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In electrical engineering, the problem of converting an actual a.c. voltage into a desired reference a.c. voltage arises in many applications. Such applications may include, for example, power electronics, low-frequency electronics, communications electronics, etc.
The preferred field of application for such methods and circuit arrangements is filtering the voltage of an electric three-phase or a.c. power supply system which is strongly subject to voltage harmonics generated by power electronic equipment and arrangements due to the switching components. Conventional methods of filtering harmonics out of line voltages have involved only methods and arrangements based on passive electronic components. Active methods and circuit arrangements for shaping and filtering a.c. voltage have been used only for filtering harmonics out of line currents.
Since only filters with passive electric components have been used to suppress voltage harmonics, a method of shaping a.c. voltage and a suitable circuit arrangement for this purpose based on active electronic components are to be created so that costs and high losses in passive filters can be reduced.
This principle should theoretically be capable of converting any desired a.c. voltage form to any other a.c. voltage form at a power supply connection point. The field of application of this method and circuit arrangement should thus be expandable to a great extent into areas that are far from being limited to just electric supply systems, power electronic loads or the elimination of harmonics. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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The present invention relates to a pneumatic tire suitable for rough terrain, more particularly to a block type tread pattern being capable of displaying good performance in a wide variety of conditions.
A motocross tire of a pneumatic tire designed for rough terrain is usually provided with a block type tread pattern.
For example, the laid-open Japanese patent application JP-A-6-171311 discloses a motorcycle tire having a block pattern designed for muddy terrain. The laid-open Japanese patent application JP-A-5-104911 discloses a motorcycle tire having a block pattern designed for soft terrain such as sands.
In general, a block pattern in which priority is given to traction in soft terrain tends to show insufficient traction for running in hard terrain. Likewise a block pattern in which priority is given to traction in hard terrain tends to show insufficient traction for running in soft terrain. It is difficult for a block pattern tire to display good traction in both soft terrain and hard terrain. Therefore, in a motocross race for example in which a tire undergo wide variety conditions, it is difficult to shorten the lap time if failed in tire selection.
It is therefore, an object of the present invention to provide a pneumatic tire having an improved tread pattern being capable of displaying good performance such as traction under a wide variety of conditions in both soft and hard terrain.
According to the present invention, a pneumatic tire comprises
a tread portion curved so that the maximum section width of the tire lies between tread edges,
the tread portion provided with
central blocks arranged circumferentially of the tire at pitches P1,
axially outer blocks arranged circumferentially of the tire at pitches P3, and
middle blocks arranged circumferentially of the tire at pitches P2 between the central blocks and axially outer blocks, wherein
the pitches P1 are more than the pitches P2 and the central blocks, and the middle blocks are substantially aligned every two or more (number n) pitches P1,
two or more circumferential positions at which the central blocks and the middle blocks are substantially aligned are provided around the tire, and
circumferential positions of the axially outer blocks are between the middle blocks. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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Lifestyle in many parts of the world today is characterized by an enormous meal and “between-meal” intake of calories from solid food and snacks as well as drinkable calories. This lifestyle is often referred to as “western world lifestyle”, and it is generally regarded as unhealthy. Our food earlier consisted of an average of 10% protein, 30% fat and 60% carbohydrates; the carbohydrates mostly in the form of slowly absorbed carbohydrates. The food and especially the between-meal snack consumed today often has a much higher amount of quickly absorbed carbohydrates and fat. The amount of quickly absorbed carbohydrates may be measured as the glycemic index or as the fraction of mono- and di-saccharide of the total amount of carbohydrates. The excess intake of quickly absorbed carbohydrates and/or high fat leads to reduced feelings of hunger, and to increased stress (W F Horn, N Keim. Effects of glycemic index on hunger, stress and aroursal. FASEB Journal 2003:17(4-5):A7097). Also, some human beings have cravings for sweet and/or fat food, sometimes enhanced by stress or premenstrual tension, or they may have psychological problems manifested as binge eating or compulsive eating habits. As a consequence of this western world lifestyle and the psychological disorders described above there is a general excessive intake of food like sodas, juice, chocolate milk, sweetened coffee, candy, chocolate, cake, biscuits, crackers, french fries, burgers, white bread with jam or jelly or honey, chips, sweet and fat cereals.
GLP-1 has been described as an incretin hormone with a large array of effects. GLP-1 was discovered in 1984 and found to be an important incretin [Nauck, M. A.; Kleine, N.; Orskov, C.; Hoist, J. J.; Willms, B.; Creutzfeldt, W., Diabetologia 1993, 36, 741-744]. It is released from the L-cells in the intestine upon a meal and potently releases insulin from the beta-cells in the pancreas. Numerous effects other than just stimulation of insulin release have been ascribed to GLP-1. In the pancreas, GLP-1 not only releases insulin, it does so in a glucose-dependent manner, and it has a number of other functionally important effects: stimulation of insulin biosynthesis, restoration of glucose sensitivity to the islets, stimulation of increased expression of the glucose transporter GLUT-2 and glucokinase. 4,5,6GLP-1 also has a number of effects on regulation of beta-cell mass, stimulation of replication and growth of existing beta-cells, inhibition of apoptosis and neogenesis of new b-cells from duct precursor cells, which leads to reduced hepatic glucose output. In the gut, GLP-1 is a potent inhibitor of motility and gastric emptying and has also been shown to inhibit gastric acid secretion. The inhibition of gastric emptying leads to decreased food intake and reduced body weight [Flint, A.; Raben, A.; Astrup, A.; Hoist, J. J., J Clin Inv 1998, 101, 515-520; Zander, M.; Madsbad, S.; Madsen, J. L.; Hoist, J. J., Lancet 2002, 359, 824-830]11,12. Thus, the current belief is that the GLP-1 agonists may be able to control the progression of the type 2 diabetes disease by not only controlling blood glucose, but also by a number of other effects. GLP-1 has also been proposed to have direct effects on glucose uptake in liver, muscle and adipose tissue but the quantitative significance of these effects has been questioned [Kieffer, T. J.; Habener, J. F., Endocrine Reviews 1999, 20, 876-913]. New publications even suggest that it does not stop here, there may be specific receptors in the heart which along with the benefits of reducing blood glucose may prevent cardiovascular complications, and that GLP-1 stimulates memory and learning capabilities. A comprehensive review exists on the glucagon-like peptides [Kieffer, T. J.; Habener, J. F., Endocrine Reviews 1999, 20, 876-9139.
A large number of articles have been published on the effects of GLP-1 on food intake. GLP-1 reduces food intake, both after central administration and after peripheral administration (Turton, Nature 196:379; 69-72, Flint J Clin Inv 1998, 101, 515-520). Also, central administration of high doses of GLP-1 induces taste aversion (Tang-Christensen, Diabetes 1998:47:530-537). However, site directed micro injections of GLP-1 into the PVN induces pharmacologically specific inhibition of feeding without induction of taste aversive behaviour (McMahon, Wellman, Am. J. Phys 1998:274, R23-R29). In animals having their arcuate nucleus lesioned by neonatal monosodium glutamate treatment, central administration of GLP-1 has lost its anorectic potential but is still inducing taste aversion (Tang-Christensen, Diabetes 1998:47:530-537). Further support of dissociated specific satiety inducing central targets of GLP-1 and non-specific taste aversion inducing central targets come from lesion studies showing that PVN constitute a target where GLP-1 elicits satiety whereas the central amygdala and the parabrachial nuclei constitute areas involved in mediating GLP-1 induced taste aversion (van Dijk and Thiele, Neuropeptides 1999: 33, 406-414). Other studies have confirmed that there are diverse roles of GLP-1 receptors in the control of food intake and taste aversion (Kinzig, J Neuroscience 2002:22(23): 10470-10476). Also, chronic repetitive central administration of the GLP-1 antagonist, exendin-9-39, enhances food intake suggesting that an endogenous tone of satiety mediating GLP-1 exists in central pathways mediating body weight homeostasis (Meeran, Endocrinology 199:140:244-250). In a human study, continuous infusion of GLP-1 to type 2 diabetic patients gave rise to marked improvement of glycaemic control and caused moderate yet non-significant weight loss (Zander, Lancet 2002: 359, 824-830). The site of the anorectic action of peripherally administered GLP-1 is unknown but participation of both central and peripheral sites in GLP-1 are likely, because a recent study has shown that radiolabelled GLP-1 readily gains access to the central nervous system (Hassan, Nucl Med Biol 1999:26:413-420). The nucleus of the solitary tract is situated adjacent to the blood brain barrier free area postrema, and other studies using radio-labelled neuropeptides have shown that peripheral administration of neuropeptides gain access both to the area postrema as well as the adjacent subpostreme regions including the dorsal vagal complex (Whitcomb Am J Phys 1990: 259:G687-G691). Thus, it is likely that peripherally administered GLP-1 enters the nucleus of the solitary tract with resulting impact on ascending neurones involved in regulation of food intake. Interaction of GLP-1 with vagal afferents from the gastrointestional tract should also be considered as mediator of its anorectic actions because transection of the vagus nerve renders the stomach of anaesthetised pigs insensitive to the akinetic actions of intravenously administered GLP-1 (Wettergren, Am J Phys 1998:275:984-992). Probably both vagal afferents and GLP-1 receptors accessible from the periphery are responsible for the anorexia induced by GLP-1, because we have seen that bilateral subdiaphragmatic vagotomy on rats carrying the anorectic GLP-1 producing tumour has no impact on the development of anorexia (Jensen, JCI 1998: 101:503-510). Last, GLP-1 has been shown to inhibit intake of different kinds of food, both rich in fat and in carbohydrate (Bjenning, Diabetes Res and Clin Prac 2000:50(1):S386).
Despite this in-dept knowledge it as never been described that a GLP-1 agonist has the effect of specifically modifying the intake of food associated with an unhealthy western world lifestyle. This effect could be useful in the treatment of all kinds of disorders linked to an increased intake of sweet or fat food.
Earlier studies suggest that seretoninergic drugs effect a selective reduction in the intake of carbohydrate rich food [Wurthman, Neurophsycopharmacology, 1993, 9, 201-210]. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electromagnetic stirring method which provides a satisfactory solidified structure in continuous casting.
Besides Fe, molten steel contains various alloying elements and impurity elements, and the solidification of molten steel is sometimes attended by the remarkable segregation of segregative elements, such as C, P, and S, into the final solidifying portion of the steel ingot or cast slab and bloom. Products made of a material having such a segregated portion would have inferior product characteristics due to the non-ununiformity of their mechanical properties, and they would have case trouble during welding; thus it is important to decrease segregation. Particularly in continuous casting process, noticeable segregation develops in a direction at right angles with the cast slab and bloom drawing direction; however, past examination of various operating conditions have not been successful in improving the mechanical properties of the cast slab and bloom.
The most promising of the measures heretofore taken is to apply electromagnetic stirring to molten steel during solidification. Although this method has been recognized as having the effect of breaking to some extent the columnar crystals growing during solidification, such a degree of breaking of columnar crystals is insufficient for elimination of marked segregation. Thus, to enhance the stirring effect, an attempt has been made to increase the electromagnetic stirring force so as to provide an increased stirring force capacity, but it has the drawback of producing a white band in the form of negative segregation. The white band portion is not only lower in the percentages of alloying elements than their average values, forming a qualitative defect, but also presents an undesirable outside appearance.
The present invention, made with this serious situation in mind, is intended to establish electromagnetic stirring conditions for enhancing the effect of breaking columnar crystals to reduce negative segregation and avoid formation of white bands. Thus, the method of electromagnetically stirring molten steel in continuous casting according to the present invention is characterized in that an electromagnetic stirrer is installed between drawing positions where the unsolidified thickness is 45% and 15%, preferably 35% and 20%, respectively, of the thickness as viewed in the direction of the thickness of the cast slab and bloom, and in that where the magnetic flux density at the interface between the unsolidified and solidified portions (said interface being hereinafter referred to as the solidification interface) is represented by B (gauss),
the stirring effective length of the electromagnetic stirrer by 1 (mm),
the casting speed by v (m/min.), and
the stirring time by T (min.) =1/v, stirring in the casting direction is applied in such a manner that the product B.times.T is 1,600 gauss-min. or more per m.sup.3 of the total volume of the unsolidified molten steel present in a region extending to the drawing side from the position where the electromagnetic stirrer is located.
The aforesaid conditions have been determined with the flow condition of molten steel during solidification taken into account. The arrangement and functions and effects of the invention will now be described along with the process of development of the invention.
In continuous casting, the cause of segregation taking place in the central portion of the cast slab and bloom is generally considered as follows.
It is known that although the central portion of the cast slab and bloom, when viewed in the casting direction (drawing direction), has very little temperature gradient, the flow of the solid-liquid coexistence layer in this portion can be induced by the so-called suction (a phenomenon of contraction of the solid-liquid coexistence layer taking place in the last stage of solidification of molten steel). However, all the solid-liquid coexistence layer does not flow at the same time, but owing to solidification contraction which proceeds in the lower region (on the drawing side), the region which overlies the same (mold side) flows downward, and as this flowing region solidifies, the region which overlies the same flows downward and solidifies; such stepwise flow is repeated, whereby the periodicity of V segregation is formed. This situation will now be further described. The solid-liquid coexistence condition is established in several regions along the cast slab and bloom drawing direction i.e., the casting direction and these regions flow in block but the flow of these regions takes place successively with some time lag, with the lower side flowing first. Therefore, between adjacent regions, the dendrites separate from each other in accordance with the flow time lag, so that cavities with some periodicity are formed. Such a cavity has a temperature gradient in a direction at right angles with the cast slab and bloom drawing direction and a flow of molten steel is formed between the dendrites, so that the aforesaid suction effect becomes greater toward the center of the cast slab and bloom. Under these influences, the aforesaid cavities assume a V-shape inclined toward the center axis, and it seems that the surrounding segregated liquid present between the dendrites flows into the V-shaped cavities, resulting in V segregation.
On the basis of this analysis, we thought we would attain reduction of segregation in the central portion of the cast slab and bloom by adjusting the electromagnetic stirring force so as to change the aforesaid solidification mechanism.
The region where V segregation takes place is, after all, a region with little temperature gradient. The factors which determine the size of this region are supposed to include the molten steel composition (particularly the carbon concentration) and superheating of molten steel, but a statistical examination of regions where V segregation is formed has revealed that even the maximum value does not exceed 45% of the thickness as viewed in the direction of the thickness of the cast bloom. | {
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1. Field
The present application generally relates to the design of an etch process control system to measure a structure formed on a workpiece, and, more particularly, to a system of monitoring an etch process to meet two or more etch stage measurement objectives.
2. Related Art
During semiconductor processing, an etch process, for example, a reactive ion etch (RIE) process, is employed for etching fine line patterns in a workpiece such as a silicon substrate or wafer. RIE involves positioning a wafer in a chamber that contains a plasma. The plasma contains gases that are dissociated in a radio frequency field so that reactive ions contained in the gases are accelerated toward the wafer surface. The reactive ions combine chemically with material on the wafer surface. During the etch process, one or more layers of material can be removed. Endpoint determination or detection is used in controlling etch processes.
As the one or more layers of material are etched, the volatile etch products are incorporated into the plasma. As the RIE process approaches the interface or end of the layer being etched, the amount of volatile etch product found in the plasma decreases. The amount of volatile etch product in the plasma can be tracked to determine the endpoint of the RIE process. One of the species can be tracked such as one of the etchant gases used to etch a layer of material. As the layer is etched, the reactive species will be used up and relatively low concentrations of the reactive species will be found in the plasma. As more and more of the layer or layers are used up, the reactive species will be found in the plasma in increasingly higher concentrations. A time graph of the optical emissions from such a reactive species will show an increase in intensity as the layer is etched away. Tracking the intensity of a wavelength for a particular species using optical emission spectroscopy (OES) can also be used for endpoint determination or etch process control such as an RIB process.
Typically, OES has been used to track the amount of either volatile etch products or reactive species as a function of film thickness. These techniques examine emissions from either the volatile etch products or reactive species in the plasma. For example, during an RIE process, plasma discharge materials, such as etchant, neutral, and ions in the plasma, are continuously excited by collisions. An optical emission spectrometer diffracts emissions into its component wavelengths. A specific wavelength can be associated with a particular species, and this association can be used to detect an etch endpoint. However, such specific wavelength information is typically unavailable, and it is difficult to select an appropriate wavelength to use for accurate etch endpoint determination due to numerous possibilities for emissions. The optimal wavelength or wavelengths are not readily known due to number of variables in a typical etch process. For example, the OES spectrum for a typical RIE etch can be composed of hundreds of wavelengths in the visible and ultraviolet bands.
In addition, there is a trend towards using high-density plasma sources to replace RIE. Examples include use of a high-density, inductively-coupled plasma (ICP). Another example is in the use of electron cyclotron resonance (ECR), which differs from RIE in plasma formation. Generally, ECR operates at a lower pressure than a regular RIE system, and is, therefore, able to etch finer line trenches. Comparison studies of the emissions from high-density ICP, ECR and RIE plasmas show emphasis on different species and different wavelengths for similar input gas compositions. The data accumulated from RIE emissions may not be applicable to high-density ICP emissions and ECR emissions.
Prior art techniques for determining an endpoint in an etching process using OES spectra are described, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 5,288,367, to Angell et al., entitled “END-POINT DETECTION”, in U.S. Pat. No. 5,658,423, to Angell et al., entitled “MONITORING AND CONTROLLING PLASMA PROCESSES VIA OPTICAL EMISSION USING PRINCIPAL COMPONENT ANALYSIS”. These prior art techniques typically entail selecting one wavelength to be used for signaling an etch endpoint, however. A prior art technique for performing process control by statistical analysis of the optical spectrum of a product produced in a chemical process is described, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 5,862,060, to Murray, Jr., entitled “MAINTENANCE OF PROCESS CONTROL BY STATISTICAL ANALYSIS OF PRODUCT OPTICAL SPECTRUM” ('060). The '060 patent describes measuring the optical spectrum of each member of a calibration sample set of selected products, determining by Principal Component Analysis (PCA) or Partial Least Squares, (PLS).
Problems with aforementioned techniques for determining an endpoint in an etching process using PCA applied to OES spectra includes the uncertainty of the number of components to use in the PCA analysis. More principal components used, the better PCA approximates the system being analyzed, but more computer resources are needed. Moreover, determining the optimal number of PCA principal components is also time intensive and uses a lot of resources.
Furthermore, state-of-the art OES systems are capable of collecting a plurality of wavelengths of optical emission spectra emanating from the glow discharge of gases in a plasma etch chamber. These wavelengths can be associated with the specific chemical species generated from entering reactant gases, can result from gas phase reactions as well as reactions on the wafer and chamber surfaces. The wavelengths of the optical emission spectra can also shift as the surface composition of the wafer shifts from a steady-state etch to the complete removal of the etched material. Detection of this shift allows for etch endpoint determination, indicating the completion of the required etch and also can allow for termination of the etch process before over-etching occur. However, the number of OES frequencies or wavelengths available to determine an etch endpoint creates the problem of a complex and time consuming selection of the appropriate OES wavelengths.
Endpoint in an etching process can also be determined using a broadband light source process; endpoint detection are described, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 6,979,578 to Venugopal, entitled “PROCESS ENDPOINT DETECTION METHOD USING BROADBAND REFLECTOMETRY”, using multiple optical signals obtained from multiple measurement location are described in U.S. Patent Application No. 2006/0012796 to Saito et al., entitled “PLASMA TREATMENT APPARATUS AND LIGHT DETECTION METHOD OF A PLASMA TREATMENT”, and using at least two optical components for endpoint detection for photomask etching in U.S. Patent Application No. 2006/0014409 to Grimbergen entitled “ENDPOINT DETECTION FOR PHOTOMASK ETCHING”. As mentioned above, there is the problem of selecting the appropriate metrology tools that will work for a semiconductor application or range of applications using the aforementioned techniques. Furthermore, there is a need to optimize the selection of wavelength or wavelengths, specific optical metrology tools, and algorithms for extraction of etch stage measurement to meet measurement monitoring objectives. Moreover, in an integrated metrology fabrication cluster, there is a need to complete etch measurement monitoring in real-time and extraction of etch stage data to meet targeted time ranges. In other etching applications, there is also a need to ensure the repeatability and reproducibility of the extracted etch stage data from the etch stage measurements.
The present invention is directed to minimizing the effects of one or more of the problems discussed above. With increased requirement for throughput, decreasing size of the structures, and requirement for lower cost of ownership, there is greater need to optimize design of etch stage measurement systems to meet one or more etch stage measurement objectives. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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The invention relates to a blowing nozzle for transporting a flexible thread, comprising a supply channel for the thread to be transported, the exit end of the channel being surrounded by an annular gap which upstream communicates with means for supplying a flowing pressurized fluid, and in the downstream direction merges with a mixing tube extending substantially as an extension of the supply channel for the thread.
Similar blowing nozzles are generally known. They are e.g. applied to pneumatic weaving machines for sucking in the weft threads by means of pressurized air and entering them into the weaving shed.
Due to all kinds of causes which may be found in the thread itself as well as exteriorly, the head of a thread transported by means of such a blowing nozzle will not always continue after leaving the exit end, along a fixed path (e.g. along the axis of the mixing tube) but variously deviates therefrom. This constitutes an important disadvantage in all those cases in which the thread, after leaving the blowing nozzle, must remain within a narrowly delimited area in order to have the further transport of the thread occur without disturbances. E.g. in a pneumatic weaving machine the head of the thread must be supplied within the cross-section of a tunnel formed in the weaving shed (by means of the reedlamellae or of lamellae especially serving this purpose). A deviation of the optimum path of movement of the thread may e.g. result in that the head of the thread "impacts" against the warp threads which in the relative movement during the previous shed exchange temporarily have caught each other by knotting. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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As computer systems have advanced, graphics processing units (GPUs) have become increasingly advanced both in complexity and computing power. As a result of this increase in processing power, GPUs are now capable of executing both graphics processing and more general computing tasks.
The ability to execute general computing tasks on a GPU has lead to increased development of programs that execute general computing tasks on a GPU and the corresponding need to be able to debug tasks executing on the GPU. A GPGPU program executing general computing tasks on a GPU has a host portion executing on a central processing unit (CPU) and a device portion executing on the GPU. With conventional solutions, it is not possible to access data for debugging of both the host or CPU side of the program and the device or GPU side of an already executing GPGPU program.
Conventional solutions can provide access to the device or GPU portion of the GPGPU program if the GPGPU program is started from within a debugger. Unfortunately, starting the program within the debugger affects the program's behavior because of state collection during the execution of the CPU and GPU sides of the GPGPU program. The impact of starting the program within the debugger thus makes bugs that depend on a particular order of thread execution, known as race conditions, potentially unobservable. This can make debugging particularly challenging. Further, executing the GPGPU program within the debugger negatively impact performances and slows execution of the program. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a radiation-proof sheath material and a radiation-proof cable. In particular, it relates to a radiation-proof sheath material and a radiation-proof cable, which are excellent in flame retardancy and radiation resistance and which are used in nuclear power stations.
2. Description of the Related Art
Electric wires and cables used in nuclear power stations, such as boiling water reactors (BWRs), or pressurized water reactors (PWRs), are exposed to heat and radiations during normal running of each nuclear reactor operated in specified running conditions, and also in the event of loss-of-coolant accidents, flames, etc. Accordingly, in case of these accidents, electric wires and cables used in nuclear power stations are required to have high flame retardancy and radiation resistance.
Used as conventional electric wire and cable sheath materials are polychloreprene rubber (CR), chlorosulfonated polyethylene (CSM), etc. Also known as a sheath material is chlorinated polyethylene (refer to JP-A-8-64039, for example). Further known is a composition in which 3-50 parts by wt of lead silicate obtained by melting, cooling and milling a mixture of lead oxide and silicon dioxide is combined with 100 parts by wt of chlorinated polyethylene as a stabilizer, in which the chlorine content is 15% by wt to 30% by wt, and in which the remaining crystal by differential scanning calorimetry is 5 cal/g to 15 cal/g (refer to JP-A-4-216843, for example).
The CR sheath materials axe used mainly for BWRs (heat resistance required: 121° C.×7 days, radiation resistance required: 760 kGy), while the CSM sheath materials are used mainly for PWRs (heat resistance required: 140° C.×9 days, radiation resistance required: 2 MGy). Also, the sheath material disclosed by JP-A-8-64039 can be used as weld cables, conductive cables, and conductive cords, which require thermal and mechanical properties. Further, the composition using chlorinated polyethylene disclosed by JP-A-4-216843 can be used in wiring materials for electrical apparatuses, electronic apparatuses of each kind, etc., which require flame retardancy.
Also, because as an evaluation method for cable covering materials, it is difficult to simultaneously apply heat and radiations to the cable covering materials because of requiring a special apparatus, the evaluation method uses sequential ageing (irradiation after thermal ageing), Also, there is considered reversed sequential ageing (thermal ageing after irradiation).
Refer to JP-A-8-64039 and JP-A-4-216843, for example.
However, the CR sheath materials are poorer in heat resistance than the CSM sheath materials, and therefore cannot be used for PWRs. Also, the present inventors have found that the reversed sequential ageing evaluation results of heat resistance and radiation resistance of the CR and CSM sheath materials show poorer properties compared to the sequential ageing evaluation thereof. Further, the chlorinated polyethylene disclosed by JP-A-8-64039 and JP-A-4-216843 cannot be used for BWRs or PWRs because of being not at all suitable for use requiring radiation resistance. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
1. Field of the Invention
This invention pertains to recreational face masks designed to protect the face and nose from sunburn and frostbite.
2. Background Information
Today's society is increasingly involved in outdoor sports and recreational activities yet concerns about avoiding skin cancer and other harmful effects of the sun are also greater than ever. In particular, there is a need among outdoor enthusiasts (e.g. mountaineers, cyclists, skiers) to protect their nose and face from exposure to harmful Ultraviolet light and extreme cold, wind, and particulate matter that may cause frostbite or discomfort. Importantly, there is a need for face masks that are versatile and can be easily attached to various types of eyewear, such as eyeglasses and goggles. Some masks are made of non-breathable, plastic material which causes the skin to sweat and causing condensation to reach the user's eyewear, fog the lenses, and obstruct vision. Flexibility and comfort are often sacrificed for durability, and vice versa. Other masks on the market do not comfortably attach or conform to the face, such as those that utilize a plastic clip-on mechanism to attach to the user's eyeglasses. Other masks have utilized a relatively thick (e.g. 2-inch) strap that wraps around the user's head and attaches using a hook and loop (i.e. VELCRO®) mechanism. These clip-on mechanisms are often irritating and the masks feature nose covers that are not sufficiently flexible and do not properly conform to the nose. Because prior art face masks do not offer sufficient flexibility and often come in only one size, it is difficult for the user to achieve a good fit. Moreover, due to their rigid structure and poor fit, existing face masks seriously hinder eating and talking. Existing face masks either lack comfort, cannot be used with various eyewear, do not adequately conform to a user's nose and face, are not breathable, cause excess perspiration and eyewear fogging, are not suitable for physical outdoor activity, and/or do not offer sufficient protection from the elements.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,346,875 to Weisberger (1967) discloses a nose and lip cover which detachably connects to each other and to a pair of eyeglasses. However, such a device is limited for use with eyeglasses and does not provide a comfortable fit or attractive appearance. U.S. Pat. No. 5,167,036 to Daprato (1992) discloses a nose protector configured to attach to eyeglasses, but consists of a shield and a complex system of cords for attaching the protective nose cover to the eyeglasses. Again, this device can only be used with eyeglasses and does not have an easy means of attachment. Similarly, the sun-protective nose cover disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,717,992 to Tilghman (1998) can only be attached to eyeglasses via a loop strap, and does not provide a conforming fit due to a lack of flexibility.
Breathability is also an important factor for reducing sweat and providing comfort, and minimizing the fogging of eyewear. U.S. Pat. No. 5,274,847 to Lauttamus (1994) discloses a sun-protective nose cover that attaches to eyeglasses or goggles using a strap that is looped over the bridge of the eyewear. However, the Lauttamus nose cover is described as being of tear-able and crease-able material, which limits the device to non-breathable materials such as paper or plastic. Other more fashion-oriented garments exist to cover the head and face, such as that disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,845,340 to Frislie (1998). Frislie discloses a face and head garment that fully covers the head and face of the user with eye, nose, and mouth openings. However, this garment is uncomfortable and does not allow the user to communicate, and is more akin to a costume mask. U.S. Pat. No. 4,095,290 to O'Brien (1978) discloses a face mask made of a three-part lamination process that includes a thermal barrier. However, this mask covers the entire face of the user and is only designed for cold weather use. Moreover, the nose opening of this mask is a flap that does not adequately protect the nose from frostbite. U.S. Pat. No. 6,374,424 to Tredup (2000) claims a protective face mask made of hard plastic to block the sun's harmful rays wherein the entire mask is a hard plastic or UV lens material. Such a device is relatively heavy, and nevertheless not flexible, resulting in an uncomfortable and non-deal fit. U.S. Pat. No. 5,634,210 to King, et al. (1997) discloses a cardboard face shield for protection against the sun. Although such a device may be lightweight and provide adequate sun protection, it is essentially a disposable one-time use item. Furthermore, it does not attach to eyewear, and it is not breathable or comfortable because it rigidly covers the entire face.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,000,252 to Tobin (2006) discloses a face mask formed of an impact-resistant sheet to contour of a face, with a series of resilient pads mounted on the inner surface of the mask adjacent to forehead and cheek areas. This device, however, falls into the category of protective sports equipment, and is only designed for avoiding injury due to physical impact. U.S. Pat. No. 7,290,545 to Kleman, et al. (2007) discloses a facemask that purportedly reduces or eliminates fogging of the eyewear worn by the user of the face mask. However, this device is a medical mask intended for medical purposes. In summary, existing sun-protective face masks suffer from one or more of the following disadvantages: Lack of versatility with respect to uses (e.g. not suitable for outdoor and athletic activities); Lack of versatility with respect to attachment or interface with various types of eyewear; Lack of sun or UV protection; Lack of flexibility and conformity fit to the face; Lack of breathability, causing sweating and eyewear fogging; and Lack of comfort with respect to the size, weight, or means of attachment to the face.
Thus, there is a need in the market for a sun-protective, breathable face mask that attaches to various types of eyewear and is durable but comfortably conforms to the face for physical, outdoor activities. The face mask disclosed herein addresses these needs. | {
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This invention relates to a cover which serves as weather protection for the window of a vehicle such as the windshield of an automobile, truck, boat, or airplane.
When automobiles and other vehicles are stored outside, the windshields and other windows of the vehicle are exposed and can be subjected to damage and other problems caused by the weather. For example, hail storms can break the windshield and other windows, as well as causing damage to the body of the vehicle. During the winter, ice and snow can build upon the windows, thus requiring considerable scraping before the vehicle can be driven. In the summer, the sun shining through the windows can make the interior of the vehicle so hot that it is uncomfortable at best. In addition, the sunlight can cause the vehicle interior to fade and become discolored.
The present invention is directed to a windshield cover which has, as its primary goal, the elimination of the foregoing problems. More specifically, it is an important object of the invention to provide a windshield cover that can be quickly and easily applied to and removed from a vehicle window.
Another important object of the invention is to provide a windshield cover which can be applied either to the front or back window of virtually any vehicle.
A further object of the invention is to provide a windshield cover that can be removed while a person remains inside the vehicle. Accordingly, in inclement weather, it is not necessary to stand outside of the vehicle in order to remove the windshield cover.
An additional object of the invention is to provide a windshield cover of the character described which is securely held in place on the windshield and which can only be removed from the inside of the vehicle, thereby preventing the cover from being blown away or stolen.
Still another object of the invention is to provide, in a windshield cover of the character described, a unique system for holding the cover in place on the windshield.
Yet another object of the invention is to provide a windshield cover in which none of the parts are subject to rust or other damage from the weather.
A still further object of the invention is to provide a windshield cover of the character described which is simple and economical to construct and which can be conveniently and compactly stored when not in use.
Other and further objects of the invention, together with the features of novelty appurtenant thereto, will appear in the course of the following description. | {
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In the case where transferring video data for broadcast in a broadcasting station or the like by using a best-effort-type communication network, a loss of data or a change of image quality will not be permitted, and so a method will not able to be adopted which dynamically changes an encoding rate of the video data, in accordance with traffic of the network. Therefore, it may be necessary to control a transfer amount of the video data, so that a usage band of the video data to be transferred does not exceed the bandwidth of the network.
As an example of this countermeasure, in the case where a LAN bandwidth to which a plurality of clients are connected is insufficient, it has been proposed to perform arbitration between the clients by an arbitration condition set in advance based on a priority order of the clients, priority degrees of the contents, usage bands of the contents and usage times of the contents, and to select a content to be received (for example, refer to Patent Literature 1). | {
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In computer data storage and retrieval systems, magneto-resistive heads, otherwise known as MR heads, are employed for reading data from a storage disk. The magnetically stored data is read by means of the change in resistance of the MR head as it passes through the magnetic field representing the data. For monitoring the varying resistance of the head, a dc bias current is passed through the head. However, this presents a dc offset to the amplifier of the head circuit, and to reduce this effect and provide suitable amplification of data signals, a capacitor is employed to reduce the dc voltage offset.
The large size of the capacitor, however, results in its relatively slow charging such that a large dc bias is present at the input of the amplifier when the head is switched to its read state. In turn, this large signal saturates the amplifier and causes it to clip the data signals. Hence, in the above described prior art circuit, data is substantially unavailable from the disk during the relatively extended time of charging of the capacitor.
Additionally, thermal asperities such as those which occur when the head strikes the disk, also result in a reading failure. The head striking the disc produces a rapid rise in head temperature, followed by a delayed return to normal, due to the slow dissipation of heat from the head. Since the resistance of the head is related to its temperature, the voltage at the input to the amplifier rises rapidly and then decays slowly when a thermal asperity occurs. As can be expected, this large signal tends to both distort the data signal and also clip the signal from the amplifier such that retrieval of data from the disk is essentially lost during this interval of increased head temperature. | {
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In recent years, in order to conduct an inter-vehicular distance maintenance control and the like, a device that estimates a radius of curvature of a travel route of one's own vehicle is mounted on a vehicle. As methods for estimating the radius of curvature of the travel route of the own-vehicle, there are two methods which will be described next.
A first method is a method that estimates the radius of curvature of the travel route of the own-vehicle based on such as a relative position and a relative velocity, which are measured by a distance/angle measuring instrument mounted on the own-vehicle, of a standstill object (for example, an object installed on the route such as a reflector) existing on the travel route of the own-vehicle. With the first method, a radius of curvature with fine accuracy can be estimated without generating steady error as described later. However, with the first method, time is required for recognizing a behavior of the standstill object. Therefore, with the first method, in cases such as when a change of the radius of curvature of the travel route of the own-vehicle is sharp, time is required for precisely estimating the radius of curvature, thus resulting in an inferior responsivity.
A second method is a method that estimates the radius of curvature of the travel route of the own-vehicle based on a steering angle or a yaw rate of the own-vehicle. With the second method, a responsivity that is better than the above described first method is obtained since the radius of curvature is directly estimated based on the steering angle and the yaw rate of the own-vehicle. However, with the second method, steady error in the estimate radius of curvature is generated since a zero point of a sensor for detecting the steering angle or the yaw rate changes depending on the degree of cant of a road.
Therefore, for example, in a travel route estimation device disclosed in patent literature 1 (hereinafter, referred to as a conventional technology), in order to estimate the radius of curvature with a relatively fine accuracy in an ordinary state of traveling and with a relatively fine responsivity even when traveling on a travel route with a sharp radius-of-curvature, a radius of curvature is estimated by averaging a first radius of curvature estimated by the first method and a second radius of curvature estimated by the second method. [Patent Literature 1] Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2001-328451 | {
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Various types of hook setting devices are known. For example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,571,963; 4,212,125 and 4,627,186 disclose a hook setting fishing rod attachment which causes the fishing rod to tip upwardly in order to pull the fishing line thereby hooking the biting fish. U.S. Pat. No. 4,651,459 discloses an automatic fishing device adapted for ice fishing. It comprises a winding mechanism connected to the spool for automatically rotating the spool and winding the fishing line. The mechanism is connected to a mounting assembly which is connected to a platform when the apparatus is used for ice fishing. An adjustable trip mechanism is positioned between the spool and the platform. Stop members are positioned on the fishing line to halt the rotation of the spool. The device is complex in its construction and its operation.
The device of the present invention is adapted to pull up the fishing line a predetermined distance in response to a fish biting the bait. The line can be pulled up a given distance repeatedly in response to bites on the line. This is a feature which is absent from conventional fish setting devices which must be reset by the fisherman after each use. The present device resets automatically. | {
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The invention relates to a light guiding device for an illumination device, such as a backlight or interior or exterior lighting, wherein incident light is deflected by reflection. The light guiding device can particularly be used in an indicator of a motor vehicle, in connection with a blind spot monitor in an outside mirror for example. The invention also relates to a like illumination device, an outside mirror having such a light guiding device and a method for producing such a light guiding device.
In known light guiding devices, it has proven disadvantageous that the light deflected by the light guiding device is outcoupled relatively inhomogeneously over a surface to be illuminated. This effect becomes ever more obvious, the larger the surface to be illuminated and the greater the distance between the surface to be illuminated and a light source. For example if a pictogram of small line width, 0.4 mm for example, of a blind spot monitor is backlit by a known light guiding device, the inhomgeneity can be negligible. As the line width of the pictogram increases, 1.0 mm for example, the inhomogeneity becomes quite visible and the user finds it disturbing. In the extreme case, a very non-uniform illumination of a pictogram can cause the user to misinterpret an indicator light as not illuminated.
WO 01/27529 A1 describes a light guide having an input edge surface, a back surface and an output surface, wherein a reflector is fastened directly to the back surface by gluing for example.
From EP 2463157 A1 there is known a rearview mirror assembly having at least one mirror base, a mirror head covering which covers a mirror glass in the mirror head, and an optical indicator light that produces light in reaction to a sensor signal to inform an operator about hazardous information, wherein the light shines through the mirror glass. The mirror glass is mounted on a backing plate that has a mounting space for at least one LED and at least one beveled light guide.
EP 1167870 A2 discloses a lamp for vehicles, especially for motor vehicles, comprising a lamp housing that is bounded by a front disc in the emission direction, and at least one elongate light conduction element having a light exit surface on its front side, a reflection surface on its rear side facing away from the front side and a light input surface at one end which is coupled to a light source, wherein the light exit surface of the light conduction element is configured as part of the front disc.
From DE 202012100398 U1 there is known an illumination apparatus having at least one illuminant that is arranged on a printed circuit board enabling it to be connected to a power supply, wherein the printed circuit board is at least partially imbedded in a transparent first casting compound that enables a selective light exit of the light generated by the illuminant over at least one light exit area. To this end the printed circuit board extends perpendicular to the light exit area, is arranged in and is at least partially surrounded by the first transparent casting compound, and at least one light influencing element having light-reflecting properties at least on one of its two main surfaces is arranged in the first casting compound.
EP 1970736 A1 relates to a rearview mirror for vehicles, especially motor vehicles, having a mirror glass mounted to a carrier plate and a indicator unit which is disposed behind the mirror glass and the carrier plate and generates a light beam by means of at least one illuminant, wherein the light beam is coupled into a light conductor, which is provided with decoupling optics by which the light beam is directed outward by at least one portion of the mirror glass that is at least partially reflection-free, wherein the light passing through the mirror glass is directed towards the driver.
In one embodiment example of the invention a light guiding device is provided that improves a homogenous light distribution on a light outcoupling surface.
This embodiment and other embodiments disclosed herein or understood as equivalent structures are described by a light guiding device having the features of claim 1.
Additional embodiments or features of light guiding devices according to the invention are described in claims 2 through 10. | {
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Particle separation and classification are well explored needs of the chemical, pharmaceutical, mineral and food industries. While particle classification in industrial processes may be required to improve the quality of a certain product, particle separation may be necessary to purify a fluid stream or to avoid problems to process equipment.
Sometimes particles are intentionally present in the process stream. This is for example the case of heterogeneous catalysis in liquid phase. In other cases the presence of particles is unintentional. This is for example the case of some refineries streams like shale crudes, various intermediate process streams, or effluents from slurry bed reactors. Particles may have various origins: they may be part of the original feedstock and other reactant streams or they may be generated in and collected from process equipment, for example as erosion and corrosion products. Particles may have organic nature, like char, coke and gums, or inorganic nature, like salts, debris or corrosion and erosion as iron components, or debris of catalyst particles. Also, they may contain living impurities as bacteria. Shape and size may also vary greatly—from sphere to flakes, from millimeters to a few microns or less. If the particles are unwanted in the downstream process, a filter, or other suitable particle separation technology known in the art, removes large part of these particles prior to sensitive equipment. However, in certain processes, the problem may appear or become more severe over time, for example when erosion and corrosion are involved. Sometimes, installing a particle removing equipment as an independent unit operation prior to sensitive equipment is not possible in practice.
One specific example of problems generated by particles may be seen in hydroprocessing. The feed to a hydroprocessing reactor is sometimes laden with particles. When the feed is introduced into the reactor, most particles accumulate on the inert and/or on the catalyst packed beds, plugging the bed. The consequent rapid increase in pressure drop is responsible of increased power requirement for compression. When the pressure drop across the reactor exceeds the maximum pressure that the system may deliver, reactors require skimming of the affected layers of the packed bed to continue operations. A frequency of once every 5-6 months for skimming is not uncommon. Skimming at a frequency higher than the schedule of the regular turnaround may be a source of significant profitability loss for the unit and the refinery.
A characterization of the particles affecting a reacting system may not be available. In a hydroprocessing reactor, the type of particles depends upon the specific crude and/or process related issues (rust, salts, gums, etc.). On-stream collection of the particles is typically not available. Thus, particle characterization relies on post-mortem analyses. These are often affected by large uncertainties due to particle agglomeration and oxidation.
US2009177023 discloses a filtration tray for a fixed bed reactor with a co-current down-flow of gas and liquid.
The device can trap plugging particles contained in the liquid feed supplying a reactor functioning in gas and liquid co-current down-flow mode using a specific distributor tray comprising a filtration medium. The device is of particular application to the selective hydrogenation of feeds containing acetylenic and dienic compounds.
US 20090177023 describes a device which can trap plugging particles contained in the liquid feed supplying a reactor functioning in gas and liquid co-current down-flow mode using a specific distributor tray comprising a filtration medium. The device is of particular application to the selective hydrogenation of feeds containing acetylenic and dienic compounds.
EP0358923 discloses a process and an apparatus for purifying a raw gas originating from the gasification of solids. In a process and apparatus for purifying raw gas from solids gasification, containing granular and dusty solids particles, a solution is to be found, by means of which solids particles of any size are largely removed from the raw gas before entry to downstream cooling devices. This is achieved when the raw gas is passed in a first purification stage from the gasification zone in a straight line in the direction of a gas-holding space, whereby the granular solids particles are precipitated at the bottom of the gas-holding space and then, in a second purification stage, the partially purified raw gas is laterally deflected from the gas-holding space and undergoes a change to a velocity reduced by a factor of at least 3 and, after a further gas deflection, is passed substantially in the vertical direction through a solids filter, where the dusty solids particles are removed from the raw gas.
In spite of the above mentioned known art, a need exists for a reactor with a particle separator to ensure prolonged effective operation of the reactor despite any particle impurities in the inlet fluid stream to the reactor. | {
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1. Technical Field
The present invention is directed to optical information readers and particularly to readers adapted to selectively decode two-dimensional optical information sets.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Conventional bar code symbols have small data storage capabilities. This reduces the utility of conventional bar code scanner and reader systems. For example, the 11 digit Uniform Pricing Code found on most supermarket items acts as an identifying number which may be utilized to access information in a database. Codes of this type do not carry information along their vertical axis, and are therefore, less prone to skewing errors during decoding.
Two-dimensional bar code symbols or “portable data files” have recently been developed. With codes of this type access to a database is not required since the code contains the information which would normally be keyed for in a database. Since reliance on a database is not required, information may be accessed and exchanged more readily and reliably. However, in order to decode two-dimensional codes, a more sophisticated apparatus is required. This is primarily true since normal vertical code redundancy is not present, making code registration, orientation and condition very important. Several two-dimensional coding standards have been proposed, e.g., Code 49, 16K, Identicode MLC-2D, and Code PDF417. While such codes are capable of storing information such as price, name of product, manufacturer, weight, expiration date, inventory data, shipping information, and the like; apparatus which assist the user in aiming and decoding two-dimensional codes are not currently available. For example, two-dimensional codes might consist of a stack of conventional linear codes. Each line may contain different information, such as (1) pricing information, (2) product name, (3) name of the manufacturer, (4) product weight, (5) expiration date, (6) inventory data, (7) shipping information, and the like. Additionally, a user may require the ability to selectively store or send portions of the decoded bar code symbol.
3. Objects of the Invention
Therefore, a principal object of the present invention is to provide a reader adapted to selectively read two-dimensional optical information sets.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a reader adapted to selectively read two-dimensional optical information sets in ambient light.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a reader adapted to selectively read two-dimensional optical information sets from a wide range of distances.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a reader adapted to selectively read optical information while assisting a user in aiming the reader.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a reader adapted to selectively read two-dimensional optical information sets which is economical to manufacture and durable in use.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a reader adapted to selectively read two-dimensional optical information sets which is efficient in operation, simple in construction, easy to use and trouble free. These and other objects will be apparent to those skilled in the art from the following disclosure. | {
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1. Technical Field
The present invention generally relates to an apparatus, system, and method of managing data transmission, each of which is capable of generating reservation information in response to a request for starting communication between or among a plurality of transmission terminals, a non-transitory recording medium storing a data management program, and a transmission terminal that receives the reservation information for output to a user.
2. Description of the Related Art
With the need for reducing costs or times associated with business trips, more companies are moving towards data transmission systems provided with teleconference or videoconference (“conference”) capabilities to carry out communication among a plurality of transmission terminals. For example, the videoconference systems allow transmission of contents data such as image data and/or sound data among a plurality of videoconference terminals through a communications network such as the Internet to carry out videoconference.
When communication is managed using a management server, for example, as described in Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2005-109922-A (Registration No. 4292544), the user cannot freely change the time to start or end, as the management server manages communication based on the scheduled information.
While the management server can allow the user to freely change the time to start or end the conference without requiring the user to change the scheduled information, for example, as described in Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2011-199845-A, the management system may not be able to manage communication based on the scheduled information, as communication may be started or ended irrespective of the scheduled information.
For example, the management system may start communication between a request transmission terminal and a counterpart transmission terminal in response to a request from the request transmission terminal, not based on the scheduled information. In such case, the counterpart transmission terminal, which starts communication with the request transmission terminal, may not be able to start communication with the other transmission terminal based on the scheduled information. | {
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JP2000-346169A discloses a control device of continuously variable transmission for vehicle including a sub-transmission mechanism which is switched to a plurality of gear positions in addition to a continuously variable transmission mechanism and configured to change the gear position of the sub-transmission mechanism from a second gear position to a first gear position before a vehicle is stopped to ensure drive power at restart after a stop. | {
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1. Field of the Invention
Embodiments of the invention relate to an image forming apparatus connected to a power monitoring apparatus via a network.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, there has been concern about global warming caused by an increase in greenhouse effect gases, such as carbon dioxide (CO2), methane gas, etc., in the atmosphere. Thus, there is a strong need to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide emission that may cause the global warming. A large amount of carbon dioxide is exhausted at electric power plants to generate electric power. Therefore, there is also a demand for a reduction in electric energy generation.
Thus, there is a demand to limit electric energy supplied from electric energy plants to facilities. Also from the point of view of reducing cost, it is required to reduce the electric energy consumption.
In view of the above, various techniques have been proposed to reduce the total electric energy consumption in a facility. For example, it has been proposed to use a server to manage the amount of electric energy consumed by a plurality of apparatuses/devices connected to a particular network such that the plurality of apparatuses/devices operate effectively and stably.
More specifically, data is stored which indicates the amount of electric energy consumed every month by each apparatus (the cumulative sum of electric energy consumed in each month) connected to a network, and the amount of electric energy which will be consumed in this month is predicted based on the amounts electric energy consumed in the past (see, for example, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2007-159298).
When an image forming apparatus is operated continuously, a color misregistration, a density shift, or other errors may occur due to various factors such as an increase in temperate inside the image forming apparatus, which may result in degradation in image quality. Therefore, the image forming apparatus needs to be periodically subjected to a calibration as to a color misregistration correction, a density shift correction, etc. To reduce electric energy consumed during a calibration operation, it is known to turn a fixing heater to a completely-off level or to a low temperature level during the calibration operation (see, for example, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2005-017459).
As the frequency of use of the image forming apparatus increases, it is necessary to increase the number of times the calibration is performed to maintain high image quality. However, the increase in the frequency of the calibration results in an increase in electric energy consumption. In an environment in which the maximum electric energy consumption is limited, the increase in the frequency of the calibration results in a great reduction in remaining electric energy allowed to be consumed. | {
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This application relates to efficient allocations of transport streams to support simultaneous delivery of media assets. Moreover, the application relates to initializing allocations of transport streams based on historical data associated with user requests for simultaneous delivery of media assets.
With Internet media data merging with traditional television programs, more demands have teen placed on data providers (e.g., cable television service providers, internet providers) to deliver media assets from various sources to millions of users simultaneously using existing communications infrastructure. In particular, the demand for simultaneous delivery of media assets using one stream selector (e.g., television tuner) is increasing, which increases the demand for frequency bandwidths. For example, during a high-demand time period, one or more members of a family may wish to receive multiple media assets, as every member has different viewing interests. However, traditional systems limit the number of media assets a family member, or user, can simultaneously receive using one stream selector because they lack an efficient method for allocating user-requested media assets to transport streams. As a result, the traditional systems are unable to accommodate many user requests involving simultaneous delivery of media assets, especially during peak hours. | {
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Early detection of prostate cancer (PC) using prostate-specific antigen (PSA) in blood reduces PC-death among unscreened men. However, due to modest specificity of PSA at commonly used cut-offs, there are urgent needs for additional biomarkers contributing enhanced risk classification among men with modestly elevated PSA.
Prostate cancer (PC) is the second leading cause of cancer related deaths in western countries [1] and in order to improve the prognosis of PC patients, early and specific diagnosis is crucial. The blood-based biomarker prostate specific antigen (PSA) was introduced in the clinics in the late 1980's and is today used as an indicator of risk for PC and as one parameter for further testing of patient biopsies [2, 3]. The introduction of PSA has resulted in an increased number of early diagnosed PC cases, but the moderate specificity of PSA for malignant disease has raised key concerns regarding the cost and potential side-effects of unnecessary biopsies as well as the risk of over-diagnosis and over-treatment [2-4]. In fact, 65-75% of the men selected for biopsy based on total serum PSA levels (tPSA) (≤4 ng/ml), do not have PC (www.cancer.org). Hence, in order to improve the risk classification enabling clinicians to select adequate patients for biopsy testing, additional and/or more specific biomarkers needs to be defined.
In order to improve the specificity when testing for PC, several attempts have been made to combine the tPSA value with other parameters, such as PSA change over time (PSA velocity), PSA in relation to prostate volume (PSA density), or age specific ranges of PSA [2, 3]. However, no or only modest improvements of the diagnostic power of the tPSA assay have so far been observed [2]. In contrast, differentiating between tPSA and free (unbound) PSA has proven to enhance the assay performance, especially for men with mid-range (4-10 ng/ml) levels of tPSA. In fact, men having a ratio of free PSA to tPSA (% fPSA) below 18-25% have shown to be associated with a significantly higher risk of having PC [5-7]. Still, 25-50% of this particular patient group does not have PC, but they are all selected for biopsy testing [7, 8]. Recently, a panel of four kallikrein markers has been indicated as potential predictors of biopsy outcome [9, 10], and that the combination of tPSA, free PSA, with the free PSA sub-fraction called 2proPSA might also improve diagnostic accuracy [11].
However, there remains a significant unmet clinical need for additional, more specific biomarkers that could be used to detect prostate cancer and/or stratify prostate cancer according to risk, particularly prior to biopsy testing and/or therapy. | {
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The present invention relates generally to an eyepiece optical system adapted to enlarge an object to view it with the naked eye. More specifically, the invention relates to an electronic view finder adapted to enlarge an image shown on a display plane of an image display apparatus to view it with the naked eye.
Among eyepiece optical systems used so far with cameras (such as video cameras, single-lens reflex cameras, and digital cameras), there has been an eyepiece optical system of the type known that is made up of three lenses: a positive lens, a negative lens and a positive lens in order from an object (display plane) side toward an exit (exit pupil) side, as disclosed in Patent Publications 1, 2 and 3.
The eyepiece optical system of the triplet type having such a positive-negative-positive refractive power profile works in favor of achieving higher performance, because they can easily be corrected for aberrations such as spherical aberrations, albeit comprising fewer lenses. Eyepiece optical systems of other types have also been known from Patent Publications 4 to 9. Patent Publication 1: JP(A) 2007-264179 Patent Publication 2: JP(A) 2002-082290 Patent Publication 3: JP(A) 2004-258653 Patent Publication 4: JP(A) 2008-107380 Patent Publication 5: JP(A) 2008-203290 Patent Publication 6: JP(A) 2002-365562 Patent Publication 7: JP(A) 2007-225835 Patent Publication 8: JP(A) 2001-272610 Patent Publication 9: JP(A) 2002-048985
However, the eyepiece optical system of Patent Publication 1 is found to be insufficient in terms of optical performance; for instance, when the viewer s pupil is away from the optical axis, there is less insignificant distortion of the image being viewed.
The eyepiece optical systems of Patent Publications 2 and 3 are longer in terms of the whole focal length, working against achieving size reductions of the whole optical system including a display plane and making sure the angle of field.
In view of the foregoing problems, the first aspect of the invention has for its object the provision of an eyepiece optical system that albeit being of smaller size, works in favor of making sure the angle of field and optical performance, and an electronic view finder incorporating the same.
The second aspect of the invention has for its object the provision of an electronic view finder that includes a first lens group and a rear-side lens group on an exit side with respect to the first lens group and is of the type that focusing is implemented by moving the rear-side lens group, wherein there is an eyepiece optical system used that works in favor of offering a sensible tradeoff between size reductions and optical performance. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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A display device including a buffer member has been provided. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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The invention relates to a piezoelectric actuator device with at least one piezoelectric transducer which has at least one piezoelectric body and an electrode unit assigned to this piezoelectric body with overall capacitance and comprised of two electrodes mounted on opposite sides of the piezoelectric body.
The invention also relates to a valve for controlling a fluid, equipped with such a piezoelectric actuator device and in which the piezoelectric transducer forms a valve member or a drive element for a valve member.
A piezoelectric actuator device of this type known from DE 20 2005 006 126 U1 contains a piezoelectric transducer designed as bending actuator with a piezoelectric body composed of piezoelectrically active material and two electrodes flanking the piezoelectric body on opposite long sides and together forming an electrode unit which has an overall capacitance determined by the base area of the electrodes. In operation of the piezoelectric actuator device, a drive voltage is applied to the electrode unit, resulting in a charge inflow to the two electrodes which leads among other things to a change in length of the piezoelectric body. Since the piezoelectric body is placed on a piezoelectrically inactive substrate, the change in length of the piezoelectric body results in a bending of the bending actuator, which may be used for example to actuate a valve.
The piezoelectric transducer of the type according to the invention may also be designed as a stack actuator which has several piezoelectric bodies mounted one above the other and each flanked by an electrode unit. Here in particular a change in thickness of the piezoelectric bodies resulting from the inverse piezoelectric effect may be used for actuation purposes.
WO 02/089160 A2 describes a piezoelectric transducer with a so-called multi-layer structure, in which thin piezoelectric body layers alternating with electrodes are mounted on top of one another in layers, which has the advantage that acceptable elongations of the piezoelectric material and accordingly appreciable deformations of the piezoelectric transducer may be obtained with relative low drive voltages.
Known from US 2011/0057543 A1 is a vibration drive which has an actuator body comprised of a stack arrangement of piezoelectric layers and internal positive and negative electrode layers. Each electrode layer consists of several divided electrodes, so that positive and negative electrodes lie opposite in pairs which may be driven electrically in a variable manner in order to deform the actuator body at high frequency and to generate vibrations which may be used to shift a movably mounted element to and fro. Each electrode pair is connected to a separate voltage source with an interposed coil.
In principle, the obtainable elongation of a piezoelectric body and the resulting mechanical lifting work of the assigned piezoelectric transducer is dependent on the applied drive voltage. In particular for applications which require a certain degree of explosion protection and the observance of associated standards, however, there are limits to the use of high drive voltages. High drive voltages lead to high currents during the inflow and outflow of the charges to and from the electrodes which, in an applicable environment, may lead to dangerous explosions caused by spark-over. To avoid this, a piezoelectric transducer in an applicable environment may be operated only in so-called intrinsically safe mode and moreover only with limited drive voltage. This has an adverse effect on the mechanical lifting work achievable in operation. If a piezoelectric transducer is used for example as an actuator for valve operation, it generally leads to a limit to the controllable rates of flow. | {
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1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a torque applicator comprising a housing in which is disposed a rotatable torque applicator stem actuated by a hydraulic or pneumatic double-acting piston to apply an intermittent torque on bolts, nuts etc. A torque applicator of this kind is known from Norwegian Patents 115.991 and 136.609. The present invention is a further development of these known torque applicators.
2. Prior Art and Summary of the Invention
The torque applicator of the present invention differs from the prior art in that the two members of a claw coupling are mounted on the rotatable torque applicator stem, one coupling member being fixed and non-movably mounted on the stem, and the other coupling member being mounted for axial movement on the stem. The movable coupling member is provided with a radial arm the free end of which co-operates with the double-acting piston to cause a reciprocating rotary movement of the axially movable coupling member on the applicator stem.
The movable coupling member is adapted to be moved axially on the torque applicator stem by hydraulic or pneumatic pressure on one and the other, respectively, axial end surfaces of the coupling member, in time with the actuation of the piston, the coupling member thereby being brought into and out of engagement with the fixed coupling member. | {
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1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a photosensitive drum, a process cartridge, an image forming apparatus and an image forming system. The image forming apparatus may be embodied, for example, as an electrophotographic copying machine, a laser beam printer, an LED printer, a facsimile apparatus or the like.
2. Description of the Related Art
In such an image forming apparatus, a latent image is formed by selectively exposing a photosensitive drum which has been uniformly charged, and the latent image is visualized by developing the latent image with toner as a toner image. The toner image formed on the photosensitive drum is transferred onto a recording medium, thereby performing the recording of an image.
In such an image forming apparatus, the photosensitive drum must be rotated with high accuracy in order to enhance the image quality. To this end, there has been proposed a technique in which a gear on the photosensitive drum was meshed with a gear in the image forming apparatus so that a driving force from the image forming apparatus was surely transmitted to the photosensitive drum, thereby rotating the photosensitive drum with high accuracy.
Incidentally, the inventors of this application have proposed techniques as disclosed in the following patents.
First of all, U.S. Pat. No. 4,829,335 (issued on May 9, 1989) discloses a technique in which a driving force of an image forming apparatus is transmitted to a photosensitive member by utilizing a helical gear. According to that patent, it is possible to position the photosensitive drum in a thrust direction and to rotate the photosensitive member with high accuracy.
Further, U.S. Pat. No. 5,126,800 (issued on Jun. 30, 1992) discloses a technique in which first and second drive transmitting portions are provided on an image bearing member and a third drive transmitting portion is provided on a developer carrying member so that the third drive transmitting portion can be selectively engaged by either of the first and second drive transmitting portions. According to that patent, it is possible to easily change the rotational speed of the developer carrying member, depending upon the kind of the developer used.
Both of the two above-mentioned patents teach the fact that a gear of the photosensitive member is meshed with a gear of the image forming apparatus to surely transmit a driving force of the image forming apparatus to the photosensitive member. The present invention represents further improvement such techniques. | {
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1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to electrical current control circuitry and, more particularly, to a MOS integrated circuit (IC) current mirror correction device that permits a current mirror to be operated at high current levels and rapid switching speeds.
2. Description of the Related Art
As current mirrors comprise a basic and fundamental building block of all electronic systems there consequentially exists a significant amount of prior art. Many conventional current mirror circuits exist that can be switched at high-speeds, but require cascode devices to achieve the current accuracy and, thereby, reduce the compliance voltage. Alternately, they describe sources that are truly DC current mirrors whose output cannot be switched at high speeds.
FIG. 1 depicts a type of current mirror that uses an amplifier to force the drain-to-source voltage across the output transistor to be equal to the voltage across a mirroring transistor (prior art). The amplifier correction device permits the current mirror to achieve accurate output currents. This configuration preserves compliance voltage so long as the gate-to-source voltage is not too large. Such an arrangement, however, does not readily lend itself to modulating the output current at high rates of speed due to the settling time of the amplifier and, as such, is really only applicable to DC or very low-speed current mirrors.
FIG. 2 illustrates a cascode transistor current mirror (prior art). This conventional design can be readily switched at high rates, but the available compliance voltage is reduced due to the use of cascode devices to eliminate output conductance errors.
Despite the significant body of prior art, none of the devices describe a current mirror whose output can be switched at a high rate and that maximizes the available compliance voltage. In order to be able to deliver a modulated current, particularly large currents of several milliamps, which can be switched very quickly, it is necessary that very short gate lengths be used to minimize the size of the device. Minimizing the size of the device is required to minimize its capacitance and, consequently, the switching time. Furthermore, minimizing the channel length also minimizes the saturation voltage and, consequently, maximizes the compliance voltage. Unfortunately, the use of short channel length devices results in a significant error in the output current due to the high output conductance of the short channel device. The typical approach to eliminating the output conductance current error is to force the source-to-drain voltage across the output device to be equal to that across the mirror device by means of either an amplifier or a cascode device. These approaches have disadvantages in terms of switching speed and compliance voltage, as described above.
It would be advantageous if a current mirror circuit could be developed that operated at a high switching speed without cascode transistor arrangements that reduce the compliance voltage.
It would be advantageous if a current mirror circuit could be developed that operated over the full range of compliance voltage without the use of amplifier circuitry with reduces the speed at which current can be modulated.
It would be advantageous if a precision current mirror circuit could be developed that could supply large amounts of current at high speeds.
Accordingly, a MOS integrated circuit (IC) current mirror circuit is provided comprising a high-speed current mirror section and a correction section. The high-speed current mirror section advantageously does not use a cascode arrangement of output transistors. Primary and differential reference current are amplified at a first current mirror transistor pair and a second current mirror transistor pair has an output to supply the load current. A correction section is connected to the high-speed current mirror section output and, in response, supplies the differential reference current.
The correction section includes a buffer connected to the high-speed current mirror section output. The buffer supplies a buffered version of the load voltage and outputs an error signal. A replica mirror section accepts the buffered load voltage and a replica reference current. The scaled error current is altered by a cooperating current shaping circuit, and a reference current is generated.
Hence, a method for correcting current supplied from a high speed current mirror MOS IC is provided. The method comprises: providing a primary reference current; in a high-speed current mirror section, amplifying the reference current; in response to the amplified reference current, supplying a load current and load voltage at a high-speed current mirror section output; detecting the load voltage; and, supplying a differential reference current with the primary reference current to correct the load current.
In some aspects of the invention, the method further comprises: supplying a scaled replica reference current; amplifying the replica reference current with replica current mirror section; supplying a replica current mirror section output voltage matching the load voltage; and, in response to matching the load voltage, supplying the differential reference current. | {
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The present invention relates in general to secure data transmission and more specifically to secure data transmission in end-to-end communication systems that use call signaling to exchange keys using intermediary transfers.
Secure communication of digital information is very important in many of today""s systems. For example, in a typical voice-over-Internet-Protocol (xe2x80x9cvoice-over-IP,xe2x80x9d or xe2x80x9cVoIPxe2x80x9d) system a Call Management Server (CMS) is operated by a VoIP service provider. The CMS interfaces with a user of a digital telephone and with another CMS at a remote location that, in turn, interfaces with another user of a digital telephone (or Multimedia Terminal Adapter (MTA)). Such a system allows the users to speak with each other over a large network such as the Internet.
Naturally, users would like their conversations (and other data exchanges) to be secure. However, it is difficult to maintain a high level of security over a large, amorphous network, such as the Internet, where information may go through many servers, switches, routers, hubs, and other intermediary devices before arriving at an intended destination. One approach to maintain security is to have the two CMSs exchange xe2x80x9cmedia stream keysxe2x80x9d to be used during a phone call. Several approaches to exchanging such keys exist in the prior art. For example, PacketCable call signaling protocols can be used. However, these approaches still require a transfer of keying material from a first CMS to a second CMS, and then a subsequent exchange of keying material from the second CMS to the first CMS. When keys (or other data) are exchanged in this manner, the keys are subjected to intermediary devices twice. Since each intermediary device is a potential security threat to data it is desirable to minimize the exposure of the keys to the intermediary devices.
In a system using a PacketCable approach, the call signaling protocol between two telephones, or VoIP terminals or MTAs, is called Network-Based Call Signaling (NCS). Each call signaling interface between an MTA and a CMS is secured at the network layer. In the case that each of the MTAs participating in a VoIP connection is controlled by a separate CMS, the CMS to CMS signaling protocol is based on Session Initiation Protocol (SIP). SIP, and other standards, are used to define exchange and management of keys, such as session keys and media stream keys. Also, authentication information and other related data may be transferred to initiate a session. This material is referred to collectively as xe2x80x9ckeying material.xe2x80x9d
The present invention reduces the exposure of keying material to intermediary devices in a communication channel between first and second servers. In one embodiment, a second server receives a first half of media stream keys from a first server. The second server uses a Kerberos-based Application Request and tickets to communicate the second half of the media stream keys to the first server. Using this approach, the exposure of the media stream keys is reduced to only the first and second servers.
In one embodiment the invention provides a method for exchanging keys between first and second servers, wherein a communication path between the first and second servers includes one or more intermediary transfer devices. The method comprises receiving, at the second server, a portion of media stream keys to be used in a subsequent data transmission; using a security mechanism to protect additional portions of media stream keys to be used in a subsequent transmission; and transferring the protected additional portions of media stream keys to the first server via the one or more intermediary transfer devices. | {
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The present invention relates generally to ground support power for aircraft and more particularly to a connector for use between ground power carts and aircraft power supply systems.
When a commercial airliner is on the ground at a terminal between flights, a ground power cart is wheeled out to the aircraft and used to supply electrical power that would normally be supplied by the aircraft""s engine driven generator. The coupling between the ground power cart connector and the aircraft power connector is typically maintained through the physical engagement between the electrical contact pins of the aircraft power connector and the sockets of the ground power connector.
Although the couplings currently being used are successful for their intended purpose (i.e., to allow for transfer of electrical power from the ground power cart to the aircraft power supply), it would be beneficial to provide a connector that even better eliminates and/or absorbs arcing and excessive heating that can occur between the ground power connector and the aircraft power connector when excessive resistance exists therebetween.
Arcing, excessive heating, and the repeated coupling and uncoupling of the ground power connector with the aircraft power connector can lead to damage and ultimately to the eventual breakdown of the aircraft power connector, requiring the replacement of the aircraft power connector and an inspection of the surrounding assembly and associated conducting wires. Replacement of the aircraft power connector, however, can be a rather time-consuming process during which time the aircraft is out of service and the airline loses substantial revenue.
Accordingly, a need remains in the art for a device and method capable of providing both a strong, secure mechanical connection and a low resistance electrical connection between an aircraft power connector and a ground power connector. Ideally, the device and method should prevent, or at least reduce the extent of, damage to the aircraft power connector that can otherwise be caused thereto by excessive heating, arcing, and the repeated coupling and uncoupling of the aircraft power connector and the ground power connector. Additionally, the implementation of the device and method should not require any changes to either the aircraft assembly or the ground power cart.
In one form, the present invention provides an electromechanical connector for use between an aircraft power connector and a ground power connector. Preferably, the connector includes a housing and at least one pin and socket assembly disposed at least partially within the housing. The pin and socket assembly includes a pin portion and a socket portion. The pin portion is engageable with a socket of the ground power connector, whereas the socket portion is engageable with an aircraft pin of the aircraft power connector. A socket fitting is preferably disposed within the socket portion to electrically contact the aircraft pin when the aircraft pin is engaged with the socket portion. The pin and socket assembly also includes a collet for gripping the aircraft pin when the aircraft pin is engaged with the socket portion. Further, the connector is preferably configured to allow for individualized adjustment of the frictional force applied by the collet to the aircraft pin. Accordingly, the connector provides both a strong, secure mechanical connection and a low resistance electrical connection between the aircraft power connector and the ground power connector.
In another form, the present invention provides a method for connecting an aircraft power connector with a ground power connector. Preferably, the method comprises the steps of: electrically connecting an aircraft pin of the aircraft power connector with a connector; frictionally engaging the aircraft pin; individually adjusting the frictional force applied to the aircraft pin to removably secure the aircraft pin to the connector; and electrically connecting a socket of the ground power connector with the connector.
Further areas of applicability of the present invention will become apparent from the detailed description provided hereinafter. It should be understood that the detailed description and specific examples, while indicating at least one preferred embodiment of the invention, are intended for purposes of illustration only and are not intended to limit the scope of the invention. | {
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Graphical User Interfaces (GUI)s are a common manner of exchanging information between a user and a computer in a modern information processing environment. The graphical user interfaces typically follow a well known window-based structure. The window-based structure allows a screen display to present one or more rectangular windows, each having a particular context. An active window from among the available displayed window corresponds to an application that the user is currently exchanging information with. The windows are navigated via a pointing device, such as a mouse, touchpad or trackball, to select, activate, and provide input to the application corresponding to the window, and the keyboard is often employed for free form textual and/or numeric input.
The windows display and receive control and data information through objects or icons displayed in the window. The underlying application arranges the objects as appropriate for displaying and receiving information. The display objects include control objects, which receive input from the user, and passive objects, that present information but do not expect interactive responses. The typical conventional GUI window presents multiple simultaneous display objects, driven by the underlying application. Often, a user will manipulate the objects with the pointing device or keyboard for selecting and changing the appearance of the windows to facilitate data entry or to more readily obtain or receive information from the application. In this manner, GUIs provide an effective interactive communication medium between a user and the computer driven application. | {
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1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image display method and device for a plasma display panel (PDP). More specifically, the present invention relates to a PDP image display method and device for reducing flicker and dynamic false contour (DFC) generated when inputting 50 Hz PAL (phase alternating by line) video signals to realize images.
2. Description of the Related Art
A PDP is a display device for restoring image data input as electrical signals by arranging a plurality of discharge cells in a matrix pattern and selectively allowing the discharge cells to emit light.
Gray displaying is needed so that the PDP may operate as a color display device, and a gray realization method for dividing a single field into a plurality of subfields and performing time-division control on the subfields is used to realize the gray display.
Flickers are closely related to the quality of images perceived by humans, as flickers tend to degrade the quality of human visual experience. The flickers are more frequently detected by human eyes as a screen becomes bigger or a frequency lowers.
When images generated using PAL video signals are displayed on a large PDP, both of the above-noted conditions are met, thereby causing a lot of flickers. Therefore, when the PDP is driven at 50 Hz using a minimum incremental arrangement or a minimum decrement arrangement which is a general arrangement of subfields used for the PDP, a lot of flickers are generated.
Since the screen cannot be controlled in the above-noted two conditions that cause flicker, a method for controlling the frequency is used to reduce the flicker.
Korean published application No. 2000-16955 discloses a conventional method for reducing flicker generation by control of the frequency. In order to reduce large screen flickers generated when inputting 50 Hz video signals to drive a PDP, subfields in a single frame are divided into two groups G1 and G2, and the subfields of the groups except the least significant bit (LSB) subfield are established to have the same configuration. In other words, luminance weights are similarly allocated to the subfields of the respective groups, as shown in FIG. 1. The above-described method is much more effective than the conventional subfield arrangement, such as the minimum incremental arrangement or the minimum decrement arrangement.
Referring to FIG. 1, a total interval of a single frame is 20 ms, and the intervals of the respective groups G1 and G2 are fixed as 10 ms. Two suspension intervals are provided, one of which is positioned at the end of the frame, that is, at the end of the second group G2, and the other of which is positioned between the two groups G1 and G2, that is, at the end of the first group G1.
FIG. 2, for example, shows a partial realization of low gray by using a conventional subfield arrangement.
As shown, in the case of displaying low gray such as a low gray of from 0 to 11 by using a conventional subfield arrangement, a time difference between the subfields corresponding to the LSB and the LSB+1 is several ms.
For example, in the case of low gray 3, the lowest subfield SF1 of the first group G1 is turned on, and the lowest subfield SF1 of the second group G2 is turned on. In this instance, the subfield of the first group G1 is a subfield of the LSB, the subfield of the second group G2 is a subfield of the LSB+1, and the time difference between the subfields is 10 ms, a very big difference.
When the subfield arrangement of the Korean published application No. 2000-16955 is used and error diffusion is applied to display low gray, the time difference between the subfields corresponding to the LSB and the LSB+1 is as big as several ms, and a light emission sustain time having the above-noted time difference is short. Therefore, a severe DFC can occur in a boundary of grays when an image sensed by eyes moves.
For example, FIG. 3 shows a concept diagram of a DFC that would be generated when using the disclosure of the above-noted published application, when an image moves in the case where adjacent grays are 4 and 3. As shown in FIG. 3, the DFC occurs at a total of five points when the image moves in the case adjacent grays are 4 and 3, and difference values between the highest gray 4 and a distorted gray from among original grays are respectively 2, 1, 3, 2, and 1.5 depending on the generation points. These difference values show generation intensities of the generated DFC. The distorted gray while moving the image is displayed as color distortion, and it is displayed as color distortion in the DFC pattern.
Since the PDP has high power consumption because of its driving features, an automatic power control (APC) for controlling the power consumption according to a load ratio (or an average signal level (ASL)) of a frame to be displayed is provided. The APC method controls the APC levels according to the load ratio of the input video data, and varies a number of sustain pulses for each APC level to control the power consumption to be below a predetermined level.
Following the APC method, the number of sustain pulses applied to each subfield according to the load ratio is varied. That is, the total number of sustain pulses applied to the respective groups G1 and G2 is varied according to the load ratio, and since each subfield has a number of sustain pulses of as many as luminance weights that the corresponding subfield has, the number of sustain pulses applied to each subfield is also varied.
FIGS. 4A through 4C show positions of the subfields and central positions of light emission for each APC in the conventional PDP subfield structure, FIG. 4A showing a case when the APC is the minimum, FIG. 4B showing a case when the APC is the maximum, and FIG. 4C showing a case when a time of the first group G1 is greater than that of the second group G2.
As shown in FIGS. 4A and 4B, time gaps TIME G1G2 and TIME G2G1 between the central positions of light emission of the groups G1 and G2 are the same when the APC is the minimum and the maximum, and hence, the central positions of light emission of the first and second groups G1 and G2 have periodicity in many gray regions. Therefore, the conventional PDP subfield structure generates fewer flickers.
However, as shown in FIG. 4C, when a subfield occupation time of the first group G1 is longer than that of the second group G2 in the case of forming partial gray irrespective of the APC level, the positions of the top subfields of the first and second groups that are turned on become different. Referring to FIG. 4C, the time gap TIME G1G2 between the light emission centers of the first and second groups G1 and G2 is less than the time gap TIME G2G1 between the light emission centers of the second group G2 and a next frame's first group G1, and as a result, the light emission centers of the groups G1 and G2 lose periodicity, thereby generating flicker. | {
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Syringes are known in the medical art for dispensing measured volumes of fluids, i.e., liquids or gases, to a given site. The typical syringe comprises a piston or plunger enveloped in a chamber, usually a cylindrical chamber, where it forms a fluid-tight seal with the wall of the chamber so that slidable movement of the plunger forwardly empties the chamber and backwardly refills the chamber.
Since the forward movement of the plunger exerts pressure on the fluid in the chamber, the fluid is delivered from the syringe under pressure and thus a syringe is a suitable instrument for inflating various inflatable devices such as balloon catheters. Balloon catheters have been used in various medical applications, for example, angioplasty and dilation of body lumens such as the prostatic urethra. For such applications an appreciable pressure is required to fully inflate the balloon.
While a standard, single plunger syringe is normally adequate to fill the balloon, it has been found that the maximum intended pressure for optimum working of the balloon cannot be achieved by a simple one-handed operation of the syringe. Various proposals have been made in the prior art to overcome this problem. For example, it has been proposed to enhance the pressure of the liquid delivered by the syringe by using a screw thread associated with the plunger mechanism. A disadvantage of this approach is that it requires two hands to operate.
Surprisingly, it has now been found that the desired maximum pressure can be achieved with a syringe that can be operated with one hand and is relatively inexpensive to manufacture by providing a dual action or dual pressure syringe which comprises a rear chamber and a front chamber of different cross-section area and a plunger mechanism comprising a primary plunger enveloping a telescopically slidable secondary plunger. The plunger mechanism co-operates with the chambers such that the rear chamber provides high volume and low pressure and the front chamber provides low volume and high pressure. The high pressure produced by the front chamber provides the necessary boost to achieve the intended pressure in the catheter balloon. | {
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1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a lubricant composition for chains and to a chain having the lubricant composition for chains adhered to its surface.
2. Description of Related Art
As a power transmission mechanism and a conveyer mechanism, chains such as bushing chains and roller chains are conventionally used. A bushing chain is constructed by alternately connecting a pair of outer link plates, which are connected together with two pins at both ends, and a pair of inner link plates having two bushings at both ends so that the pins on the adjoining sides of two pairs of outer link plates are fitted into the bushings. A roller chain additionally includes rollers fitted on the bushings.
The bushing has a cylindrical shape. There are various types of bushings, such as a roll-type bushing produced by rolling up a rectangular base material cut out from band steel into a cylindrical shape by a forming machine, a seamless-type bushing using a cylindrical member formed by casting and having no seam along a generatrix, and a sintered-type bushing made of a metal sintered body. In the case of roll-type and seamless-type bushings, in order to improve the abrasion resistance property, a lubricant is usually present on the sliding surfaces of the bushings and the pins and on the sliding surfaces of the bushings and the rollers. In the case of a sintered-type bushing, pores of the bushing are impregnated with lubricant oil.
As the lubricant, usually lubricants, which belong to grade No. 10-50 of SAE (Society of Automotive Engineers in the United States of America) viscosity classification (engine oil: equivalent to ISO VG (International Organization for Standardization Viscosity Grades) 22-320) and are liquid at room temperature, are often used.
In the case of a roll-type bushing, a joining section in rolling up the rectangular base material remains as a seam, and therefore when a chain is constructed by inserting pins into the bushings and uses the lubricant, the lubricant flows out through the seam, resulting in a problem that the chain has a short abrasion elongation-resistant life.
In order to reduce an outflow of the lubricant, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 8-277886 discloses an invention of a bushing having a plurality of blind grooves in the inner circumferential surface. In the case of the bushing of Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 8-277886, however, the lubricant held in the blind grooves tends to flow to the seam because of the influence of centrifugal force applied to the chain, and the lubricant flown out of the blind grooves flows out from the ends in the longitudinal direction of the seam in a short time, resulting in a problem that the lubricant is not held in the bushing for a long period of time, and lubricity and abrasion resistance are not maintained.
Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2007-218430 discloses a seamless-type bushing having a plurality of blind grooves in the inner circumferential surface. With this bushing, although there is no loss of a lubricant caused by the seam, there is a problem that it is impossible to sufficiently prevent leakage of the lubricant from openings at both ends in the axial direction of the bushing.
In the case of a sintered-type bushing, as described above, by impregnating the pores with a lubricant which is liquid at room temperature and holding the lubricant in the pores, scattering of the lubricant caused by the centrifugal force applied to the chain is prevented. The lubricant is sucked out from the pores of the bushing by a pump function produced by the pin when the pin sways, oozes out because of expansion caused by frictional heat, and forms an oil film in the sliding section between the bushing and the pin. This oil film prevents seizure of the pin. When the swaying motion stops, the lubricant is sucked into the pores again with a lowering in temperature, and therefore the lubricant is required to have fluidity according to the pore diameter so that it is able to enter and leave the pores. Hence, there are problems that the lubricant also tends to flow out and the loss of the lubricant is significant.
As described above, various mechanisms for physically holding lubricants have been studied.
As an invention of a lubricant composition for bearings, Japanese Examined Patent Application Publication No. 63-23239 discloses an invention of a lubricant composition for bearings prepared by mixing ultrahigh molecular weight polyethylene or low molecular weight polyethylene and lubricating grease having a dropping point higher than the melting temperature of the polyethylene. Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 9-268298 discloses an invention of a solid lubricant for bearings prepared by mixing lubricating grease, ultrahigh molecular weight polyolefin, and an oil extravasation inhibitor. | {
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The approaches described in this section are approaches that could be pursued, but not necessarily approaches that have been previously conceived or pursued. Therefore, unless otherwise indicated, it should not be assumed that any of the approaches described in this section qualify as prior art merely by virtue of their inclusion in this section.
Open source software in the field of statistical analysis of data has become widely used. An example is the JUPYTER system. However, current approaches for developing statistical analysis programs suffer from a number of problems. They are difficult to share with other users or within technical or analytical teams; the programs usually combine views of source code and output data, which means that sharing a program mandates sharing the output data, which is undesirable to enforce access control regimes or security barriers. It is not easy for users to reuse a function or program, or learn what they contain. Collaboration, code reuse and discovery of the work of others are all are difficult because the system was designed for individuals working alone. For example, sharing code typically requires copying and pasting code from one location to another.
In particular, the programs tend to be compact and discrete, that is, dedicated to a particular analytic function such as linear regression. However, as large number of such compact programs are created and stored, and given the difficulty of sharing them, the problem of uninformed rework becomes acute. That is, one development team within an enterprise may have created and stored a program to perform a particular type of analysis that is identical to another program created earlier by a different team that is stored in a different place with a different name. Simply finding analytical programs that others have written, to avoid rework, is not easy with current approaches.
Still another issue is presentation to non-technical users. Typical statistical analysis systems always expose program source code to all users, which can be intimidating or meaningless for non-technical users, who have no interest in coding but wish to interact with the system at a higher level by entering data and seeing results. In addition, the exposure of code listings in the interface can obfuscate the locations where inputs or variables could be changed to yield new results. | {
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1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a method of producing H-beams by universal mills. More particularly this invention relates to a method of producing H-beams which have excellent strength and toughness in the joints between the web and flanges, referred to hereinbelow as the "fillets."
2. Prior Art
The conventional method of producing H-beams by rolling comprises: a breakdown process in which the piece 10 having a cross section as shown in FIG. 1 (a) is rolled by a twohigh mill having breakdown rolls 12 of a pass cross section as shown in FIG. 1 (b); a roughing process in which rolling in one pass or in multiple passes is performed by a roughing universal mill group consisting of at least one universal mill having roughing and intermediate horizontal rolls 14 and roughing and intermediate vertical rolls 16 as shown in FIG. 1 (c), and at least one edger mill having edger rolls 18 of a cross section as shown in FIG. 1 (d); and a finishing process in which rolling in one pass is performed by a finishing universal mill having finishing horizontal rolls 20 and finishing vertical rolls 22 of a cross section as shown in FIG. 1 (e). The H-beam 23 thus produced has flanges 24, web 26, and joints (fillets) 28 therebetween. An example of the mechanical properties of each part of the conventional H-beam thus rolled is given in FIG. 2. FIG. 2 (a) shows the relationship between the finish temperature and the yield strength. FIG. 2 (b) shows the relationship between the finish temperature and the tensile strength. FIG. 2 (c) shows the relationship between the finish temperature and the transition temperature of brittleness-ductility fractured surface. In the figure, the full line A, broken line B and dot-and-dash line C show the mechanical properties of the web 26, flange 24 and fillet 28 respectively. As is seen from the figure, when the finish temperature is the same, the yield strength and tensile strength of the fillet 28 in the tensile test are lower than those of the flange 24 and web 26, and the transition temperature of brittleness-ductility fractured surface in the Charpy test is the highest. The possible cause of such weakness in mechanical properties of the fillet 28 in comparison with other parts is considered to be the insufficient draft of the fillet 28 as compared with other parts, and because the fillet receives the highest temperature during rolling. That is, as the fillet 28 is supported only by the web 26 that is high in temperature and flexible, reductions by vertical rolls 16 to 22 in the roughing and the finishing processes are not effective. Further, the fillet 28 is larger in thickness than the web 26 and flange 24, so that heat radiation to the rolls is small. Therefore, the fillet receives the highest temperature during rolling.
FIG. 3 shows the state of deformation in cross section by rolling of each part of the H-beam. If the flange, fillet and web of the piece 10 have square section a, b and c respectively, these square sections become sections a', b', and c' in the H-beam 23 after rolled. As is apparent from the figure, the change in cross section of the flange from a to a' and that of the web from c to c' are featured each by a large decrease in either the vertical dimension or the horizontal dimension, while in the change in cross section of the fillet from b to b', the vertical and horizontal dimensions of the section b are decreased similarly, to almost the same extent, as the result of the metal flow that takes place from the fillet to the web because reductions by vertical rolls 16 to 22 are not effective as described in the above. Supposing that the deformation of the web and flange is plane strain and that the deformation of the fillet is one-dimensional tensile strain, the amount of true strain of the web and flange is equal to about 1.15 times that of the fillet.
Usually in the manufacture of H-beams, the product processed in the above rolling processes is straightened by a roller or press straightener to improve its straightness. However, when the H-beam produced by the above-mentioned conventional method is being straightened by rollers 30 as shown in FIG. 4 (a), due to its inferior mechanical properties the fillet 28 may occasionally be fractured as shown at the hatched portion 32 of FIG. 4 (b), with increasing amounts of reduction by the rollers 30. Therefore, for H-beams produced by the conventional method, press straightening has to be employed if straightness cannot be improved without heavy reductions, which results in a considerable decrease of the working efficiency.
H-beams before use are often subjected to gas cutting, that is, part of the flange 24 of the H-beam 23 is gas cut as shown by oblique lines 34 in FIG. 5 (a), and part of the web 26 of the H-beam is gas cut as shown by oblique lines 36 in FIG. 5 (b). However, when conventional H-beams are subjected to the above gas cutting, notches 37 resulting from the gas cutting may give rise to a crack 38 along the fillet 28 as shown in FIG. 5 (c) or (d), due to the inferior mechanical properties of the fillet. The crack 38 is caused by the influence of the residual stress existing in the fillet 28. The lower the low-temperature toughness of the fillet 28 is in a cold working environment, the more the crack progresses. To prevent this crack, the following measures have hitherto been taken. A hole is made in advance in the fillet 28 for prevention of crack propagation, troublesome operations such as preheating or post heating of the fillet 28 are performed, or costly killed steel, excellent in toughness, is used in place of semi-killed steel used for ordinary H-beams, as the result of which the cost of production of H-beams is raised.
Further, H-beams sometimes are used for monorails as a special application thereof as shown in FIG. 6 in which the reference numerals 39, 40 and 41 designate respectively a vehicle, a guide wheel and a carrying track on which a H-beam, the monorail, is fixed. In using H-beams for monorails, it has so far been required to make the fillet 28 larger in thickness in order to compensate for its insufficient strength. | {
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The present invention relates to a process for preparing novel polyolefins. More particularly, the present invention is concerned with a process for preparing polyolefins exhibiting better particle properties with increase of average particle diameter, which process is capable of greatly increasing the polymer yield per solids and that per transition metal, thereby permitting the omission of the step of removing catalyst remaining in the resulting polymer, further capable of increasing the bulk density of the polymer and decreasing a fine particulate portion of the polymer.
Heretofore, in this technical field there have been known many catalysts comprising inorganic magnesium solids as carriers such as magnesium halide, magnesium oxide and magnesium hydroxide and a transition metal compound such as a titanium compound or a vanadium compound supported on the carriers. However, the polyolefins obtained in the prior art are generally low in bulk density, relatively small in average particle diameter and generally wide in particle size distribution so contain a large proportion of fine particles. For this reason, improvement has keenly been desired from the standpoint of productivity and polymer handling. Besides, when these powdery polymers are subjected to forming, there arise problems such as dusting and lowering of the forming efficiency. So there has been a keen desire for the foregoing increase of bulk density and decrease of the fine particulate portion. Further, still further improvements are considered necessary in order to satisfy the recent keen desire for omitting the pelletizing step and using a powdery polymer directly in a processing machine.
The present inventors have previously found a novel catalyst component with the above drawbacks remedied and already filed patent applications thereon (see Japanese Patent Publication Nos. 11651/1989 and 12289/1989 and Japanese Patent Laid-Open Nos. 149605/1985, 32105/1987 and 207306/1987). The use of this catalyst component can afford a polymer having a high bulk density and a large average particle diameter. However, a further improvement has been considered necessary for omitting the pelletizing step and using a powdery polymer directly in a processing machine.
It is the object of the present invention to remedy the above-mentioned drawbacks and obtain in extremely high activity a polymer having a high bulk density, a narrow particle size distribution, an extremely reduced proportion of fine particles, and superior in fluidity. | {
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The present invention relates to a novel pinned module and a method for making the same.
In the manufacture of printed circuit boards and similar electrical devices, it is desirable to make connections to the device as quickly and easily as possible. One technique for making this connection is to employ pins which are mechanically and sometimes electrically connected to the device.
Many techniques are known for affixing electrical connection pins to circuit boards and the like devices. One well known way is to provide the circuit board or device with an opening and to provide the pin with a compliant section having a size compatible with the opening such that when the compliant section of the pin is inserted into the opening, it coacts with the walls of the opening to maintain the pin affixed to the device or board. See U.S. Pat. No. 4,969,259, the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference. For convenience, this technique of affixing a pin to a substrate using a compliant section of the pin to interact with the walls of an opening in the substrate shall be referred to hereinafter as "compliant pin connection."
Another well known method for connecting pins to circuit boards and the like devices uses non-compliant pins. In this technique, a pin blank is inserted into a hole in the board or other device and the blank is subjected to compression along its longitudinal axis. As a result, the portions of the pin blank adjacent the two sides or surfaces of the board deform through compressive stress to form bulges which securely lock the pin in place. For convenience, techniques for affixing pins in this manner will be referred to hereinafter as "compressive deformation connection."
In the design of complicated electronic components, it is not uncommon to arrange circuit boards and other like devices in stacked relation with numerous electrical connections being made between the different boards. Typically this is done by providing a first circuit board with pins of either the compliant or non-compliant types, moving a second circuit board into position so that the pins projecting from the first circuit board engage corresponding positions in the second circuit board and then soldering the pins to the second circuit board to lock them in place.
Although this procedure works well, it is disadvantageous because it employs soldering operations, which are inherently time consuming, messy and expensive.
In order to overcome this disadvantage, it has been proposed to affix stacked circuit boards together by using electrical connection pins in which both boards are secured to the same pin by compliant pin connection. See, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,446,505 and U.S. Pat. No. 4,889,496, the disclosures of which are incorporated herein by reference. However, in these cases, either the mechanical/electrical connection made with at least some of the pins in one or both boards is not as good as desired or the procedures are complicated and expensive due to the use of pin blanks of esoteric structure, special mechanical manipulations, or both.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a novel technique for forming electrical connections between two or more stacked printed circuit boards by a simple and straightforward manner which provides excellent electrical/mechanical connection for all connections.
In addition, it is a further object of the present invention to provide a novel circuit board or module for use in this technique.
A still further object of this invention is to provide a completed assembly of two or more stacked printed circuit boards or devices which is made using this module.
In addition, it is a still further object of the present invention to provide a method of affixing pin blanks to electrical substrates in order to make the modules of the present invention.
Moreover, it is a still another object of this invention to provide a novel hammer or anvil for use in affixing pin blanks to substrates in accordance with this method. | {
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The present invention generally relates to novel surfactant compositions, their preparation and to compositions containing these novel surfactant compositions, together with a pesticide, particularly a herbicide. More particularly, an important aspect of this invention is directed to surfactant compositions having reduced eye irritancy which are useful in the preparation of herbicidal compositions having reduced eye irritation properties in addition to their herbicidal effectiveness. In this regard, a further important aspect of the present invention concerns surfactant compositions which are effective in the formulation of glyphosate-containing herbicidal compositions or pesticidal compositions of other water soluble active ingredients. A method of using the herbicidal compositions is also provided.
Numerous organic pesticides; i.e., chemicals that are useful in the control of bacteria, insects, fungi, weeds and the like, have been developed in recent years. These pesticides, especially herbicides, have found use in agriculture, as well as for household applications. Regardless of whether the pesticide is water soluble or water insoluble, it is desirable to use the same in an aqueous medium rather than in a non-aqueous solvent which is more difficult to use by the formulator and applicator, could cause environmental damage, is more costly and is in general less desirable. Water-based dispersions, emulsions and/or solutions can be prepared from most pesticides using selected surfactants. Proper selection of the surfactant can also improve the efficacy of pesticidal compositions.
Surfactants are useful in the preparation of herbicidal compositions whether the herbicide is water soluble or insoluble. When the herbicide is water insoluble, the surfactant can be used to make a water dispersible herbicide composition. When the herbicide is water soluble, the surfactant can often be used to improve the herbicidal effectiveness of the herbicidal composition.
One class of surfactants that has found success in the preparation of herbicidal compositions includes the polyoxyalkylene alkylamines such as, for example, ethoxylated tallowamine. These compounds have the necessary surface activity so that many otherwise water insoluble herbicides, as well as water soluble herbicides, can be formulated into concentrates which will form useful dispersions, emulsions and solutions in water. Herbicides formulated into dispersions, emulsions and solutions using these surfactants often have improved herbicidal properties. This class of surfactants is well known to potentiate the herbicidal activity of glyphosate.
While the polyoxyalkylene alkylamine compounds have excellent surfactant properties which often enhance the efficacy of phytotoxicants, they unfortunately are eye irritants and must be used with a high degree of caution.
Reducing or eliminating the eye irritancy of the polyoxyalkylene alkylamine surfactants used with pesticides, without reducing the efficacy of the pesticidal compositions containing the surfactants, is a highly desirable end. The protection of the applicator and personnel preparing the surfactant and pesticidal compositions from eye damage is of paramount importance. Reducing the eye irritancy of the surfactant and pesticidal compositions containing the surfactant, increases the use that can be made of such products while lessening the possibility of injury to personnel handling and using them
In order to obtain surfactant compositions having the desired characteristics needed for use with the numerous pesticides on the market, various combinations of surfactants have been previously made.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,313,847 describes three component surfactant compositions including a polyoxyalkylene alkyl or alkylaryl ether phosphate ester, a polyoxyalkylene alkylamine and a material selected from the group consisting of nonionic polyoxylated surfactants, polyhydric alcohol esters and polyoxyalkylene glycols. According to this patent, the three component composition is an improved emulsifier enhancing the use of an emulsion containing a water insoluble herbicide.
Combinations of emulsifiers are also shown in the following patents: U.S. Pat. No. 2,872,368 discloses a polyoxyethylene glycol or a polyoxypropylene glycol in combination with an oil soluble alkaline earth metal salt of an alkylated naphthalene sulfonic acid; U.S. Pat. No. 3,683,078 discloses emulsifier compositions having three components: 1) the condensation product of an alkylphenol and an alkylene oxide, 2) a sulfonate salt and 3) a polyoxyalkylene derivative of an alkanol; and U.S. Pat. No. 3,071, 550 discloses selected sulfonates in combination with an aliphatic diester of unsaturated carboxylic acids and the condensation product of glycerin and from about 15 to about 27 moles of ethylene oxide.
As stated in British Patent No. 769,736, due to the diverse nature of pesticides, the selection of the proper emulsifying agent in any particular instance is difficult. This patent shows combinations of a surface active alkylaryl polyoxyalkylene glycol ether and a water soluble salt of a phosphate or sulfate ester as one of the ethers. This British patent, like the preceding patents, shows the continuing need for a multitude of surfactants many of which are obtained by combinations of known materials.
It is known to formulate aqueous solutions of the herbicide glyphosate and sulfated nonalkoxylated C.sub.8 -C.sub.10 alkyl alcohol surfactants. Such herbicidal compositions have been sold by Monsanto Company of St. Louis, Missouri, for example, under the trademark PONDMASTER.
None of the foregoing patents discusses the problem of surfactants being eye irritants. Yet this is an important factor which must be taken into consideration when preparing and using compositions containing polyoxyalkylene alkylamine surfactants. Thus, there exists an important need for such compositions having reduced eye irritancy without sacrifice of pesticidal activity.
Perhaps the most widely used herbicide worldwide is glyphosate, which chemically is N-phosphonomethylglycine. This product is normally used in an agriculturally acceptable form, such as a water soluble salt; e.g., the isopropylamine salt. For certain commercial uses glyphosate is made into a herbicidal concentrate composition containing a surfactant, which can then be diluted with water for use by the applicator. Often used surfactants for the preparation of these compositions are the aforementioned polyoxyalkylene alkylamines, especially ethoxylated tallowamine. European Patent 290,416 discloses combinations of solubilized glyphosate, equivalent to at least 40 grams per liter of glyphosate acid, and alkoxylated alkylamine surfactants in a ratio of the solubilized glyphosate (expressed as glyphosate acid equivalent) to amine surfactant of from about 1:1.75 to about 6:1. According to this European Patent, the compositions permit a reduction in the surfactant to glyphosate ratio without loss of herbicidal effectiveness. Clearly, the use of compositions containing glyphosate and alkoxylated tallowamine having reduced eye irritation is of considerable importance. The invention described herein presents a method of improving the highly desirable properties of such compositions.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency requires that currently commercial aqueous concentrate glyphosate herbicide solutions having an alkoxylated alkylamine surfactant be labelled to contain a precautionary statement that the solution can cause eye burns. To remedy or ameliorate this hazard is a desideratum of long standing.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide new compositions containing an alkoxylated alkylamine surfactant.
Another object of the present invention is to provide such surfactant-containing compositions that can be used to prepare pesticidal compositions, particularly herbicidal compositions having significantly reduced eye irritancy.
Another object of the present invention is to provide new methods for the preparation of compositions containing an alkoxylated alkylamine surfactant and having reduced eye irritancy.
Another object of the present invention is to provide compositions of the herbicide glyphosate having agriculturally acceptable herbicidal efficacy and reduced eye irritancy.
Another object of the present invention is to provide new methods for controlling the growth of weeds and other vegetation.
Other objects of the present invention will become apparent from the following description. | {
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Such multi chamber ampoules are previously used for storing one or more sensitive medical components, which are to be dissolved in a liquid to form an injectable solution. The solution can not be stored for a longer period of time without becoming deteriorated. However, sensitive medical components of this kind can in most cases be stored for longer periods of time, if they are isolated from the solvent or other substance, which adversely would affect the component. Very often those medical components are present in the ampoule in a freeze-dried state and stored therein in a front chamber provided in said ampoule, which chamber has an outlet opening, which usually is sealed by a membrane, or other seal, which could be removed, ruptured or penetrated by a hollow needle, such as a cannula or the like for taking out the solution. The rear of the front chamber is limited by an axially movable partition, sealingly engaging the inner wall of the ampoule and being located to prevent flow between the rear and the front chambers through an interior or exterior by-pass connection provided in the ampoule. Said partition forms the forward end of a rear chamber, in which the solvent to be added to the sensitive medical component in the front chamber is contained.
By forwardly displacing the partition a communication between the front and the rear chambers will be established through said by-pass connection. The rear end of the rear chamber is sealed by movable seal or plunger.
When the liquid in the rear chamber is to be added to the medical component in the front chamber, the rear seal or the plunger is depressed, which via the incompressible liquid, in turn will move the partition in the same direction. As soon as the partition has been moved so long, that a communication has been established between the two chambers through said by-pass connection, liquid will flow from the rear chamber into the front chamber upon further depression of the plunger.
A very well known problem in the art, is that freeze-dried medical components usually are very sensitive to mechanical influences and will deteriorate if the mechanical stresses become too strong. Thus, during the liquid addition step they require a balanced and smooth flow. In order to solve this problem a lot of devices have been proposed for providing a displacing mechanism, by means of which the plunger or the rear seal of the container can be moved in a controlled manner for obtaining the desired flow into the front chamber. In most cases devices of this kind typically comprise a means for receiving and holding an ampoule and a screw actuator, having a male thread, which cooperates with a corresponding female thread relied with the holding means of said ampoule. The pitch of the threads is low, so that each revolution of the screw actuator results in a very limited axial displacement of the actuator. Thus, in this manner, the plunger will have a smooth axial movement. Such devices have a satisfying performance for obtaining a smooth flow of liquid into the front chamber. However, this kind of prior devices presents a disadvantage in that the screw actuator has to be rotated in the backward direction to the same extent as in the forward direction for returning it to its initial position for the reception of a fresh ampoule. This is a time consuming task with no other purpose than to reset the actuator.
Therefore, there has been a need for a device, by means of which the plunger or the rear seal may be displaced in the forward direction in a smooth and uniform manner to provide a smooth flow, but which permits a quick return of the screw actuator to its initial position.
An example of such a device is disclosed in the PCT-application WO 93/14799, which presents a solution to the aforementioned problem. This prior device includes a screw actuator, having a male thread, cooperating with a female thread for the forward movement of the actuator, which for the reset readily can be brought out of its engagement with the female thread and rapidly be reset to its starting position for the reception of a new ampoule.
The prior device comprises a slotted holder, which include a female thread engagable with a screw actuator, when the longitudinal axes of the holder and of the actuator coincide. The actuator may be tilted about an axis perpendicular to its longitudinal axis and be swung out of the slot of the holder. As a result of this tilting movement, the male and female threads loose their mutual engagement, so that the actuator readily and rapidly may be brought back to its starting position, whereupon the device may be reused after the removal of the emptied ampoule.
Even if this device constitutes a progress in relation to prior solutions as regards quickness in the resetting of the device for reuse, it presents a certain number of drawbacks:
it requires a great number of manipulations for the resetting, PA1 it is rather bulky, PA1 it can only be used for one single determined length of ampoule, and PA1 the manufacture thereof is rather complicated and expensive
and great care must be taken when producing some of the constructional features of the instrument, in particular the producing of the female read in relation to the slot, is delicate. | {
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Patent literature 1 describes a particle dispersion liquid supply device directed at controlling the occurrence of stacker blocking, wherein particles are adhered to an image-formed surface of a recording medium to prevent fly-off of the particles.
Patent literature 2 describes an inkjet recording device including a printing unit that carries out printing through movements of an inkjet head relative to a recording medium, and a powder applying portion that applies a blocking preventive powder on an already printed part of the recording medium after the printing is done by the printing unit.
[Patent literature 1] Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No. 2012-171187A (disclosed on Sep. 10, 2012)
[Patent literature 2] Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No. 2013-159056A (disclosed on Aug. 19, 2013) | {
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1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a technology for supporting verification of a large-scale integration (LSI).
2. Description of the Related Art
In LSI design, a verification work of verifying whether an LSI works normally is essential. While the verification work is important to maintain high quality especially for the LSI for which a larger scale, a high performance, a higher speed, and lower power consumption are required, enhanced work efficiency by shortening a design period has conventionally been demanded.
Especially in recent years, software and hardware are implemented on a single LSI and a system on chip (SoC) including not only conventional single-function hardware with an application specific integrated circuit (ASIC) but also software is now a mainstream of LSI. Moreover, since the functions conventionally realized by application software such as moving picture experts group (MPEG) and joint photographic experts group (JPEG) are now realized by hardware, functions of LSI are becoming complicated.
FIG. 38 is a flowchart of a conventional LSI development process. In FIG. 38, steps S3801 to S38805 are a design flow and steps S3806 to S3809 are a verification flow of verifying designed LSI.
In the design flow, a conceptual designing is made at step S3801. In the conceptual designing, a designer prepares a requirement specification 3810 in natural language based on a design request from a customer or receives the requirement specification 3810 described in natural language from the customer.
Functional designing is made at step S3802. In the functional designing, based on described contents of the requirement specification 3810, an LSI to be designed is divided into functional blocks and a functional specification 3820 describing contents of each functional black is prepared.
At step S3803, structural designing is conducted. In the structural designing, based on the functional specification 3820, hardware designing is carried out and a structural specification 3830 is prepared. Specifically, the structural designing is the designing to find out what kind of architecture should be introduced to realize the functions described in the functional specification 3820.
For example, out of functional blocks, architecture of a functional block is realized by software, architecture of a functional block is realized by purchasing intellectual property (IP), architecture of a functional block is prepared by the designer, and architecture of a functional block is realized by an underbus.
At step S3804, unit designing is conducted. In the unit designing, by dividing each hardware module described in the structural specification 3830 into a plurality of modules and by detail-designing of such modules, a unit specification 3840 is prepared.
At step S3805, implementation is conducted. Implementation is conducted using a timing chart of an interface and using a hardware description language (HDL) of a register transfer level (RTL) 3850 to be ultimately designed, considering internal logics.
At step S3806, unit verification is conducted. In the unit verification, the verification of the unit specification for each unit designed at the unit designing, namely, debugging, is conducted according to unit verification items 3860.
At step S3807, connection verification is conducted. In the connection verification, interfaces of respective units verified at the unit verification are connected and verification is made as to whether thus interconnected units work normally, according to connection verification At step S3808, function verification is conduced. In the function verification, verification is made as to whether functional requirements of the system to be designed are satisfied, according to function verification items 3880.
Finally, at step S3809, actual machine verification is conducted. In the actual machine verification, LSI is actually implemented on a chip using the RTL 3850 and it is verified whether the LSI actually works. Determination is made as to whether the requirement specification 3810 from the customer satisfies requirement verification items 3890.
In the above design processing, however, verification of LSI (steps S3806 to S3809) can not be made unless the implementation (step S3805) is made.
This leads to a problem that, when an error is made due to an error of the specification, ambiguity of description, or misinterpretation by a designer at any upstream step of the design flow, the error is accumulated at steps subsequent to such step.
In the structural designing, architecture was determined on the desk and there was no method to ascertain its appropriateness. Therefore, an increase in development risk could result in failure of a development project, to the loss of time and manpower spent in the development.
A special simulator (tools from electronic design automation (EDA) vendors such as VCS and NC-Sim) is required for applying simulation to HDL of the RTL 3850, and a slow simulation speed of the simulator leads to problems of decreased verification efficiency and a longer design period. Especially when an LSI to be designed is of a large scale, occasionally the verification work could not be completed within a predetermined period because of a bottleneck of the slow simulation speed.
On the other hand, it is conceivable to increase the simulation speed by introducing an emulator capable of working at a speed thousands times as fast as the simulator, but the emulator is very expensive and increases verification expenses, and it is difficult to build the environment and debugging is difficult at the time of occurrence of a problem, resulting in increased verification period and a longer design period. | {
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The present invention relates to a device for the measurement of the level of a chemical in a body fluid of a subject, and particularly relates to such a chemical level measurement device which is suitable for easily and conveniently measuring the level of blood sugar or urine sugar or the like.
A per se conventional such device for the measurement of the level of a chemical, such as typically sugar level, in a body fluid, such as blood or urine, of a subject is operated as follows. A piece of test paper, impregnated beforehand with a test chemical, is infiltrated with a sample of the body fluid, such as blood or urine or the like, of the subject; this test chemical should be one which reacts in a visible manner, as by changing its color or some other of its optical properties, according to the level or concentration of the relevant chemical, the level of which is to be measured, in the body fluid of the subject. Then this piece of test paper is fitted to a biochemical level measurement device, and the color or other optical property thereof is measured by said device, so as to assess the actual value of the concentration of said relevant chemical in the body fluid of the subject, i.e. so as to quantitatively evaluate the concentration of said relevant chemical. And various biochemical level measurement devices which evaluate one or more of the optical properties of such a treated piece of test paper, and which perform appropriate computations for deriving the concentration of the relevant chemical substance in the body fluid of the subject, are currently available.
Particularly, such a per se conventional biochemical level measurement device typically comprises a measurement circuit of an electronic type, and a display unit, both of these being mounted to its case, and further is provided with a test paper insertion unit which is constituted by a depression or aperture formed in its said case. This test paper insertion unit is typically provided with a test paper holding unit for holding the test paper --which typically for ease of handling is mounted on the end of a strip of flexible plate, the whole being termed a "test stick"--and with a light emitting element for illuminating said test paper and with a light receiving unit for receiving light which has been affected by said test paper, either by the action of reflection or by the action of transmission. And, typically, a cover of the test paper insertion unit can be selectively opened and closed, in order to prohibit the ingress of light from the outside of the device, which otherwise would disturb the result of the measurement.
Such a per se conventional biochemical level measurement device is capable of assessing the illumination reflected from the test paper which is impregnated with the test chemical and is infiltrated with the sample of the body fluid of the subject, or alternatively is capable of assessing the illumination transmitted through said test paper, and therefrom said device quantitatively assesses the concentration in said body fluid sample of the particular chemical substance which is being analyzed for. The result of this concentration evaluation is displayed on the display unit as a digital or as an analog value. | {
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Radiofrequency (RF) devices are used to non-specifically and non-selectively ablate or heat different types of tissue. For example, in the field of dermatology RF devices are used to treat aging skin. Skin aging is associated with changes in the upper levels of the skin such as roughness of the skin due to changes in the stratum corneum and epidermis and uneven pigmentation in the epidermis. In the dermis, aging and environmental factors cause the destruction and malfunction of collagen and elastin fibers leading to the formation of wrinkles. Symptoms of skin aging in the epidermis are typically treated by ablative methods such as chemical peels or laser resurfacing. Optical radiation devices such as lasers are used to resurface large areas of the skin. While these lasers are effective in the treatment of the signs of skin aging, resurfacing the whole epidermis is often associated with side effects such as wound infections, prolonged healing times, hyperpigmentation, hypopigmentation, and scarring.
WO 05/007003 describes a method for achieving beneficial effects in a target tissue in skin comprising treating the target tissue using optical radiation to create a plurality of microscopic treatment zones in a predetermined treatment pattern. This method of resurfacing the skin, however, necessitates the use of complicated and expensive laser devices and requires special facilities, prolonged treatment times, and highly trained operators.
Radiofrequency (RF) devices are used to ablate localized skin lesions or to destroy the whole upper surface of the skin. However, whole skin resurfacing methods and devices cause burn like post treatment reactions associated with prolonged healing times, increased risk of infections, prolonged erythema, scarring, hyperpigmentation, and hypopigmentation.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,711,435 discloses a device for ablating the stratum corneum epidermis of a subject, including a plurality of electrodes, which are applied to the subject's skin at respective points. However, this device does not ablate the epidermis and thus has no effects on the signs of skin aging.
The RF devices described previously lack the efficacy and safety needed for treatment of signs of skin aging in the epidermis. Some devices resurface the whole epidermis risking multiple side effects, while others ablate only miniscule parts of the upper stratum corneum without therapeutic effects on signs of skin aging.
Symptoms of skin aging in the dermis are typically treated by non-ablative methods, including lasers, intense pulsed light, or RF devices that heat the dermis to trigger renewal of collagen fibers. In order to trigger collagen renewal, some RF devices use bipolar electrodes to increase the heat of dermal skin layers through the creation of electrical currents that flow parallel to the skin surface. These devices use active and return electrodes that are typically positioned relatively close to one another at the treatment site. In some cases, the two electrodes are located on the same electrosurgical probe, and the electrodes alternate between functioning as active and return electrodes. Other RF devices use unipolar or monopolar electrical energy for heating the deep layers of skin. These devices also use an active electrode and a return electrode. The return electrode is typically positioned a relatively large distance from the active electrode (in comparison with bipolar devices). For both unipolar and bipolar devices, current flows along the lowest impedance path between electrodes.
Other devices use a combination of optical energy and bipolar RF energy to treat the skin.
The devices described previously lack the ability to control the spatial directions, energies, and nature of the electrical energies affecting the treated area and thus lack the selectivity and specificity needed for maximum efficacy in their respective therapeutic indications. Moreover, the bipolar and monopolar RF devices lack the ability to treat the signs of aging in the epidermis. Enhanced ability to control the spatial directions and the pattern of electron flows in the treated biological tissue would allow effective therapy for additional dermatological and non-dermatological disorders such as hair removal, acne, acne sears, psoriasis, bone grafting and more.
Despite advancements in the use of optical and RF devices for treating biological tissue, there continues to be a need in the art to develop effective electrosurgical devices and methods that are suitable for treating a wide variety of conditions. An ideal electrosurgical method and related devices would be capable of selectively and specifically treating a wide variety of biological tissues and conditions effecting such tissues. Such a method and devices would be simple to use, and would have minimal adverse effects. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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The present invention relates in general to materials handling vehicles, and more particularly, to object tracking and steer correction schemes for materials handling vehicles, such as remotely operated low level order picking truck.
Low level order picking trucks are commonly used for picking stock in warehouses and distribution centers. Such order picking trucks typically include load carrying forks and a power unit having a platform upon which an operator may step and ride while controlling the truck. The power unit also has a steerable wheel and corresponding traction and steering control mechanisms, e.g., a movable steering arm that is coupled to the steerable wheel. A control handle attached to the steering arm typically includes the operational controls necessary for driving the truck and operating its load handling features.
In a typical stock picking operation, an operator fills orders from available stock items that are located in storage areas provided along a plurality of aisles of a warehouse or distribution center. In this regard, the operator drives a low level order picking truck to a first location where item(s) are to be picked. In a pick process, the operator typically steps off the order picking truck, walks over to the appropriate location and retrieves the ordered stock item(s) from their associated storage area(s). The operator then returns to the order picking truck and places the picked stock on a pallet, collection cage or other support structure carried by the truck forks. Upon completing the pick process, the operator advances the order picking truck to the next location where item(s) are to be picked. The above process is repeated until all stock items on the order have been picked.
It is not uncommon for an operator to repeat the pick process several hundred times per order. Moreover, the operator may be required to pick numerous orders per shift. As such, the operator may be required to spend a considerable amount of time relocating and repositioning the order picking truck, which reduces the time available for the operator to spend picking stock. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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For the purpose of effective use of resources and conservation of the global environments, various electronic appliances such as television receivers and personal computer display devices are disassembled, classified by the variety of materials, and regenerated.
As a regeneration processing method, a disassembling method of television receiver is disclosed in Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 5-185064.
Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 5-185064 describes a method of cutting off the neck of a cathode-ray tube, a method of disassembling into shadow mask, funnel glass, and panel, a method of removing the phosphor material applied on the panel surface by cleaning, and a method of crushing the glass portion.
In Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 5-185064, however, nothing is mentioned about a method of separating the cathode-ray tube from the housing, a method of disassembling the metal band for prevention of implosion installed around the cathode-ray tube, or a method of removing the adhesive member used for the purpose of shock absorption and adhesion of the metal band.
It is hence an object of the invention to present a disassembling method and disassembling apparatus for easily disassembling electronic appliances such as video appliances and audio appliances, classifying without allowing mixture of impurities, and recycling at low cost by automation. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to tracked snow vehicles, and more particularly to two-wheeled tracked snow vehicles and conversion kits for creating them.
2. Background Information
The presence of snow in the wintertime severely restricts operators of two-wheeled vehicles from using their vehicles in the winter. Although other options are available, such as snowmobiles, there are no satisfactory two-wheeled vehicles for use in the winter. There are several versions of two-wheeled vehicles that attempt to provide a device that is similar in operation to a bicycle or a motorcycle, but configured for winter use. These can be gravity-powered devices on which a user straddles a frame and slides down a ski slope, and uses a steering wheel with an attached ski to navigate the hill. There are other devices that are similar to a motorcycle in configuration.
What is lacking in the prior art is a conversion kit for converting a two-wheeled vehicle, either a motorcycle or bicycle, into a tracked vehicle that can operate in the snow. Such a kit would also have the capability of being easily converted back into a two-wheeled vehicle. Such a conversion kit should include components that do not require serious modifications of the two-wheeled vehicle, such as by welding or cutting. Such conversion kits should be able to be bolted on with minimal complication.
Additional objects, advantages and novel features of the invention will be set forth in part in the description which follows and in part will become apparent to those skilled in the art upon examination of the following or may be learned by practice of the invention. The objects and advantages of the invention may be realized and attained by means of the instrumentalities and combinations particularly pointed out in the appended claims. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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The present invention involves novel compositions of matter. More particularly, the present invention involves novel N-substituted derivatives of 2-(pyridylalkylenesulfinyl)benzimidazoles which are useful as gastric antisecretory and cytoprotective agents.
Gastrointestinal inflammatory diseases are characterized by inflammation, specifically by the presence of edema, characteristic inflammatory cells (i.e., leucocytes, histiocytes, and macrophages), and, in some cases, necrosis and ulceration of the surface epithelium. These inflammatory diseases are known to be caused by a wide variety of agents present in the gastrointestinal tract which are known to attack the surfaces thereof, producing the inflammatory disease response. Such agents include micro-organisms (viruses and fungi), bacterial toxins, certain pharmaceutical agents (antibiotics and anti inflammatory steroids), and chemical agents (bile salts, toxic household chemicals). Gastric acid itself is also capable of attacking the stomach lining and producing an inflammatory state.
One means of preventing of treating certain gastrointestinal diseases, specifically gastric disease, is by the inhibition of gastric acid secretion. In situations where the integrity of the gastric mucosal barrier is compromised, gastric acid secretion can result in erosion of the epithelial cells with consequent inflammation and ulceration. Inhibition of such untoward gastric acid-induced effects can be achieved by the adminstration of a pharmacological agent effective to inhibit gastric secretion.
One class of such agents effective to inhibit gastric acid secretion are the gastric antisecretory prostaglandins. These substances are known to be effective in the treatment and care of gastric and duodenal ulcers as a result of the inhibition of gastric secretion. See, e.g., U.S. Pat. No. 3,903,297 (Robert, "Method of Treatment and Prophylaxis of Gastric Hypersecretion and Gastric Duodenal Ulcers Using Prostaglandin Analogs"), and Robert, "Antisecretory Property of Prostaglandins," Prostaglandin Symposium of the Worcester Foundation for Experimental Biology 16-17 Oct. 1967, Interscience, New York, page 47 (1978). Another important class of antisecretory agents are the histamine H2 receptor antagonists, including metiamide and most importantly cimetidine, N-cyano-N'-methyl-N"[2-[[(5-methyl-1H-imidazole-4-yl)methyl]thio]ethyl]gua nidine. See, the Merck Index, 9th Edition, Appendix, page App-1 (1976), and Physician's Desk Reference, 36th Edition, 1812-1814 (1982).
Another means of treating such gastrointestinal diseases is through cytoprotection. Certain pharmacological agents have heretofore been known to be useful in exerting a cytoprotective effect on the gastrointestinal tract. This cytoprotective effect is manifest in the ability of such compounds to treat or prevent non-traumatically-induced, non-neoplastic inflammatory disease of the gastrointestinal tract. References describing such cytoprotective effects of prostaglandins are U.S. Pat. No. 4,083,998 (Robert, "Treatment of Inflammatory Diseases of the Mammalian Large Intestine with Cytoprotective Prostaglandins"), issued Apr. 11, 1978, U.S. Pat. No. 4,081,553 (Robert, "Cytoprotective Prostaglandins for Use in Intestinal Diseases"), issued Mar. 28, 1978, and U.S. Pat. No. 4,097,603 (Robert, "Gastric Cytoprotection with Non-Antisecretory Doses of Prostaglandins"), issued June 27, 1978. Gastric cytoprotection is a distinct pharmacological property which is unrelated to gastric anti secretory effects. See, e.g., Robert, U.S. Pat. No. 4,097,603, "Gastric Cytoprotection With Non-Antisecretory Doses of Prostaglandins," Robert, "Cytoprotection by Prostaglandins," Gastroenterology 77: 761-767 (1979), Robert, "Current History of Cytoprotection," Prostaglandins 21 (supp): 89 (1981), and Robert, et al., "Cytoprotection by Prostaglandins in Rats," Gastroenterology, 77: 433-443 (1979). Thus, compounds which are gastric anti-secretory agents may not be cytoprotective agents and vice-versa. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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Lighting modules usually include a printed circuit board with one or more light sources arranged on the upper side thereof, and a covering element, which at least partially covers the printed circuit board. In addition, provision is generally made for the lighting modules to have an external driver or control gear, in which one or more electronic components which are required for operating the light sources on the printed circuit board are arranged. These one or more electronic components are connected to the printed circuit board having one or more light sources. A large amount of installation space is required for the lighting module, in particular in a lighting device, owing to such an external driver or such external control gear. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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Power converters are used to transfer power from a source to a load using a different type or level of electrical power.
These power converters e.g. inverters, active rectifiers, DC-DC converters etc. include high power semiconductor switching devices such as FETs, MOSFETs, IGBTs, etc. A power semiconductor switching device requires sufficient power applied to its input to perform its switching tasks, in time and in steady state. Many of these high power switching devices utilise a gate driver to turn them on and off. A power supply provides the required voltage to the gate driver electronics. The gate driver electronics provide the logic state to the power devices. The power to the input of power device is applied through the output switching stage.
The gate drive electronics provides protection functions etc. as well. The complete gate driver electronics act as the interface between the low voltage electronics and the high voltage power electronics.
It is often necessary to galvanically isolate the low voltage and high voltage sides for functional and safety reasons. There is also a need to minimise current and voltage fed back into the logic elements, which can undesirably affect the drive elements or can produce spurious logic circuit glitches. Often, the two sides are provided with isolated electronics and power supplies to provide electrical isolation between the two subsystems.
A problem with gate drivers designed in this way is that they may be subject to stray parasitic inductance or capacitance which can cause noise coupling from the power circuit to the control logic and can increase electromagnetic interference (EMI) and non-deterministic behaviour of the system.
Digital isolators are available, but these require a dedicated isolated power supply, which increases the overall weight and cost of the system.
Other solutions do exist for isolation, such as opto-couplers, but these are not suitable for high reliability, high temperature and high noise systems as required in aerospace applications, and these solutions also require independent electronics and power supplies. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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Approximately 80% of all food products are sensitive towards loss or uptake of water vapour, flavours, and odours. These food products must therefore be stored in a protected environment from one or more of these gases. Especially oxygen can pose a serious problem since oxygen penetration into food packages are known to be detrimental to the flavour, texture, colour, nutrition, and/or shelf life of the food. Oxygen enters into many reactions which affect the shelf life of foods, e.g. microbial growth, colour changes in fresh and cured meats, oxidation of lipids and consequent rancidity, and senescence of fruit and vegetables. The shelf life of many foods is therefore determined by the oxygen transmission rate (OTR) of the material used to package the food, especially during long-term storage.
It is estimated that in 1991, more than 10 000 new food products were introduced in the US alone, a market where total sales amounted to billions of USD per year. Food products are typically sold in small units that often are individually packed. Thus the cost of the packaging material becomes a vital competition factor, and it has become increasingly important to find materials with an optimal balance between price and barrier properties against these gases.
This challenge has resulted in an increased use of barrier packages within the food industry, since they provide a cost efficient and practical manner of packaging food products while offering good protection from detrimental gases in the ambient air. The “barrier plastic” portion of the food packaging market is the fastest growing segment, and there is a world wide activity in achieving new and improved plastic barrier materials for food packaging, which can offer better protection against gas penetration and longer shelf life for a wide range of products.
As a result, there is a dramatic increase of the number and types of barrier plastic packages being made available for the package designers. The resultant challenge, then, is to quantify the demand of the food to be packed, and to match the proper barrier material to that particular application. Thus there is a growing demand for testing the barrier properties of package materials, especially for the oxygen transmission rate (OTR). | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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Electroluminescence (EL) describes the direct conversion of electricity to light. It is the result of radiative recombination of electrons and holes in a material (usually a semiconductor), whereby excited electrons release their energy as photons (i.e., light). Prior to recombination, electrons and holes are separated either as a result of doping of the material to form a p-n junction (e.g., in semiconductor electroluminescent devices such as LEDs) or through excitation by impact of high-energy electrons accelerated by a strong electric field (e.g., as with the phosphors in electroluminescent lamps).
Devices based on the latter, e.g., phosphor-based, electroluminescent mechanism include, but are not limited to, backlights for liquid crystal displays, membrane keypads and a variety of other applications. In such devices, the EL material generally must be enclosed between at least two electrodes, at least one of which should be at least semi-transparent to allow produced light to escape. As used herein, a layer of material or a sequence of several layers of different materials is said to be “transparent” when the layer or layers permit at least 50% of the ambient electromagnetic radiation in relevant wavelengths to be transmitted through the layer or layers. Similarly, layers which permit some but less than 50% transmission of ambient electromagnetic radiation in relevant wavelengths are said to be “semi-transparent.”
Currently, the most commonly used transparent electrodes are transparent conducting oxides (TCOs), specifically indium-tin-oxide (ITO) on glass. However, ITO, with its relatively brittle structure, can be an inadequate solution for many emerging applications (e.g., flexible optoelectronic devices), and the indium component of ITO is rapidly becoming a scarce commodity. Additionally, ITO deposition usually requires expensive, high-temperature sputtering, which can be incompatible with many device process flows. Hence, a more robust, abundant and compatible transparent conductor material is required. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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In product development cycles, one or more common parts are often incorporated into both a product currently in production and a similar product currently in the design phase. It is desirable to have feedback from the manufacturing process of the product in production so that the product in the design phase can be improved before reaching production. In prior art systems, feedback from manufacturing often passes through a human component, which can slow the feedback process and introduce errors. Also, in prior art systems, there is no means of gathering manufacturing data and in real-time comparing the real-time manufacturing data to design data such that potential flaws in the design or undesirable parts are flagged so that appropriate remedial design corrections can be made.
Prior art software packages such that put forth by “Valor” of Yale, Israel, integrate design information to expedite design reviews. However, these prior art software packages cannot import real-time manufacturing data from a product in production, compare to design information to spot potential future manufacturing problems, flag these potential design problems so that they can be corrected and notify the appropriate design personnel.
Accordingly, there is a significant need for an apparatus and method that improves the design for manufacturing process.
It will be appreciated that for simplicity and clarity of illustration, elements shown in the drawing have not necessarily been drawn to scale. For example, the dimensions of some of the elements are exaggerated relative to each other. Further, where considered appropriate, reference numerals have been repeated among the Figures to indicate corresponding elements. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to word processors and more particularly to a word processor having a function of creating documents including a character-symbol train having a special position and size such as a formula.
2. Related Background Art
Conventionally, to create a document including a formula such as is shown in FIG. 8, the input of the formula portions 81, 82, 83 are processed separately from that of the ordinary text by defining a floating block or a fixed block to perform therein the input and creation of the formula by combining a plurality of lines of character trains using, where necessary, a command such as modification of the line pitch.
However, the above method, in which the input areas are separately defined for text and formulas, is disadvantageous in that not only is an additional step required for the operation of defining a block for the input of a formula, but also the operation of re-defining the block size when the size of the formula must be increased during the input/editing operation is required.
Further, if a formula is created by combining ordinary characters without defining a separate input area therefor, the formula cannot be processed as a block, and thus input/editing operation of any portion other than the formula will cause only the formula portion to move, whereby a problem of not only destroying the created formula but also not allowing complicated formulas to be created exists.
Furthermore, there is another method involving the steps of suspending a document editing process being currently performed, creating a formula portion separately from the document, and combining the created formula portion with the document. However, this method also requires cumbersome formula input operations; in order to perform editing such as correcting the formula portion with this method, it is necessary to repeat the above steps of creating a formula and combining it with the document.
Now, apart from the relation between the document and the formula, let us refer to the input of symbols such as formulas. One conventional method requires the input of commands, for example, "SQUARE ROOT [X+Y]" or "A SUFFIX i" to input a formula with a square root or a character with a subscript, which means that it is necessary to input additional characters and symbols which are completely different from what is desired as a final product: "X +Y" and "Ai"
Further, although in the ordinary method of adding, for example, a square root symbol, the form, size, and position of the square root are defined in accordance with the size of an object to which the square root is to be added, some conventional word processors follow a simple expression which is different from that ordinary method. In defining the form of the square root in accordance with the character train to which the square root is to be added, the operator has to make his or her decision with reference to the displayed or printed results. This method requires repetition of the same input operation until one suitable form, size or the like of the symbol is selected and defined, and as a result, it entails not only much time but also hard work on the part of the operator even burdening him or her with a risk of making errors.
In the case where the length of the character train to which the square root symbol is to be added must be modified due to an editing operation such as correction, and the position and form of the square root have to be revised, the above method requires that a completely new round of input operations be executed; it is not possible to make a partial correction such as to only input a new square root symbol to the already input character train.
Further, a formula such as a fraction, in which a term taking up a plurality of lines and a term taking up only a single line are included, imposes a problem of producing a bottom-aligned, ill-balanced display when expressed with reference to a single base line. A numerator displayed in left- or right-aligned form does not look good, either. Thus, in order to express the fraction in a well-balanced, good-looking manner, it is necessary to define the position in accordance with the size and form of its constituents. As is the case with the input of the square root, the operator has to follow the steps of defining and editing the position with reference to the output results, and if the output does not look good, he has to repeat a series of steps all over again.
Furthermore, as to paired symbols which are to be arranged mutually spaced apart such as a pair of parentheses, each is input separately; thus the problem exists in that, in the case of a pair of parentheses, the closing parenthesis is often missing. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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Certain types of electronic components have two axial leads extending from opposite sides of the components as, for example, with resistors and diodes. To efficiently manufacture, package, and use these components, handling systems are required. The handling systems must orient the components with parallel leads and maintain the orientation. Otherwise, it may be necessary to untangle a loosely packed assemblage (haystack) of components at each processing stage.
In the case of components which are themselves paramagnetic or have paramagnetic leads and relatively light weight, handling systems have been devised using magnetic fields to suspend (levitate) and orient the components within the magnetic field. The components are suspended with parallel leads and advance maintaining this orientation from one position to another. Handling systems for components having a low weight to paramagnetism ratio are illustrated in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,388,795; 3,537,580; 3,581,889; and 3,941,242. In these handling systems, the axial lead components are suspended between magnetic walls in a magnetic bin. They are then picked up by a wheel that has spaced magnetic stations for receiving the components. These prior art handling systems cannot be used with heavier components or with those that are only weakly magnetic.
Entirely different systems are required for handling nonmagnetic components. No use of the magnetic field can be made to orient the components or secure them to a spacing wheel. Each component must be individually secured at each stage to maintain orientation and spacing. These systems are necessarily complex and expensive.
Certain components, however, while insufficiently paramagnetic to be handled by the lead handling systems described, as for example in the above referenced patents, do have paramagnetic properties sufficient to enable their handling in systems according to this invention, which systems are much less complicated and expensive than those devised for nonmagnetic components.
It is an object according to this invention to provide a lead handling system for paramagnetic axial lead components that cannot be suspended in magnetic bins because of their low paramagnetism to weight ratio. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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The present invention relates to devices for dispensing toilet bowl treating chemicals (e.g. soaps, disinfectants, sanitizers deodorizers, fragrances, colorants, etc.). More specifically it relates to such devices that allow a consumer to direct when the chemicals will be dispensed into the toilet bowl water, while minimizing the need for consumers to scrub the toilet bowl.
Toilet bowls require care to prevent the buildup of unsightly deposits, to reduce odors and to prevent bacteria growth. Originally toilet bowls were cleaned, deodorized and/or otherwise treated by manual scrubbing with a liquid or powdered cleaning/sanitizing agent that was added to the bowl water by hand. This required manual labor to keep the toilet bowl clean.
To reduce or in some cases eliminate the need for manual scrubbing, various automatic toilet bowl cleaning systems have been created. One type of system delivers the cleaning chemical by adding it to the flush water while the flush water was still stored in the toilet tank. Some embodiments of this type of system add the chemical to the flushing cycle in liquid form. Others place a block of cleaning chemical in the toilet tank, to slowly dissolve over several weeks or longer.
However, a system which relies on adding the chemical to the storage tank typically requires the consumer to lift a tank lid in order to install the device and/or to add a new charge/block of cleaning chemical. Also, with some of such systems, precise control over the quantity of chemical to be delivered is difficult. For example, different water hardness from the supply may cause different cleaning blocks to dilute at different rates. Further, when the chemical is placed in the storage tank the cleaning chemical must be compatible for long-term contact with some of the valving present in the toilet tank, which may impose some limitations.
An alternative type of system hangs a dispenser adjacent and/or immediately under the toilet bowl rim. Water flowing from the rim washes over the dispenser, thereby triggering dispensing of the stored chemical directly into the bowl water. However, some consumers prefer not to have the ornamental exterior of their toilet disrupted by the presence of a hook hanger. Still others are reluctant to maintain such dispensers given that they are so close to the waste bowl, and the consumers don't want to reach near that area.
In any event, such systems are designed to dispense in response to each flush. In some situations where increased amounts of flushing are occurring (e.g., a curious child, a large number of guests, a family's return from a long car-trip) cleaning chemicals may not be necessary after every flushing. Thus, some of these systems use up more cleaning chemicals than is actually needed.
There have been attempts to associate toilet bowl chemical dispensers with the lids or other coverings of toilets, or near them. See e.g. U.S. Pat. Nos. 713,978, 749,963, 979,386, 988,178, 3,840,914, 4,216,553, 4,819,276 and 6,745,417, and U.S. patent application publication 2006/0097189. However, these systems suffer from many of the deficiencies noted above. For example, it is typical with many of such systems to have dispensing occur with every lid movement, regardless of need.
It can therefore be seen that improvements are desired with respect to toilet bowl cleaning assemblies that dispense cleaning chemicals. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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An ATM is an electronic device that allows banking customers to carry out financial transactions without the need for a human teller. For example, customers may use an ATM to access their bank accounts, deposit, withdraw, or transfer funds, check account balances, or dispense items of value. Generally, to use an ATM, the customer may insert a banking card containing magnetic stripe information into the ATM's card reader, and authenticate the card by entering a personal identification number (PIN). After the card has been read and authenticated, the customer can carry out various financial transactions.
While ATMs are convenient, their use can also be risky. Thieves have been known to attach devices known as “skimmers” on or adjacent to the ATMs to capture the card information and PINs entered by the customer. These skimmers can remain on the ATM for an extended period of time prior to detection, and are sometimes constructed to match the visual appearance of the ATM's card reader. Thus, the customer is unable to determine whether the device is a skimmer or part of the ATM itself.
To combat these skimmers, bank employees often conduct periodic visual reviews of the ATM's appearance. However, these visual reviews are error prone (sometimes the skimmer is not found), labor intensive, time consuming, and expensive. Accordingly, a need exists to detect these skimmer devices quickly and inexpensively and thus mitigate the risk of the compromise of a customer's card data. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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Technical Field
The present invention relates to a stator, a brushless motor, and a stator manufacturing method.
Related Art
Known stators employed in a brushless motor are for example disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open (JP-A) No. 9-322441. JP-A No. 9-322441 discloses an armature with a yoke configured by plural ring shaped yoke configuration sections segmented along the axial direction. Each of the yoke configuration sections is integrally formed with plural tooth portions that project towards a radial direction outside of the yoke.
As disclosed in Japanese Patent No. 3816783, known stators include a stator core and a pair of insulators mounted to the stator core from both axial direction sides of the stator core. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a rollformed sheet metal structural shape fabricated from a single sheet of metal for use in building construction. The structural shape is particularly useful as a stud or mullion in wall construction or as a purlin or sub-purlin in deck construction. This invention also includes an interior deck or roof deck construction using the sheet metal structural shape of this invention.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Building interior and roof decks are generally constructed by securing a series of spaced structural shapes to the structural beams of the building with formboard or other suitable material placed between the structural shapes and covered with insulation or concrete. For weather-proof roof decks, a weather-proof roofing surface is secured to the top of the structural system. The shapes must be safe for workmen to walk on during construction, must resist both upward and downward environmental forces after the deck is assembled, and must not corrode during use. The shapes must be relatively inexpensive to manufacture, and easy to install, as well.
U.S. Pat. No. 1,360,720 describes a light weight metal bar structure useful as a spar in wings, fuselages, struts and the like in the construction of airplanes. The bar structures are symmetrical about both a vertical and a horizontal bisecting axis, and include an expanded shape on both ends of a center web which may bend if the structure is walked upon. The expanded shapes have equal length flanges at both the top and the bottom of the bar structure, which would make the structure difficult to install on a building beam from the top of the beam, and would make it very difficult for formboard and the like to be placed between the lower flanges of adjacent bar structures and have adequate support. The structure is also somewhat difficult to manufacture, as it is made of several pieces of sheet metal. West German Pat. No. 821,703 discloses several structural shapes which include a dominant center web portion, which also tends to "trip" or collapse if walked upon.
Thus, there is a need for one-piece structural shapes which do not bend over or collapse when walked upon during construction, are resistant to both upward and downward pressure created by the wind and other environmental forces, may be installed on building beams from the top of the beams, may be easily fitted with rigid formboard and the like on the lower flanges between adjacent structures, and do not corrode during use.
Accordingly, an object of this invention is to provide sheet metal structural shapes for use in building construction.
Another object of this invention is to provide sheet metal structural shapes which are especially useful as studs or mullions in building wall construction.
It is a further object of this invention to provide structural shapes which do not collapse or bend over when walked upon during building construction.
Yet another object of this invention is to provide structural shapes which do not corrode during use.
Still another object of this invention is to provide structural shapes which resist upward and downward forces and provide improved composite strength in a poured concrete deck.
A still further object is to provide structural shapes which may be installed on building beams from the top of the beams, and may be readily fitted with formboard between the bottom flanges of adjacent structures.
Yet another object is to provide structural shapes which may be rollformed from a single sheet of metal. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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Interior spring mattresses consist of a multitude of steel springs joined together in a regular grid. Typically, the end rings of the neighboring steel springs are directly connected to one another by way of wire spirals. Alternatively, barrel shaped springs are often sewn or welded into pockets in rows and in turn the pockets lying next to one another are connected to one another. With inexpensive mattresses, all the springs used are designed to be identical, i.e. they have the same spring constants and the mattress is uniformly hard or soft over the whole surface. In order to achieve a greater sleeping comfort there is the desire to design the mattress with different hard or soft zones, in particular to reinforce the heavily loaded zones. The differing hardnesses in the individual mattress regions have up to now been produced in different ways. For example, geometrically identical springs with differing wire strengths may be manufactured and used, in which springs with thicker wires are applied in the regions of greater firmness, e.g. in the central region, and springs with thinner wires are applied in regions that are softer, e.g. in the region of the head or feet. The manufacture of springs of different thicknesses does not present a problem in itself, but on later assembly of the mattress, these springs must be arranged at the correct locations in the spring interior. This is not possible with fully automatically operating machines of the present art since typically springs of different types are usually alternately transferred from the winding machine and inserted into the automatic assembly machine. The springs are laid behind one another in rows and the rows one after the another are connected to each other by wire spirals.
Another possibility of producing various hardness regions within a mattress lies in arranging the springs to lie closer to one another in the region of desired reinforcement. Then, the grid in which the springs are then arranged in the spring interior will no longer be uniform. Two springs may also directly inserted one into another.
The manufacture of a mattress with a non-uniform spring grid as well as also the manufacture of a mattress with springs of differing wire strengths is only possible by way of large scale conversions of conventional machines. In one case, the setup of the assembly machine must be changed, which leads to stoppage time and thus to higher manufacturing costs; in another case, two automatic spring winding machines would be necessary, but differing springs could only be arranged in rows.
Accordingly, there remains a need for a better way of providing spring interiors with regions of differing firmness. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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Hitherto, it is believed that hydrocarbon allyl compounds are hardly radically homopolymerized, and no homopolymer thereof having a high molecular weight can be obtained, and the reported molecular weight of the homopolymer is from about 300 to about 3,000 (see R. L. Shriner, L. Kelley ed. “Chemical Reviews” (USA), page 815, received by the National Diet Library (Japan) on Dec. 13, 1962)
Thus, various improvements have been made on comonomers copolymerizable with the allyl compounds. However, no publications other than the above reference has reported the homo- and copolymerization of the allyl compounds. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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This invention relates to a developing apparatus used in an electrophotographic apparatus and, more particularly, to a developing apparatus in which an electrostatic latent image formed on an image carrier is developed and visualized by a non-magnetic single-component developer.
Generally, in an electrophotographic apparatus such as a copier, printer or plotter that utilizes electrophotography, the electrostatic latent image of a desired image is formed on an image carrier such as a photosensitive drum and a developer is supplied by a developing apparatus to develop the electrostatic latent image so that a visible toner image is formed on the image carrier. A two-component developer comprising toner and carrier, and a magnetic single-component developer or non-magnetic single-component developer comprised of toner alone are known as developers. Various developing systems suited to these developers have been developed and proposed.
Non-magnetic single-component developers in particular have various advantages but utilization thereof in actual machines has been slow. In recent years, however, utilization in actual machines has spread rapidly with the development of new or improved developers, which are the result of performance enhancement, such as polymer toners that excel in image reproducibility and transfer.
A contact-type developing apparatus has been proposed as a developing apparatus that uses a non-magnetic single-component developer, in which a flexible developing roller exhibiting electroconductivity or an appropriate electrical resistance is used as a developer carrier for supplying a developer to an image carrier, a thin layer of the developer is formed on the surface of the roller and then the roller is brought into contact with the surface of the image carrier at a suitable pressure to develop the image. It is known that such a contact-type developing apparatus can be used preferably in development which does not require an edge enhancement effect and in which it is required that the developing characteristics of line drawings and pictorial images be identical, as in a digital printer in which an image is formed by monochrome bi-level values. This is known also as a cleanerless system because cleaning can be carried out at the same time as development.
In an early apparatus of this kind, the arrangement is such that a physical or mechanical load brought about by contact between the developing roller and the surface of the image carrier is mitigated by making the peripheral speed of the elastic developing roller, which rotates in the forward direction, and the peripheral speed of the image carrier approximately identical. However, difficulties arise in terms of image quality relating to image definition, texture smudging and fogging. An arrangement which provides a difference in speed between the peripheral speed of the image carrier and the peripheral speed of the developing roller has been proposed as an improvement (e.g., see the specifications of Japanese Patent Nos. 2598131 and 2803822).
In accordance with the proposed apparatus, the surface of the developing roller is brought into sufficient sliding frictional contact with the surface of the image carrier via a toner layer owing to the difference in the peripheral speeds between the developing roller and image carrier, whereby excellent development and cleaning are carried out simultaneously. In order to achieve such sliding frictional contact, the developing roller is set to as to rotate at a peripheral speed that is 1.5 to 4 times that of the image carrier. Further, it is disclosed that the contact width between the developing roller and surface of the image carrier, namely the development nip zone, should be equal to or more than 50 times but equal to or less than 500 times the volume average particle diameter of the developer particles.
In experiments, however, the Inventors have found that several problems still need to be solved in terms of structure and requirements in order to obtain fully satisfactory image quality, especially the fact that some points that do not give rise to problems in small type printers that develop small-size images do represent major problems when developing large-size images such as images of size A2, A1 and A0 by large type printers.
One problem is as follows: When the force with which the developing roller comes into pressured contact with the image carrier is comparatively large and the peripheral speed of the developing roller differs from that of the image carrier, the toner on the surface of the developing roller is pulverized by the pressure of sliding contact, resulting in rapid toner deterioration. Further, toner adheres to (or becomes fused to) the surface of a developer-layer regulating member, which regulates the thickness of the layer of developer that is formed on the developing roller, owing to the development of, say, several thousand meters, and the adherence of the toner prevents the formation of a uniform thin layer of the developer, thereby causing white stripes to appear on the image. An additional drawback is that the image carrier rotates unevenly owing to the action of pressing force applied to the image carrier by the developing roller rotating at a different peripheral speed. Furthermore, in a large-size electrophotographic apparatus for developing large-size images, the torque for driving the developing roller is fairly large in order to produce the aforementioned sliding contact. This is uneconomical.
Further, in the prior art described above, maintaining the width of the development nip zone (xe2x80x9cnip widthxe2x80x9d) is a major factor in achieving good development and the nip width is to be made 50 to 500 times the average particle diameter of the toner. Accordingly, if the diameter of the toner used in such development is on the order of 8 xcexcm, the nip width will be 0.4 to 4 mm, which is 50 to 500 times this diameter. In a case where a developing roller having a diameter of 40 mm is made to contact an image carrier having a diameter of 120 mm, for example, the positional dimensions between the developing roller and image carrier must be maintained in such a manner that the depth of bite of the developing roller into the image carrier will be 0.001 to 0.134 mm. Considerable dimensional precision and setting of position will be required of these members.
Even if this is a soluble problem in a small-size developing apparatus of size A4 or A3 having an image carrier or developing roller of comparatively small length, it is a problem of considerable difficulty in a large-size developing apparatus having a developing roller of large length. For example, finishing of the developing roller usually is performed by grinding. In an instance where an A0-size image is to be developed, a roller having a length of about 850 mm must be machined as the developing roller. Finishing the roller to a diametric error of tens of microns over its entire length so as to satisfy the above requirement is considerably difficult and results in costly machining. Further, in a case where the amount of wobble of an A0-size image carrier at rotation thereof and the amount of wobble of the developing roller are each 0.1 mm and, hence, there is an error in the diameter between these members, the depth of bite of the developing roller into the surface of the image carrier varies from area to area and, as a result, image density varies locally and gives rise to uneven development.
In addition, a developing roller made of a resilient material such as rubber exhibits a large coefficient of thermal expansion and therefore the diameter thereof tends to change with a change in ambient temperature. As a result, a problem which arises is that the nip width between the image carrier and developing roller varies with a change in temperature. This is a further cause of uneven development.
Thus, in the prior art as described above, satisfactory mechanical precision for coping with the environment of use is difficult to obtain in cases where a large-size image is developed. As a result, stable, uniform images cannot be obtained consistently.
Furthermore, leakage of toner from both ends of the developing roller to the exterior of the developing apparatus is one problem with a contact-type developing apparatus that uses non-magnetic single-component toner. That is, because of the non-magnetic nature of the toner, the toner cannot be gathered together by magnetic force as in the manner of the conventional magnetic-developer system. Several alternative proposals for preventing such leakage have been made.
Most of these proposals place a lubricating seal between both ends of the developing roller and the side plates of the developing apparatus, thereby attempting to prevent leakage of the toner. However, in an arrangement in which such seals are placed, the seals wear out or deteriorate owing to long-term use and a satisfactory sealing effect cannot be maintained.
The present invention has been devised in view of the above-mentioned circumstances and seeks to provide a developing apparatus in which excellent development is possible at all times even when developing large-size images of size A0 and A1. A further object of the present invention is to provide a developing apparatus in which amount of bite of a resilient developing roller into an image carrier and width of a development nip zone can be made suitable values for the sake of achieving the excellent development mentioned above.
A further object of the present invention is to provide a developing apparatus in which it is possible to prevent toner leakage through a simple arrangement by utilizing a layer-thickness regulating roller for forming a thin layer on a developing roller.
According to the present invention, the foregoing objects are attained by providing a developing apparatus for forming a thin layer of toner, which comprises a non-magnetic single-component toner, on a resilient developing roller, bringing the roller into abutting contact with the surface of an image carrier, whereby toner on the resilient developing roller is supplied to an electrostatic latent image that has been formed on the surface of the image carrier, thereby developing the electrostatic latent image, and moving the image carrier and the resilient developing roller in a forward direction in such a manner that traveling speed of the image carrier and peripheral speed of the resilient developing roller become substantially identical, wherein width of a development nip zone that extends from a point at which the resilient developing roller starts to contact the image carrier to a point at which the resilient developing roller breaks contact with the image carrier is equal to or greater than 4 mm, preferably 5 to 10 mm, rubber hardness of the resilient roller is 20 to 40xc2x0 and diameter of the resilient developing roller falls within the range 40 to 100 mm, and amount of bite by which the surface of the image carrier bites into the resilient developing roller is set so as to be equal to or greater than {fraction (1/100)} of the radius of the resilient developing roller, characterized in that the amount of bite and the width of the development nip zone are set in such a manner that the resilient developing roller breaks contact with the image carrier while traveling speed of a local portion of the resilient developing roller in contact with the surface of the image carrier gradually decreases from the point at which contact starts and thenceforth gradually returns to the original speed owing to resilience of the resilient developing roller per se.
Further, the amount of bite of the resilient developing roller into the surface of the image carrier is set so as to be equal to or greater than {fraction (1/40)} of the radius of the developing roller.
Further, the depth of bite of the resilient developing roller into the surface of the image carrier is set to be equal to or greater than {fraction (1/100)} of the radius of the developing roller. In particular, the depth of bite is set to 0.2 to 3 mm. Further, it is preferred that the thin layer of toner formed on the resilient developing roller be a uniform layer of one to three layers of toner.
Furthermore, rubber hardness of the resilient roller is 20 to 40xc2x0, as measured according to the JIS K 6253 (Type A) standard.
Means for forming the thin toner layer on the resilient developing roller comprises a layer-thickness regulating roller placed in opposition to the developing roller.
The layer-thickness regulating roller has a central portion along the axial direction thereof and end portions that are electrically insulated from the central portion, and a bias voltage for preventing adhesion of toner to the end portions of the resilient developing roller is applied to the end portions.
Further, the apparatus is equipped with a scraping blade provided in pressured contact with a central portion of the layer-thickness regulating roller with respect to the axial direction thereof and with end portions of the roller, the scraping blade being so adapted as to scrape off toner that has adhered to the layer-thickness regulating roller.
Further, the developing roller is provided so as to be capable of contacting and separating from the surface of the image carrier in order to assure a suitable positional relationship between the developing roller and image carrier, both ends of the developing roller are provided with contact rollers, and the contact rollers are brought into abutting contact with both ends of the image carrier to regulate the width of the development nip zone.
Furthermore, the image carrier and developing roller are moved so as to mesh a gear provided on a flange of the image carrier with a gear provided on an end of the developing roller, whereby drive from the image carrier is transmitted to the developing apparatus.
In particular, the developing apparatus is characterized by further having separation means for causing the developing roller to separate from the image carrier, wherein the gear provided on the image carrier and the gear provided on the developing roller are made to mesh slightly when the image carrier and the developing roller are in a separated state.
Further, the present invention is characterized by having a cam in abutting contact with a portion of the developing apparatus for being turned at introduction of power to thereby move the developing apparatus in such a manner that the developing roller is pressed against the image carrier, and by provision of a capacitor charged when power is being introduced, wherein the capacitor is switched over to act as a power source at cut-off of power, thereby rotating the cam and moving the developing apparatus in such a manner that the developing roller moves in a direction in which it separates from the image carrier.
Furthermore, in accordance with the present invention, there is provided a developing apparatus for forming a thin layer of toner, which comprises a non-magnetic single-component toner, on a resilient developing roller, and bringing the roller into abutting contact with the surface of a drum-shaped image carrier, whereby toner on the resilient developing roller is supplied to an electrostatic latent image that has been formed on the surface of the image carrier, thereby developing the electrostatic latent image, characterized by comprising: means for rotating the image carrier and the resilient developing roller in a forward direction in such a manner that peripheral speed of the image carrier and peripheral speed of the resilient developing roller become substantially identical; and means for regulating depth of bite of the resilient developing roller into the surface of the image carrier and width of a development nip zone that extends from a point at which the resilient developing roller starts to contact the image carrier to a point at which the resilient developing roller breaks contact with the image carrier.
Furthermore, the invention is characterized in that the moving means comprises mutually meshing gears formed on ends of respective ones of the image carrier and developing roller, and in that the regulating means comprises rollers provided on both ends of the developing roller and the peripheral surfaces of which are brought into abutting contact with both ends of the image carrier. | {
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A binary or phase shift photomask may include glass and chrome features which form a pattern. Light may pass through the clear glass areas and be blocked by the opaque chrome areas. Light that passes through the mask may continue into an imaging system that projects an image of the mask pattern onto a wafer. The wafer may be coated with a photosensitive film (photoresist), which undergoes a chemical reaction when exposed to light. After exposure, in a “positive” photoresist, the areas on the photoresist exposed to the light may be removed in a developing process, leaving the unexposed areas as features on the wafer. Alternatively, in a “negative” photoresist, the areas on the photoresist shielded from the light may be removed in a developing process, leaving the exposed areas as features on the wafer.
“Pitch” refers to the center-to-center distance between features in a pattern. The resolution of an imaging system determines the smallest pitch the system can resolve. If the pitch of the original pattern exceeds the resolution limits of the system, e.g., is too small, the pattern may not be clearly defined on the photoresist. This may produce defects in the final product. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an optical device wafer processing method and a laser processing apparatus for dividing an optical device wafer into individual optical devices along a plurality of crossing streets formed on the front side of the optical device wafer, the optical device wafer being composed of a substrate and an optical device layer formed on the front side of the substrate, the individual optical devices being respectively formed in a plurality of regions partitioned by the streets.
2. Description of the Related Art
In an optical device fabrication process, an optical device layer of a gallium nitride compound semiconductor is formed on the front side of a substantially disk-shaped substrate such as a sapphire substrate and a silicon carbide substrate, and this optical device layer is partitioned by a plurality of crossing streets into a plurality of regions where optical devices such as light emitting diodes (LEDs) and laser diodes (LDs) are respectively formed, thus constituting an optical device wafer. The optical device wafer is cut along the streets to thereby divide the regions where the optical devices are formed from each other, thus obtaining the individual optical devices.
Cutting of the optical device wafer along the streets is usually performed by using a cutting apparatus called a dicing saw. This cutting apparatus includes a chuck table for holding a workpiece, cutting means for cutting the workpiece held on the chuck table, and feeding means for relatively moving the chuck table and the cutting means. The cutting means includes a rotating spindle, a cutting blade mounted on the rotating spindle, and a driving mechanism for rotationally driving the rotating spindle. The cutting blade is composed of a disk-shaped base and an annular cutting edge mounted on a side surface of the base along the outer circumference thereof. The cutting edge is formed by fixing diamond abrasive grains having a grain size of about 3 μm to the base by electroforming so that the thickness of the cutting blade becomes about 20 μm, for example.
However, the substrate of the optical device wafer, such as a sapphire substrate and a silicon carbide substrate, has high Mohs hardness, so that cutting of the substrate by the cutting blade is not always easy. Accordingly, the depth of cut by the cutting blade cannot be set large, so that a cutting step must be performed plural times to cut the optical device wafer, causing a reduction in productivity.
As a method of dividing an optical device wafer along the streets, a laser processing method using a pulsed laser beam for performing ablation to the wafer has been proposed to solve the above problem. In this laser processing method, the pulsed laser beam is applied to the wafer along the streets to thereby form a laser processed groove on the wafer along each street as a break start point. Thereafter, an external force is applied to the wafer along each street where the laser processed groove is formed as the break start point, thereby breaking the wafer along each street (see Japanese Patent Laid-open No. Hei 10-305420, for example). | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image processing method and apparatus for synthesizing a plurality of different images.
2. Related Background Art
Hitherto, as a synthesis of digital images, for example, in a synthesis of a first image of plural colors and a second image of plural colors, namely, a synthesis of two images of full colors, a method of obtaining a synthesized image by calculating color components which construct both of the images is known. For instance, when respective color components assume R1, G1, B1, R2, G2, and B2, color components (R, G, B) of the synthesized image can be shown by values such as R=(R1+R2)/2, G=(G1+G2)/2, and B=(B1+B2)/2.
According to such a method, however, for example, when a white portion of an image and a normal image are synthesized, a synthesized image of a faint color is obtained. A synthesized image in which densities of dense portions of both images are reproduced as they are, like a multiple copy of an analog copy, cannot be formed. | {
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The invention relates to the silane-grafting of polyolefin materials to enhance the properties of the materials.
Current art for the production of cross-linked polyolefin foam structures involves the use of conventional high-pressure reactor-produced, low density polyethylene (LDPE). LDPE is comprised of a wide-ranging distribution of branch lengths, best characterized as "long- but variable-chain branching", and a molecular weight distribution (Mw/Mn) which is generally greater than about 3.5. LDPE resin densities, which directly relate to the resulting bulk property stiffness, typically range between 0.915 g cm.sup.-3 to about 0.930 g cm.sup.-3, thus limiting the degree of mechanical flexibility in foam structures thereof since the lower limit of secant moduli for LDPE is about 20 ksi. While processability of LDPE is quite good, the physical properties, in particular the tensile strength, low-temperature flexibility and toughness, are less than would be obtained from a linear low density polyethylene (LLDPE), due in part to the substantially non-linear nature of LDPE and the profusion of "long-chain branches."
Conventional linear low density polyethylene (LLDPE) exhibits physical properties which are superior to that of LDPE at about the same range of resin densities, but show somewhat higher secant moduli and are difficult to process, resulting in foams with poor cell structure and higher than desired foam structure densities. LLDPE resins, produced by conventional Ziegler transition metal catalysts in the copolymerization of ethylene with one or more alpha-unsaturated monomers, exhibit considerably narrower molecular weight distributions than LDPE, higher molecular weights, and typically only about 15-20 "short-chain branches" per 1000 carbon atoms. Melt-processing in general, and foam processing in particular, are greatly enhanced by the ability of the resin to "shear-thin" or demonstrate a strong, inverse dependency of melt viscosity toward shear rate. "Shear thinning" increases with the degree of branching, which is exemplified in the relative shear-insensitivity of LLDPE and particularly HDPE and resulting foam processing difficulty. Commercially-available LLDPE resins with densities below about 0.910 g/cc are unavailable, thus further limiting the flexibility of foam structures thereof.
Very low density polyethylene (VLDPE) is a special subset of LLDPE wherein an even greater number of "short-chain branches" (ca. 30-50 per 1000 carbon atoms) are effected by appropriate level of comonomer to result in much lower resin densities than LLDPE, e.g. 0.88 g cm.sup.-3 to 0.91 g cm.sup.-3. These materials thus exhibit greater flexibility than LLDPE. However, generally with conventional linear polyolefins, the greater the number of "short-chain branches," the lower the resulting resin density, but also the shorter the length of the molecular backbone. The presence of shorter molecular backbones, with greater comonomer content therein, prematurely leads to a phenomena known as "melt fracture," which is manifested as the onset of perturbations at the surface of an extrudate with increasing shear rate, resulting in loss of control of the quality of such profiled, extrudable materials.
Certain other undesirable structural features accompany efforts to increase "short-chain branching" while employing conventional linear polyethylene technology, such as an increase in the non-uniformity of the distribution of branches on the molecular backbone. Additionally, conventional linear polyethylene technology leads to a distribution of molecular weights, with a greater propensity of incorporation of the alpha-unsaturated comonomer into the lower molecular weight fractions, thereby leading to melt fracture. Also, as a result of this non-uniformity of molecular weights and distribution of comonomeric species within and among the distribution thereof, linear polyolefins exhibit less than optimal performance in various parametric standards such as toughness, particularly at low temperatures, and stability of extrusion, particularly at high rates.
Many of the above noted deficiencies in the foamable polyolefin art could be satisfied through the use of a linear olefinic resin which is essentially free of "long-chain branches", and which has a molecular weight that is sufficiently high to preclude melt-fracture, a narrow molecular weight distribution, a considerable melt-viscosity/shear rate sensitivity and a full range of resin densities. Such a linear polyolefin would exhibit the preferred balance of physical properties, would exhibit good toughness and processability, and would be available in a range of resin flexibilities. It is thus an object of this invention to provide a linear olefinic resin which possesses these characteristics.
Various catalysts are known to the art of polyolefin foams. "Metallocenes" are one class of highly active olefin catalysts, well known in the art of preparation of polyethylene and copolymers of ethylene and alpha-unsaturated olefin monomers. U.S. Pat. No. 4,937,299 (Ewen et al.) teaches that the structure of the metallocene catalyst includes an alumoxane which is formed when water reacts with trialkyl aluminum with the release of methane, which complexes therein with the metallocene compound to form the active catalyst. These catalysts, particularly those based on group IV B transition metals such as zirconium, titanium and hafnium, show extremely high activity in ethylene polymerization.
Metallocene catalysts have great versatility in that, by manipulation of process conditions such as catalyst composition and reactor conditions, they can be made to provide polyolefins with controlled molecular weights from as low as about 200 to about 1 million or higher. Exemplary of the latter case is ultra-high molecular weight linear polyethylene. At the same time, the molecular weight distribution of the polymers thereof can be controlled from extremely narrow to extremely broad, i.e. from less than 2 to greater than 8.
Metallocene catalysts are particularly advantageous in the preparation of copolymers of ethylene and one or more alpha-unsaturated olefin comonomers to provide highly random distributions of comonomer within each and every molecular backbone, while separately controlling the average molecular weight as well as the distribution of molecular weights about the average. It is thus an object of the present invention to use the versatility of metallocene catalysts to produce linear olefinic resins having the aforementioned properties.
These and other objects are realized by the present invention, as disclosed herein. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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Today, software application development is a combination of software development and artwork development. When creating applications that represent virtual environments, it is common for the artwork to be created using a 3D drawing tool, and then saved as a rasterized flat file, which is used as the background image of an application. The problem is that the application remains unaware of the 3D projection matrix of the image, and without further data, it can only add user interface features to a flat, 2D screen. Thus, it is difficult to organize 2D content in 3D space. Furthermore, most software applications use 2D coordinates to express the positioning of all its consumables and within this coordinate system, it is not clear how a software developer (a “technical user”) can organize its placement in a 3D environment in a way where the consumables can be organized by a person not trained in the art of 3D drawing (a “business user”). For example, a person who is not trained in the art of 3D drawing may not understand the details of how to place content into a 3D virtual environment. For the Business User to be able to place content, the Business User would need to learn how the projection matrix works and how a 3D coordinate system works and 3D tools today also require the user to be define at least one 3D rotational coordinate which requires training. It is desirable to provide a system and method that allows a business user to be able to place content in a 3D environment without having to learn 3D drawing tools, etc.
In order to create a 3D spatial application, it requires a highly qualified engineer to be intimately involved in the construction of each application. Alternatively, a business user can be trained to use programming language tools to be self sufficient, however it is a struggle for the business user to learn all the aspects of the programming language necessary to complete the task. In addition, when the technical user is assigned to create the 3D application, the workflow between the business user and technical user can be difficult because the business user usually needs to explain the requirements to the technical user and the technical user must then implement the requirement. This means that the business user is not self-sufficient and there can be subtleties lost in the translation when talking to the technical user. In today's world, the consumer (a “software customer”) who requires that a 3D application be created for them often needs software created faster than a programming team can build it due to the limited number of skilled professionals trained in the specialized art of 3D application design and development. For these additional reasons, it is desirable to provide a system and method that allows a business user to be able to place content in a 3D environment without having to learn 3D drawing tools, etc.
To further complicate the development of 3D applications, in order to position 3D elements in space, there are 6 significant variables. However, the most common input device, a mouse, can only fluidly control 2 coordinates at a time (x and y) which makes the development of 3D applications more difficult.
In the past, people have organized 2D content in 3D space by using a 3D editing tool, lining up the content so that it matches the 3D background, and placing the content on top of the 3D background. However, the 3D editing tool requires training so that a typical business user is unable to organize 2D content in 3D space using these typical techniques. The most common way for a non-technical business user to edit 3D content is for a programmer to set it up once, then the user can edit its parameters. However, the parameters are predetermined by the programmer so it is not an ideal solution.
An existing solution to position and rotate 3D elements in space is to allow motion drag on 2 dimensions at a time, then make the user rotate the camera in order to access parts of the 3rd dimension. To rotate elements in space, it is typical to put 3 circles on the screen near the object being positioned, and let the user drag each of those circles. However, this does not fully solve the problem of placing content in a 3D environment because the user has to rotate the world around to access all spatial dimensions and it requires training to use.
Another typical technique to rotate 3D elements in space is to use a 6-axis input device, known as a 3D mouse. This doesn't fully solve the problem of placing content in a 3D environment because most people don't have this input device, so only a specialized subset of people can use this device.
Currently, it takes trial and error to position a single 3D Consumable and the user has to tweak the positioning of each and every consumable that gets added. This is difficult because there are 6 variables that must simultaneously be adjusted (x, y, z, θx, θy, and θz). Therefore it fails to be practical for creating a lot of content in a short period of time. Thus, it is desirable to provide a system and method for placing content in a 3D environment wherein the user does not need to be intimately familiar with 3D tools and it is to this end that the system and method are directed. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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The invention relates to the integration of a unit in an apparatus, for example, for configuring a field replaceable unit (FRU) into apparatus such as a computer system.
FRUs can be used in many different systems. They find particular but not exclusive application to computer systems, for example to fault tolerant computer systems where it is desirable to be able readily to replace units which have developed a fault or have been superseded by a more recent version.
Examples of FRUs for such a system can include, for example, a CPU, a PCI card, power supply units (PSUs), a motherboard, or any other system components. One FRU, for example a field replaceable card, can include hardware for implementing several devices (e.g. a multiple Ethernet adapter, or a SCSI adapter with an Ethernet adapter).
It is known to provide FRUs with non-volatile memory (e.g. EEPROMs), which can contain information relating to the FRU. In a known system, FRUs can include basic FRU identification information in the non-volatile memory.
It is also known to provide a system management suite, collectively known as a configuration management system (CMS) which manages the FRUs, other devices and system resources using objects to represent the FRUs, devices and other system resources. An object forms a particular instance of a CMS class, which is defined by a CMS definition (CMSDEF).
For example, a CAF (Console and Fans unit) CMSDEF defines the CAF CMS class of which the object CAF_1 is an instance that represents a particular CAF FRU. The CAF_1 object may have an attribute called LOCATION having the value A_CAF, indicating that the FRU represented by the CAF_1 object has been inserted into location A_CAF in the chassis of the computer system.
A problem when initiating a system is to establish an initial configuration for the system, by supplying initial values to object attributes which represent that configuration.
In the known system mentioned above, the CMS used a chassis type number read from the EEPROM of control-panel FRU to establish a default configuration for the system. However, this provided only a crude configuration for the system, as it relied in effect on ‘fine-tuning’ a pre-defined configuration to the specific needs of that type of system. Only ‘standard’ parts of the configuration (e.g. the boot disks and their controllers and the CPUs) could be established in this way so much of the more complex configuration (e.g. serial ports) had to be performed manually.
An object of the invention is to provide an improved method of providing automatic configuration of FRUs, and also a system implementing such a method, and FRUs for use in such a system. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a tape cassette comprised of a tape-shaped recording medium housed in a cassette, and to a recording and/or reproducing apparatus for recording and/or reproducing data for the tape-shaped recording medium.
2. Description of the Related Art
As a tape recording and/or reproducing apparatus, capable of recording and/or reproducing digital data for a tape-shaped recording medium, there is known a so-called tape streamer drive. This tape streamer drive can have a voluminous recording density of the order of, for example, tens to hundreds of gigabyte, depending on the tape length of the tape cassette, as a recording medium, and is widely used for backing the data recorded on a hard disc, for example, of a main body unit of the computer. It is also conveniently used for storage of picture data of large data size.
As the above-mentioned tape streamer drive, there is proposed such a one configured for recording and/or reproducing data for a tape cassette for an 8 mm VTR as a recording medium, in accordance with a helical scan system employing a rotary head.
As the above-mentioned tape streamer drive, exploiting such a tape cassette for an 8 mm VTR, the small computer system interface (SCSI), for example, is used as an input/output interface of recording and/or reproducing data.
During recording, data furnished from, for example, a host computer, is inputted via the SCSI interface. This input data is transmitted in terms of preset groups of data of a fixed length as a unit. The input data is compressed, if need be, in accordance with a preset system, and transiently stored in a buffer memory. The data stored in the buffer memory is supplied to a recording and/or reproducing system in terms of a preset length, known as a groove, as a unit, so as to be recorded by a rotary head on a magnetic tape.
During reproduction, data of a magnetic tape is read out by a rotary head so as to be transiently stored in the buffer memory. The data from the buffer memory is expanded., if previously compressed for recording, and is transmitted via SCSI interface to a host computer.
The data recording area on the magnetic tape forms numbered partitions in which it is possible to reproduce or record data.
In a data storage system, comprised of the above-described tape streamer drive and a tape cassette, the numbers affixed to the partitions are used to supervise the partitions on the magnetic tape for performing proper recording and/or reproducing operations for the magnetic tape of the tape cassette. For example, for performing recording and/or reproduction, the tape streamer device moves to the partition carrying the desired number, by prediction from the current prevailing partition number.
For recording the recording data on a data recording area carrying plural partitions on the magnetic tape as described above, the numbers affixed to these partitions are in the falling order beginning from the leading end of tape (BOT) to the trailing end of tea (EOT) of the tape-shaped recording medium, as shown in FIG. 1. If, for example, there are formed eight partitions, the partition numbers are P7, P6, P5, P4, P3, P2, P1, P0 from the BOT of the tape-shaped recording medium. The suffixes of the partition numbers, that is n of Pn, stand for the partition numbers.
The reason the partition numbers are in the falling order is to enable the total number of the partitions formed on the tape-shaped recording medium to be inferred from the partition number of the leading end of the tape-shaped recording medium. For example, from the partition number affixed to the leading end partition, herein xe2x80x9c7xe2x80x9d, it can be inferred that a sum total of 8 partitions are formed on the tape-shaped recording medium shown in FIG. 1.
There are occasions wherein, if the partitions are formed in this manner in succession, the operator desires to add a new partition. In such case, a new partition can be added by splitting a pre-existing partition.
The routine practice in adding a partition is to split the partition P0 of the EOT of the tape-shaped recording medium. This adds the new partition P8 at back of the partition P0, with the number affixed to the partition P8 being xe2x80x9c8xe2x80x9d. However, this produces disruption in the partition numbers affixed to the partitions.
If, when the partition P8 is added to the trailing end of the partition P0, and the current prevailing position is the partition P3, the operator desires to move to the partition P8, the operator moves to the BOT of the tape-shaped recording medium, reliance being had on the relation 3 less than 8, on the assumption that the numbers affixed to the partitions are on the falling order.
If the tape streamer device is moved based on this assumption, it is not possible to find out the partition P8 provided at the trailing end where the new partition has been added. That is, for efficient movement of the tape streamer device to the targeted partition P8, there is required means for grasping the current disposition of the partitions without regard to the current positions.
There occurs a similar situation in case of partition deletion. For example, if the operator moves in search of the partition P0 unawares of the fact that the partition P0 has been deleted, there is no such partition and the tape comes to a close contrary to the intention of the operator. In order to avoid this from occurring, means need to be provided which permits the fact of previous deletion of the partition without regard to the current partition position.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a tape cassette and a tape recording and/or reproducing apparatus in which the current arraying states of the partitions formed on the tape-shaped recording medium can be grasped even if partitions are deleted or added incidentally.
A tape cassette according to the present invention includes a tape-shaped recording medium having at least two numbered partitions in each of which recording data is recorded, and storage means for storing the ancillary information concerning each of the partitions. The storage means is provided separately from the tape-shaped recording medium, and holds on memory the arraying information specifying the arraying state of the partitions on the tape-shaped recording medium.
The tape cassette can thus store the arraying information indicating the partitions in the tape-shaped recording medium.
A tape recording and/or reproducing apparatus according to the present invention includes partition rewriting means for rewriting partitions on the tape-shaped recording medium, partition rewriting means for rewriting the partitions on the tape-shaped recording medium, writing means for storing the arraying information specifying the arraying of the partitions in the storage means, recording and/or reproducing means for recording and/or reproducing the recording data for the partitions, and controlling means for controlling the recording and/or reproducing means based on the arraying information to record and/or reproduce data.
Thus, the tape recording and/or reproducing apparatus controls the recording and/or reproducing means by the controlling means based on the arraying information of the partitioned tape cassette in the tape-shaped recording medium written by the partition arraying information writing means in the tape cassette storage means. | {
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1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of automatic valves and valve controllers.
2. Prior Art
In certain situations, it is desired to provide a control valve of some form and to provide a controller therefor which may be programmed to automatically control the valve as desired, frequently though not always in some form of periodic operating cycle (e.g., daily, weekly, monthly, annually, etc.). In that regard, solenoid valves and alternating current powered electrical timers and controllers therefor are well known and frequently used for various purposes. However in some situations, AC power is either not available or is inconvenient to provide at the precise location desired. Accordingly for such applications, various types of battery operated valves and valve controllers have been used. By way of specific example, sprinkler systems and other types of irrigation systems typically use valves with a time of day controller associated therewith. In such applications, it may be difficult or inconvenient to provide AC power for such valves and controllers, and accordingly battery operated valves and controllers have at times been used for such applications. Some specific types of prior art battery operated valves and controllers and other applications therefor are shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,821,967, 3,989,066, 4,107,546, 4,108,419 and 4,114,647. Latching actuators usable in such valves are shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,683,239 and 3,743,898.
In most applications for such controllers, it is highly preferred to mount the controller on or in close proximity with the valve, as the latching actuators in such valves tend to require a short but high current pulse for the operation thereof which could cause excessive voltage drops if one attempted to provide the current pulse from a remote location. Also, in most applications, it is common for the valve and thus the controller to be in a rather harsh environment for electrical equipment, frequently having a high humidity or even being subject to direct impingement of water, and generally an environment subject to substantial daily temperature swings causing condensation to form on the controller, within any battery enclosure, etc., and at the same time causing cooling and contraction of the air within the controller, encouraging water or moist air into the controller enclosure and the condensation of the moisture in the air once within the enclosure.
Thus, an object of the present invention is to provide a programmable pilot-operated valve which is powered by solar power, and which is programmed in a simple, self prompting manner, with power and programming information being provided to the controller enclosure without ever having to open any enclosure such as a battery case to renew the power supply or having to seal any form of mechanical switches used for programming purposes. | {
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Embodiments of the invention relate generally to matching different user representations of a person, and, specifically, to matching different user representations of a person in a plurality of computer systems.
Typically, legal custodians are represented in computer systems using system account Identifiers (IDs) and other identifiers that vary. For example, John Doe might be known by a human resource system with personnel ID 12345, whereas on department file servers, his ID may be “jdoe”, and, in the email system, he may be known as john.doe@example.com, and so forth. If a custodian, for example, owns or has access to data that is responsive to a legal case, then this data may have to be put on legal hold. It may be crucial to identify all data that a particular custodian owns or had/has access to, irrespective of the computer system or application system this data is stored in, or by which identifier or alias the custodian is known on a specific system.
This is further complicated as custodians may have changed their work location, organizational unit, name or user ID and so on in the past. A single custodian may have many IDs for the various systems the custodian works with or is managed through, sometimes even multiple IDs for the same system may exist. Further complications are operational IDs that a custodian may have access to. Additional complication may exist through custodians with the same name, but differences in other attributes, such as an organizational unit or a previous name (e.g., maiden name).
Organizations may be faced with the question of whether a certain person or custodian may have accessed data via a computer system or application without having the opportunity to ask the person or to find out the truth. | {
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1. Technical Field
The invention is in the field of electro-optic modulators of light wave intensity. More particularly, the invention relates to using thin film ferroelectric materials in a Fabry-Perot etalon to provide polarization-insensitive modulation of reflected and transmitted light at high modulation frequencies.
2. Related Art
A number of methods or devices have been proposed to modulate the intensity of light. Most of them are not suitable for producing useful large-scale hybrid, integrated-with-silicon, circuits. The closest related art to the present invention uses ferroelectric materials whose indices of refraction change when an electric field is applied, but at a different rate for different light polarizations. That is, the ordinary and the extraordinary index change at a different rate with applied voltage, i.e., a field induced birefringence occurs. This structure is similar to an asymmetric Fabry-Perot etalon with a back surface reflecting electrode and a front surface partially transmitting electrode. Light which has been linearly polarized so that it has equal amplitude p-waves parallel to the incident plane and s-waves perpendicular to the incident plane are incident on and, after undergoing multiple reflections inside, reflected by the etalon. The reflected light is passed through a second linear polarizer which is used as an analyzer. In the absence of an electric field applied to the ferroelectric material, the intensity of the light exiting the second polarizer will be a function of several parameters including the type and thickness of the ferroelectric material and the reflectivity of electrodes. When an electric field is applied to the ferroelectric material, the relative optical phase of the p- and s-waves will be changed such that the intensity of light exiting the second polarizer will change. At the proper angle of incidence, the large field-induced birefringence in some ferroelectric materials, makes it possible to obtain a large ratio between light intensities with and without an electric field.
Transmission mode devices have been proposed using coplanar electrodes on PLZT plates. To reduce the high driving voltage, laminar assemblies with buried combs of electrodes have been proposed. All of these approaches have one major disadvantage. The light must be linearly polarized by a first polarizer, resulting in a 50% loss in light intensity for unpolarized light, and a second polarizer used to detect the intensity modulation. Accordingly, it is one object of the present invention to produce a modulator which does not require polarized light.
Other related devices include U.S. Pat. No. 4,786,128 to Birnbach, issued Nov. 22, 1988, which discloses a dielectric mirror comprised of a stack of alternating layers of non-electro-optic dielectric material and electro-optic material of a different index. Preferably, the stack contains nine to eleven layers for the well known reason that more layers yield higher reflectivity, here, 95%. However, in order to avoid large voltages, the voltage applied to the electro-optic material must be transverse necessitating depositing an electrode with its index of refraction matched to the index of the non-electro-optic material. Manufacturing may be costly and the need to make electrical contact to a vertical stack of electrodes may make it hard to produce as a hybrid integrated circuit.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,037,169 to Chun, issued Aug. 6, 1991, discloses a Fabry-Perot etalon with a compound semiconductor, for example, aluminum gallium arsenide. This can be used as an optical switch by changing the index of refraction in a variety of ways including optical pumping, using an external control voltage, injection of electric current, and temperature ramping. Because an appreciable index change occurs only for light wavelengths in the vicinity of the absorption band of the semiconductor materials, modulators of this kind are limited to a narrow range of wavelengths in the near infrared. Moreover, this device seems to be limited in useable angles of incidence.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,425,115 to Wagner, issued Jun. 13, 1995, discloses a polarization insensitive optical switch using liquid crystal material in the cavity of a Fabry-Perot etalon which uses dielectric mirrors. This device can overcome the limitation on light wavelengths, but liquid crystal response times are inherently slow and PLZT was also proposed. While it is not too difficult to insert liquid crystal material into a cavity or use a polished PLZT plate sandwiched between the dielectric mirrors, neither device is easily made part of a hybrid integrated circuit and, as noted, the PLZT driving voltage will be high. Moreover, the free spectral range will be narrow and the requirements on light collimation high. Low voltages, desirable with hybrid integrated circuits using PLZT, requires the deposition of thin films on dielectric mirrors which was heretofore unknown.
Accordingly, objects of the current invention are to produce a device which can modulate the intensity of unpolarized monochromatic light of any wavelength from the visible to mid-infrared without requiring polarizers while having a low operating voltage, a wide modulation bandwidth, viz., dc to about one GHz, and can be produced as a hybrid integrated circuit at low cost. | {
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1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates in general to a method of forming a fluid tight pipe joint and the gasket for forming the joint. Specifically, the invention relates to a method of forming a pipe joint, and a gasket used to form the pipe joint between a metal spigot pipe and a metal belled pipe, the gasket being extensible from a resting state to an engaged state once the spigot pipe is inserted into the gasket fitted within the bell pipe.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Pipe joints are typically formed between a belled (female) pipe end and a spigot (male) pipe. The belled pipe may have a complex interior surface such as bevels and grooves, which is especially typical in polymer or plastic pipes. Typically, an elastomeric gasket will fit within the circumferential groove of the belled pipe to facilitate the formation of a pipe joint with the spigot pipe. The gasket forms a tight seal between the inside surface of the bell pipe and the outside surface of the spigot pipe inserted therein.
Metal pipes may also be made to have belled ends and gaskets therein. While metal pipes are inherently stronger than most plastic pipes, there are several problems associated with using metal pipes. Metal pipes used as conduits for fluid transport often must be cut or chamfered on the job site in order to facilitate the formation of pipe joints. If the pipe is a corrodible metal such as steel, cutting the metal can lead to rusting, pitting, and other corrosion that will ultimately breach the integrity of the seal between the two pipes. While coating the pipe ends with a paint or other polymer can prevent contact between the fluids and the exposed metal surface, this is often not possible or practical at a job site.
Gaskets are often used in forming pipe joints between metal pipes. However, most gaskets simply fit within the groove of the bell pipe, allowing the spigot pipe and the end of the pipe to be mostly exposed once inserted into the belled pipe having the gasket therein. Thus, the elastomeric gasket may only contact a limited circumferential region of spigot pipe outside surface and leave most of the surface exposed to the fluids that flow there through. The region of contact with the spigot pipe in most gaskets is limited to the size of the seal region that is opposite the region of the gasket that contacts the groove. The area of contact is extended somewhat in gaskets having a flange extending from the seal region. However, this flange in most gaskets serves the purpose of forming an area of pressured contact with the gasket to effectuate a ringed seal around the outside surface of the spigot pipe. This arrangement still leaves potentially cut or chamfered portions of the spigot pipe exposed.
What is needed is a pipe gasket and method of forming a pipe joint that will be advantageous to use with metal pipes that must be cut or shaved in some way at a job site.
Thus, it is one object of the present invention to provide a simpler method of preventing corrosion in metal pipes that are cut or shaved at a job site.
It is another object of the present invention to provide an elastomeric gasket with an extensible sleeve region to form a sleeve around the end of a spigot end of a spigot pipe, thus preventing contact with water.
It is yet another object of the present invention to provide a gasket that will engage the inserted spigot pipe and stop further movement at the proper stage of insertion to thus facilitate the formation of a sealing interface between the gasket and spigot pipe.
These and other objects are achieved by providing a pipe gasket and a method of forming a pipe joint between a spigot pipe having an outside surface and a spigot end, and a belled pipe having an annular groove and terminal face. The method is preferably practiced by providing metal spigot and belled pipes. The method comprises first providing an elastomeric gasket having a seal region and a retainer region joined by a sleeve region there between. The gasket is inserted into the annular groove of the belled gasket such that the seal region abuts the annular groove and the retainer region protrudes away from the terminal face.
The spigot pipe end is then inserted into the belled pipe end having the gasket located therein until the spigot end sealingly engages the retainer region thus preventing further movement of the spigot pipe, the sleeve and retainer regions thereby forming a fluid tight interface against the spigot pipe to prevent contact between fluids flowing through the pipes and the spigot pipe end and outer surface.
There are other specific features of the gasket of the invention that effectuate its function. The sleeve region is extensible, thus allowing the formation of an elastomeric sleeve around the spigot pipe outside surface and spigot end. Typically, the retainer region has a retainer ring therein for forming a fluid tight seal at the spigot pipe end. The retainer ring has a diameter slightly less than the inside diameter of the spigot pipe inside diameter, the ring thus forming a lip around the inserted spigot pipe end. The ring is typically a rigid, metal ring. Finally, the gasket may further have a compression gap in the seal region, the compression gap allowing the seal region to deform and place pressure upon the annular groove of the belled pipe and the outside surface of the spigot pipe.
Additional objects, features and advantages will be apparent in the written description which follows. | {
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FIG. 10 illustrates a prior art wiring harness retainer clip (Japanese Utility Model Preliminary Publication No. Hei-1 96723) with a living hinge 104. Living hinge 104 interconnects two semi-cylindrical clip pieces 100 and 102 and bends when the clip is opened and closed. After repeated openings and closings, living hinge 104 may fatigue and break, resulting in a loss of wire retention properties. However, this clip has the advantage of being a single piece. Thus, only one part is maintained in inventory and only a single mold is required. Moreover, use of the clip requires no assembly of separate clip pieces.
FIG. 11 discloses a two-piece hinge 201 for a junction box. The hinge pivots as two cover pieces 200 and 202 are opened and closed. This assembly is more fully described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,967,924 issued Nov. 6, 1990 to Murofushi et al. A rod 204 pivotally engages a rod holder 208 creating a hinge mechanism. This type of hinge is strong and maintains good retention properties after repeated openings and closings. However, this assembly requires two separate pieces 200 and 202 which, in turn, require two separate molds and an inventory of separate parts. | {
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1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates to a speaker driver circuit driven by positive and negative voltages.
2. Description of Related Art
FIG. 1 shows a typical structure of a conventional two-channel speaker driver circuit. In order to obtain a maximum dynamic range, the output of such conventional speaker is biased at a nominal DC voltage, which typically is half of a supplied voltage VDD (as an example, VDD=5V and VDD/2=2.5V in the shown figure). However, the DC bias causes significant amount of current to flow into the headphone speaker 16 and 18; this may, in addition to unnecessary power consumption, cause the speaker and the speaker driver to be damaged. Hence, the circuit requires capacitors Cdec to isolate the DC bias, and the capacitance of the capacitor Cdec is considerably large (in the range of several hundred μF).
The output waveform of this conventional headphone is shown in FIG. 2, in which the peak amplitude is VDD, the valley is 0, and the average is VDD/2.
In view of the problems caused by the DC bias, an improvement as shown in FIG. 3 is proposed, in which the low operation level of the two operational amplifiers is set to −VDD, so that the DC bias of the output voltage becomes 0. This eliminates the requirement of the large capacitors, but the circuit requires two operation voltages VDD and −VDD, and it is undesired to provide an additional I/O port for an external input of −VDD. Thus, this prior art proposes a charge pump 10, which converts the supplied voltage VDD to −VDD, so that the circuit only requires one voltage supply. The output waveform of this conventional headphone is shown in FIG. 4, in which the peak amplitude is VDD, the valley is −VDD, and the average is 0.
The second speaker driver circuit described above has the drawbacks that, if the supplied voltage VDD is high, since the output signal amplitude becomes double, the devices need to sustain higher voltage; and the power consumption also becomes double. On the other hand, if the supplied voltage VDD is low, the output signal may not have sufficient power to drive the speaker, and thus the signal amplitude should be enhanced. Accordingly, it is desired to provide a speaker driver circuit capable of generating peak and valley amplitudes of r·VDD and −r·VDD respectively, wherein r is any real number except 1. | {
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Conventionally, mechanical devices such as, a micro-switch or a limit-switch, have been used to detect the presence of a detecting object or changes of the situation thereof through contact with the object. However, the improvement in the energy-saving views has required devices capable of performing functions not only to detect objects containing less voluminous objects at a certain distance without mechanical contact, but also to respond quickly for detection of the objects. As a result, electrical non-contact type switches were introduced.
Among the non-contact type switches, optical switching devices have advantages of long distance detection and a rapid response time. Such optical switching devices are those of transmission-type, reflection-type and radiation-type as shown in FIGS. 1(A), 1(B) and 1(C) and so on.
Referring to FIG. 2, it depicts a schematic block diagram of a conventional optical switching device for a light modulation type (E3S type) employing an infrared light-emitting diode (hereinafter referred to as "LED") which was developed in Japan and realized by a custom integrated circuit. FIG. 3(A) through FIG. 3(G) illustrate a waveform timing diagram of each part of FIG. 2.
A pulse train generated by an oscillator 1 as shown in FIG. 3(A) is amplified by a current amplifier 2. The amplified pulse train from the amplifier 2 is supplied to an infrared LED 3 which turns on or off depending on the frequency thereof to emit an optical pulse train to a detection object 4. A reflection optical pulse train from the object 4 as shown in FIG. 3(B) is converted into an electrical signal via a photo-transistor 5 and delivered to a light receiving circuit 6. The light receiving circuit 6 includes a variable resistor RR for adjusting the light receiving sensitivity according to the light detecting distance and provides an electrical detection pulse train as shown in FIG. 3(C) corresponding to the reflection optical pulse. The detection pulse train from the light receiving circuit 6 is amplified by an alternating current amplifier 7 and thereafter is supplied to a gate circuit 8. The gate circuit 8 synchronizes the amplified detection pulse train from the alternating current amplifier 7 with the pulse train from the oscillator 1. That is, the gate circuit 8, whenever the pulse from the oscillator 1 is high, makes the amplified detection pulse train from the amplifier 7 pass through and then provides a gated pulse train as shown in FIG. 3(D). A detector 9 receives and converts the gated pulse train into a direct current detection signal as shown in FIG. 3(E). A switching circuit 10 compares the detection signal from the detector 9 with a predetermined potential level so as to eliminate noise signals and then provides a switching ON/OFF control signal as shown in FIG. 3(F). Therefore, the switching circuit 10 provides a logic high level at the time of the presence of the detecting object, while the switching circuit 10 provides a logic low level at the time of the absence of the object.
Therefore, since the conventional optical switching device employs a gate circuit for gating the detection pulse train with the pulse train from the oscillator arranged in a light transmitting portion and a detector for detecting the level of the gated pulse train, incorrectness of positions of the detection pulse train and the pulse train from the oscillator makes the pulse width of the gated pulse train from the gate circuit narrow and as a result, DC detection level of the detector becomes too low to sense the detected object. Also, incomplete synchronization in the gate circuit of the detection pulse train due to the delay with the pulse train from the oscillator can make the detection of a remote object impossible. | {
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1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a solid-state image sensing apparatus having two-dimensionally arrayed pixels and, more particularly, to a solid-state image sensing apparatus having a plurality of output channels and a reading method thereof.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, in an image sensing apparatus using a solid-state image sensing element, the speed of image data reading from the solid-state image sensing element must be increased as the number of pixels increases. However, the driving frequency of a solid-state image sensing apparatus cannot be raised indiscriminately because it has an upper limit (e.g., 20 to 30 MHz) based on the semiconductor manufacturing process or design rule.
There are various known techniques dealing with this restriction, i.e., techniques for reading out image signals in parallel by increasing the number of signal output lines.
According to one of the techniques, pixel signals of the same color are added on an output line, and a sum signal of a plurality of pixels are output from a plurality of output terminals (Jpn. Pat. Appln. KOKAI Publication No. 8-182005).
In another technique, a column read is employed to read out pixels corresponding to color filters. When image data are read out while shifting the pixels of the second or fourth row by one column, outputs of the same color can always be obtained from four output terminals (Jpn. Pat. Appln. KOKAI Publication No. 9-4680).
There is still another technique using a parallel output structure. Signals of specific pixels arrayed in a matrix are output from one of two horizontal signal lines (Jpn. Pat. Appln. KOKAI Publication No. 2000-12819).
Alternatively, a plurality of output circuits are arranged in correspondence with divided regions of a pixel array so that a plurality of pixels are simultaneously read out as addresses (Jpn. Pat. Appln. KOKAI Publication No. 2000-32344).
Furthermore, various proposals have been made for an image sensor having a parallel output structure (U.S. Pat. No. 6,512,546 and “8M color imager with two output registers and four outputs”).
However, the prior art described above is not always optimized for various kinds of aspects including moving image sensing, automatic exposure (AE) control, automatic white balance (AWB) control and automatic focusing (AF) control. | {
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The use of a dental apparatus for the illumination of an oral procedure site is well known. Typically, such illumination is often utilized as a source of activation energy for restorative compositions which are designed to set or cure upon the receipt of light of a certain bandwidth. Such compositions are used in a variety of procedures to rebuild tooth structures. The light is provided through a handpiece having a trigger to operate the light source on demand.
Various illumination devices have been provided within one or more supply lines having exit apertures in the handpiece for the simultaneous application of compressed air and/or water to the location. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,975,058 of Dec. 4, 1990 to Woodward discloses a dental handpiece having lines providing for a handpiece drive air, exhaust air, chip removal air, water and light. U.S. Pat. No. 4,826,431 of May 2, 1989 to Fujimura discloses a dental handpiece utilizing a laser light source intended, among other objectives, to provide hardening of optically polymerized substances. The handpiece is further adapted to transmit water and air as may be desired. Such handpieces typically utilize a variety of switches and controls on the handpiece proper to allow the practitioner to apply the appropriate combination of light, water and air as may be appropriate for the procedure at hand. It is often difficult or inconvenient to manipulate the various functions allowable for the device.
Many practitioners, however, utilize light sources, which do not incorporate either water or air supply means, and the practitioner is required either to utilize an assistant to operate a second water and air applicator or, alternatively, alternate use of the light source and water/air supply means by putting one unit down and picking up the other. Either alternative is inconvenient and inefficient. Replacement of the handpiece, however, with a combination unit may not be a viable alternative, because of the cost factor involved, the unavailability of such a combination light source having the illumination characteristics required for the restoration materials utilized, or the practitioner's inability to provide the necessary compatible connections for the water and air lines of such a combination unit.
It is thus the purpose of the present invention to provide an apparatus which permits a dental light source not having air and/or water supply means to be adapted to additionally provide air and/or water in association with the light
Yet another purpose of the present invention is to provide an apparatus which allows a light source to be modified to provide air and water in a manner which does not disturb the normal functioning of the light source.
Still another purpose of the present invention is to provide such an apparatus which is compatible with standard dental water and air supply sources, and thus allows control over the air and water to be maintained by use of a conventional foot control which may be operated by the practitioner in the conventional manner. | {
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It is difficult to debug problems with speech quality, one way voice, or lost calls on the Internet and in enterprises spread over different locations. One reason for the difficulty is the large number of paths that a packet can take through the network. In the case of voice, the path a packet takes can determine if the call is intelligible by the voice call participants. This is due to the tight delay budget required for voice packets to travel end to end. Thus, a need exists for tracking the path of the voice traffic so that problems related to packet loss and packet delays can be identified. The problem becomes even more critical when the endpoints require video and lip synchronization.
A User Datagram Protocol (UDP) traceroute is currently used to identify problems in Internet Protocol (IP) networks. The UDP traceroute uses ephemeral source and destination ports and makes special use of the IP Time To Live (TTL) value. The TTL value in the traceroute is varied to isolate a trouble spot in the IP network. For example, the first traceroute packet may be sent with a TTL value of “1”. The first node receiving the traceroute packet decrements the TTL value by one. As the TTL value is now zero, the first node sends a fault notice back to the source.
A second traceroute packet is sent with a TTL value of “2”. The source expects a fault notice back from a second node receiving the traceroute packet. However, if the fault notice comes back from the first node, or if no fault notice comes back, then a trouble spot in the network can be isolated somewhere between the first node and second node.
The UDP traceroutes are not effective in detecting network problems for IP media streams. This is because the UDP traceroute packets do not necessarily travel along the media path used by the IP media stream. It does no good identifying a problem node in a network, if the identified node is not used in the media stream path.
The UDP traceroute packets also cannot pass through firewalls that may exist between a source endpoint and a destination endpoint for the media session. Since UDP traceroute packets may not be able to travel the entire path from the source endpoint to the destination endpoint, they are unreliable for analyzing the entire media path for IP media streams.
The present invention addresses this and other problems associated with the prior art. | {
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Digital video capabilities can be incorporated into a wide range of devices, including digital televisions, digital direct broadcast systems, wireless broadcast systems, personal digital assistants (PDAs), laptop or desktop computers, tablet computers, e-book readers, digital cameras, digital recording devices, digital media players, video gaming devices, video game consoles, cellular or satellite radio telephones, so-called “smart phones,” video teleconferencing devices, video streaming devices, and the like. Digital video devices implement video compression techniques, such as those described in the standards defined by MPEG-2, MPEG-4, ITU-T H.263, ITU-T H.264/MPEG-4, Part 10, Advanced Video Coding (AVC), the High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) standard presently under development, and extensions of such standards. The video devices may transmit, receive, encode, decode, and/or store digital video information more efficiently by implementing such video compression techniques.
Video compression techniques perform spatial (intra-picture) prediction and/or temporal (inter-picture) prediction to reduce or remove redundancy inherent in video sequences. For block-based video coding, a video slice (i.e., a video frame or a portion of a video frame) may be partitioned into video blocks, which may also be referred to as treeblocks, coding units (CUs) and/or coding nodes. Video blocks in an intra-coded (I) slice of a picture are encoded using spatial prediction with respect to reference samples in neighboring blocks in the same picture. Video blocks in an inter-coded (P or B) slice of a picture may use spatial prediction with respect to reference samples in neighboring blocks in the same picture or temporal prediction with respect to reference samples in other reference pictures. Pictures may be referred to as frames, and reference pictures may be referred to a reference frames.
Spatial or temporal prediction results in a predictive block for a block to be coded. Residual data represents pixel differences between the original block to be coded and the predictive block. An inter-coded block is encoded according to a motion vector that points to a block of reference samples forming the predictive block, and the residual data indicating the difference between the coded block and the predictive block. An intra-coded block is encoded according to an intra-coding mode and the residual data. For further compression, the residual data may be transformed from the pixel domain to a transform domain, resulting in residual transform coefficients, which then may be quantized. The quantized transform coefficients, initially arranged in a two-dimensional array, may be scanned in order to produce a one-dimensional vector of transform coefficients, and entropy coding may be applied to achieve even more compression. | {
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The present invention relates to a protein hydrolysate derived from animal tissue having an endothelial or mucosal component (hereafter "mucosa"), a process for its preparation, and the use of such a protein hydrolysate.
Protein hydrolysate by definition consists of a mixture of amino acids and short chain peptides obtained by the hydrolysis of various animal and vegetable proteins. Protein hydrolysates (also known as "peptones") are used as sources of amino acids, seasoning agents and in nutrition, among other things.
For both economic and environmental reasons, productive use is now being made of an increasing percentage of the waste material generated as a result of the slaughter of animals, such as livestock. A major use of livestock waste or other by-products (livestock "offal") is in the production of the blood anti-coagulant heparin.
It has been estimated that over 90% of the heparin currently used as a blood anti-coagulant is obtained from porcine intestinal mucosa. An aqueous solution containing the mucosa from the livestock offal is chemically (acid or alkaline) or enzymatically hydrolyzed, and the heparin is extracted from the hydrolyzed mucosa by well-established techniques, such as selective sorption using an ion exchange resin. The solution containing the digested tissues includes high concentrations of salt. This high concentration of salts in the digest solution prevents constituents other than certain anionic and polyanionic materials (such as heparin) from sticking to the resin during the sorption of these materials. Although the cost of such resin can be high, an advantage of this process is that it requires only a minimal amount of resin, since only enough resin is required to selectively remove the desired anionic or polyanionic materials from the digest solution.
The mucosa and the digest solution also generally contain an additional salt component. This additional salt component is introduced into the solution in the form of an oxygen scavenger, bacteriostat or bacteriocide, typically sodium bisulfite, added to stabilize the raw material and to prevent bacterial growth.
The high residual concentration of salt in the digest solution renders the un-sorbed portion of the digest, which includes most of the proteins, largely useless for most practical purposes. These salt and sulfite levels not only make this protein sidestream inedible, but also potentially toxic for prolonged usage such as in agriculture as a source of nitrogen. The sidestream may also be toxic to those animals or humans allergic to sulfites.
The heparin-depleted digest solution is typically discarded or spread on farm land, since cost-effective ways have not been found to separate the organic components in the solution from the dissolved salt. The discarded solution, however, includes many high quality proteins in the form of protein hydrolysate. Rather than discarding these proteins, it is desirable to utilize them as a source of protein for human or animal nutrition. Additional use can be made of the proteins in microbial nutrition, such as vat fermentation.
Waste disposal costs of solutions of animal waste products continue to increase, and environmental regulations govern the manner in which high BOD materials, such as the heparin-depleted digest, may be disposed. The costs associated with disposal add not only to the cost of processing the livestock, but also to the cost of the heparin produced by this process.
Protein hydrolysates may be produced by either chemical or enzymatic methods. In acid hydrolysis, strong acids at elevated temperatures are used to break the glycosidic bond in the protein molecule. This relatively harsh treatment can result in damage to the heparin as well as some loss of essential amino acids. The treatment can also result in undesirable side reactions. Similarly, alkaline hydrolysis requires fairly extreme conditions for producing this reaction. Furthermore, the large amount of residual acid or alkali in the hydrolysate must be neutralized. This neutralization increases the salt content of the hydrolysate, and thereby further limits its potential use in nutritional formulations seeking minimum salt content.
Enzyme hydrolysis is an effective alternative to chemical treatment. This process is mild in comparison to acid or alkali hydrolysis. Additionally, the inherent specificity of several proteolytic enzymes can control the nature and extent of hydrolysis, and thus the functional properties of the end product. An important use of enzymatically hydrolyzed proteins is in human nutrition. Additionally, the proteins may be used in medical nutrition for undernourished persons, or those persons unable to properly digest and absorb whole protein. For example, it has been postulated that in cases of severe pancreatic insufficiency or malabsorption, that amino acids are better absorbed from hydrolyzed protein than from intact protein.
An initial source of pre-digested protein was milk, which has drawbacks such as poor palatability and high cost. Recently, individual crystalline amino acids have been formulated to mimic the amino acid profile of the protein hydrolysate obtained by hydrolysis of casein. Medical studies, however, have shown that di- and tripeptides such as can be produced by protein hydrolysis, are absorbed through the intestinal mucosa more effectively than the individual crystalline amino acids. Aside from the potential danger of allergic reactions to such crystalline amino acids, often produced by fermentation, such protein hydrolysate formulations are extremely expensive and out of reach for the world population at large.
Nutritional uses of the protein hydrolysate of the present invention include such specialty feeds as milk replacers for calf, piglet and other weaning mammals; protein extender for animal feed; and as an amino acid supplement, flavor or protein enhancer for human food and pet food. Research has shown that the high ash in peptone, or hydrolysate, obtained by traditional processes, significantly depresses appetite and weight gain at moderate inclusion rates. See, e.g. Journal of Dairy science, 75(1): 267; 1992, incorporated herein by reference. Medicine to which this invention may be applied includes total parenteral nutrition, peritoneal dialysis fluid as an alternative to glucose, and as a protein extender in enteral nutrition. Additional use may be found in microbial nutrition for vat fermentation.
British Patent 992,201 describes the conventional procedure for producing heparin described above. The procedure involves the addition of cross-linked copolymers with quaternary functional groups to a heparin-containing digest, using an alkali, alkali earth metal, or ammonium salt as a catalyst. At least 0.1 mole of a dissolved salt must be present. The recommended salt is sodium chloride. This patent focuses on the isolation of heparin and certain other anionic and polyanionic impurities from the remaining constituents in the digest. The isolation of protein hydrolysates, in a contaminated form in the digest, is not addressed in this patent. The examples in the patent teach a 0.5 molar salt concentration to accomplish the separation of the heparin, representing the midpoint in a claimed range of 0.1-1.0 molar.
After the anion exchange resin-heparin copolymer is harvested according to the procedure described in the British patent, the resulting protein-containing sidestream contains not only sodium chloride as a contaminant, but also the original sodium metabisulfite stabilizer, and the various biological materials (including protein hydrolysate) present in the raw materials that are not sorbed by the resin. These impurities left in the protein mother liquor after the harvesting of the resin-heparin copolymer render it largely useless for most practical applications.
Another commercial process presently in use for the production of heparin is based on the purification procedure described in British Patent 889,648. This process consists of treating a heparin-containing digest, which has previously been filtered to clarity, with 2 to 5% of salt and sufficient water soluble quaternary ammonium salt to selectively precipitate substantially all the heparin, but insufficient to precipitate other animal components. The protein sidestream of this process also contains a high percentage of salt. Furthermore, most quaternary ammonium salts are effective bacteriocides thus rendering any resulting protein unsuitable for fermentation. Process waste waters containing quaternary ammonium salts also have an adverse effect on municipal sewage operations.
A common thread of the two processes described above is that only limited use may be made of the heparin-depleted protein sidestream due to its high residual salt content. A need exists for a process for treating animal tissue, and particularly livestock offal, that minimizes the waste of that tissue and enables beneficial use to be made of the protein hydrolysate that may be derived from the tissue. | {
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1. Field of the Invention
The invention generally relates to electronic communications systems. In particular, the invention relates to Viterbi decoding.
2. Description of the Related Art
Forward error correction (FEC) techniques are often used in communication systems in order to enhance the reliability of the transmitted signal and to improve the capacity of a data channel. A forward error correction (FEC) encoder encodes input bits to output symbols. The output symbols contain redundancy, which allow a decoder to recover the original input bits even when the output symbols are transmitted in the presence of interference or noise, and thus tolerate the occasional corruption of output symbols. A related forward error correction technique is convolutional coding. Another forward error correction technique is trellis-coded modulation (TCM).
With convolutional coding, input bits are provided to an encoder and mapped by the encoder to output symbols. The mapping by the encoder depends on the code rate and the constraint length. The code rate k/n corresponds to the ratio of input bits k to output symbols n. Thus, the encoder produces n output symbols for k input cycles. The constraint length K corresponds to the number of input bits that determine the state or value of an output symbol. Thus, for a given constraint length K, an encoder will typically store K-1 states of the input signal and combine these K-1 states with the present state of the input signal to specify the output symbol. The output symbols are constrained according to the Boolean logic characteristics of the encoder. The value of K-1is referred to as m or the memory length of the encoder.
The values for the code rate k/n and the constraint length K can vary in a broad range and are selected according to the requirements of the communication system. An example of a code rate k/n is 1/2. An example of a constraint length K is 7. Where the modulation technique used to transmit an encoded output symbol is the same as the modulation technique that would have been used to transmit an unencoded input bit, convolutional coding increases the bandwidth required to transmit information by the inverse of the code rate. However, the benefits of error correction and the advantages of transmitting information with less power overcome these disadvantages.
Convolutional codes with relatively high code rates k/n can be constructed by puncturing or removing coded symbols from a relatively low code rate convolutional code. Puncturing techniques do not affect the performance of the convolutional code significantly, and yet, puncturing techniques can increase the data rate of the convolutional code when transmitted in a bandwidth limited channel. Puncturing techniques further simplify decoding of the encoded symbols.
With trellis-coded modulation (TCM), error correction coding and modulation are combined. Trellis-coded modulation is used in many applications including relatively high data rate dialup modem standards such as CCITT V.34 communications, CCITT V.90 communications, CCITT V.92 communications, and the like, all from the International Telecommunication Organization (ITU). With trellis-coded modulation, the error correction coding corresponds to a selected convolutional code and the modulation scheme is selected from a modulation scheme such as quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) or phase shift keying (PSK). With trellis-coded modulation, every point in the modulation constellation is mapped by a convolutional code. Moreover, the selection of the convolutional code mapping maximizes the squared Euclidean distance between distinct symbols, thereby maximizing the noise immunity of a trellis-coded modulation system. Set partitioning techniques are used to determine the convolutional code mapping.
Although convolutional coding can be implemented relatively simply, decoding is more difficult as the path taken in coding the input signal is not known until the encoded symbols are decoded. Convolutional codes can be decoded at a receiver by a variety of techniques. One such decoding technique is Viterbi decoding, where the convolutional code is decoded in accordance with a maximum likelihood decoding algorithm known as the Viterbi algorithm. With each received symbol, a Viterbi decoder computes metrics of the likelihood for all the paths that could have been taken by the encoder. A conventional Viterbi decoder traces back about several times the constraint length K of the encoder in order to compute the likelihood of a path. The trace back depth can also vary with the code rate, and can be selected within a relatively broad range by the designer. To decode the encoded symbol stream, the Viterbi decoder selects the path calculated to be the most likely path, which is known as the surviving path.
In many conventional systems, such as modems, receivers, mobile telephones, satellite communications systems, and the like, a host processor such as a general purpose microprocessor or a general purpose digital signal processor (DSP) decodes the convolutional code or decodes the trellis-coded modulation. Disadvantageously, the execution of a Viterbi decoding algorithm can be a relatively time-consuming process and can consume a relatively large amount of the host processor's time. When the host processor is executing the Viterbi decoding algorithm, many of the host processors functional blocks remain idle. This is a waste of valuable host processor resources. What is needed is a technique to alleviate the host processor from the burden of Viterbi decoding, thereby freeing the host processor to perform other tasks. | {
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The novel 1,4-benzodiazepine-4-oxide aldehyde adducts of the invention are aldehyde adducts of benzodiazepines unsaturated at the 1 position, referred to as 3H-1,4-benzodiazepines. 3H-1,4-benzodiazepines are known, and are useful as sedatives and tranquillizers in the field of human therapy. The azeto-[1,4]-benzodiazepine ring structure is an entirely new heterocyclic ring structure. | {
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(a) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to amplifiers, and more specifically amplifiers with substantially no distortion wherein distortion generated in the amplifier is detected and added to an input signal to be amplified, for cancellation of distortion in such amplifier.
(b) Description of the Prior Art
It is known in the art that an input signal of such as class-B amplifiers under a fixed bias operation is subjected to distortion if the output signal is assumed to be free of distortion.
Shown illustratively in FIG. 1 is an amplifier circuit 7 of a class-B push-pull type, wherein NPN and PNP type transistors 3 and 4 with emitter resistors 5 and 6 (having the same value R.sub.E) are supplied with bias current from respective bias sources 1 and 2. The relation between the emitter current I.sub.E (or collector current I.sub.C) and the base-emitter voltage V.sub.BE of each transistor is shown in FIG. 2 as curves a and b which have exponential characteristic function. The curve a is representative of a relation between the emitter current I.sub.E (whose value is I.sub.E1) and the base-emitter voltage V.sub.BE (whose value is V.sub.BEN) of the transistor 3, while the curve b is representative of a relation between the emitter current I.sub.E (whose value is I.sub.E2) and the base-emitter voltage V.sub.BE (whose value is V.sub.BEP) of the transistor 4. A straight line c is also shown in FIG. 2 which indicates an ideal linear relation between the emitter currents and the base-emitter voltages. Assuming that the output current I.sub.0 appearing at an output terminal 8 has no distortion and changes by .DELTA.I.sub.0, each of the base-emitter voltages V.sub.BEN and V.sub.BEP is changes by .DELTA.V.sub.BEN and .DELTA.V.sub.BEP, respectively, and is distorted due to the above-mentioned exponential characteristics of the transistors 3 and 4. Therefore, the voltage e.sub.i i of an input signal 10 at an input terminal 9 is distorted by (.DELTA.V.sub.BEN -.DELTA.V.sub.BEP). Further, in this case, the voltage R.sub.E.I.sub.E1 and R.sub.E.I.sub.E2 delivered across each emitter resistor 5 and 6 of the respective transistors 3 and 4 are also distorted due to the exponential characteristics. As a result, assuming that when the output current I.sub.0 changes by .DELTA.I.sub.0, the emitter currents I.sub.E1 and I.sub.E2 are changed by .DELTA.I.sub.E1 and .DELTA.I.sub.E2, respectively, and that each current gain h.sub.FE of transistors 3 and 4 is linear, the input current I.sub.i of the input signal 10 is distorted by .DELTA.I.sub.E1 /h.sub.FE and .DELTA.I.sub.E2 /h.sub.FE. Thus, both the input voltage and current e.sub.i and I.sub.i are subjected to distortion.
It is customary in the art to employ a Darlington configuration to each transistor 3 and 4 to perform the distortion reduction of the driving current I.sub.i. Apart from this, in order to reduce the distortion of the driving voltage e.sub.i, it is necessary to provide charging and discharging currents for the parallel capacitance at the developing portion of the distortion, that is, at the inputs of each transistor 3 and 4. Charging and discharging currents through the capacitance, however, cause to distort the driving current I.sub.i. More concrete description of such a case is given with reference to FIG. 3, wherein a main portion of the amplifier circuit 7 is illustrated with the transistor 3 is FIG. 1 replaced by three transistors 3a through 3c in a Darlington connection. In the amplifier circuit 7, it is assumed that the value of a capacitance 11 produced between the base of the transistor 3a and ground is 47 pF, the value of a load resistor 12 connected between the output terminal 8 and ground is 8.OMEGA., and the current gain h.sub.FE of each transistor is 100. At this condition, if the peak value of the output current I.sub.0 of 10 A at 100 kHz is desired, then the peak value of the base current I.sub.b of the transistor 3a is given by ##EQU1## If the distortion voltage of 1 V is assumed to be generated between the base of the transistor 3a and the emitter of the transistor 3c, the charging current Id forced to flow through the capacitance 11 is given by ##EQU2## From the above equations (1) and (2), it is noted that the charging current Id becomes larger than the base current Ib. Therefore, it is important for such an amplifier circuit to eliminate, at first, voltage distortion rather than to increase the number of the transistors to be connected in a Darlington fashion. Thus, it is desirable, in order to reduce both voltage and current distortion, to eliminate voltage distortion prior to eliminating current distortion.
One of the prior art techniques for reducing voltage and current distortion is the application of negative feedback. Negative feedback, however, has some deficiencies in its nature. There are limits to the degree of reduction of distortion such that the reduction degree charges in accordance with frequency, and in the limit at the gain crossing frequency or cut-off frequency there will be absolutely no improvement in distortion reduction. Moreover, since the feedback signal containing a distortion component passes throughout the feedback loop, irrespective of the location where distortion is originally generated, intermodulation distortion occurs between the signal to be amplified and the feedback signal. Again, in negative feedback, feedback signals have a comparable level to the signal to be amplified because the feedback signals contain not only a distortion component but also the signal to be amplified, so that the stability of the amplifier depends to a large extent on the transfer, i.e., frequency and phase, characteristics of the open gain of the amplifier. This results in a limited frequency band of negative feedback and a limited feedback amount, and hence there are limits to the distortion reduction effect. | {
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The invention relates to a damper for controlling the displacement of a movable member, and more specifically the invention relates to a surface effect damper that produces surface effect damping forces as the damper rod and damping elements are displaced through the damper housing.
Frequently it is desirable to accurately control the relative motion between a stationary member and a movable member. Overhead storage bins represent a structure that would benefit from such motion control between the stationary storage bin and the movable overhead door. In typical overhead storage bins, the doors are rotatable relative to the bin and open easily so that when the door is fully raised it may be stored above the storage bin until it is necessary to again close the door. When it is necessary to close the door, the door is removed from above the storage bin and is rotated downward to a vertical position in front of the bin. In order to allow the door to come to rest against the bin, it is hand released by the person closing the door and as a result, the door may close with a slam against the storage bin.
The foregoing illustrates limitations known to exist in present overhead storage bin doors. Thus, in order to overcome the specific shortcomings in present bin door closing set forth above, and also generally to overcome shortcomings in relative movement between stationary and movable members, it is apparent that it would be advantageous to provide a damper that provides controlled motion to the moveable member as the member is moved in a first direction relative to the stationary member and provides little or no damping when the movable member is moved in a second direction relative to the stationary member. Accordingly, a suitable alternative damper is provided including features more fully disclosed hereinafter.
The present invention is a surface effect damper that provides controlled motion between movable and stationary members. The surface effect damper of the present invention comprising a housing having a wall that defines a chamber, the housing having first and second ends and defining an axis. The surface effect damper further comprises at least one contact element movable through the chamber between the housing ends in a first direction and in a second direction; and at least two damping elements substantially surrounding each contact element, each of the at least two damping elements being movable away from the axis and into frictional engagement with the housing wall as the at least one contact element is moved in a first direction and each of the at least two damping elements being movable toward the axis as the at least one contact element is moved in a second direction. In the damper of the present invention the contact element is the driving member and the damping elements are the driven members.
In one embodiment of the surface effect damper of the present invention the damping elements comprise discrete inner members with a single resilient layer made integral along the outer periphery of each of the inner members. In an alternate embodiment surface effect damper of the present invention the resilient layer is comprised of a unitary member located between the housing and the inner members.
In another embodiment of the surface effect damper of the present invention the surface effect damper, the damper housing comprises a closed first housing end and spring means located in the housing chamber between the closed first end and the contact element. The spring means may be any suitable spring such as a metal coil spring for example.
The foregoing and other aspects will become apparent from the following detailed description of the invention when considered in conjunction with the accompanying drawing figures. | {
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The present invention relates to the potentiation of glutamate receptor function using certain sulfonamide derivatives. It also relates to novel sulfonamide derivatives, to processes for their preparation and to pharmaceutical compositions containing them.
In the mammalian central nervous system (CNS), the transmission of nerve impulses is controlled by the interaction between a neurotransmitter, that is released by a sending neuron, and a surface receptor on a receiving neuron, which causes excitation of this receiving neuron. L-Glutamate, which is the most abundant neurotransmitter in the CNS, mediates the major excitatory pathway in mammals, and is referred to as an excitatory amino acid (EAA). The receptors that respond to glutamate are called excitatory amino acid receptors (EAA receptors). See Watkins & Evans, Ann. Rev. Pharmacol. Toxicol., 21, 165 (1981); Monaghan, Bridges, and Cotman, Ann. Rev. Pharmacol. Toxicol., 29, 365 (1989); Watkins, Krogsgaard-Larsen, and Honore, Trans. Pharm. Sci., 11, 25 (1990). The excitatory amino acids are of great physiological importance, playing a role in a variety of physiological processes, such as long-term potentiation (learning and memory), the development of synaptic plasticity, motor control, respiration, cardiovascular regulation, and sensory perception.
Excitatory amino acid receptors are classified into two general types. Receptors that are directly coupled to the opening of cation channels in the cell membrane of the neurons are termed “ionotropic”. This type of receptor has been subdivided into at least three subtypes, which are defined by the depolarizing actions of the selective agonists N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA), alpha-amino-3-hydroxy-5-methylisoxazole-4-propionic acid (AMPA), and kainic acid (KA). The second general type of receptor is the G-protein or second messenger-linked “metabotropic” excitatory amino acid receptor. This second type is coupled to multiple second messenger systems that lead to enhanced phosphoinositide hydrolysis, activation of phospholipase D, increases or decreases in c-AMP formation, and changes in ion channel function. Schoepp and Conn, Trends in Pharmacol. Sci., 14, 13 (1993). Both types of receptors appear not only to mediate normal synaptic transmission along excitatory pathways, but also participate in the modification of synaptic connections during development and throughout life. Schoepp, Bockaert, and Sladeczek, Trends in Pharmacol. Sci., 11, 508 (1990); McDonald and Johnson, Brain Research Reviews, 15, 41 (1990).
AMPA receptors are assembled from four protein sub-units known as GluR1 to GluR4, while kainic acid receptors are assembled from the sub-units GluR5 to GluR7, and KA-1 and KA-2. Wong and Mayer, Molecular Pharmacology 44: 505-510, 1993. It is not yet known how these sub-units are combined in the natural state. However, the structures of certain human variants of each sub-unit have been elucidated, and cell lines expressing individual sub-unit variants have been cloned and incorporated into test systems designed to identify compounds which bind to or interact with them, and hence which may modulate their function. Thus, European patent application, publication number EP-A2-0574257 discloses the human sub-unit variants GluR1B, GluR2B, GluR3A and GluR3B. European patent application, publication number EP-A1-0583917 discloses the human sub-unit variant GluR4B.
One distinctive property of AMPA and kainic acid receptors is their rapid deactivation and desensitization to glutamate. Yamada and Tang, The Journal of Neuroscience, September 1993, 13(9): 3904-3915 and Kathryn M. Partin, J. Neuroscience, Nov. 1, 1996, 16(21): 6634-6647. The physiological implications of rapid desensitization, and deactivation if any, are not fully understood.
It is known that the rapid desensitization and deactivation of AMPA and/or kainic acid receptors to glutamate may be inhibited using certain compounds. This action of these compounds is often referred to in the alternative as “potentiation” of the receptors. One such compound, which selectively potentiates AMPA receptor function, is cyclothiazide. Partin et al., Neuron. Vol. 11, 1069-1082, 1993.
International Patent Application Publication Number WO 9625926 discloses a group of phenylthioalkylsulfonamides, S-oxides and homologs which are said to potentiate membrane currents induced by kainic acid and AMPA.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,143,549 discloses certain phenylalkylsulfamides, including 1-methyl-2-phenylethyl dimethylsulfamide. The compounds are said to have central nervous system activity, in particular anti-anxiety and tranquilizing properties.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,267,139 discloses certain N′-trimethylacetyl-N-phenylalkysulfamides and -phenylcyclopropylsulfamides having central nervous system activity and anticonvulsant activity. The compounds are also said to produce Parkinson-like symptoms in experimental animals.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,860,723 discloses a method of increasing feed intake of healthy animals using certain phenylalkylsulfamides.
Foye et al., J. Pharm. Sci. (1971), 60(7), 1095-6 discloses certain phenylalkyl methylsulfonamides including N-1-methyl-2-phenylethyl methanesulfonamide, having hypotensive activity.
British Patent Specification Number 1,059,360 discloses certain phenylalkylsulfamides having activity as sedatives, narcotics and anti-convulsants, including 1-(1-methyl-2-phenylethylaminosulphonyl)piperidine.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,210,749 discloses N-1-methyl-2-phenyl-3-methoxy ethyl butane-sulfonamide.
Gualtieri et al., J. Pharm. Sci., (1973), 62(5), 849-851 discloses N-1-methyl-2-phenylethyl butanesulfonamide and its evaluation as a mosquito repellent.
Foye et al., J. Pharm. Sci. (1979), 68(5), 591-5 discloses N-1-methyl-2-(4-chlorophenyl)ethyl methane-sulfonamide.
Foye and Sane, J. Pharm. Sci. (1977), 66(7), 923-6 discloses N-methanesulfonyl and N-trifluoromethanesulfonyl derivatives of amphetamines and certain 4-substituted analogs thereof, and their evaluation for central nervous system and anorexic effects.
European patent application publication no. EP-A1-0657442 discloses certain naphthyloxyacetic acid derivatives as PEG2 agonists and antagonists. N-(2,2-dephenylethyl)-methanesulfonamide is disclosed as an intermediate at page 53, line 38.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,629,332 discloses certain N-aryl- and N-heteroarylalkyl fluoroalkane sulfonamides as plant growth modifiers, including N-(alpha-methylphenylethyl) trifluoromethanesulfonamide, difluoromethanesulfonamide and fluoromethanesulfonamide. Some of the compounds are also said to have other biological activity, including insecticidal, acaricidal, nematicidal, analgesic and anti-inflammatory activity.
AMPA receptor potentiators have been shown to improve memory in a variety of animal tests. Staubli et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci., Vol. 91, pp 777-781, 1994, Neurobiology, and Arai et al., The Journal of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics, 278: 627-638, 1996.
In addition, certain sulfonamide derivatives which potentiate glutamate receptor function in a mammal have been disclosed in the following International Patent Application Publications: WO 98/33496 published Aug. 6, 1998; WO 99/43285 published Sep. 2, 1999; WO 00/06539; WO 00/06537, WO 00/06176, WO 00/06159, WO 00/06158, WO 00/06157, WO 00/06156, WO 00/06149, WO 00/06148, and WO 00/06083, all published Feb. 10, 2000; and WO 00/66546 published Nov. 9, 2000.
The present invention provides compounds of formula I: wherein R1 represents an unsubstituted or substituted aromatic group, or an unsubstituted or substituted heteroaromatic group; R2 represents (1-6C)alkyl, (3-6C)cycloalkyl, fluoro(1-6C)alkyl, chloro(1-6C)alkyl, (2-6C)alkenyl, phenyl which is unsubstituted or substituted by halogen, (1-4C)alkyl or (1-4C)alkoxy, or a group of formula R3R4N in which R3 and R4 each independently represents (1-4C)alkyl or, together with the nitrogen atom to which they are attached form an azetidinyl, pyrrolidinyl, piperidinyl, morpholino, piperazinyl, hexahydroazepinyl or octahydroazocinyl group; R5 represents hydrogen, (1-6C)alkyl; (2-6C)alkenyl; or aryl; and R6 represents hydrogen, (1-6C)alkyl; (2-6C)alkenyl; or aryl;or a pharmaceutically acceptable salt thereof.
The present invention further provides a method of potentiating glutamate receptor function in a patient, which comprises administering to said patient an effective amount of a compound of formula I.
The present invention provides a method of treating cognitive disorders in a patient, which comprises administering to said patient an effective amount of a compound of formula I.
The present invention provides a method of treating depression in a patient, which comprises administering to said patient an effective amount of a compound of formula I.
The present invention provides a method of treating Alzheimer's disease in a patient, which comprises administering to said patient an effective amount of a compound of formula I.
In addition, the present invention further provides a method of treating psychosis or cognitive deficits associated with psychosis in a patient, which comprises administering to said patient an effective amount of a compound of formula I.
According to another aspect, the present invention provides the use of a compound of formula I, or a pharmaceutically acceptable salt thereof for the manufacture of a medicament for potentiating glutamate receptor function.
In addition, the present invention provides the use of a compound of formula I or a pharmaceutically acceptable salt thereof for potentiating glutamate receptor function.
The invention further provides pharmaceutical compositions comprising, a compound of formula I and a pharmaceutically acceptable diluent or carrier.
This invention also encompasses novel intermediates, and processes for the synthesis of the compounds of formula I. | {
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Aerial vehicles such as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) can be used for performing surveillance, reconnaissance, and exploration tasks for military and civilian applications. Such aerial vehicles may carry a payload configured to perform a specific function, such as capturing images of surrounding environment.
In some instances, it may be desirable to obtain panoramic images based on aerial images captured by a UAV. Existing approaches for generating panoramic aerial images using a UAV typically require the UAV to execute a predetermined flight path as an onboard image capturing device captures multiple images of the surrounding environment. The captured images are then transmitted from the UAV to a ground station or other remote devices, where the images are then digitally “stitched” together to generate a panoramic image.
Such existing approaches suffer from several drawbacks. First, it may be difficult to control the UAV to execute a predetermined flight path. Existing technologies typically utilize sensors, such as gyroscopes or Global Positioning System (GPS) sensors, to assist in the flight control of a UAV. The precision or accuracy of such sensors may be affected by intrinsic and/or extrinsic factors. For example, gyroscopes or inertial sensors may be subject to zero drift and/or temperature drift. The margin of error for civilian-use GPS sensors may be at meter level. Such errors of sensors may cause the UAV to deviate from the predetermined flight path. Furthermore, manual remote control of the UAV by a user to achieve the predetermined flight path may become difficult when the UAV is far from the user, even if the user is an experienced UAV operator. The inability of the UAV to precisely execute the predetermined flight path may cause substantial shifts among the captured images, hence making it more difficult to stitch the images together in order to generate the panoramic image.
Second, it is typically difficult to stabilize an image capturing device during the panoramic imaging process using existing approaches. A large collection of images sometimes need to be taken in order to achieve the required spatial adjacency among images. Sometimes, the posture and/or position of the UAV that is used to carry the image capturing device may need to be adjusted frequently in order to stabilize the image capturing device. Furthermore, motions from the UAV (such as vibrations) or disturbances from other sources may cause unintended motions for the image capturing device during the panoramic imaging process, decreasing the quality of the captured images and increasing the complexity of the computation required for generating good-quality panoramic images.
Finally, aerial images captured by a UAV typically need to be transmitted back to a ground station or a remote device with more processing power where further processing such as image stitching is performed. The complexity of the image stitching process can be attributed to the fact that most of the aerial images are captured on a moving and unstabilized platform. As such, more software processing is required to deal with misalignment, distortions, and other complexities in the images captured in a less than ideal environment. However, offboard processing of the images not only increases the traffic on data communication channels between the UAV and remote devices but also introduces delays between the capture of the images and the generation of the panoramic images. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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This invention relates to oil seals, particularly shaft seals wherein the primary sealing lip element is an annular wafer shaped article which completely surrounds the shaft to be sealed and is in light engagement therewith at its inner annulus, or seal lip as it is commonly referred to.
Typically the aforesaid primary sealing lip element is part of a metal cased assembly which is press fitted into a shaped housing bore. The entire metal cased seal assembly ordinarily comprises a cup shaped metal case having an outer cylindrical portion adapted for press fitted engagement with the bore of the housing and a radical flange extending radially inward from one end thereof, a seal element, a gasket between the seal element and radial flange of the cup shaped metal case, and a second metal case having a radial portion backing up the seal element axially inward of the first metal case radial flange. The two metal cases are crimped or otherwise tightly secured to one another in such manner that the seal element is likewise secured between the radial flanges of the two metal case member.
Typical of seals of this construction is that shown in copending patent application Ser. No. 426,373, filed Dec. 19, 1973, now U.S. Pat. No. 3,857,156, and assigned to the assignee of this invention.
The latest development in this type of seal includes making the primary sealing element of polytetrafluoroethylene or the like and incorporating therein unidirectional and bidirectional hydrodynamic oil feedback features which prevent oil from leaking past the lip portion of the sealing element. For example, a spiral groove or flute located on the air side of the sealing element in the area of the lip portion will prevent oil leakage in one direction of shaft rotation such as shown in the aforesaid pending patent application. Similarly, bidirectional hydrodynamic features can be provided with sealing element configurations such as shown in copending patent application Ser. No. 541,926, filed Jan. 17, 1975, now U.S. Pat. No. 3,984,113 and assigned to the assignee of this invention.
These seals work well for the intended purpose but assembly includes a great number of separate fabrication operations. Further, the design of such seals does not lend itself to adaptation for a dual lip seal and consequently their use is limited. Also, applicants desired a design which would reduce the raw material requirements so as to minimize as much as possible the current problems of availability and cost. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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Rebeccamycin (FIG. 1, A) is a natural product of Saccharothrix aerocolonigenes ATCC39243, a Gram-positive bacterium of the actinomycetes group (Bush et al. J. Antibiot. 40: 668-678, 1987). Actinomycetes are natural soil inhabitants with great industrial and biotechnological interest, especially the Streptomyces genus, because they are the source of many known bioactive compounds. Many of these compounds have pharmaceutical application due to their antitumor, antibacterial, antifungal, antiparasitic, or immunosupressor activity. Rebeccamycin shows antibacterial activity against Gram-positive bacteria such as Staphylococcus aureus, Micrococcus luteus and Streptococcus faecalis (Bush et al. J. Antibiot. 40: 668-678, 1987). However, its major significance resides in its antitumor activity, demonstrated in vivo against several tumors implanted in mice, and in vitro against several tumor cell lines (Bush et al. J. Antibiot. 40: 668-678, 1987). There are currently two rebeccamycin derivatives in clinical trials for their future use as antineoplasic agents (NB-506, NSC655649).
Because of its chemical structure, rebeccamycin belongs to the indolocarbazole family of natural products. Since their discovery in 1977, more than 60 indolocarbazole natural products have been described, which can be classified in three groups containing either an indolo[2,3-a]pyrrolo[3,4-c]carbazole core (e.g. rebeccamycin), an indolo[2,3-a]carbazole core (e.g. tjipanazoles), or a bis-indolylmaleimide core (e.g. arcyriarubin). Due to their novel structures and the wide variety of activities displayed (antimicrobial, antifungal, immunosupressor, antitumor, etc.), this group of alkaloids has attracted great interest. In particular, indolopyrrolocarbazoles constitute a new class of antitumor agents, which can be further classified in two subgroups according to their mechanism of action. One subgroup consists of protein kinase inhibitors (especially protein kinase C inhibitors), and includes staurosporine (FIG. 1, B) and analogs. The second subgroup consists of DNA-damaging agents acting on topoisomerase I or II, but not on protein kinases, and includes rebeccamycin (FIG. 1, A) and analogs. Several indolocarbazoles have already entered clinical trials in the USA, Japan and Europe, including protein kinase inhibitors (UCN-01, CGP41251, CEP-751) and DNA-damaging agents (NB-506, NSC655649) (Akinaga et al. Anti-Cancer Drug Design 15: 43-52, 2000).
Nowadays there is a great need for new antitumor agents, with improved activity, lower undesirable secondary effects, and greater selectivity, as compared to drugs currently in use. Traditionally, pharmaceutical companies have developed new drugs by using two major approaches: (1) screening for new natural products, and (2) chemical synthesis and/or modification of specific compounds. These methods are still useful, but they usually need very important inputs of resources (time, money, energy), because analysis of thousands of products is generally required to find a new promising compound. Development of the genetic engineering of microorganisms has set the stage for generation of new bioactive compounds through manipulation of genes involved in biosynthesis of antitumor agents, mainly from actinomycetes. These techniques can also be used to improve present production levels of known natural drugs, as wild type strains usually yield low concentrations of the desired metabolite.
The chemical structures of most indolocarbazole natural products consist of two components: the indolocarbazole aglycon, and one or more sugar moieties. The indolocarbazole aglycon is biosynthesized from two tryptophan molecules, at least in the case of indolopyrrolocarbazoles. The sugar moiety present in rebeccamycin is a 4-O-methyl-β-D-glucose (FIG. 1, A). In the case of staurosporine, the sugar is an L-rhamnose derivative (FIG. 1, B). Recently, some genes involved in biosynthesis of the sugar moieties for the two mentioned indolocarbazoles have been reported:
(1) A chromosomal region of Streptomyces longisporoflavus DSM10189 involved in biosynthesis of the staurosporine sugar. This DNA region was able to complement a mutation impairing biosynthesis of the sugar moiety. There are not any reported evidences for the involvement of the mentioned DNA region in biosynthesis of the indolocarbazole aglycon (U.S. Pat. No. 6,210,935).
(2) A gene, called ngt, that codes for the rebeccamycin N-glucosyltransferase of Saccharothrix aerocolonigenes ATCC39243, responsible for sugar transfer to the indolocarbazole aglycon (Ohuchi et al. J. Antibiot. 53: 393-403, 2000). There are not any reported evidences for the involvement of the identified DNA region in the biosynthesis of the indolocarbazole aglycon. The DNA sequence of the ngt gene has previously been used for bioconversion of indolocarbazole aglycons to D-glucosilated derivatives. The procedure consisted of adding a particular indolocarbazole aglycon (either chemically synthesized or isolated from a producer strain) to the culture broth of a Streptomyces lividans strain harboring a plasmid containing the ngt gene, and isolating the glucosylated product from the culture (Ohuchi et al. J. Antibiot. 53: 393-403, 2000).
With the mentioned exception of the ngt gene (Ohuchi et al. J. Antibiot. 53: 393-403, 2000), there are not any previously reported descriptions of the nucleotide sequence which the present invention refers to. Moreover, there are not any previously reported descriptions of nucleotide sequences involved in biosynthesis of an indolocarbazole aglycon.
It was also known in the prior art (EP 0769555 A1) a gene encoding glycosyltransferase activity derived from Saccharothrix aerocolonigenes ATCC39243 strain, recombinant vectors having that gene, host cells transformed with such a vector, a process for preparing glycosyltransferase by culturing such a transformed host cell and a process for preparing glycosylated indolopyrrolocarbazole derivatives by culturing such a transformed host cell and using indolopyrrolocarbazole derivatives as starting compounds. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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This invention relates to a light-sensitive silver halide color photographic material containing a novel cyan coupler.
By carrying out color developing processing of a light-sensitive silver halide color photographic material after giving exposure thereto, an aromatic primary amine developing agent reacts with a dye forming coupler (hereinafter merely called "coupler") to form a color image. In this method, color reproduction according to the subtractive color photography is effected, whereby yellow, magenta and cyan color images in complementary color relationships with blue, green and red, respectively, are formed.
As the cyan coupler, generally phenols or naphthols have been widely used, but the cyan coupler selected from phenols and naphthols of the prior art had some problems to be solved. For example, the color images obtained from 2,5-diacylaminophenol type cyan couplers as described in U.S. Pat. No. 2,367,531, No. 2,369,929, No. 2,423,730, No. 2,801,171, etc. are generally inferior in heat fastness, while the acylaminophenol type cyan couplers as described in U.S. Pat. No. 2,772,162, No. 2,895,826, etc. had the drawback that the light fastness of the color image obtained was generally bad. Also, 1-hydroxy-2-naphthoamide type cyan couplers are also insufficient in both light and heat (particularly humid heat) fastness. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
Data storage systems are used to store information provided by one or more host computer systems to a storage server. Such storage servers receive requests to write information to one or more data storage devices, and requests to retrieve information from those one or more data storage devices.
Applications resident on one or more of the host computers, and/or applications resident on a storage server facilitate the flow of data to and from the storage server, and to and from a plurality of data storage devices. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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Plants must adapt themselves to various stresses, for example, drought, salt in the soil, and low temperature because they can not move freely. Among these stresses, drought is thought to effect plant growth the most severely. In order to survive in drought condition, some plants have acquired a physiologically and/or morphologically specific trait in the evolutional process while many other plants also confer a mechanism to response to the drought stress and defend themselves. These responses to a shortage of water and adaptation to drought environment in plants are caused by various physiological changes including the alternation of gene expression at drought (Shinozaki, K and Yamaguchi-Shinozaki, K., Plant Physiol., 115: 327–334, 1997; Shinozaki, K. and Yamaguchi-Shinozaki, K., “Molecular responses to drought stress.” In Shinozaki and Yamaguchi-Shinozaki (eds), “Molecular responses to cold, drought, heat and salt stress in higher plants,” R. G. LANDES company, Austin, Tex., USA, pp. 11–28, 1999). For example, in Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana), it is known that a drought signal is transmitted through an abscisic acid (ABA) dependent pathway and ABA independent pathway to control the gene expression involved in drought tolerance. These gene products are thought to have a function in controlling, for example, accumulation of osmoprotectants such as sucrose and proline, half life of proteins, stress signal transduction pathway, and transcription (Bray, E. A., Trends in Plant Science, 2: 48–54, 1997; Bohnert, H. J. et al., Plant Cell, 7: 1099–1111, 1995; Ingram, J. and Bartels, D., Annu. Rev. Plant Physiol. Plant Mol. Biol., 47: 377–403, 1996; Shinozaki, K. and Yamaguchi-Shinozaki, K., Plant Physiol., 115: 327–334, 1997; Shinozaki, K. and Yamaguchi-Shinozaki, K., “Molecular responses to drought stress.” In Shinozaki and Yamaguchi-Shinozaki (eds), “Molecular responses to cold, drought, heat and salt stress in higher plants,” R. G. LANDES company, Austin, Tex., USA, pp. 11–28, 1999).
C40 pathway has been proposed as a biosynthetic pathway of ABA in higher plants. The C40 pathway, also called a carotenoid pathway, is a synthetic pathway through epoxydation of zeaxanthin, synthesizing violaxanthin, neoxanthin, xanthoxin, ABA aldehyde, and then ABA (Zeevaart, J. A. D. and Creelman R. A., Ann. Rev. Plant Physiol. Plant Mol. Biol., 39: 439–473, 1988). This biosynthetic pathway has been proposed from physiological studies and analyses of ABA biosynthetic variants. For example, variant aba2 isolated from tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum) has a mutation in a gene (aba2) of zeaxanthin epoxidase enzyme which catalyzes the epoxidation of zeaxanthin (Marin E. et al., EMBO J., 15:2331–2342, 1996). Variant vp14 isolated from maize has a mutation in a gene (VP14) of neoxanthin cleavage enzyme which catalyzes the conversion from a neoxanthin to xanthoxin (Tan, B. C. et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 94: 12235–12240, 1997). From Arabidopsis plants, variant aba3 having a mutation in an enzyme which catalyzes a reaction from xanthoxin to ABA aldehyde, and variant aba4 involved in the reaction for oxidizing ABA aldehyde to produce ABA have been isolated (Schwartz, S. H. et al., Plant Physiol., 114: 161–166, 1997; Leon-Kloosterziel, K. M. et al., Plant J., 10: 655–661, 1996).
A maize having a mutation in a neoxanthin cleavage enzyme gene (VP14) is known to show a trait of easily loosing water and easily wilting. It has not been known yet, however, whether stress tolerance in plants can be improved or not using the neoxanthin cleavage enzyme gene. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
In my U.S. Pat. No. 4,479,056 issued Oct. 23, 1984 and based upon a German patent document - open application DE-OS No. 31 19 720, I have described a motion detector for space surveillance which comprises a concave mirror forming an optical system for focusing infrared radiation collected from the viewing fields of horizontal and vertical planes in the space under surveillance onto an infrared sensor or detector, the sensor or detector being provided at one end of a connecting element in which the rays of radiation are multiply reflected enroute to the mirror and from the mirror to the sensor.
In this construction, a window is provided in one wall of the connecting element or box, at one end of which the concave mirror is mounted and at the other end of which the radiation sensor is provided.
With this system, utilizing a spherically concave mirror, it is possible to increase the activation reliability of the alarm utilizing the motion detector because a number of viewing fields can be monitored as a result of the fact that the foci of the radiation from the various fields lie along the detector axes which are inclined to the optical axes of the optics formed by the mirror as a result in part of the reflection upon the inner surfaces of the boxlike structure.
With this technique, while a number of viewing fields in the vertical plane can be monitored with a comparatively small unit, azimuthal range is somewhat limited because at distances of say 200 m from the box, the spacing of the fields to which the device can respond becomes sufficient to allow for entry of an intrusion and the presence or movement of an intruder without interruption or detection by one of the viewing fields.
In many applications, moreover, the reliability is not satisfactory because of the comparatively small number of horizontal viewing fields.
In that arrangement, moreover, the walls of the box serving for internal reflection, generally converge toward the end of the box provided with the sensors. This has been found to be a disadvantage in some cases because of the comparatively high cost of fabrication of the device.
Naturally one can enlarge the window of the box and/or increase the length and/or number of sensors and thereby increase the number of viewing fields in both planes. This does not increase reliability necessarily and represents a comparatively expensive and even impractical solution to the problem since it almost invariably is associated with an increase in size of the motion detector and hence the ability of an intruder to discover it and, by blocking the detector, avoid the monitoring action. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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In the process of video scan conversion, data sampling rate (Nyquist) problems are presented in many different ways. One of the most visually objectionable problems presented by the sampling rate is that of field flicker. Field flicker occurs, for example, when a progressively scanned image is converted into an interlaced scan image. When progressive-to-interlace scan conversion occurs within an NTSC television system, the flicker occurs at the 30 Hz frame rate. When progressive-to-interlace scan conversion occurs within a PAL television system, the flicker rate is 25 Hz.
One prior approach to flicker reduction has been to provide vertical low pass filtering of the scan converted video stream. While vertical low pass filtering is effective to remove the flicker artifacts from the displayed picture image, the tradeoff has been significant, perceptible loss of vertical resolution in the resultant picture display.
The present inventor has proposed a solution to the problem of flicker reduction in single bit computer graphics systems in which light transitions are between black and white, i.e. wherein there is no gray scale range. That solution is to be found in copending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 07/445,369, filed on Dec. 4, 1989, and entitled "Scan Converter with Adaptive Vertical Filter for Single Bit Computer Graphics Systems", the disclosure of which is hereby incorporated herein by reference.
Heretofore, there has been no satisfactory method to remove flicker artifacts from a scan converted television image signal stream without constantly degrading the vertical resolution. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
Obtaining a correct bra size is often difficult for a majority of women whose breasts are asymmetrical to some degree. Generally, it is recommended that women should wear a bra fitted to the larger breast and use padding for the smaller or shorten breast to avoid gapping. This method can be useful to overcome slight differences in the breasts. However, this is not a practicable solution for women who display a persistent and visible breast asymmetry that is defined as differing in size by at least one cup size. In order to overcome this problem, some bras are made with different cup sizes, where the first cup may be larger or smaller in size compared to the second cup. However, different cup sized bras still are not able to fully solve this problem as they only correspond with the industry standard measurements. In other words, these bras do not provide a customized fitting for the user. Additionally, women with large breasts also have difficulties finding the correct bra that fits. These problems in relation to the garment industry create a need for a measurement system so that the correct fitting for a bra can be created with individual customization.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a bra measurement system that allows an individual to measure any imperfection related to breasts. More specifically, the present invention is an undergarment and utilizes a plurality of zippers that is placed adjacent to the breasts and the ribcage so that the correct measurements can be taken with respect to the breasts of the wearer. Then the measurements are used to create a customized bra for the respective individual. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
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Within government, industry, and the like, cross domain collaboration has always been difficult to manage and implement due to varying security clearances, desire to limit insider knowledge on a need to know basis, and the like. As such, a set of rules and procedures have been developed implementing such collaboration through physical means. Cross domain collaboration may generally be defined as the sharing of information across different companies, organizations, governmental agencies, and the like. Specifically, current methodologies utilize paper-based rules that may include security levels (e.g. classified, top secret, unclassified, etc.) with various content at differing levels and redacting associated content above a user's security level. Unfortunately, this process is labor-intensive and slow as information must be manually sorted and parsed across the various domains.
Online applications are proliferating as the Internet evolves. For instance, various collaborative applications are now widely used enabling large numbers of users from anywhere to work on a project, meeting, and the like. For example, exemplary collaboration types include Microsoft Sharepoint (available from Microsoft Corp.), LiveMeeting (available from Microsoft Corp.), wiki technologies such as wikipedia.org, gotomeeting.com (available from Citrix Online LLC), and the like. This online collaboration allows users to instantly share documents, calendars, notes, video, audio, etc. from anywhere. Advantageously, online collaboration provides productivity improvements, organizational synergy, and the like. Unfortunately, there are problems associated with existing collaboration techniques such as identity verification, security, privacy, proof of delivery, spam, viruses, and other harmful malware. Also, existing collaboration techniques use the “very public and very vulnerable” Internet as their worldwide network. The challenge is how to collaborate with users and determine the legitimacy or know the true intentions of the users in the world of the “Unvetted Public Internet”.
With respect to cross domain collaboration, there exists a need to implement the current methodologies effectively and efficiently electronically. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to methods and compositions for treating subterranean formations. More particularly it relates to methods and compositions for treating a subterranean formation penetrated by a wellbore utilizing a crosslinked gel and thereafter reducing the viscosity of the crosslinked gels in the presence of phenolic resin-coated proppants.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In the completion and operation of oil, gas and water wells and similar boreholes, it frequently is desirable to alter the producing characteristics of the formation by utilizing various treating fluids. Many such treating fluids contain gelled or viscosified fluids and or solid particles, commonly referred to as "proppants." These gelled fluids further include linear gels and crosslinked gels.
Examples of subterranean treatments employing gelled fluids in combination with proppants include hydraulic fracturing and sand control treatments. In the case of hydraulic fracturing, proppants, suspended in the gelled fluid, are pumped downhole under pressure sufficient to fracture the target formation. The proppants, carried by the fluid, are positioned between the parted faces of the formation. In this way, when the pressure against the formation is relaxed, the proppants maintain the fracture in an open or propped condition.
In the case of sand control, particulate materials may be placed in the well to prevent the influx or incursion of formation sand or fine particles. In other instances, the gelled fluid, without particulate, may be used for example as a "pad" or other precursor treatment to contacting the formation with the gel/proppant system.
Upon completion of the treatment, it is generally desirable to remove the gelled treating fluid from the formation of the well. To effectively remove the fluid, the viscosity of the fluid is reduced. The reduction of the gelled-fluid viscosity is referred to as "breaking" the gel. The agent responsible for breaking the gel is referred to as a "breaker" or "gel breaker."
Polysaccharide polymers are well known gelling or viscosifying agents useful in treating subterranean formations. Suitable polysaccharide polymers include cellulose derivatives and glactomannan gums. Crosslinking agents, such as for example boron, titanium zirconium, and aluminum, when added to a quantity of hydrated polysaccharide polymer generally increase the viscosity thereof.
Particulate materials suitable for use in gelled fluids may be selected from both organic and inorganic materials. Common organic materials include for example, wood chips, nut shells, crushed coke, and coal. Inorganic materials include for example crushed rock, sand, spherical pellets of glass, sintered bauxite and various synthetic ceramics.
In some instances, the particulate material may be coated with natural or synthetic film-forming materials. The coating on the surface of the particulate assists in controlling fragmentation and dispersion of particulate fragments. Particulate fragmentation can result from closure pressures exerted by the formation on the particulate. Controlling the migration of these fragments enhances formation conductivity by preventing free fragments from plugging formation flow passages.
In addition to the above mentioned improvements achieved by coated particulates, coating with a curable material also reduces particulate flow-back and improves overall bed strength. The uncured resin coated particulate, upon exposure to curing conditions, such as a curing agent or elevated temperatures, forms a cured consolidated matrix.
Traditional gel breakers include enzymes and oxidizing breakers. Examples of such oxidizing breakers include ammonium, sodium or potassium persulfate; sodium peroxide; sodium chlorite; sodium lithium or calcium hypochlorite; chlorinated lime; potassium perphosphate; sodium perborate; magnesium monoperoxyphthalate hexahydrate; and several organic chlorine derivatives and/or salts thereof.
At formation temperatures of between about 75.degree. F. to about 120.degree. F. and pH range of generally between about 4 to 9, enzyme breakers are suitable. At formation temperatures above about 140.degree. F. enzyme breakers are inadequate and oxidizing breakers are required. Generally, depending upon the temperature of the gelled carrier fluid, between about 0.5 and 5.0 pounds of oxidizing breaker, such as a persulfate breaker, per 1000 gallon of aqueous gel is sufficient to break the carrier fluid in a non-resin coated proppant/aqueous gelled carrier fluid system.
Curable adhesive proppant coatings, such as phenolic and furan resins, in an uncured state, exhibit some compatibility with aqueous gel carrier fluids and enzyme gel breakers. However, when the pH and temperature of the gelled carrier fluid preclude the use of enzyme breakers, it is not uncommon to employ exceedingly high concentrations of oxidizing breakers to reduce the viscosity of these carrier fluids when such carrier fluids are in contact with uncured resins. Generally, the concentration of oxidizing breaker required in an uncured resin/aqueous gel system can be as high as 4 to 40 times the amount required for non-resin or cured resin/aqueous gel systems.
Solutions to the oxidizing breaker problem presented by the uncured resin-aqueous gel system have been as straight forward as adding increased amounts of oxidizing breaker to as complex as encapsulating the oxidizing breaker. The first alternative can result in uncontrolled breaks or limited breaking. Uncontrolled breaking can result in a "sand out" of the proppant prior to optimal placement in the target formation. Limited gelled fluid breaking can reduce formation conductivity by leaving unbroken gel in the formation and the proppant bed.
Breaker encapsulation, while somewhat more successful than the former method, in many instances also requires the addition of excessive quantities of oxidizing breaker. In addition, the process of encapsulation increase the cost of the breaker and may result in uneven distribution of the breaker in the curing proppant matrix or proppant pack. Thus there exist the need for improved gel breaker systems, and particularly gel breakers systems capable of predictably reducing the viscosity of the gelled fluid when such gelled fluid is admixed with an uncured or curing resin. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
Carbon dioxide, hydrogen sulfide, and various hydrocarbons, such as methane, ethane, propane, normal butane and isobutane, are present in natural gas and other petroleum fluids. However, water is typically found mixed in varying amounts with such petroleum fluid constituents. Under conditions of elevated pressure and reduced temperature clathrate hydrates can form when such petroleum fluid constituents or other hydrate formers are mixed with water. Clathrate hydrates are water crystals which form a cage-like structure around guest molecules such as hydrate forming hydrocarbons or gases. Some hydrate forming hydrocarbons include, but are not limited to, methane, ethane, propane, isobutane, butane, neopentane, ethylene, propylene, isobutylene, cyclopropane, cyclobutane, cyclopentane, cyclohexane, and benzene. Some hydrate forming gases include, but are not limited to, oxygen, nitrogen, hydrogen sulfide, carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide, and chlorine.
Gas hydrate crystals or gas hydrates are a class of clathrate hydrates of particular interest to the petroleum industry because of the pipeline blockages that they can produce during the production and/or transport of the natural gas and other petroleum fluids. For example, at a pressure of about 1 MPa ethane can form gas hydrates at temperatures below 4.degree. C., and at a pressure of 3 MPa ethane can form gas hydrates at temperatures below 14.degree. C. Such temperatures and pressures are not uncommon for many operating environments where natural gas and other petroleum fluids are produced and transported.
As gas hydrates agglomerate they can produce hydrate blockages in the pipe or conduit used to produce and/or transport natural gas or other petroleum fluid. The formation of such hydrate blockages can lead to a shutdown in production and thus substantial financial losses. Furthermore, restarting a shutdown facility, particularly an offshore production or transport facility, can be difficult because significant amounts of time, energy, and materials, as well as various engineering adjustments, are often required to safely remove the hydrate blockage.
A variety of measures have been used by the oil and gas industry to prevent the formation of hydrate blockages in oil or gas streams. Such measures include maintaining the temperature and/or pressure outside hydrate formation conditions and introducing an antifreeze such as methanol, ethanol, propanol, or ethylene glycol. From an engineering standpoint, maintaining temperature and/or pressure outside hydrate formation conditions requires design and equipment modifications, such as insulated or jacketed piping. Such modifications are costly to implement and maintain. The amount of antifreeze required to prevent hydrate blockages is typically between 10% to 30% by weight of the water present in the oil or gas stream. Consequently, several thousand gallons per day of such solvents can be required. Such quantities present handling, storage, recovery, and potential toxicity issues to deal with. Moreover, these solvents are difficult to completely recover from the production or transportation stream.
Consequently, there is a need for a gas hydrate inhibitor that can be conveniently mixed at low concentrations in the produced or transported petroleum fluids. Such an inhibitor should reduce the rate of nucleation, growth, and/or agglomeration of gas hydrate crystals in a petroleum fluid stream and thereby inhibit the formation of a hydrate blockage in the pipe conveying the petroleum fluid stream.
One method of practicing the present invention uses gas hydrate inhibitors which can be used in the concentration range of about 0.01% to about 5% by weight of the water present in the oil or gas stream. As discussed more fully below, the inhibitors of this invention can effectively treat a petroleum fluid having a water phase. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
A widely used acoustic muffler design for motor vehicle exhaust gas systems has a retroverted gas flow path in which gas flows to the downstream end of the muffler, reverses itself to flow to the upsteam end of the muffler, and reverses itself again to flow back to the downstream end and out of the muffler. In some of the mufflers of this type means are provided to guide and direct the flow reversal at the downstream and/or upstream end of the muffler. Curved surfaces formed in one or both of the end headers of the muffler have been used, for example, to provide such means as shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,381,045, issued Apr. 26, 1983. Turn-around cups mounted on internal partitions to connect the outlet end of one gas conduit to the inlet end of another have also been used to provide such means as shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,182,945 issued Dec. 12, 1939, and 2,934,161, issued Apr. 26, 1960. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
1. Field of the Invention
A vacuum powered automatic swimming pool sweep for cleaning the bottom of a swimming pool.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Typically swimming pool cleaning has been done manually. This has been accomplished by manipulating a vacuum head supported on a pole extended down into the swimming pool. Efforts have been made to automate the vacuum cleaning. One such device merely agitates the water sufficiently to place the dirt in suspension to be drawn through the pool filter. Unfortunately this does little more than disperse the dirt throughout the swimming pool water where it becomes an irritant to the swimmer. Other prior devices have included relatively complex switching arrangements to reverse the movement of the cleaning device on the pool floor requiring precise directional setting while being inoperative in pools of irregular contour.
The principal effort in cleaning a swimming pool consists of removing the sedimentary material which accumulates at the bottom of the pool. Thus, various suction-type cleaning devices have been developed. Some such devices are electricallydriven reversible cleaners. The vacuum-cleaner operates by suction and filtration of the water to clean the bottom of the pool.
German Utility Model No. 7,140,569 describes a device for vacuuming the bottom of swimming pools which comprises a double-slotted water suction nozzle and an undercarriage. The undercarriage is driven through turbine. The power required for both suction of the sediment and for propelling the device is supplied by the suction flow. The device further comprises a steering rod which is displaceable in the direction of travel and projects out beyond either the one or the other of the device. Whenever the device moves up toward a wall, the steering rod strikes the wall first and is thereby moved into its other position. This actuates the changeover gear, so that the device then travels on in opposite direction.
Other examples of prior art are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,979,788; 3,229,315; 3,439,368; 3,972,339; 4,100,641. | {
"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"
} |
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