described in [18], Cerenkov phase-matching is employed, which is intrinsically non-collinear and involves multiple reflections of the generated THz wave. Thus, [18] does not use a single-pass device. This is particularly true since [18] uses a nonlinear process, where the THz wave is first generated, it then propagates non-collinearly, reflects off the walls of the slab and then re-joins the propagating optical field in the crystal. The model that is used to describe the system is in fact an approximation which might not hold in a dramatically cascaded regime. Furthermore, the waveguide like geometry used in [18] induces significant dispersion, limiting the cascading process. Secondly, absorption of terahertz will also limit the extent of cascading. The spectrum described here once again involves 2 lines of equal strength. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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The present invention relates to a method for the production of a device for transmitting a signal between two end points at least one of which is movable relative to the other and between which a wound line which forms a coil and is contained in a substantially circular cassette is arranged. Further extending lines being connected to the line at the two end points, the cassette consisting of two parts, namely a stator and a rotor which rotates around its axis and around the stator (European patent EP-OS 0 417 350).
Such a device is required, for instance, for the transmitting of a signal in order to release the "airbag" of an anti-impact system for motor vehicles. It is arranged in the steering wheel of a vehicle for the transmission of an electrical or optical signal. A "line" within the meaning of the invention can therefore be an electrical line or an optical line. One basic problem with this device is the transmitting of signals between fixed and moving parts of the vehicle. The wiper contacts or wiper rings serving for the transmission of current which have been used for a long time in such cases are subject to wear and are disadvantageous, particularly in the case of low current intensities, due to varying contact resistance.
In the known device in accordance with the aforementioned EP-OS 0 417 350, electric current is used for the transmission of the signal. The current is transmitted over a ribbon cable which is wound into a coil, in the manner, for instance of a spring housing. Upon relative rotation of the two end points which are connected by the ribbon cable, the coiled ribbon cable "breathes" like the spring of a watch. The turns of the wound ribbon cable are contracted in the one direction of rotation to a smaller diameter. In the other direction of rotation, they return to a larger diameter. The ribbon cable can in this way participate in the turning movements of the steering wheel without the signal path being interrupted. For the production of the cassette, the individual parts, particularly its stator and rotor, are placed together. In this connection spring parts and other detent elements engage in recesses in the other part. They assure the holding together of all the parts of the cassette. The spring parts and detent elements are bent upon assembling of the individual parts of the cassette. They slide with a relatively high force of application along surfaces of the other parts. Damage to these surfaces can therefore not be avoided, particularly when tools are used for the assembling. In the case of this cassette, the rotor and stator are furthermore assembled with a relatively large amount of play. Upon the turning of the rotor, therefore, disturbing noises are produced because of the damaged, non-circular surfaces and the play between stator and rotor. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
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