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The present invention relates to a forage harvester having a chopper assembly and a delivery arrangement that are connected to each other by a channel that is provided with a cutout into which a crop processing arrangement or a conveyor arrangement can be selectively inserted.
A Claas Company advertising brochure, bearing the designation 8/95 (M+E) dt. 150/190.432.7, discloses a forage harvester equipped with a chopper assembly including a chopper drum that chops crop such as corn, grass, sorghum and the like and directs it through a channel to a blower that delivers the chopped crop to a delivery arrangement from where it flows to an accompanying vehicle. In addition to the blower, the channel contains a crop processing arrangement that consists of two rolls that rotate in opposite directions about parallel, with the crop being fed between and crushed by the rolls. The crop processing arrangement consists of a single unit or module and as such can selectively be either installed or removed by sliding the unit horizontally through a cutout in the channel, installation usually being done when corn or sorghum is being harvested and removal usually being done when grass is being harvested for silage.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,678,129, granted to Dallinger on 7 Jul., 1987 also discloses a crop processing arrangement with two rolls rotating in opposite directions that are installed in a channel. Here the lower roll can be pivoted out of the channel on pivot arms and replaced by a roll carrying paddles. The roll with paddles interacts with the remaining roll that carries teeth on its outer surface in order to convey the crop to a blower. In this way jamming should be avoided when the crop processing arrangement is employed in the grass harvest. A comparable solution is also provided according to FR-B1-25 39 950, published 3 Aug. 1984.
According to U.S. Pat. No. 4,696,432, granted to Russ et al. on 29 Sep. 1987, either a crop processing arrangement or a conveyor arrangement can be selectively installed in the channel between the chopper assembly and the delivery arrangement. However, in each case, the channel is specifically configured to accommodate the particular arrangement used and accordingly, a single channel configuration is not compatible with both arrangements.
The problem underlying the invention is seen in the fact that the fine and sharp-edged teeth on the circumferential surface of the rolls employed for the processing do not have a sufficiently non-skid surface for the conveying of grass and become dull under constant operation on grass. On the other hand, removal of the crop processing arrangement can lead to the condition that the crop is not accelerated sufficiently.
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The present invention relates to microelectromechanical actuator structures, and more particularly to an electromagnetic radiation chopper device used in conjunction with an associated electromagnetic radiation detector.
Advances in thin film technology have enabled the development of sophisticated integrated circuits. This advanced semiconductor technology has also been leveraged to create MEMS (Micro Electro Mechanical System) structures. MEMS structures are typically capable of motion or applying force. Many different varieties of MEMS devices have been created, including microsensors, microgears, micromotors, and other microengineered devices. MEMS devices are being developed for a wide variety of applications because they provide the advantages of low cost, high reliability and extremely small size.
Design freedom afforded to engineers of MEMS devices has led to the development of various techniques and structures for providing the force necessary to cause the desired motion within microstructures. For example, microcantilevers have been used to apply rotational mechanical force to rotate micromachined springs and gears. Electromagnetic fields have been used to drive micromotors. Piezoelectric forces have also been successfully been used to controllably move micromachined structures. Controlled thermal expansion of actuators or other MEMS components has been used to create forces for driving microdevices.
Various MEMS devices have been developed that implement electrostatic force to move structures. Traditional electrostatic devices were constructed from laminated films cut from plastic or mylar materials. A flexible electrode was attached to the film, and another electrode was affixed to a base structure. Electrically energizing the respective electrodes created an electrostatic force attracting the electrodes to each other or repelling them from each other. A representative example of these devices is found in U.S. Pat. No. 4,266,339, entitled xe2x80x9cMethod for Making Rolling Electrode for Electrostatic Devicexe2x80x9d, issued on May 12, 1981, in the name of inventor Kalt. These type of devices work well for typical motive applications, but these devices cannot be constructed in dimensions suitable for miniaturized integrated circuits, biomedical applications, or MEMS structures.
Micromachined MEMS devices have also utilized electrostatic forces to move microstructures. Some MEMS electrostatic devices use relatively rigid cantilever members, as found in U.S. Pat. No. 5,578,976, entitled Micro Electromechanical RF Switchxe2x80x9d, issued on Nov. 26, 1996 in the name of inventor Yao. These types of cantilevered actuators fail to A disclose flexible electrostatic actuators with a radius of curvature oriented away from the substrate surface. Other MEMS devices disclose curved electrostatic actuators; however, some of these devices incorporate complex geometries using relatively difficult microfabrication techniques.
Recent developments have led to simplified MEMS devices that utilize electrostatic forces to move structures. These devices, which are based on flexible membranes that embody electrodes, provide for ease in fabrication and can be processed using conventional MEMS fabrication techniques. See for example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,057,520, entitled xe2x80x9cArc Resistant High Voltage Micromachined Electrostatic Switchxe2x80x9d, issued on May 2, 2000, in the name of inventor Goodwin-Johansson. The Goodwin-Johansson ""520 patent is herein incorporated by reference as if set forth fully herein. By modifying the biasing capabilities of the flexible film actuator disclosed in the Goodwin-Johansson ""520 patent it is possible to fabricate actuators having a radius of curvature such that the actuator will fully curl prior to applying electrostatic voltage and fully uncurl upon the application of electrostatic voltage.
Current electromagnetic radiation imaging devices, typically infrared (IR) imaging devices, such as night vision devices, forward looking infrared devices (FLIRs) and the like, implement mechanical chopper wheels as the means by which radiation signals are pulsed for submission to the detectors/pixels. These chopping mechanisms are necessary for imaging device detectors to modulate or chop the incident electromagnetic radiation. The need for chopping of the signal is especially apparent in pyroelectric detectors since electrical charge is generated in the pyroelectric material by a change in temperature. The change in polarization of the pyroelectric material is defined in terms of the temperature change as:
xcex94Pi=pixcex94T
where xcex94Pi is a change in polarization, pi is the pyroelectric coefficient and xcex94T is the temperature change that the pyroelectric film detects corresponding to changes in the incident radiation.
Signal chopping is also beneficial for other electromagnetic radiation detector systems, preferably infrared detector systems, such as thermal bolometers that produce a change in resistance with temperature. The resistance change in a thermal bolometer is a direct current effect, versus the pyroelectric detector which is an alternating current effect, so a chopper device is not necessarily required for a bolometer detector. However, for systems needing high sensitivity, signal chopping is needed to periodically modulate the signal to prevent thermal drift and signal noise such that high sensitivities can be achieved.
The typical mechanical chopper wheel that is currently used in such imaging devices tend to be bulky in size (e.g., 1 to 4 inch diameter wheels made of patterned germanium or machined metal), consume significant electrical power and are typically constructed separate from the associated detectors and pixels. In addition, chopper wheels are potentially unreliable and inefficient in modulating the electromagnetic radiation signals. Additionally, since the chopping wheel will typically be responsible for chopping an entire focal plane array of detectors/pixels, if the chopping wheel fails, the entire FPA of detectors is rendered inoperable.
A need exists to develop a chopping device for electromagnetic radiation signal detection that is simple in design and fabrication, consumes less space and electrical power in the detector system, and is more reliable and efficient than current devices. By incorporating MEMS technology, and more specifically electrostatically activated flexible film actuators as chopping elements it is possible to design and fabricate a unitary structure that allows for further reduction in detector/pixel size as advances in the field of IR imaging devices occur. The electrostatic activation of such a device would provide significant size reduction and consume much less power compared with the typical chopping wheel and associated drive motor. Power consumed by the electrostatically activated MEMS chopper is about 2 mW at 100 Hz compared with a chopper wheel motor which consumes several Watts of power.
Additionally, such a device would provide for individual chopping elements (i.e., actuators) to be associated with an individual detector/pixel or, alternatively, a parsed portion of the overall FPA. This would allow the IR FPA to remain operational if only a single chopper element was to fail. In the same regard, it would be possible to close off individual detectors/pixels or small subsets of detectors/pixels could be closed while the remainder of detectors/pixels remain open. In this instance, the closed pixels could then be referenced as the background temperature to subtract out possible noise or temperature fluctuations occurring in the FPA. As such this would provide for a means of noise reduction and compensation for temperature fluctuations in the radiation detector. Current chopping wheel mechanisms are incapable of providing such noise reduction and/or temperature fluctuation compensation. In a similar fashion, if temperature spikes in the array result in xe2x80x9chot spotsxe2x80x9d (i.e. an area of constant brightness) this area could be closed independent of the remaining detector/pixels to zero out the temperature spike. Localized detectivity could also be controlled by operating subsections of the FPA at a different chopping frequency. Lower chopping frequency could be used for areas of the image requiring higher sensitivity, and higher frequency could be used for faster image scan rates for less sensitive areas. Specific detectivity of IR detectors is known to be dependent on chopping frequency.
As such a need exists to develop an improved electromagnetic radiation chopping device, specifically an electrostatically activated MEMS device that will leverage the simplified MEMS fabrication techniques with the advantages of individual chopper/actuator design. Such a design will additionally provide signal noise reduction, sensitivity modulation, compensation for temperature fluctuations and temperature referencing capabilities.
The present invention provides for an improved electromagnetic radiation detector having an electrostatic chopping device and associated arrays incorporating a plurality of detectors and/or chopping devices. An electrostatically activated MEMS chopping device is provided that provides reliability, efficiency, noise reduction and temperature fluctuation compensation capabilities to the associated electromagnetic radiation detectors.
An electromagnetic radiation detector having an electrostatic MEMS chopping device according to the present invention comprises a detector material element, typically a pyroelectric or bolometer material element, and first and second electrodes in electrical contact with the detector material element and electrically isolated from one another. Additionally, the chopper device will incorporate a flexible film actuator overlying the detector material layer and moveable relative thereto. The flexible film actuator will typically include an electrode element and a biasing element such that the actuator remains in a fully curled, open state absent electrostatic voltage and moves to a fully uncurled, closed state upon the application of electrostatic voltage. Typically, the detector material element will be supported by a support surface, such as a microelectronic substrate or the like.
In one embodiment of the invention the flexible film actuator is fabricated directly on the detector or the pixels of a focal plane array having a fixed portion of the actuator attached to the underlying surface and a distal portion that is released from the underlying surface. The electrode element in the flexible film actuator and one of the electrodes associated with the detector material element interact to provide the electrostatic voltage necessary to move the flexible film actuator.
In an alternate embodiment of the invention a transparent substrate having a transparent electrode element are supported by a support structure, such as a microelectronic substrate and raised above the detector/pixel element. In this embodiment the flexible film actuator is supported by and attached to the
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The importance of an adequate supply of trace elements zinc, chromium, manganese, iron and of the essential amino acid methionine in the diet of both animals and humans has long been recognized in the literature. Small amounts of trace minerals such as zinc, manganese and iron have also been documented as not only extremely important in dietary function, but for other reasons such as healthy skin, etc. It is common to feed animals such as domestic livestock feed supplements that contain essential amino acids and trace mineral mixes that contain zinc, manganese and iron.
It is also heretofore known that simply choice feeding of free essential amino acids, and conventional inorganic water soluble salts of zinc, chromium, manganese and iron is not the most efficient way for diet supplementation. This is true because neither the amino acid nor the transition metals are in their most bioavailable form in simple choice feeding of conventional simple salts such as zinc chloride, chromium chloride, manganese chloride, and iron chloride.
As a result of the above knowledge, the common assignee of the present application has in the past synthesized and patented certain 1:1 complexes of zinc, chromium, manganese and iron. See for example U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,941,818; 3,924,433: 3,950,372; 4,021,569; 4,067,994. Each of the above patents relate to 1:1 complexes of alpha amino acids, preferably methionine and of transition metals including zinc, chromium, manganese and iron. The complexes shown provided and claimed in the above patents are described as 1:1 complex salts because 1:1 complexes are more water soluble, are more bioavailable, and are more efficiently converted to provide maximum effective body usage of both the transition metal and the amino acid. Such has been demonstrated from data provided in some of the earlier referred to patents of the common assignee.
Each of the above patents describes, prepares and claims raecemic mixtures of the metal methionine complexed salts. That is to say the resulting salt as described is a 1:1 complexed salt which contains within the metal methionine complex, methionine that is a raecemic mixture of the D-form of methionine and the L-form of methionine. In recent times it has been discovered that only the L-form of methionine is bioavailable. In the past it has been believed that the D-form of methionine was converted to the L-form within the body's own biochemical systems. It is now known that this is not the case, and in fact the D-form of methionine is simply passed through and in effect wasted. This pass-through event carried along with it the associated transition metal such that it, too, is hither wasted or less efficiently utilized by the body system.
It has now been discovered that if the complexes are substantially pure L-form complexes, maximized bioavailability of both the transition metal such as zinc, chromium, manganese or iron, and the methionine is accomplished. As a result, dosages can be reduced by for example one-half the amount previously used, and the same bioavailability is achieved. The reason for this is simply that the supplement is in a 100% L-form, and therefore is 100% bioavailable.
Accordingly, it is a primary objective of the present invention to provide substantially pure 1:1 L-form transition metal methionine complexed salts of zinc, chromium, manganese and iron. By preparing only L-form the resulting compounds can be dosed in one-half the amounts now commonly used, and yet the same bioavailability and nutritional supplementation both from the standpoint of the amino acid and from the standpoint of the transition metal are achieved. Costs are reduced.
Another objective of the present invention is to provide a process of preparing substantially pure 1:1 L-form complexes of methionine with zinc, chromium, manganese and iron.
Another important objective of the present invention is to provide compositions for supplementation of diets of animals and humans which can be dosed up to 50% of the levels of the complexes previously known, and yet achieve the same levels of assimilation of zinc, chromium, manganese and iron and methionine into the body systems of the animal, as the earlier used higher doses of raecemic mixtures.
The method of accomplishing these and other objects will become apparent from the following description of the invention.
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Glucoamylases (EC 3.2.1.3, alpha-1,4-glucan glucohydrolase) are exo-acting enzymes that catalyze hydrolysis of both alpha-1,4 and alpha-1,6 glycosidic linkages from non-reducing ends of glucose-containing di-, oligo- and poly-saccharides, releasing glucose units one at a time (1960, Pazur and Ando, J. Biol. Chem. 235:297-302). Cleavage occurs at the glycosidic bond connecting the anomeric carbon with oxygen (1962, Fleetwood and Weigel, Nature 196:984). Alpha-1,4, alpha-1,6, and alpha-1,3 bonds are the only linkages hydrolyzed at significant rates by glucoamylase (1957, Barker et al., J. Chem. Soc. 4865-4871).
Glucoamylase is also capable of hydrolyzing the glycosidic bond between the two glucosyl units linked by alpha-1,2 (e.g., Kojibiose) or alpha-1,1 (e.g., trehalose). However, this enzymatic activity occurs at a much lower rate and at more dilute substrate concentrations compared to glucoamylase activity toward disaccharides with alpha-1,4 (maltose) or alpha-1,6 (isomaltose) linkages.
Glucoamylase has been widely used for producing high-glucose syrup from starch. High-glucose syrup is useful as a feedstock for producing various value-added compounds such as fuel alcohol, high-fructose corn syrup, organic acids, amino acids and vitamins. Glucoamylase has been isolated from numerous microorganisms, animals and plants, and among microorganisms, many fungi are good sources of this enzyme. Glucoamylase produced in fungal organisms, such as Aspergillus niger, is commonly used for commercial applications such as high-glucose syrup production.
Transglucosidases (EC.2.4.1.24, 1,4-alpha-glucan 6-alpha-glucosyltransferase) are D-glucosyltransferase enzymes that catalyze both hydrolytic and transfer reactions on incubation with alpha-D-gluco-oligosaccharides (1951, Pazur and French, J. Amer. Chem. Soc. 73:3536). Maltose is the most preferred substrate for transglucosylation reactions with this enzyme. Transfer occurs most frequently to HO-6, producing isomaltose from D-glucose, or panose (6-O-alpha-glucosyl maltose) from maltose. Transglucosidase can also transfer a glucosyl residue to the HO-2 or HO-3 of another D-glucosyl unit to form Kojibiose or Nigerose. This enzyme can further transfer a D-glucosyl unit back to HO-4 to reform maltose.
As a result of transglucosylation reactions with transglucosidase, malto-oligosaccharide residues are converted to isomalto-oligosaccharides (IMO) containing a higher proportion of glucosyl residues linked by alpha-D-1,6 glycosidic linkages from the non-reducing end. IMO sugars are used in many food and beverage formulations in Asia. Brier et al. (U.S. Patent Appl. Publ. No. 2003/0167929) disclosed using transglucosidase to produce IMO from barley wort.
Poulose et al. (U.S. Patent Appl. Publ. No. 2008/0229514) disclosed using transglucosidase to degrade polysaccharides such as xanthan and guar gums. Xanthan gum comprises a cellulosic backbone in which alternate glucoses are 1,3-linked to branches containing mannose and glucuronic acid. The backbone of guar gum comprises beta-1,4-linked mannose residues to which galactose residues are alpha-1,6-linked at every other mannose.
Lantero et al. (U.S. Pat. No. 5,770,437) disclosed using a transglucosidase to degrade sucrose, melezitose and trehalulose. These sugars comprise glucose linked to fructose via 1,2-(sucrose), 1,3-(melezitose), or 1,1-(trehalulose) linkages.
Although various hydrolytic activities of glucoamylase and transglucosidase have been disclosed, these enzymes are generally considered to be alpha-glucosidases, given their ability to hydrolyze alpha-linkages between two glucosyl residues. For example, both glucoamylase and transglucosidase are associated with having maltase activity (hydrolysis of the alpha-1,4 glycosidic link between the two glucosyl residues of maltose), which is a type of alpha-glucosidase activity.
Notwithstanding the foregoing disclosures, surprisingly, it has now been found that alpha-glucosidases such as transglucosidase (EC 2.4.1.24), glucoamylase (EC 3.2.1.3), and other alpha-glucosidases can hydrolyze alpha-1,5 glycosidic linkage of glucosyl-fructose. Alpha-glucosidases are disclosed herein as being useful for degrading disaccharides and oligosaccharides containing glucosyl-alpha-1,5-fructose.
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The present invention relates to a heat exchanger, and more particularly to a microchannel heat exchanger for use as an evaporator under conditions in which moisture is present, such as within a refrigerated merchandiser.
Refrigerated merchandisers are used by grocers to store and display food items in a product display area that must be kept at a predetermined temperature. These merchandisers generally include a case that has an integrated refrigeration system.
Microchannel heat exchangers include an array of aligned microchannel flow tubes, the ends of which are connected to an inlet manifold or header and an outlet manifold or header, respectively. Fins are brazed between the tubes, and at low operating temperatures, the heat exchanger is susceptible to frost formation, especially near the air inlet to the heat exchanger. Such frost formation can damage the evaporator and necessitate more frequent and thorough defrost cycles.
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The present invention relates to a new and distinctive soybean cultivar, designated S120074. All publications cited in this application are herein incorporated by reference.
There are numerous steps in the development of any novel, desirable plant germplasm. Plant breeding begins with the analysis and definition of problems and weaknesses of the current germplasm, the establishment of program goals, and the definition of specific breeding objectives. The next step is selection of germplasm that possesses the traits to meet the program goals. The goal is to combine in a single cultivar an improved combination of desirable traits from the parental germplasm. These important traits may include, but are not limited to, higher seed yield, resistance to diseases and insects, better stems and roots, tolerance to drought and heat, altered fatty acid profile, abiotic stress tolerance, improvements in compositional traits, and better agronomic quality.
These processes, which lead to the final step of marketing and distribution, can take from six to twelve years from the time the first cross is made. Therefore, development of new cultivars is a time-consuming process that requires precise forward planning, efficient use of resources, and a minimum of changes in direction.
Soybean (Glycine max), is an important and valuable field crop. Thus, a continuing goal of soybean plant breeding is to develop stable, high yielding soybean cultivars that are agronomically sound. The reasons for this goal are to maximize the amount of grain produced on the land used and to supply food for both animals and humans. To accomplish this goal, the soybean breeder must select and develop soybean plants that have the traits that result in superior varieties.
The soybean is the world's leading source of vegetable oil and protein meal. The oil extracted from soybeans is used for cooking oil, margarine, and salad dressings. Soybean oil is composed of saturated, monounsaturated, and polyunsaturated fatty acids. It has a typical composition of 11% palmitic, 4% stearic, 25% oleic, 50% linoleic, and 9% linolenic fatty acid content (“Economic Implications of Modified Soybean Traits Summary Report,” Iowa Soybean Promotion Board and American Soybean Association Special Report 92S (May 1990)). Changes in fatty acid composition for improved oxidative stability and nutrition are constantly sought after. Industrial uses of soybean oil, which is subjected to further processing, include ingredients for paints, plastics, fibers, detergents, cosmetics, lubricants, and biodiesel fuel. Soybean oil may be split, inter-esterified, sulfurized, epoxidized, polymerized, ethoxylated, or cleaved. Designing and producing soybean oil derivatives with improved functionality and improved oliochemistry is a rapidly growing field. The typical mixture of triglycerides is usually split and separated into pure fatty acids, which are then combined with petroleum-derived alcohols or acids, nitrogen, sulfonates, chlorine, or with fatty alcohols derived from fats and oils to produce the desired type of oil or fat.
Soybeans are also used as a food source for both animals and humans. Soybeans are widely used as a source of protein for poultry, swine, and cattle feed. During processing of whole soybeans, the fibrous hull is removed and the oil is extracted. The remaining soybean meal is a combination of carbohydrates and approximately 50% protein.
For human consumption, soybean meal is made into soybean flour, which is processed to protein concentrates used for meat extenders or specialty pet foods. Production of edible protein ingredients from soybean offers a healthy, less expensive replacement for animal protein in meats, as well as dairy type products.
The foregoing examples of the related art and limitations related therewith are intended to be illustrative and not exclusive. Other limitations of the related art will become apparent to those of skill in the art upon a reading of the specification.
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Recreational and commercial water systems, as well as natural bodies of water, e.g., ponds, are subject to contamination from the presence and growth of microbes, e.g., algae, pathogenic bacteria and fungi. The sanitization of standing or recirculating water systems typically involves introducing a halogen or halogen-containing material, e.g., a hypohalite material, such as a hypochlorite or hypobromite material, into the water system so as to establish a desired level, e.g., a sanitizing amount, of free available halogen (“FAHal”), e.g., free available chlorine (“FAC”), within the water system. The presence of free available halogen serves to eradicate or control deleterious amounts of microbial species, e.g., pathogenic bacteria, algae, fungi, etc that are present in the water comprising the water system. Hypochlorous acid and hypobromous acid are oxidizing materials that can also remove nutrients from water to which they are added, thus providing indirect protection against microbial infestation. Sanitation of water contacted by humans and animals is required because exposure to unsanitized or inadequately sanitized water that contains deleterious amounts of pathogenic bacteria, viruses, protozoa, etc can lead to the development of infection or disease.
FAHal, e.g., FAC or bromine, can be established in an aqueous system by adding regularly a source of hypohalous acid, e.g., hypochlorous acid (HOCl) or hypochlorite anion (ClO−), or hypobromous acid (HOBr) or hypobromous anion (BrO−) to the water comprising the aqueous system. There are many hypohalite generating materials. Non-limiting examples of hypohalite generating materials include chlorine gas, alkali metal hypochlorites, e.g., sodium hypochlorite and lithium hypochlorite, alkaline earth metal hypochlorites, e.g., calcium hypochlorite, halogenated hydantoins, such as the chlorinated and brominated hydantoins, e.g., 1,3-dibromo-5,5-dimethylhydantoin, chlorinated isocyanuric acid and its alkali metal derivatives, such as trichloroisocyanuric acid (also known as tri-chloro-s-triazinetrione), dichloroisocyanuric acid, and the corresponding salts sodium and potassium dichloro-s-triazinetrione, the N-halo-2-oxazolidinones, such as 3-chloro-4,4-dimethyl-2-oxazolidinone, and N,N′-dihalo-2-imidazolidinones, such as 1,3-dichloro-4,4,5,5-tetramethyl-2-imidazolidinone.
Recreational bodies of water, e.g., swimming pools, hot tubs, spas, etc, typically are treated so as to contain a level of FAHal, e.g., FAC, of from 1 to 10, e.g., 1 to 4, parts per million parts of water (ppm), sometimes reported as milligrams per Liter (mg/L). FAC levels in recreational bodies of water are generally maintained at from 1 to 2 ppm. FAC levels of 1 ppm or less, e.g., 0.5 to 1 ppm, are commonly maintained in cooling water systems. Water having a FAHal, e.g., FAC, content in amounts of greater than 10 ppm (generally in the range of hundreds to thousands of mg/L) can be used to sanitize surfaces or articles to which it is applied, e.g., food, equipment and tables used for the processing of raw food or in the preparation of processed food products.
Hypohalous acid, e.g., hypochlorous acid, or hypohalite anion, e.g., hypochlorite anion, can be introduced into water systems by passing the water, or a portion thereof, through a container that contains a donor source of the hypohalous acid or hypohalite anion. Other means include introducing chlorine directly into the water or adding the hypohalous acid donor material directly to the body of water to be treated. A common donor source of hypochlorous acid or hypochlorite anion is calcium hypochlorite. Calcium hypochlorite, e.g., granular calcium hypochlorite, can be added directly to the water to be treated, or placed in a container in the form of granules or tablets. When water is brought into contact with the calcium hypochlorite in the container, the calcium hypochlorite dissolves, thereby forming an aqueous solution comprising hypochlorite anion. This solution may be mixed with a water supply, added to water to be sanitized, or used directly for the intended application.
In the case of a standing or recirculating body of water, e.g., swimming pools, periodic batch additions of higher levels of hypochlorite anion can be made to the body of water in addition to the relatively steady and lower level additions described previously. Such batch additions of higher levels of hypochlorite anion are commonly referred to as a “shock treatment” or as “super chlorination” and are made on a periodic basis, e.g., once a week or once a month. Typically, the purpose of a shock treatment is to briefly increase the FAC of the body of water, e.g., by 5 to 10 parts per million (ppm), to consume accumulated organic material, destroy chloramines and/or control algae blooms. A shock treatment is administered by, for example, preparing a concentrated aqueous solution of calcium hypochlorite and adding this concentrated solution to the body of water, or distributing, e.g., broadcasting, granulated calcium hypochlorite directly over the surface of the body of water.
Use of boron derivatives, such as boric acid, sodium borates and potassium borates for inhibiting algal and fungal growth in recreational water systems, e.g., swimming pools, has been described. In addition, such compounds can serve as a pH buffer in the water. However, when boric acid is blended with solid calcium hypochlorite, e.g., granular calcium hypochlorite, the calcium hypochlorite assay, e.g., the FAC content of the calcium hypochlorite, in the resultant blend diminishes faster over time than an equivalent amount of the calcium hypochlorite used to prepare the blend that is substantially free of boric acid. Use of a low assay calcium hypochlorite can result in inadequate sanitization of water to which it is added. Therefore, it is desirable to provide a calcium hypochlorite-boric acid composition that is more stable, vis-à-vis, the loss of FAC assay, i.e., the composition has an improved shelf life.
Calcium hypochlorite is a material that can cause or enhance the combustion of organic materials by providing oxygen for combustion, e.g., it serves as an oxidizer. In accordance with US Department of Transportation (DOT) regulations; namely, Title 49, Code of Federal Regulations (CFR), part 173, section 127, paragraph (a), subparagraph (1), [49 CFR §173.127(a)(1)], calcium hypochlorite is categorized as a Division 5.1 oxidizer. More particularly, it is classified as a Packing Group II oxidizer material [49 CFR §173.127(b)(ii)]. The transport of a material categorized as a Division 5.1 oxidizer requires the use of special precautions, which can include the use of special containers.
Further, the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) classifies calcium hypochlorite having greater than 50 percent FAC as a Class 3 oxidizer. NFPA Class 3 oxidizers may require separate free standing storage facilities and/or special sprinkler systems. Such special storage and handling requirements imposes increased costs on the use of calcium hypochlorite, particularly when the amount of calcium hypochlorite that is required to be stored on site is large.
Boric acid has been described as an exotherm control agent for peroxyacid compounds used in detergent compositions. However, as noted, when boric acid is blended with solid calcium hypochlorite, it tends to destabilize the calcium hypochlorite. Hence, blending boric acid with calcium hypochlorite would be counterproductive because it would lower the shelf life of the calcium hypochlorite, and perhaps even precipitate a runaway thermal decomposition, though mitigating the amount of heat released as a result of the thermal decomposition.
It would be advantageous to have solid halogen-containing compositions, e.g., calcium hypochlorite compositions that are not classified as a Packing Group I or Packing Group II Division 5.1 oxidizer, but are classified as a Packing Group III Division 5.1 oxidizer or as a non-Division 5.1 oxidizer. In the NFPA system, it would be advantageous to have solid halogen-containing compositions, such as calcium hypochlorite compositions, that are not classified as a Class 4 or Class 3 NFPA oxidizer, but are classified as a Class 1 or Class 2 NFPA oxidizer. Further, it would be advantageous that calcium hypochlorite compositions that contain boric acid do not lose FAC assay over time at a rate greater than an equivalent calcium hypochlorite composition that does not contain boric acid. It is also desirable that a solid calcium hypochlorite composition has an FAC assay that is at least sufficient to allow its use in the batch and/or continuous sanitization of water systems
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The following generally relates to extrusion systems and methods. More particularly, it is directed to micro extrusion systems and methods for co-extruding multiple similar and/or dissimilar materials to form relatively fine structures with relatively high aspect ratios. However, other applications are also contemplated herein.
With traditional extrusion a billet of material is pushed and/or drawn through a die to create a rod, rail, pipe, etc. Various applications leverage this capability. For instance, extrusion can be used with food processing applications to create pasta, cereal, snacks, etc., pipe pastry filling (e.g., meringue), pattern cookie dough on a cookie pan, generate pastry flowers and borders on cakes, etc. In another application, extrusion can be used with consumer goods, for example, to merge different colored toothpastes together on a toothbrush.
However, conventional extrusion techniques are limited. For example, conventional techniques cannot render relatively high aspect-ratio (e.g., 10:1) fine featured (e.g., less then 5 micron) porous (e.g., 0.01 mm RMS) structures for a cost below $1/sq. ft. Thus, extrusion typically is not used for creating conducting contacts and/or channels for electrochemical (e.g., fuel), solar, and/or other types of cells, which leverage high aspect-ratio fine featured porous structures to increase efficiency and electrical power generation.
By way of example, with fuel cells high aspect-ratio fine featured porous electrolyte structures provide a long reaction zone that increases utilization of the expensive catalyst needed for the electrode. In addition, fuel cells can be complex structures since they perform multiple functions including: conducting protons from the membrane to the reaction site; diffusing oxygen to the reaction site with a low partial pressure drop; conducting electrons from the porous electrode to the reaction site; carrying heat away from the reaction site; and withstanding a compressive mechanical load of about 100-200 PSI. Conventional extrusion techniques cannot meet these demands at a cost demanded by the fuel cell industry. In order to increase efficiency, fuel cell manufacturers use more catalyst than desired to increase the number of reaction sites and make agglomerates of carbon catalyzed with Platinum (Pt) in a matrix of porous, or polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE). With solar cells, high aspect-ratio fine featured grid lines reduce the amount of shading, which allows more photons to be captured, resulting in an increased electrical power generation. Conventional extrusion techniques are not able to produce such grid lines at a cost demanded by the solar cell industry.
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The present embodiments relate generally to development systems for electrophotographic imaging and printing apparatuses and machines in which ghosting print defects are reduced, and more particularly, is directed to a method for reducing positive ghosting in such systems.
Electrophotographic imaging members, e.g., photoreceptors, photoconductors, and the like, typically include a photoconductive layer formed on an electrically conductive substrate. The photoconductive layer is an insulator in the substantial absence of light so that electric charges are retained on its surface. Upon exposure to light, charge is generated by the photoactive pigment, and under applied field charge moves through the photoreceptor and the charge is dissipated.
These photoreceptors have a target voltage which is the voltage that the photoreceptor surface becomes uniformly electrostatically charged. It is the optimum voltage for a xerographic system found through testing, and its determination depends on various systemic and environmental parameters. For example, the target voltage may be dependent on characteristics of the photoreceptor, such as the photoreceptor thickness, or characteristics of the development system, such as the type of toner and carrier. The target photoreceptor surface voltage also depends on the desired image quality, such as solid area density, line width, and avoidance of defects (such as background). The target P/R surface voltage is one of many variables that are optimized to achieve best overall performance.
Photoreceptors also have a maximum voltage, which is defined as the safe upper limit. Exceeding this value may cause damage to the photoreceptor due to dielectric breakdown and resulting holes that may form. The holes will cause spots in the reproduction prints. Likewise, the maximum photoreceptor surface voltage depends on the photoreceptor material and thickness. The target value is generally much lower then the maximum P/R surface voltage.
In electrophotography, also known as xerography, electrophotographic imaging or electrostatographic imaging, the surface of an electrophotographic plate, drum, belt or the like (imaging member or photoreceptor) containing a photoconductive insulating layer on a conductive layer is first uniformly electrostatically charged at the target surface voltage. The imaging member is then exposed to a pattern of activating electromagnetic radiation, such as light. Charge generated by the photoactive pigment moves under the force of the applied field. The movement of the charge through the photoreceptor selectively dissipates the charge on the illuminated areas of the photoconductive insulating layer while leaving behind an electrostatic latent image. This electrostatic latent image may then be developed to form a visible image by depositing oppositely charged particles on the surface of the photoconductive insulating layer. The resulting visible image may then be transferred from the imaging member directly or indirectly (such as by a transfer or other member) to a print substrate, such as transparency or paper. The imaging process may be repeated many times with reusable imaging members.
An electrophotographic imaging member may be provided in a number of forms. For example, the imaging member may be a homogeneous layer of a single material such as vitreous selenium or it may be a composite layer containing a photoconductor and another material. In addition, the imaging member may be layered. These layers can be in any order, and sometimes can be combined in a single or mixed layer.
Typical multilayered photoreceptors or imaging members have at least two layers, and may include a substrate, a conductive layer, an optional charge blocking layer, an optional adhesive layer, a photogenerating layer (sometimes referred to as a “charge generation layer,” “charge generating layer,” or “charge generator layer”), a charge transport layer, an optional overcoating layer, an optional undercoat layer, and, in some belt embodiments, an anticurl backing layer. In the multilayer configuration, the active layers of the photoreceptor are the charge generation layer (CGL) and the charge transport layer (CTL). Enhancement of charge transport across these layers provides better photoreceptor performance.
Conventional imaging members, however, have exhibited drawbacks when implementing image forming methods. One common problem is that in that electrons tend to remain in the charge generating layer after holes are first inject into the electrophotographic photosensitive member, and the electrons act as a kind of memory causing variations in potential. This problem, associated with charge accumulation, is known as “ghosting.” Consequently, when a sequential image is printed, the accumulated charge results in image density changes in the current printed image that reveals the previously printed image. It is assumed that the electrons remaining in the charge generating layer advance for some reason to the boundary between the charge generating layer and the charge transporting layer, thereby reducing a barrier height for injecting holes in a vicinity of the boundary.
Ghosting can be described as developed image-forming patterns on a latent image-retaining member which are electrostatically transferred to a transfer material such as paper. These images become visual and the image formed can either be lighter than the background formed by toner deposition or darker than the background formed by toner deposition. In a situation where the ghost image is lighter than the background, the phenomenon is known as “negative ghosting.” In a situation where the ghost image is darker than the background, the phenomenon is known as “positive ghosting.”
Thus, as the demand for improved print quality in xerographic reproduction is increasing, there is a continued need for achieving improved performance, such as finding a way to minimize or eliminate charge accumulation in photoreceptors.
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The inventive concept relates to an optical communication device and, more particularly, to an optical device module including an optical waveguide of a silicon-compound and an optical communication network system using the same.
As electronic devices become smaller and faster, researches are being conducted for increasing integration degree of elements constituting the electronic devices. Fast signal transmission between the elements is required along with small sizes of the elements for small sizes and high speed of the electronic devices.
An optical communication technique may be applied between the electronic devices for increasing a signal transmission speed between the elements. If the optical communication technique is applied into the electronic device, the signal transmission speed may increase, and various problems (e.g., high resistance, occurrence of high heat, and/or parasitic capacitance, etc.) of a conventional signal transmission method may be alleviated.
Recently, various researches are being conducted for applying an optical fiber-communication technique in the maturity stage to a computer. For example, a silicon photonics technology uses an optical waveguide of a silicon material for transmission of an optical signal. Additionally, an optical fiber may be inserted in a printed circuit board (PCB) of the computer to directly use the optical fiber-communication technique.
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(1) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the structure of an operation guidance generating unit which displays an animated procedure of data processors or the like to guide a user, and to a method of generating the operation guidance applied to the operation guidance generating unit.
(2) Description of the Related Arts
The rapid progress in data processing systems provides today's data processors with a variety of functions. However, the operation becomes undesirably complicated as the number of functions increases. Given these circumstances, a data processor capable of displaying operation guidance has been proposed: the operation guidance explains the functions or operation method to a user, so that he can easily operate the data processor.
For example, a document filing system furnished with such an operation guidance display function is disclosed in Japanese Laid-open Patent Application No. 61-91775. FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the structure of this document filing system. This document filing system stores document data on an optical disc, and the stored document data are retrieved for display. In the following, the operation guidance display function of this document filing system will be particularly explained.
The document filing system comprises an image input unit 101, an image output unit 102, an image input/output control unit 103, an optical disc 104, an optical disc unit 105, an optical disc control unit 106, a stationary disc 107, a floppy disc 108, a disc control unit 109, a display unit 110, a key board 111, a display control unit 112, an image memory 113, a data processing unit 114, an operation guidance readout processing unit 132, a writing processing unit 133 for a spare memory, and a display processing unit 134. These processing units operate in the following way.
First of all, documents showing operation instructions for the user, or documents of operation guidance showing the operation instructions and corresponding images are prepared.
Then, the guidance documents are read under the control of the operation guidance readout processing unit 132. The guidance documents are read with the image input unit 101 as image data. Having been recorded in the image memory 113, the image data are stored into the stationary disc 107. Further, the image data are written into the optical disc 104 under the control of the writing processing unit 133. With the abovedescribed processing, the image data of the operation guidance are stored in the document filing system.
During the operation, the image data of the operation guidance stored in the optical disc 104 are read out at a display command from the user under the control of the display processing unit 134 to be displayed on the screen of the display unit 110 by way of the image memory 113 and display control unit 112. FIG. 2 shows an example of a display of the operation guidance. Operation guidance 250 consists of an operation instruction 251 and an operation image 252. Note that the operation instruction 251 alone or both the operation instruction 251 and operation image 252 can be displayed as the operation guidance.
As has been explained, with the operation guidance display method of the conventional document filing system, the operation instructions and the corresponding images are read to be stored in the form of the image data, and then the image data for the operation guidance are retrieved to be displayed at a request from the user. However, the documents must be prepared in a matching number to the various kinds of the operation guidance. For example, even when the images are identical, another document must be prepared if the operation instructions are different, albeit partially. Further, it is not easy to add, amend, or revise the contents of the guidance; the document-preparation process must be repeated from the start to add or amend the contents. Moreover, a document of animated operation guidance includes numerous pages, making the document preparation process time-consuming.
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The present invention relates generally to a zoom lens, and more particularly to a wide-angle zoom lens adapted for use with single-lens reflex cameras for which increased back focuses are needed.
In recent years, camera systems using an image pickup device smaller in image circle than prior art silver halide 35-mm film have been developed in the form of digital single-lens reflex cameras. The objective of these systems is to diminish image pickup device size, thereby providing a smaller, relatively inexpensive single-lens reflex camera.
Even with an image pickup device of smaller size, however, it is still difficult to diminish the size of a shutter unit or the like congruously. Because an optical low-pass filter or the like unnecessary for silver halide single-lens reflex cameras must be located in front of the image pickup device, it is also still difficult to diminish the back focus necessary for interchangeable lenses at a similar ratio at which image pickup device size is more reduced than 35-mm system size. Accordingly, these interchangeable lenses must have a larger back focus than the focal length of those for the 35-mm system. Especially with a wide-angle lens having a short focal length, there is a problem that it is very difficult to ensure the necessary back focus.
So far, such systems as set forth in patent publications 1, 2 and 3 have been known as a superwide-angle zoom lens like one having an angle of view of greater than 100° at the wide-angle end.
However, they have only a back focus for prior art silver halide 35-mm film systems, and so it is difficult to apply them immediately to digital single-lens reflex cameras which incorporate an image pickup device of such smaller size as mentioned above and must have a back focus at a larger ratio relative to focal length.
Patent Publication 1
JP(A)7-261082
Patent Publication 2
JP(A)2000-221399
Patent Publication 3
JP (A) 2002-287031
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{
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1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electronic apparatus such as a facsimile apparatus or a copying machine, and more particularly to an electronic apparatus having an operation board whose position is adjustable with respect to the location of the electronic apparatus.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In order to explain the background of the present invention, reference will be made to FIG. 11, which is a plan view showing a typical example of a known facsimile apparatus, generally designated by the reference numeral 1. The facsimile apparatus 1 includes an original tray 2, a guide member 3 for guiding a read-through original, and a key board 5 having a handling set 4.
Since the key board 5 is located at a fixed position on the facsimile apparatus 1 with respect to the direction of an original is fed through the apparatus, hereinafter this direction being referred to as "the direction of operation", the location of the apparatus is fixed with respect to the key board 5. If office space is too limited, it will be difficult to find a site for installing this type of facsimile apparatus. Even if the apparatus is installed in a limited place, the operator will suffer from the handling difficulty.
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Limitations and disadvantages of conventional approaches to gaming interfaces will become apparent to one of skill in the art, through comparison of such approaches with some aspects of the present method and system set forth in the remainder of this disclosure with reference to the drawings.
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Many compounds used by the building construction industry are bulk materials, including, but not limited to, gypsum, calcined gypsum, mica, cement, calcium carbonate and sand. These dry compounds comprise a population of particles of different sizes.
Particles which are smaller than 20 microns are referred to respirable particles because these particles can be dispersed into the air. These particles can be then inhaled by workers, which should be avoided. Thus, there is a need to analyze a powder sample and provide an accurate estimate whether the sample comprises respirable particles and the percentage of such particles in the sample.
The standard procedure for respirable silica requires the sample in analysis to be treated with acid to eliminate most of the sample matrix. The remaining material is examined for crystalline silica. The weight of crystalline silica is determined using X-ray Diffraction or FTIR. This number is reported as Total Crystalline Silica. The second step requires the sample to be dispersed in alcohol and transferred to a silver membrane and the mass of crystalline silica determined for the <10μ fraction. A determination is also provided for the <5μ fraction.
The criteria in the Globally Harmonized System (GHS) have the fine fraction of silica classified as specific target organ toxicity in this case, the lung. Generic cut-off values for products containing a fine fraction of crystalline silica trigger a need for a method for the quantification of the fine fraction of crystalline silica in bulk materials.
The European Union has promoted an analysis for silica in bulk materials which culminated in the publication of a new standard for measuring the amounts of respirable particles in bulk materials. The standard has two parts:
1. Determination of Size-Weighted Potential Respirable Fraction (SWeRF); and
2. Size-Weighted Potential Respirable Fraction of Crystalline Silica (SWeRFCS)
The method is to be used for comparing the potential health risks of bulk materials. The method does not predict how a material will disperse in air, but quantifies the respirable fraction. The particles that present a larger health risk are weighed more in the calculation. The advantage of the method is it provides an unambiguous characterization of the bulk material. The term “potential” is used to indicate that the standard does not analyze airborne particles.
The standard describes a method using sedimentation and a calculation method based on particle size distribution (PSD). The calculation can only be used after the results are validated using the sedimentation data. The calculation method requires that the particles have the same density or in the case of mixture with different materials that they have the same PSD. A plot is made to compare the sedimentation PSD with the Stokes' Law and the convention described in CSN EN 481 (European Standards EN 481 “Workplace atmospheres—size fraction definitions for measurement of airborne particles”). However, in this calculation method, the dynamic form factor is neglected where in the sedimentation method, the dynamic form factor is assumed to be equal in air and liquid. Thus, there remains a need for accurate and rapid detection of respirable particles in a bulk material.
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1. Field of the Exemplary Embodiments
The exemplary embodiments disclosed herein relate to measurement instruments and, more particularly, to measurement instruments having multiple sensors.
2. Brief Description of Related Developments
Many different types of sensors have been used to measure various physical quantities, for example pressure or density of a gas. As different types of sensors may have different operating ranges, it has been desired to combine different types of sensors into a single pressure instrument, with an extended operating range. For example, as the pressure of a gas is pumped down to vacuum, the output of the instrument may first correspond to a reading from one of the sensors. Then, when the output reaches a threshold value, the output may be switched to correspond to a reading from another sensor having better accuracy at the lower pressures. While this type of arrangement has an advantage in extending the pressure or density range over which the instrument can operate with suitable accuracy, there are also drawbacks. Most notably, a problem may arise in switching between the two sensors. If the two sensors do not produce identical readings at the threshold value, there may be an abrupt change in the output of the instrument when the instrument switches between sensors. Even if the difference in readings between the two sensors is small, the abrupt change can cause undesirable hysteresis effects. For example, problems may arise if the output is used as part of a feedback loop designed to control pressure. The difficulties may be more pronounced if a derivative of the output is used as a feedback signal in a feedback loop, because the derivative will be very high at the transition threshold. Therefore it may be desired to provide a pressure instrument that combine readings from two or more sensors and allow for smooth transitioning between the readings.
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Digital lighting technologies, i.e. illumination based on semiconductor light sources, such as light-emitting diodes (LEDs), offer a viable alternative to traditional fluorescent, HID, and incandescent lamps. Functional advantages and benefits of LEDs include high energy conversion and optical efficiency, durability, lower operating costs, and many others. Recent advances in LED technology have provided efficient and robust full-spectrum lighting sources that enable a variety of lighting effects in many applications. Under various conditions, such as start up, mains brownout, or turn off, output current in a LED driver can overshoot resulting in flicker or flash from the LED(s) and potential LED failure due to excessive current. This can be due to lack of control over the timing of the power supplies (for the power stage integrated circuits (ICs)) and reference ICs, and can also be due to initial conditions of regulator ICs, etc., of the LED driver. In traditional LED drivers, the current reference value is either a fixed value or merely controlled by a dimming interface. At start up, the output current of the driver is zero. Because of the large error between the driver output current and the current reference signal, a large feedback signal is provided. When the driver suddenly reacts to such a very large feedback signal, the output current of the driver rises at a rapid rate. This may lead to overshoot of the driver output current, causing the LED light output to flash and flicker. Also, depending on the initial condition of the inputs of regulator ICs, driver can start with high output current.
Thus, there is a need in the art to control the power supplies of the various power stage ICs, and to control reference values and/or initial conditions of the feedback control circuits of the LED driver.
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This invention relates to a device for and a method of detecting an overlap in paper being transported. More particularly, this invention relates to such a device and a method capable of dependably informing the user whether or not the detected overlap is of a kind to be avoided or a kind that may be ignored.
When a plurality of sheets of paper to be scanned individually are simultaneously transported in an overlapped condition even partially, it is not possible to carry out an accurate scan. For this reason, many scanners of this type are provided with an overlap detector, or a detector for detecting an overlapped condition of paper sheets being transported such that the transportation of the paper sheets may be stopped temporarily. In other words, scanning by such a scanner is interrupted when the overlap detector detects an overlapped condition.
The scanning operation of a scanner is interrupted also when the overlap detector detects an overlapped condition erroneously, forcing the user to go through the troublesome process of investigating the cause of the interruption and restarting the scanning. Another problem with such a prior art overlap detector is that it always concludes that there is an overlap of the kind for which the transportation of paper should be interrupted whenever two sheets of paper are found to be overlapping. In other words, doubly folded sheets and two sheets of intentionally overlapped paper are both treated as representing an overlapped condition for which the transportation of the paper should be interrupted.
It is therefore an object of this invention to provide a device for and a method of accurately detecting an overlap in paper being transported such that doubly folded paper and two sheets of paper that are intentionally overlapped may be distinguished.
An overlap detecting device according to this invention may be characterized as comprising a detecting means for detecting an overlapped condition in a paper sheet being transported on its transportation path, a data generating device for generating a specified data item on the overlap detected by the detecting means, a level selector for selecting one of a plurality of preliminarily defined levels corresponding to the specified data item generated by the data generating device, and an output device for outputting the selected level by the level selector. Thus, as an overlapped condition of a paper sheet being transported on a path is detected, a specified data item about the overlap is generated, its level is selected from a plurality of preliminarily defined levels and the selected level is outputted to be referenced by the user. The user can thereby determine whether the overlap was of an intentional or unintentional kind. The data generating device and the level selector may each comprise a CPU.
For the detection of the overlap, use may be made of an ultrasonic wave generator for generating ultrasonic waves to be made incident on the path of transportation of the paper sheet, an ultrasonic receiver for receiving the ultrasonic waves generated by the ultrasonic wave generator and a phase difference detector which may comprise a CPU for detecting a phase difference between the ultrasonic waves received by the ultrasonic wave receiver and a predetermined standard phase. An overlap in a paper sheet being transported on the path can be detected from the phase difference detected by the phase difference detector.
The aforementioned data item serves to indicate a possibility of occurrence of the overlap, and the preliminarily defined levels include a first level indicating that the overlap is certainly taking place and a second level indicating that there is a possibility that the overlap is taking place. Thus, if the first level is outputted during a scanning operation, the scanning is interrupted but the scanning can be continued if the output is the second level. In this manner, interruption of the scanning due to an erroneous detection of an overlap can be restrained.
The aforementioned data item may include a cumulative number of times the overlap has been detected by the overlap detector and the level selector may include a first level selector and a second level selector, the first level selector selecting the first level if the cumulative number is equal to or greater than a predefined first threshold value, the second level selector selecting the second level if the cumulative number is equal to or greater than a predefined second threshold value which is smaller than the first threshold value. The first and second level selectors may each comprise a CPU. In this manner, the level of possibility for the occurrence of an overlap can be dependably determined, and these levels can be freely adjusted by the user or by the maker by merely changing the values of the first and second threshold values.
The aforementioned data generating device may reset the cumulative number of times to zero if the paper sheet is on its path of transportation but the overlap has not been detected by the overlap detector. In this manner, the levels for determining the possibility of an overlap can be set more reliably.
There may also be provided a judging device for judging that there is no possibility that an unintentional overlap has occurred if the overlap is detected by the overlap detector over an entire detection range of the paper sheet from its front edge to its back edge. In other words, a doubly folded paper sheet or two intentionally overlapped sheets of paper are not considered to be an unwanted overlap. Thus, a scanner provided with a detecting device of this invention can operate on doubly folded paper sheets and pairs of intentionally overlapped paper sheets. Such a judging device may comprise a CPU which may not be the same as any of the CPUs referred to above but may comprise a CPU of a multi-purpose personal computer.
An overlap detection method of this invention may be characterized as comprising the steps of generating ultrasonic waves to be made incident on the path of transportation of the paper sheet, receiving the ultrasonic waves made incident on the path, detecting a phase difference between the received ultrasonic waves and a predetermined standard phase, detecting an overlap in a paper sheet being transported on the path on the basis of the detected phase difference, generating a specified data item on the detected overlap, selecting one of a plurality of preliminarily defined levels corresponding to the specified data item, outputting the selected level, and judging that there is no possibility of an unintentional overlap if the overlap is detected over an entire detection range of the paper sheet from its front edge to its back edge. When an overlap is detected by a method of this invention, a specified data item is generated on the detected overlap, a level for the specified data item is selected from a plurality of preliminarily defined levels and the selected level is outputted. Thus, the user can easily judge whether or not the detected overlap is an unwanted overlap.
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1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to communication apparatuses, communication methods, and communication systems using millimeter waves to perform wireless communication and, more particularly, to a communication apparatus, a communication method, and a communication system capable of securing appropriate coordination with multiple communication partners performing millimeter-wave communication.
2. Description of the Related Art
Very high-speed data communication can be realized by wireless communication using millimeter waves, which uses a wavelength of 10 mm to 1 mm and a frequency of 30 GHz to 300 GHz and which can allocate channels in units of GHz. For example, in Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 802.11 ad, standardization of wireless local area network (LAN) standard using a 60 GHz band is being advanced. Since the millimeter waves have shorter wavelengths and higher linearity, compared with microwaves being in widespread use in, for example, wireless LAN technologies, a very large amount of information can be transmitted by using the millimeter waves. However, since reflection of the millimeter waves is accompanied by strong attenuation, direct waves and waves reflected no more than once are mainly transmitted on the wireless communication path. In addition, since the millimeter waves have higher transmission loss, the millimeter waves have the property that radio signals are not transmitted to a distance.
In order to resolve such a communication distance problem of the millimeter waves, methods are considered in which directivity is given to the antennas of transmitters-receivers and the transmission beams and the reception beams of the transmitters-receivers are directed to directions where communication partners are positioned to increase the communication distance. However, the methods have drawbacks in that signals do not reach neighboring stations at directions other than the directions of the communication partners although the transmission-reception power is increased at the directions of the communication partners. Accordingly, the directional communication is not appropriate for coordination between multiple communication stations.
In IEEE 802.11n, directional communication using microwaves having a frequency band of 2.4/5 GHz is defined. In this directional communication, packets for the coordination are transmitted at a rate lower than that of data packets to allow scheduling information to be transmitted to neighboring stations within a wider range. However, a sufficient amount of scheduling information may not reach the neighboring stations at a frequency band of 60 GHz even if the packets are transmitted at a lower rate.
In addition, wireless communication apparatuses are proposed (for example, refer to Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2009-188925), in which search tones are transmitted by using the millimeter waves while the radiation directions of directional antennas are reciprocated and rotated at a constant angular velocity in 360 degrees on the horizontal plane and communication nodes are searched for on the basis of response tones returned from the communication nodes that have received the search tones. However, it takes a time to reciprocate and rotate the search tones to search for the communication nodes in 360 degrees.
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{
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1. Field of the Invention
The invention disclosed broadly relates to the field of digital communications and content distribution, and more particularly relates to the field of personal digital wireless communications.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Currently, there are two major driving forces in the computer and communication industries. The first is the proliferation of digital content and its fast growing impact on every corner of human society as evidenced by the Internet. The second is the increasingly pervasive communication infrastructure that is capable of delivering information to the users no matter where they are located. Wireless communication today are allowing individuals to conveniently communicate with one another, such as via cellular telephones and paging devices, anytime and anywhere. However, most persons today access the digital world and the Internet by means of their computers at home or at work.
Accordingly, there is a need for a personal communication system wherein users can receive digital content of their choosing and anywhere they go.
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Epilepsy, a neurological disorder characterized by the occurrence of seizures (specifically episodic impairment or loss of consciousness, abnormal motor phenomena, psychic or sensory disturbances, or the perturbation of the autonomic nervous system), is debilitating to a great number of people. It is believed that as many as two to four million Americans may suffer from various forms of epilepsy. Research has found that its prevalence may be even greater worldwide, particularly in less economically developed nations, suggesting that the worldwide figure for epilepsy sufferers may be in excess of one hundred million.
Because epilepsy is characterized by seizures, its sufferers are frequently limited in the kinds of activities they may participate in. Epilepsy can prevent people from driving, working, or otherwise participating in much of what society has to offer. Some epilepsy sufferers have serious seizures so frequently that they are effectively incapacitated.
Furthermore, epilepsy is often progressive and can be associated with degenerative disorders and conditions. Over time, epileptic seizures often become more frequent and more serious, and in particularly severe cases, are likely to lead to deterioration of other brain functions (including cognitive function) as well as physical impairments.
The current state of the art in treating neurological disorders, particularly epilepsy, typically involves drug therapy and surgery. The first approach is usually drug therapy.
A number of drugs are approved and available for treating epilepsy, such as sodium valproate, phenobarbital/primidone, ethosuximide, gabapentin, phenytoin, and carbamazepine, as well as a number of others. Unfortunately, those drugs typically have serious side effects, especially toxicity, and it is extremely important in most cases to maintain a precise therapeutic serum level to avoid breakthrough seizures (if the dosage is too low) or toxic effects (if the dosage is too high). The need for patient discipline is high, especially when a patient's drug regimen causes unpleasant side effects the patient may wish to avoid.
Moreover, while many patients respond well to drug therapy alone, a significant number (at least 20-30%) do not. For those patients, surgery is presently the best-established and most viable alternative course of treatment.
Currently practiced surgical approaches include radical surgical resection such as hemispherectomy, corticectomy, lobectomy and partial lobectomy, and less-radical lesionectomy, transection, and stereotactic ablation. Besides being less than fully successful, these surgical approaches generally have a high risk of complications, and can often result in damage to eloquent (i.e., functionally important) brain regions and the consequent long-term impairment of various cognitive and other neurological functions. Furthermore, for a variety of reasons, such surgical treatments are contraindicated in a substantial number of patients. And unfortunately, even after radical brain surgery, many epilepsy patients are still not seizure-free.
Electrical stimulation is an emerging therapy for treating epilepsy. However, currently approved and available electrical stimulation devices do not perform any detection of neural activity and apply electrical stimulation to neural tissue surrounding or near implanted electrodes somewhat indiscriminately; they are not responsive to relevant neurological conditions. Responsive stimulation, in which neurological activity is detected and electrical stimulation treatment is applied selectively, is in clinical trials at the time of this writing.
The NeuroCybernetic Prosthesis (NCP) from Cyberonics, for example, applies continuous electrical stimulation to the patient's vagus nerve. This approach has been found to reduce seizures by about 50% in about 50% of patients. Unfortunately, a much greater reduction in the incidence of seizures is needed to provide substantial clinical benefit.
The Activa device from Medtronic is a pectorally implanted continuous deep brain stimulator intended primarily to treat Parkinson's disease. In operation, it continuously supplies an intermittent electrical pulse stream to a selected deep brain structure where an electrode has been implanted. Continuous stimulation of deep brain structures for the treatment of epilepsy has not met with consistent success. To be effective in terminating seizures, it is believed that one effective site where stimulation should be performed is near the focus of the epileptogenic region. The focus is often in the neocortex, where continuous stimulation above a certain level may cause significant neurological deficit with clinical symptoms including loss of speech, sensory disorders, or involuntary motion. Accordingly, and to improve therapeutic efficacy over indiscriminate continuous stimulation, research has been directed toward automatic responsive epilepsy treatment based on a detection of imminent seizure.
A typical epilepsy patient experiences episodic attacks or seizures. Those events, neurological states, and epileptiform activity evident on the EEG shall be referred to herein as “ictal”.
Most prior work on the detection and responsive treatment of seizures via electrical stimulation has focused on analysis of electroencephalogram (EEG) and electrocorticogram (ECOG) waveforms. In common usage, the term “EEG” is used to refer to signals representing aggregate neuronal activity potentials detectable via electrodes applied to a patient's scalp, though the term can also refer to signals obtained from deep in the patient's brain via depth electrodes and the like. Specifically, “ECoGs” refer to signals obtained from internal electrodes near the cortex of the brain (generally on or under the dura mater), but is often used to refer to direct brain signals from deeper structures as well; an ECoG is a particular type of EEG. Unless the context clearly and expressly indicates otherwise, the term “EEG” shall be used generically herein to refer to both EEG and ECoG signals, regardless of where in the patient's brain the electrodes are located.
It is generally preferable to be able to detect and treat a seizure at or near its beginning, or even before it begins. The beginning of a seizure is referred to herein as an “onset.” However, it is important to note that there are two general varieties of seizure onsets. A “clinical onset” represents the beginning of a seizure as manifested through observable clinical symptoms, such as involuntary muscle movements or neurophysiological effects such as lack of responsiveness. An “electrographic onset” refers to the beginning of detectable electrographic activity indicative of a seizure. An electrographic onset will frequently occur before the corresponding clinical onset, enabling intervention before the patient suffers symptoms, but that is not always the case. In addition, there are changes in the EEG that occur seconds or even minutes before the electrographic onset that can be identified, and may be used to facilitate intervention before clear electrographic or clinical onsets occur. This capability would be considered seizure anticipation, in contrast to the detection of a seizure or its onset. Seizure anticipation is much like weather prediction—there is an indication the likelihood has increased that a seizure will occur, but when exactly it will occur, or even if it will occur is not certain.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,018,682 to Rise describes an implantable seizure warning system that implements a form of the Gotman system. See, e.g., J. Gotman, Automatic seizure detection: improvements and evaluation, Electroencephalogr. Clin. Neurophysiol. 1990; 76(4): 317-24. However, the system described therein uses only a single detection modality, namely a count of sharp spike and wave patterns within a time period, and is intended to provide a warning of impending seizure activity in spite of a lack of evidence that spike and wave activity being sufficiently anticipatory of seizures. This is accomplished with relatively complex processing, including averaging over time and quantifying sharpness by way of a second derivative of the signal. The Rise patent does not disclose how the signals are processed at a low level, nor does it explain detection criteria in any specific level of detail.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,016,449 to Fischell, et al. (which is hereby incorporated by reference as though set forth in full herein), describes an implantable seizure detection and treatment system. In the Fischell system, various detection methods are possible, all of which essentially rely upon the analysis (either in the time domain or the frequency domain) of processed EEG signals. Fischell's controller is preferably implanted intracranially, but other approaches are also possible, including the use of an external controller. The processing and detection techniques applied in Fischell are generally well suited for implantable use. When a seizure is detected, the Fischell system applies responsive electrical stimulation to terminate the seizure, a capability that will be discussed in further detail below.
All of these approaches provide useful information, and in some cases may provide sufficient information for accurate detection and/or anticipation of most imminent epileptic seizures.
It has been found that many clinical neurological disorders are associated with abnormal blood flow patterns in the brain. These include epilepsy, migraine, aging, movement disorders, and psychiatric disorders. One result of abnormal blood flow is an imbalance between cerebral oxygen supply and demand, although other aspects, such as removal of metabolic waste products, also contribute to generation of the disorders. This is thought to play an important role in the development of cerebral injury as well as generation of neurological events common to various disorders. It would therefore be advantageous to employ a system or method to monitor such abnormal blood flow patterns, either in isolation or in connection with abnormal electrographic activity, to identify the status of the disease state and to monitor the short-term and/or long-term progression of the disease state with the intention of correcting the abnormal or insufficient blood flow patterns to provide clinical benefit. Such monitoring is preferably accomplished within the therapy delivery device (often a neurostimulator) to automatically adjust therapy delivery to the patient to more optimally bring about beneficial changes in brain blood flow patterns either acutely or more long term. Therapy delivery may be direct brain electrical stimulation, spinal cord stimulation, brain stem or peripheral nerve stimulation, or may be magnetic stimulation, somatosensory stimulation, or drug delivery. However, monitoring may include means not included in the therapy delivery device, with therapy being adjusted by a clinician. Monitoring of the brain blood flow can be accomplished by the periodic
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The present invention involves the catalytic conversion of hydrocarbons in a multiple-stage process. More particularly, the present invention is directed toward the production of lubricating oil base stocks having viscosity indices above 100. A lubricating oil base stock is synonymously referred to in the art as a "neutral oil," and is, in effect a dewaxed hydrocarbon mixture, boiling in the lubricating oil boiling range, which does not contain viscosity improvers or other additives. That is, a "lubricating oil" denotes in the art a dewaxed product containing various additives. Through the utilization of the present invention, there is produced a waxy lubricating oil base stock having a viscosity index of above about 100. Following dewaxing, a standard prior art technique, the viscosity index remains above 100, and the resulting neutral oil is highly desirable for the production of multi-graded lubricating oils.
The prior art is replete with references to crude oils containing hydrocarbon components suitably adaptable for use as lubricating oils. In general, those lubricating oils derived from highly paraffinic crude stocks are utilized in the production of high quality motor oils, aviation oils and turbine oils. This type of lubricating oil is characterized by a relatively high viscosity index (V.I.), although, it actually is a blend of relatively low and relatively high viscosity index components. Lubricating oil base stocks which are derived from highly naphthenic crudes are employed in the production of lubricating oils having exceptionally desired properties with respect to a heavy duty use such as that found in diesel engines. Desirable components of lubricating oil base stocks, or neutral oils, are iso-paraffins and molecules containing single rings, whether naphthenic or aromatic. However, essentially all heavy hydrocarbonaceous fractions, derived from crude oils, contain condensed-ring as well as straight-chain hydrocarbons. Characteristically, condensed-ring hydrocarbons have low viscosity indices and relatively poor resistance to oxidation. Therefore, they are undesirable as components of the various types of lubricating oils.
A perusal of the prior art procedures and techniques for producing lubricating oil base stocks indicates that relatively high viscosity index lubricating oils may be produced through the use of a combination of solvent extraction techniques and clay-treating, acid-treating, etc. Some heavy duty lubricating oils are obtained by way of vacuum distillation followed by alkali-treating for the removal of naphthenic acids. The complex nature of high viscosity index lubricating oil production presents a challenge to the petroleum industry in the form of significant processing problems which are not easily solved through the use of present-day operating techniques. For example, solvent extraction of the undesirable components is inefficient in view of the fact that the available solvents are not highly selective for the components which must be removed from the lubricating oil base stock. Furthermore, immense, complicated equipment is required for contacting the lubricating oil with the solvent and for the recovery of the solvent in order to make the process economically attractive. With respect to acid-treating and clay-treating techniques, problems involve disposal of clay and loss of hydrocarbon yield, as well as an acidic sludge disposal problem when strong acids, such as sulfuric acid, are employed. By way of brief summation, it might be said that the prior art schemes are severely hampered in their capability to produce pure lubricating oils having high viscosity indices, and are tedious and expensive to operate in an acceptably efficient manner.
Candor compels recognition of the fact that certain prior art techniques are required if satisfactory lubricating oils are to be produced. Thus, it is necessary to subject a crude oil to one or more distillation techniques in order to provide a crude oil bottoms product concentrated in lubricating oil base stock. Another prior art scheme which may be required as a preliminary processing step, with respect to some crude oil bottom product, is a deasphalting process. The crude oil bottoms, containing asphaltenic constituents, is intimately admixed with a light hydrocarbon solvent such as propane, butane or hexane, at conditions of temperature and pressure under which the asphaltenic constituents are precipitated. In view of the fact that the preliminary processing techniques of distillation and deasphalting are well known to those skilled in the art of petroleum refining technology, and form no essential part of our invention, further description thereof is not believed required herein.
Another prior art technique is necessary in order to produce a suitable lubricating oil base stock. Waxy constituents must be removed to improve the overall quality of the ultimate lubricating oil. The dewaxing technique is accomplished by a well known method which generally employs solvents such as propane, methyl isobutyl ketone, methylethyl ketone, toluene, etc. The waxy lubricating oil base stock and solvent are heated to a temperature sufficiently high to render the solvent and base stock substantially miscible. The resulting mixture is then chilled to precipitate the wax from the solution. As hereinafter indicated, the dewaxing step adversely affects the viscosity index of the dewaxed product. Through the utilization of the present invention, a waxy lubricating oil base stock, having a viscosity index above 100 is produced.
Until now, there has been no facile method for producing superior lubricating lube oil base stocks while at the same time producing maximum non-lube oil distillate. Examples of non-lube oil distillate are LPG, gasoline and kerosene.
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The present invention relates to oral care compositions that comprise polyphosphate with an average anion chain length of greater than or equal to 3; a first metal cation and a second metal cation. More particularly the present invention relates to such compositions wherein the ratio of polyphosphate anion to metal cation is in the range of from about 10:1 to about 1:1 and wherein the ratio of the first metal cation to the second metal cation is in the range of from about 50:1 to about 1:50. Preferably this invention relates to portable oral care compositions, including confectionery compositions, which comprise the polyphosphate material; a first metal cation and a second metal cation. This invention also relates to a method of treating or preventing oral malodour. Compositions of the present invention are suitable for use by humans or animals.
Oral malodour or halitosis, which is commonly referred to as bad breath, is the result of volatile sulphur compounds, carboxylic acids and amines building up in the oral cavity. The malodourous compounds are generated primarily through putrefactive action of oral microorganisms on sulphur containing amino acids, peptones or proteins found in the mouth. Such micro-organisms are readily available in saliva and dental plaque and may be derived from proteinaceous food particles trapped between the teeth, in the gingival crevice or adhering to the mucous membranes and the irregular surface of the tongue as well as exfoliated oral epitheleum, food debris and the like. In addition oral malodour may be the result of poor oral hygiene, digestive system problems, disease, diet or a combination of any of these factors. Not only is oral malodour unpleasant but its presence can be indicative of poor oral hygiene and can also be one of the first signs of some more severe underlying problems. This is because the build up of putrid matter which causes malodour can also lead to the formation of plaque, the origin of dental caries, gingivitis and dental calculus. Regular brushing of teeth can help to minimise oral malodour. However, even regular brushing is not sufficient to remove all of the food and oral bacteria deposits that adhere to the oral surfaces and, in severe cases it is unable to eliminate oral malodour.
To date oral malodour products have been formulated to comprise a wide range of materials that kill the oral bacteria contributing to the oral malodour. Such materials include agents such as triclosan, chlorhexidine, quaternary ammonium salts and camphorated parachlorophenol. However, these materials can be harsh, and can only be dosed in limited daily amounts and as such are not necessarily suitable for use in a product to be used several times a day. In some cases they may also cause undesirable side effects such as staining, altered taste etc.
More recently trends have been directed towards the use so called natural materials, especially extracts, to provide a wide range of benefits in personal care products. Herbal extracts of gold thread and honeysuckle have been reported (JP 57-85319/U.S. Pat. No. 5,741,138); herbal curry plant extract has been disclosed in JP 10-182,388 for combating halitosis; cranberry extract has been disclosed in WO 96/28135 for is antimicrobial and antibacterial properties; and DE 4,221,103 discloses compositions comprising a wide range of herbal extracts for oral hygiene. Polyphenols have been identified as an important active in a wide range of herbal extracts. Examples of oral care disclosures include WO 01/17494 which discloses dentifrice compositions comprising tea polyphenols; US/PCT/00/11258 which discloses dentifrice compositions comprising polyphenol herbal extracts; and EP 1,013,261 which discloses a spray liquid comprising polyphenol for the masking of halitosis. Whilst the teachings of the prior art are directed towards compositions with limited deodorising or anti-bacterial effects the products themselves have limited activity and are unstable leading to unattractive discolouration over time and further reduction in efficacy. There remains a need for a stable oral care product that is able to deliver effective malodour control benefits.
Metal cations have also been considered for inclusion in oral compositions for treating oral malodour. Disclosures include U.S. Pat. No. 5,833,952 which discloses compositions comprising tin salts, optionally in combination with zinc salts; WO 99/17735 which discloses a metal ion amino acid chelate; U.S. Pat. No. 6,123,925 which discloses a dentifrice comprising ceramic particles in combination with anti-microbial metal ions. However there remain several problems in preparing compositions comprising metal ions for combating oral malodour. These include that the presence of high level of metal cation can often destabilise other elements of the composition, the metal ions become easily chelated to other products and are therefore not efficacious, tightly controlled regulatory limits and the products tend to be highly astringent thus having unacceptable taste profiles. Despite these disadvantages the use of metal cations for combating oral malodour has several benefits. These include that the materials are very cheap, the materials are easy to work with and the metal cations have good recorded efficacy. Thus there remains a is desire to continue to work with metal cations to develop a stable, pleasant oral care product able to deliver effective and long lasting malodour benefits.
Oral malodour is closely linked with the build up of plaque. Dental plaque is the name given to a deposit of material that accumulates on the teeth and adjacent surfaces of the oral cavity. It is the product of microbial growth in the oral cavity, primarily derived from the food/sugar residues in the mouth. Mucoproteins, minerals and food deposits present in the saliva, and dead cells in the mouth, also contribute to the formation of plaque. The build up of plaque enhances the formation of calculus, a hard mineral material that deposits on teeth. Calculus is formed when calcium phosphate crystals, which become entangled in the plaque film, become sufficiently closely packed together to aggregate and become resistant to deformation. The build up of both plaque and calculus on the teeth leads to a general decline in oral health resulting in an increase in the rate of formation of dental caries, an increase in the prevalence of gum disease and can also contribute to the staining of teeth and the presence of malodour. If left untreated these conditions can lead to severe oral disease and deterioration of the gums and teeth.
Several anti-plaque and anti-calculus agents are known in the art. One such material is linear or cyclic dehydrated polyphosphate, which is known to be an effective calcium/magnesium ion suppressor, a sequestrant and/or chelating agent and an effective inhibitor of calculus formation. Well-known examples are the water soluble hexametaphosphates, tripolyphosphate and pyrophosphates and the like. These materials have been widely disclosed in oral care compositions such as dentifrice. Examples of such disclosures include U.S. Pat. No. 5,094,844 which discloses oral compositions comprising tripolyphosphate; U.S. Pat. No. 4,460,565 which discloses oral compositions comprising two or more fluoride compounds and an agent capable of supplying calcium ions to the teeth optionally in conjunction with a cyclic phosphate; WO 99/12517 which discloses oral compositions comprising tripolyphosphate, pyrophosphate and PVP; JP 10-182388 which discloses compositions comprising cyclic and linear condensed phosphoric acid and curry extract and JP 9-295942 which discloses an agent for preventing tooth decay comprising at least 1 metaphosphate. Such polyphosphates are also known to provide a buffering effect within oral compositions comprising zinc (U.S. Pat. No. 4,170,632 and U.S. Pat. No. 4,170,633 both to Wagenknecht). In addition, the pending patent application PCT/US00/30808 reports that long chain linear polyphosphates with an average anion chain length of greater than or equal to 4 provide novel surface conditioning benefits to the teeth and mucosa. This leads to an improved cleaning impression. However, one of the commonly known issues with polyphosphates, especially long chain polyphosphates, is that they are rapidly hydrolysed and therefore their efficacy is reduced over time. Furthermore, when the polyphosphate is introduced into the oral cavity, salivary enzymes quickly hydrolyse the material, again leading to a reduction in desired efficacy. As such there are several opportunities to further optimise the formulation of oral care products comprising polyphosphate to overcome these hydrolysis issues.
Given the close links between the formation of oral malodour and dental plaque it would be ideal to develop an oral care product which had both superior benefits in combating oral malodour and also superior anti-plaque benefits. To date little industry effort has specifically been directed to this purpose although JP 10-182388 does disclose compositions comprising cyclic and linear condensed phosphate acid and curry extract wherein the curry extract has halitosis benefits. Given the known benefits of metal cations for combating oral malodour it would be ideal to develop an oral composition that comprises a combination of polyphosphate and metal cations for treating and preventing both oral malodour and dental plaque. To date few attempts have been successfully made to combine metal cations with polyphosphates in a single phase oral care composition. The disclosures in the art include U.S. Pat. No. 5,833,952 which discloses a composition comprising a tin salt, preferably tin pyrophosphate optionally in combination with a zinc salt; WO 99/17735 which discloses a metal ion amino acid chelate optionally in combination with pyrophosphate; U.S. Pat. No. 5,094,842 which discloses compositions comprising vitamin C, copper salt where the preferred tin salt is tin pyrophosphate; U.S. Pat. No. 5,188,820 which discloses oral compositions comprising
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Field
The present disclosure relates generally to communication systems, and more particularly, to network assisted interference cancellation and suppression (NAICS) signaling for advanced long-term evolution (LTE) features.
Background
Wireless communication systems are widely deployed to provide various telecommunication services such as telephony, video, data, messaging, and broadcasts. Typical wireless communication systems may employ multiple-access technologies capable of supporting communication with multiple users by sharing available system resources (e.g., bandwidth, transmit power). Examples of such multiple-access technologies include code division multiple access (CDMA) systems, time division multiple access (TDMA) systems, frequency division multiple access (FDMA) systems, orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) systems, single-carrier frequency division multiple access (SC-FDMA) systems, and time division synchronous code division multiple access (TD-SCDMA) systems.
These multiple access technologies have been adopted in various telecommunication standards to provide a common protocol that enables different wireless devices to communicate on a municipal, national, regional, and even global level. An example of an emerging telecommunication standard is LTE. LTE is a set of enhancements to the Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) mobile standard promulgated by Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP). LTE is designed to better support mobile broadband Internet access by improving spectral efficiency, lowering costs, improving services, making use of new spectrum, and better integrating with other open standards using OFDMA on the downlink (DL), SC-FDMA on the uplink (UL), and multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) antenna technology. However, as the demand for mobile broadband access continues to increase, there exists a need for further improvements in LTE technology. Preferably, these improvements should be applicable to other multi-access technologies and the telecommunication standards that employ these technologies.
Network assisted signaling is being developed and standardized to support advanced receiver operation. How to signal to support an advanced receiver is an active topic of research. Prior development has focused on basic features, and there has been little discussion on how to support carrier aggregation (CA), transmission mode 10 (TM10), unlicensed component carriers, 64 quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM), turning a small cell on or off, etc. Currently, the following advanced receiver types are considered: symbol level interference cancellation (SLIC); reduced complexity maximum likelihood receiver (R-ML); enhanced minimum mean square error receiver cancellation (E-MMSE-IRC); and codeword level interference cancellation (CWIC).
With respect to signaling, three types of signaling methods have been contemplated. In a first method, known as semi-static signaling, a serving cell will signal semi-static information to its users that have NAICS capability. The semi-static information will include information corresponding to an interfering cell. In a second method, which uses dynamic signaling from a serving cell, the serving cell directly signals information of an interfering cell to users having NAICS capability. Such information may include a modulation order, precoding matrix, resource block (RB) assignments, etc. of the interfering cell. In a third method, dynamic signaling is sent from the interfering cell, wherein the interfering cell signals users of the victim cell with information regarding the interference conditions.
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Renal disorders involve an alteration in the normal physiology and function of the kidney. Renal disorders can result from a wide range of acute and chronic conditions and events, including physical, chemical, or biological injury, insult or trauma, disease such as, for example, hypertension, diabetes, congestive heart failure, lupus, sickle cell anemia, and various inflammatory and autoimmune diseases, HIV-associated nephropathies, etc. Renal disorders can lead to reduced kidney function, hypertension, and renal failure, seriously compromising quality of life, sometimes requiring dialysis and in certain circumstances, kidney transplantation.
Diabetic nephropathy also known as Kimmelstiel-Wilson syndrome and intercapillary glomerulonephritis, is a progressive kidney disease caused by angiopathy of capillaries in the kidney glomeruli. It is characterized by nodular glomerulosclerosis due to longstanding diabetes mellitus and is a prime cause for dialysis in many Western countries. The syndrome can be seen in patients with chronic diabetes. The disease is progressive and may cause death two or three years after the initial lesions and is more frequent in women. Diabetic nephropathy is the most common cause of chronic kidney failure and end-stage kidney disease in the United States. People with both type 1 and type 2 diabetes are at risk. The risk is higher if blood-glucose levels are poorly controlled. However, once nephropathy develops, the greatest rate of progression is seen in patients with poor control of their blood pressure.
Diabetic nephropathy is clinically well defined and is characterized by proteinuria, hypertension, edema and renal insufficiency. There are limited treatment options for diabetic nephropathy. Current treatments are primarily directed to improving complications of the diseases as follows: 1) control of blood-pressure (ACE-inhibitors inhibitors or Angiotensin receptor blockers (ARBs); 2) Control of glycemic values; and 3) lipoproteic diet, exercise or other life styles modifications. However, there is an important need for better drugs and treatments since current treatment may have limited impact on the progressive decline in kidney function and patients still progress to renal replacement therapy, either dialysis or renal transplantation.
Hyperlipidemia is a major complication of diabetic nephropathy and is a determinant of progression of renal disorder in diabetes. Hyperlipidemia is a pathogenic factor for diabetic nephropathy and clinical studies involving therapeutic interventions for hyperlipidemia suggest the importance of this approach in at least slowing the progression of diabetic renal disorder (Rosario and Prabhakar (2006), Current Diabetes Reports, 6:455-462). Therefore, there is a need for methods and compounds for modulating blood lipids levels, and more particularly reducing levels of harmful serum lipid levels, especially cholesterol and triglycerides in diabetic patients.
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1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an organic light emitting display with a circuit measuring pad and method of fabricating the same and, more particularly, to an organic light emitting display with a circuit measuring pad which may prevent a short circuit between the circuit measuring pad and an opposite electrode and method of fabricating the same.
2. Description of the Related Art
Among flat panel displays, an organic light emitting display (OLED) has a fast response speed of 1 ms or less, low power consumption, and a wide viewing angle due to an emissive display, and thus it has an advantage as a medium displaying a moving picture regardless of its size. Also, the OLED may be fabricated at low temperature and has a simplified manufacturing process since it employs the existing semiconductor manufacturing process technologies, and thus it attracts public attention as the next flat panel display.
The OLED is fabricated by forming a thin film transistor (TFT) array having a plurality of TFTs and capacitors on a substrate using a semiconductor manufacturing process, and depositing an organic layer having an emission layer on an emission region of the substrate on which the TFT array is formed.
In the OLED, a silicon semiconductor and metal electrodes are electrically connected to each other through contact holes, and a pixel electrode which is patterned corresponding to each unit pixel is supplied with an electrical current for driving a light emitting element by the TFT connected thereto through a via hole.
Driving circuit measuring pads are arranged at the periphery of a display region in which the unit pixels of the OLED are formed. The driving circuit measuring pads are formed to check if circuit operation of the OLED is normally performed, during a manufacturing process.
However, the driving circuit measuring pad may cause a short circuit with an opposite electrode formed on the display region of the OLED, leading to failure of the OLED and low reliability of the OLED.
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Referring to FIG. 1, a block diagram of a circuit 10 illustrating a conventional approach to providing a 2-input phase-locked loop is shown. The circuit 10 generally comprises a phase frequency detector (PFD) 12, a charge pump 14, a voltage controlled oscillator (VCO) 16, a loop filter 18, a feedback counter 20, and an input multiplexer 22. The phase frequency detector 12, the charge pump 14 and the VCO 16 provide the basic components of a standard phase-locked loop. An output 24 presents a signal VCOCLK to an input 26 of the feedback counter 20. The feedback counter 20 has an output 28 that presents a signal REFOUT that may also be presented to an input 30 of the PFD 12 as a feedback signal FBCLK. The input multiplexer 22 has an input 32 that receives a first reference clock REFCLK0 and a second input 34 that receives a second clock REFCLK1. An input 36 receives a select signal REFSEL that presents a signal REFCLK at an output 38 by selecting between the clocks received at the inputs 32 and 34. The signal REFCLK is presented to an input 40 of the PFD 12. While the circuit 10 may provide switching between the input clocks REFCLK0 and REFCLK1 without glitching REFOUT, a data stream that is clocked with the signal VCOCLK (e.g., a SONET data stream) may not be recovered properly due to the lack of slew rate limitation of the circuit 10. To properly recover a high-rate data stream clocked with the signal VCOCLK, the overall slew rate of the circuit 10 needs to be reduced.
Referring to FIG. 2, an example of a circuit 50 illustrating a slew rate window generator is shown. The circuit 50 generally comprises a delay block 52 and a gate 54. The delay block 52 has an input 56 that receives a reference clock signal REFCLK and an output 58 that presents a delayed clock signal REF.sub.-- DEL that may be presented to an input 60 of the gate 54. The signal REFCLK may also be presented to an input 62 of the gate 54. The gate 54 presents a signal SLEW.sub.-- WIN that may be derived from the signal REFCLK. The addition of a delay block 52 may take significant die area to implement. Furthermore, the amount of delay presented by the delay block 52 is sensitive to process and temperature variations. Since the circuit 50 is always in an active state, the overall noise introduced into the circuit 10 will be increased.
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There is a need for temporally short laser pulses in various applications including vehicle safety devices, 3D imaging, laser tomography, time imaging, and spectroscopy. For a number of applications, particularly in biotechnology and biological measurements, the required pulse energy is in the order of at least a few nanojoules, whereas the optimal pulse duration is of the order of a few tens to hundreds of picoseconds.
It is also desirable from the practical point of view that the optical pulse is generated efficiently, with an injection current pulse of a modest amplitude and more than a nanosecond long, and thus relatively straightforwardly available from commercial silicon electronics.
From the perspective of optical collimation, it is desirable to minimize the emitting surface, or maximize the brightness or intensity of the laser light which have been resolved by gain-switching of an edge-emitting semiconductor laser with an extremely large ratio of the active layer width da to the optical confinement factor Γa. A limitation inherent in edge emitters, however, is a low beam quality. Besides, in a number of applications, a narrow spectral linewidth is significant, in which case the massively longitudinally multimode nature of edge emitting laser light is a disadvantage. Hence, there is a need for a better laser.
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An image forming apparatus for forming an image on a recording sheet includes a developing device for supplying a developing agent to a surface of a photosensitive element. The developing device is generally configured to have a developing agent storage chamber and a developing chamber that can communicate with each other via a supplying port. A developing agent supplying roller and a developing roller are accommodated in the developing chamber.
The image forming apparatus, in some cases, has to dispose the developing device therein such that the developing agent storage chamber is located above the developing chamber, as disclosed, for example, in JP-A-2001-166556. The image forming apparatus disclosed in JP-A-2001-166556 adopts a horizontal tandem-type image forming system in which plural photosensitive drums are aligned in a horizontal direction and in parallel to one another to form a color image on a recording sheet by developing agents. The horizontal tandem-type image forming system suffers from a problem in that the length becomes long in a direction in which plural photosensitive drums are aligned.
To solve this problem, the developing devices which correspond, respectively, to the photosensitive drums have to reduce their dimensions in the direction in which the photosensitive drums are aligned. To this end, the developing agent storage chamber, which is normally located adjacent to the developing chamber, is located above the developing chamber as disclosed in JP-A-2001-166556.
The developing device disclosed in JP-A-2001-166556 can use gravity to downwardly move the developing agent from the developing agent storage chamber to the developing chamber, thereby supplying the developing agent to the feeding roller and the developing roller.
However, since the developing agent is only moved downwardly from the developing agent storage chamber to the developing chamber in a one-way direction, repetition of development results in increase in a ratio of deteriorated developing agent in the developing chamber. In particular, by fresh developing agent being additionally supplied and forced into the developing chamber downwardly from the developing agent storage chamber, the deteriorated developing agent is accumulated at longitudinal end portions of the developing roller in the developing chamber. The accumulated developing agent is likely to lower the quality of an image considerably at both end portions of the image, in particular, when a color image is formed.
Not only the horizontal tandem-type color laser printer but also a monochrome laser printer suffers from the same problem when a developing agent storage chamber is located above a developing chamber.
Since the problem of deterioration of a developing agent is caused by subjecting the developing agent to sliding friction, the problem commonly can occur over developing devices in which a developing agent is charged through friction charging. In the event that the developing agent is deteriorated, phenomena such as a reduction in fluidity due to the embedment of externally added agents which are externally added to the developing agent and a reduction in charging quantity due to a reduction in charging function are generated. This phenomena may cause rough and scattered printing and in worst case, background fogging, on an image formed on a recording sheet.
When a fresh and non-deteriorated developing agent is added to the deteriorated developing agent whose charging function is reduced, a charging failure is caused in the deteriorated developing agent depending upon conditions, and this may cause a situation in which the background fogging is worsened.
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Factory (or factory line) programming low-power devices such as wearables, medical devices, and the like, requires bidirectional communication between the programming device and the low-power device(s) being programmed. The low-power devices typically have a built-in radio frequency (RF) radio for transferring data. For example, many low-power devices in the healthcare, fitness, security, and medical industries utilize Bluetooth low energy (BLE or Bluetooth Smart) radios to transfer data. Many of these devices such as, for example, medical devices, have non-replaceable batteries with limited lifetime capacity. Prior to deployment of these devices, but before and after factory programming, it is often desirable to disable the RF radio, e.g., put the device in a sleep mode, to avoid current leakage which can significantly lower the shelf life of the device.
There are various mechanisms capable of waking up devices in a sleep mode. However, these mechanisms typically rely on technologies such as Near-field communication (NFC) and Radio-frequency identification (RFID) to facilitate the wakeup techniques. Unfortunately, these techniques are expensive both in terms of increased production costs and increased size or printed circuit board (PCB) area. Moreover, communications using NFC and RFID technology can compromise performance of the underlying RF antenna on the low-power device.
Overall, the examples herein of some prior or related systems and their associated limitations are intended to be illustrative and not exclusive. Upon reading the following, other limitations of existing or prior systems will become apparent to those of skill in the art.
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The physical and chemical properties of cementitious bodies are varied to suit the requirements of a range of applications. For example, cementitious bodies are formed into panels for use in the construction of walls, floors, ceilings and roofs. The panels are usually made of concrete which is formed by mixing a slurry of cement and aggregate material and/or sand. The slurry is cast into a mold and cured to form a solid concrete panel.
It is known that by controlling the composition of the slurry the physical properties of the solid panel can be predetermined. For example, by casting a slurry containing dense aggregate materials a panel with improved structural properties results. Alternatively by casting a slurry containing light weight aggregate materials a panel with improved thermal and acoustic insulation properties results.
Multi-layered concrete panels are formed by casting and curing a first layer of concrete and then casting and curing subsequent layer(s) of concrete atop the first layer. By pouring multiple layers of concrete the physical properties of the concrete panel can be refined. For example a panel can have a first layer of light weight aggregate material to provide thermal insulation and a second layer of dense aggregate material to provide structural strength. However, these multilayered panels are expensive to produce as they require multiple casting and curing steps. Further, there are performance weaknesses associated with the boundaries between the successive concrete layers.
In this specification, where reference has been made to external sources of information, including patent specifications and other documents, this is generally for the purpose of providing a context for discussing the features of the present invention. Unless stated otherwise, reference to such sources of information is not to be construed, in any jurisdiction, as an admission that such sources of information are prior art or form part of the common general knowledge in the art.
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The micro titer plate reader has been a workhorse for bioanalytical testing for decades. It enables the facile and rapid interrogation of an array of chemical reactions. Typically 8 by 12 well formats of 96 wells are filled with reagents and or products of a colorimetric or fluorescent reaction. Higher order formats include multiples of 96 wells. Such micro-titer plates are exposed to light of a desired wavelength and the interaction of the reacting species with the light is recorded.
Reactions may be immunochemical, enzyme based, polymerizations, intercollations or any of the varied molecular biological and biochemical systems investigated in the biochemists' laboratory. The interactions may include and are not limited to absorbance, transmittance, scatter and fluorescence. Micro titer plate readers are designed to generate one or more wavelengths of interest. Typically the light is generated using a wide spectrum source, arc lamps and halogen bulbs with numerous filters or gratings are common design components.
Biochemical reactions formatted in either homogeneous or heterogeneous based detection platforms are also performed in miniaturized systems, e.g. on micro fluidic chips and micro arrays. In miniaturized systems, reaction volumes are contained within channels and/or with carefully modified surface chemistry to allow for a plethora of chemical and biological analysis in small reaction volumes. The chemistry is typically interrogated using confocal microscopy or imaging to assess the extent of higher density features. Tens to hundreds of thousands of enzyme, immunochemical, nucleic acid and protein reactions can be followed simultaneously. Lamp and lasers power the various detection systems designed to report on the extent of reaction.
One now commonplace procedure performed in the bioanalytical laboratory is the polymerase chain reaction (PCR). The technique has become fundamental to molecular biology. It is one of a family of methods (i.e. reverse transcriptase PCR) for synthesizing a given quantity of pre-selected biopolymer. PCR functions on DNA. In a typical experiment, the DNA of interest is separated into two complementary strands. The ends of each strand bind to a primer at the end where the synthesis begins. The addition of the DNA polymerase initiates the synthesis of a complementary strand on each single strand creating a doubling of the amount of DNA. The process is repeated until a sufficient number of DNA segments have been synthesized. A unique temperature profile is used to advance the reaction through the phases of separation (melting), primer binding (annealing), and replication (extension). While the PCR technique has become a workhorse of the biotechnologist due to the enhanced sensitivity it offers over blotting techniques, PCR is not ideally suited to quantitation. Small differences between sample sizes can become huge differences in final amplified material after multiple doublings.
A typical PCR reaction can be seen in three phases: an early lag phase, an exponential growth phase and a plateau region. The lag phase is a consequence of the sensitivity of the instrument and the background signal of the probe system used to detect the PCR product. The exponential growth phase commences when sufficient product has accumulated to be detected by the specific instrument. During this exponential growth the amplification is described by Tn=Ti(E)n, where Tn is the amount of target sequence at cycle n, Ti is the initial amount of target material, and E is the efficiency of amplification. In the final plateau phase the amplification efficiency drops as product competes more effectively with primers for annealing and the amount of enzyme becomes limiting. The exponential equation no longer holds in the plateau phase. Most of the quantitative information is found in the exponential cycles but the exponential cycles typically comprise only 4 or 5 cycles out of 40. For traditional PCR methods, identifying the exponential cycles requires the reaction be split into multiple reaction tubes that are assayed for PCR product after varying numbers of cycles. This requires either assaying many tubes or having a fairly good idea of the answer before the experiment is begun. Once the position of this phase is determined the experimental phase can be compared to known standards and the copy number can be calculated.
Instrumentation advancements have made real-time monitoring of PCR reactions possible. Thermocycling is carried out using standard techniques known to those skilled in the art, including rapid cycling PCR. Fluorescence monitoring at each cycle for quantitative PCR was developed by Higuchi et al., “Simultaneous Amplification and Detection of Specific DNA Sequences,” Bio. Technology, 10:413-417, 1992, which is herein expressly incorporated by reference in its entirety. Ethidium bromide was used as the fluorescent entity. Fluorescence was acquired once per cycle for a relative measure of product concentration. The cycle where observable fluorescence first appeared above the background fluorescence correlated with the starting copy number, allowing the construction of a standard curve. Alternatively PCR amplification may be conducted with fluorescently labeled hybridization probes. The hybridization probe system comprises two oligonucleotide probes that hybridize to adjacent regions of a DNA sequence wherein each oligonucleotide probe is labeled with a respective member of a fluorescent energy transfer pair. In this embodiment, the presence of the target nucleic acid sequence in a biological sample is detected by measuring fluorescent energy transfer between the two-labeled oligonucleotides. A number of strategies now exist using molecular beacons or intercollating dyes all of which are strategies to increase signal as a function of increasing DNA concentration as the synthesis cycles increase.
Such instrumentation and fluorescent monitoring techniques have made kinetic PCR significantly easier than traditional competitive PCR. The ease, accuracy and precision of quantitative PCR have all improved by allowing observation of the PCR product concentration at every cycle. In the Roche® Diagnostics embodiment of the kinetic PCR instrument, PCR reactions are conducted using the Light Cycler®, a real-time PCR instrument that combines a rapid thermal cycler with a fluorimeter. Through the use of such a device, PCR product is detected with fluorescence and no additional sample processing, membrane arrays, gels, capillaries, or other analytical tools are necessary. Other PCR instrumentation as known in the art may be used in the practice of the present invention.
Separation by electrophoresis is based on differences in solute velocity in an electric field. The velocity of a charged analyte is a function of its electrophoretic mobility and the applied voltage. The method of electrophoresis is used in a number of different techniques including capillary gel electrophoresis, capillary zone electrophoresis, micellar electrokinetic chromatography, capillary electro chromatography, isotachophoresis and isoelectric focusing.
In general, the mobility of an analyte in a particular medium is constant and characteristic of that analyte. The analytes mobility is a result of two factors. The analyte is attracted to the electrode of opposite charge, pulling it through the medium. At the same time, however, frictional forces try to prevent the analyte moving toward the charge. The balance of these forces determines the actual overall mobility of the analyte. An analytes size, polarity and number of electric charge(s), relative hydrophobicity and ionic strength determine how rapidly an electric field can move the analyte through a medium. A buffer is used to assist the flow of the analyte relative to the field. The buffer's chemical composition, pH, temperature and concentration alter the mobility of the analyte. Many important biological molecules such as amino acids, peptides, proteins, nucleotides, and nucleic acids, posses ionizable groups and, therefore, at any given pH, exist in solution as electrically charged species either as cations containing a positive (+) charge or as anions containing a negative (−) charge. Depending on the nature of the net charge, the charged particles will migrate either to the cathode or to the anode. A small analyte will have less frictional drag than a large analyte and hence move through the medium faster than a large analyte. Similarly, a multiply charged analyte will experience more attraction to the electrode and also move through the medium faster than a singly charged analyte. It is this difference in solute velocities that is responsible for the separating effect in electrophoresis that results in resolution of the species detected.
Gel electrophoresis is a method that separates molecules such as DNA or proteins on the basis of their physical properties. A gel is a solid colloid. Thus, gel electrophoresis refers to the technique in which molecules are forced to cross a span of gel, motivated by an electrical current. Activated electrodes at either end of the gel provide the electric field and thus the driving force for the migration of the analyte. During electrophoresis, molecules are forced to move through the pores in the gel when the electrical current is applied. Their rate of migration, through the induced electric field, depends on the strength of the field, their charge, their size and the shape of the molecules, the relative hydrophobicity of the molecules, and on the ionic strength and temperature of the buffer in which the molecules are moving.
One use of gel electrophoresis is the identification of particular DNA molecules by the band patterns they yield in gel electrophoresis, after being cut with various restriction enzymes. Viral DNA, plasmid DNA, and particular segments of chromosomal DNA can all be identified in this way. Another use is the isolation and purification of individual DNA fragments containing interesting genes, which can be recovered from the gel with full biological activity.
Capillary Zone Electrophoresis (CZE) replaces the gel in gel electrophoresis with the combination of a buffer and a solid support contained within the capillary. In CZE, the analyte must move through the solid support contained within the capillary under the action of the buffer, which is charged by the applied electric field. The buffer's chemical nature, pH, temperature, concentration and the presence of surfactant additives can be selected to assist in fully resolving (i.e., spatially separating different analytes in the capillary with respect to the time from introduction of the sample) different analytes in space (position in the capillary) with respect to time. Analytes separated by CZE can be detected based on absorption or fluorescence. Detection can be carried out using on-column or fiber optic Z-cells.
In addition to electrophoretic techniques, separation of molecules can be carried out in the absence of an applied field using chromatographic techniques. In liquid chromatography, the molecule
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Touchscreen mobile devices with light sensors are in wide use today. By touching the screen a user leaves fingerprints on the screen, sometimes in the area where the light sensor is located. Consequently, the light sensor needs to sense light through a stained surface, i.e., surface with a residue.
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1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a rare-earth magnet, in particular relates to a starting alloy for an R-T-B system sintered magnet comprising a rare-earth element (R), one or more transition metal elements (T) essentially comprising Fe, or Fe and Co, and boron (B) as the main components.
2. Description of the Related Art
An R-T-B system sintered magnet has advantages of excellent magnetic properties, and relatively low cost because Nd as the main component is an abundant resource. It is produced by powder metallurgy comprising the following main steps. First, a starting alloy is prepared by melting a given composition of the components; the alloy is crushed to a given particle size; and the resulting powder is compacted into a shape in a magnetic field, and sintered and thermally treated.
The starting alloy is frequently produced by strip casting, where it is quenched on the rotating rolls. When the starting alloy produced by strip casting is treated for hydrogen crushing, hydrogen absorption time including that for activation treatment, crushing time and crushability in the presence of hydrogen largely disperse lot by lot, as disclosed by Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 11-50110. This document discusses that the dispersions are caused by the following phenomenon. An R-T-B system alloy is mainly composed of R2Fe14B as the main phase and grain boundary phase (R-rich phase) both having a high affinity for oxygen, with the result that an oxide film and/or slug is formed on the contact surface on the roll even when it is melted and solidified in an Ar gas atmosphere, for example, in the strip casting to retard adsorption of hydrogen molecules on the alloy base.
Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 11-50110 proposes acid treatment to remove the oxide film and/or slug on the starting alloy surfaces, to greatly improve hydrogen absorption efficiency of a starting alloy produced by strip casting (hereinafter sometimes referred to as SC alloy).
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The subject matter of this application is related to the subject matter of an application [K35A0540] USSN 09/314,871, titled xe2x80x9cDISK DRIVE EMPLOYING OFF-LINE SCAN TO COLLECT SELECTION-CONTROL DATA FOR SUBSEQUENTLY DECIDING WHETHER TO VERIFY AFTER WRITExe2x80x9d, filed in the USPTO on 5/19/99, in the name of Jonathan Hanmann and Michael Rothberg, and assigned to the assignee of this application (the xe2x80x9cOff-Line Scan applicationxe2x80x9d). The disclosure of the Off-Line Scan application is hereby incorporated by reference herein.
The subject matter of this application is also related to the subject matter of an application [K35A0463] USSN 09/138,805, titled xe2x80x9cDISK DRIVE HAVING DATA-GUARDING FIRMWARExe2x80x9d, filed in the USPTO on Aug. 21, 1998, in the name of Michael Rothberg, and assigned to the assignee of this application (the xe2x80x9cData Guarding applicationxe2x80x9d). The disclosure of the Data Guarding application is hereby incorporated by reference herein.
1. Field of the Invention
In general the technical field relates to disk drives used for data storage on computer systems. More particularly, it relates to operating a disk drive in a manner to enable a host computer to assist in rescuing a rescue-candidate location having drive-unrecoverable data.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Users of computer systems depend on disk drives to provide fast and reliable data reproduction. Should data loss occur due to corrupted data on a disk in a disk drive, valuable user data may be lost or the computer system or application programs may fail to run.
During the manufacture of disk drives, data storage areas on the disk are tested for defects that could cause data loss. These areas are identified as unavailable so that these initial defects will not cause data loss. Over the course of operating the disk drive in a system, various defects can occur. These defects are generally referred to as xe2x80x9cgrownxe2x80x9d defects. These defects result from a variety of effects including thermal asperities on the disk surface. Grown defects represent potential data loss.
Present disk drive technology provides for EDAC (Error Detection And Correction) to help prevent data loss. Examples of techniques for providing error correction can be found in the Off-Line Scan and Data Guarding applications. Although EDAC and other methods currently employed in disk drives are able to correct some errors, there remains data that can not be corrected. This is generally referred to as drive-unrecoverable data.
When drive-unrecoverable data is encountered during a host read command, the results can be catastrophic. The host computer has no indication that it will receive a read error from the disk drive. If the unrecoverable data is part of a user data file, the entire file may be unavailable to the user. Unrecoverable data in an application program can cause the program to fail to execute. An operating system component that contains unrecoverable data may lead to a total system crash. The extent of problems unrecoverable data can cause is numerous. The user can try to prevent some of these problems by maintaining backups of his data and periodically running disk scanning software to detect problems.
The above discussion shows that there is a need to avoid having drive-unrecoverable data cause problems for the user. It is desirable to detect and rescue locations having drive-unrecoverable data before the user encounters a read error.
The invention can be regarded as a method of operating a disk drive for enabling a host computer to assist in rescuing a rescue-candidate location having drive-unrecoverable data. The disk drive includes a disk and an interface to the host computer. The disk defines a multiplicity of addressable locations each having a logical address. The method of operating the disk drive comprises the steps of performing a plurality of read operations on a selected one of the multiplicity of addressable locations and determining whether the selected addressable location contains drive-unrecoverable data. The method further comprises identifying the selected addressable location as a rescue-candidate location if the selected addressable location contains drive-unrecoverable data, recording the logical address of the rescue-candidate location in a list, and transferring the list to the host computer via the interface in response to a list-requesting command from the host computer. The method further comprises responding to a write command from the host computer to write host data to a selected rescue-candidate location having a logical address recorded in the list such that a subsequent read operation can recover the host data. The step of transferring the list to the host computer enables the host computer to assist in rescuing the selected rescue-candidate location.
The invention can also be regarded as a method of operating a computer system for enabling a host computer to assist in rescuing a rescue-candidate location having drive-unrecoverable data. The computer system includes a disk drive, the host computer and an interface between the host computer and the disk drive. The disk drive includes a disk defining a multiplicity of addressable locations each having a logical address. The method of operating the computer system comprises the steps of performing a plurality of read operations on a selected one of the multiplicity of addressable locations and determining whether the selected one of the multiplicity of addressable locations contains drive-unrecoverable data. The method further comprises identifying the selected addressable location as a rescue-candidate location if the selected location contains the drive-unrecoverable data, recording the logical address of the rescue-candidate location in a list, issuing a list-requesting command from the host computer to the disk drive, and transferring the list to the host computer via the interface in response to the list-requesting command. The method further comprises sending a write command to the disk drive to write host data to a selected rescue-candidate location having a logical address recorded in the list such that a subsequent read operation can recover the host data. The step of transferring the list to the host computer enables the host computer to assist in rescuing the selected rescue-candidate location.
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The use of silicones for softening fabrics, i.e., providing lubrication between fibers and yarns so that they move over one another more easily, has been well known for quite some time. In addition, the use of organomodified silicones for textile treatments has also been well documented over the years. (See U.S. Pat. Nos.: 4,620,878, Gee, issued Nov. 4, 1986; 4,705,704, Lane et al., issued Nov. 10, 1987; 4,800,026, Coffindaffer et al., issued Jan. 24, 1989; 4,824,877, Glover et al., issued Apr. 25, 1989; and 4,824,890, Glover et al., issued Apr. 25, 1989; also of interest is Brit. Pat. Appln. 87-29,489, Walbeoff, published Dec. 18, 1987, all of said patents and said application being incorporated herein by reference.) Silicones of these types are typically delivered to textiles in the form of aqueous emulsions. More recently, much work has concentrated on aqueous delivery systems containing silicone microemulsions. Microemulsions have been disclosed as having two advantages over conventional "macro" emulsions: (1) they are allegedly more stable and (2) they allegedly can require less mechanical energy to make.
Dyes are often used in consumer products to provide pleasing aesthetics. In the case of fabric care products, one wants to be able to provide the desired color aesthetics with as little dye as possible to minimize chances for staining clothes. Thus, one likes to be able to formulate with as low a level of dye as possible, yet provide a pleasant color aesthetic.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide aesthetically pleasing fabric care/microemulsified silicone compositions with lower dye levels than are required to provide the same effect in fabric care compositions containing conventional silicone macroemulsions.
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Software programs have been developed in the past to provide security for computing sessions during which tasks are executed by computing devices that involve the gathering and use of a user's personal information. For example, computer systems have been developed whereby a user can access a system through a computing device, by which to engage in self-service banking activities. These sessions typically include a log-in process at the onset of the computing session, during which a user is required to input credentials into the system that the system can use to verify the identity of the user and then authorizing the user to access sensitive information from the system based on this verification. Sensitive personal banking information can include stored bank account data maintained for that user by her bank.
The development of self-service banking technologies originated with the development of automated teller machines (ATMs) in the late 1960s. These specialized computing devices made it possible for customers of banks to perform personal transactions with their banks electronically virtually twenty-four hours a day, and seven days a week. At first, these ATMs were directly coupled to the customer's physical bank branch. In short order, they became highly interconnected through intra-bank networks, and then through interbank networks that now permit customers to perform such transactions from any ATM around the world. Thus, customers can perform various activities involving the exchange of highly sensitive and personal banking information with their respective banks, such as withdrawing and depositing funds, making account balance inquires and transferring funds between the customer's various accounts. Notwithstanding the convenience of such commercial terminals, users must still physically travel to an ATM location, and must share those specialized computing terminals with other users.
With the advent of personal computers and the Internet, financial institutions began providing secure web sites with which customers could interact over the Internet through a browser program executed on a customer's personal computer. This technology enabled customers to perform many of the same types of banking transactions from their home or office, using a personal computer, that they were previously performing using an ATM. Such activities include making balance inquiries, viewing monthly statements and summaries of transactions, and even paying their bills through the electronic transfer of funds.
The convenience of online banking has been further increased with the explosion of free public access Wi-Fi Internet hotspots, now physically located in all types of businesses that are open to the public. These hotspots make it possible for bank customers, various mobile personal computing devices, to conduct sensitive banking activities over the Internet from hotels, restaurants, grocery stores, cafes, malls, airports, etc.
Perhaps the biggest revolution in self-service electronic banking has come about only recently, with the now nearly ubiquitous availability of affordable smartphones. Smartphones are capable of running sophisticated software applications such as banking applications, and can reach the Internet through the aforementioned public wireless hotspots, as well as through the mobile telephone network to which the user is subscribed. As a result, customers are now able to access their bank to conduct highly sensitive and personal banking activities, including using the smartphones to sense and gather sensitive personal data for purposes such as depositing physical checks, from virtually anywhere in the world.
While convenience to the user has greatly increased in direct relation to the degree to which they have become increasingly untethered from their physical banks, their vulnerability to those who would seek to steal their money and their sensitive personal information has increased commensurately. While the security of ATMs has been successfully breached in numerous ways, including physical attacks on users late at night, card skimming and shoulder surfing, sensitive banking activities conducted through ATMs are still not as vulnerable as when those activities are performed using personal computing devices. This is largely because ATMs have been historically provided either by the banks themselves, or by trusted third party vendors, and thus the user cannot easily alter the software running on ATM machines. Moreover, because the ATM is not operationally mobile, the link that couples it to the ATM network is dedicated and hardwired to the banking network. This close-coupling and control of ATMs makes this type of computing device relatively secure. Owners of personal computing devices such as smartphones, however, are able to easily access or otherwise alter the operational state of the ATM in many ways. For example, users are able to choose from and download to their personal computing devices a myriad of software applications available from third party developers.
The use of personal computers (PC) for home banking marked the advent of using computing devices owned and controlled by the users themselves, and not the banks, to connect to the banking system and perform sensitive activities. Because the user's bank is not able to control what additional software is loaded onto each user's PC, whether the user is using a secure firewall or an anti-virus software program, on what links the user clicks, or what emails a user opens, the potential for compromising the integrity of the device connecting to the bank's system is so much greater when the computing device used is owned and controlled by the user. Moreover, the use of unsecure public Wi-Fi hotspots with laptops, notebooks and tablet computing devices, as well as the use of near-field wireless device connections such as Bluetooth and NFC, has further opened up secure computing activities such as mobile banking to proximity attacks as well.
But it is the more recent explosion in the use of smartphones for performing sensitive tasks such as mobile banking that has created a veritable avalanche in potential security attacks during the performance of such sensitive activities. First, like the other forms of personal computing devices discussed above, they are owned by, and therefore under the complete control of, the user. Second, the user is free to download virtually unlimited types of software apps and services, mostly developed sold by third party vendors. These apps can perform any number of tasks such as, for example, playing games like Angry Birds, turning on the LED flash of a smartphone's camera for use as a flashlight, and even providing different forms of keyboards that the user finds more desirable than the keyboard provided with the smartphone as purchased. Finally, it is the availability of various data gathering devices installed on smartphones such as cameras, microphones, GPS locating devices, scanning device drivers, port drivers such as USB, as well as proximity interfaces such as Bluetooth and NFC (near field communication chips) that are being used to sense and gather sensitive personal data while executing tasks such as mobile banking, that make personal computing devices such as smartphones so vulnerable to security attacks. These various data gathering devices are often accessible to any software application program or service running on the personal computing device, and that makes them particularly easy to exploit.
FIG. 1A illustrates a high-level representation of a known ATM banking environment 102. The ATM environment 102 is relatively secure. Often, the ATM machine 104 is locked in its own room, and a user must use his/her banking card to gain access to the ATM environment 102 first, with the door locking others from the environment 102 once the user is inside. The ATM environment 102 commonly includes a closed circuit television (CCTV) camera 118 that permits real time and stored monitoring of the entire ATM environment 102. A visible and/or audio alarm 116 is also sometimes provided.
Another camera 106 is also typically provided to capture image data of the user during each transaction. The ATM 104 commonly includes a display 110, a keyboard 108 through which users provide credentials and make menu selections shown on display 110, a card reader 112 for reading the user's personal debit and/or credit card, and cash and receipt dispenser 114. Newer ATMs may also include scanners for reading cash and checks for deposit.
ATM 104 is then typically coupled, through a dedicated link 120, directly to the servers of the data center 122 serving bank 124. Those of skill in the art will appreciate that ATM 102 is directly and physically coupled to the bank data center 122 through dedicated link 120, and it is relatively difficult to hack for purposes of intercepting a user's secure banking transaction data when it is being transmitted between the ATM 104 and the bank data center 122. The software operating system is not readily accessible to a user, so the user is not able to download or install software that may corrupt the secure operating state of the ATM machine.
Thus, sensor devices of the ATM 104, such as camera 106 and/or a deposit scanner 114 as previously discussed, as well as keyboard 108, card reader 112 and display 110 are all under the control of relatively fixed ATM software (the typical user does not have any easy way to alter the software running on the machine). Therefore, it less likely that the information collected by these data gathering sensor components will be intercepted by corrupted software running on the ATM 104. While not as secure as working directly with an employee of a bank in person, the ATM 104 provides a relatively safe and secure system through which to engage in personal banking transactions.
The security risks that are present for mobile banking transactions using personal computing devices such as tablets and smartphones are potentially far more insidious and difficult to control. FIG. 1B represents a high-level illustration of an example of a current mobile banking infrastructure. A user's smartphone 152 is coupled to the bank data center 122 over the Internet 164 via the smartphone's Wi-Fi connection 160 and/or the 3G/4G telephone network 162, to which the user subscribes. With reference to the front view 152a of smartphone 152, an unsecure banking software application 150 is stored on smartphone 152. The unsecure software banking “app” 150 is launched by the user and executed by the smartphone 152, to initiate what the user and the bank 124 believe to be a secure computing session for purposes of engaging in sensitive banking transactions.
Unsecure banking application 150 establishes connectivity with the bank data center 122 using either Wi-Fi connection 160 or telephone network 162, and prompts the user through display 154 to enter user credentials (e.g. user ID and password) using displayed keyboard 156. Once the user credentials are verified and the user is logged into the bank data center 122, the unsecure banking app 150 presents a menu of options to the user on the display 154, by
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(a) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method for patterning an inorganic oxide film, and an electronic device including a mesoporous inorganic oxide film patterned by the method.
(b) Description of the Related Art
Inorganic oxides having large band gaps are used in photoelectrodes, sensors, anode active materials for secondary batteries, semiconductor materials and the like, and particularly, patterned inorganic oxide films bring about an increase in the efficiency of photoelectrodes and a nanowire field effect, so that patterned inorganic oxide films are useful in nanowire field effect transistors (FET), triisopropylsilylethynyl pentacene (TIPS-PEN) thin film transistors, and the like (Jr. H. He et al., J. Phys. Chem. B, 2006, 110, 50-53; and Meredith J. Hampton et al., Adv. Mater. 2008, 20, 2667-2673). Even in the application of these inorganic oxide materials in solar cells, patterning is very important.
For most of organic solar cells, in order to increase the efficiency, research has been actively carried out to change the structure or to develop electrolytes, dyes, inorganic oxides, organic molecules, polymers, electrode materials and the like that can exhibit excellent efficiency. However, most of solar cells cannot effectively utilize a large amount of solar radiation due to the limitations on the structure and materials that constitute the solar cells, and make use of only a certain amount of light to convert the photo energy to electric energy, while transmitting or reflecting the rest of light. Therefore, current solar cells have limitations on exhibiting high efficiency.
For this reason, intense research has been in progress to find technologies which allow more sunlight to be collected from a fixed area and thereby increases the efficiency of solar cells, namely, light harvesting technologies. For instance, technologies for harvesting light in dye-sensitized solar cells through methods such as photonic crystals (Guldin, S. et al. Nano Lett. 10, 2303-2309 (2010); Mihi, A. et al. Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 50, 5712-5715 (2011)), a plasmonic effect (Ding, I.-K. et al. Adv. Energy Mater. 1, 52-57 (2011)), formation of various nanostructures (Munday, J. N. et al. Nano Lett. 11, 2195-2201 (2011); Yang, L. et al. Adv. Mater. 23, 4559-4562 (2011)), and use of improved electrolytes (Wang, M. et al. Adv. Mater. 20, 5526-5530 (2010)). However, dye-sensitized solar cells that are produced by the aforementioned methods are produced by complicated production methods that include costly processes, and have a disadvantage that those solar cells cannot be readily applied to the processes for mass production, and are not applicable to various systems.
In this regard, as a method by which the efficiency of a solar cell can be effectively increased in a simpler way, a method of forming a nanostructured pattern on an electrode has been suggested. This method is a method of collecting sunlight using the properties of light such as diffraction and reflection by means of a regular nanopattern arrangement formed on an electrode, and this method has been applied to organic molecule junction type solar cells (Na, S.-I. et al. Adv. Funct. Mater. 18, 3956-3963 (2008)) and inorganic silicon solar cells (Battaglia, C. et al. Nature Photon. 5, 535-538 (2011)).
However, since the photoelectrode of a solar cell using an inorganic oxide, such as a dye-sensitized solar cell, is usually produced using a composite paste which contains nano-sized inorganicoxide fine particles together with a solvent and a binder, it has been not so easy to form a nanopattern.
Methods of wet processes including photolithography and etching, which are well known as methods for patterning inorganic materials, are associated with complicated processes and enormous costs, and it is not feasible to produce micro-sized or nano-sized patterns and to use them in mass production by using a patterning method using arrays, nanowires, nanotubes or the like (Jr H. He et al. J. Phys. Chem. B, 2006, 110, 50-53; and Meredith J. Hampton et al. Adv. Mater. 2008, 20, 2667-2673). Furthermore, in a method of performing patterning using an elastomer mold of polyurethane acrylate (PUA) or polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) with a solution containing a precursor by a transfer mold (LB-nTM) method, or direct patterning technologies such as a micromolding patterning method utilizing the capillary phenomenon and a gravure printing method, since a solution phase is utilized, the solution must be solidified before being transferred to a substrate in order to prevent liquid diffusion, and because a product is obtained in a bulk form, it is difficult to produce a porous structure with a large surface area and satisfactory characteristics. Also, there are limitations on the substrate that can be processed, and the working efficiency is low.
Particularly, in order to form a pattern with an inorganic oxide film of WO3, V2O5 or the like, or with an inorganic oxide that is utilized in photoelectrodes, such TiO2 or ZnO, pattern production should be carried out while a mesoporous state is maintained. However, in patterns produced by the methods described above, since the difference in surface energy between the mold and the solution is so large that micropattern production at a nano-sized level is not easy. As a result, there are limitations on the increasing of the efficiency of photoelectrodes.
Furthermore, in a method of forming a pattern by depositing a metal reflecting layer and subjecting the layer to nano-imprinting, it is difficult to effectively produce surface asperities on the top surface in a large size, and there is a disadvantage that mass productivity is poor, and the process becomes more complicated. With regard to a method of patterning a photoelectrode using lithography, since expensive materials are used in large quantities, and expensive processes such as a light interference UV process and strict control thereof are required, the method is inefficient in mass production. Also, a method of forming a ZnO nanopattern on top of a transparent conducting oxide (TCO) layer has a disadvantage that the structure is incapable of energy conversion with high efficiency because the thickness of the part in the solar cell structure which absorbs light and converts the light to electricity is too small.
Furthermore, a method of forming a nanopattern by lithography using a TiO2 precursor solution instead of nanoparticles has been suggested as a method for forming a pattern on a photoelectrode of a dye-sensitized solar cell. However, a photoelectrode that is formed by the method described above has a very small surface area and a small thickness, so that the photoelectrode exhibits an efficiency of 1% or less (H. Tokuhisa, P. T. Hammond, Adv. Funct. Mater. 2003, 13, 831-839.).
Recently, a technology of producing a nano-sized pattern by directly patterning a paste containing nanoparticles using a nanostamp formed of quartz has been suggested. However, it is difficult to produce quartz nanostamps, and since patterning is achieved under pressure, the nanostamps are susceptible to breakage and are not capable of producing regular pattern arrangements. Due to such problems, there has been suggested a method of coating the pattern with silver to utilize the plasmon phenomenon in connection with the method described above. However, this is not a technology that directly uses a nanostructure to harvest light, and since the technology involves coating of expensive silver through vacuum deposition, there are difficulties in putting the technology into commercial use (I.-K. Ding, et al., Adv. Energy Mater. 2011, 1, 52-57).
Therefore, there is a demand for the development of a photoelectrode which can utilize an effective light harvesting technology in order to increase the efficiency of solar cells, and there is a need to develop a technology capable of forming a nanopattern simply and effectively for the purpose of increasing the efficiency and enabling mass production. Also, there is an urgent demand for the development of a process for producing a photoelectrode for light harvesting, which can be applied to various dyes such as organic dyes as well as quantum dot dyes, and can be applied to solar cells which use various inorganic oxide particle pastes, electrolytes, electron and hole transfer materials and the like; and a process for patterning an inorganic oxide film for electronic devices.
[Reference Documents]
Patent Document 1: Korean Patent Application Publication No. 2010-0022859 (published on Mar. 3, 2010)
Patent document 2: Korean Patent No. 1116977 (registered on Feb. 8, 2012)
Patent Document 3: Korean Patent Application Publication No. 2012-0001456 (published on Jan. 4, 2012)
Non-patent document 1: Jr H. He et al. J. Phys. Chem. B, 2006, 110, 50-53
Meredith J. Hampton et al. Adv. Mater. 2008, 20, 2667-2673
Guldin, S. et al. Nano Lett. 10, 2303-2309 (2010)
Mihi, A. et al. Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 50, 5712-5715 (2011)
Ding, I.-K. et al. Adv. Energy Mater. 1, 52-57 (2011)
Munday, J. N. et al. Nano Lett. 11, 2195-2201 (2011
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1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a pulp heating apparatus and particularly relates to a pulp heating apparatus in which an arrangement of components is improved.
2. Description of the Related Art
For example, Japanese Patent No. 2811489 (U.S. Pat. No.5,176,793) discloses a processing apparatus for heating pulp.
In this processing apparatus, as shown in FIG. 1 of Japanese Patent No. 2811489 (U.S. Pat. No. 5,176,793), a vertical conveyor screw (6) is provided between a plug screw (5) and a pulp shredder (7), and pulp carried by the plug screw (5) is led to the pulp shredder (7) positioned in a heating section by the vertical conveyor screw (6).
In this processing apparatus, in the case where the pulp is led to the pulp shredder (7), if the vertical conveyor screw (6) does not exist, a block of the pulp exhausted by the plug screw (5) drops towards the pulp shredder (7) due to gravity because the pulp shredder (7) is positioned below the plug screw (5). Thereafter, the block is supplied to the pulp shredder (7) and the shredding of the pulp is occasionally interfered, namely, the pulp is not shredded sufficiently.
In order to prevent the above case, there arises a problem that the vertical conveyor screw (6) is required as a pulp breaking machine between the plug screw (5) and the
It is an object of the present invention to provide a pulp heating apparatus which removes the above problem.
In order to achieve the above object, a pulp heating apparatus of a first aspect is constituted so as to include a heater main body having a pulp introduction port for introducing pulp, a vapor introduction port for introducing vapor, a disperser for dispersing the pulp introduced via the pulp introduction port under a high temperature and a pulp exhaust port for exhausting the pulp dispersed by the disperser, and the heater main body being arranged in horizontal is direction, and so that the disperser has a spiral vane section which continues spirally around a rotational shaft and discontinuous vane sections around the rotational shaft, the pulp introduction port is provided at a bottom section of said heater main body and is connected with an introduction passage and a screw conveyor is provided on the introduction passage and a forward end of the introduction passage faces towards the spiral vane section.
In addition, a pulp heating apparatus of a second aspect is constituted so as to include: a heater main body having a pulp introduction port for introducing pulp, a vapor introduction port for introducing vapor, a disperser for dispersing the pulp introduced via the pulp introduction port under a high temperature and a pulp exhaust port for exhausting the pulp dispersed by the disperser, and the heater main body being arranged in horizontal direction, and so that the disperser has a spiral vane section which continues spirally around a rotational shaft and discontinuous vane sections around the rotational shaft, the pulp introduction port is provided at a bottom section of said heater main body and is connected with an introduction passage and a screw conveyor is provided on the introduction passage, a forward end of the introduction passage faces towards the spiral vane section and convex sections are provided on an outer periphery of the spiral vane section facing towards the forward end of the introduction passage.
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The present invention relates to a receiving element for orthogonally polarized high-frequency signals or, in accordance with the reciprocity principle of antennae, a radiation element for such signals realized in a similar way, this element comprising a dielectric layer on both sides of a first high-frequency transmission line whose end forms an exciting probe.
The invention also relates to a planar antenna comprising an array of juxtaposed elements of this type, and is particularly used in the field of receiving 12 GHz television signals transmitted by satellites. Obviously, in view of the reciprocity principle of an antenna, a receiving element (or an antenna constituted by an array of receiving elements) is capable of functioning as a radiating element (radiating antenna) without any modifications of its characteristics. This remark holds without any exception throughout the following description, and the word receiving, receive, receiver can at all times be replaced by the words transmission, transmit, radiating.
A planar antenna comprising such elements is described in the article "New wideband high-gain stripline planar array for 12 GHz satellite TV" by E. Rammos, published in the periodical Electronics Letters, Volume 18, No. 6, Mar. 18, 1982, pages 252 and 253. In spite of an encouraging performance, this antenna has not proved to be completely satisfactory as regards its efficiency.
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The principal object of the present invention is to provide an improved fusible element for an electric time-lag motor starter fuse having a voltage rating up to 600 volts and also capable of current-limiting action.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,935,553; Jan. 27, 1976 to Frederick J. Kozacka et al, CARTRIDGE FUSE FOR D-C CIRCUITS describes a time-lag fuse having a fusible element capable of meeting the above requirements; but which is difficult and expensive to manufacture.
It is, therefore, another object of this invention to provide an improved version of the fusible element and of the fuse described in the above patent.
The family of patents recited below is of interest in connection with the present invention. Each of them describes a fuse comprising a fusible element having a perforated center portion having an M-effect overlay, and non-perforated end or heat dam portions of smaller cross-section than the center portion and connecting the center portion and the terminal elements, or terminal caps, of the fuse.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,261,950; July 19, 1966 to F. J. Kozacka for TIME-LAG FUSES HAVING HIGH THERMAL EFFICIENCY; U.S. Pat. No. 3,261,952; July 19, 1966 to F. J. Kozacka for TIME-LAG FUSE WITH RIBBON FUSE LINK HAVING TWO SYSTEMS OF BENDS; U.S. Pat. No. 3,291,943; Dec. 13, 1966 to F. J. Kozacka for TIME LAG FUSE WITH RIBBON FUSE LINK FOLDED IN LONGITUDINAL AND IN TRANSVERSE DIRECTION; U.S. Pat. No. 3,319,028; May 9, 1967 to F. J. Kozacka for SPRINGLESS TIME LAG FUSE FOR MOTOR CIRCUITS; U.S. Pat. No. 3,341,674; Sept. 12, 1967 to P. C. Jacobs, Jr. for ELECTRIC QUARTZ-SAND-FILLED FUSE ADAPTED TO INTERRUPT EFFECTIVELY PROTRACTED SMALL OVERLOAD CURRENTS; and U.S. Pat. No. 3,382,335; May 7, 1968 to F. J. Kozacka for ELECTRIC FUSE HAVING PRISMATIC CASING.
The points of reduced cross-section of a fusible element for a current-limiting fuse should be of silver to minimize the fusing i.sup.2 .multidot.t thereof. There is no such requirement in regard to the heat dam portions of the fusible element. It is, therefore, another object to provide fusible elements whose points of are initiation are of silver, but whose heat dams are of a less expensive metal other than silver.
Great difficulties arise when blanking or stamping the center portion and the heat dam portions out of a piece of metal and folding the center portion and the heat dam portions in opposite directions, as required by the above prior art patents. In particular, when folding the heat dam sections in transverse direction, as required, both ends of the heat dam sections tend to move in a direction longitudinally thereof, but are only allowed at their axially outer ends to do so while their axially inner ends are fixed by the perforated center section or center portion of the fusible element.
It is, therefore, a further object of the invention to greatly facilitate the manufacture of fusible elements including a relatively wide perforated center section folded in a direction longitudinally thereof and relatively narrow heat dam sections folded in a transverse direction.
Other objects of the invention will become more apparent as this specification proceeds.
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(1) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a system for reducing noise sounding in a closed space due to a propagation of a vibrating noise in the closed space from a vibration source of a power unit (such as a vehicular engine) mounted in the vehicle (hereinafter referred to as a closed sound). Particularly, the present invention relates to the apparatus and system for reducing the closed sound sounded in the closed space due to the propagation in the closed space from the vibrations of the power unit which is easy in adjustment during an initial power supply of the apparatus.
(2) Description of the Background Art
Noises on secondary harmonics of the engine revolution speed, i.e., frequency components of an ignition frequency of a vehicular engine are propagated in the vehicular compartment of the vehicle, an unpleasant feeling is given to a vehicular driver.
Therefore, at least one speaker is mounted in the vehicular compartment to output a sound having a 180.degree. opposite (out of phase) to the closed noise so as to cancel the closed noise.
A U.S. patent application Ser. No. 07/629, 637 exemplifies a previously proposed active noise cancelling system.
A PCT international patent application international publication W088/02912 exemplifies a previously proposed closed sound cancelling system. In the case disclosed in the PCT international patent application, since, at first, a white noise is output in the vehicular compartment and is detected through the microphone so that a spatial acoustic transfer characteristic in the vehicular compartment including an electric/acoustic conversion characteristic (function) between the microphone and speaker is identified. A value of the spatial acoustic transfer characteristic is stored into a memory. Using the stored content values, a plurality of filter coefficients to provide the 180-degree opposite sound by means of a steepest descent method in an adaptive digital filter are adaptively changed to reduce the closed sound. A volatile memory such as RAM is always used to update the stored values as the memory storing the spatial accoustic transfer characteristic.
In a case where the closed noise in the limited space is reduced using the previously proposed noise cancelling system disclosed in the above-identified PCT international publication (under PCT Article 20), the identification of the values on the spatial acoustic transfer characteristic using again, the white noise needs to be carried out when the power supply to the volatile memory is turned off and the content of the memory is accordingly erased or destroyed. If this previously proposed noise cancelling system is applied to an automotive vehicle, the content of the memory is destroyed when a battery of the vehicle is disconnected to repair or replace the battery. This requires a new setting operation for the previously proposed noise cancelling system by a user. Consequently, the reduction of the noise cancelling system into practice to the automotive vehicle becomes difficult.
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1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a method of and an apparatus for manufacturing a disk-like medium such as a compact disc (CD) or a video disc (VD), and particularly to a method of and an apparatus for manufacturing a pattern such as round tracks (grooves) formed on a disc medium by unevenness or information pits on the tracks, by the lithography technique.
2. Related Background Art
As a method of manufacturing a CD or a VD of this kind or the like, it has heretofore been practised to form pattern information which will provide grooves or pits on a master disc (mother) by direct cutting by the use of a laser spot, reproduce it as a replica onto an electrocasting stamper, and further make a CD or a VD which will be a product by stamping by the use of the electrocasting stamper.
In the presentday CD or VD, the line width of grooves or pits is about 1 .mu.m, and even by the stamping method, pattern transfer can be accomplished sufficiently accurately, and throughput and cost reduction are also good.
Accordingly, in a CD or a VD, round tracks (grooves) on the disc are concentrically or spirally formed at a pitch of the order of 2 .mu.m in the diametrical direction thereof.
However, if an attempt is made to make the information density per unit area on the disc higher than the existing one, there will arise the necessity of making the width of and the interval between the grooves or pits as minute as 0.5 .mu.m-0.3 .mu.m. Along therewith, the wavelength .lambda. of an information reading beam will be shortened. By shortening the wavelength .lambda. of the beam, it becomes possible to make the diameter of the spot applied onto the disc minute. Of course, the depth of the grooves or pits becomes smaller as the line width or the interval becomes more minute, because the optical distance (depth x refractive index) becomes 1/4 of the wavelength .lambda. of the beam.
If the grooves or pits are thus made minute, there will arise the problem that accurate transfer by the existing stamper system becomes difficult. That is, the material forming the disc has more or less elasticity and therefore, there will arise the problem that transfer cannot be successfully accomplished even if an attempt is made to apply pressure to form the pattern of grooves or pits, because the grooves or pits are made too minute.
So, a method of and an apparatus for manufacturing a disc medium by the lithography technique has been proposed by Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No. 62-217443. This known technique is to project the pattern of a disc medium formed on a photomask or a reticle onto a partial area of a disc substrate having photoresist applied thereto in advance and rotate this substrate continuously or intermittently to thereby expose the substrate and complete exposure by one full rotation of the substrate.
However, the above-mentioned publication has merely proposed a basic technique of manufacturing a disc medium by the use of the lithography technique, and various improvements therein have been necessary to complete it as an actually practical apparatus.
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The alkaloids obtainable from Vinca rosea, represent one of the most productive areas of chemistry for drugs adversely affecting the growth of experimental malignancies in mammals. Initially, only some of the alkaloids, obtainable from the leaves of the plant by extraction and purifiable by chromatography, were found to be active. These active antineoplastic alkaloids obtained directly from the leaves of the vinca plant included VLB (Vinblastine, vincaleucoblastine), vincristine (leurocristine), leurosine (vinleurosine), leurosidine (vinrosidine), leuroformine (formylleurosine) and deoxy VLB "A" and "B" (4'-deoxy VLB and 4'-deoxyleurosidine). Other less abundant antineoplastic alkaloids have also been formed.
Chemical modification of the Vinca alkaloids started slowly for several reasons. In the first place, the molecular structures involved are extremely complex, and chemists were slow to find reactions which modified one specific functional group of the molecule without affecting other groups. Secondly, dimeric alkaloids lacking desirable chemotherapeutic properties had been recovered or produced from Vinca rosea extracts, and a determination of their structures had led to the conclusion that these inactive compounds were closely related structurally to, and even isomeric with, one or more of the active alkaloids. Thus, it appeared that small chemical changes in the known alkaloids could have a profound effect on antineoplastic activity.
Because of these restrictions, modification of the indole-dihydroindole alkaloids obtained from Vinca rosea has centered around three areas of the molecule: C--3, C--4' and C--4. Considering C--3 modification first, one of the more recent, and more successful modifications of the basic indole-dihydroindole structure has been the preparation of C--3 carboxamide and carboxhydrazide derivatives, most of which have turned out to be active anti-tumor agents. [See Cullinan et al., U.S. Pat. No. 4,203,898, Conrad et al., U.S. Pat. No. 4,191,688, Cullinan and Gerzon, U.S. Pat. No. 4,166,810. Conrad et al. J. Med. Chem., 22, 391 (1979), and Barnett et al., ibid,; 21 88 (1978)]. One of the amides, 4-desacetyl VLB 3-carboxamide (vindesine), is currently being marketed in several European countries as an oncolytic agent. Vindesine is effective in treating some vincristine-resistant leukemias in addition to many common neoplasms including germ-cell tumors. Secondly, reaction of the 3-hydroxy and 3-ester functions of a indole-dihydroindole vinca alkaloid with an isocyanate has produced the corresponnding oxazolidinedione derivatives, one of which, the N-chloroethyl derivative--vinzolidine--is currently undergoing a clinical trial in humans. These oxazolidinedione derivatives are disclosed in Miller and Gutowski, U.S. Pat. No. RE 30,560, reissued Mar. 31, 1981. Trouet et al., U.S. Pat. No. 4,388,305 (same as EPO 41,935) discloses anti-cancer VLB C--3 peptides in which the peptide group contains 1-6 amino acid residues with a terminal free acid or ester group. Amides of this class derived from a single amino acid are also disclosed in Cullinan et al. U.S. Pat. No. 4,203,898 (col. 15, lines 1-16). The hydrazide-azide synthetic procedure of Cullinan et al., is also employed by Trouet et al. to prepare their amides.
A second area of the molecule which has been modified with retention of anti-tumor activity is the C--4' functionality. A majority of these modifications have been based on the 3', 4'-anhydro derivative, makeable both by coupling vindoline and catharanthine via a modified Polonovski reaction--Potier et al. J.C.S. Chem. Comm., 670, (1975)--and by dehydrating VLB or leurosidine--Gutowski and Miller, U.S. Pat. No. 4,029,663. The dehydration reaction produces two exodouble bond isomers in addition to the .DELTA..sup.3',4' -anhydro derivative. Functionalization of any one of these double bonds to form epoxides, diols, etc. has constituted the chief chemical modifications undertaken at C--4'.
The third region of the indole-dihydroindole which has been modified successfully is C--4. In the first place, hydrolysis of the acetoxy group, present in all the naturally-ocurring vinca alkaloids, yields active antineoplastic 4-desacetyl derivatives. (Vindesine, a C--3 carboxamide, is a 4-desacetyl derivative.) Secondly, Hargrove, U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,387,001 and 3,392,173 prepared novel 4-acyl derivatives of 4-desacetyl VLB, 4-desacetyl vincristine, etc. Among these new derivatives was 4-chloroacetyl VLB, an antineoplastic compound which compound could be further reacted with amines; for example, dimethylamine, to yield a potent anticancer drug, vinglycinate, N,N-dimethyl 4-glycinyl VLB. In a different modification, Wright and Neuss, U.S. Pat. No. 4,122,082, oxidized the 4-hydroxyl of 4-desacetyl VLB to a 4-keto compound, and Thompson, U.S. Pat. No. 4,195,022, reduced this ketone to the 4-epihydroxy (4.alpha.-hydroxy) derivative, also a compound with anti-cancer activity.
In addition to the VLB/VCR etc. hydrazide from Cullinan et al, (loc. cit.) and leurosine hydrazide disclosed in Neuss, Gorman, Cone and Huckstep, Tetrahedron Letters 783 (1968) (This article, in Table I, page 785, refers to compound XI as VLB hydrazide, but according to the footnote, the compound is actually an 18'-descarbomethoxy derivative-see also line 2 for the correct name for XI). Derivatives of 4-desacetyl VLB hydrazide are disclosed in Cullinan and Gerzon, U.S. Pat. No. 4,166,810. The named derivatives include mono C.sub.1-3 alkyl, .beta.-hydroxyethyl, .beta.-acetoxyethyl C.sub.2-4 alkanoyl, dichloroacetyl, benzoyl C.sub.1-3 alkylcarbazyl, dimethyl and C.sub.1-3 alkylidine (.dbd.CRR' where R and R.sup.1 are H or methyl or one is ethyl).
Indole-dihydroindole bridged tetramers; i.e., the same or different dimeric alkaloid moieties bridged thru the 3-carboxyl via a bis-amide are described in Conrad and Gerzon, U.S. Pat. No. 4,199.504. Otherwise, indole-dihydroindole vinca alkaloid dimers have not been prepared by bridging through other positions to form vinca tetramers.
VLB and vincristine have been conjugated with proteins to form antigens useful in radioimmune assays 4-Desacetyl VLB 3-carboxazide (4-desacetyl vinblastinoic azide) and the corresponding vincristine compound were the derivatives employed; see Conrad et al., J. Med., Chem., 22, 391 (1979), Root et al, Abstract 182, FACSS, Oct. 6, 1975, and U.S. Pat. No. 4,203,898 Langone et al, Anal. Biochem., 95, 214 (1979) and Teale et al, Brit. J. Clin. Pharm., 4, 169 (1977) for illustrations of this reaction. In some of these instances, the coupling agents were the C--3 carboxazides. In another reference, the alkaloid and protein were coupled via a Mannich reaction involving an unspecified portion of the vinca molecule. The C--3 carboxylic acid has also been used to couple directly to amino groups of a protein via a carbodiimide intermediate.
In testing these conjugates, Johnson et al, Brit. J. Can., 44, 372 (1981) disclose the cytotoxic action vs. human cancer cells of a vindesine-anti-CEA immunoglobulin conjugate prepared from 4-desacetyl VLB azide. This same information is disclosed in Rowland and Simmonds, Ser. No. 332,023 filed Dec. 18, 1981, now abandoned in a continuation-in-part thereof, Ser. No. 528,715, filed Sept. 2, 1983 now abandoned, and in a continuation application thereof, Ser. No. 755,221, filed July 15, 1985. Finally, Rowland, U.S. Pat. No. 4,046,722, claims immunoglobulins with a covalently-bound cytotoxic drug attached thereto.
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Many types of portable electronic devices (such as cellular phones, smart phones and some kinds of portable computers, such as tablet computers or laptop computers, as well as some accessories such as some headsets) exchange data, such as audio data, voice data, image data, video data, text messages, and e-mails, and any combination thereof, with messaging servers over long range wireless data communication links in one or more wireless communication networks. Many such devices can communicate (e.g., with another device or base station) without a wired or cabled physical connection, and may be called wireless communication devices. One example of such wireless data communication links includes cellular-like data networks. Wireless communication devices can receive messages from remote servers over a wireless data communication link in a one-way or a two-way wireless communication protocol. Some of these portable electronic devices may be handheld, that is, sized and shaped to be held or carried in a human hand.
Communication devices are becoming so ubiquitous in society that users often own, or have authorized use of, two or more such communication devices. Users with two or more communication devices often receive and send data on all of their communication devices, possibly different devices using different communication links. For example, a user can receive emails on their personal laptop computer, optionally using a wireless modem, and contemporaneously will also receive the same emails on their wireless cellular phone devices. This type of duplicate communication may be deemed unnecessary or duplicative or wasteful of communication system and device resources.
Additionally, mobile wireless communication devices typically use rechargeable power supplies, such as batteries or other electrical charge storage devices, to permit device operation while roaming and without being tethered to a particular stationary power source. As the rechargeable power source, e.g., the battery, in a wireless communication device becomes depleted it can be charged by connecting the device to a stationary power source, such as using a charger that is connected to an AC outlet. This may pose an inconvenience to a user because 1) a user of the device may have to monitor the charge level of the rechargeable power source in the wireless communication device to determine when charging is indicated, and 2) a user may have to make arrangement for and likely carry extra charging paraphernalia, such as charger equipment and power cabling, to be able to charge the wireless communication device as necessary from time to time. Although wireless charging pads may be popular, in part because this type of charger helps reduce the interconnection of power cabling with the wireless communication device, a wireless charging pad may as a practical matter have limited portability, may be comparatively large, and may require access to an AC outlet.
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The present invention relates to a method and apparatus for pumping compressible materials using a twin-cylinder, reciprocating piston pump. More specifically, the present invention relates to a hydraulic system for operating a reciprocating piston pump that includes an accumulator that produces a steady-pressure supply of compressible material to an application nozzle and has a device for compensating for the varying demands of the material being pumped and the job site being worked.
Fire proofing material is one example of a compressible material that is commercially pumped using a twin-cylinder, reciprocating piston pump. In a typical reciprocating piston pump, while one cylinder is drawing material from a holding hopper, the other cylinder is pushing the material out into a delivery line that eventually terminates, at a distribution nozzle. At the distribution nozzle, the material is sprayed with the assistance of a supply of compressed air.
As mentioned above, in twin-cylinder, reciprocating piston pumps, when the two pistons are near the end of their cycle, the pistons switch modes. For example, the first piston goes from the pumping mode to the material drawing mode, while the second piston goes from the material drawing mode to the pumping mode. During this transition, there is a decrease in the delivery line pressure. This decreased line pressure continues until the pumping cylinder reaches its operator-designated speed. The fluctuation in pumping pressure during the transition between the cylinders has the effect of creating a non-continuous flow through the distribution nozzle. This non-continuous flow is referred to as line surge, which is highly undesirable for the nozzle operator. Specifically, line surge can cause muscle fatigue in the nozzle operator and creates a loss of efficiency in the pumping system.
Line surge is amplified in vertical pumping of the compressible material due to the force of gravity. For example, when compressible material is pumped upward, gravity pulls the material back toward the pumping apparatus and away from the distribution nozzle. The amplification of the line surge is proportional to the vertical distance the material is being pumped.
In addition to the effect of gravity, when pumping compressible material, an additional factor affects the line surge. Specifically, the line surge is affected by the springy nature of the material being pumped, since the efforts to push the material through the initial stages of the delivery hose are dampened. The pumping force is dampened because the compressible material has a tendency to push back toward the pumping apparatus if the pressure is not kept constant. Furthermore, the design of the hydraulic system may not be optimized for the material, since the level of compressibility varies with the material being pumped. Currently, numerous types of compressible materials exist in today""s market place.
Currently, material line surges are decreased by adding a pre-charged, gas-assisted accumulator into the hydraulic system for the reciprocating piston pump. When the hydraulic line pressure to the piston pump drops below the pre-charged accumulator pressure, the accumulator""s volume of oil is released into the system to provide a xe2x80x9cturboxe2x80x9d boost to the pump. When the hydraulic line pressure from the source pump ramps up to a pressure above the accumulator pressure, normal pumping resumes and the accumulator bladder is refilled.
Presently, the size and volume of the accumulator are selected such that the accumulator will decrease or eliminate the line surge at a specified set of job site conditions. Typically, the accumulator is selected based upon a worst-case scenario of long-distance vertical pumping, such as the top of a high rise building. Because of this bias toward a single operating condition, the pumping system has a predisposition toward increased line surges when pumping in other conditions different than the preset value.
In order to compensate for the preset site selection of the accumulator volume, pump operators compensate in one of two ways: 1) decrease the volume of material being pumped to less than the machine""s full capacity or 2) run the material through extra lengths of coiled delivery line to simulate the long distance pumping environment. Although these two methods of operation reduce line surge, both of these adjustments increase capital costs, decrease efficiency and increase setup and cleanup times.
Therefore, it is an object of the present invention to provide a method and apparatus for pumping compressible materials that have varying degrees of compressibility, over infinitely-varying horizontal and vertical distances within the expected pumping capabilities of the apparatus. Further, it is an object of the present invention to provide such an apparatus and arrangement that utilizes a minimum number of components, thereby making the system cost-effective to manufacture, maintain and operate. Further, it is an object of the present invention to provide such an apparatus that will eliminate the need for the operator to take extraneous means or methods to control line surge at the distribution nozzle.
The present invention relates to a hydraulic system, including an accumulator, that produces a steady supply of compressible material to a distribution nozzle. Specifically, the present invention relates to a hydraulic system for use with a twin-cylinder, reciprocating piston pump that includes means for constricting the output of an accumulator to adjust for varying demands of the material being pumped and the job site being worked.
The hydraulic system of the present invention includes an accumulator that is positioned in the supply line leading from the hydraulic fluid pump to a control valve that directs the flow of hydraulic fluid to a pair of cylinders of the reciprocating piston pump. The accumulator includes means for constricting the flow of the stored hydraulic fluid from the accumulator to the pair of cylinders through the control valve. Specifically, the accumulator includes a needle valve that allows the operator to constrict the flow of hydraulic fluid from the accumulator based upon the material being pumped and the job site being worked. For example, the output flow of the accumulator can be restricted based upon the distance and height that the material is being pumped, as well as based upon the compressibility of the specific material being pumped.
Various other features, objects and advantages of the invention will be made apparent from the following description taken together with the drawings.
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Synthetic polymer exists as a distribution of chain lengths and a distribution of molecular weight. These distributions are typically characterized as the number average molecular weight (Mn) and the weight average molecular weight (Mw). The Z average molecular weight (Mz) and the Z+1 average molecular weight (Mz+1) are indicators of the high molecular weight (high-MW) portion present in a polymer.
It is known that the high-MW portion can affect the downstream fabrication processes for a given polymer. For example, the high-MW portion in polypropylene is problematic during fiber spinning Fiber spinning requires the polypropylene molecules to disentangle quickly and over a very short distance (from die to draw-down). However, the presence of long molecule chains (i.e., the high-MW portion) in the polypropylene increases the risk of fiber break during spinning Fiber break during spinning is detrimental as it halts fiber production, requires manpower to troubleshoot and remedy, and reduces production efficiency.
The art recognizes the need for propylene-based polymer with a reduced amount of high-MW portion, and particularly for improved fiber and improved fiber production. The reduced high-MW portion is also important for the production of visbroken propylene-based polymer for high speed fiber spinning Even though the peroxide chain scission reduces the M, and narrows the molecular weight distribution, it has been found that that the fiber spinning performance of the visbroken product depends on the absence of high-MW species in the polymer prior to visbreaking.
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This invention relates to liquid or powder laundry detergent compositions. More particularly, it relates to a mildly acidic laundry composition capable of providing improved protection of delicate fabrics during washing and enhanced removal of foam during rinsing in hand wash operation.
Detergent compositions which are specially formulated as fine fabric compositions to refresh the fabric and remove light soils are known in the art. They can be adapted for use over a wide range of pH and are generally formulated using mild nonionic surfactants sometimes in combination with anionic surfactants.
Anionic surfactants are known to generate large amounts of foam primarily upon mechanical agitation of the wash bath during laundering, either by machine or by hand washing. However, large amounts of foam are often considered undesirable in European washing machines where excessive amounts of foam may interfere with the mechanical operation of the machine, such as, by foam overflow and interference with outlet pumping. Reducing the amount of foam in the wash bath has a further benefit. It enables the detergent to be readily rinsed from the laundered fabrics. This is particularly useful for hand wash and hand rinse operations where the repetitive steps of rinsing washed fabrics with rinse water to effect the complete removal of detergent can be time-consuming and often tedious.
It has now been recognized that for purposes of protecting fine fabrics from fiber damage resulting from agitation in the wash bath, the presence of foam or suds may have a beneficial effect insofar as it creates a type of air cushion which surrounds the fabric and protects it from undue friction during laundering. For sensitive and delicate fabrics such as wool and silk, such fiber protection is particularly important. However, the elimination of a foam control agent from a fine fabric detergent composition, while useful for fabric protection in the wash bath, adversely affects the problem of foam removal during rinsing. Consequently, there is a need in the art for a detergent composition for fine fabrics which contains a foam control agent which is selective for rinsing but which is inoperative during laundering.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,894,177 describes a delayed release antifoaming laundry additive wherein a silicone based antifoaming agent such as polydimethyl siloxane is adsorbed on a water soluble carrier in granular form such as modified cellulose. The absence of a foam suppresser significantly increases the number of rinses required to provide a washed fabric rinsed free of detergent. It is theorized that under actual laundering conditions, the antifoam agent will be released toward the end of the wash cycle, providing antifoam activity in the rinse water.
In U.S. Pat. No. 4,637,890 suds control prills are described containing fatty acid soap, quaternary ammonium salt and a silicone suds suppresser. According to the patent, the prills dissolve in the relatively high pH wash water (from about 9 to about 10.5) but the antifoam components do not become active until exposed to lower pH solutions, namely the water of the rinse cycle.
EP 544 944 Al describes rinse-active foam control particles for inclusion in a detergent composition consisting essentially of a soap of fatty acids. The particles of soap are intended to be present in both the wash cycle and the rinse cycle, and a silicone suds suppresser is recommended for use in the wash cycle in conjunction with the soap particles under described washing conditions.
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1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to pipelined information processing and, more particularly, to a system and method for a flexible number of lookups in pipeline-based packet processors.
2. Introduction
Increasing demands are being placed upon the data communications infrastructure. These increasing demands are driven by various factors, including the increasing bandwidth requirements of Internet multimedia applications (e.g., distribution of news, financial data, software, video, audio and multi-person conferencing, etc). To accommodate the increasing bandwidth requirements, communication link speeds have also continued to evolve. For example, 10 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) ports are commonly used for I/O on many of today's network switches.
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1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to regulatory control systems and safety shutdown systems and methods for monitoring and controlling field devices used with commercial and industrial processes, and in particular to systems and methods for improved coordination between control and safety systems.
2. Description of Related Art
In designing automated process control systems for commercial and industrial processes such as chemical plants, petrochemical facilities, manufacturing factories, and the like, the conventional practice is to maintain redundant topologies, with a safety shutdown system that is independent from the plant's regulatory control system. This practice is rooted in the belief that keeping two completely separate systems reduces the risk of a single failure disabling all automated process controls. In addition, this isolation is often required by applicable standards.
As used herein, the term “field devices” includes sensors and final control elements. Final control elements include pumps, valves, valve actuators and the like. Sensors include switches and transmitters for monitoring a wide variety of variables, including, but not limited to, valve position, torque, level, temperature, pressure, flow rate, power consumption, and pH. Other terminology that is well known to those of ordinary skill in the art of process instrumentation is also used herein.
As used herein, “commercial and industrial processing facilities” include chemical plants, petrochemical facilities, manufacturing factories, or any facility that uses separate safety system field devices and process control field devices.
Thus, a typical facility of the prior art, as shown in FIG. 1, has a safety system 30 (also known as a “safety shutdown system,” “emergency shutdown system”, “ESD,” “ESS,” “safety instrumented system,” or “SIS”) and a process control system 40 (also known as a “regulatory control system”). The safety system 30 includes an independent computer 32 (also known as a “safety logic solver” or “SLS”) in communication with field devices in a plurality of groups 251, 252, 253 . . . 25M (also known as “safety instrumented functions” or “SIFs”) associated with subprocesses operating in the facility. Computer 32 includes a processor, memory and associated computer hardware and software to monitor and control one or more plant subprocesses and to implement the SIFs. The safety system 30 also includes for each of the groups 251, 252, 253 . . . 25M one or more safety system sensors 36 (e.g., heat sensors “HS” and pressure sensors “PS”) and one or more safety system final control elements 38.
The process control system 40 includes a computer 42 (also known as a “distributed control system” or “DCS,” or a “basic process control system” or “BPCS”) in communication with field devices in a plurality of groups 241, 242, 243 . . . 24M associated with subprocesses operating in the facility which correlate with the subprocesses having field devices in groups 251, 252, 253 . . . 25M of the safety system 30. Computer 42 includes a processor, memory and associated computer hardware and software to monitor and control one or more plant subprocesses and to implement the process control functions. The process control system 40 also includes, for each of the groups 241, 242, 243 . . . 24M, one or more process control system sensors 46 (e.g., heat sensors “HS” and pressure sensors “PS”), and one or more process control system final control elements 48. The operating procedures and access passwords are different for the two systems 30 and 40, thereby strengthening separation between them and restricting access to properly trained and authorized personnel.
Conventional design provides for an exchange of information between the central processors of the respective systems, viz, between the safety system computer 32 and the process control system computer 42. For instance, U.S. Pat. No. 6,975,966 and related U.K. Patent Publication GB2445636, assigned to Fisher-Rosemount Systems, Inc. describe a software module that provides a user interface to view various parameters from both a process control system controller and a safety system controller within a plant, with indicators to distinguish whether a signal is from the process control system controller or the safety system controller. Certain alarms can be acted upon from that user interface using the individual functionalities of the discrete process control system controller and a safety system controller.
However, the Fisher-Rosemount system does not contemplate the automatic use of the complementary sensors or final control elements within a safety instrumented function (“SIF”) or regulatory control loop when a device is taken out of service or disabled due to an internal fault. That is, no communications capability exists for the 32 SLS to communicate directly with regulatory control devices 46, 48 at the field level, or for a DCS 42 to communicate directly with field devices 36, 38 of the safety shutdown system 30. Rather, redundancy in a safety shutdown system is achieved in prior art systems by installing multiple sensors to measure a particular process parameter, e.g., flow, pressure, level, or temperature, and installing multiple final control elements to isolate the same process line. Redundancy in a regulatory control system is achieved in the same manner. Each of the redundant set of sensors and final control elements communicates independently to the central processor of its respective system, and in the Fisher-Rosemount systems, the separate communications can be viewed and acted upon from the common user interface; however, no coordination exists between the safety system and the control system.
A common prior art approach uses majority logic decision-making processes when a sensor fails within a safety instrumented function. In a majority logic process, a decision is made as to whether a device should trip or remain steady if a predetermined number of devices fail or provide readings outside of the desired range. For instance, a safety instrumented function utilizing three sensors with an emergency shutdown system can be set at “two out of three” logic, so that if two devices fail or read outside of the desired range, the associated device trips. Other levels of decision logic are commonly used, e.g., “one out of one,” “one out of two,” “one out of three,” “one out of four,” “two out of two,” “two out of three,” “two out of four,” “three out of three,” or the like. The selection of the level of decision logic depends on the criticality of the system, reliability requirements, and the associated risks. Accordingly, for example, in a “two out of three” decision logic structure, if two out of the three sensors provide a reading that shows that the process is out of range, then the safety instrumented function will initiate a command to trip, i.e., shutdown. Such decision logic based on the remaining sensors will either impact the reliability of the plant or result in unnecessary trips for the plant.
Another common prior art approach in the implementation of safety systems includes use of redundant final elements, such as emergency shutdown valves, to perform a shutdown for a plant or part of a plant. If one or more of the valves within a safety instrumented function are at fault, then the safety instrumented function and safety logic solver can elect to shutdown the associated system with that safety instrumented function through the remaining healthy valves as a precautionary measure.
A further problem in conventional commercial and industrial processes relates to the routine maintenance of the independent systems. Self-diagnostics has previously been limited to collecting information from the physical device as symptoms of a potential problem. Conventional approaches rely on a human and an external software package to diagnose the extent of the problem and to decide whether a device should be removed from service. Equipment maintenance and tracking systems, such as software systems commercially available from SAP AG of Walldorf, Germany, generates work orders for functional testing at predetermined intervals so that every field device is periodically tested. In many cases, the end testing is very time-consuming, requiring manually performed maintenance checks to detect device failures and to alert operations personnel of the disabled state of a device. Furthermore, large-scale plants can have over 10,000 safety-related data points. Accordingly, conventional diagnostic and maintenance methods require substantial human presence in the field or plant environment to perform these routine functional checks and calibrations, thereby increasing the exposure of the human operators to a hazardous environment. This also increases the potential for human error that could damage field devices, leaving them unable to perform their intended function. Manual functional testing may only be performed quarterly, semiannually, or annually, resulting in outages that can remain undetected for upwards of several months.
Furthermore, the equipment maintenance and tracking systems of the prior art are typically managed independently from other systems such as the safety system 30 and the process control system 40. Accordingly, if an operation other than the work order-prescribed functional testing requires a field device to be tested, repaired or replaced, this information is not considered in the conventional equipment maintenance and tracking systems.
Therefore, a need exists for improved efficiencies in commercial and industrial processes, while still maintaining excellent reliability and separation of functionality including process control systems and safety systems.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to maintain redundant topologies between a safety system and a process control system, while providing a system, apparatus and methods for increased and improved coordination between an emergency shutdown system and a process control system in the event of failure of one or more related field devices.
It is another object of the present invention to incorporate enhanced diagnostics capabilities into such systems.
It is further object of the present invention to provide means to achieve efficiencies in the management of what is often a vast number of field devices in a typical commercial and industrial processing facilities.
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In recent years, devices which determine the distance and size of objects in front of a vehicle, and which appropriately control the vehicle in accordance with this judgment, have been proposed for the purpose of improving the safety of vehicle operation.
Japanese Patent Application Kokai No. Hei 9-79821 describes one example of a device in which an optical distance measuring device consisting of two light-receiving elements is used to determine whether an object whose distance has been detected is a physical object or a road area (including characters or white lines on the road surface). The device calculates differences for respective calculation areas, and recognizes areas in which obstructions are present by clustering calculation areas whose mutual distances are within a fixed range and are proximate to each other in the horizontal direction. In the case of this clustering, calculation areas whose distances have not yet been measured are also clustered.
However, when clustering (that corresponds to the abovementioned block formation) is performed with larger number of windows (that corresponds to the abovementioned calculation areas) so that measured distance values can be obtained with a greater degree of fineness, an extremely large amount of time is required for determining whether or not distances are within a specified range according to the scheme as described in Patent Application Kokai No. Hei 9-79821.
Conventionally, furthermore, when the distance ranges are determined beforehand and windows are clustered within these distance ranges, it was necessary to first determine the distance range in which clustering is to be performed based on such factors as a frequency distribution of the distances. Furthermore, when clustering is performed, it was necessary to determine which distance ranges the distance values calculated for the windows belong to and to determine whether or not respective distance ranges are equal to each other. Such process requires a large amount of time.
Furthermore, when the distance ranges in which clustering is performed are fixed as in the device described in Japanese Patent Application Kokai No. Hei 9-79821, precision of the distance value drops as the distance becomes larger. Generally, the calculation of a distance “d” is expressed by the formula “d=C/s (C is a constant)”, where “s” is a parallax. While the parallax resolution is constant, the distance resolution drops as the distance becomes larger. As a result, when a physical object is imaged over a plurality of windows, larger error is generated in distance values for respective windows as the distance becomes larger.
For example, referring to FIG. 14(a), according to the prior art, clustering is performed with a fixed distance range as shown by a pair of arrows. In an area closer to the vehicle, a window with a distance value 101 and a window with a distance value 102, which fall within the fixed distance range, are clustered together. In contrast, a window with a distance value 103 and a window with a distance value 104 are clustered into different clusters in an area further from the vehicle even if the two windows belong to a same object. This is so because they are not within the fixed distance range.
Conversely, when the distance range is set to a larger value so that two windows belonging to the same physical object are clustered into the same cluster in an area further from the vehicle as shown in FIG. 14(b), the window with a distance value 103 and the window with a distance value 104 may be clustered into a same cluster. However, in an area closer to the vehicle, not only the windows with distance values of 101 and 102, but also the window with a distance value 105 that belongs to a different physical object, are clustered into a same cluster. Thus, if clustering is performed with a fixed distance range, instances arise in which a physical object cannot be formed into a same cluster, and in which different physical objects are included in a same cluster.
Accordingly, one object of the present invention is to provide a system, which makes it possible to recognize objects by clustering windows at a high speed. This is accomplished by performing clustering based on labels corresponding to distance values calculated for the windows. Furthermore, another object of the present invention is to provide an object recognition system, which makes it possible to recognize physical objects by the accurate clustering of windows. This is accomplished by setting distance ranges in accordance with tolerances in measured distances.
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1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a wiring structure in a motorcycle, which is designed so that an electric current is supplied through a conductor to an electric part supported in a handlebar cover for covering a handlebar in the motorcycle.
2. Description of the Related Art
Such a wiring structure in the motorcycle is known, for example, from Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No.60-244680. In the above known structure, a switch is mounted in the handlebar cover for covering the handlebar of the motorcycle and wired to another electric part by use of a wire harness.
However, the above known structure suffers from a problem that the number of parts is increased for performing the wiring using the wire harness, but also the number of working steps is increased because of a troublesome operation for attaching and detaching connectors at opposite ends of the wire harness during assembling.
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Scouring pads for the cleaning of pots and pans have been in use for a number of years. Scouring pads are used to bring a scouring surface of desired roughness and/or abrasiveness into contact with the soiled surface of a pot or pan. The body of the scouring pad is easily deformable to permit the surface of the pad to conform to the surface of the pot or pan being cleaned and is also of porous construction to provide a water-holding capacity so that water or soap solution is continuously supplied to the cleaning surface.
The surface of a scouring pad is desirably of sufficient roughness or unevenness and of sufficient toughness to facilitate the removal of large, loosely held food deposits from the surface of the pot or pan. The surface should also have sufficient abrasiveness to facilitate the removal of hard, low volume deposits which adhere strongly to the inner surfaces of pots or pans having metallic or vitreous surfaces. Pots or pans having non-sticking surfaces of Teflon or of some other non-wettable resin cannot be scoured with an abrasive surface without damage to the surfaces and have no need for scouring with an abrasive surface because the food deposits thereon are not strongly adherent.
In general, the scouring pads available have been designed either with an abrasive surface for the treatment of pots and pans having metallic or vitreous surfaces, or with a roughened non-abrasive surface for the treatment of pots and pans having resinous non-sticking surfaces.
One early form of pot cleaning pad which is still in use is a pad made of steel wool fibers. Steel wool fibers provide abrasiveness suitable for metallic and vitreous pots and pans and have suitable water-holding capacity and conformability. Steel wool pads do not have surfaces of sufficient roughness for the effective cleaning of bulky food deposits. In addition, they cannot be used on Teflon-coated pots and pans and are also subject to rusting which shortens their effective life.
To provide desirable roughness to steel wool, scouring pad structures are utilized which are made in accordance with Winston U.S. Pat. No. 3,182,346 and which have a corrugated metallic wool layer adhered to a flexible foam layer. Such pads cannot be used safely on resinous non-sticking surfaces, such as Teflon-coated pots and pans because the metallic wool surface is too abrasive and the flexible foam surface is too soft and smooth.
Scouring pads have also been made in accordance with Politzer U.S. Pat. No. 3,080,688 and having a lofty, open, non-woven fibrous web bonded to a cellulose sponge layer. The non-woven fibrous layer preferably has abrasive particles adhered to its fibers in the manner described in Hoover U.S. Pat. No. 2,958,593.
Such pads are disclosed as being made by bringing together a non-woven fibrous web and a layer of sponge-forming mass so that some of the fibers of the web become embedded in the sponge as it solidifies. Such penetration of fibers into the sponge, however, is relatively shallow penetration which, while it provides good adhesion between the two layers, does not provide protection against the delamination of the sponge layer at a depth beyond the penetration of the web fibers. In addition, the method described requires that the pads be fabricated only by those who have facilities for the in situ production of foam.
Other scouring pads have been made by adhering a lofty, open, non-woven fibrous web containing abrasive particles to a cellulose sponge layer, or a flexible polyurethane sponge layer by a layer of adhesive. Such pads cannot be used on Teflon-coated pots and pans and are also subject to possible separation in use by reason of an improperly cured adhesive layer, or by reason of delamination of the sponge, itself.
Some scouring pads have been designed specifically for use on Teflon-coated pots and pans, utilizing scouring surfaces which contain no abrasive particles. One type of pad for this purpose is an open non-woven web of coarse nylon monofilament which has the desired rough surface and the desired toughness, but very little water-holding capacity. Other pads for Teflon-coated pots and pans utilize a coarse, open woven or non-woven web of nylon or other tough fiber either wrapped around, or adhered to a cellulose or flexible polyurethane foam. Such pads have adequate water-holding capacity but, because of the lack of abrasive particles, are of limited effectiveness in the removal of hard, adherent, soil from metallic or vitreous pots and pans.
One scouring pad designed to be used on different types of surfaces is the pad disclosed in Klein U.S. Pat. No. 3,175,331. The Klein pad comprises two non-woven fibrous batts having resin-coated fibers, the batts being heat-sealed to each other at their edges and a bar of soap in the sealed space between the batts. One batt may, if desired, have abrasive particles while the other batt is free of such particles to make the pad suitable for use on surfaces of different types. This pad is limited in conformability and in water-holding capacity and is subject to the possibility of coming apart at the edges in rough use.
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1. Field
Embodiments relate to a semiconductor memory device including a cylinder-type capacitor lower electrode and associated methods.
2. Description of the Related Art
In semiconductor memory devices including a cylinder-type capacitor lower electrode, e.g., dynamic random access memories (DRAMs), a design rule may be reduced. Thus, a height of the capacitor lower electrode may gradually increase in order to secure a sufficient cell capacitance within the limited area of the semiconductor memory device. Accordingly, it may be advantageous to provide semiconductor memory devices having a structure that may efficiently prevent undesirable leaning of the capacitor lower electrode.
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Considerable interest is presently attached to multi-level memories due to a demand for ever larger capacity of the storage devices. In a recent article, "A Multilevel-Cell 32 Mb Flash Memory", ISSCC95. Session 7, Paper TA 7.7, February 1995, a FLASH storage device of the multi-level type is concisely presented which can store two binary information units, or bits, per memory element, or cell. In particular, the following items are illustrated therein: the distribution of the cell threshold voltage for levels corresponding to the four possible states/values of the two bits in FIG. 1, the reading circuit diagram in FIG. 2, and the architecture of the writing circuit in FIG. 4 of the article.
It can be appreciated, from the distribution presented therein, that both the writing/reading processes and the physical structure of the cell are quite critical, much more so than with two-level memories, especially when the supply voltage is decreased to, e.g., 3.3 volts. The criticality becomes still greater as the number of the levels is raised to more than four. The outcome of this criticality is an increased error rate.
A like increase in criticality is also to be expected when the electrical parameter, whereby the cell storage state is discriminated, instead of being the threshold voltage of a floating gate MOS transistor, is a charge stored in a capacitor, as is the case with DRAM memories. This is so because it would then be necessary to compare the value of an electrical parameter with a multiplicity of reference values lying in close proximity to one another.
A known expedient in the field of two-level memories for lowering the error rate is that of using error detecting and/or correcting words, and having them stored additionally to the information words. This results in a not negligible portion of the die area being "wasted" to that object.
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1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a pressure regulating valve, and, more particularly, to a pressure regulating valve in a hydraulic control system for an automatic transmission which raises output pressure responsive to output pressure leakage.
2. Related Art
In a prior art pressure regulating valve for an automatic transmission hydraulic control system, as shown in FIG. 20, a spool S is controlled to control an output pressure by taking a balance among a spring force of spring means B, a feedback force resulting from an output pressure, and an electromagnetic attraction established in response to an electric signal input to an electromagnetic unit R. The controlled output pressure is fed to a change-over valve and a regulator valve to control the application/release of a clutch or a brake.
The leakage of oil from the clearances between the spools and valve bodies of a change-over valve and a regulator valve, for example, is increased as a result of thermal expansion and other changes in the pressure medium (or oil). As a result, the output pressure of the linear solenoid is lowered, and shift shock is created at the time of applying/releasing the clutch or brake.
As a method of raising the output pressure of the regulator valve, therefore, it is conceivable to increase the valve diameter and accordingly the displacement. This concept raises a problem in that the space for mounting the regulator valve has to be enlarged. Another approach would be to reduce the size of, or omit, each valve to which the output pressure is applied from the regulator valve, or to lower the control pressure for the clutch or brake. However, either concept is technically or practically difficult to execute.
There is, therefore, a need in the art for a compact, simple and cost-effective design for a pressure regulating valve for automatic transmission hydraulic control systems which automatically increases output pressure in response to leakage.
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1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a mobile terminal, and more particularly, to a mobile terminal and method of controlling a mode switching therein. Although the present invention is suitable for a wide scope of applications, it is particularly suitable for the mobile terminal to implement a plurality of modes of the mobile terminal.
2. Discussion of the Related Art
Generally, terminals can be classified into mobile/portable terminals and stationary terminals. The mobile terminals can be classified into handheld terminals and vehicle mount terminals again according to possibility of user's direct portability.
As functions of the terminal are diversified, the terminal is implemented as a multimedia player provided with composite functions such as photographing of photos or moving pictures, playback of music or moving picture files, game play, broadcast reception and the like for example.
To support and increase of the terminal functions, it may be able to consider the improvement of structural part and/or software part of the terminal.
Recently, a mobile terminal tends to be used for a business need as well as a personal need. In addition, it is necessary to implement the mobile terminal suitable for both of the personal need and the business need. Moreover, the demand for using the mobile terminal for the purpose of the personal need or the business need separately keeps rising.
However, a mobile terminal according to a related art fails in providing an environment in which the mobile terminal can be separately used for the purpose of the personal need or the business need.
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1. Technical Field
This device relates to tamper evident closures for use on containers. This improvement relates to resealable push pull type closures that provide resealable access to the contents of a bottle with a tamper evident indication of removal of the closure.
2. Description of Prior Art
Prior art devices of this type are related to tamper evident closures, see for example U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,948,003, 5,104,008, 4,500,016, 4,561,553, 4,589,561, 4,779,764, 4,801,032, and 4,805,807.
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Having a computer (e.g. a laptop PC or similar electronic device) stolen or become lost is an all too common occurrence. Unfortunately, a lost or stolen computer can cause many problems aside from losing the machine itself. Valuable data and information may come into the wrong hands. Therefore, conventional arrangements for protecting computers and like devices have been established.
Conventional solutions require that the computer be turned on/powered up, connected to the internet, signed up with a third party, and/or have third party software running. For Example, some conventional services provide monitoring of PC's for a fee. If a user signs up for such a service (e.g. ABSOLUTE SOFTWARE CORP. is a company that has such products, e.g. Computrace®), a user can pay a fee and call up and report that the computer is stolen. Wireless or hardwired, the computer makes an Internet connection and updates it status with the service provider. If a customer reports that the computer is stolen, then software will disable the computer and attempt to find it. However, such services require that the PC at least remain powered on (and connect to the Internet) for the third party service to be effective. It will often be the case, however, that the computer will be powered off and/or without an Internet connection.
Therefore, a need has arisen for an arrangement capable of locking or disabling a computer or similar electronic device in a simple manner that remains effective even if the machine is powered off or unable to acquire an Internet connection.
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The present invention relates to the transport of fluid, such as fuel, over a pipeline and more particularly, to a system and process for delivering contract capacity from two sources along a pipeline to a single end user or target delivery site without violation of prohibitions against forwardhaul-backhaul overlaps at a delivery point and without overlapping main line capacity. Thus, the present invention relates to a new and unique, multi-source, end-user specific, segmentation system and process.
According to current fuel supply protocols, for example for the supply of natural gas, a shipper will contract with a natural gas pipeline transmission company to ship a particular natural gas pipeline capacity on an intra or interstate natural gas pipeline transmission system. More specifically, the shipper/supply company will contract to supply a certain capacity over one or more zones of the pipeline system. That capacity can be segmented into non-overlapping segments along the system so that the contract capacity can be delivered to each of several discreet delivery points. It is generally considered to be outside the contract, however, to overlap delivery to an end user such that contract capacity is exceeded at any point along the pipeline. It is also in general considered outside the contract to deliver contract capacity from two sources, forwardhaul and backhaul, along a pipeline system to a single delivery point.
An exemplary gas pipeline system is illustrated in FIG. 1. As noted above, a shipper will buy a certain capacity from one or more designated zones of a gas pipeline system. The shipper can then deliver the contract capacity to customer(s) along the pipeline in and through those zones. With reference to the exemplary system illustrated in FIG. 1, assuming a customer is located at site X, assuming that the shipper has a source of fuel located at A and a second source of fuel located at B, and assuming that the shipper has bought a certain capacity along the pipeline from A to B, the shipper can transport the contract capacity along the pipeline from A to X or can transport the contract capacity along the pipeline from B to X. As a further alternative, the shipper can transport the contract capacity from source A to customer X and can also transport the contract capacity from source B to customer Y. As long as the shipper ships no more than the contract capacity along any segment of the pipeline system to a delivery point, the shipper will be considered by the pipeline transmission company to be operating consistent with the capacity contract. In this regard, a delivery point along an interstate or intrastate transmission system is a flow meter that is electronically monitored to determine flow at that point. In general a pipeline transmission company would consider it outside the contract, however, to deliver contract capacity from source A to customer X and from source A to customer Y concurrently because this would overlap mainline capacity. The pipeline transmission company would also consider it outside the capacity contract to deliver contract capacity from each of source A and source B to a delivery point at customer X.
It would be desirable to deliver contract capacity from two sources along a pipeline to a single end user or target delivery site. In such a case, the contract capacity with the transmission company could be one half the requirement of the customer.
The present invention provides a system and method for supplying a predetermined amount of fluid, such as fuel and more specifically natural gas, to a target delivery site along at least two pipeline segments wherein a predetermined number of flow meters corresponding to a total of the at least two pipeline segments are provided to meter flow to the site, the predetermined number of flow meters being disposed in parallel for flowing a respective portion of the total flow to the site.
In one embodiment the flow from the at least two pipeline segments is combined upstream of the at least two flow meters and the combined flow is then split into a number of pathways corresponding to the number of flow meters and flowed through the respective flow meters for determining the capacity flow.
In another embodiment, each flow meter is associated with a respective pipeline segment. The outflows from each of the flow meters are then combined for delivery to the site.
As noted above, in the presently preferred embodiment, the fluid flowing through the respective pipeline segments is a fuel and more particularly natural gas. Thus, the fluid flowing through each of the pipeline segments is the same.
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FIG. 14 is an illustration of a fixed type constant velocity universal joint. The fixed type constant velocity universal joint is of an undercut-free type, and includes an outer joint member 3 including a cup section 10 having a plurality of track grooves 2 formed in a radially inner surface 1 thereof, an inner joint member 6 having a plurality of track grooves 5 formed in a radially outer surface 4 thereof and paired with the track grooves 2 of the outer joint member 3, a plurality of balls 7, which are interposed between the track grooves 2 of the outer joint member 3 and the track grooves 5 of the inner joint member 6, and are configured to transmit torque therebetween, and a cage 8, which is interposed between the radially inner surface 1 of the outer joint member 3 and the radially outer surface 4 of the inner joint member 6, and is configured to retain the balls 7. In the cage 8, a plurality of window portions 9 configured to accommodate the balls 7 therein are formed along a circumferential direction.
In the fixed type constant velocity universal joint, a groove bottom of each of the track grooves 2 of the outer joint member 3 includes a straight portion 2a (linear portion parallel to an axial direction of the outer joint member) on an opening side, and a circular-arc portion 2b on a deep side. A groove bottom of each of the track grooves 5 of the inner joint member 6 includes a circular-arc portion 5a on an opening portion side, and a straight portion 5b (linear portion parallel to an axial direction of the inner joint member 6) on the deep side. In this case, a center O1 of the track grooves 2 of the outer joint member 3 and a center O2 of the track grooves 5 of the inner joint member 6 are axially offset to opposite sides with respect to a joint center O by equal distances f and f.
In general, the outer joint member of the constant velocity universal joint is manufactured by the method as follows. First, a columnar billet is formed by hot forging, warm forging, or cold forging into a schematic shape of the outer joint member, and then subjected to a turning process into an arbitrary shape. After that, the processed product is subjected to heat treatment, and the inner spherical surface and the track grooves are subjected to a finishing process such as grinding and quenched-steel cutting.
The finishing process performed on the track grooves after forging, turning, and heat treatment as described above involves increase in cost of equipment and tools required for the finishing process on the track grooves. Moreover, time periods are required for the finishing process, thereby causing inconvenience that a material yield is lowered. Accordingly, in the related-art methods, the track grooves of the outer joint member are formed by cold-forging finishing (Patent Literature 1 and Patent Literature 2). Further, for example, the track grooves, radially inner spherical surface portions, a cup-inlet chamfer, track chamfers, and track-inlet chamfers of the outer joint member may be finished by cold forging (Patent Literature 3).
The track grooves of the outer joint member are formed by cold-forging finishing, thereby being capable of omitting various types of machining such as cutting work and grinding that are performed after cold forging in the related art. As a result, the yield is increased, thereby being capable of reducing cost of the constant velocity universal joint.
Incidentally, for the cost reduction, a weight of a product may be reduced by downsizing the constant velocity universal joint. However, when assembling components (particularly when incorporating the cage into the outer joint member), the cage has been incorporated under a condition that an inlet diameter of the cup section of the outer joint member is set larger than an outermost diameter of a hole portion of a cage window.
For the downsizing of the constant velocity universal joint, it is also necessary to downsize interior components (such as the inner joint member, the cage, and the balls) arranged inside the cup section of the outer joint member. However, it is necessary to keep torque bearing capacity.
Inside the constant velocity universal joint, load is transmitted in the order of the inner joint member, the balls, and the outer joint member, and in the order of the outer joint member, the balls, and the inner joint member. However, when a ball pitch circle diameter (PCD) of the constant velocity universal joint is reduced along with downsizing thereof, the load on the inner joint member, the outer joint member, and the balls is increased as compared to that on the related-art product. Accordingly, the constant velocity universal joint is designed, for example, in such a manner that a ball diameter is increased in order to disperse the load, thereby equalizing a contact surface pressure between the balls and the inner joint member or the outer joint member to that on the related-art product. Further, the same consideration is also given to a shape of the cage configured to accommodate the balls therein.
However, even when the shape is optimized by the design, depending on the ball diameter, the ball PCD, and the cage shape, as illustrated in FIG. 15 to FIG. 17, the cage 8 or the like may not be easily incorporated into the outer joint member 3.
That is, when the cage 8 is incorporated into the outer joint member 3, first, as illustrated in FIG. 16 and FIG. 17, the cage 8 is inserted into the radially inner surface 1 of the outer joint member 3 under a state in which the cage 8 is turned by 90° about a Y axis. Then, after the cage 8 is pushed into a bottom portion of the cup section 10 of the outer joint member 3, the cage 8 is turned by 90° about the Y axis, to thereby be arranged in a normal posture. Here, the Y axis refers to an axis orthogonal to an X axis corresponding to a center axis of the outer joint member 3.
However, when the cage 8 is inserted into the outer joint member 3 as illustrated in FIG. 16 and FIG. 17, an edge 12 (see FIG. 15) of a cage axial end portion (side surface portion) of each pocket (window portion) of the cage 8 may interfere with a radially inner opening portion (track chamfer) 13 of each of the track grooves 2 as illustrated in FIG. 17.
In the related art, a chamfered portion is formed at a boundary portion between a radially inner spherical surface portion of the outer joint member and a radially inner surface of a mouth opening portion. In this manner, incorporation of the cage into the outer joint member is facilitated (Patent Literature 4). In this case, the chamfered portion prevents a burr and the like from being generated on the boundary portion, thereby preventing the boundary portion from being formed into an angular shape. Further, in order to increase workability of incorporation of the balls, a cut portion has been formed in an end portion of each of the track grooves that are open to an inlet tapered portion of the cup section (Patent Literature 5 and Patent Literature 6).
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Providing virtual items in a game is known. Many online games, and app-based games are free-to-play games which provide users the opportunity to enhance the game by purchasing one or more virtual items which are usable in the online game. Oftentimes a player of the online game will be provided the opportunity to purchase virtual currency in exchange for real world currency. Players may then exchange the real world currency for virtual items within the online game.
It is also known to have one or more conditions set on the availability of the virtual items purchasable in an online game. For example, a player may have to have reached a particular level within the game before being allowed to purchase certain virtual items.
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It is known to make paneling and the like by applying a decorative veneer foil to one or both sides of a board formed of inexpensive plywood, chipboard, or the like. The finished product has considerable physical strength and the attractive appearance of the veneer foils that it carries on its outer face or faces. Although it was originally the practice to manually assemble the sandwich that was later pressed into the finished product, in modern times the process has been largely automated.
In a standard such machine, such as described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,415,707 and its equivalent, German patent publication No. 1,703,981 filed Aug. 8, 1968 by D. Barnes, the system basically comprises upper and lower conveyors that vertically flank a central conveyor. The central conveyor feeds a board to an assembly location, and the upper and lower conveyors feed the foils also to this location so that the board becomes sandwiched between them at the assembly location. This arrangement is extremely complex and requires a great deal of sensitive process-monitoring equipment in order to form a sandwich with a central board and a pair of foils neatly flanking it. In fact the apparatus must normally be stretched out over a considerable horizontal length in the plant, so that the various equipment can ensure that the various parts of the sandwich are properly positioned before they arrive at the assembly location.
As such an arrangement is normally used with a heated press having a relatively fast cycling time, it is necessary that the system be able to produce the sandwiches ready for pressing at a rate at least equal to the cycling time of the press.
Devices are also known, as for example in U.S. Pat. No. 3,599,968 of Billett and West, to form a stack of foils, however such arrangements are not suitable for the manufacture of fine paneling and are also extremely bulky and complex.
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1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an interconnect for semiconductor devices.
2. Description of the Related Art
The trend to achieve higher packaging density and smaller chip size with increased circuit complexity requires the use of minute holes to connect circuit elements. This has necessitated the development of a new technology for embedding a material in the minute hole for interconnection. One way of achieving this object is by high-temperature sputtering of aluminum or aluminum alloy (both collectively referred to as aluminum hereinafter). This sputtering is designed to form an aluminum film while heating the semiconductor substrate at a temperature close to the melting point of aluminum, thereby keeping aluminum fluid. The molten aluminum flows into the hole for interconnection, forming a film with a smooth surface. This method offers the advantage of forming the interconnect film and embedded plug simultaneously and making use of the fact that aluminum has a low resistance. (According to the conventional method, the interconnect is formed after the tungsten plug has been formed by the selective growth of tungsten.)
Unfortunately, the above-mentioned high-temperature sputtering is not necessarily satisfactory, because it gives rise to an underlying film (2) which does not orient exactly perpendicular to the surface (1a) of the substrate (1), as shown in FIG. 1. (The direction of orientation is indicated by arrows.) Since the underlying film (2) affects the growth of the aluminum film (3) to be formed thereon, the direction of orientation of the aluminum film (3) is not perpendicular to the surface (1a) of the substrate (1). This leads to the undesirable surface morphology of the aluminum film (3). In other words, the aluminum film (3) has an irregular surface. (Hatching to signify a section is omitted from FIG. 1 for legibility.) When the aluminum film on the substrate (11) is used as an interconnect (12), the irregular surface remains on the interconnect (12), as shown in FIG. 2. This irregular surface reproduces another irregular surface on a first interlayer insulating film (13) covering the interconnect (12). The second irregular surface presents difficulties in forming on the film (13) a second layer for the interconnect (14). A second interlayer insulating film (15) covering the interconnect (14) has a more irregular surface than the first one (13). The larger the number of layers placed on top of another, the more it is difficult to form the interconnect.
The irregular surface also poses a problem in the photolithography process as illustrated in FIG. 3. There are shown a substrate (21), an aluminum film (22) having an irregular surface, and a photoresist film (23). The exposing radiation (31) penetrating the photoresist film (23) is irregularly reflected by the irregular surface of the aluminum film (22). The irregular reflection brings about halation in the cross-hatched regions. After development, halation gives rise to a greatly thinned resist pattern (not shown). (Hatching to signify the section of the photoresist film (23) is omitted from FIG. 3.)
The irregular surface poses another problem, as shown in FIG. 4. An aluminum film formed on a metal (41) has an irregular surface and hence the interconnect (42) fabricated from it fluctuates in thickness. Thus, current flowing through the interconnect (42) fluctuates, generating heat at a thin part (42a) where the current density is high. The increased current density accelerates the electromigration and eventually breaks the interconnect.
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Congenital heart disease (CHD) is relatively common, occurring in 5 to 10 of every 1,000 live births. Early diagnosis and treatment has improved outcomes in this population, but still a number of infants with CHD are sent home undiagnosed. Up to 30% of deaths due to CHD in the first year of life are due to such unrecognized cases. Several forms of CHD are the result of a patent ductus arteriosus (PDA).
FIG. 1 illustrates a fetal heart 102 and a portion of a fetal lung 104. Prior to birth, the lung 104 is non-functional and fluid-filled. Instead, oxygenated blood is supplied to the fetus from gas-exchange in the placenta with the mother's blood supply. Specifically, oxygenated blood flows from the placenta, through the umbilical vein 106 and into the right atrium 122. There, it flows via the foramen 124 into the left atrium 152, where it is pumped into the left ventricle 150 and then into the aortic trunk 190. Also, oxygenated blood is pumped from the right atrium 122 into the right ventricle 120 and directly into the descending aorta 140 via the main pulmonary artery 180 and the ductus arteriosus 130. The purpose of the ductus arteriosus 130 is to shunt blood pumped by the right ventricle 120 past the constricted pulmonary circulation 110 and into the aorta 140. Normally, the ductus arteriosus 130 is only patent (open) during fetal life and the first 12 to 24 hours of life in term infants. If the ductus arteriosus remains patent, however, it can contribute to duct-dependent congenital heart diseases, such as those described below.
Patent Ductus Arteriosus
FIG. 2 illustrates a neonatal heart 202 with a patent ductus arteriosus 230. The ductus arteriosus frequently fails to close in premature infants, allowing left-to-right shunting, where oxygenated “red” blood flows from the aorta 240 to the now unconstricted pulmonary artery 210 and recirculates through the lungs 204. A persistent patent ductus arteriosus (PDA) results in pulmonary hyperperfusion and an enlarged right ventricle 220, which leads to a variety of abnormal respiratory, cardiac and genitourinary symptoms.
Persistent Pulmonary Hypertension in Neonates
As shown in FIG. 2, persistent Pulmonary Hypertension in Neonates (PPHN) is a neonatal condition with persistent elevation of pulmonary vascular resistance and pulmonary artery pressure. The pulmonary artery 210 that normally feeds oxygen depleted “blue” blood from the right ventricle 220 to the lung 204 is constricted. The back pressure from the constricted pulmonary artery 210 results in a right-to-left shunting of this oxygen depleted blood through the ductus arteriosus 230, causing it to mix with oxygen rich “red” blood flowing through the descending aorta 240.
Aortic Coarctation
Also shown in FIG. 2, coarctation of the aorta is a congenital cardiac anomaly in which obstruction or narrowing occurs in the distal aortic arch 290 or proximal descending aorta 240. It occurs as either an isolated lesion or coexisting with a variety of other congenital cardiac anomalies, such as a PDA. If the constriction is preductal, lower-trunk blood flow is supplied predominantly by the right ventricle 220 via the ductus arteriosus 230, and cyanosis, i.e. poorly oxygenated blood, is present distal to the coarctation. If the constriction is postductal, blood supply to the lower trunk is supplied via the ascending aorta 240.
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The present invention relates to a battery cell, in particular a lithium-ion battery cell. In addition, the invention relates to a motor vehicle comprising such a battery cell.
Battery cells, sometimes also referred to as rechargeable battery cells, are used for the chemical storage of energy provided electrically. Already today battery cells are used for supplying energy to a large number of mobile devices. In the future, battery cells are intended to be used, inter alia, for supplying energy to mobile electric vehicles or hybrid vehicles, on land and in water, and for the stationary buffer-storage of electrical energy originating from alternative energy sources.
For this purpose, usually a large number of battery cells are assembled to form battery packs. In order to use a pack volume available in this case in a manner which is as efficient as possible, primarily battery cells having a prismatic, for example a right-parallelepipedal form are used for such purposes.
Owing to its possible high energy density, thermal stability and lack of memory effect, a lithium-ion rechargeable battery technology, which is being developed intensively at present owing to the high economic significance of future electromobility, is usually used for demanding applications such as storage solutions for motor vehicles, for example.
There are already many different types of battery cells, in particular lithium-ion battery cells, and in addition in particular battery cells having a prismatic form. In this case, components of the battery cell are usually accommodated in hermetically sealed tight fashion in the interior of a housing. The housing generally comprises a container which is open at the top and a cover arrangement, which closes off this container in sealed tight fashion at the top. Part of the cover arrangement is usually a covering plate, which is connected to the container at its rims in sealed tight fashion, for example by virtue of the covering plate being welded to a container rim. Openings are provided in the covering plate, and contact arrangements which are accessible from the outside and are electrically connected to the internal components, for example, reach through said openings.
It has been observed that unexpected short circuits can arise in the case of battery cells, in particular in moist operating conditions.
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Aspects of the disclosure relate to augmented reality (AR) objects, specifically creating AR objects from physical sketches or physical objects, for use in AR interactions.
The current generation of mobile AR applications can be limited when it comes to interaction with a user. For example, many applications only allow end-users to manipulate (e.g., select, move, game actions) or navigate (e.g., turn around, come closer) predefined 3-D content overlaid on a printed target. The predefined content may be traditionally authored offline by artists, designers or developers and integrated as part of the application and cannot be modified in real-time. These approaches limit the flexibility and creative potential of AR experiences.
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There is known a charge-distributing type range image sensor (for example, see Patent Literature 1). The range image sensor disclosed in Patent Literature 1 is a charge-distributing type range image sensor, and includes a plurality of range sensors. Each of the range sensors includes a charge-generating region generating charges in accordance with incident light, two signal charge-accumulating regions disposed to sandwich the charge-generating region in a one-dimensional direction and away from the charge-generating region, and two transfer electrodes disposed between the signal charge-accumulating region and the charge-generating region. A charge-distributing type range image sensor can be applied to Time-Of-Flight (TOF) type ranging.
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1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to plunger devices and more particularly pertains to a new plunger device for unclogging a toilet drain.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The use of plunger devices is known in the prior art. More specifically, plunger devices heretofore devised and utilized are known to consist basically of familiar, expected and obvious structural configurations, notwithstanding the myriad of designs encompassed by the crowded prior art which have been developed for the fulfillment of countless objectives and requirements.
Known prior art includes U.S. Pat. No. 4,847,923; U.S. Pat. No. 5,927,957; U.S. Pat. No. 950,549; U.S. Pat. No. 3,994,032; U.S. Pat. No. 5,239,708; and U.S. Des. Pat. No. 404,178.
While these devices fulfill their respective, particular objectives and requirements, the aforementioned patents do not disclose a new plunger device. The inventive device includes a housing which is elongated and has a open first end and an open second end. A peripheral wall extends between the first and second ends. The first and second ends are generally circular. The first end has a smaller diameter than a diameter of the second end. The diameter of the second end is larger than a toilet drain. A pumping means forces air into the housing. The pumping means is removably in communication with the first end of the housing. The second end of the housing is positioned over the toilet drain such that air is moved from the bladder and into the housing causing water in the toilet to be forced into the drain and unclogging the drain.
In these respects, the plunger device according to the present invention substantially departs from the conventional concepts and designs of the prior art, and in so doing provides an apparatus primarily developed for the purpose of unclogging a toilet drain.
In view of the foregoing disadvantages inherent in the known types of plunger devices now present in the prior art, the present invention provides a new plunger device construction wherein the same can be utilized for unclogging a toilet drain.
The general purpose of the present invention, which will be described subsequently in greater detail, is to provide a new plunger device apparatus and method which has many of the advantages of the plunger devices mentioned heretofore and many novel features that result in a new plunger device which is not anticipated, rendered obvious, suggested, or even implied by any of the prior art plunger devices, either alone or in any combination thereof.
To attain this, the present invention generally comprises a housing which is elongated and has a open first end and an open second end. A peripheral wall extends between the first and second ends. The first and second ends are generally circular. The first end has a smaller diameter than a diameter of the second end. The diameter of the second end is larger than a toilet drain. A pumping means forces air into the housing. The pumping means is removably in communication with the first end of the housing. The second end of the housing is positioned over the toilet drain such that air is moved from the bladder and into the housing causing water in the toilet to be forced into the drain and unclogging the drain.
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 additional features of the invention that will be described hereinafter and which will form the subject matter of the claims appended hereto.
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 description 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.
Further, the purpose of the foregoing abstract is to enable the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and the public generally, and especially the scientists, engineers and practitioners in the art who are not familiar with patent or legal terms or phraseology, to determine quickly from a cursory inspection the nature and essence of the technical disclosure of the application. The abstract is neither intended to define the invention of the application, which is measured by the claims, nor is it intended to be limiting as to the scope of the invention in any way.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a new plunger device apparatus and method which has many of the advantages of the plunger devices mentioned heretofore and many novel features that result in a new plunger device which is not anticipated, rendered obvious, suggested, or even implied by any of the prior art plunger devices, either alone or in any combination thereof.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a new plunger device which may be easily and efficiently manufactured and marketed.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a new plunger device which is of a durable and reliable construction.
An even further object of the present invention is to provide a new plunger device 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 plunger device economically available to the buying public.
Still yet another object of the present invention is to provide a new plunger device which provides in the apparatuses and methods of the prior art some of the advantages thereof, while simultaneously overcoming some of the disadvantages normally associated therewith.
Still another object of the present invention is to provide a new plunger device for unclogging a toilet drain.
Yet another object of the present invention is to provide a new plunger device which includes a housing which is elongated and has a open first end and an open second end. A peripheral wall extends between the first and second ends. The first and second ends are generally circular. The first end has a smaller diameter than a diameter of the second end. The diameter of the second end is larger than a toilet drain. A pumping means forces air into the housing. The pumping means is removably in communication with the first end of the housing. The second end of the housing is positioned over the toilet drain such that air is moved from the bladder and into the housing causing water in the toilet to be forced into the drain and unclogging the drain.
Still yet another object of the present invention is to provide a new plunger device that has a pumping means which may be stepped on for applying a large amount of pressure into the toilet drain.
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 made to the accompanying drawings and descriptive matter in which there are illustrated preferred embodiments of the invention.
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Decanters are well known, particularly in the water and wastewater treatment industry. In wastewater treatment, for example, decanters are often used to remove the clarified liquid above the settled solids in a sequencing batch reactor treatment process. In general, there are fixed and floating type decanters. Examples of floating decanters are described and referenced in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,695,376 and 5,104,528. Some such decanters require mechanical, electromechanical or pneumatic actuators to start and/or stop the decanting operation. Other floating decanters, such as those taught in U.S. Pat. No. 5,358,644 require, among other things, the priming or filling of the decanter line assembly to initiate the decanting operation. A representative example of known fixed decanters are described and referenced in U.S. Pat. No. 4,883,602.
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The invention relates to a disposable injector with a housing in which or on which are arranged, in each case at least in some areas, at least one mechanical spring energy reservoir, at least one cylinder/piston unit that can be filled at least temporarily with active substance, at least one piston-actuating ram and at least one trigger unit, in which the spring energy reservoir comprises at least one pretensioned spring element, in which at least part of the piston-actuating ram is positioned between the spring energy reservoir and the piston of the cylinder/piston unit, and in which the spring-loaded piston-actuating ram has at least one tension bar which is transversely movable at least in some areas and which, by means of a support portion, supports the tensioned spring energy reservoir on at least one bearing surface of the housing.
DE 36 44 984 A1 discloses an automatic injection device which is equipped with an injection needle and in which the injection needle is driven out by means of a mechanical spring reservoir and, at the same time, the injectable substance stored in the device is discharged. The spring element pretensioned in the spring reservoir is held in the housing of the injection device in the above-described manner. However, the tension bar is secured by means of a button-shaped catch element that is to be removed separately counter to the triggering direction.
The object of present invention is providing a disposable injector of modular design which, with a small overall size, comprises only a small number of components and, while being easy to handle, ensures safe storage and reliable operation.
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1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a starter where a pinion is made to mesh with a ring gear of an internal combustion engine by displacing the pinion in its axial direction through a driving lever.
2. Description of Related Art
Recently, an intake pipe and a catalytic converter attached to an engine have been enlarged, or accessories and the, likes have been increased, due to social needs for environment (a fuel consumption regulation, an exhaust gas regulation and the like). Therefore, a mounting space of a starter has been reduced, and entire length of the starter is required to be reduced.
As shown in FIGS. 7A, 7B, it is proposed to reduce the entire length of a starter that a portion of a boss 110, which is a pivot center of a driving lever 100 driven by a magnet switch 130, and a center case 120 are lapped in an axial direction of the center case 120 (JP-Y-7-46772).
However, when the driving lever 100 is made of resin, the diameter of the boss 110 is required to be increased to some degree so as to ensure strength of the driving lever 100. As a result, distance xe2x80x9caxe2x80x9d from the peripheral surface of the center case 120 to the center of the boss 110 is increased as shown in FIG. 7B, so that the distance L1 between two axes (distance between a motor shaft and an operation center of the magnet switch 130) is necessarily increased, and the starter is enlarged in the radial direction.
On the other hand, a starter is disclosed in JP-B-2-60867 as another prior art. As shown in FIG. 8, this starter includes an elastic member 210 attached to a lever holder 200. A projection 220 provided on the elastic member 210 is inserted into a hole 230 of the lever holder 200, and it is projected to the center of a driving lever 100. A gap between a boss 110 of the driving lever 100 and the lever holder 200 is reduced by the projection 220, so that it is intended that water is prevented from entering into a magnet switch.
In this prior art, however, since a minute gap is ensured between the tip of the projection 220 and the boss 110 of the driving lever 100, water cannot be surely prevented from entering into the side of the magnet switch, so that it is still likely that water enters into the magnet switch. In the above prior art, it is described that the projection is made to come in contact with the boss 110. In this case, however, when the driving lever 100 is pivoted so as to move like a see-saw, the projection 220 is separated from the boss 110 and hits the body of the driving lever 100. Thus, it is likely that the projection 220 disturbs the driving lever 100 from being pivoted.
In view of the above problems, it is a first object of the present invention to reduce entire axial length and a radial dimension in a starter where a pinion is made to mesh with a ring gear of an internal combustion engine by displacing the pinion in an axial direction through a driving lever.
It is a second object of the present invention to provide a waterproof structure which can reduce a possibility that water enters into a magnet switch without disturbing a driving lever from being pivoted.
In order to attain the first object, a starter according to the present invention includes a driving lever driven by a magnet switch and a pinion made to mesh with a ring gear of an internal combustion engine by displacing the pinion in its axial direction through the driving lever. In the starter, further, the driving lever includes a lever pin as a pivot center and a lever body for supporting both ends of the lever pin, and the lever pin is disposed outside a frame body, combined to a front housing, in a radial direction of the frame body.
Accordingly, the driving lever can be disposed while being displaced to a rear side in the axial direction of the starter by lapping the lever pin and the frame body in the axial direction, thereby reducing entire length of the starter by this displacement.
In a case that the lever pin is supported by the lever body, the diameter of the lever pin can be smaller than the outer diameter of a boss provided in the conventional resin-integrated driving lever, thereby reducing a radial dimension of the starter by this diameter difference.
In order to attain the second object, a starter according to the present invention includes a driving lever including a lever pin as a pivot center of the driving lever, a lever holder for rotatably supporting the lever pin and a rubber lever seal disposed between the lever holder and a magnet switch. In the starter, further, the lever seal includes a positioning projection, and the positioning projection passes through a positioning hole provided in the lever holder. The positioning projection protrudes to a side of the driving lever, and a tip of the positioning projection comes in contact with a peripheral surface of the lever pin at the lower side than the center of the lever pin.
Accordingly, no gap remains between the projection of the lever seal and the lever pin, so that water can be surely prevented from entering into the side of the magnet switch. Further, the tip of the projection comes in contact with the peripheral surface of the lever pin at the lower side than the center of the lever pin. Therefore, even when water hits the magnet switch from the lower side, the projection is not pushed up, and no gap remains between the lever pin and the projection, so that superior waterproof performance can be exhibited.
Furthermore, even when the driving lever is pivoted so as to move like a see-saw, the projection does not prevent the driving lever from being rotated, thereby not disturbing the pivoting of the driving lever.
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{
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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1. Field
This invention relates to electrical switches. More particularly, the invention pertains to electrical safety switches for exercise machines and the like.
2. State of the Art
Safety of the user is a major concern in the design and manufacture of powered machines. Powered treadmills and like machines having exposed moving parts may injure a user who accidently or deliberately misuses the machine. The popular domestic use of such machines recommends use of means to prevent accidental activation by children, pets or others. In addition, the possibility of a user falling on or from a machine makes it desirable to have a mechanism by which the machine may be de-activated in such events. A mechanism to prevent or eliminate "surprise" activation is desirable. In addition, some means to automatically and immediately halt the machine in case of an accident is desirable.
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{
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a process for the production of bismaleinimide derivatives of the formula: ##STR4## wherein R.sub.1 and R.sub.2 are the same or different and each is a C.sub.1 -C.sub.4 -alkyl group, branched or unbranched, and R.sub.3 is a halogen or hydrogen atom starting from maleic acid anhydride and a methylene-bis-aniline.
2. Background Art
The bismaleinimide derivatives of formula I are used, for example, for the production of heat-resistant bismaleinimide resins (Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No. 61-093159).
A known embodiment for the production of bismaleinimide derivatives is described, for example, in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No. 57-159764 (Japanese Patent No. 02-058267). In the process, a methylenebis[N-(monoalkyl)-phenylene]maleinimide] is produced, starting from maleic acid anhydride and a methylene-bis-aniline, in the presence of an acid catalyst. To obtain a pure product with a good yield, a mixture of a halogenated hydrocarbon with an aprotic polar solvent is necessarily used in the process as the solvent. From Comparison Example 2 (page 10) of the above-mentioned application it is known that, if dichloroethane is replaced by toluene in the solvent mixture, both the purity is reduced from 93 to 67 percent and the yield of the desired end product is also reduced from 95 to 88 percent. The substitution of dichloroethane by xylene even reduces both the purity from 95 to 53 percent and the yield of the desired end product from 95 to 64 percent. A major drawback of the process lies in that the environmentally polluting halogenated hydrocarbons have to be used as the solvent in order to obtain a pure end product in a good yield.
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"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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The invention is therefore based on the problem of avoiding the described disadvantages entailed in prior art and to provide photochromic compounds which present properties improved over those of the structures described in prior art and which, in the form excited by light, present a bathochromically shifted absorption in the longest wavelength range within the visible part of the spectrum, compared against comparable prior art compounds. Accordingly compounds had to be found which present a further bathochromic shift of their absorption maximums in the visible range by roughly 100 nm, as compared against the known compounds. Furthermore, the absorption band in the longest wavelength range, i.e. the absorption band between the red or infrared part of the light spectrum and the "absorption gap"--i.e. the point of lowest absorption in the range from 400 to 500 nm--should be as broad as possible. Another objective consisted therefore in the provision of compounds displaying absorption characteristics which offers still a 50% absorption in response to very strong obscuration (transmission at .lambda..sub.max <10%) at 700 nm and at least a 10% absorption still at 750 nm.
Moreover, the preferred compounds should not present a distinct basic function because experience had shown that these lenses not only tend to add protons and result in colour distortions in the production of photochromic plastic lenses in mass-dyeing processes but in permanent use also tend to give rise to secondary reactions under the influence of light which result in the loss of the photochromic reaction.
Moreover, the method of producing the new compounds should be improved over conventional methods, with a main emphasis on a simple process control, cautious reaction conditions and sound yields.
The above-explained problem of the invention is solved by the photochromic naphthopyrane-dyes having the general formula (I) ##STR1## wherein R.sub.1 and R.sub.2
are equal or different, independently of each other, and are selected from PA1 or PA1 or PA1 is selected from PA1 or from PA1 or from PA1 are selected, independently of each other, from the group z consisting of (a) and (b), with PA1 or are selected from PA1 or PA1 or PA1 and Y PA1 (1) 6-methoxy-3-(4-methoxyphenyl)-3,13-diphenyl-13-hydroxy-benz[p]-indeno [2,1-f]naphtho[1,2-b]pyrane PA1 (2) 6-methoxy-3-(4-methoxyphenyl)-3-phenyl-13-(2,5-dimethylphenyl)-13-hydroxy- benz[p]indeno[2,1-f]naphtho[1,2-b]pyrane, PA1 (3) 3-(4-diphenyl amino phenyl)-3-phenyl-13-(2,5-dimethylphenyl)-13-hydroxy-benz[p]indeno[2,1-f]na phtho[1,2-b]pyrane, PA1 (4) 3-(4-diphenyl amino phenyl)-6-methoxy-3,13-diphenyl-13-hydroxy-indeno[2,1-f]naphtho-[1,2-b]pyr ane, PA1 (5) 3-(4-diphenyl amino phenyl)6-methoxy-3-phenyl-13-(2,5-dimethylphenyl)-13-hydroxy-indeno[2,1-f] naphtho[1,2-b]pyrane, PA1 (6) 6-methoxy-3-(4-methoxy phenyl)-3-phenyl-13-(2,5-dimethylphenyl)-13-hydroxy-indeno[2,1-f]naphtho[1 ,2-b]pyrane, PA1 (7) 6-methoxy-3-(4-methoxyphenyl)-3-phenyl-13-(1-naphthyl)-13-hydroxy-indeno [ 2,1-f]-naphtho[1,2-b]pyrane, PA1 (8) 6,11-dimethoxy-3-(4-methoxyphenyl)-3-phenyl-13-(2,5-dimethyl phenyl)-13-hydroxy-indeno[2,1-f]naphtho[1,2-b]pyrane, PA1 (9) 3-(4-methoxyphenyl)-3-phenyl-13-(2,5-dimethylphenyl)-13-hydroxy-indeno-[2, 1-f]-naphtho[1,2-b]pyrane, and PA1 (10) 6-methoxy-3-(4-methoxyphenyl)-3-phenyl-13-(3-methyl-2-thienyl)-13-hydroxy- indeno[2,1-f]naphtho[1,2-b]pyrane.
the group f consisting of (C.sub.1 -C.sub.6)-alkyl, (C.sub.1 -C.sub.6)-alkoxy, chloro and fluoro; PA2 the group consisting of hydrogen, (C.sub.1 -C.sub.6)-cyclo-alkyl, phenyl, benzyl, dialkyl-(C.sub.1 -C.sub.6)-amino, dicyclo-hexylamino, diphenylamino, piperidyl, morpholinyl and pyridyl, with m, n=0, 1 or 2; PA2 two R.sub.1 and/or two R.sub.2 form together, independently of each other, a carbo- or hetero-cyclic ring, selected from benzene, pyridine, pyrazine, pyrimidine, furan and thiophene; PA2 the group g consisting of hydrogen, hydroxy, (C.sub.1 -C.sub.6)-alkyl, (C.sub.5 -C.sub.6)-cyclo-alkyl, (C.sub.1 -C.sub.6)-acyl, (C.sub.1 -C.sub.6)-alkoxy, phenyl, benzyl, mono-substituted phenyl, mono-substituted benzyl, with the aryl substituents being (C.sub.1 -C.sub.6)-alkyl or (C.sub.1 -C.sub.6)-alkoxy: PA2 mono-chlorine or mono-fluorine substituted phenyl, naphthyl, phenanthryl, pyrenyl, chinolyl, isochinolyl, benzofuranyl, thienyl, benzothienyl, dibenzofuranyl, dibenzothienyl, carbazolyl or indolyl, each in non-substituted or mono-substituted form, with the substituents being selected from the group consisting of chloro, fluoro, (C.sub.1 -C.sub.6)-alkyl, or (C.sub.1 -C.sub.6)-alkoxy; PA2 di- or tri-substituted phenyl, with the substituents being selected form the group consisting of chloro, fluoro, (C.sub.1 -C.sub.6)-alkyl, (C.sub.1 -C.sub.6)-alkoxy, (C.sub.1 -C.sub.6)-.omega.-phenylalkyl and (C.sub.1 -C.sub.6)-.omega.-phenoxy-alkyl, with the phenyl ring at the .omega.-position possibly representing again the X, X'- or R.sub.4 radical of another photochromic pyrane system; PA2 (a) the non-, mono-, di- and tri-substituted aryl groups phenyl and naphthyl; and PA2 (b) the non-, mono-, di- and tri-substituted hetero-cyclic groups pyridyl, furanyl, benzofuran-2-yl, benzofuran-3-yl, thienyl, benzothien-2-yl and benzothien-3-yl, PA2 and with the substituents in (a) and (b) being selected from PA2 the group h consisting of hydroxy, amino, mono-(C.sub.1 -C.sub.6)-alkyl-amino, di-(C.sub.1 -C.sub.6)-alkylamino, piperidino, morpholino, pyrryl, -(C.sub.1 -C.sub.6)-alkyl, -(C.sub.1 -C.sub.6)-chloro-alkyl, -(C.sub.1 -C.sub.6)-fluoro-alkyl, -(C.sub.1 -C.sub.6)-alkoxy, mono-(C.sub.1 -C.sub.6)-alkoxy-(C.sub.1 -C.sub.4)-alkyl, chloro and fluoro; or PA2 the group (a) consisting of non-basic amines such as non-substituted or substituted di-arylamino, pyrazole, imidazole, indole, pyridine, pyrazoline, imidazoline, pyrroline, phenothiazine, phenoxazine, phenazine, acridine, or carbazole, with the substituents on the non-basic amines being selected from (C.sub.1 -C.sub.6)-alkyl, (C.sub.1 -C.sub.4)-alkoxy, phenyl, fluoro, chloro and bromo; PA2 (c) (C.sub.1 -C.sub.6)-alkyl, (C.sub.1 -C.sub.6)-chloro-alkyl
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The performance of memory-intensive applications is often limited by how fast the memory system can provide needed data. Latency between processors and memory is often the performance bottleneck in application performance. Multiple processor cores require highly efficient cache operation with wide memory bandwidth.
In today's world, digital system performance and complexity are continually increasing due to technology scaling and three-dimensional (3D) integration. Current designs stick to conventional cache approaches. On-demand, on-chip memory support is critical to make the most of these developments. As the gap widens between processor speed and memory access time, cache architecture must keep up with digital system development trends.
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With fast development of aerospace, aviation, automobile, electronic and advanced manufacturing, the demands of micro parts are dramatically increasing. Due to the shadow effects, limited probing space and force, the precision and measurable depth cannot satisfy the requirement of the measurement. To achieve the measurement of more tiny structure and enhance the measurable depth, high-aspect-ratio tactile probes are usually inserted into the micro parts and a trigger method is applied to get inner contact points. In general, the structures of a micro part are measured using a coordinate measuring machine (CMM) combining with a tactile probe. The CMM technology is relatively mature and a precise three-dimension motion is already equal to the measurement. It can be concluded that it is of great significance to develop a precise probing system for measuring structures of a micro part. FBG probes are not influenced by the shadow effect and the measurable depth is either not limited as a result of the separation between the probe and the sensing system. They also feature miniaturization and anti-interference. So FBG probes are very suitable for dimensional measurement of structures of a micro part.
Existing FBG probes include following designs:
Jiwen Cui and Fuling Yang proposed in 2011 a FBG bending probe for the measurement of micro holes. Their FBG probe is fabricated by common single mode fiber and the core comprising FBG is located in the center of the probe. Therefore, the FBG is in the neutral plane when the probe is used to achieve radial measurement. The radial resolution of this probe is low and it cannot be used to achieve the measurement of a micro hole. The structure of this FBG probe is not reasonable and its performance cannot further be improved.
Jiwen Cui and Kunpeng Feng proposed in 2014 a method and equipment based on multi-core FBG probe for measuring structures of a micro part. A multi-core FBG probe is designed and the FBG is subjected to the sufficient stress when the multi-core FBG probe gets contacted with the micro parts. In comparison to the FBG bending probe, the resolution, especially the radial resolution, is significantly improved, and decouple capacity of two-dimensional radial displacement and three-dimensional displacement can be achieved by designing the distribution of the fiber cores. The multi-core FBG probe has favourable characters. However, inscription of FBG on the fiber cores of multi-core fiber brings several problems. On the one hand, there is intense crosstalk among the inscription of FBGs on each fiber cores of multi-core fiber. On the other hand, parameters of the multi-core FBG probe cannot be designed as a result that the brought multi-core fiber is already determinate.
Above all, the multi-core FBG probe has a high resolution, especially the radial resolution, and a decouple capacity of multi-dimensional displacement. It attracts extensive attentions and has a good application prospect of all the existing FBG probes. However, the multi-core FBG probe has following drawbacks:
1. Considering the cost of the probe, the multi-core fiber cannot be customized and should be selected among the manufacturers' existing types. So the parameter of the multi-core FBG probe cannot be designed as the requirement of the measurement because of the limited multi-core fiber types.
2. The distance among fiber cores is several ten micrometers and inscription of FBGs on each fiber cores of multi-core fiber has intense crosstalk. The spectra of the FBGs on the fiber cores are distorted and their reflectivity is low, which influences the accuracy of the measurement.
3. The optical signals should access to every cores of the multi-core fiber to achieve the spectrum of the FBGs and a fan-out device should be configured. However, the fan-out device for the multi-core FBG probe has such disadvantages as expensive price, high insertion loss. So it is adverse to apply the multi-core FBG probe in the field of the dimensional measurement that the multi-core FBG probe is directly made of the brought multi-core fiber.
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{
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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Log-structured storage developed in order to provide a more efficient means for storing data in persistent storage devices. Data and metadata changes are sequentially recorded in a log structure reducing the number of operations to persist the data and metadata changes. For systems that frequently add and/or modify data, such as database systems, log-structured storage reduces the latency for recording new data as well as modifying data already stored. As more and more changes are received, the log recording the changes grows. Over time, the log may grow to consume all available space unless more storage space is made available for the log. In order to free up additional storage space, data in the log may be manipulated or moved. These movements, however, increase the number of I/O operations necessary to maintain log-structured storage, dulling the very effectiveness that a log-structured data stored is implemented to provide.
While embodiments are described herein by way of example for several embodiments and illustrative drawings, those skilled in the art will recognize that the embodiments are not limited to the embodiments or drawings described. It should be understood, that the drawings and detailed description thereto are not intended to limit embodiments to the particular form disclosed, but on the contrary, the intention is to cover all modifications, equivalents and alternatives falling within the spirit and scope as defined by the appended claims. The headings used herein are for organizational purposes only and are not meant to be used to limit the scope of the description or the claims. As used throughout this application, the word “may” is used in a permissive sense (i.e., meaning having the potential to), rather than the mandatory sense (i.e., meaning must). The words “include,” “including,” and “includes” indicate open-ended relationships and therefore mean including, but not limited to. Similarly, the words “have,” “having,” and “has” also indicate open-ended relationships, and thus mean having, but not limited to. The terms “first,” “second,” “third,” and so forth as used herein are used as labels for nouns that they precede, and do not imply any type of ordering (e.g., spatial, temporal, logical, etc.) unless such an ordering is otherwise explicitly indicated.
Various components may be described as “configured to” perform a task or tasks. In such contexts, “configured to” is a broad recitation generally meaning “having structure that” performs the task or tasks during operation. As such, the component can be configured to perform the task even when the component is not currently performing that task (e.g., a computer system may be configured to perform operations even when the operations are not currently being performed). In some contexts, “configured to” may be a broad recitation of structure generally meaning “having circuitry that” performs the task or tasks during operation. As such, the component can be configured to perform the task even when the component is not currently on. In general, the circuitry that forms the structure corresponding to “configured to” may include hardware circuits.
Various components may be described as performing a task or tasks, for convenience in the description. Such descriptions should be interpreted as including the phrase “configured to.” Reciting a component that is configured to perform one or more tasks is expressly intended not to invoke 35 U.S.C. § 112, paragraph six, interpretation for that component.
“Based On.” As used herein, this term is used to describe one or more factors that affect a determination. This term does not foreclose additional factors that may affect a determination. That is, a determination may be solely based on those factors or based, at least in part, on those factors. Consider the phrase “determine A based on B.” While B may be a factor that affects the determination of A, such a phrase does not foreclose the determination of A from also being based on C. In other instances, A may be determined based solely on B.
The scope of the present disclosure includes any feature or combination of features disclosed herein (either explicitly or implicitly), or any generalization thereof, whether or not it mitigates any or all of the problems addressed herein. Accordingly, new claims may be formulated during prosecution of this application (or an application claiming priority thereto) to any such combination of features. In particular, with reference to the appended claims, features from dependent claims may be combined with those of the independent claims and features from respective independent claims may be combined in any appropriate manner and not merely in the specific combinations enumerated in the appended claims.
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1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates broadly to medical devices and materials for reducing intraocular pressure. More particularly, this invention relates to medical devices and materials for diverting aqueous humor out of the anterior chamber through a surgically implanted duct passageway.
2. State of the Art
Glaucoma is a disorder of the optic nerve that usually occurs in the setting of an elevated intraocular pressure (typically referred to as “IOP”). The pressure within the eye increases causing changes in the appearance (“cupping”) and function (“blind spots” in the visual field) of the optic nerve. High pressure develops in an eye because of impaired outflow of aqueous. In open-angle glaucoma, the impaired outflow is caused by abnormalities of the drainage system of the anterior chamber. In closed-angle glaucoma, the impaired outflow is caused by impaired access of aqueous to the drainage system. If the pressure within the eye remains sufficiently high for a long enough period of time, total vision loss occurs. Thus, glaucoma is the number one cause of preventable blindness.
As shown in FIG. 1, the eye 10 is a hollow structure that contains a clear fluid called “aqueous humor.” Aqueous humor is formed by the ciliary body 12 adjacent the posterior chamber 9 of the eye. The fluid, which is made at a fairly constant rate, then passes around the lens 14, through the pupillary opening 16 in the iris 18 and into the anterior chamber 20. Once in the anterior chamber 20, the fluid drains out of the eye 10 through two different routes. In the “uveoscleral” route, the fluid percolates between muscle fibers of the ciliary body 12. This route accounts for approximately ten percent of the aqueous outflow in humans. The primary pathway for aqueous outflow in humans is through the “canalicular” route that involves the trabecular meshwork 22 and Schlemm's canal 24.
The trabecular meshwork 22 and Schlemm's canal 24 are located at the junction between the iris 18 and the sclera 26, which is typically referred to as the “angle”. The trabecular meshwork 22 is a wedge-shaped structure that runs around the circumference of the eye. It is composed of collagen beams arranged in a three-dimensional sieve-like structure. The beams are lined with a monolayer of cells called trabecular cells. The spaces between the collagen beams are filled with an extracellular substance that is produced by the trabecular cells. These cells also produce enzymes that degrade the extracellular material. Schlemm's canal 24 is disposed adjacent to the trabecular meshwork 22. The outer wall of the trabecular meshwork 22 coincides with the inner wall of Schlemm's canal 24. Schlemm's canal 24 is a tube-like structure that runs around the circumference of the cornea. In human adults, Schlemm's Canal is believed to be divided by septa into a series of autonomous, dead-end canals.
The aqueous fluid travels through the spaces between the trabecular beams of the trabecular meshwork 22, across the inner wall of Schlemm's canal 24 into the canal, through a series of about twenty-five collecting channels that drain from Schlemm's canal 24 and into the episcleral venous system 28.
In a normal patient, aqueous production is equal to aqueous outflow and intraocular pressure remains fairly constant (typically in the 15 to 21 mmHg range). In glaucoma, there is abnormal resistance to aqueous outflow, which manifests itself as increased IOP. Tonometry is the measurement of IOP.
In primary open angle glaucoma, which is the most common form of glaucoma, the abnormal resistance is believed to be along the outer aspect of trabecular meshwork 22 and the inner wall of Schlemm's canal 24. Primary open angle glaucoma accounts for approximately eighty-five percent of all glaucoma. Other forms of glaucoma (such as angle closure glaucoma and secondary glaucomas) also involve decreased outflow through the canalicular pathway but the increased resistance is from other causes such as mechanical blockage, inflammatory debris, cellular blockage, etc.
With the increased resistance, the aqueous fluid builds up because it cannot exit fast enough. As the fluid builds up, the IOP within the eye increases. The increased IOP compresses the axons in the optic nerve and also may compromise the vascular supply to the optic nerve. The optic nerve carries vision from the eye to the brain. Some optic nerves seem more susceptible to IOP than other eyes. While research is investigating ways to protect the nerve from an elevated pressure, the therapeutic approach currently available in glaucoma is to reduce the intraocular pressure.
The clinical treatment of glaucoma is typically carried out in a step-wise manner. Medication often is the first treatment option. Administered either topically or orally, these medications work to either reduce aqueous production or they act to increase outflow. Currently available medications have many serious side effects including: congestive heart failure, respiratory distress, hypertension, depression, renal stones, aplastic anemia, sexual dysfunction and death. Compliance with medication is a major problem, with estimates that over half of glaucoma patients do not follow their correct dosing schedules.
When medication fails to adequately reduce the pressure, laser trabeculoplasty often is performed. In laser trabeculoplasty, thermal energy from a laser is applied to a number of noncontiguous spots in the trabecular meshwork. It is believed that the laser energy stimulates the metabolism of the trabecular cells in some way, and changes the cellular material in the trabecular meshwork. In a large percent of patients, aqueous outflow is enhanced and IOP decreases. However, the effect often is not long lasting and a significant percentage of patients develop an elevated pressure within the years that follow the treatment. The laser trabeculoplasty treatment is typically not repeatable. In addition, laser trabeculoplasty is not an effective treatment for primary open angle glaucoma in patients less than fifty years of age, nor is it effective for angle closure glaucoma and many secondary glaucomas.
If laser trabeculoplasty does not reduce the pressure sufficiently, then incisional surgery (typically referred to as filtering surgery) is performed. With incisional surgery, a hole is made in the sclera 26 adjacent the angle region. This hole allows the aqueous fluid to leave the eye through an alternate route.
The most commonly performed incisional procedure is a trabeculectomy. In a trabeculectomy, a posterior incision is made in the conjunctiva 30, which is the transparent tissue that covers the sclera 26. The conjunctiva 30 is rolled forward, exposing the sclera 26 at the limbus 32, which marks the junction between the sclera 26 and the cornea 34. A partial scleral flap is made and dissected into the cornea. The anterior chamber 20 is entered beneath the scleral flap, and a section of deep sclera 26 and trabecular meshwork 20 is excised. The scleral flap is loosely sewn back into place. The conjunctiva incision is tightly closed. Post-operatively, the aqueous fluid passes through the hole, beneath the scleral flap and collects in a bleb formed beneath the conjunctiva 30. The fluid then is either absorbed through blood vessels in the conjunctiva 30 or traverses across the conjunctiva 30 into the tear film. Trabeculectomy surgery of this nature is extremely difficult and only a small fraction of ophthalmologists perform this procedure. In addition, it is very time consuming and physicians are not reimbursed for the time it takes to perform the surgery and it is therefore rarely performed.
When trabeculectomy doesn't successfully lower the eye pressure, the next step, and usually the last, is a surgical procedure that implants a device that shunts aqueous humor to control the IOP. One such implant device, as shown in U.S. Pat. No. 6,050,970 to Baerveldt, is a drainage tube that is attached at one end to a plastic plate. The drainage tube is a flow tube between 1.0 and 3.0 French (and preferably with an inner diameter of 0.3 mm and an outer diameter of 0.6 mm). An incision is made in the conjunctiva 30, exposing the sclera 26. The plastic plate is sewn to the surface of the eye posteriorly, usually over the equator. A full thickness hole is made into the eye at the limbus 32, usually with a needle. The tube is inserted into the eye through this hole. The external portion of the tube is covered with either sclera or other tissue. The conjunctiva 30 is replaced and the incision is closed tightly. With this shunt device, aqueous drains out of the eye through the silicone tube to the bleb, which is a thin layer of connective tissue that encapsulates the plate and tube and then to the surface of the eye. Aqueous drains out of the bleb and to the surface of the eye. Deeper orbital tissues then absorb the fluid. The plate typically has a large surface area in order to wick and disperse fluid, which facilitates absorption of fluid in the surrounding tissue. These disks are generally made of silicone rubber, which serves to inhibit tissue adhesion as the plate becomes encapsulated by the connective tissue of the bleb. The disks can be as large as 10 mm in diameter and are irritating to some patients.
Other implant devices are shown in U.S. Pat. No. 6,468,283 to Richter et al. and U.S. Pat. No. 6,626,858 to Lynch et al., respectively. The Richter implant device is a tubular structure that shunts aqueous humor from the anterior chamber to a space between the conjunctiva 30 and the sclera 26. The Lynch implant device is a tubular structure that shunts aqueous humor from the anterior chamber through the trabecular meshwork 22 and into Schlemm
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This invention relates to a method for regenerating the NOx catalyst in a NOx purifying system in which NOx (nitrogen oxides) in the exhaust gas of an internal combustion engine is purified by using a direct reduction type NOx catalyst, and to a NOx purifying system.
Various research efforts and proposals have been made concerning a catalyst-type exhaust gas purifying system for purifying the exhaust gas of an internal combustion engine of an automobile, a stationary type internal combustion engine or the like by reducing NOx. Especially, in order to purify the exhaust gas of automobiles or the like, a NOx occlusion reduction type catalyst, a three-way catalyst or the like have been used.
A regenerating operation is performed in the exhaust gas purifying system of an internal combustion engine provided with this NOx occlusion reduction type catalyst in its exhaust passage. This regenerating operation causes the NOx occlusion reduction type catalyst to occlude NOx when an air/fuel ratio of the exhaust gas flowing is lean. Moreover, when the NOx absorption capacity is almost saturated, the regeneration operation brings the air/fuel ratio of exhaust gas into the theoretical air/fuel ratio or rich state by reducing the oxygen concentration of the influent exhaust gas. Thus, the regenerating operation restores the NOx absorption capacity by discharging the occluded NOx, and also makes the discharged NOx reduce by a noble metal catalyst attached to the NOx purifying system.
This NOx occlusion reduction type catalyst is constituted with a noble metal catalyst such as platinum (Pt) and a NOx absorbent of an alkaline earth such as barium (Ba) on the catalyst support. Then, in the high oxygen concentration atmosphere, NO in the exhaust gas is oxidized into NO2 by the catalytic action of platinum, and this NO2 is diffused in the catalyst in a form of NO3− and absorbed in a form of nitrate.
Next, when the air/fuel ratio becomes rich and the oxygen concentration is reduced, the NO3− is discharged in a form of NO2. This discharged NO2 is reduced into N2 through a reducing agent such as unburned HC, CO or H2 contained in the exhaust gas by the catalytic action of platinum. This reducing action can prevent NOx from being discharged into the atmosphere.
This NOx occlusion reduction type catalyst entails a problem inasmuch as the absorbable NOx amount varies widely according to the temperature of the NOx absorbent, therefore, for example, the exhaust gas purifying system according to the Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 102954/1995 is devised so as to be set to an optimal NOx absorption time by varying the NOx absorption time according to the exhaust gas temperatures.
On the other hand, separately from this NOx occlusion reduction type catalyst, there is a catalyst which directly reduces NOx (referred to hereafter as “direct reduction type NOx catalyst”). This direct reduction type NOx catalyst is the one provided with a metal such as rhodium (Rh), palladium (Pd), or the like as a catalyst component to be borne on a support such as β-zeolite. Moreover, cerium (Ce) is blended with the catalyst which contributes to maintaining the NOx reducing potential and to reduce the oxidation action of the metal, or a three-way catalyst is arranged in a lower layer in order to accelerate the oxidation-reduction reaction or especially the reducing reaction of NOx in a rich state, or iron (Fe) is added to the support in order to improve a purifying rate of NOx.
This direct reduction type NOx catalyst has the advantage of becoming less contaminated with sulfur poisoning. In a high oxygen concentration atmosphere, for example the exhaust gas of an internal combustion engine such as a diesel engine of which the air/fuel ratio is in a lean state, the NOx is directly reduced into N2. However, since O2 is adsorbed on the metal which is the active substance of the catalyst in the case of this reduction, the reducing ability is lowered.
For this reason, it is necessary to regenerate and activate the active substance of the catalyst by lowering the oxygen concentration in the exhaust gas almost to zero percent so that the air/fuel ratio of the exhaust gas becomes the theoretical air/fuel ratio or rich state. Still, this regeneration of the catalyst is speedily performed even at low temperatures (for example, 200° C. or higher) compared with the temperatures for other catalysts.
Therefore, in order to allow this direct reduction type NOx catalyst to demonstrate fully its NOx purifying performance in the NOx purifying system arranged in the exhaust passage of the engine, it is necessary to perform lean-condition control for normal driving and rich-condition control for catalyst regeneration by properly switching between them during engine operation.
However, even if rich-condition control is carried out, this direct reduction type NOx catalyst brings the following problem when the catalyst is in the high temperature range. Namely, if rich-condition control is performed for catalyst regeneration, the amount of NOx exhausted to the atmospheric air is in fact increased. Moreover, since the catalyst cannot be regenerated, the purifying performance is not recovered while at the same time fuel costs are increased.
Namely, unlike the NOx occlusion reduction type catalyst, this direct reduction type NOx catalyst does not occlude NOx by chemical combining. However, the catalyst exhibits a physical adsorption phenomenon of NOx. The relationship between this NOx adsorption quantity and the catalyst temperatures is shown in FIG. 3. Therefore, even under the rich condition, the NOx adsorption quantity is decreased due to the rising in the catalyst temperature when the catalyst temperature comes in the high temperature range. And, the portion of the NOx decreased in adsorption is exhausted. Thus, it is presumed that the NOx is increased in the exhaust quantity.
In FIG. 4, the NOx concentration at the outlet of the catalyst is shown when the engine is operated under a rich condition of the air/fuel ratio and the exhaust gas is raised in temperature at the catalyst outlet with time. According to this FIG. 4, even if a certain quantity of NOx is supplied to the NOx catalyst, the quantity of NOx at the catalyst outlet varies correspondingly to the rising in the exhaust gas temperature at the catalyst outlet. As the exhaust gas temperature rises at the catalyst outlet, the quantity of NOx more than that of NOx influent to the direct reduction type NOx catalyst from the inlet is discharged from the catalyst outlet. Especially, the discharge is remarkably increased at 420° C. or higher.
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{
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This invention relates generally to a system for the handling of containers such as roll-off dumpsters. The system is particularly adapted for use in a water treatment plant for the collecting and removal of the sludge which is conveyed from a filter press and discharged into the interior of a dumpster positioned beneath the discharging end of the sludge conveyor.
A major problem encountered in water treatment plants of the indicated type is that when the sludge is discharged from the conveyor into a dumpster, the sludge piles up in the dumpster at one location directly underneath the discharging end of the conveyor. One attempted solution to this problem was to move the dumpster in order to get a better distribution of the sludge dispensed therein, such movement being achieved either manually or by means of a truck or other vehicle attached to the dumpster. In addition, an employee would actually get inside the dumpster and rake the sludge deposited in the dumpster back and forth in order to achieve a better distribution thereof. Another proposed solution to the problem was to provide an overhead conveyor system that would discharge the sludge at different points along the length of a stationary dumpster. However, such a conveyor system would be excessively expensive and would, for example, cost as much as $80,000, and require a substantial amount of additional maintenance.
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{
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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Heretofore, in an IP (Internet Protocol) v4 network, a terminal device has assigned an IPv4 address thereto from a DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol) server. In this environment, a DHCP packet has been monitored and captured by a firewall. In the case where the terminal device makes communication by using an address other than the IPv4 address assigned thereto from the DHCP server, then the IPv4 packet concerned is blocked by the firewall.
For example, in the following Patent Literature 1, it is described that an IPv4 packet of which IPv4 address is not the IPv4 address assigned from the DHCP server is not allowed on communication by a switching hub. Moreover, as another example, in the following Patent Literature 2, it is described that the IPv4 packet of which IPv4 address is not the IPv4 address assigned from the DHCP server is regulated by a network apparatus.
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{
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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Statistical data shows that position searching, for example, searching the geographical position of shopping malls, hotels, and schools, or finding all the nearest restaurants and cinemas around the user, is the major need when users using electronic maps. As the technology develops, the results of position searching are becoming richer and richer. Except the accurate place can be positioned, additional text information such as addresses, telephone numbers, and comments, and image information can also be provided. Due to the visual and intuitive features, images are becoming an important manner for showing position-related information. However, in the known art, the images are mainly uploaded by users or searched from the web, and thus these images suffers from the following drawbacks.
1) These images have poor correlation to the searching object. For example, some images can't correctly show the position of the searching object, and evenly have none business of the searching object.
2) It is costly and of low efficiency to associate these images to correct positions. The images uploaded by users or searched from the web are full of randomness, and the data content is irregular. Thus, manual reviewing is necessary to associate these images to correct positions. Generally, the ratio of the approved images is very low.
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{
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In recent years, a back face-projection type of solid-state imaging device, which projects light from the opposite side from the side on which a wiring layer is formed on a substrate, has been proposed (reference PTL 1 below). With a back face-projection type of solid-state imaging device, the wiring layer and circuit elements and the like are not formed on the light projection side, so the opening rate of light receiving portions formed on the substrate can be increased, while the incident light is input into the light receiving portions without being reflected off the wiring layer or the like, so improvement to sensitivity is provided.
The solid-state imaging device of PTL 1 provides a light blocking film at pixel borders in order to reduce optical color mixing.
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{
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This application relates generally to the field of closure latches for side-hinged, swinging closures such as doors, panels, or gates, to be referred to herein collectively as gates. More particularly, the application relates to latches that address the problem of gate sag, whereby over time the weight of the gate results in the non-attached end of the gate opposite to the hinged side dropping or sagging.
Most gates are constructed by assembling individual members, such as for example wooden boards, into a substantially rectilinear configuration with both ends of the gate being in parallel. One end of the gate, the hinged end, is mounted to a hinge post or other structural supporting member with hinges. The other end of the gate is a free end which is not supported when the gate is in an open position. When closed, the free end of the gate is supported by a latch comprising two main components. A stationary component of the latch, often referred to as a catch or keeper, is mounted to a latch post or other structural support member. A swinging component of the latch, often referred to as a striker, is mounted to the free end of the gate, the striker being received and retained by the catch when the gate is closed.
When first installed, the catch and striker components of the latch are properly aligned in horizontal relationship to retain the gate in the closed position until the striker component of the latch is released to open the gate. It is very common over extended time periods for the free end of the gate to drop or sag, especially with gates made from wood or with excessively elongated gates, such as those used to allow vehicle access. When this occurs, closing and latching the gate requires manually lifting the free end to align the striker with the catch.
Gate latches typically comprise a striker component having a laterally extending pin, post or rod that is received within the slot of a catch component. To address the common problem of gate sag, an inclined lower ramp surface is usually provided on the catch, the inclined ramp surface extending from the bottom of the slot. With this structure, when the striker pin is no longer properly aligned with the slot of the catch assembly due to a small amount of gate sag, the person closing the gate must push or pull the gate to force the striker pin to ride up the ramp of the catch and enter the slot. This operation can be difficult for heavy or elongated gates, and if the free end of the gate has sagged excessively such that the striker pin does not align with the ramp, the person closing the gate will have to lift the free end of the gate a significant distance to bring the striker pin to the level of the ramp and slot on the catch. This can be very difficult for heavy gates.
In addition to providing the catch ramp, various other methods are used to address the gate sag problem. One solution is to reinforce the gate itself, such as by attaching a diagonal strut made of wire or cable from a point on the gate near the uppermost hinge to a point on the gate near the lower corner of the free end. Additional struts may be mounted in various directions to prevent the free end of the gate from sagging. Such attachments are unsightly and are often ineffective in precluding gate sag. A similar solution, especially for elongated gates, is to provide an extended vertical tower on, adjacent, or as part of the stationary hinge post. A wire or cable strut is then extended from the top of the extended tower to the upper corner of the free end of the gate. This solution is also unsightly, especially with short gates, and is typically only effective on elongated gates.
It is an object of this invention to provide a gate latch that addresses the problem of gate sag, the gate latch being a gate lifter latch wherein the structure of the latch is such that closure of the gate results in the lifting of the free end of the gate to the correct pre-sag height relative to the latch post, the closing and lifting operation occurring easily and with little effort on the part of the person closing the gate. It is a further object to provide such a gate lifter latch which comprises a lifting assembly having a pivoting lift arm, the lift arm being angularly adjustable to account for the increases in gate sag over time, such that when the gate is closed the striker pin is initially received in a receiving slot of the lift arm, with further closure of the gate pivoting the lift arm into a vertical orientation to raise the free end of the gate to the proper height. It is a further object to provide such a gate lifter latch in a basic embodiment, an embodiment operational with a manual locking assembly, or an embodiment operational with an automatic locking assembly. It is a further object to provide such a gate lifter latch that is capable of universal application, wherein the elemental parts or components of the latch may be rearranged for use with either inswing or outswing gates. These objects and objects not expressly set forth will become apparent upon review of the disclosure which follows.
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{
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Peyronie's disease is characterized by the presence of dense fibrous tissue within the tunica albuginea about the corpus cavernosum of the penis, and is often associated with penile pain, curvature, or a palpable plaque. Infectious, traumatic, autoimmune and genetic causes have been proposed to be causative for Peyronie's. These characteristics are often associated with erectile dysfunction and may cause pain to the partner as well. Treating this disease has been done using injections of various kinds as well as surgical intervention to straighten the penis. More recent therapies include injecting collagenase to reduce the fibrotic tissue. The plaques have been theorized to be caused by an injury creating a break within the tunica; others have postulated that they are caused by a fibrotic disorder or unknown causes not related to injury. It is desired to provide a treatment that addresses the affected penile tissue and to address the potential for future reoccurrence of the condition.
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{
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Radio frequency welding is a process used to join dielectric components to one another by pressing the components to one another between electrodes. Radio frequency energy is supplied, causing the electrode to create an electromagnetic field at the surfaces of the components to be joined. Because the material or materials of the components are dielectric, the electromagnetic field excites the material, heating it from within and fusing the surfaces of the components to one another at a seamless bond or weld as strong as the joined materials.
Radio frequency welding is typically carried out between top and bottom forming tools configured to apply pressure to the components to be joined. When the components have complex, contoured outer surfaces, it can be difficult to ensure that the tooling reliably applies sufficient pressure to the components in all of the areas required to ensure optimum welds. Accordingly, dedicated tooling with custom mold cavities is sometimes used to ensure that the tooling conforms to and supports the outer surfaces of the components to be joined. Alternatively, a series of shims can be fit between flat tooling and the components to be joined to more closely conform to the contoured outer surfaces of the components. These options may be relatively costly and may slow manufacturing time, as a particular arrangement of the components in the tooling cavities or of the shims may be necessary.
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{
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1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a parking brake interlock.
2. Statement of the Problem
Many vehicles include pneumatic systems, including air brake systems. Air brake systems are often used for large, heavy vehicles. Advantageously, an air brake system offers advantages such as suitability for large vehicles, chaining between multiple units (such as truck trailers and rail cars, for example), reliability and simplicity, and safety due to automatic brake deployment in the event that air pressure is lost.
Most heavy vehicles possess a parking brake. The parking brake can be deployed when the vehicle is not moving and prevents the vehicle from moving. The parking brake can be deployed when the engine of the vehicle is either running or stopped. The parking brake remains deployed even when the vehicle is not generating any air pressure.
A parking brake system often includes a manually operated valve that is manipulated by the operator of the vehicle. A push-pull valve is one common type of parking brake valve. The parking brake valve is typically mounted on a dashboard or other operator panel of the vehicle.
It is possible for a parking brake valve to be accidentally or unintentionally deployed. For example, the operator could bump the parking brake while entering, exiting, or otherwise moving around in a cabin of the vehicle. In addition, a passenger can manipulate the parking brake valve when the operator is not ready for it to be released.
A prior art approach has been to provide an interlock that prevents release of the parking brake unless the operator steps on and deploys a service brake of the vehicle. As a consequence, the vehicle will not move when the parking brake is released.
In the prior art, an interlock valve is connected to the service brake system. The prior art interlock relays air from the service brake system to the parking brake system and is located upstream of the parking brake valve. Consequently, unless the service brake is deployed, the prior art parking brake system does not receive any air.
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{
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For example, Patent Literature 1 through Patent Literature 5 below are known.
Patent Literature 1 is an invention in which multiple disk control apparatuses share multiple disk apparatuses via a switch. The disk control apparatus load leveling is attempted in accordance with the disk control apparatus, which processes a read/write request to the disk apparatus, dynamically changing. In Patent Literature 1, a host computer recognizes one physical disk apparatus as one disk apparatus.
Patent Literature 2 is related to technology called virtual storage. In Patent Literature 2, a storage system has a virtual storage identifier and a real storage identifier. In Patent Literature 2, a virtual LUN and a real LUN exist with respect to a LUN (Logical Unit Number), which is a logical volume number specified when a server performs a read/write. The virtual LUN is unique inside a virtual storage, and the real LUN is unique inside a real storage. The virtual storage is configured in accordance with one or more real storages. For example, a single virtual storage is realized on the basis of multiple real storages. Furthermore, even when a real storage identifier changes in accordance with an old real storage being replaced by a new real storage, the handing over of the virtual storage identifier can make it appear to the virtual storage host that operations are continuing.
Patent Literature 3 discloses technology for real storage load leveling in accordance with copying a virtual LUN between real storages, which comprise a virtual storage.
Patent Literature 4 relates to technology called “capacity virtualization”. Capacity virtualization is also called thin provisioning. In Patent Literature 4, a virtual storage has a capacity virtualization function. In the capacity virtualization function, a relatively large-capacity storage area called a capacity pool is partitioned into segments called pages. Generally speaking, when a logical volume is defined, a logical volume capacity is specified in addition to the LUN, and a logical volume corresponding to this capacity is reserved in the storage. In a virtual storage that has a capacity virtualization function, a storage area is not reserved as a logical volume when the logical volume is defined, and in a case where a write actually occurs with respect to the logical volume, a page is allocated to a write-destination area in the logical volume. This makes it possible to reduce the storage area actually being used. Since the trigger for allocating the storage area is the occurrence of a write, an administrator may define a relatively large capacity as the logical volume capacity without having to compute the exact capacity of the logical volume, thereby also enabling management costs to be lowered.
In Patent Literature 5, a storage system A is coupled to an external storage system, and this external storage system is virtually made to appear as a storage capacity inside the storage system A. A capacity virtualization function (a function, which treats a storage capacity as a storage pool, partitions the storage capacity into page units, and allocates the page when there is a write request) is applied to the external storage system. The storage system A migrates to a storage system B a logical volume to which a page of the external storage system, which is also coupled to the storage system B, is allocated. In Patent Literature 5, even when a logical volume is migrated, storage system A comprises the storage pool of the external storage system, and storage system A also comprises the page allocation and release rights of the storage pool. A read/write with respect to the migrated logical volume is executed by the storage system B.
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{
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Liquid samples are often collected and transported to a laboratory for purposes of conducting environmental analysis of the sample. Frequently, liquid samples are collected in a standardized container, such as a one liter glass sample bottle having a threaded top. Examples of apparatuses for use in testing liquid samples are described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,753,105 and 6,027,638.
One extraction technique is to filter the sample through a solid phase extraction (SPE) disk. As the sample filters through the SPE disk, the media within the SPE disk removes and concentrates the analytes of interest. Prior to testing, however, the SPE disk must be conditioned with a small volume of solvent. During processing, the sample bottle must be rinsed with solvent to ensure that potential analytes do not remain attached to the glass surface of the sample bottle, but are instead transferred to the disk. Improved devices and methods for facilitating preconditioning of the disk, transfer of the liquid sample onto the disk, and rinsing of the sample bottle would improve testing throughput by reducing the amount of manual labor necessary to extract a sample.
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{
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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Tissue replacements suffer from a lack of appropriate donors, tissue typing, availability, homogeneity and variety leading to the failure in many cases of transplants. In the case of autotransplants for example, mammary artery or femoral vein substitutes for coronary artery bypass, the tissue from which these tissues are taken can lead to stress or injury. Current 3D printing for tissues is a highly complex process and requires a specialized laboratory and printing facility using complex and highly expensive materials. There is a need for a wider variety of tissue types which can be used to take the place of diseased or damaged tissues. Further, currently, polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) is used in 3D printing as a water soluble support matrix which can rapidly dissolve to permit complex structure printing. PVA in its unmodified state though, is challenging to use for biological devices. For the foregoing reasons, there is a pressing, but seemingly irresolvable need for a flexible, biologically compatible scaffolding, able to covalently bind growth factors and act as a support matrix for integrating living cells.
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{
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(1) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a home security system that monitors the inside of a facility, and especially relates to a home security system that detects any occurrence of alarming situations and captures the images within a house or a facility by a camera.
(2) Description of the Related Art
So far, a home security system for monitoring the inside of a house has been proposed (see Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No. H10-271572 as reference).
The conventional home security system mentioned above includes a plurality of sensors that detect any intruder breaking in, a plurality of cameras that are installed within a house, and a control unit that controls the cameras according to the result of detection by the sensors.
For example, when one of the aforementioned sensors detects an intruder breaking in, the control unit makes a camera that is fixedly associated with the sensor to capture the image, and sends the captured image data to an external home care service center via communication lines.
However, in the conventional home security system, each of the sensors and cameras are always associated with each other according to certain relationships, and the locations for capturing images cannot be varied nor the number be increased or decreased according to the level and condition of monitoring.
For instance, when the conventional home security system is installed in a house, and a sensor that detects an intruder breaking in from an entrance hall and a camera that captures the image of the entrance hall area are fixedly associated with each other, then when the sensor detects an intruder breaking in, the control unit chooses, among a plurality of cameras, the camera that is associated with the sensor to be the only camera to capture the image. As a result, even when the user, meaning the resident of the house, desires to have sufficient monitoring for going out, only one camera that is fixedly associated with a certain sensor captures images in the conventional home security system, and cannot make other cameras capture images. On the other hand, even when the user is at home and feeling a light monitoring is sufficient, in the conventional home security system, all the cameras that are fixedly associated with a certain sensor are going to capture images.
Now, in consideration of the foregoing problems, the object of the present invention is to provide a home security system that allows to vary as well as increase and decrease the locations of capturing images according to the level and condition of monitoring.
In order to achieve the above object, the present invention is the home security system that monitors an inside of a facility and comprises: a plurality of detection units operable to detect an alarming situation in different locations inside the facility; a plurality of image capturing units operable to capture an image in different locations inside the facility; an association memory unit operable to memorize associations between a plurality of the detection units and a plurality of the image capturing units; an updating unit operable to update the associations memorized in the association memory unit; and a control unit operable to, when one of a plurality of the detection units detects an alarming situation, have the image capturing unit which is associated with the detection unit that detects the alarming situation capture an image based on the associations memorized in the association memory unit.
Accordingly, since the updating unit updates said associations, it becomes possible to vary as well as increase and decrease the locations of capturing images according to the level and condition of monitoring.
Also, in the home security system, a plurality of the detection units, a plurality of the image capturing units and the control unit may communicate each other via an electric power line.
Therefore, when configuring the system in an already constructed house, a plurality of the detection units, a plurality of the image capturing units and the control unit can be connected using electric power lines that are already established in the house. As a result, not only that the system can be configured easily, but the detection units and the image capturing units can be added quite easily.
The home security system further comprises an image display unit, wherein the image capturing unit sends image data that indicates content of the captured image to the image display unit, and the image display unit displays the image captured by the image capturing unit based on the image data.
Accordingly, since the image captured by the capturing unit is displayed on the image display unit, the state of alarm situations can be confirmed easily by viewing the images.
Also, the home security system may further comprise a server that communicates with the image display unit and provides an image via a communication line, wherein the image display unit sends the image data obtained from the image capturing unit to the server, and the server provides the image based on the image data to a device that accesses the server via the communication line.
Accordingly, since the server provides the images captured by the image capturing unit via communication lines, the user is able to confirm the images captured by the image capturing units even from a place where he/she has gone by accessing the server using personal computers etc.
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{
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The present invention generally relates to fabrication methods and resulting structures for semiconductor devices. More specifically, the present invention relates to a planar single-crystal phase change material (PCM) device.
Phase-change materials, such as chalcogenides, can be switched between two states, poly-crystalline and amorphous, based on heat produced by the passage of an electric current. In the poly-crystalline state, each grain of the material is a perfect crystal and the material is conductive (almost metallic). It is notable however that each of the grains is randomly oriented with respect to the other grains resulting in an overall poly-crystalline material. In the amorphous state, there is no long range order in the material and the material is highly resistive. These two states make phase-change materials particularly well-suited for storing data.
To change the phase change material from the amorphous to the poly-crystalline state the material is heated above its crystallization temperature for a sufficiently long time. It will arrange itself into a poly-crystalline state during that heating time. To change the material from the poly-crystalline state to the amorphous state it will be heated above its melting temperature and then quenched (quickly cooled). It will not have enough time to rearrange itself in an ordered state, and an amorphous state will result. Both the crystallization temperature and melting temperature vary depending on the particular phase change material.
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{
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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1. Field of Invention
This invention relates to Hardware, Network, and/or Software technology and the regression and verification of the accuracy of that technology; more particularly to a method for coordinating and managing the method and procedure, including full regression, to established generational baselines in order to provide errors, deviations, recommendations, and acceptance status information.
2. Description of Prior Art
Over many years of technology development a general methodology for testing and implementing technology has evolved:
Unit Test--Each individual technology, whether it be hardware, network, and/or software, is tested by its creator to demonstrate that it accurately and completely includes all the capability that was requested in the system requirements specification document, and that each technology item can be executed accordingly.
System Test--A group of hardware, network, and/or software technologies are collectively exercised by technical staff to demonstrate that it accurately and completely includes all the capability which was requested in the system requirement specification documents, and that the group can demonstrate accurate and complete processing as was requested. An Information Technologist testing organization typically conducts these tests.
Inter-System Test--An entire platform of hardware, network, and/or software technologies are collectively exercised to demonstrate that the platform accurately and completely includes all the capability which was requested in the system requirement specification documents. An Information Technologist testing organization typically conducts the inter-system tests.
System requirement specifications are prepared by members of technical organizations after they interpret the original business user customer requirement request and determine the technology and computer languages, machines, networks, routers, switches, and other hardware and network components that will be used to support the business user request.
User Acceptance Test--A support platform [or part of it] is collectively exercised to demonstrate that it accurately and completely includes all the capabilities that the business user customer requested in their original business user requirements request initially presented to the Information Technology organization. These tests are typically conducted by, or for business user customers, and they are not technology focused, rather they are exercised to verify that the business needs, transaction processing, and reporting exactly meets the business user's needs as they requested.
Usually the Unit, system, and Inter-System tests are expected to be completed by the Information Technology organization before it delivers the technology to the business user customer for the User Acceptance Test. All these tests should be correctly completed prior to implementing the new or enhanced technology into the operating production environment. On many occasions, however, the business user customer is unable to verify that the technology fulfills their original user request, generally due to their inability to conduct the acceptance verification process, timing constraints, late delivery, lack of available, and/or not having capable staff. Because the business user customer has been unable, in many instances to test the technology, it may be implemented into their production environment with errors that are detected after the production implementation. In a large number of, if not all, situations, these errors would have been identified during a full regression and user acceptance test.
Testing and the verification of accuracy and completeness of technology development are estimated to cost about 60 percent of the technology development budget. Inter-System and especially User Acceptance Testing, the more expensive and time consuming areas, are often shortened or eliminated in order to meet budget and delivery timeframes. Even though there can be significant costs incurred for later corrective actions which are borne by the same business user customer, these costs and the delays associated with corrective actions are now assessed after customer dissatisfaction, errors in transactions, and business delays.
Inventors have created various testing techniques to address the Unit, System, and Inter-System testing processes. These techniques appear to indicate that their use could improve testing, however these tests principally support technologists who are familiar with the complicated details required to build the hardware, network, and software technologies themselves. Importantly, these improvements test and verify the system specifications created by technologists after interpreting the original business user customer request, and therefore the technology developed, even if fully tested, may still not fulfill the original business user customer Requirement. In many cases these differences in interpretation are responsible for errors in the technology developed.
Business user acceptance verification processes in the User Acceptance Test are expected to affirm that the technology to be implemented delivers the business user customer's requested technology. In order to meet the intent of user acceptance testing noted above, however, methods require improvements to verify the technology accuracy, meet business user customer needs, improve business processes, reduce dissatisfaction, business expense and business delays.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,233,611 to Trienthafyllos, Shield, and IBM (1993), discloses automated function testing of application programs which utilizes a test case program which collects and executes commands and transactions. This method, however, does not include regression testing and it does not test hardware or network technologies. Nor does the method specifically support user acceptance by the non-technical business user customer community.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,513,315 to Tierney, Cross, and Microsoft (1996) shows a system and method for automatically testing software using a deterministic acceptance test and random command sequence selections with a results analyzer. This method uses specifically predetermined commands with a log file and tracker file to execute technologist oriented code level testing. Again, there is no regression component; nor are hardware and network elements tested. Evaluative intelligence is not included, and the method does not support user acceptance by the non-technical business user customer community.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,892,947 to DeLong, Carl, and Sun Microsystems (1999) is a test support tool which produces software test programs from logical descriptions and cause-effect graphs. This method generates code level test cases, as well. This method does not support regression testing, does not test hardware and network elements, does not include evaluative intelligence, and does not support user acceptance by the non-technical business user customer community.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,805,795 to Whitten and Sun Microsystems (1998) shows a method and computer program product for generating tests with optimized test cases and a selection method. Again, this method does not support regression testing and does not test hardware and network elements. The invention does not include evaluative intelligence and does not support user acceptance by the non-technical business user customer community.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,913,023 to Szermer and Siemens Corporate Research (1999) is a method for automated generation of tests for software. Again, this method does not support regression testing and does not test hardware and network elements. The invention does not include evaluative intelligence and does not support user acceptance by the non-technical business user customer community.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,002,869 to Hinckley and Novell, Inc. (1999) shows a system and method for automatically testing software programs. This method enables the functional testing of various code of a software program. Even though claim 4 in this invention states the method enables a test history of a test procedure, this is at a very detail program level, and is not regression testing. Also hardware and network components are not tested. Evaluative intelligence is not included, and the method does not support non-technical business user customer community.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,014,760 to Silva, et al. al, and Hewlett-Packard Company discloses a scheduling method and apparatus for a distributed automated testing system. This invention schedules and executes software tests. It does not test hardware and network components. The invention does not add evaluative intelligence, does not control regression, nor does it support users or manage test conditions.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,500,941 to Gil, and Ericsson, S. A. shows an optimum functional test method to determine the quality of a software system embedded in a large electronic system using usage concepts modeled as Markov chains. Code level test cases are generated internally, and are not those that would be selected by the business user customer. Regression testing is not covered here, nor are hardware and network components tested. The invention does not add evaluative intelligence and does not support the non-technical business user customer community.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,870,539 to Schaffer and Sun Microsystems (1999) discloses a method for generalized windows application install testing for use with an automated test tool. This invention tests windows software applications only; and no hardware or network. Regression testing is not included, evaluative intelligence is not included, and the process does not support user acceptance for non-technical business user customer community.
None of the above methods indicates the capability of performing a regression process to verify continuing process accuracy and integrity over time.
None of the above methods indicates the capability of clearly identifying errors, deviations, and specifically related recommendation for corrective action over time, the most important components of a verification process.
None of the above methods indicates they reduce time and costs when using their method.
None of the above methods indicates the ability to easily support the non-technical business user customer.
None of the above methods indicates the ability to customize [their methods] to support various different technology, hardware, network, and/or software components.
A method is needed to support non-technical business users and help them ensure their technology is correct and supports their business plans.
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{
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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Many vehicles in common use are equipped with freely rotating casters to provide ease and flexibility of movement. Wheel chairs and shopping carts are examples with such casters in front and fixed wheels in back which can only roll forward or backward. Hospital gurneys and hand carts generally employ freely rotating casters in all four corners of the vehicle. The fixed wheels, that is wheels which roll about a horizontal but don't rotate about a vertical axis, employed in shopping carts and wheel chairs enable the user to maintain better control when moving forward and backward or turning, the most important movements for those types of vehicles. Hospital gurneys and hand carts on the other hand must also be capable of moving sideways. Such additional flexibility of movement does however make it more difficult to steer the vehicle through narrow openings (such as doorways) or uneven surfaces (such as gaps in the floor leading into an elevator or raised obstacles like door jambs in doorways), especially when the vehicle is being propelled by a single person. The problem is most acute when the vehicle, such as a gurney, is longer than it is wide. Any off-center force applied by a single person pushing such a vehicle with four freely rotating casters from the rear will make it difficult to control the movement of the vehicle, especially of the front end.
Some hospital gurneys employ means for inhibiting rotation about a vertical axis by adding frictional resistance on all four casters to achieve better control but this has the disadvantages of greater complexity in construction and increased force to turn the gurney. Other gurneys employ a fifth locked wheel in the center underneath the gurney which can be lowered from a normally raised position to contact the floor and thereby resist turning. That arrangement is only useful when straight forward and backward movement is desired but only to the limited extent that one centered wheel can control movement. Other vehicles provide means for locking and unlocking all four casters individually or collectively, sometimes locking the casters in more than one position. Such increased capability is even more complex to construct and operate.
The present invention minimizes the foregoing difficulties by locking the casters on the front or rear end of the vehicle but also providing means for unlocking normally locked casters to permit movement in any direction when desired or locking unlocked casters to facilitate straight forward or backward movement. For example, free swiveling is desirable when attempting to parallel park a gurney between the furniture or equipment positioned against the wall of a hospital room. Free swiveling on all four caster is not desirable when attempting to steer the gurney from one end through narrow openings. Similar situations are encountered by other manually operated vehicles with freely rotating casters such as carts used to transport light cargo through narrow openings over uneven surfaces in cluttered factories, warehouses or offices. The present invention attempts to address this problem in a simpler and more cost effective manner than increasing frictional resistance to rotation on all four casters, adding a fifth wheel or providing means for locking or unlocking all four wheels.
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{
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
}
|
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an engine room for construction equipment, which can minimize emission of noise generated in an engine room of an excavator and so on to an outside of the engine room.
More particularly, the present invention relates to an engine room for construction equipment, which can minimize emission of noise generated in an engine room due to driving of an engine and a ventilating fan to an outside of the engine room by absorbing the noise through a noise trap, and can improve the cooling performance of corresponding components by smoothing inhalation/discharge of an external air to/from the airtight engine room.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Generally, in the case of performing a work using construction equipment such as an excavator and so on, noise generated from the construction equipment (e.g. an engine, a cooling fan, a hydraulic pump, and the like) has become influential as environmental problems, and its regulations have been gradually strengthened. Particularly, as technologies for low noise have been highlighted due to the strengthening of noise regulations in Europe, there is a need to minimize the noise emission from an engine room to an outside.
As illustrated in FIG. 1, a general excavator includes a lower driving structure 1; an upper swing structure 2 mounted to swing on the lower driving structure 1 in left or right direction; a cab 3 and an engine room 4 mounted on the upper swing structure 2; a working device 11 fixed to the upper swing structure 2, and composed of a boom 6 driven by a boom cylinder 5, an arm 8 driven by an arm cylinder 7, and a bucket 10 driven by a bucket cylinder 9; and a counter weight 12 mounted on the upper swing structure 1, and provided with a built-in weight body to maintain a balance of the equipment during the operation of the equipment.
As illustrated in FIG. 2, a power generator for driving a drive part of the excavator includes an engine 13, a main hydraulic pump 15 driven by the engine 13 to supply hydraulic fluid to an actuator (e.g. a hydraulic cylinder and so on) 14 of the working device; a control valve (MCV) 16 installed in a flow path between the hydraulic pump 15 and the actuator 14 to control the flow direction of the hydraulic fluid being supplied to the actuator 14; a radiator 23 cooling an engine cooling water; an oil cooler 24 cooling the high-temperature hydraulic fluid returning from the control valve 16 to a hydraulic tank T; an auxiliary hydraulic pump 19 supplying the hydraulic fluid to a hydraulic motor 18 driving a radiator fan 17; and an auxiliary hydraulic pump 22 supplying the hydraulic fluid to a hydraulic motor 21 driving the oil cooler fan 20.
As illustrated in FIG. 3, according to a conventional engine room for construction equipment, the external air (the moving directions of which are indicated as arrows in the drawing) inhaled into the engine room through an inlet port A formed on an outer wall 27 during rotation of a radiator fan 17 is discharged to an outside through outlet ports B and C. The external air inhaled into the engine room passes through the radiator 23, and cools the engine cooling water in a tube through mutual heat exchange. The external air, having passed through the radiator 23 cools the engine body, passes through the circumference of the engine 13 to cool the engine body.
The exhaust gas discharged from the engine 13 is discharged to the atmosphere through a muffler 25. Dust and so on included in the external air inhaled into an inhalation system of the engine 13 can be filtered by an air cleaner 26.
As illustrated in FIG. 4, according to another conventional engine room for construction equipment, the engine 13 is arranged in an airtight space to prevent the noise generated in the engine room 13 from emitting out of the engine room 13. In this case, it is required to cool heat-generating components such as the radiator 23 and so on, and thus openings for circulating the external air are formed on the outer wall 27.
If the diameters of an inlet port E formed on the outer wall 27 of the engine room to inhale the external air and an outlet port D to discharge the internal air to an outside are reduced, it becomes difficult to smoothly discharge the air in the engine room to the outside. Accordingly, due to high heat generated in the engine room, a sound-absorbing material and so on installed in the engine room may catch fire.
In addition, even in the case of making the engine room airtight due to the noise generated during operation of the radiator fan 17, the noise problem cannot be basically solved. Accordingly, schemes for lowering the rotating speed of the radiator fan 17 to reduce the noise of the radiator fan 17 and to enlarge the size of the radiator fan 17 have been proposed.
The enlarged radiator fan 17 occupies much space in the engine room, and causes the manufacturing cost to be increased.
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{
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
}
|
1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a check valve for preventing the reverse flow of gasoline supplied to a tank through an automotive fuel supply pipe.
More specifically, while various check valves have heretofore been proposed and used, the present invention concerns a check valve which can be inserted in a comparatively small diameter pipe such as a fuel supply pipe for supplying fuel to an automotive gasoline tank such that it will not obstruct fuel supply but closes as soon as a reverse flow occurs.
2. Prior Art Statement
As check valves for insertion in liquid supply pipes, there are known those disclosed in Japanese Utility Model Publications SHO 54(1979)-36334, 56(1981)-5638 and 56(1981)-49015.
Of these check valves, those disclosed in the Japanese Utility Model Publications SHO 54(1979)-36334 and 56(1981)-49015 are for insertion in a pipe. Either of these valves is opened by a pressure of liquid flowing in one direction, while it is closed when reverse flow of the liquid occurs. More specifically, each of these valves has two, i.e., upper and lower valve plates. One of these valve plates is pivotally mounted in a pivotal section provided in an inner wall of a valve body, while the other valve plate is pivotally mounted in a pivotal section diametrically crossing a central portion of the valve body. These valve plates are pivotally moved about their pivotal sections when they are opened and closed.
These valves, however, are adapted for use in a large diameter pipe, as disclosed in the aforementioned publications. Therefore, although they do not constitute any substantial obstacle with respect to the flow of liquid when used in a large diameter pipe, they would constitute a great obstacle to flow if used in a small diameter pipe like an automotive fuel supply pipe.
In this case, not only the central pivotal section constitutes an obstacle to flow, but also other pivotal sections projecting from the inner wall of the valve body reduce the effective pipe diameter, thus obstructing the flow, i.e., liquid supply.
In a further aspect, in the prior art check valves, the valve plates are usually closed by their own weight. For this reason, the pivotal section has to be located above the valve plate at all times. If it is located at the wrong position, failure of valve function and other difficulties are likely.
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{
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
}
|
1. Field of the invention:
The present invention relates to a vari-focal lens system for cameras and more specifically to a vari-focal lens system for video cameras.
2. Description of the prior art:
In the recent years, compact and light-weight video cameras are offered at low prices, and demand for domestic video cameras is rapidly increasing. In order to further develop the demand for domestic video cameras, it is necessary to design compacter video cameras which are ligher in weight and manufacturable at lower cost. Under these circumstances, it is important to design compact, light-weight lens systems manufacturable at low cost.
At present, zoom lens systems to be used in video cameras for domestic use are mainly designed for a zoom ratio of 6 and an F-number on the order of F/1.2 to F/1.6. This is because the above-mentioned specifications are suited for obtaining high efficiency for design and meeting the practical needs.
As examples of the conventional zoom lens systems for video cameras, there are already known the lens systems disclosed by Japanese Unexamined Published Patent Application No. 102208/58, Japanese Unexamined Published Patent Application No. 153913/58 and so on. However, these zoom lens systems comprise a vari-focal unit consisting of three lens components and a relay lens system consisting of seven to eight lens components, or is composed of fourteen to fifteen lens components in total, whereby these lens systems have a common defect that they comprise a large number of lens components, require high manufacturing cost, have large diameters and are heavy in weight. Further, the zoom lens system disclosed by Japanese Unexamined Published Patent Application No. 110112/61 is so designed as to compose a vari-focal unit of two lens components and a relay lens system of three lens components so that the zoom lens system can be composed of eight lens components in total and manufactured at low cost.
However, this zoom lens system adopts extremely high curvature on the surfaces of the cemented lens components arranged in the vari-focal unit and the relay lens system, and requires high manufacturing cost contrary to the purpose thereof. Furthermore, the zoom lens system disclosed by Japanese Unexamined Published Patent Application No. 198813/62 is so designed as to consist of six lens components in total by composing a vari-focal unit of a single lens component and a relay lens system of three lens components. However, this zoom lens system has a low vari-focal ratio, and is usable only at the wide position and tele position thereof.
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{
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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|
A corrugated metal plate is frequently used as a heat insulation cover (also referred to as a heat insulator, including one having a vibration-damping function and/or sound absorption function) that is arranged close to an exhaust manifold or exhaust pipe (muffler) as an automobile's heat generating section. A typical corrugated metal plate is proposed in Patent Publication 1.
The corrugated metal plate disclosed in Patent Publication 1 is one which is prepared by using a thin metal plate of aluminum or the like as a flat plate material and in which both of cross-sectional shapes respectively along two directions, that is, one particular direction (X-direction) and a direction (Y-direction) perpendicular thereto are formed into a wave shape by a repetition of an alternate arrangement of a projection portion and a recess portion.
One described in Patent Publication 1 has one characteristic that is high in elastic property by having in a particular cross-section a so-called bag-shape recess portions 23 (see FIG. 5 of Patent Publication 1) in which a bottom side of an inner portion has a width wider than that of an open side (mouth side).
As to the recess portion in which a bottom side of an inner portion has a width wider than that of an open side (mouth side) in a particular cross-section, from the viewpoint of press working property, it is nothing else but a condition in which the shape of the recess portion turns into a hooking relation by an undercut or inverse relation relative to a direction of withdrawal of a press tool (mold) that makes the recess portions.
In the corrugated metal plate described in Patent Publication 1, however, the wave shape by a roughness repetition to include the recess portions has a special shape. Therefore, it is necessary to conduct the press operation or bending operation several times by using a special pressing facility. Thus, it is forced to have an increased cost by an increase of the number of working operations. In addition, there exists a part where a bending operation has been conducted such that the plate members are locally overlapped in connection with an inverse shape of the recess portion. Therefore, in this part, stress concentration tends to occur, for example, in the case of receiving the vibration force repeatedly.
Furthermore, in the corrugated metal plate described in Patent Publication 1, since both of the cross-sectional shapes in the two directions are corrugated, it is possible to expect the surface rigidity improvement effect. However, the difference of rigidity against bending between X-direction and Y-direction tends to result in a significant strength difference. Furthermore, the shape is significantly different between the front side and the back side. Therefore, for example, in the case of forming into a predetermined three-dimensional shape as a heat insulation cover that is a product, the corrugated metal plate turns into a shape having directional property including a front-and-back relation. As a result, the corrugated metal plate is not superior in usability.
Furthermore, in case that, for example, the corrugated metal plate described in Patent Publication 1 is used as a base plate and then this is formed into a predetermined three-dimensional shape (product shape), for example, as a heat insulation cover that is arranged close to an exhaust manifold that is an automobile's heat generating section, by conducting a bending operation to have a pan shape (shallow pan shape or deep pan shape) or cup shape, the recess portion, in which bottom side of an inner portion has a width wider than that of an open side (mouth side) as mentioned above, may unexpectedly function as a liquid pool.
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{
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
}
|
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a computer system having a multiprocessor construction, more particularly to a system for controlling the transfer of commands between processors in a multiprocessor system.
2. Description of the Related Art
One of the major methods for forming a computer system is to tie in a plurality of central processors, input/output processors, and the like to a common main memory unit. Such a system is called a multiprocessor system.
Such a multiprocessor system requires means for compulsory synchronization of the control operation between processors or the ability to directly transmit command information and response information therefor between processors for the control of startup at the start of system operation, control by one processor over the initialization, start, stop, etc. of another processor when the other processor is malfunctioning, etc.
For example, the central processors in multiprocessor systems are subject to what are called "signal processor commands", by which they transfer commands to other processors for the above-mentioned purpose. When executing such a command, they transfer command codes and parameters specified by the command to a designated processor and receive response information therefrom.
The response information includes the state of receipt of the commands and, when the commands are not received, information allowing determination of the state of the specified processor.
Further, when a desired kind of command is executed, information summarizing the results of executing, etc. is set as a condition code. The condition code of a signal processor command is mainly formed based on the above-mentioned response information.
For such transfer of information between processors, conventional systems, have been provided with information transfer paths (wires) directly connecting the processors for every combination of two processors.
Most conventional multiprocessor systems consist of two central processors. Advances in electronics technology, however, have made an increased number of the central processors more practical. A multiprocessor system having an increased number of processors should preferably be controlled by a method different from the conventional method and which different method is appropriate for information transfer between a large number of processors for communication of common information between the processors.
That is, in a method for control of a conventional system, the number of the information transfer lines increases in proportion to the square of the number of the processors and the scale of the control circuit provided in each processor increases in proportion to the number of the processors. Therefore, the scale of the overall system increases in proportion to the square of the number of the processors. This causes problems in economy and reliability.
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{
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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