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the clamp arrangement serves to secure a computer module in parallel spaced relationship with other such modules in a box . opposite edges of the modules fit into slots defined by opposed surfaces of opposite walls of the box which serve as cold walls to carry away heat from the modules . referring to the drawings , each module comprises a board 11 , first and second multiplicities of electronic components ( not illustrated ) carried by the board 11 at major surfaces 13a , 13b , respectively , thereof , and two housing 15a , 15b which with the board 11 respectively cover and protect the said multiplicities of components against environmental contamination . the board 11 has on one 13a of its major surfaces a heat conductive pattern , or heat ladder ( not shown ), for conducting heat away from electronic components to two major heat conductive segment of the pattern , being segments extending transversely of the associated major board surface 13a at opposite marginal board portions 17 . a clamp mechanism 19 is mounted connected to each marginal board portion 17 on the side of the board opposite to the aforesaid heat conductive segment . each clamp mechanism 19 is an assembly which comprises : an elongate element 21 composed of strip material such for example as spring steel possessing a high modulus of elasticity and having , transverse to its direction of length x -- x , corrugations 23 the crests of which are spaced apart by a certain pitch distance d ; and actuation means 25 having a rigid elongate main body part 27 and first and second sets , 29a , 29b , respectively , of rolling elements 31a , 31b , carried thereby . the rolling elements 31a , 31b , are distributed along the body part 27 and are respectively rotatable about individual axes , such as y -- y , extending transversely to the direction of length of the body part 27 , the rolling elements of each set being spaced apart along the body part 27 by the aforesaid pitch distance d . as shown , the body part 27 has a multiplicity of apertures 33 , ( six in the example ) therethrough at intervals spaced apart by the pitch distance d , and each pair of rolling elements 31a and 31b , is located at a respective one of the apertures 33 . the rolling elements 31a of the first set 29a project proud of one surface 35a , of the body part 27 and the elements 31b of the second set 29b project proud of the opposite surface 35b of the body part 27 . the several transverse axes y -- y are fixed with respect to the body part 27 , the rolling elements being provided with axially projecting first and second spigot portions 37a , 37b , respectively received within first and second passages 39a , 39b , piercing opposite side walls 41a , 41b , respectively , of the body part 27 at the sites of the apertures 33 . the body part 27 and the corrugated element 21 are coupled together so as to permit relative longitudinal movement , i . e . movement in the direction x -- x therebetween , within certain limits . for this purpose there is a pin and slot connection 43 between the coupled parts 21 , 27 , the part 27 being formed towards one end 45 with a slot 47 and the element 21 being provided with a two - part pin 49 , one part 51 of which has a head 53 of diameter greater than the width of the slot 47 and the other part 55 of which is a stud extending through an aperture formed through the element 21 at one end 57 and having a threaded or other connection with the part 51 . the marginal board portion 17 has an aperture 59 therethrough formed with an intermediate internal shoulder 61 , the head 63 of the stud 55 bearing against the internal shoulder 61 , and the lower surface of the part 51 bearing against the corrugated element 21 at the position of the aforesaid aperture 59 . the end 65 of the element 21 remote from the pin 49 is upset and the board 11 has an aperture 67 which receives the upset end 65 of the element 21 and , in so receiving , locates the element 21 against unwanted movement whilst accommodating sliding movement of the upset part 65 in the direction x -- x . the board 11 has formed at a corner thereof a nose portion 69 having an aperture 71 and adjacent to the nose portion a recess 73 . a lever 75 has towards one end thereof a dorsal flange portion 77 and a lever hinge pin 79 projecting laterally from the said flange portion 77 is received within the nose portion aperture 71 so as to permit pivotal movement of the lever 75 about the hinge axis defined by the pin 79 . the lever 75 is pivotally connected near an end 81 thereof to the body part 27 . a hinge pin 83 extends from an aperture 85 in the dorsal flange portion 77 of the lever 75 adjacent the end 81 thereof through an aperture through the body part 27 adjacent to the end 87 thereof . the dorsal flange portion 77 has , projecting from the side thereof opposite to the side adjacent to the position of connection between the body part 27 and the said lever portion 77 , a spigot 89 projecting laterally of the flange portion 77 at a position eccentric with respect to the axis of the hinge pin 83 . the board 11 ( with electronic components mounted thereon under the covers 15a , 15b ) and the clamp mechanism 19 are shown received with the lower marginal board portion 17 carrying a transversely extensive major heat conductive segment between two opposed flat and parallel surfaces as 91a , 91b , respectively , being surfaces of an adjacent cold wall 93 to which component heat is to be transferred from the said major heat conductive segment . an outer wall surface 91c of the cold wall 93 between surfaces 91a , 91b is provided with a transversely extensive recess 95 semi - cylindrical in shape save for a lead - in portion 97 ( fig9 ). to enable the board 11 and mechanism 19 to be received within the channel defined by the opposed cold wall surfaces 91a , 91b , the lever 75 must be away from the full line , depressed position illustrated , and in the lever position represented in broken line . with the lever 75 at the latter position the clamp mechanism is in the unexpanded state , the rollers 31b being displaced from the crests of the corrugations 23 of the element 21 . the lever end 81 is , as a result of lever displacement about the axis of pin 79 , inwardly displaced from the position illustrated , movement at the pin and slot connection 47 , 53 , of the rigid body part 27 permitting such lever displacement . with the board 11 and clamp mechanism 19 fully inserted between the wall surfaces 91a , 91b , a connector half 99 carried by the board 11 of the component module mates with a complementary connector half carried by a back plane ( not shown ). with the connector halves so mated counter - clockwise rotation of the lever 75 about the hinge pin 79 causes withdrawal of the body part 27 and the rollers 31b in the set 29 to roll in contact with the corrugations 23 of the element 21 until , with such withdrawal limited by contact between the pin 43 and the inner end of the slot 47 , the rollers 31b and the crests of the corrugations 23 are in contact . in the course of such action , the assembly expands , laterally , such expansion being limited by the spacing between the cold wall surfaces 91a , 91b . further withdrawal of the body part 27 results in a certain flattening compression ( as illustrated ) of the element 21 . with the rolling elements 31b respectively at the crests of the corrugations 23 and with the flattening of the element 21 therefore at a maximum , a high frictional resistance exists between the board 11 and the adjacent cold wall surface 91a substantially preventing movement of the board at the connection , and the rolling elements 31a , bear on the other cold wall surface 91b . with the lever in the ( full line ) depressed position the spigot 89 locates in the semi - cylindrical recess 95 in the adjacent outer surface 91c of the adjacent cold wall 93 . the spigot 89 so located provides a positive retention for the board 11 against withdrawal . to prevent accidental rotation of the lever 75 from the depressed position an integral catch portion 101 at the board edge is , during rotation to the depressed position , resiliently deflected by contact between an edge of an aperture 103 in the lever 75 and an inclined upper surface of a catch head 105 . in the final depressive movement of the lever 75 , the catch head 105 penetrates the aperture 103 to spring back to the undeflected state . in the latter state the catch head 105 constitutes a bar to rotation of the lever 75 away from the depressed position , manual deflection of the catch head 105 being required to free the lever 75 for such travel . | 7 |
concrete examples of the alkyl group as r in the formula ( i ) of the present invention are linear chain alkyl groups such as methyl , ethyl , propyl , butyl , pentyl , hexyl , heptyl , octyl , nonyl and decyl , and branched chain alkyl groups such as isopropyl , 1 - methylpropyl , 2 - methylpropyl , 1 - methylbutyl , 2 - methylbutyl , 3 - methylbutyl , 1 - methylpentyl , 1 - ethylpentyl , 2 - methylpentyl , 1 - methylhexyl , 2 - ethylhexyl , 1 - methylheptyl , etc . concrete examples of alkyloxy group as r are methoxy , ethoxy , propoxy , butoxy , pentyloxy , hexyloxy , heptyloxy , octyloxy and nonyloxy . further , concrete examples of the alkoxy - substituted alkyl group as r are methoxymethyl , ethoxymethyl , propoxymethyl , etc . as the halogen atom , f or cl may be exemplified . as a typical preparation of the compound of the present invention , the following reaction scheme may be illustrated : ## str3 ## namely , an α - substituted - β - dimethylaminoacrolein ( iii ) and bromobenzamidine hydrochloride ( iv ) are subjected to cyclization reaction with a suitable base such as sodium methoxide , naoh , pyridine , etc . to obtain a pyrimidine compound ( v ), followed by converting the br group of ( v ) into cn group with cuprous cyanide and further hydrolyzing the cn group to obtain a pyrimidinylbenzoic acid ( vii ), which is then reacted with thionyl chloride to obtain an acid chloride ( viii ), which is then reacted with a 4 - cyano - 3 - halogenophenol ( ix ) obtained by converting a 2 - halogeno - 4 - hydroxybenzaldehyde ( x ) into an oxime ( xi ) with hydroxylamine and then dehydrating this oxime with e . g . acetic anhydride , to obtain the compound of the present invention i . e . a 4 &# 39 ;- cyano - 3 &# 39 ;- halogenophenyl 4 -( 5 - substituted - pyrimidine - 2 - yl ) benzoate ( i ). the liquid crystal compositions of the present invention preferably contain a compound of the present invention of the formula ( i ) at a level of 1 to 30 % by weight , preferably 3 to 20 % by weight . if the level of the compounds of the present invention is less than 1 % by weight , the contribution to the dielectric anisotropy is small , while if the level exceeds 30 % by weight , the viscosity of the composition may increase and thereby reduce the practical properties . examples of existing liquid crystal compounds with which the compounds of the present invention can be used to give the liquid crystal compositions of the present invention are expressed by the following general formulae ( i ) to ( xxxiii ): in these formulae , x represents ## str4 ## y represents -- cn , -- r &# 39 ;, halogeno , or -- coo -- x -- y &# 39 ;, y &# 39 ; represents -- cn , -- r &# 39 ; or -- or &# 39 ;; and r and r &# 39 ; each represent an alkyl group . furthermore , usable compounds also include those wherein one hydrogen atom in the benzene ring ( s ) of such compounds is substituted by a halogen atom such as f . ## str5 ## firstly , it has become possible to provide novel compounds which , when used as a component of liquid crystal compositions , has a good compatibility with other components . secondly the compounds of the present invention have a very large δε . for example , 4 &# 39 ;- cyano - 3 &# 39 ;- fluorophenyl 4 -( 5 - ethylpyrimidin - 2 - yl ) benzoate of the present invention has a δε as large as 69 . 2 which was obtained from the value of a mixture thereof with phenylcyclohexane liquid crystals according to extrapolation method . thus , the compounds are useful as a component of liquid crystal compositions , which , when added in a small quantity to other components , can raise the δε of the resulting liquid crystal composition , and also can reduce the driving voltage of liquid crystal display elements utilizing the liquid crystal composition . thirdly , the compounds of the present invention have a high nematic - isotropic liquid phase transition point ( hereinafter abbreviated to n - i point ) and also have a large δn . firstly it has become possible to provide liquid crystal compositions containing a novel compounds , which compositions has never been seen . fourthly , by utilizing the compositions of the present invention , it is possible to obtain a liquid crystal display element having a low driving voltage . the present invention will be described in more detail by way of examples . 4 -( 5 - ethylpyrimidin - 2 - yl ) benzoyl chloride ( 1 . 1 g , 0 . 004 mol ) and 4 - cyano - 3 - fluorophenol ( 0 . 6 g , 0 . 004 mol ) were dissolved in pyridine ( 5 ml ) and heated with stirring for one hour , followed by allowing the solution to stand overnight , adding toluene ( 50 ml ), pouring the mixture in water , washing the resulting toluene layer with 2n - hydrochloric acid , 2n - naoh aqueous solution and purified water in this order , drying the toluene layer and distilling off toluene under reduced pressure to obtain white crystals , which were then recrystallized from n - heptane to obtain the objective 4 &# 39 ;- cyano - 3 &# 39 ;- fluorophenyl 4 -( 5 - ethylpyrimidin - 2 - yl ) benzoate ( 0 . 8 g , 0 . 002 mol , yield 50 %). this product had a crystalline - smectic point ( c - s point ) of 140 . 8 ° c ., a smectic - nematic point ( s - n point ) of 142 . 0 ° c . and a n - i point of 231 . 3 ° c . the analytical values of c and h were c : 69 . 1 % and h : 4 . 2 % ( calculated values , c : 69 . 15 % and h : 4 . 06 %). a : 1 . 37 ppm 3h , b : 2 . 75 ppm 2h , c : 8 . 69 ppm 2h , d , e : 8 . 26 , 8 . 60 ppm 4h , f , g : 7 . 29 ppm 2h , h : 7 . 72 ppm 1h . 4 &# 39 ;- cyano - 3 &# 39 ;- fluorophenyl 4 -( 5 - butylpyrimidin - 2 - yl ) benzoate was obtained in the same manner as in example 1 . this product had a c - s point of 115 . 9 ° c ., a s - n point of 134 . 5 ° c . and a n - i point of 214 . 1 ° c . the analytical values of c and h were as follows : c : 70 . 4 % and h : 4 . 8 % ( calculated values , c : 70 . 39 % and h : 4 . 83 %). 4 &# 39 ; cyano - 3 &# 39 ;- fluorophenyl 4 -( 5 - propylpyrimidin - 2 - yl ) benzoate was obtained in the same manner as in example 1 . this product had a c - s point of 118 . 1 ° c ., a s - n point of 130 . 6 ° c . and a n - i point of 228 . 0 ° c . the analytical values of c and h were as follows : c : 69 . 8 % and h : 4 . 4 % ( calculated values , c : 69 . 79 % and h : 4 . 46 %). a liquid crystal composition ( a ) consisting of ## str7 ## has a n - i point of 52 . 1 ° c ., a δε of 11 . 2 and a δn of 0 . 119 . to this liquid crystal composition ( a ) ( 95 parts by weight ) was added 4 &# 39 ;- cyano - 3 &# 39 ;- fluorophenyl 4 -( 5 - ethylpyrimidin - 2 - yl ) benzoate of example 1 of the present invention ( 5 parts by weight ). the resulting liquid crystal composition had a n - i point raised to 58 . 2 ° c ., and also had a large increase of δε and δn to 14 . 1 and 0 . 124 , respectively . in the same manner as in example 4 , to the liquid crystal composition ( a ) ( 90 parts by weight ) was added 4 &# 39 ;- cyano - 3 &# 39 ;- fluorophenyl 4 -( 5 - butylpyrimidin - 2 - yl ) benzoate of example 2 of the present invention ( 10 parts by weight ). the resulting liquid crystal composition had a n - i point raised to 62 . 5 ° c . and also had a large increase of δε and δn to 15 . 8 and 0 . 130 , respectively . in the same manner as in example 4 , to the liquid crystal composition ( a ) ( 90 parts by weight ) was added 4 &# 39 ;- cyano - 3 &# 39 ;- fluorophenyl 4 -( 5 - propylpyrimidin - 2 - yl ) benzoate of example 3 of the present invention ( 10 parts by weight ). the resulting liquid crystal composition had a n - i point raised to 63 . 8 ° c . and also had a large increase of δε and δn to 15 . 6 and 0 . 134 , respectively . | 2 |
fig1 illustrates an electronic plug - in control module to be attached to a top - hat rail ( not depicted ). to this end , a suitable recess 3 is formed on a rear mounting face 2 ( e . g ., a bottom face as shown ). a front face 4 ( e . g ., a top face as shown ) of the plug - in module housing 1 has an elongate configuration , with the longitudinal faces 4 a , 4 b representing the faces on which further plug - in modules can be arranged in a row . the space on the front face 4 for arranging plug regions 5 a , 5 b , 5 c is limited since both the insertion width b and also the insertion height h are limited in standardized plug - in modules . in order to be able to provide further plug regions 6 a , 6 b , undercuts 9 , are provided on faces 7 , 8 , which are faces adjoining the front face 4 , over the depth t of the plug - in module housing 1 . in the exemplary embodiment , the undercuts 9 , 10 each substantially have three surfaces , shown here as 9 a , 9 b , 9 c and 10 a , 10 b , 10 c , respectively . in principle , it is feasible to provide one or more plug regions on each of these surfaces . it is also possible to make the geometric shape of the undercut considerably more complex , so that a larger boundary surface of the undercut with further options for attaching plug regions is produced overall . however , in the present exemplary embodiment , a plug socket , for example an rj 45 plug socket in this case , is arranged only on the boundary surfaces 9 a , 10 a of the undercuts 9 and 10 , which are tilted to some extent toward the rear in relation to the front face 4 and which face the front face 4 . in order to be able to reach the respective plug regions 6 a , 6 b , a cable can be routed along the respective faces 7 , 8 . retaining lugs 11 a , 11 b are provided on the respective faces 7 , 8 of the housing in order to fix and relieve the strain on a corresponding cable . the retaining lugs 11 a , 11 b are positioned in an offset manner one behind the other in the longitudinal direction of the respective faces 7 , 8 and , over the width b of faces 7 , 8 , are spaced apart from one another in such a way that an inserted cable has to assume a crossed - over course , as a result of which clamping is established . fig2 shows a view of an electronic plug - in control module housing 21 according to another embodiment of the present invention . in this example , the housing includes a front face 24 ( e . g ., a top face as shown ), having plug regions 25 a and 25 b arranged therein . a recess 23 is formed on a rear mounting face 22 ( e . g ., a bottom face as shown ) in a similar manner as shown and described in connection with fig1 . the face 28 adjoining the front face 24 of the housing includes two undercut portions 10 and 100 , each having a plurality of surfaces . a plug region 6 b is provided on a surface 10 a of undercut 10 and a plug region 26 b is provided on a surface 100 a of undercut 100 . similarly , the face 27 adjoining the front face 24 includes two undercut portions 9 and 90 , each having a plurality of surfaces , a plug region 6 a provided on a surface 9 a of undercut 9 and a plug region 26 b provided on a surface 90 a of undercut 90 . as shown , the undercuts 10 and 100 on face 28 are situated behind one another as seen from the front face 24 . this type of arrangement is also seen with respect to the undercuts 9 and 90 on face 27 . | 7 |
referring to the sole drawing figure , several polymeric films and metallic foils are passed through a series of pull rolls and gathered together between a pair of press rolls to form a film / foil multi - laminate of the present invention . more specifically , film feed rolls 12 , 14 , 16 , and 18 feed respective first film 22 , second film 24 , third film 26 , and fourth film 28 toward press rolls 54 and 58 . these films have previously been corona treated at a conventional corona treating station ( not shown ) such that first film 22 and fourth film 28 have been corona treated on one interior surface thereof , while second film 24 and third film 26 have been corona treated on both surfaces thereof . by &# 34 ; interior surface &# 34 ; of first film 22 and fourth film 28 is meant that surface of the film which will subsequently come into bonding contact with a metallic foil as described more fully below . foil feed rolls 32 , 34 and 36 feed respectively first foil 42 , second foil 44 and third foil 46 toward press rolls 54 and 58 . the films and foils are gathered together by means of a pull roll array 50 comprising a series of rolls arranged so that , in cooperation with press rolls 54 and 58 , the films and foils are brought into communication with each other as shown in the diagram . the corona treated surfaces of the films come in contact with adjacent foils to help insure an adequate bond within the multi - laminate . heating means 52 employs a heating medium such as hot air to preheat the films and foils prior to pressing between press roll 54 and press roll 58 . conventional heating means can be used for this purpose . preferably , heating roll 56 and press roll 58 are also heated to optimize the bond strength between individual layers of the final multilaminate . conventional heating means can be used for this purpose . roll 60 conveys the final multi - laminate to a wind up roll ( not shown ). polymeric films useful in the present invention are typically thermoplastic and can themselves be of monolayer or multilayer construction , formed by conventional lamination , coextrusion , extrusion coating or other techniques well known in the art . compositionally , these films may be made up of polyolefinic or other polymeric materials , and may also include polyvinylidene chloride or vinylidene chloride copolymer materials commonly known as saran . polyethylene and copolymers of ethylene such as ethylene vinyl acetate copolymer , ethylene alpha - olefin copolymer ( linear low density polyethylene and very low density polyethylene ), and ethylene vinyl acetate copolymer are particularly preferred materials for films 22 , 24 , 26 and 28 . the foils of the present invention are metallic foils and preferably aluminum . other materials such as steel can also be used . each of the films used in the present invention can be identical , or can differ in composition or construction . likewise , different metals can be used for the various foils used in producing the multi - laminate . one advantage of the present invention is that the process and apparatus is flexible enough to accommodate differing metallic foils and differing films . the invention may be further understood by reference to the following examples . a polymeric , multilayer film was prelaminated to an aluminum foil . this lamination was accomplished by corona treating one surface of the polymeric film , and using a metal nip roll at a temperature of about 160 ° f ., and a line speed of about 50 feet per minute , to bond the film to the foil . this procedure was repeated to produce two rolls of the prelaminated film / foil . these two rolls of prelaminated film / foil were positioned approximately as shown at rolls 32 and 36 in fig1 . a central feed roll of aluminum foil was positioned between the two rolls of prelaminated film / foil . the relative position of the feed roll of aluminum foil was that represented by feed roll 34 of fig1 . a feed roll of polymeric multilayer film was positioned respectively between the central aluminum feed roll layer and each prelaminated film / foil feed roll . thus , the two feed rolls of the polymeric multilayer film were positioned as represented by feed rolls 14 and 16 in fig1 . the film from the two film feed rolls was corona treated on both surfaces thereof . both of the prelaminated film / foil , the central aluminum foil , and the two multilayer films were drawn through a pull roll array and gathered at press rolls to produce a multi - laminate . a heating roll represented by roll 56 of fig1 was run at a temperature of about 160 ° f ., as was the press roll represented by roll 58 of fig1 . the polymeric film used in the prelaminated film / foil comprised a four layer construction having one outer layer of a linear low density polyethylene ( dowlex 2035 ) available from dow chemical ; a second layer of linear low density polyethylene ( dowlex 2045 ) available from dow ; a third layer of an ethylene vinyl acetate copolymer ( elvax pe - 3508 ) available from du pont ; and a fourth , bonding layer comprising a mixture of 80 % of an ethylene vinyl acetate copolymer ( alathon 3180 ) available from du pont , blended with 20 % antiblocking agent having 90 % low density polyethylene and 10 % colloidal silica , where the low density polyethylene is dow pe 722 and the colloidal silica is syloid 378 . the fourth , bonding layer was the layer which was corona treated and bonded to the aluminum foil to produce the prelaminate . the total thickness of each film was about one ( 1 ) mil . all of the foils used in example 1 were aluminum . each foil had a thickness of about 0 . 35 mil . the polymeric multilayer film fed from intermediate rolls represented by feed rolls 14 and 16 in fig1 comprised a five layer film having outer layers of a blend of 80 % of an ethylene vinyl acetate copolymer ( elvax 3182 ) available from du pont , blended with 20 % of the antiblock agent described above . the central layer of the five layer film was linear low density polyethylene ( dowlex 2045 ). the intermediate ( second and fourth ) layers of the multilayer polymeric film were ethylene vinyl acetate copolymer ( elvax pe - 3508 ). the total thickness of each multilayer film was about 0 . 65 mil . a film / foil multilaminate is produced having four discrete polymeric films , and three separate aluminum foil layers disposed between the films in alternating fashion . these polymeric films are corona treated on both sides in the case of films forming an interior layer of the final multilaminate , and on one side in the case of films forming an outer layer of the final multi - laminate , the corona treated side of these latter films being that side which will ultimately be bonded to an aluminum foil surface . these polymeric films and aluminum foils are drawn through a pull roll array , preheated , and pressed between respective press rolls which are heated . heating procedures are like those described in example 1 . a film / foil multi - laminate is produced substantially as described in example 1 , but having foils of differing metals . a film / foil multi - laminate is produced substantially as described in example 2 , but having foils comprising different metals . a film / foil laminate is produced substantially as described in examples 1 or 2 , but having a polymeric film as one of the outermost surfaces of the multi - laminate , and a metal foil as the other outermost surface of the multi - laminate . a film / foil laminate is produced substantially as described in examples 1 or 2 , but having metal foils as both outermost surfaces of the multi - laminate . a pouch is made from any one of the laminates of examples 1 through 6 . any of the pouches of example 7 is made into an insulating panel by placing an insulating material , such as a non - woven separating material or silica , inside the pouch ; evacuating the pouch ; and sealing the pouch . the invention has been described with reference to preferred embodiments and specific examples , but one skilled in the art will appreciate that modifications can be made within the spirit and scope of the claims which follow . for example , any number of polymeric films and metallic foils or sheets can be brought together to produce the film / foil laminate of the present invention . likewise , the choice of polymeric resins is to a great extent limited only by considerations of cost , desired end use , and the composition of the surface ( s ) to be corona treated . the surface composition should be such that an adequate bond to an adjacent metallic foil will result , following the method of the present invention . many metals are suitable for the metallic foil , especially aluminum and steel . the thicknesses of the various films and foils or sheets used in the present invention can differ within a single multi - laminate , and can also differ from one multi - laminate to the next . as an example , film gauges can be as low as 0 . 1 mil or as high as 10 mil . foil thicknesses can also range from 0 . 1 mil to 10 mil . films used in the present invention can optionally be crosslinked by e . g . irradiation or chemical cross - linking . irradiation can be done by the use of high energy electrons , ultra violet radiation , x - rays , gamma rays , beta particles , etc . many apparatus for irradiating films are known to those of skill in the art . irradiation is typically carried out at a dosage between about 1 mr and 20 mr . | 1 |
referring to fig1 , the membrane module 4 , according to this embodiment , comprises an array or bundle of hollow fibre membranes 5 extending longitudinally between upper and lower potting heads 6 and 7 . a fine screen mesh 8 surrounds the array 5 and provides an initial screening of feed entering the module 4 while also serving to hold the fibres 9 in close proximity to each other and prevent excessive movement . the fibres 9 are open at the upper potting head 6 to allow for filtrate removal from their lumens and sealed at the lower potting head 7 . the lower potting head 7 has a number of holes 10 uniformly distributed therein to enable gas / air to be supplied therethrough from a feed line 12 and plenum chamber 17 located below the aeration holes 10 . the fibres are fixed uniformly within the potting heads 6 and 7 and the holes 10 are formed uniformly relative to each fibre 9 so as to provide , in use , a uniform distribution of gas bubbles between the fibres . in use , the module 4 is arranged vertically in a feed tank ( not shown ). during filtration the filtrate is withdrawn from the top potting head 6 and filtrate collection chamber 11 through suction applied to the open ends of the membrane lumens . the suction produces a pressure differential across the membrane walls resulting in feed liquid being drawn from the feed tank through the screen 8 and into contact with the hollow fibre membranes 9 . the screen 8 has apertures dimensioned to remove coarse contaminant matter within the feed liquid prior to its application to the membranes . fig6 illustrates an embodiment similar to that of fig1 , however plenum chamber 17 includes an aperture 50 formed beneath the feed line 12 . in the present example , the aperture extends generally horizontally . in this embodiment , feed enters the membrane module primarily through the screen 8 , and to a lesser extent through aperture 50 . this feed is then applied to the fibres 9 in the usual manner . concentrate and other solids / trash accumulated within the module 4 is able to egress via the aperture 50 either of its own accord under gravitational influence , or by virtue of gas bubble scouring , backwashing flows , drain down of the tank , or the like . to this end , it will be appreciated that the location of the aperture 50 does not substantively inhibit the ability to supply of gas / air through the feed line 12 for the purpose of bubble scouring . although this embodiment suffers some decrease in effectiveness due to the ingress of course contaminant matter through the aperture 50 ( which is not protected by screen 8 ), this is generally balanced from a performance / practical perspective by advantages stemming from the free flow of concentrate and waste ( including course contaminant matter ) outwardly through aperture 50 , typically during the backwash process . fig2 shows a further embodiment of the invention where the screen 8 is spaced from the periphery of the module 4 while extending the full length of the module 4 . the screen is attached to the lower potting head 7 but open at its upper end 18 adjacent the upper potting head 6 to define an opening 19 . in use , feed flows through the screen 8 into contact with the membranes 9 mounted in the module 4 . concentrate produced during filtration , gas bubble scouring and backwashing flows out through the opening 19 . fig3 shows a similar embodiment to that of fig2 , however , in this embodiment , the screen 8 does not extend fully to the upper potting head 6 and a gap or opening 20 is provided between the end 18 of the screen 8 and the upper potting head 6 . this opening 20 again allows concentrate to flow therethrough . alternatively , the gap or opening 20 may be formed in the screen itself but with a larger aperture size than the normal screen apertures to allow the concentrate to flow therethrough . fig4 and 4a show an embodiment where fibre membrane mats 21 are used in the module . in this arrangement each mat 21 is provided with co - extensive protection screens 22 and 23 which are provided on each side of each mat 21 and extend between the upper and lower potting heads 6 and 7 . as best shown in fig4 a , the screens 22 and 23 are open adjacent the edges 24 of the mats 21 to allow outward flow of concentrate . fig5 a and 5b show a further embodiment where a selectively operable screen 25 is provided across a feed entry port 26 . in this embodiment feed enters the membrane module through the port 26 and flows through screen 25 into the membrane module 4 where it is applied to the membranes 9 in the usual manner . when concentrate and other solids / trash accumulated within the module 4 is required to be removed , the screen 25 is opened as shown in fig5 b to allow free flow of concentrate and waste from the module 4 through port 26 . it will be appreciated a similar effect could be achieved by having an inflow path which is screened and an outflow path which is unscreened . similarly , other portions of the screen 8 could be provided with selectively operable openings to provide a similar advantageous operation . gas , typically air , is introduced into the bottom of the module 4 through holes 10 , producing gas bubbles between fibres to scrub solids accumulated on membrane surfaces . the gas bubbles also result in vibrating and scouring of the screen 8 to remove accumulated screening therefrom . when the feed tank is drained following a backwash , the screenings dislodged from the screen 8 are also removed . the gas bubble cleaning process and method may be used in conjunction with any standard backwashing regimes including liquid backwashing , pressurised gas backwashing , combinations of both , as well as with chemical cleaning and dosing arrangements . the gas bubble cleaning process would normally be used in conjunction with the backwash stage , however , it may also be used continually during the filtration and backwash stages . cleaning chemicals such as chlorine may be added to the gas providing the bubbles to further assist the cleaning process . solids removed in the cleaning process may be intermittently or continually removed . screen aperture dimensions are chosen to reject debris entering the membrane module , but allow gas to escape during the gas bubble cleaning process . for finer screens a gas vent can be provided instead of relying on the gas passing out through the screen . the screen can be formed of self - supported hard material or a flexible material that allows swaying of the screen during the gas - bubbling cleaning process . it will be appreciated that further embodiments and exemplifications of the invention are possible without departing from the spirit or scope of the invention described . | 2 |
fig1 illustrates a lead according to a preferred embodiment of the invention being utilized in an scs implementation . in accordance with known techniques , a tuohy needle 14 is positioned near the dura 12 of spine 10 . lead body 20 is inserted through the lumen of s tuohy needle 14 and positioned near the dura 12 . a proximal end ( not shown ) of lead body 20 is connected to a source device ( not shown ) which may be a pulse generator , in the case of electrical stimulation , or a drug pump in the case of drug therapy . although the invention will be described herein with reference to scs procedures and the embodiments described in relation to electrical therapy , it will be recognized that the invention finds utility in applications to other than scs procedures , including other applications such as peripheral nervous system ( pns ) stimulation , sacral root stimulation , cortical surface stimulation or intravecular cerebral stimulation . in addition , the invention finds applicability to scs procedures where the lead is placed in the intrathecal ( subdural ) space . the invention also finds utility to drug therapy where electrical components are replaced with conduits and catheters for conducting is drug material to the therapy site . in this case , especially , the lead may be placed in the intrathecal space . fig2 a thru 2 d illustrate a lead according to a preferred embodiment of the present invention . lead 20 is provided with a distal tip 30 that may be compacted for insertion 20 and unfolded after it has been positioned appropriately within the body . distal tip 30 includes a central portion 32 which has at least one span 34 depending therefrom . span 34 is comprised of a flexible , insulative material , such as polyurethane or silicone rubber . the term “ flexible ” as used herein refers to both resilient and non - resilient materials . central portion 32 may have a generally semi - circular cross - section as shown , or may be flat . a central passage 33 may run axially along the inside of lead 20 . a centering stylet 25 is provided through central passage 33 and extends in a distal direction through central portion 32 for engaging a part of the body , such as adhesions in the epidural space , to stabilize lead tip 30 as it is deployed . affixed to a surface of spans 34 and to the central portion 32 is a series of other therapy delivery elements in the form of electrodes 36 a - e . in accordance with the invention , lead 20 may be configured into a compact insertion position shown in fig2 a . as shown in fig2 b , spans 34 are coiled around central portion 32 such that the lateral extent of lead tip 30 is no larger than the lumen of tuohy needle 14 . once in position within the epidural space , lead tip 30 may be deployed out of the tuohy needle 14 , as shown in fig2 c . fig2 d shows the view from the side opposite the side illustrated in fig2 c . in the embodiment described in which the spans are flaccid or to semirigid , deployment of lead tip 30 may be implemented by rotating the lead body 20 in a counterclockwise direction once lead tip 30 is beyond the end of the tuohy needle in a desired position . as spans 34 encounter dura or dorsal bone of spinal canal , they can uncoil to assume a generally planar shape in which electrodes 36 a - e are disposed on one side of the lead facing the dura , as shown in fig2 e . as shown in phantom in fig2 d , electrodes 36 a - e communicate electrically with the source device ( not shown ) via conductor paths 39 and 41 . conductor paths 39 and 41 may be comprised of a flexible electrical conductor or thin wires which are embedded or molded within lead 20 . in the case of drug therapy , the electrodes 36 a - e illustrated in fig2 c - e would be replaced by ports which act as therapy delivery elements to convey drug to the body . similarly , conductor paths 39 and 41 would be replaced by conduits formed in the interior of lead 20 for conveying drug from the source device . stylet 25 may be left permanently in the epidural space or may be withdrawn from the lead 20 after the lead tip 30 is uncoiled . in the case of a drug delivery device , stylet 25 might remain as a catheter at some preferred distance . fig3 illustrates another embodiment of the invention in which lead 20 is provided with a pair of guide pins 40 which are affixed to a more proximal removable sheath 41 that surrounds lead body 20 . alternatively , guide pins may be formed integrally on tuohy needle ( not shown ). guide pins 40 act to guide spans 34 outward as the lead body 20 is rotated in a counterclockwise and to guide spans 34 to coil around central portion as lead body 20 is rotated in a clockwise direction . guide pins 40 may be comprised of a rigid , material and may be extended or retracted from sheath 41 or tuohy needle 14 . after spans 34 are deployed , sheath 41 may be removed . fig4 a illustrates another embodiment of the invention in which spans 34 are formed as resilient or elastic elements . the term “ resilient ” as used herein refers a tendency to return to an undeformed state once spans 34 are no longer compressed to lay beside central part 32 . in accordance with this embodiment of the invention , a retainer tube 50 is provided to retain lead tip 30 in its compacted position until deployment is desired . retainer tube 50 includes an inner passage which is sufficient to accommodate the diameter or lateral extent of lead body 20 and its compact shape - changing tip 30 . the outer diameter of retainer tube 50 is small enough that retainer tube 50 may also be inserted through the lumen of tuohy needle 14 ( fig1 ). alternatively , tube 50 may replace the tuohy needle . spans 34 are formed in such a manner that they have a tendency to undertake a position in which they are extended from central portion 32 . thus , in the compact insertion position illustrated in fig4 a , resilient forces are present in spans 34 to urge them outward into their extended , uncoiled position . the resiliency of spans 34 may derive from the polymeric material used to construct spans 34 or from resilient elements like wires ( not shown ) which are incorporated into the interior or onto the exterior surface of spans 34 . referring to fig4 b and 4c , in accordance with yet another preferred embodiment of the invention , a notch 60 is provided in a distal end 52 of retainer tube 50 to facilitate retraction of a deployed lead . preferably , one notch is provided for each span 34 provided on lead tip 30 . in operation , retainer tube 50 is inserted around a proximal end ( not shown ) of lead body 20 and pushed towards lead tip 30 a sufficient distance until retainer tube 50 encounters lead tip 30 . lead body 20 is then pulled in a proximal direction and simultaneously rotated , in a direction which may be clockwise or counterclockwise , until lower edges 37 of spans 34 slide into notches 60 . under continued rotation of lead tip 30 and lead , notches 60 function to guide spans 34 into their coiled , compacted position . once compacted , lead 20 may be retracted further into retainer tube 50 . compacted lead 20 and retainer tube 50 may then be repositioned to a higher or lower point along the spinal cord or may be removed from the body . fig5 a and 5b illustrate an expandable lead tip 130 according to another embodiment of the invention . referring to fig5 b , lead tip 130 is comprised of a series of electrodes 136 a - e which are fastened to a flexible insulative backing sheet or span 140 . the central portion of lead tip 130 is comprised of middle electrode 136 c . span 140 may be constructed of polyurethane or dacron - reinforced silicone rubber . electrodes 136 a - e are in electrical communication with source device ( not shown ) via a series of conductors 139 incorporated into or onto span 140 . electrodes 136 a - e are embedded in span 140 or fastened by adhesive or other known means . ends 142 of span 140 are provided with eyelets 144 for fastening to an expanding mechanism which will be described below . this aspect of the invention provides a lead tip 130 which may assume a compacted position , in which electrodes 136 a - e are stacked one on top of the other such that the thickness of lead tip 130 may be reduced to a dimension that is slightly larger than the collective thicknesses of electrodes 136 a - e . referring to fig5 a , lead tip 130 may be expanded with the use of an expansion mechanism 150 according to one aspect of the invention . expansion mechanism 150 comprises a series of struts 152 which are pivotally linked to one another such that points a and b may be caused to move towards and away from one another in order to compact or expand lead tip 130 , respectively . a first linkage 156 is pivotally connected to struts 152 a and 152 b . a second link 158 is pivotally connected to links 152 c and 152 d . first and second links 156 and 158 extend to a proximal end of lead body 20 where they can be individually actuated by a clinician . by moving first link 156 with respect to second link 158 , points a and b are caused to move toward or away from one another , thereby contracting or expanding lead tip 130 . by using rigid struts and linkages , sufficient forces can be applied so that a space may be created for the expanded size of lead tip 130 . introductory sheath 170 may be removed after lead tip 30 is expanded . or , as another embodiment , it might remain in the position shown , and a locking mechanism to keep links 156 & amp ; 158 at a constant position might be able to compress sheath 170 over the two links . a tether 188 sets a limit on the separation of points a and b , and guarantees that electrodes are evenly spaced when the length of tether 188 equals the length of span 140 . fig6 a and 6b illustrate another embodiment of the invention . fig6 a is a cross - section of a lead tip 230 according to a preferred embodiment of the invention which comprises a single span 234 incorporating a series of conductors 236 a - f therein . fig6 b illustrates a plan view of a mechanism 250 suitable for deploying lead tip 230 or a stack of electrodes as shown in fig5 b . mechanism 250 comprises a pair of links 252 a and 252 b pivotally connected to one another and each pivotally connected to a respective actuator link 258 a and 258 b . through relative movement of actuator links 258 a and 258 b , point a is caused to move toward or away from link 258 a , thereby causing contraction or expansion of lead tip 230 or 130 . one eyelet 144 on span 234 is attached to point a , and the other eyelet may slide on link 258 a . with this embodiment , since the lead tip is pulled in one direction , mechanism 250 in its initial , collapsed position should be positioned toward one side , for example , over the dorsal roots on one side of the spinal cord . in the expanded position , point a would advance to the opposite dorsal roots . once again , a way to lock point a at a certain expanded position is to have an anchor along sheath 170 that compresses and holds sheath 170 against links 258 a and 258 b . like mechanism 150 , by using rigid struts and linkages , a space can be created for lead tip 230 . fig7 illustrates an expansion mechanism according to another preferred embodiment of the invention . lead tip 130 may be expanded with the use of mechanism 350 , comprised of struts 311 , 310 , 321 , and 320 . linkage 330 is pivotally connected to the end of struts 320 , 321 . linkage 340 is pivotally connected to one end of struts 320 , 321 , which in turn have their respective other ends pivotally connected to the center of struts 320 , 321 . in the embodiment illustrated , strut 320 connects struts 310 and 340 as illustrated and strut 321 connects struts 311 and 321 as illustrated . as linkages 330 and 340 are moved relative to each other by a clinician , tips 360 will move together or apart . eyelets 144 of lead tip 130 ( fig5 b ) can be connected to tips 360 . moved relative to each other by a clinician , tips 360 will move together or apart . eyelets 144 of lead tip 130 ( fig5 ) can be connected to tips 360 . fig8 a and 8b illustrate an expandable lead according to another preferred embodiment of the present invention . the lead comprises a flexible outer coaxial accessory tube 802 which is mounted over the distal end of lead body 801 . a stop 806 is affixed to the distal end of lead body 801 to prevent movement of the upper end 830 of accessory tube 802 relative to lead body 801 . the lower end 832 of accessory tube 802 is adapted to slide with respect to lead body 801 . accessory tube 802 includes a central slot 805 forming two flexible leaf portions 820 and 822 . a recess 824 is provided in each leaf portion 820 to form a bending joint therein . the lower end 832 may be moved upward , thereby causing leaf portions 820 to bend and deploy outward from the lead body 801 . to actuate the mechanism an actuator 807 is slid over the axial tube 801 by the clinician . while holding onto the axial tube 801 , the clinician pushes the actuator 807 against the accessory tube which causes the slot 805 to separate and the lead to open as illustrated in fig8 b . a series of ratchet rings 811 . 812 and 813 are formed in lead body 801 to prevent downward movement of lower end 832 of accessory tube 802 to thereby retain the leaf portions 820 in their outward , deployed position . these ratchet rings will also allow and hold different amounts of lateral expansion to be chosen by the clinician . a rigid barrel electrode 803 is mounted on each leaf portion 820 of the accessory tube 802 . in the expanded position of accessory tube 802 , central electrodes 808 , 809 and 810 are exposed . central electrodes 808 , 809 and 810 and barrel electrodes 803 communicate electrically with the source device ( not shown ) through electrical conductors ( not shown ) within the lead body . fig8 c illustrates an expandable lead according to another preferred embodiment of the present invention . this embodiment is the same as that illustrated in fig8 a and 8b except that a screw actuator is provided for precise adjustment of the outward deployment of leaf portions 820 . the axial lead body 801 has a threaded portion 811 formed therein . a threaded drive nut 812 is mounted on the threaded portion of the lead body 811 . the drive nut has multiple indented holes 812 a to receive an actuation driver similar to 813 . the drive nut is interlocked by pins ( 813 a ) on an actuation driver 813 and rotated by the driver . this screw apparatus allows finer adjustment of the expansion and also adjustment of the expansion after implantation of the lead device . fig9 a and 9b illustrate another embodiment of the invention . mechanism 450 can have a central element 410 that may contain an electrode or catheter port 405 . it may house progressively smaller mobile telescoping parts 420 , 430 , 440 that can be pushed outward toward one or more directions . each mobile part is provided with a shoulder 422 to limit its outward movement and to recruit an adjacent mobile part . a tab 424 is provided to limit inward movements . for an expansion in one plane , element 410 may have inside it one or more mechanisms 150 ( fig5 a ), 250 ( fig6 b ) or 350 ( fig7 ). alternatively there might be single , curved linkage passing along lead 20 and attached to the final electrode or catheter port site 445 . as this linkage is moved by a clinician , site 445 will move outward or inward , and intermediated sites will follow if the movement of each site relative to the next site is limited . fig1 a and 10b illustrate another embodiment of the invention . in fig1 a , the lead 20 is in a compacted position , with elastic and resilient transverse spans 500 bent to remain inside the lumen of tuohy needle 14 . spans 500 are adapted to bend to a position substantially parallel to the axis of lead 20 in the compact position . once the lead is pushed beyond the needle , spans 500 will move by their resiliency to their natural position , as shown in fig1 b . those of ordinary skill will note that the grouping of central electrode or catheter port 510 and the two nearest side electrodes or ports 520 form a tripole / triport arrangement transverse to the longitudinal direction of the lead 20 . the clinician may have to place and manipulate a mechanism like 150 , 250 or 350 prior to placement of this lead to create a space . alternatively , a metal material like nitinol may be placed inside span 500 and treated so that its position after removal of the confinement of needle 14 will be perpendicular to the lead axis . fig1 a and 11b illustrate another embodiment of the invention . in fig1 a , the lead 20 is in a compacted position with elastic and resilient spans 600 bent to remain inside the lumen of tuohy needle 14 . there is a central electrode or catheter port 610 . the lateral electrodes / ports 620 are on members that will remain parallel to the lead axis due to pivot points 630 and equal length spans 600 above and below . in fig1 b , the lead tip is beyond the introducing needle . the spans 600 resume their normal , unstressed positions perpendicular to the lead body axis . lateral electrodes / ports 620 are on either side of central electrode / port 610 . removal may be accomplished by pulling on the lead body with sufficient force to bend the spans 600 back along the lead body , or by pushing another catheter or needle over lead 20 it is recommended that there be a thin , inert and flexible film ( not shown ) over the space between spans to help removal by preventing tissue in growth . one embodiment of the invention is to lock linkages as shown in fig5 - 7 into a fixed orientation by using a compressive sleeve to squeeze the lead body 20 inward against the linkages . this sleeve may be an anchor to superficial ( subcutaneous ) tissue . to make a change , minor surgery can be done to cut down to this anchor , loosen or remove it , adjust the positions of the linkages , replace the anchor / compressive sleeve , and resutured the wound . obviously , the clinician and patient need to believe that the benefits of such a procedure out weigh the discomfort and risks . fig1 a through 12d illustrate mechanisms that may be used to operate the linkages illustrated and described with respect to fig5 a , 6 b , 7 and 9 in accordance with preferred embodiments of the invention . fig1 a illustrates an embodiment of the invention that allows chronic adjustment of the relative positions of two actuating members 710 and 720 . a rigid needle 775 with a sharp hexagonal tip 785 is passed through the skin and engages a hexagonal receptacle ( possibly via reduction gears ) 790 that is capable of turning a circular component 760 inside of a container 750 beneath the patient skin . on end of this container 750 attaches to the lead body 20 , which contains the two actuating members 710 and 720 and wires / catheters 730 that go to the distal tip of the lead 20 . another end of the container 750 connects to a lead 721 that conveys the wires / catheters 730 to a source device ( not shown ). actuating members 710 and 720 are connected to the rotating component 760 are connected to the rotating component 760 by pivot points 770 and 780 . as the needle 775 is rotated , the linkages 710 and 720 will move relative to each other . this device 750 should be large enough to be palpated under the skin , and the rotating component 760 should be large enough so that limited rotation of approximately 60 ° causes sufficient movement of the linkages . fig1 b illustrates another preferred embodiment of a linkage actuating mechanism according to a preferred embodiment of the invention . this embodiment allows chronic adjustment of the position of one linkage 810 relative to the lead body 20 using a rack gear and pinion gear arrangement . this embodiment may be used with a two - actuating member configuration as described with respect to fig1 a , where one actuating member is fixed with respect to lead body 20 . as in the embodiment described above with respect to fig1 a , a rigid needle ( not shown ) with a hex - head sharp tip is passed through the patient &# 39 ; s skin and engages a hexagonal receptacle 865 that drives an internal gear 860 of subcutaneous container 850 . as gear 860 turns possibly with the aid of reducing gears , it will , move the actuating member 810 back or forth , which has gear teeth 840 formed on its proximal end . a stop 870 prevents excessive movement of actuating member 810 . a wire / catheter group 830 passes from lead 20 through the container to another lead 821 from the source device . alternatively , the source device could be on the back side of the container 850 . it will be recognized by those of ordinary skill that there could be a number of gears to inside container 850 to change the direction of movement of the actuating member 810 , for example , to a rotary direction . fig1 c illustrates another preferred embodiment of a linkage actuating mechanism according to a preferred embodiment of the invention . this embodiment allows is chronic adjustment of the position of linkage 910 relative to the lead body 20 . again , this embodiment may be used with two linkage configurations where on linkage is fixed with respect to the lead body 20 . this embodiment utilizes a hydraulic cylinder arrangement to actuate linkage 910 . in this case a noncoring hypodermic syringe needle ( not shown ) is passed through the patient &# 39 ; s skin and through a compressed rubber septum 960 provided on the side of container 950 . fluid may be added or withdrawn from beneath the septum , which is connected to a syringe 940 . the moveable plug of this syringe 920 is connected to the moveable linkage 910 . again , the wires / catheters 930 from the proximal tip of lead 20 pass through container 950 and on to the source device . alternatively , the source device could be on the back side of container 950 , although , for drug delivery there would need to be another system on the front of container 950 for refilling the drug . fig1 d illustrates an actuating mechanism according to a preferred embodiment of the present invention that allows chronic adjustment of the degree of rotation of linkage 1010 relative to lead body 20 . a rigid needle with a hex - head sharp tip can be inserted into a hexagonal receptacle 1070 in container 1050 . rotation of this needle device rotates gear 1020 which causes rotation of gear 1040 attached to linkage 1010 . there may be restrictions on the movement of gear 1020 to prevent excessive rotation . the embodiments shown in fig1 a - d demonstrate devices to actuate linkages that pass to the distal tip of the lead and cause changes in one or more dimensions of the lead paddle . as described , these involve transmission of force or energy through the skin by means to of a needle that passes through the skin . the same effects can be achieved by having a small motor implanted into the container parts shown , or into the power source itself ( not shown ) which runs on an electrical battery or transmitted and received radio frequency signal , such as the motor provided in the totally implantable , programmable drug device called synchromed ®, manufactured by medtronic , inc . of minneapolis , minn . smaller motors may be acceptable , especially if a sequence of gears may be used to provide mechanical advantage . if such motors are used , there should be a mechanical circuit breaker to prevent excess motion of the linkages . very similar techniques would allow expansion of a lead in a direction parallel to the lead body . for example , telescoping elements with electrodes could move parallel to the axis of the lead body ( parallel to the spinal cord ), similar to the way a car antenna can be extended and retracted . by attaching electrodes and catheter ports to the axial linkages of fig5 through 8 , or attaching eyelets 144 of compacted groups of electrodes / ports such as items 130 or 230 , it is possible to extend or compact said groups of electrodes in an axial direction . this is a valuable feature if one wishes to match the axial spacing of electrodes / ports to important dimensions of the structure to be stimulated / affected . for example , holsheimer ( neurosurgery , vol . 40 , 1997 : pp 990 - 999 ) has shown that there may be preferred longitudinal spacing of electrodes based upon the recruitment factors in spinal cord tissue , and also critically dependent upon the width of the csf ( cerebrospinal fluid ) layer between the spinal cord dorsal surface and the dura mater . therefore , we wish to include the ability to increase or decrease the longitudinal spacing between electrodes / ports by these inventions , and to be able to make a change in said spacing after initial implant of a complete therapeutic system . those skilled in the art will recognize that the preferred embodiments may be altered or amended without departing from the true spirit and scope of the invention , as defined in the accompanying claims . | 0 |
dielectric measurements have been made on mammalian blood cells in artificial suspension media over several decades . the erythrocytes used have generally been washed ( i . e . separated from plasma centrifugation , re - suspended in buffered isotonic saline and re - centrifuged ) and finally re - suspended in buffered solutions with additives to prevent sedimentation . there appear to be no reports of dielectric measurements on whole blood samples from human patients with different disease states . dielectric measurements have been made with cells in contact with electrodes using ac bridge techniques , and more recently with time domain spectroscopy . as long ago as the 1930s it was established that there were two strong dielectric dispersions associated with blood and other biological tissue , the alpha and beta dispersions . alpha dispersion is associated with the tangential relaxation of ions adjacent to cell surfaces and the beta dispersion is due to membrane charging capacitance . the alpha dispersion ranges from a few hz to about 20 khz . the number of &# 34 ; close ions &# 34 ; ( that is the ions associated with membrane through electrostatic interactions ) will depend on the number ( more properly the concentration in a fixed volume ) of cells in suspension if the zeta potential is assumed to be constant . this may be a possible route to cell counting . the beta dispersion could be used to calculate factors such as cell membrane capacitance , width of the cell and cytoplasmic conductivity , the theory of beta dielectrics was used to support maxwell - wagner theories for the structure of mammalian cell membranes as lipid bilayers , and could be used to predict the thickness of the bilayer when appropriate values of dielectric constant expected in the three relevant regions ( inside and outside electrolytes , and the membrane ) were inserted into the relevant equations . it was also realised that the value of the relaxation time ( tau ) of the beta dispersion is a function of the volume of the cell . cells that depart from sphericity ( with ellipsoidal or oblate shapes ) display a beta dispersion in the same frequency range , but the frequency may be dependent upon the axial ratios . the present invention uses the beta dispersion for the mean cell volume ( mcv ) measurement . there also exist other dispersions with lesser strength than alpha and beta dispersions . such dispersions , reported recently for blood and biological materials have great significance for the present invention . macromelecular material within the cell may broaden the high frequency tail of the beta dispersion in the region of 20 mhz . this has been recognised as a dispersion in its own right , and has been variously named the beta - 1 or delta - 2 dispersion . this dispersion is of importance in haemoglobin ( hb ) measurement . furthermore , another dispersion , the delta - 1 ( or delta ) dispersion is another weak dispersion and extends from about 50 - 500 mhz . it is believed to be due to rotational and other motions of side arms of proteins and macromolecules , and is not exclusive to intracellular material . since it is a measure of total system protein content it is highly relevant to the success of the present invention for measurement of &# 34 ; instantaneous sedimentation rate &# 34 ; ( isr ) as herein defined . finally , rotation of smaller molecules and bound cytoplasmic water occurs at higher frequencies of 1 - 10 ghz before the system is said to be totally relaxed out . measurements made in accordance with the present invention depend upon the dispersions beta ( for mcv ), beta - 1 ( for hb ) and delta ( for isr ) and the precise positions of their absorption maxima ( characteristic frequency ). the dispersions are broad , and therefore tend to overlap . this means that , in effect , a variable dc level exists because the variable cell count will affect the alpha dispersion . in addition , plasma dc conductivity may also be of relevance to the precise dc magnitude of later dispersions . the precise positions of the characteristic relaxation frequencies in frequency space are unlikely to be affected . in simple terms , dispersions which are to be measured occur on an underlying background of varying dc level which affects the magnitude but not the frequency position of the signals . the techniques encompassed by the present invention are required to extract the quantitative information that depends upon the position of a characteristic frequency in frequency space for each measured parameter . clearly , measurement of magnitude at a single frequency to assess the different parameters will not be possible because of the varying dc component . however , the quantitative information is still assessable by ratioing values at a pair of frequencies , the results of the ratioing technique correlating with laboratory results . this mathematical relationship is described in detail later . it is this ratiometric measurement , in combination with the multifrequency interrogations of the sample which allows the apparatus in accordance with the invention to function . methods that are not dissimilar are used in chromatography to evaluate mounts of eluting materials against a varying background . the mcv measurement depends upon the characteristic frequency of the beta dispersion being proportional to the reciprocal of cell size . for a spherical cell with a radius of 3 microns , the appropriate frequency is 5 . 3 mhz . in good agreement , the long axis of the human erythrocyte , 7 microns , yields an experimental maximum dispersion at 2 mhz . in general , relaxation frequencies given by a full ellipsoidal formula are very close to those of spherical cells . human mcvs are generally in the range of 60 - 100 fl . the ratio of the maximum over the minimum volumes is 1 / 0 . 54 , which yields a ratio of radii of 1 / 0 . 83 . if the minimum characteristic beta frequency is 2 mhz , the maximum will be about 2 . 4 mhz by calculation . there is strong experimental evidence to support this , and the frequencies used in the apparatus in accordance with the invention may typically be 1 . 7 and 2 . 4 mhz . the hb measurement makes use of the beta - 1 dispersion , and the peak dielectric loss for free oxyhaemoglobin molecules in solution bas been shown to be at about 10 mhz . in this case two frequencies are positioned at 16 and 20 mhz , that is on the high frequency side of the maximum relaxation . the reason for this is that although the maximum relaxation frequency should not shift significantly , there is some experimental evidence that it can move to somewhat lower frequencies as hb concentrations increase . this shift forms the basis of the hb measurement . there also exists a theoretical model that predicts a similar behaviour in the case of a dispersed spherical component in a dielectric mixture . hb molecules could be considered as dispersed spherical molecules within the intracellular fluid . the isr measurement , i . e . the instant assessment of the erythrocyte sedimentation rate ( esr ) makes use of the hb measurement and the total protein content obtained from the delta ( or protein uhf dispersion ). the magnitude of the delta dispersion amounts to approximately 0 . 4 dielectric units per 1 g / dl of protein . subtraction of the hb concentration leaves a measure of the total protein in the sample mainly the plasma protein . of the plasma proteins , fibrinogen has a very large molecular weight , and also the greatest concentration variation ( together with the gamma globulin fraction ). the traditional esr value depends strongly upon changes in fibrinogen and gamma globulin fractions ; these proteins affect rouleaux formation of erythrocytes and plasma viscosity , hence the sedimentation rate . the fibrinogen and gamma globulin fractions will be expected to dominate the relative sample - by - sample loss changes . the isr measurement is a measurement of the concentrations of the proteins that affect esr , and a strong correlation between the two parameters is believed to exist . the mathematical basis establishing the validity of ratiometric measurement is as follows . according to debye for a situation where equilibrium is attained exponentially over time when a constant external field is imposed on a dielectric , the complex permittivity consists of a real and imaginary component ε &# 39 ; and ε &# 34 ;. in its simplest form the current technology actually measures a complex combination of both components ( however these are separable if phase sensitive detection is employed as mentioned above ). it is easiest to envisage the imaginary component ε &# 34 ;, which is given by where τ is the relaxation time in seconds and ω is the angular frequency 2 πf . it has been noted that for a single debye type relaxation process , the width of the ε &# 34 ; peak at the half - height value is 1 . 14 decades in frequency and the transition from low frequency to high frequency dielectric behaviour is approximately over the range of four decades in frequency . applying the above to a frequency range of 0 to 10 mhz with an amplitude normalised to unity at 2 mhz ( typical for mcv measurement ) allows the equation to be solved for α and τ . fig2 shows the distribution plotted on a linear scale simulating the method of measurement employed in the present invention . the other important point to be considered is the effect upon this distribution of the underlying equivalent d . c . level arising from the influence of other dispersions and the d . c . conductivity of the sample . dielectric absorption is a measure of the energy dissipated in the medium and therefore processes which are usually related to the d . c . conductivity can also contribute to the total dielectric absorption . in addition to this influence then amongst other parameters , the β dispersion of the measured component can be influenced by an equivalent &# 34 ; d . c .&# 34 ; level caused by the low frequency tail of higher frequency dispersions and by the high frequency tail of lower frequency dispersions arising from other components in the system . the total dielectric loss ε &# 39 ;. sub . τ at a frequency of f is given by it can be seen from this that the d . c . level can contribute significantly at low frequencies but becomes progressively less influential as frequencies increase . for blood , σ is of the order of 10 - 2 and ε o of the order of 10 3 . therefore , at a frequency of 2 . 0 mhz the loss due to d . c . conductivity is of the order of 10 - 11 and is therefore negligible . however , it is recognised that other influences ( e . g . tangential relaxation of the ions at the cell surfaces , i . e . the a relaxation ) can contribute to the d . c . level and it has been found empirically that the maximum point moves on the y - axis and rotates around this new maximum , i . e . relaxation frequency does not change . potentially , there is likely to be a widening of the curve for reductions in amplitude and a narrowing for increases as the area under the curve , representing the energy level , must stay constant . it has been shown experimentally that the contribution from d . c . conductivity is insignificant and therefore allowing a change of 0 . 1 on an amplitude maximum of 1 provides a scenario of significant impact in simulating a worst case scenario for the ratiometric method of measurement . applying the equation for total dielectric loss shown above to this scenario gives a value of 2 × 10 5 for the constant σ / 2 πε o applied to the reciprocal 1 / f . it has been suggested that the relaxation frequency is linearly proportional to 1 / r 3 and therefore the theory supports the observation that for varying values of the measured parameter , the distribution moves linearly along the x - axis . it has been established by the present inventor that the frequency pairs necessary to provide accurate measurement need to be on the same side of the peak frequency and close to the maximum amplitude . selecting frequencies 1 . 7 and 2 . 4 mhz meets these criteria and gives four y 2 : y 1 ratios . fig4 shows the linear regression on these ratios . this gives a maximum variance across the range of 2 . 33 %. this is well within the limits set for the accuracy of the measured parameter . in summary , the ratiometric method gives an almost perfect linear relationship to the measurement parameter under investigation even allowing for a significant shift in d . c . level and provided that one of the paired frequencies is close to the maximum and ideally the other is on the same side of the curve . in the case of mcv measurement the low frequency side of the curve is employed so as to minimise the influence of the hb dispersion , and in the case of hb measurement , the high frequency side is used to minimise the influence of the mcv dispersion . referring to fig5 in a two frequency measurement cell , circumferential transmit electrodes 10 and 11 , remote from the sample , are usually , although not exclusively , fabricated from thin brass shim on the outside of a former 15 . frequencies f 1 and f 2 are simultaneously passed into electrodes 10 and 11 , and are simultaneously recovered from two similar receiving electrodes 12 and 13 . a central grounded electrode 14 is provided to minimise stray signal leakage along the surface of former 15 . earthed ground - planes 16 , 17 minimise r . f . radiation from the cell . referring to fig6 the method of measuring voltage at the transmit electrode 18 is a crystal controlled oscillator or similar stable exciter . a 5 picofarad ( or thereabouts ) trimmer capacitor 19 , a resistor 20 , usually although not exclusively in the range 5 - 25 k ohms , and a signal diode 21 are connected as shown . this method has the advantage that detection is made at a relatively high r . f . voltage . capacitor 19 and resistor 20 adjust the effective impedance at the transmit electrode to a value which is easily influenced or changed by introduction of a sample tube containing blood or similar into the orifice 22 . this change occurs due to leakage of the signal to earth and the impedance at the transmit electrode being too high to sustain constant current flow . thus the voltage on this electrode will fall when a sample is introduced . terminals 23 are thence connected to an electronic voltmeter for interpretation . referring next to fig7 a method of signal recovery for kilohertz frequencies employs a kilohertz frequency generator 24 , typically though not exclusively , operating at 160 khz sine - wave and a receiving electrode 25 , whose self - capacitance 26 brings about high q resonance , with a ferrite cored inductor 27 in order to boost the recovered signal appearing for detection at 28 . reference to fig8 shows an alternative measurement cell and single frequency variable crystal oscillator ( vxo ) method used with this aspect of the present invention . coil 30 is wound around former 29 and is connected in series with crystal 31 to form the input tank circuit of vxo 32 . the output frequency and amplitude of vxo 32 will differ when former 29 is empty and when former 29 contains a sample in its own tube . they will also differ from sample to sample and will drift if any of the sample properties is temporally unstable . thus physical and chemical properties of sample may be related to amplitude and frequency of vxo 32 . this method is superior to those which have used a vco due to an inherently higher stability of a vxo , and is superior to those which have used a coil in a feedback circuit or crystal oscillators for simple on / off bang / bang control . fig9 shows a continuous wave voltage standing wave reflectometer ( vswr ) method where an inductor 33 with a low impedance tap point or a link resonates with a capacitor , either self capacitance of inductor and former or external additional parallel capacitance . power is fed into inductor 33 from exciter 35 via reflectometer or voltage standing wave meter 34 . meter 34 may or may not require d . c . amplification . when a sample tube is pushed into the orifice of the former 29 , the resonant frequency of the system alters slightly , causing an alteration in the amount of power absorbed by the inductor 33 and reflected back towards exciter 35 . the change in this reflection or vswr is sensed and measured by meter 34 . thus , the reading of meter 34 relates to physical and chemical properties of the sample , including temporal instability of a sample . fig1 shows an inductive variant of fig5 in which a two frequency four coil measurement cell is used . power is passed in at two frequencies f 1 and f 2 simultaneously by non - resonant link inductors 37 and 38 , respectively . these frequencies are recovered after passage through the former , sample tube and sample by resonant recovery at parallel tuned circuits 39 / 41 and 40 / 42 . any chosen degree of mathematical comparison , calculation or processing then follows on the voltages v 1 and v 2 depending on the precise application and sample type . fig1 shows how the cells and methods described previously with reference to fig5 and 10 may be employed to form a device to calculate , without direct contact , the erythrocyte mean cell volume ( mcv ) or haemoglobin concentration of a blood sample , preferably though not necessarily exclusively , within a citrated vacutainer . in the case of mcv measurement , the vacutainer is inserted into the orifice formed by the former 24 &# 39 ; which has four separate coils as described in relation to fig1 . in this case the specific frequencies chosen are f 1 = 2 . 45 mhz and for f 2 = 1 . 742 mhz , although the other pairs of frequencies in the range 100 khz - 4 mhz are not ruled out . narrow band band - pass filters 25 &# 39 ;, 26 &# 39 ; are centred on f 1 and f 2 respectively . detectors 13 &# 39 ; and 14 &# 39 ; feed a real time computational circuit 27 &# 39 ; which performs a division function , f 1 f 2 , and in turn drive an analogue or digital display module 28 &# 39 ;. the blood mcv value is outputted at this module . returning to the aspect of two frequencies , these are employed primarily in the case of blood mcv in order to eliminate d . c . conductivity effects which will be cancelled in the division function , as will tend also to be , all lower and higher frequency dispersions away from the one of interest , i . e . that closest f 1 and f 2 . on the basis of their lower slopes in terms of their own individual components of ε versus frequency relative to the mean frequency window established by f 1 and f 2 . furthermore in the mcv case , the precise choice of f 1 and f 2 and their window in frequency space specifically helps reduce contributions from the higher low frequency haemoglobin dispersion , the dielectric loss per wavelength of which at least for pathological blood samples in titrated vacutainers appears to peak in the region 5 - 15 mhz . in the case of using the fig1 device , for haemoglobin calculation , similar principles to those established above for mcv apply except the two frequencies f 1 and f 2 are chosen well beyond the mcv dispersion and inbetween the l . f and h . f . haemoglobin dispersions . in one specific case , frequencies of 28 mhz and 40 mhz are employed , but once again the choice of other nearby frequency pairs is not ruled out , such as 16 and 20 mhz . also for haemoglobin ceil 24 &# 39 ; becomes the five electrode measuring cell of fig5 . with cell 24 &# 39 ; in this configuration , the filters 25 &# 39 ;, 26 &# 39 ; are preferably multipole quartz crystal or mechanical filters with pass frequencies of 28 mhz and 40 mhz . the haemoglobin value is then obtained by division of the d . c . signal from detector . 14 &# 39 ; by that equivalent d . c . signal from detector 13 &# 39 ; in real time computational circuit 27 &# 39 ;. the output may be either analogue or digital but included in the output module drive circuitry are range d . c . offset and gain / range expansion features in order that module 28 &# 39 ; can output hb in internationally recognised units . similar features in respect of gain and offset arc also provided in the mcv case above . those skilled in the art will appreciate that the 40 / 28 mhz two frequency system will also work with electrodes in contact with the blood if blocking capacitors are employed . with further reference to the drawings , fig1 , indicates that there is a device that can calculate both hb and isr simultaneously . in essence the , bulk of the operation of this device is as that discussed earlier for hb alone , i . e . the device in fig1 . the hb is calculated in exactly the same way as before but may be electronically routed by switch 32a and 32b between either the display 28 &# 39 ; or a further differential circuit 33 &# 39 ; which compares it with the d . c . voltage from the 40 miiz detector and thus produces an isr output . the display 28 &# 39 ; may be toggled freely between hb and isr . alternatively , two simultaneous displays may be utilised . those skilled in the art will appreciate the system can work by making contact as well as without contact . it will be appreciated by those skilled in the art that use of higher frequencies in the range 200 mhz - 10 ghz in relation to the above two embodiments is not ruled out , but obviously is technologically more challenging . all comments made in respect of electronic variants to the cells and methods in the first embodiment of the invention also apply where those cells and methods are utilised in devices of the second embodiment . reference to fig1 shows a specific use of the invention as a device in block diagram preferably for the measurement of fibrinogen in blood . frequency f 2 is on the high frequency tail of the dielectric beta dispersion ( usually although not exclusively around 50 mhz ). components 48 and 49 , 51 and 52 , 47 / 49 and 58 operate exactly as in accordance with the equivalent components in the voltage monitoring system described in fig6 . in the case of blood , the detected voltage is related to the total protein content being mainly haemoglobin and fibrinogen . frequency f 1 lies between the alpha and beta dispersions and components 45 , 46 , 50 and 54 operate exactly as in accordance with their equivalent counterparts in the kilohertz frequency recovery method described by reference to fig7 . however , an extra component takes the form of a series quartz crystal or similar filter 56 to remove any traces of high frequency signal which may have strayed into this part of the circuit where it is unwanted . the voltage at the detector 57 is related to the number density of erythrocytes , if sample is blood , and this number density in turn correlates to a large extent with sample haemoglobin content , for the vast majority of pathological samples . the voltage at detector 57 is also weakly dependent on haemoglobin concentration direct and also on mean cell volume according to a complex mathematical function involving both . thus appropriate mathematical manipulation of the signals from detectors 57 and 58 in circuit 59 ( at its simplest comprising two operational amplifiers ) can remove an approximate contribution due to haemoglobin from the total protein function , to leave remaining a signal contribution which depends mainly on fibrinogen levels . the output scale factor may be arranged to yield a novel output parameter which the present inventor chooses to refer to as the isr ( instant sedimentation rate ) namely a non - time - dependent parameter from which a value which correlates with time - dependent esr can be derived by calculation and displayed by suitably scaling the display device in magnitude and dynamic range according to the more traditional esr a parameter which physicians are more used to interpreting . those skilled in the art however will appreciate that there is no reason why the output should not be scaled in order to give an &# 34 ; instant &# 34 ; pv reading or an &# 34 ; instant &# 34 ; crp reading covering the equivalent dynamic ranges of these two parameters and indeed this is within the scope of the present claims herein . referring next to fig1 , this illustrates a block diagram of the four frequency cell , measurement method and device for use with this aspect of the present invention . because different parts ( in frequency space ) of the high frequency tail of the dielectric beta dispersion are influenced in different ways by different proteins , e . g . haemoglobin and fibrinogen , if the sample is blood , it is possible to obtain an estimate of fibrinogen levels by simultaneous four frequency dielectric measurement in the frequency range 15 - 60 mhz ( usual but not exclusive range within scope of aspect of the this present invention ). usually frequency f 1 is of the order of 17 mhz , f 2 is of the order of 20 mhz , f 3 is of the order of 30 mhz , and f 4 is of the order of 50 mhz . frequencies f 1 - f 4 are passed in through electrodes 60 - 63 and out through electrodes 65 - 68 inclusive . narrow band - pass filters 69 - 72 centred on f 1 - f 4 , respectively assist ; with signal recovery . an analogue divider 73 divides the detected voltage from the 17 mhz filter and detector by the voltage derived from the mhz signal 20 . likewise , divider 74 performs a similar operation for f 3 / f 4 . for blood as a sample , output functions of dividers 73 and 74 have similar components in respect of haemoglobin but somewhat different for fibrinogen , then weighted subtraction in processor 75 tends to enhance the effect of fibrinogen and suppress the effect of haemoglobin . at this point in the circuit the fibrinogen function is almost linear but is superimposed on a d . c . lend . thus , an appropriate offset is provided by processor 76 so that the output parameter may be indicated on display 77 . those skilled in the art will appreciate that the technique is not limited within the scope of the claims to only blood as a sample and indeed any system containing cellular biomass and protein together or even mixtures of proteins will be amenable to this kind of treatment . when the sample is blood , this aspect of the invention is a most accurate way of determining fibrinogen but because four frequencies are employed , very careful adjustment and initial calibration initially with pathological samples and latterly with electrolyte solutions is necessary and temperature compensation of components 73 - 76 is also desirable . referring next to fig1 , the block diagram illustrates the aspect of the invention concerned with fibrinogen or protein assessment when a numeric entry parameter ( e . g . haemoglobin ) is available or known . if haemoglobin content of blood is known or available from another source such as a coulter or similar ceil counter or biochemical optical haemoglobinometer , and is used as an external entry parameter , the invention according to this aspect can be used to provide a simpler and more accurate assessment of fibrinogen level . referring then to the drawing , the main component parts 78 - 81 of the system operate in exactly the same accord as their equivalent parts indicated in fig6 . the digital voltmeter 84 is used with a differential input and temperature is compensated for using potentiometer 82 . those skilled in the art will appreciate automatic compensation also to be possible within the scope of the present claims . the haemoglobin entry circuit 83 , is also shown for simplicity as a potentiometer , but may in practice be comprise of a set of rocker or thumbwheel type switches and it is usually adequate to enter the haemoglobin value to the nearest whole unit . those skilled in the art will appreciate that there are several other means of haemoglobin entry , both analogue and digital within the scope of the claims of this present invention , including for example acquisition of the haemoglobin level by direct connection to the electronic circuitry of a cell counter or haemoglobinometer . the action of the system is achieved because the voltage 81 at detector is an inverse function of the total protein content and the differential action of voltmeter 84 removes from this the haemoglobin contribution and simultaneously allows addition of the temperature compensation voltage . those skilled in the art will appreciate that the invention according to this aspect could be used with multi - component fluid systems other than blood within the scope of the claims of this invention , and that if a manually acquired esr , value were available , instead of haemoglobin , the system could be configured &# 34 ; in reverse &# 34 ; to yield a haemoglobin value at its output within the scope of these present claims . those skilled in the art will appreciate that simultaneous frequencies may be applied through just one electrode or inductor , within the scope of the claims of this present invention by using power combiners and / or directional coupling techniques . it will be understood that when employing any of the cells , means , methods and devices referred to in this present embodiment , and by way of reference to the drawings , if the sample is provided in its own container , the container being a tube , vacutainer , capillary etc . with open or sealed end ( s ), such container should be a snug push fit into former / tube of the cell of fig5 - 14 , and there should not be excessive slack or excess air gap ( although not all the air is displaced ) between this container and the inner walls of the former . if the container dimensions vary ( from container to container ), particularly the internal and external diameters , then errors in the measurement produced by methods and devices herein may arise . such errors arise from variations in the air gap capacitance where the air gap is that between the container and former . it will , however , be appreciated by those skilled in the art that such errors can be reduced / corrected for manually or automatically by tube size correction techniques . furthermore they will appreciate that this problem may be turned on its head to yield yet a further aspect of the invention referred to above and in the claims herein , namely that if samples of fixed chemical and dielectric property are employed in sample containers of nominally the same size but with slight variations in size or dielectric property , then the cells , methods , means and devices may be used to measure a physical dimension of the sample container without the use of a rule , callipers , micrometer other gauges or optics . referring finally to fig1 a sample tube 85 and a dummy or control sample tube 87 are inserted in identical formers 86 and 88 of the kind as illustrated in any of fig5 to 15 . identical electronic circuits 89 and 90 are associated with any of the means , methods and devices according to this invention such a difference amplifier 91 and an appropriately scaled output device / display 92 . effects of temperature and other environmental factors tend to be cancelled by this arrangement , thus making the invention according to this aspect more stable and accurate than those previous disclosures which do not employ a differential mode . throughout this description , the sample by way of example has been considered to be substantially static and in a closed or open ended sample tube . however , the sample may be a flowing or moving sample , in which case the formers referred to in every aspect herein would then be of the variety with both ends open . furthermore , it will be appreciated by those skilled in the art , that the aforesaid formers could be fabricated in a &# 34 ; turned inside out &# 34 ; manner , as illustrated in fig1 with electrodes or inductors 95 , 96 , 97 disposed on the inside of a hollow probe 94 with a closed end 98 to prevent fluid entry or contact with the electrodes or inductors , thus forming the probe 94 which could then be dipped into samples otherwise retained , but yet with operation in accordance with the claims of this present invention . furthermore , those skilled in the art will appreciate that all the cells , methods , means and devices referred to herein may be provided with manual or automatic means of sample mixing , handling , labelling etc ; and results , analogue or digital , could also be computer stored or on a prim - out , and samples may or may not be aspirated from their original containers into second or subsequent containers . furthermore , nothing in this present invention prevents the sample from being biomaterial in vivo i . e ., small cells or large human body digits , limbs etc . furthermore , those skilled in the art will appreciate that there is scope for modification in the aspects of the embodiments that refer to simultaneous multi - frequency excitation and reception since digital as well as analogue methods can be used here and pseudo instantaneous output may be obtained by using fast frequency steps or sweeps of frequencies applied to transmit electrodes . further in all aspects where diode detection is employed within the present embodiment , see particularly fig6 and 7 and fig1 - 13 , this can be replaced by phase sensitive detection as a viable alternative with the dual consequence of added sensitivity and two component information from the real and imaginary part analysis , advantageous since in reality samples exhibit complex dielectric behaviour and dielectric constant , sometimes referred to as permittivity has such real and imaginary parts . for a sample dielectric property the present inventor states the real part permittivity is a measure of the sample a . c . capacitance and with the present invention the apparatus using circumferential electrodes will respond mainly to this capacitive facet , whereas coils will respond more strongly to the imaginary part of the permittivity ( loss ) or conductive facet . | 6 |
fig1 illustrates a block diagram of an exemplary measurement device according to the invention . the measurement device 10 includes a measurement unit 14 for measuring a blood sample . in the measurement device illustrated in fig1 , the measurement unit 14 measures blood glucose concentration from a blood sample which is absorbed into a sample test dot . the measurement unit has an input aperture 24 for placing a test strip , on which a blood sample is then absorbed . the measurement unit is preferably based on electrical charge measurement in a manner , which is prior known as such . the measurement unit preferably includes an amplifier , an analogue - digital converter and other required electronics so that the signal received from the sensor can be fed to the input of a processor 12 of the device . the processor preferably saves the measurement results into a memory 13 for later use . the measurement device may have a single processor , or it may have two or several processor , such as a main processor and an auxiliary processor . in this case the measurement can be performed using an auxiliary processor , which transfers the data to the main processor . the main processor then handles storing and displaying the data . also programs 16 controlling the processor have been stored into the memory 13 of the measurement device . further , data relating to the care program of the user is stored , which data is preferably user specific . especially , data relating to performing a blood concentration result to a user can be stored in the memory 13 . such data may include blood glucose concentration categories together with one or character expressions , color data and sound data for each blood glucose concentration category . the memory can also comprise other data , such as performance level steps , number of current user performance points and current level . the measurement device also has user interface means 25 , which preferably comprise a display , such as a touch screen . measurement results can be displayed on the touch screen in text / numbers and / or illustrated with avatars or symbols , for example . the user interface of the measurement device preferably also has means for producing voice and / or vibration . they may produce tones or speech , by means of which the user is guided and given information . the audio signals corresponding to tones or speech can be preferably formed in the processor by means of data stored in the memory . it is also possible that a user can store the figures / sounds used by the device in different performance levels . the user interface may also include other input means , such as press button switches , in addition to the touch screen input . the measurement device has data transfer port 11 , by means of which it is possible to transfer data between the measurement unit and a computer or other equipment of a user . through the data connection it is possible to transfer measurement results and other user data which are stored by the measurement device to terminal equipment and / or to transfer programs or user data from the computer to the measurement device . the data transfer takes place in a wired manner , e . g . via a micro - usb ( universal serial bus ) port / connector . such an electrical connector may be used for other purposes as well , such as connecting to other measurement devices , or charging the battery of the device with a charger or from a usb connection of a computer , for example . it may also be possible that the connection 11 of the measurement device can connect to a data transfer network , whereby it is possible to transfer data with another device which is in connection via the network . additionally , the measurement device 10 includes preferably one or several wireless data transfer units 19 . if radio data transmission is used the data transfer unit includes an antenna 39 . then the data transfer unit may be e . g . gsm 3g or 4g module of a cellular data transfer system to which a sim card of a user may be connected . such a unit may include a specific processor for controlling the data transfer . the communication capability in a mobile cellular system can be used , for example , for transferring measurement data and other data from a measurement device to a mobile phone . also the data relating to presenting measurement results to the user can be communicated between a server and the user device using this communication capability . if a user is a child , the parents may receive the measurement data to their mobile phones . also , if a user is an elderly person the relatives of the person may receive the measurement data . the measurement device may also have a communication unit for bluetooth communication , for example . such wireless communication can be used with other measurement devices , such as a device measuring movement of the user or a device measuring heart pulse in order to receive other measurement data . this other measurement data can then be used as a further input in user &# 39 ; s care program and it can also be used as the basis of performance levels . however , it may be possible to connect such devices to the wired electrical connection 11 as well . the data transfer means 11 and 19 may also transfer data between the measurement device and care devices . for example , a measurement device can transmit measurement data to an insulin injector and / or receive from an insulin injector information that the user has received an insulin dose . the measurement device may also use this information as an acknowledgement for the given activity instruction and as information which affects the reminders and activity instructions according to the care program of the user . as described above , the measurement device may give reminders for the user . the time table for providing the reminders as well as figures and sounds for providing reminders are stored in the memory 13 of the measurement device . the reminders may relate to performing a blood sample measurement , taking a dose of insulin , having a meal , having physical exercise , and resting , for example . the figures and / or sounds of such reminders are preferably related to the performance level of the user . a user may also have a possibility to store such figures / sounds to be used on selected levels . based on the measurement results , the measurement device may give an instruction for eating carbon hydrates or taking a dose of insulin . the processor 12 performs the appropriate reminders according to the stored time table . the user acknowledges the reminders and instructions with the corresponding input at the touch screen of the device , for example . the device of fig1 also includes an energy source 33 , such as a recharge - able or disposable battery . a rechargeable battery may be charged via the usb connection , for example . fig2 illustrates a perspective view of an exemplary measurement device according to the invention . the measurement device has a large touch screen display 175 , which displays the measurement result and possibly other reminders or activity instructions . it preferably shows the measurement result , reminders and / or other activity instructions as figures such as avatars . the device preferably also has audio means for producing sounds , voices and / or melodies . a sample input 24 and a usb connector 11 are located at the bottom side of the device . there is a sliding cover 21 , which can be moved to cover either the sample input 24 or the electrical connection 11 . fig3 illustrates a system where an exemplary measurement device 10 according to the invention is in connection with several types of equipment . the measurement device 10 can be connected to a user &# 39 ; s laptop computer 42 with a wired , usb connection , in order to transfer measurement data and other user data , as well as update programs and parameters of the measurement device . the measurement device may also be in connection with other devices 44 of the user with a wired usb connection or wireless bluetooth or nfc connection , for example . such other devices may include other measurement devices , an insulin injector , etc . the measurement device preferably has a wireless connection with a cellular data transfer network in order to transfer data with mobile phones 45 . the measurement device may also be in connection with a public health care system . data is transferred with a central unit 480 of a user information centre , using direct wireless communication through cellular data network , or using a computer 42 which is connected to the internet . the above mentioned data may then be transferred between the measurement unit and the central unit . the central unit 480 comprises a database 481 , into which personal information and information relating to the disease of the measurement device users is stored . the central unit can be e . g . a central computer of regional health care . the health care system includes terminal equipment 482 of the nursing staff , which terminal equipment is connected to the central computer 480 . there may also be servers 485 , 486 connected to the central computer , which servers may provide supplementary services for the users , such as games . the central unit 480 can also be separate from other database of the health care , and which comprises only self - care information relating to a certain disease , such as information on blood glucose concentration measurement and care monitoring . nursing staff , such as a nurse and a doctor , has access to the information of the central unit . the access may take place e . g . with terminal equipment 482 after logging in the system . fig4 a - 4 e illustrate exemplary character expressions coupled with a specific colors relating to different blood glucose concentration categories . measured blood concentration is preferably classified into blood glucose concentration categories relating to how high or low the blood glucose concentration level is . in a preferable embodiment , there are five different blood glucose concentration categories in the device and the system of the present invention . when presenting the measurement result to the user on the display , the device utilizes means for coupling a numerical value with a character expression , a color and a sound relating to the specific blood glucose concentration category . in fig4 a is illustrated an exemplary character expression coupled to an exemplary color presenting of too low blood glucose concentration level . too low blood glucose concentration level , such as less than 3 mmol / l , can be presented with a very exhausted character expression and red color , for example . in addition , a sound that preferably represents a state , which requires an immediate action , coupled to the action of presenting a measurement result of too low blood glucose concentration category . when presenting the measurement result to the user , the character expression in the color of too low blood glucose concentration category is presented on the display and , preferably , the related sound of that category is played at the same time . a numerical value of the measurement result is further presented on the display together with the other components , i . e . the character expression and the color , of too low blood glucose concentration category . respectively , fig4 b represent an exemplary character expression and color of low blood glucose concentration level , such as values of 3 mmol / l or more , but less than 4 mmol / l . the appearance of the character expression can be selected to be not so exhausted than the appearance of the character expression of the too low blood glucose concentration category . also the color can be selected to be more brightly , such as yellow , for indicating a better condition . an appropriate sound is also coupled to the other components of that blood glucose concentration category . furthermore , fig4 c illustrates a character expression and a color of a blood glucose concentration category , which can be within 4 . 1 - 8 . 0 mmol / l . this is a desirable category and thus the character expression , the color and the sound of this category are preferably selected to indicate a good condition . the color representing this category can be e . g . green , which is normally used to relate to harmless situations . the fig4 d and 4 e illustrate categories of high and too high blood glucose concentration category , respectively , which correspond values from 8 , 1 mmol / l to 15 mmol / l and more than 15 mmol / l . because these two categories of high blood glucose concentration level are presenting harmful condition but in another way than low blood glucose concentration level , the selected colors for these categories should clearly differ from the categories of low blood glucose concentration level . an easy way to solve this problem is to allocate one part of the color map for low concentration categories , e . g . warm colors , and another for high concentration categories , e . g . cold colors . as described above , an information or an suggestion for care action can be given on the display together with categories of 4 a , 4 b , 4 d and 4 e , such as suggesting food or insulin based on that particular blood glucose concentration category . in an embodiment , the device and the system of the present invention comprise its own character expressions , but in another embodiment , different characters / expression categories are available to the user for selecting the characters / expressions he or she prefers , such as angry birds ™ and hello kitty ™. the person skilled in the art understands that there can be a vast number of character categories including games , cartoons , animated series and other toy series , for example . fig5 a and 5 b illustrate exemplary views of a user interface of the system according to the present invention . measurement data in various time periods can be presented for the user . in a preferable embodiment , the measurement results have colors according to the category that they fall into . also character expressions relating to the blood glucose concentration categories are presented together with using the color . in fig5 a , the last three measurement results 502 with the related character expression and color are presented at the top of the view 500 . the measurement data of selected time period can be present in several ways , such as one by one in diary , in list as bars , line or in a pie 504 . in fig5 b , the each measurement result 512 is presented in the diary view 510 preferably with category color and blood glucose concentration value . this view may provide a good tool to the user and other care taking personnel to monitor the results and to adjust the care . the scope of the invention is determined by the attached claims together with the equivalents thereof . the skilled persons will again appreciate the fact that the explicitly disclosed embodiments were constructed for illustrative purposes only , and the scope will cover further embodiments , embodiment combinations and equivalents that better suit each particular use case of the invention . | 6 |
with reference to fig1 a zero result predictor according to an embodiment of the invention is shown . the device comprises an inverter 10 for inverting an input operand a , an incrementor 20 for incrementing this operand by 1 , a selector 30 and a comparator 40 . an input operand a is inverted via an inverter 10 , this inverter comprises a plurality of not - gates arranged in parallel , each not - gate arranged to receive as an input one of the bits of the a operand . the inverted value of a is then split into two lines , one of these is fed to an incrementor 20 wherein its value is increased by one , the other going as an input to a selector 30 . the selector 30 has a third input that consists of a carry input cin for the sum and it acts to select one of the other two inputs i . e . { overscore ( a )} or { overscore ( a )}+ 1 based on the value of the carry input cin ( cin = 0 selects { overscore ( a )}+ 1 ; cin = selects { overscore ( a )}). the result from the selector is then sent to a comparator 40 where it is compared with a second operand b . the comparator 40 consists of a plurality of exclusive or - gates arranged in parallel such that each bit of the two input numbers are exclusive ‘ or ’ ed together . if all of the bits of the two numbers are equal , then zeros are output from each gate . if any of the bits are not equal then a one will be output from that gate . the outputs from the exclusive or - gates are themselves “ nor ” ed together to generate a zero detect result z of 1 if the two numbers are equal and 0 if not . a result of 1 from the comparator may be used to indicate that a zero result will result from the full arithmetic operation that is proceeding in parallel . by way of example of the operation of the circuit of fig1 consider the following examples . if a =+ 7 and b =− 7 , then a in binary is given by 00000111 and b is given in binary in a 2 &# 39 ; s compliment notation as 11111001 . the inverter 10 produces a value of { overscore ( a )} that is 11111000 . this value of { overscore ( a )} is applied in parallel to the incrementor 20 and the selector ( multiplexer ) 30 . the incrementor 20 increments the value of { overscore ( a )} input to it by 1 to produce an output of 11111001 . the output from the incrementor 20 is supplied to the other input of the selector 30 . the selector 30 selects one of its inputs to be passed onto the comparator 40 in dependence upon the carry in bit cin . in this example , the carry in bit cin is 0 and so the output of the incrementor 20 is passed to the comparator 40 . the comparator 40 thus compares { overscore ( a )}+ 1 with b . both of these inputs have the value 11111001 . accordingly , the zero detect result z generated by the comparitor 40 is 1 . in the above example , it will be appreciated that if the carry in input cin had been 1 rather than 0 , then the selector 30 would have selected the other input and the comparitor 40 would not have found equality between its two inputs . in this circumstance the zero detect result z would have been 0 as required . consider the example of the situation in which a is − 42 , b is + 41 and cin is 1 . in binary representation a is 11010110 ( 2 &# 39 ; s compliment ) and b is 00101001 . the output from the inverter 20 is 00101001 and this is applied directly to one input of the selector 30 . the output of the inverter 10 is also incremented by the incrementor 20 to produce a value of 00101010 that is supplied to the other input of the selector 30 . the selector 30 is controlled by the carry input cin having a value of 1 to select the value 00101001 for supply to the comparitor 40 . the second input operand b ( that can be supplied significantly later ), is also equal to 00101001 and so the zero detect result z is 1 . finally , consider the example where a is 129 , b is − 4 and cin is 0 . in this case the binary representations are a is 10000001 and b is 11111100 . the value of { overscore ( a )} is 01111110 and the value of { overscore ( a )}+ 1 is 01111111 . the binary input of 0 results in the { overscore ( a )}+ 1 value being supplied to the comparitor 40 by the selector 30 . the other input to the comparitor 40 is b , i . e . 11111100 . the comparitor 40 determines that the two input values supplied to it are not equal and accordingly the zero detect result z is given as 0 . this non equality is unchanged by whatever the carry input cin value is used since the two input operands a and b are very different . although illustrative embodiments of the invention have been described in detail herein with reference to the accompanying drawings , it is to be understood that the invention is not limited to those precise embodiments , and that various changes and modifications can be effected therein by one skilled in the art without departing from the scope and spirit of the invention as defined by the appended claim . | 6 |
a β - glucans rich powder extracted from oat bran and comprising dextrins beside β - glucans and containing 28 % β - glucans of average molecular weight at least 1 . 5 million daltons , was added to 195 g of sunflower oil in a 1 liter glass beaker . 25 g of the powder was mixed with mechanical stirring using a standard kitchen mixer at low speed , into the oil until a smooth , clump free dispersion was obtained ( approximately 30 seconds of mixing ). the β - glucans containing substrate is become wetted by the oil . 195 g of water , warmed to 40 ° c ., was added to the suspension with concomitant mixing using the same kitchen mixer . a rapid thickening and incorporation of the water into the oil mediated by the β - glucans component was observed . mixing was continued for a further 4 minutes , during which time the other ingredients were added : 20 g of egg yolk , 10 g of whole egg , 7 g of sugar , 5 g of salt , and 13 g of vinegar . the mixture was allowed to cool to room temperature and was stirred for a further 1 minute . a definite reduced fat ( 40 % total fat as opposed to 80 % for a conventional full fat product ) mayonnaise product resulted , with good mouth feel , flavor and body . the β - glucans component in this product functions as an emulsifier / emulsion stabilizer , texturant and hydrocolloid . 20 g of the same β - glucans rich powder as used in example 1 ( containing 28 % β - glucans of average molecular weight greater than 1 . 5 million daltons ) was added to 100 g of sunflower oil , in a 1 liter glass beaker , with stirring using a standard kitchen mixer . when the blend was smooth and free of clumps ( less than 2 minutes mixing time ), 315 g of water warmed to 35 ° c . was added to the suspension with concomitant mixing using the same kitchen mixer . a rapid thickening and incorporation of the water into the oil mediated by the β - glucans component was observed . mixing was continued for a further 4 minutes , during which time the other ingredients were added : 20 g of egg yolk , 10 g of whole egg , 7 g of sugar , 5 g of salt , 13 g of vinegar , and 8 g of milk protein isolate . the mixture was allowed to cool to room temperature and was stirred for a further 1 minute . after cooling in a refrigerator , the product was in all ways ( taste , mouth feel , texture , color etc ) representative of a dip or high quality dressing . with a total fat content of 20 %, the label reduced fat can be used comfortably with such a product . 2 g of the same β - glucans rich powder as used in example 1 ( containing 28 % β - glucans of average molecular weight greater than 1 . 5 million daltons ) was added to 50 g of sunflower oil , in a 1 liter glass beaker , with stirring using a standard kitchen mixer . when the blend was smooth and free of clumps ( less than 2 minutes mixing time ), 365 g of water warmed to 35 ° c . was added to the suspension with concomitant mixing using the same kitchen mixer . a rapid thickening and incorporation of the water into the oil mediated by the β - glucans component was observed . mixing was continued for a further 4 minutes , during which time the other ingredients were added : 20 g of egg yolk , 10 g of whole egg , 7 g of sugar , 5 g of salt , 13 g of vinegar , and 8 g of milk protein isolate . the mixture was allowed to cool to room temperature and was stirred for a further 1 minute . after cooling in a refrigerator , the product was in all ways ( taste , mouth feel , texture , color etc ) representative of a dip or high quality dressing . with a total fat content of 10 %, the label reduced fat can be used comfortably with such a product . 100 g of standard , low - salt , butter was placed in a 400 ml glass beaker and the butter was allowed to melt by placing the beaker in a water bath maintained at 40 ° c . when the butter had melted , 10 g of the same oat β - glucans rich preparation used in examples 1 and 2 above was added , with mixing , to the liquid butter . after two minutes of further mixing , the suspension was smooth and free of any clumps and at this point 100 g of water , warmed to 35 ° c ., was added to the mixture with fast stirring using a kitchen mixer . a further 1 . 5 g of salt was added during the stirring period ( 3 minutes ). within 2 minutes , the β - glucans component had thickened and concomitantly facilitated the incorporation of the melted butter into the water . the beaker was then transferred to an ice bath and stirring was continued using the same kitchen mixer until the mixture had reached a temperature of 5 ° c . the product was found to taste very like the parent butter , spread easily from the refrigerator and had structure and mouth feel consistent with good quality spreads , with a fat content of just 40 %. 100 g of a standard , margarine was placed in a 400 ml glass beaker was allowed to melt by placing the beaker in a water bath maintained at 40 ° c . when the margarine had melted , 10 g of the same oat β - glucans rich preparation used in examples 1 and 2 above was added , with mixing , to the liquid butter . after two minutes of further mixing , the suspension was smooth and free of any clumps and at this point 100 g of water , warmed to 35 ° c ., was added to the mixture with fast stirring using a kitchen mixer . a further 1 . 5 g of salt was added during the stirring period ( 3 minutes ). within 2 minutes , the β - glucans component had thickened and concomitantly facilitated the incorporation of the melted margarine into the water . the beaker was then transferred to an ice bath and stirring was continued using the same kitchen mixer until the mixture had reached a temperature of 5 ° c . the product was found to be very like the parent margarine , spread easily from the refrigerator and had structure and mouth feel consistent with good quality spreads , with a fat content of just 40 %. 120 g of a standard baking margarine was placed in a 400 ml glass beaker was allowed to melt by placing the beaker in a water bath maintained at 40 ° c . when the margarine had melted , 10 g of the same oat β - glucans rich preparation used in examples 1 and 2 above was added , with mixing , to the liquid butter . after two minutes of further mixing , the suspension was smooth and free of any clumps and at this point 80 g of water , warmed to 35 ° c ., was added to the mixture with fast stirring using a kitchen mixer . a further 1 . 5 g of salt was added during the stirring period ( 3 minutes ). within 2 minutes , the β - glucans component had thickened and concomitantly facilitated the incorporation of the melted margarine into the water . the beaker was then transferred to an ice bath and stirring was continued using the same kitchen mixer until the mixture had reached a temperature of 5 ° c . the product was found to very like the parent margarine , spread easily from the refrigerator and had structure and mouth feel consistent with good quality spreads , with a fat content of just 50 %. the product was utilized in two specific baking applications : a sweet “ danish ” pastry recipe and a standard short - crust pastry for a flan or quiche lorraine . in both cases , the new mix was used in place of the normal margarine . good products were obtained in both cases , with taste and mouth feel very similar to the normal full - fat pastries . 75 g of standard , low salt , butter was placed in a 400 ml glass beaker and the butter was allowed to melt by placing the beaker in a water bath maintained at 40 ° c . when the butter had melted , 25 g of cold - pressed rapeseed oil was added along with 1 g of the same oat β - glucans rich preparation used in examples 1 and 2 above , with mixing , to the liquid butter . after two minutes of further mixing , the suspension was smooth and free of any clumps and at this point 100 g of water , warmed to 35 ° c ., was added to the mixture with fast stirring using a kitchen mixer . a further 1 . 5 g of salt was added during the stirring period ( 3 minutes ). within 2 minutes , the β - glucans component had thickened and concomitantly facilitated the incorporation of the melted buffer into the water . the beaker was then transferred to an ice bath and stirring was continued using the same kitchen mixer until the mixture had reached a temperature of 5 ° c . the product was found to very like the parent butter , spread easily from the refrigerator and had structure and mouth feel consistent with good quality spreads , with a fat content of just 40 %. the rapeseed oil component is cold - pressed and is particularly rich in mono - unsaturated and poly - unsaturated fatty acids , and is essentially free of trans - fatty acids . extra virgin or extra virgin cold - pressed olive oil can readily substitute the cold - pressed rapeseed oil in such a healthy spread formulation . 10 g of the same oat β - glucans rich preparation used in examples 1 and 2 above was added , with mixing , to 95 g of rapeseed oil . the suspension was mixed until the powder component was evenly distributed in the oil ( 2 minutes mixing time ). 95 g of water , warmed to 40 ° c ., was then added with fast mixing to the suspension . a rapid thickening and incorporation of the water into the oil mediated by the β - glucans component was observed . the mixture was allowed to cool after a further 2 minutes of stirring and was found to be a stable dispersion / emulsion after 24 hours in the refrigerator . the mixture containing 45 % fat was then used in place of rapeseed oil in a number of baked products , including cakes ( swedish style “ sponge cake ” and muffins ), biscuits and pastries . in a sugar , or sponge , cake , the mixture was used in place of the standard rapeseed oil . a cake of excellent quality and texture was produced with minor adjustments to the cake recipe . equivalent satisfactory results were obtained in a muffin baking trial where the fat was replaced by the same mix . the process of the present invention was compared to the one described in ep - a - 1 361 264 , which shows the use of low molecular weight β - glucans preparations to provide emulsions of fats and oils . thus a number of tests were carried out using β - glucans preparations containing β - glucans having a molecular weight of 60 , 000 daltons . as evident from the tests according to comparative examples 9 - 11 stable emulsion were obtained when using high - shear mixing only . 100 g of sunflower oil was placed in a 400 ml glass beaker . 12 g of a β - glucans rich powder extracted from oat grain , containing 45 % β - glucans of average molecular weight of 60 , 000 daltons , was added to the oil with stirring until a smooth , clump - free dispersion was obtained . 100 g of warm ( 35 ° c .) water was added to the mixture with concomitant stirring using a kitchen mixer on a low - setting , for 5 min . a suspension was obtained , with no significant thickening and this suspension rapidly separated ( within 3 minutes ) on standing at room temperature . the same mixture was then high shear mixed using a silverson l4r mixer fitted with an emulsor screen for high sheer mixing , for 3 minutes . a thin , but stable emulsion resulted . no thickening effect was observed in this case . the same procedure as reported in example 9 was performed , except that the 12 g of powder containing 45 % β - glucans of average molecular weight 60 , 000 daltons , was mixed into 100 g of the sunflower oil at a temperature of 80 ° c . and the dispersion was held at this temperature for 2 hours prior to the addition of the water as described in example 9 . no differences in behaviour as compared to those observed in example 9 , were noted , and high sheer mixing was required to create an emulsion , as above . a milled oat bran product containing 9 . 2 % β - glucans ( analysis using the mccleary method , aacc standard method 32 - 23 , for mixed linkage β - glucans ), milled to a particle size of less than 250 microns , was used . 13 g of the powder was added to 100 g of sunflower oil and stirred with a low speed kitchen mixer to aid dispersion for 5 minutes . 100 g of lukewarm water ( 35 ° c .) was then added with continued low - speed stirring for a further 5 min . no notable thickening of the mix was observed and after standing for a further 3 minutes , the mixture had separated into an oil phase , a water phase and much of the powder had settled at the bottom of the beaker . the same mixture was then high shear mixed using a silverson l4r mixer fitted with an emulsor screen for high sheer mixing , for 3 minutes . an unstable dispersion resulted , which showed immediate signs of separation and the aqueous and oil phases were largely separated after 1 hour standing at room temperature . | 0 |
referring now to fig1 the graph 10 depicts vectorial relationships between the speed voltages 12 and 14 , the voltage and current phasors 16 and 18 , the current components 11 and 13 and the resistive voltage drops 15 and 17 due to the current components 11 and 13 . it can be readily observed from the graph 10 that any attempt to determine the speed voltage 12 ( w e λ qe ) on the d axis based on terminal voltages leads to inherent contamination by a voltage drop component 15 ( r s i de ) also along the d axis and arising from the interaction of the current phasor 18 ( i as ) and the stator resistance r s . however , if the coordinate frame of reference is transformed by an angle φ corresponding to the angle between the original q axis and the current phasor 18 ( i as ), then d axis ( or rather d &# 39 ; axis ) measurements of counter emf values are no longer contaminated with voltage drop components due to the stator resistance since the current phasor 18 ( i as ) is in quadrature with the new d &# 39 ; axis . therefore , measurements of the counter emf with reference to a new d &# 39 ; axis which is shifted by the angle φ with respect to the original d axis such as the vector 19 ( v &# 39 ; de fbk ) are more indicative of the true changes in the magnitude of the speed voltage 12 ( w e λ qe ). while the speed voltage value on the new d &# 39 ; axis includes a new flux - related component due to 14 ( w e λ de ) this component turns out to be easily accounted for and not of importance for feedback control purposes in the system 50 in which changes in magnitude are of greatest impact . referring now to fig2 a d &# 39 ; axis converter 20 is shown as including four operational blocks 22 , 24 , 26 and 28 for receiving six inputs v qe fbk , v de fbk , i * de , i * qe , w e λ * qe and w e λ * de representing voltage feedback , current command and speed voltage command parameters and finally generating a torque / slip voltage error signal v &# 39 ; de err . it should be noted for purposes of the following descriptions that due to the phase shift between current and voltage and cross - coupling of the speed voltages , d axis voltage parameters relate to torque / slip and q axis voltage parameters relate to flux while d axis current parameters relate to flux and q axis current parameters relate to torque / slip . in block 22 a ratio i * de / i * qe of command currents is formed and the arctangent is taken of this ratio to generate an angle φ representing the angular displacement between a q axis and a q &# 39 ; axis ( in a new d &# 39 ; q &# 39 ; reference frame in which the d &# 39 ; axis is in quadrature with the phase current ). in the block 24 the terminal voltage feedback signals v qe fbk and v de fbk undergo a coordinate transformation as a function of the angle φ to yield a voltage signal v &# 39 ; de fbk representing a torque feedback voltage free from contamination due to stator resistance effects as shown in equation 5 below : in the block 26 the speed voltage command signals w e λ * qe and w e λ * de also undergo a coordinate transformation as a function of the angle φ to produce torque / slip voltage command signal v &# 39 ;* de which is also free from stator resistance effects as shown in equation 6 below : the torque / slip voltage feedback signal v &# 39 ; de fbk and the torque / slip voltage command signal v &# 39 ;* de are differenced in the block 28 to generate a voltage error signal v &# 39 ; de err which constitutes the final output of the converter 20 . it should be noted that the converter 20 takes the present invention a step forward in producing a torque / slip voltage error signal of the type useful in many motor control applications although the primary functionality of the present invention is expressed in blocks 24 and 26 wherein the signals v &# 39 ; de fbk and v &# 39 ;* de which are free from contamination due to resistive effects are first detected . referring now to fig3 a d axis convertor 30 is shown as including eight operational blocks 22 , 24 , 32 , 34 , 36 , 38 , 40 and 42 for receiving the six inputs v qe fbk , v de fbk , i * de , i * qe , w e λ * qe and w e λ * de and finally generating a torque / slip voltage error signal v de err . the convertor 30 offers an alternative configuration for computing a corrected speed voltage error signal which is projected onto the original d axis in the original dq frame of reference . in block 22 a ratio i * de / i * qe of command currents is formed and the arctangent is taken of this ratio to generate an angle φ representing the angle between a q axis and q &# 39 ; axis . in the block 24 the terminal voltage feedback signals v qe fbk and v de fbk undergo a coordinate transformation as a function of the angle φ to yield a voltage signal v &# 39 ; de fbk representing a torque / slip feedback voltage substantially free from contamination due to stator resistance effects . in the block 32 the angle φ is used in forming the trigonometric quantity sinφ which is multiplied by the speed voltage command signal w e λ * de to generate a voltage signal v &# 39 ; sn . the voltage signals v &# 39 ; de fbk and v &# 39 ; sn are added together in block 36 and supplied to the divider 40 . the divider 40 also receives a signal from block 38 representing the trigonometric quantity cosφ which is formed in block 38 based on the value of the angle φ provided from block 22 . the divider 40 divides the signal corresponding to ( v &# 39 ; de + v &# 39 ; sn ) supplied from the summing block 36 by the value of trigonometric quantity cosφ supplied from block 38 and provides the resulting quotient to the summing block 42 where this quotient is differenced with the speed voltage command signal w e λ * qe to form a final torque / slip voltage error signal v de err . the operation of the converter 30 may be better understood with reference to equations 7 , 8 and 9 below : v &# 39 ;. sub . de fbk -( w . sub . e λ *. sub . qe cosφ + w . sub . e λ *. sub . de sinφ )= v &# 39 ;. sub . de err ( 8 ) ## equ1 ## which illustrate how the blocks shown in fig3 correspond to the original principle of differencing voltage feedback with voltage command signals to form a voltage error signal which in this case is adapted to the original d axis . referring now to fig5 the present invention finds its primary application in motor control systems of the type which use voltage feedback . the motor control system 50 comprises an indirect self organized field oriented controller in which the signals v qs fbk and v ds fbk are fed back to a digital controller 52 to provide an indication of the present speed voltages of the ac induction motor 54 for use in generating command signals for supply to the current regulator 70 . it should be noted that initial values for key command parameters ( w * e , k t , v * de , v * qe and k s ) are set upon commissioning of the control system 50 to allow for effective start - up . the signal converter of the present invention is employed as a part of the digital controller 52 as will be explained hereinafter . the motor controller 50 includes a current regulated pulse width modulated voltage inverter 62 which supplies a set of three drive signals s as , s bs and s cs to the induction motor 54 . the rectifier 64 receives three phase ac power signals at a line frequency of 60 hz and it converts these signals to a single dc signal which is passed through the filter 66 to provide the voltage inverter 62 with a relatively stable dc input of constant magnitude . the voltage inverter 62 includes a group of switching elements which are turned on and off as a function of the control signals v * as , v * bs and v * cs which originate from the current regulator 70 in order to convert the dc voltage from the rectifier 64 into three streams of high frequency pulses of constant magnitude but varying pulse width and polarity which comprise the drive signals s as , s bs and s cs . the pulse trains comprising the drive signals s as , s bs and s cs are characterized by alternating sets of positive going pulses of increasing and then decreasing pulse width and negative going pulses of increasing and then decreasing pulse width resulting in signals having rms values which approximate ac waveforms . the current regulator 70 provides a pair of ( two phase ) voltage command signals v * qs and v * ds in the stationary dq frame of reference to a 2 - to - 3 phase converter 72 which converts these signals into the command signals v * as , v * bs and v * cs which are supplied to and govern the operation of the voltage inverter 62 . simultaneously , the current levels of the drive signals s as , s bs and s cs are sensed and fed back to a 3 - to - 2 phase converter 74 as the signals i as fbk , i bs fbk , i cs fbk ( note : i cs fbk = i as fbk - i bs fbk and therefore i cs does not need to be directly sensed and instead can be derived from i as and i bs ) which are converted by the converter 74 into a pair of ( two phase ) signals i qs fbk , and i ds fbk in the stationary dq frame of reference for supply to the current regulator 70 . the current regulator 70 is responsive to the input command signals w * e , i * qs and i * ds from the digital controller 52 and the current feedback signals i qs fbk and i ds fbk for generating the voltage command signals v * qs and v * ds . the current regulator 70 is of the synchronous type including two channels on which the d and q axis signals are separately processed . first , the current command signals i * qs and i * ds are differenced with the current feedback signals i qs fbk and i ds fbk with the resulting current error signals being processed through proportional integral control loops . additionally , current error signals from each channel are cross - coupled between the channels as product functions of the field frequency w * e . the current regulator 70 is accordingly functional for producing the command signals v * qs and v * ds based on current errors and for maintaining the vector orientation of these output signals to the d and q axis . the details of the circuitry for a suitable synchronous current regulator 70 have been previously shown and described in u . s . pat . no . 4 , 680 , 695 issued jul . 14 , 1987 which is incorporated herein by reference . the motor command signals v * qs and v * ds are also utilized as terminal voltage feedback signals v qs fbk and v ds fbk which are digitized by being passed through an a - to - d convertor 80 and then supplied to the digital controller 52 although these feedback signals could be alternatively generated based on the voltage levels of the drive signals s as , s bs and s cs . the digital controller 52 also receives a feedback signal θ r fbk indicative of the position of the rotor within the induction motor 54 which is generated by the resolver 82 and digitized by the a - to - d converter 84 before being supplied to the digital controller 52 . finally , the digital controller 52 receives a velocity command input w * r which may be manually provided by a machine operator or supplied from a higher level control system for the torque of the induction motor 54 to which it responds by producing the digital command signals w * e , i * qs and i * ds which are passed through a multiplying d - to - a converter 86 prior to being supplied to the current regulator 70 . the control system 50 should be understood as providing a primary current regulation function in response to a current command vector defined by the command signals i * qs and i * ds . however , the command signals provided to the current regulator 70 are generated in response to voltage feedback provided to the controller 52 as well as the command input w * r which allows the controller 50 to be &# 34 ; self - organized &# 34 ; and to be dynamically responsive to actual motor conditions . referring now to fig5 the digital controller 52 is shown as including three primary control blocks , a slip / speed control block 100 , a velocity / torque control block 102 , and a flux control block 104 . it should be remembered that all of the blocks , steps and / or functions described in the operational blocks for the digital controller 52 are expressed in software as computer programs and represent algorithms for execution by a conventional type digital processor adapted for industrial applications such as a model 8096 microelectronic processor as supplied by intel corporation of santa clara , calif . the voltage feedback signals v qs fbk and v ds fbk are first supplied to the rotating - to - synchronous transform block 106 and are transformed into the synchronous frame of reference in accordance with the function s ( θ ) as shown in matrix equation 10 below : ## equ2 ## and the resulting voltage feedback signals in the synchronous frame of reference v de fbk and v qe fbk are supplied to the slip / speed control block 100 and the flux control block 104 . the motor shaft position feedback signal θ r fbk is supplied to the differentiater block 112 at which it is operated on to derive a motor speed feedback signal w r fbk which is then furnished to the velocity / torque control block 102 and the slip / speed control block 100 . the command current outputs i * de and i * qe from the flux control and velocity / torque control blocks 104 and 102 are both furnished as inputs to the slip / speed control block 100 along with the flux voltage command signal v * qe which is also generated by the flux control block 104 . finally the current command signals i * qe and i * de are supplied to a synchronous - to - rotating transform block 108 and are transformed into the rotating frame of reference in accordance with the function s - 1 ( θ ) as shown in matrix equation 11 below : ## equ3 ## and the resulting current command signals in the rotating frame of reference i * qs and i * ds are supplied to the d - to - a converter 86 along with the field frequency command signal w * e . referring now to fig6 the flux control block 104 operates in response to the input signals w * e and v qe fbk to generate a flux - related current command i * de which is supplied to the ( reverse ) transform block 108 . the input command w * e is appropriately scaled in block 120 in accordance with a constant factor k f to form a flux voltage command v * qe which is supplied to the summing block 122 . the flux voltage command v * qe is differenced with the flux feedback voltage v qe fbk in the summing block 122 with the resulting error signal v qe err being supplied to the proportional integral control loop 124 . the signal v qe err is filtered in the loop 124 to generate the flux - related current command i * de . referring now to fig7 the velocity / torque control block 102 receives input signals w * r and w r fbk and generates a torque - related command current i * qe which is supplied to the ( reverse ) transform block 108 . the velocity command w * r is supplied by the operator and translates into a desired level of torque and associated slip . the velocity command signal w * r is differenced with the shaft speed feedback signal w r fbk in the summing block 130 and the resulting error signal werr is supplied to the proportional integral control loop 132 . the error signal werr is filtered in the loop 132 to generate the torque command t * e which is scaled in accordance with a fixed factor k t in block 134 to produce the torque - related current command i * qe . referring now to fig8 the slip / speed control block 100 includes nine separate subblocks 150 , 20 , 152 , 154 , 156 , 158 and 160 each of a comprises a separate step for execution by the microprocessor of the digital controller 52 . the control block 100 receives six input signals i * qe , i * de , v * qe , v qe fbk , v de fbk and w r fbk and processes these signals to generate a field frequency command signal w * e which is supplied directly to the d - to - a converter 86 . the operation of the block 100 is key to the overall operation of the controller 50 in that it computes the appropriate slip frequency ws for the induction motor 54 in view of the command values and the motor conditions indicated by the feedback voltages . in accordance with block 150 , the torque - related current command i * qe is multiplied by the field frequency command w * e which is fed back from the output of the summing block 160 and the resulting product is scaled in accordance with a factor σ provided from a look - up table . the scaling factor σ may be made a function of the field frequency w e * to improve the response of the system at high torques . the torque command voltage v * de is supplied as an input to the converter 20 along with the flux command voltage v * qe . the torque feedback voltage v de fbk and the flux feedback voltage v qe fbk are similarly supplied to the converter 20 along with the command currents i * qe and i * de . the extractor blocks 24 and 26 operate separately on the command and feedback voltages in order to transform them into a new coordinate frame of reference in accordance with a phase angle φ based on the current command values . the extractor blocks 24 and 26 thereby generate torque or slip related feedback voltages v &# 39 ;* de and v &# 39 ; de fbk which are in a new d &# 39 ; q &# 39 ; coordinate system and which are substantially free of contamination due to stator resistance effects . the voltages v &# 39 ;* de and v &# 39 ; de fbk are differenced at the summing block 28 to produce a slip - related error voltage v &# 39 ; de err which is also substantially free from contamination due to stator resistance effects . it should be noted that operation of block 20 is in accordance with the previous descriptions provided with respect to the converter 20 of fig2 with v * qe = w e λ * de and v * de =- w e λ * qe . the sign of the current command i * qe is taken in block 158 and a signal sgn is formed which equals - 1 for negative values of the torque - related command current and + 1 for positive values of the torque - related command current . the signal sgn is multiplied by the voltage error signal v &# 39 ; de err in block 160 to provide a voltage error signal v &# 39 ; de ec which has coherent polarity for control purposes . the voltage error signal v &# 39 ; de ec is supplied to a proportional integral control loop 156 in which it is filtered to provide a signal k s representing a slip multiplier . the slip multiplier k s is then multiplied by the torque - related command current i * qe in block 158 to yield a slip frequency w s . finally , the slip frequency w s is added to the shaft speed feedback signal w r fbk to form the field frequency command signal w * e which is the output of the block 100 . referring now to fig9 a and 9b , graphs are shown including curves 90 , 92 , 94 , 96 and 98 representing the phase current i as , the q - axis rotor flux λ qer , the torque error ( t *- t e ), the torque t e and the slip multiplier k s . in order to provide the data with better viewability the quantities represented by the curves 90 , 92 , 94 , 96 and 98 have been scaled and positioned with respect to the y axis as shown in table i below : table i______________________________________curve quantity expression plotted______________________________________curve 90 phase current ( k . sub . 1 i . sub . as ) + 5curve 92 q - axis rotor flux ( λger * 10 ) - 5curve 94 torque error ( t *. sub . e - t . sub . e ) curve 96 torque ( t . sub . e / 5 ) - 10curve 98 slip multiplier 10 ( k . sub . s - 1 ) - 13______________________________________ in fig9 a , the operation of a control system 50 is shown in accordance with simulation data under start - up conditions without use of the counter emf detector of the present invention . consequently , the speed voltages values which are used by the slip / speed control block 100 are contaminated by resistive effects due to changes in stator resistance on account of heating of the stator leading to a substantial torque error and a significant loss of field orientation during start - up as shown by curves 94 and 92 . in fig9 b , the operation of a control system 50 is shown in accordance with simulation data under start - up conditions with the use of the counter emf detector of the present invention . the speed voltages fed back to the slip / speed control block 100 are corrected for resistive effects due to stator resistance . as demonstrated by the curve 94 the torque error quickly approaches zero . meanwhile , as shown by curve 92 , a greater degree of field orientation is maintained by the system as start - up proceeds . the curve 98 illustrates the slip multiplier changing to eliminate the torque error in accordance with the operation of the invention . fig9 a and 9b clearly demonstrate the value of the present invention in reducing torque error and maintaining field orientation . while particular embodiments of the present invention have been shown and described , it should be clear that changes and modifications may be made to such embodiments without departing from the true scope and spirit of the invention . it is intended that the appended claims cover all such changes and modifications . | 7 |
the present invention is directed to a method related to key manufacturing that provides a significant time benefit by providing relevant key information to the key manufacturing machine . one embodiment of a machine that can be used for manufacturing a key is described in u . s . pat . ser . 5 , 908 , 273 , incorporated herein by reference . the present invention uses only some of the features of the key manufacturing machine disclosed in u . s . pat . no . 5 , 908 , 273 . the machine is able to cut both the keyway and the keycode on a key , and so many different types of keys may be cut from the same type of blank or a key preform . one embodiment of the present invention provides for the key duplicated in a key duplicating machine to be provided with a unique associated number which is retained by the user . the unique number may be referred to as a key identification code ( kic ). the kic uniquely distinguishes the keyway and key code of the original , or target , key to be duplicated . thus , the same key may be duplicated at a later date by entering the kic into the key manufacturing machine using different types of input interfaces , such as a magnetic card reader , a keyboard and the like . therefore , unlike conventional key duplication , this invention obviates the need for re - measuring the original key when a second duplicate key is to be manufactured . this results in substantial time savings as the kic contains relevant parameters for the key duplication process thus causing the machine to duplicate the key faster . [ 0021 ] fig1 a illustrates the various component parts of a key 100 . the key shaft 102 extends from the key bow 104 . the key bow 104 is the portion typically held by the user when using the key . the shaft 102 has a key code 106 along one edge . the bow 104 may be provided with a numerical code 108 that corresponds to the key code 106 . the cross section of the shaft 102 has a particular shape , known as the keyway 110 . the profile of the keyway 110 is illustrated in fib . 1 b , which shows a cross section 1 b - 1 b through the shaft 102 . the keyway 110 illustrated includes a notch 112 on a first side of the shaft 102 and another notch 114 and land 116 on the second side of the shaft 102 . the notches 112 and 114 and land 116 run the length of the shaft and mate with the aperture of the lock when the key 100 is inserted . it will be appreciated that the key shown in fig1 a and 1b is only an example of a key and is not intended to limit the scope of the invention in any way . for example , the key 100 may be a double - sided key , in which case the key code is found on opposite edges of the shaft . generally , although not always the case , the same key code is provided on each edge of a double - sided key so that it may be inserted into the lock in either orientation . additionally , it will be appreciated that keys come with many different keyway profiles . when the duplicate key is cut from a key manufacturing machine that cuts both keyways and key codes , the duplicate may be cut from a key preform , or from a blank piece of material . fig2 illustrates the various component parts of a preform 200 . the preform shaft 203 extends from the bow 205 . this is the portion of the key that the user holds after the preform is converted into a key . the bow 205 may have a hole 206 that is used to position the preform 200 in the key manufacturing machine . the bow 205 may include an embossed portion 207 that is used as an identifier , for example for the company that manufactures the key manufacturing machine . there may also be a notch 202 , which identifies the orientation of the preform 200 . finally , the tip 201 of the preform 200 may be tapered to permit the tip 201 to be accommodated in a clamping mechanism of the key manufacturing machine . other embodiments of key preform are disclosed in u . s . patent application ser . no . 09 / 514 , 503 , incorporated herein by reference . the key may also be duplicated in a blank piece of material , which is typically rectangular , but may be of any suitable shape . [ 0025 ] fig3 illustrates a block schematic diagram of an embodiment of a system for the apparatus that may be used to measure the information about the target key . in this particular embodiment 301 represents the target key , which is to be duplicated . in module 302 the key is scanned for its dimensions and for its keyway and its key code information . different embodiments of how to scan the key are discussed in u . s . pat . nos . 5 , 908 , 273 and 6 , 152 , 622 and in u . s . patent application ser . no . 09 / 495 , 090 , all of which are incorporated herein by reference . the key measurement information is then processed in module 303 and a unique kic is generated . this kic contains information about the key and the process parameters . the kic may be given to the customer as printed alphanumeric output ( hard copy ) in module 306 . fig3 also shows that apart from generating the kic , the key manufacturing machine may also perform its usual task of machining a preform in the machining module 304 to produce a duplicate key 305 . in one particular embodiment , the processing unit 303 may compare the measured keyway and / or key code with standard keyways and / or key codes stored on a key database 310 and determine which standard keyway and / or key code most closely matches those of the target key 301 . once the matched keyway and / or key code has been established , the processing unit 303 may then generate a kic that relates to the matched standard keyway and / or key code in the key database 310 . [ 0027 ] fig4 illustrates a block schematic of an embodiment of a system for the apparatus that may be employed for using the kic to generate a duplicate key . in this particular embodiment , the kic 401 is contained in a hard copy that is in the user &# 39 ; s possession . an input interface 402 may be used to receive the kic . for example , the kic may be a code that the user inputs to the interface 402 manually via a keyboard , mouse , joystick , or the like . the processor 403 receives the kic and , if necessary , converts the kic into machining instructions that are transmitted to the machining module 404 . the machining module 404 produces the duplicate key 405 in accordance with the machining instructions received from the processor 403 . if the kic contains information that relates to standard keyway and / or key code information stored in a key database 410 , the processor 403 may , upon receiving the kic , interrogate the key database 410 to retrieve information on the key to be duplicated . the information may comprise measurements of the keyway and or key code to be machined , control data for controlling the machining module 404 to machine the duplicate key , or some other information that may be used by the processor and / or the machining module 404 to identify the physical parameters of the keyway and / or key code to be machined . [ 0029 ] fig5 illustrates a block schematic of an embodiment of a system for the apparatus that may be used to measure the information about the target key . in this particular embodiment the target key 501 , which is to be duplicated , is measured by the measuring unit 502 . the measuring unit 502 measures the key code and the keyway of the target key . the measurement data produced by the measuring unit are used to generate a bar code using the module 505 . the bar code stores information about the key type , including the keyway and key code . also shown is a machining module 503 , which may be used to machine a duplicate key 504 . the customer may be provided with a duplicate key 504 , a bar code with the kic of the target key , or with both the kic and a duplicate key 504 . the bar code may be printed on a plastic card , a metal tag or the like , which is given to the customer . [ 0030 ] fig6 illustrates a block schematic of an embodiment of a system for the apparatus that may be used for using the bar code kic to generate a duplicate key 605 . in this embodiment the bar - code 601 , which may be in the form of a card or tag with printed bar code information , is fed to a scanner 602 which reads and interprets the bar code kic information . the scanner 602 may be , for example , an optical scanner . the processor 603 receives the scanned information from the scanner 602 , and typically converts the scanned information into process parameters , or machine instructions , that are transmitted to the machining module 604 . the machining module 604 produces a key 604 using the process parameters received from the processor 603 . [ 0031 ] fig7 illustrates a block schematic of an embodiment of a system for the apparatus that may be used to determine the information about the target key . in this particular embodiment , the target key 701 is measured by the measurement unit 702 to determine the dimensions and the key code and keyway for the target key . the measurement unit generates a kic appropriate for the target key 701 . the kic is encoded onto a magnetic storage medium 705 , for example the magnetic strip of a plastic card . the kic may constitute the measurement information obtained by the measurement unit , or may be a processed form of information that represents the keyway and keycode of the target key 701 . the measurement unit 702 may also pass information on to the machining module 703 so that the machining module 703 generates a key 704 . [ 0032 ] fig8 illustrates a block schematic of an embodiment of a system for the apparatus that may be used for using the magnetically stored kic for generating a duplicate key 805 . in this embodiment , the kic on the magnetic storage medium 801 , for example in the form of a swipe card , is read by a magnetic data reader 802 . the information from the magnetic data reader 802 is transmitted to the processor 803 which may read and interpret the coded information . the processor 803 converts the scanned information into process parameters , or machine instructions , that are transmitted to the machining module 804 . the machining module 804 produces a key 804 using the process parameters received from the processor 803 . it will be appreciated that the kic need not only be generated through measurement of the target key . the kic may also be generated from other information received from the key , for example as is discussed in u . s . pat . no . 6 , 152 , 622 . one particular illustration of receiving information from the key is to receive information regarding the key code and the keyway from a transponder attached to the key . the kic may be produced in one of several different formats . for example , the kic may include the measurement data produced by the measuring unit . accordingly , the processor that receives such a kic processes the measurement data to produce machine control instructions for the machining module that is to cut the new key . the measuring units 502 and 702 may compare the measurements of the target key with a database of known key codes and keyways and then generate a kic that represents the key code and keyway in the database that respectively most closely match with the measured key code and keyway . in this type of code format , the processor 603 and 803 that receives the kic uses the code to generate machine control instructions for the machining module . the processor 603 and 803 may obtain the control instructions , or other information related to generating the keyway and / or key code from the key database . in another example , the measuring unit may generate machining instructions from the measurement data and present the machining instructions as the kic . in such a format , the processor that receives the kic may simply transfer the machining instructions to the machining module for cutting the new key . in another example , the measuring unit may direct information on the measured key to a central database , and present the user with a kic that represents the address in the central database where the information on the key is stored . accordingly , when the user wishes to have a new key manufactured using the kic , the processor that receives the kic retrieves the key information from the central database using the address represented by the kic . the information stored on the central database may be in any suitable format . the information stored on the central database may represent the measurements of the key , may represent coded values for the measured key code and keyway , may represent machining instructions , or may be in any other suitable format that permits the processor and machining module to cut a key of the appropriate shape and size . the invention described above may also be used for cutting new keys that have no target from which to duplicate . for example , a user may provide the kic to a key manufacturing machine processor , where the kic was created by the user who wished to make a key having a particular keyway and key code . a system that uses a database of keycodes and keyways is particularly advantageous for this approach . consider , for example , a database that stores 10 , 000 key codes , numbered 1 - 10 , 000 , and stores 26 keyways , identified with letters a - z . the user may select any one of the 10 , 000 key codes and any one of the 26 keyways for the key he or she wishes to be made . thus , inputting a selection “ 9568 , f ” selects keycode number 9568 and keyway f . the machining instructions for the selected keyway and key code are downloaded from the database to the machining module which then cuts a new key with keyway f and keycode 9568 . a database may be used to translate information on keyways and key codes obtained from a manufacturer to generate a kic for a key product . for example , information on standard keyways and key codes , such as keyway and key code dimensions , may be stored on a key data base so that a measuring unit can compare measured keyway and key code data with standard data . the comparison may be used to yield a code for the keyway and key code that is used as the kic . the manufacturer &# 39 ; s key data may also be translated into instructions for machining the standard keyway and key codes in a preform or material blank , and the instructions stored on the key database . therefore , when a particular kic is detected by a machining unit , the machining unit may be able to identify the relevant standard keyway and key code and retrieve the machining instructions from the key database . it will be appreciated that other approaches to providing instructions to the key manufacturing machine may be used . for example , a user may supply machining instructions to a key manufacturing machine , or measurements of a desired key . the processor of the key manufacturing machine may then convert whatever information is supplied by the user into machining instructions for controlling the machining module . an important feature of the invention is that a user may input a set of instructions to the key manufacturing machine , and the machine is capable of manufacturing a complete key from a blank preform , with a keyway and key code , in accordance with the instructions received from the user . while various examples were provided above , the present invention is not limited to the specifics of the examples . the kic may be presented to the user in other forms . for example , the kic may be input from the measurement unit to the user &# 39 ; s hand held computer , thus obviating the need for a hard copy of the kic . as noted above , the present invention is applicable to customers who may want to save time by bringing the kic with them when they get their keys duplicated . it may be applicable to a customer wanting the same key in a location different from the one where it was originally duplicated . it is believed to be particularly useful in cases of institutions , which have multiple key types and which have multiple key duplicating needs throughout a year . accordingly , the present invention should not be considered limited to the particular examples described above , but rather should be understood to cover all aspects of the invention as fairly set out in the attached claims . various modifications , equivalent processes , as well as numerous structures to which the present invention may be applicable will be readily apparent to those of skill in the art to which the present invention is directed upon review of the present specification . the claims are intended to cover such modifications and devices . | 8 |
the present invention provides an apparatus and method for securing different types of containers such as handbags or bags and specifically for securing the handles and / or zippers of such bags . the present invention may be employed to secure a strap , handle or other carrying device of a bag to the body of the bag to prevent the strap or handle from being removed from the bag or to prevent the bag from being opened and / or removed or stolen from a particular location . for example , the strap or handle can be secured to the body of the bag through the zipper or other closing member to prevent the zipper from being opened to gain access to the contents of the bag . it should be appreciated that the present invention may be used to secure any type of handheld bag or other type of bag such as purses , beach bags , tool bags , backpacks , luggage and the like . the handle or strap may also be attached around and secured and locked to a relatively stationary object such as the arm of a chair or a fence , and then through the zipper pull or tab of a zipper to secure the bag to the chair or fence and also secure the pull in a closed position . this enables the bag &# 39 ; s owner to temporarily secure the bag and specifically , the contents of the bag so that the bag owner can temporarily leave the bag at that location . for example , a bag owner may secure the bag to the arm of a beach chair and to leave the beach to go swimming , go to the bathroom , get food or perform some other activity . in another example , the bag can be secured to the handle of a stroller when in a crowded area to prevent thieves from snatching the bag or taking items out of the bag such as the bag owner &# 39 ; s wallet or checkbook when the owner is not looking . the present invention therefore enables users to secure their bags to a relatively immovable object such as a chair at a particular location or to movable objects such as strollers or shopping carts so that the user does not have to constantly keep an eye on the bag and so the user can leave the bag temporarily to perform other activities without having the burden of carrying their bag with them at all times . referring now to fig1 to 3 , one embodiment of a securable and lockable container of the present invention is generally illustrated by handbag or bag 20 . bag 20 includes a body 22 and a strap or handle 24 having two ends 25 a and 25 b . in an embodiment , the end 25 a of the handle 24 is connected to the body 22 . the end 25 a may be integrally formed with the body 22 or connected using any suitable attachment method . it should appreciated that either end 25 a or 25 b may be secured or attached to the body 22 . in this embodiment , end 25 b is removably secured to the body 22 as described in more detail below . bag 20 also includes a closing member such as a zipper 26 having a zipper pull 28 . a tab 30 is connected to the pull 28 as shown in fig1 and enables a user to grab and hold the tab to pull the tab and the zipper pull 28 along the zipper 26 to open and close the bag . the end 25 b of the handle 24 includes a securing member such as post 34 having a slot 36 which is connected to or integrally formed with end 25 b . the slot 36 engages a corresponding surface in a receptacle 37 described below . the post 34 may be any suitable post such as a metal post or a post made out of any other suitable material . preferably , the post 34 is made of a material which cannot be easily cut , severed , broken or removed from the handle 24 . in an embodiment , the post 34 is sized to fit through an opening 32 defined by the handle or tab 30 of the zipper pull 28 . specifically , the zipper pull is pulled along the zipper 26 until the tab 30 is at one end of the bag which is adjacent to where the end 25 b of the handle or strap 24 is secured to the body 22 . a lockable member or lock 38 is attached to a surface of the body 22 of the bag 20 and includes a receptacle or other opening for receiving the post 34 . the post 34 is inserted through the opening 32 of tab 30 and into the receptacle 37 or other opening of the lock 38 to simultaneously secure and lock the tab 30 and the post 34 ( which is attached to the removable end of the handle ) to the body 22 . in an embodiment shown in fig1 , a combination lock including dials 39 a , 39 b and 39 c is used to secure and lock the post 34 to the body 22 . it should be appreciated that any suitable lockable member or lock may be used to secure and lock the end 25 b of the handle 24 and the closing member to the body 22 . a release tab or lever 40 is movably connected to the body of the bag . the release tab 40 is moved upward or downward to release the post 34 from the receptacle 37 . the release tab 40 causes the receptacle to hold or secure the post 34 to the body and thereby the handle 24 to the body 22 when the lockable member 37 is in the locked or unlocked position . it should be appreciated that the release tab 40 may be any suitable tab or lever and may move in any suitable direction to release the post 34 from the receptacle 37 . as shown in fig2 , the post 34 is inserted into and through the opening 32 of tab 30 of the zipper pull . the post 34 is inserted through the opening 32 until the post cannot be inserted any further into the receptacle 37 associated with the lock 38 . in an embodiment , each of the dials 39 a , 39 b and 39 c of the lockable member of combination lock 38 include indicia such as symbols or numbers . in this embodiment , when each of the dials are set to 0 - 0 - 0 , as shown in fig1 , the post 34 is not locked to the body 22 . when the numbers on the dials 39 a , 39 b and 39 c are set to any other combination such as 2 - 5 - 8 shown in fig3 ( which is not a designated unlocking combination ), the post 34 is locked to the body 22 . it should be appreciated that any suitable combination of indicia or symbols may be used to release or lock the post 34 to the body 22 . thus , in this embodiment , a user moves or rotates the dials 39 a , 39 b and 39 c to scramble or otherwise hide the designated unlocking or release combination and thereby lock the post 34 to the body 22 after the post 34 is inserted into the receptacle 37 of the body 22 . to release the post 36 from the body 22 , the user moves or rotates the dials 39 a , 39 b and 39 c to the designated unlocking combination ( i . e ., a combination including three numbers which the user will remember ) to unlock the post 34 from the body 22 . the user then presses or pushes the release lever or tab 40 to release the handle from the body . it should be appreciated that the dials 39 a , 39 b and 39 c of the combination lock 38 may include any suitable symbols , indicia , letters , numbers or any other suitable symbols . in an alternative embodiment , the lockable member is connected to the removable end 25 b of the handle . the lockable member automatically locks the closing member and post to the body of the bag when the lockable member the post is inserted into a receptacle or similar opening defined by the body of the bag . the removable end of the handle and the closing member are unlocked from the body by unlocking the lockable member as described above . it should be appreciated that the lockable member may be connected to any suitable portion of the body of the bag or the handle or other part of the bag which enables the removable end of the handle and the closing member to be secured and locked to the body . in one embodiment , the post 34 and closing member are automatically locked to the lockable member or lock when the post is inserted into the lock . in this embodiment , the post and closing member are unlocked using one of the methods described above . by automatically locking the post and closing member to the body when the post is inserted into and secured to the lock , the present invention enables a user to always securely lock their bag before they leave it at a location . this embodiment prevents a user from accidentally or inadvertently forgetting to lock the bag . in one example , a user takes their bag to a beach . the user wants to go swimming but does not want to leave the bag unattended . instead of searching for a locker , which could be far away , or worrying about the bag , the user removes the end 25 b of the handle 24 from the body of the bag and loops the end 25 b around the arm of their beach chair so that ends 25 a and 25 b are on opposite sides of the arm of the chair . the end 25 b is then simultaneously secured and locked to the closing member and the lock connected to the body 22 of the bag the manner described above . this method therefore secures and locks the bag 20 to the chair and also secures the bag in a closed position to prevent the bag from being opened while the bag is secured to the chair . it also prevents the bag from being easily stolen . the user can now leave the bag locked to the chair to go swimming without having to carry the entire bag with them to the water or without having to constantly watch the bag and worry about whether the bag or the contents of the bag will be stolen . referring to fig4 , other types of closing members or closing devices may be employed by the present invention . for example , a round post 44 may be attached to the end 25 b of the handle 24 and inserted through a corresponding round receptacle or opening 32 of the tab 30 and to the combination lock 38 having settable dials 39 a , 39 b and 39 c to secure the handle 24 to the body 22 of the bag . the release tab 40 is moved to release the post 44 from the body 22 . it should be appreciated that any suitable post , closing member ( i . e ., zipper ), or other suitable closing devices or methods may be employed by the present invention . referring now to fig5 , another embodiment of the present invention is illustrated as bag 50 where the bag includes a reinforcing mechanism , reinforcing member or reinforcer 72 such as a metal wire or the like that adds to the security of the bag . in fig5 , the bag 50 includes a body 52 and a handle or strap 54 which has two ends 55 a and 55 b . the end 55 a is connected to the body 52 using any suitable attachment method . the end 55 b of the handle 54 is removably secured to the body 52 to enable a user to secure and lock the bag to another object or item such as a chair as describe above . in this embodiment , the end 55 b of the handle 54 includes a securing member or post 64 which is inserted through an opening 62 of the zipper pull 58 to secure the end 55 b and the zipper pull 58 in place . in particular , the post 64 is inserted through the opening 62 and into the lockable member or combination lock 66 having settable dials 67 a , 67 b and 67 c . a release lever or tab 68 secures and releases the post 64 from the body 52 . the post 64 ( i . e ., the removable end 55 b ) and the zipper pull 58 are simultaneously secured to the lock 66 . the dials 67 a , 67 b and 67 c of the combination lock are moved to lock post 64 in place . alternatively , the post and zipper pull are simultaneously and automatically locked to the combination lock 66 . this secures the handle 54 in place as well as prevents the zipper pull 58 from being moved to open zipper 56 and thereby gain access to the contents in the bag 50 . in the illustrated embodiment , the bag 50 also includes a reinforcing member or reinforcer such as wire 72 which is positioned within or otherwise connected or attached to at least a portion of the handle 54 and at least a portion of the body 52 . the wire 72 is preferably made of a suitable material such as a suitable metal or a strong fiber or fabric material which is difficult to cut , rip , sever or break . this prevents the bag and specifically the secured handle 54 from being cut , broken or severed in any way to remove the bag 50 from the object that it is secured to . the reinforcer 72 thereby makes cutting or otherwise removing the bag away from the object it is secured and locked to much more difficult . this embodiment further prevents a thief from quickly and easily taking the bag or from removing the contents of the bag . it should be appreciated that the reinforcer may include any suitable wire , fabric , or other lining device or material . the reinforcer 72 may be positioned in , manufactured or otherwise connected to a portion or all of the surfaces of the body 52 of bag 50 . for example , the reinforcer 72 may be sewn into or otherwise connected to all of the sides or surfaces of the body 52 to prevent the body 52 from being severed or otherwise cut to remove the bag from an object or to gain access to the contents in the bag 50 . in another embodiment , a substantial portion of the walls of the body 52 are lined with a suitable reinforcing material to further prevent unauthorized access into the bag . it should be appreciated that any suitable portion of the body 52 or the handle 54 may include the reinforcing member 72 or a reinforcing material . referring to fig6 , another embodiment of the bag of the present invention is generally illustrated as bag 100 . bag 100 includes a body 102 and a handle 104 including ends 105 a and 105 b . one end of the handle 104 such as end 105 a is secured to the body 102 as described above . the end 105 b includes a post 114 which is secured through opening 112 defined by tab 110 of zipper pull 108 to secure the zipper pull 108 in place . this secures zipper 106 in a closed position . in this embodiment , the lockable member or lock 118 is a suitable combination lock which enables a user to set a designated combination to release the post 114 from the lock . in an embodiment , the combination lock includes four rotatable devices or dials 120 a , 120 b , 120 c and 120 d . each of the dials 120 a , 120 b , 120 c and 120 d include different indicia or symbols such as letters or numbers which combine to form the combination . the user sets the combination using the dials 120 a , 120 b , 120 c and 120 d then rotates or moves the dials to scramble or hide the designated unlocking combination and lock the post 114 to the lock mechanism or combination lock 118 . when the user desires to release the post 114 from the lock 118 , the user turns or moves at least one of the dials 120 a , 120 b , 120 c and 120 d to indicate the designated unlocking combination . it should be appreciated that any suitable number of dials and / or combinations of indicia may be employed . release tab 117 is moved to release the post 114 from the body 102 when the post 114 is unlocked . referring now to fig7 , another embodiment of the bag of the present invention is generally illustrated as bag 200 . the bag 200 includes the body 202 and a handle 204 . the handle 204 includes a three securing members or posts 206 . specifically , the securing members 206 include prongs or extenders 208 a , 208 b and 208 c . the securing members and specifically , the prongs are made of any suitable material such as metal . the body 202 includes a number of receptacles such as receptacles 214 a , 214 b and 214 c which correspond in size and shape to extenders or prongs 208 a , 208 b and 208 c to receive the prongs . in an embodiment the prongs 208 a , 208 b and 208 c are positioned above and adjacent to the receptacles 214 a , 214 b and 214 c and are inserted into the receptacles . at least one of the prongs such as prong 208 b is inserted through the opening 213 defined by tab 212 of zipper pull 210 to secure the zipper pull in place . the prongs 208 a , 208 b and 208 c are snap - fit or otherwise positioned in receptacles 214 a , 214 b and 214 c and secured in the receptacles using any type of securing mechanism or lock . a release lever 218 is movably connected to the body 202 and is pressed or otherwise activated to release the prongs 208 a , 208 b and 208 c from the receptacles 214 a , 214 b and 214 c . when the prongs 208 a , 208 b and 208 c are inserted into the receptacles 214 a , 214 b and 214 c , the dials 217 a , 217 b and 217 c are moved to hide the designated combination and lock the prongs to the body 202 . the three prong securing member 206 provides another apparatus and method for securing the handle 204 to the body 202 and thereby enhances the security of the bag . referring now to fig8 , in another embodiment , a bag 300 includes a flap or cover 302 which covers the opening 304 of the bag and is secured adjacent to the removable end 308 of the handle 306 and the lock 310 . the end of the handle can then be inserted through a corresponding opening defined by the end of the flap 302 to secure the end 308 of the handle and the flap 302 to the lock 310 . it should be appreciated that the flap or cover may be any suitable type of flap or cover used to cover the opening of the bag to prevent the contents of the bag from being stolen . in a further embodiment , the lockable member includes a key - type lock 310 which defines an opening or keyhole 312 . the opening or keyhole 312 is formed into a suitable size and shape to receive a key 314 . in this embodiment , the handle 306 is secured to the body of the bag by inserting the post into the receptacle . in one aspect of this embodiment , the post is automatically locked to the body when the post is fully inserted into the receptacle . in another aspect of this embodiment , the post is inserted into the receptacle and then the key is turned a designated distance to lock the post to the body of the bag . to release the post from the body , the key 314 is inserted into the opening 312 and turned in one direction or the other . then , the release tab or lever 316 is moved to release the post from the receptacle defined by the body of the bag . referring now to fig9 , in a further embodiment , a bag 400 includes a handle 402 which is a generally u - shaped handle . the handle is a single solid part or component such as a metal handle which moves or slides upward and downward within the body 404 of the bag as shown . to secure and lock the handle 402 to the body 404 of the bag , a user pushes down on the handle 402 to insert the securing member 406 through the zipper pull 408 and to the lock 410 . to release the handle 402 , the user unlocks the securing member 406 from the combination lock 410 by moving dials 411 a , 411 b and 411 c to the designated combination . the user then moves the release tab 412 to release the post from the body of the bag . then , the user lifts or pushes upward on the handle 402 to move the handle away from the body . the handle 402 can then be re - engaged or moved downward to re - engage the lock to secure the handle in place to carry the bag . it should be appreciated that handle can be manufactured and made of any material such as a suitable metal or the like . referring now to fig1 , another embodiment of the present invention is illustrated which includes a bag 500 having a body 501 and a handle 502 connected to the body . the handle 502 includes a first end 505 a and a second end 505 b . securing members or securing rings 508 a and 508 b are connected to each end of the handle 512 . in this embodiment , one end 508 b is removable from the body 501 to enable the end 505 b to be secured about another item such as a chair . specifically , the closing member or zipper 504 is pulled or moved until the tab 506 is positioned adjacent to the securing ring 508 b at one end of the body 501 . a lock ring 510 is connected to the body 501 . the securing ring 508 b , the tab 506 and the lock ring 510 are all positioned adjacent to each other so that a detachable lock such as the combination lock 514 may be used to secure the securing ring 508 b , the tab 506 and the lock ring 510 together so that the bag may not be opened or the contents in the bag may not be removed . in particular , the u - shaped member 511 of the lock 514 is inserted through the securing ring 508 b , the tab 506 and the lock ring 510 to hold these devices in place . the combination lock 514 is locked . to release these devices , the user sets or indicates the designated combination on the combination lock 514 which opens the lock and releases the securing ring 508 b , the tab 506 and the lock ring 510 . the securing ring 508 b is then suitably secured or attached to the body 501 of the bag by attaching the securing ring 508 b to the lock ring 510 or to any other suitable portion of the body 501 . it should be appreciated that any suitable attachable lock such as a padlock may be used to secure the securing ring 508 b , the tab 506 and the lock ring 510 together to lock and / or unlock the end 505 b of the handle 502 to the body 501 . referring now to fig1 a and 11b , a further embodiment of the present invention which includes a bag 600 having a body 601 and a handle 602 connected to the body where the handle 602 is securable to the body using locking device or locking mechanism 614 and / or a suitable padlock 620 . specifically , the handle 602 includes a first end 605 a and a second end 605 b . securing members or securing rings 608 a and 608 b are connected to each end of the handle 602 . it should be appreciated that the bag 600 may include one or a plurality of securing rings . in this embodiment , one end 605 b is removable from the body 601 to enable the end 605 b to be secured about another item as described above . the closing member or zipper 604 is pulled or moved until the tab 606 is positioned adjacent to receptacle 612 defined by the body 601 as shown in fig1 a . a post 609 , which is connected to the end 605 b of the handle 602 , is inserted through an opening defined by pull tab 606 of zipper 604 and into the receptacle 612 to secure the handle 602 and zipper in place as shown in fig1 b . a lever or tab 611 is moved or pressed to release the post 609 from the receptacle 612 . once the post 609 is secured in the receptacle 612 , the handle can be locked in place by using lock mechanism 614 and / or padlock 620 . the lock mechanism 614 is a combination lock including three dials 618 a , 618 b and 618 c . as described above , the dials each include indicia which are set to a designated release or unlocking combination to unlock the post 609 . the designated combination may be any suitable combination . alternatively , the handle 602 can be locked in place by using a suitable detachable lock such as padlock 620 as shown in fig1 b . once securing ring 608 b , tab 606 and lock ring 610 are all positioned adjacent to each other , combination lock 614 is inserted through each of these components as shown in fig1 b to secure the securing ring 608 b , the tab 606 and the lock ring 610 together . as a result the handle 602 is locked in place . it should be appreciated that handle 602 and zipper 604 may be secured and locked in place using lock mechanism 614 , padlock 620 or both the lock mechanism 614 and padlock 620 . referring now to fig1 , another embodiment of the present invention is directed to a bag 700 having a body 701 and a handle 702 connected to the body where the handle 702 is securable to the body using a padlock type lock 709 connected to the body 701 . in this embodiment , the lock 709 includes a dial 710 having a plurality of indicia , where the dial is rotatably connected a side of the body 701 . the lock also includes a curved securing member 712 movably connected to the top side or surface of the body . the handle 702 includes at least one ring 708 where the ring is connected to a removable end of the handle . to secure and lock the handle to the body , the ring 708 is placed around the securing member 712 . the securing member is then pushed or pressed downward through opening 707 defined in tab 706 of zipper 704 and into a receptacle ( not shown ) defined in the top side of the body and the zipper to secure the securing member , closing member or zipper and handle to the body . an indicator 714 indicates one or more of the indicia on the dial to manually set a combination associated with the lock to unlock and release the securing member 712 from the body 701 . therefore , to unlock the securing member , closing member and handle , a user turns or rotates the dial 710 to indicate the designated combination with indicator 714 . once the designated combination is indicated , the securing member is unlocked and the user pushes or presses release tab 716 to release the securing member , closing member and the handle from the body . it should be appreciated that any suitable combination lock may be used to secure and lock the closing member and the handle to the body of the bag . it should be understood that various changes and modifications to the presently preferred embodiments described herein will be apparent to those skilled in the art . such changes and modifications can be made without departing from the spirit and scope of the present invention and without diminishing its intended advantages . it is therefore intended that such changes and modifications be covered by the appended claims . | 0 |
referring to fig1 a - 1c , a simplified flowchart illustrates the overall steps in an embodiment of the method of signal processing . for clarity , the schematic is split over fig1 a - 1c . an input audio signal is digitized into frames 10 . each of these frames is then processed as follows : each frame 10 is windowed 20 with for example a wide cosine function 30 producing time domain modulated representation of the input signal frame 10 . a fast fourier transform 50 is then applied to each frame 10 producing a frequency domain representation of the input signal 60 . the frequency domain representation of data is then filtered with a filtering function 71 parameterised by s ( f ) 70 . the filtering function may also be viewed as a low - pass single pole filter in the present example . the function s ( f ) 70 specifies how the behaviour of the filter varies with frequency . the filtering function 71 can be described by the recursive relation : y out ( f )=[ 1 − s ( f )] y in ( f )+ s ( f ) y out ( f − 1 ) thus s ( f ) 70 controls the ‘ severity ’ of the filter 71 . so in effect , a different convolution kernel is used for each frequency bin . the real and imaginary components of each bin are convolved separately . in the present exemplary embodiment , the filtering or convolution function 71 has the effect of “ blurring ” the frequency domain information and therefore the convolving function 71 can be referred to as a blurring function . blurring or spreading the frequency domain data corresponds to a narrowing of the equivalent window in the time domain frame . therefore each frequency bin of the fast fourier transform is effectively calculated as if a different sized time domain window had been applied before the fft operation . the effect of the filter 71 does not have to be to blur the data . for example , translating the time domain samples by half the window size would make it necessary to high - pass filter the frequency domain data , to achieve the same equivalent windowing in the time domain . the frequency domain filter 71 is applied to each bin in ascending order and then applied in descending order of frequency bin . this is to ensure that no phase shift is introduced into the frequency domain data . a key aspect of the present invention is that the control function s ( f ) is chosen , in the case of processing audio frequency data , so as to approximate the excitation response of human cilia located on the basilar membrane in the human ear . in effect , the function s ( f ) is chosen so as to approximate the time / frequency response of the human ear . the form of the control function s ( f ) is , in the present preferred embodiment , determined empirically by gauging the quality of the output or synthesized waveform under varying circumstances . although this is a subjective procedure , repeated and varied evaluations of the quality of the synthesised sound have been found to produce a highly satisfactory convolution function . in effect , the aforementioned steps are analogous to an efficient way to process a signal through a large bank of filters where the bandwidth of each filter is individually controllable by the control function s ( f ). once the filter 71 is applied , the convolved frequency domain data 80 is analyzed ( 90 ) to determine the locations of local maxima and the associated local minima . to perform this step , it has been found that it is more efficient to use the intensity spectrum . therefore , for each frequency , the data is a local maximum if i ( f )& gt ; i ( f − 1 ) and i ( f )& gt ; i ( f + 1 ). local minima exist if i ( f )& lt ; i ( f − 1 ) and i ( f )& lt ; i ( f + 1 ) . here , mag ( f )={ square root over ( real ( f ) 2 + l + im ( f ) 2 + l )} and intensity ( f )= real ( f ) 2 + im ( f ) 2 . referring to fig2 each maxima and associated local minima is used to define regions 321 , 322 ( indicated by arrows in fig2 ) which correspond to an audible harmonic in the original audio frequency signal . the location of the maxima in the frequency domain corresponds to the perceived pitch of the harmonic and the band of the frequency domain information around the maxima represents any associated amplitude or frequency modulations of that harmonic . since it is important not to lose this information , a summation of the whole band of frequencies around the peak is used to give a signal vector . this way the temporal resolution of the analysis sample will match the bandwidth of any modulations taking place . each of the regions is processed separately accordingly to the following technique . an accurate estimate of the location of each maxima is determined . referring to fig2 lower graph 101 the large arrow a ( 300 ) is the difference between the smallest intensity of the three intensity arrows ( max − 1 ) and the maximum intensity ( max ). the small arrow b ( 310 ) is the difference between the smallest ( max − 1 ) and the intermediate intensity ( mas + 1 ). the ratio of the two is used to offset the integer maximum value . pitch shifting and time - scale modification are indicated schematically in fig1 by the numeral 130 . at this point alternative applications are indicated by data reduction 133 or transmission / storage 134 steps . these are illustrated as alternative options in fig1 b . the manipulated data are re - synthesized according to the following method : for the ith analyzed frequency component , vector ( i ) has a real - valued location y in the frequency domain output . y is rounded down to the nearest integer which is less than or equal to y and denoted z . thus z = int ( y ). the output bins z and z + 1 are then added to with vector ( i ), in proportion to 1 minus the difference between y and that bins integer location . to modify the time - scale or pitch of the analyzed signal , it is necessary to compensate for any phase shifts so that the synthesized output is consistent ( i . e . glitch free ). to this end , the output signal in any one frame is moved forward in time by a fixed number of samples . therefore , for a given pitch measurement it is possible to determine how much the output phase should change so that that the output smoothly joins with the previously synthesized frame . however , the input time frame is moving by some other number of samples . therefore , the analyzed phase values are already changing as the analysis window moves through the input data . therefore the difference between the rate of change of input phase and the required rate of change of output phase is calculated . the difference between these phases is a measure of how fast to rotate the phase of the frequency domain data between analysis and synthesis . each of the signal vectors defined above has a frequency measurement . this measurement is used to calculate how quickly to spin a vector of magnitude 1 , where the vector is a complex number of representation . this vector is multiplied by the signal vector to provide the necessary phase shift for synthesis without affecting the timing of the decay characteristics or other modulations for each region . this phase shift ( in radians ) is given by : phase ( i ) = ( 2 π f [ t r - t a ] ) t w where t r = reconstruction time step in samples , t a = analysis time step in samples and t w = fft size in samples . since the measurement of frequency provides a measure of phase difference between one synthesis frame and the next , these differences must be summed cumulatively as synthesis proceeds . the cumulative sum applies only to one region , therefore regions must be tracked from one synthesis frame to the next . a convenient data structure has been developed to track regions from one frame to the next and is described with reference to fig3 a and 3 b . one integer array contains the location of the local maximum within a region for all the bins in that region . a corresponding array contains the last phase value ( in radians ) used to rotate that regions phase . the phase value is stored in the bin with the same index as the location of the maximum . therefore , when a new frame is analyzed and local maxima detected , the location of the maximum is used to index into the integer array . this provides the index of the maximum that existed in the previous frame . this index is then used to access the array containing the last phase value used for the corresponding region in the previous synthesis frame . this is illustrated in fig3 a and b whereby an analysis frame n is illustrated along with the nearest maxima array and the phase array . considering the n + 1 analysis frame , the first frequency maxima is 7 . the corresponding seventh element of the nearest maxima array from the previous frame is 5 . the fifth element of the phase array frame from the previous frame n is 12 degrees . this is updated using an estimate of the local maxima and then stored in the phase array for the next frame using position 7 . for the second region 410 the thirteenth element of the nearest maxima array from the previous analysis frame n gives 16 . from the phase array of the previous analysis frame n the phase is given as 57 degrees . a frequency estimate is used to update this phase value and is placed in the position 13 of the next phase array . a frequency domain representation of the signal 120 is constructed from the known signal components . for each signal vector , that vector is added to the frequency domain output array . since the frequency locations are real valued the energy from a signal vector is distributed between the nearest two ( integer valued ) bin locations . the frequency domain representation 120 is then inverse fourier transformed ( 150 in fig1 page 16 ) to provide a time domain representation 132 of the synthesized signal . since the signal was analyzed with differing temporal resolutions at different frequencies , the synthesised time domain signal 132 is only valid in the region equivalent to the highest temporal analysis resolution used . to this end , the synthesized time domain signal 132 is windowed ( 160 ) with a ( relatively ) small positive cosine window ( 170 ), before being added ( 172 ) in an overlapping fashion to the final synthesized signal ( 180 ). there exist variations in the implementation of this technique which will be clear to one skilled in the art . however , the key feature of the present invention resides in using a control function s ( f ) to vary a frequency domain filter at different frequencies . this brings about a windowing effect on the equivalent time - domain data that varies with frequency . in the case of processing audio frequency signals , this control function is chosen to reflect the response of the human cilia to a range of audio frequencies . although the shape of this curve is determined empirically , it is possible that other curves may prove suitable for other manipulative techniques and applications . a further feature of the present invention resides in the identification and location of the maxima and associated minima . the presently disclosed technique is computationally highly efficient and allows rapid time stretching , pitch shifting etc . experimentally , it has been shown that the present technique produces a sound with significantly enhanced tonal qualities and it is believed that this is largely achieved through the preservation of the harmonic information in the side - bands of the local frequency maxima . in terms of a practical implementation of the present invention , it is envisaged that the technique may be implemented in software or alternatively in hardware . in the latter case , the hardware may form part of an audio component such as an audio player . potential applications of the invention include the sound recording industry where audio signal processing / synthesis is commonly required to meet very high standards of reproduction quality . alternative applications include those in the entertainment industry and it is anticipated that the technique may find application in sound reproduction / transmission systems where variations in pitch or tempo may be desirable . it is further anticipated that applications may exist in general signal processing , data reduction and / or data transmission and storage . in the latter case , the selection of the particular convolution function may vary . where in the foregoing description reference has been made to elements or integers having known equivalents , then such equivalents are included as if they were individually set forth . although the invention has been described by way of example and with reference to particular embodiments , it is to be understood that modifications and / or improvements may be made without departing from the scope of the appended claims . | 6 |
before describing in detail the particular methods and apparatuses related to a shield for rfid and magnetic stripe devices and cards , it should be observed that the present invention resides primarily in a novel and non - obvious combination of elements and process steps . so as not to obscure the disclosure with details that will be readily apparent to those skilled in the art , certain conventional elements and steps have been presented with lesser detail , while the drawings and the specification describe in greater detail other elements and steps pertinent to understanding the inventions . the presented embodiments are not intended to define limits as to the structures , elements or methods of the inventions , but only to provide exemplary constructions . the embodiments are permissive rather than mandatory and illustrative rather than exhaustive . the device of the present invention in one embodiment is in the form of a card that can be carried with other conventional cards , for example in a clip , wallet , purse , stack , or a partially overlapping stack . the inventors have years of experience implementing security solutions in commercial and government business operations and have tested several ideas to protect rfid cards that are carried in a wallet or purse . this effort required in - depth experimentation , testing and consulting with security and rfid card specialists to create a protective device that is affordable and effective . the various embodiments of such a protective device , referred to commercially as a garblecard ™ shield or protective cover , are presented herein . in lieu of forming a faraday cage around the rfid device or card in some applications it may be more convenient to provide a partial shield that covers the majority of the rfid device area or volume . in the case of rfid cards , a partial shielding function can be provided by folding metallic fabric or foil such that it wraps around one or more cards . alternatively , some shielding can be provided using two planar metallic foils , sheets , or meshes one on each side of the rfid device or card . although such shielding may not completely enclose the rfid card , it may sufficiently attenuate the unauthorized broadcast - reading signal such that the rfid device does not respond with stored information or may respond with incomplete or garbled information . as described below , this shield may detune an antenna associated with the rfid card or change the resonant frequency of front end resonant circuits of the rfid card . the shield may also detune the rogue interrogating signal transmitted by the rfid skimmer or change the resonant frequency of front end resonant circuits of the rfid skimmer . the effectiveness of a shielding device may be computed or measured by various means depending on the shield configuration relative to the rfid device . if the shield is placed closer than about 0 . 7 wavelengths from the rfid device , the shield is considered within the “ near field ” of any radio frequency wave broadcast from the device . the shielding effectiveness is generally computed as the sum of the electric and magnetic field reflection plus absorption characteristics . for a shield to be effective , it must block electric and magnetic fields in any combination in which they may occur . a perfectly electrically conducting enclosure encapsulating a device prevents any electric field outside the enclosure from exerting influence on electric charges within the device . such an enclosure is called a faraday cage as proposed by michael faraday in the 1830s and has a 100 % shielding effectiveness to static electric fields . magnetic fields are created by moving charges ; i . e ., by electric currents . currents flowing externally to an enclosure produce magnetic lines of force that follow a path of least resistance i . e ., highest permeability . shielding against magnetic fields can be achieved in two ways : by surrounding the protected volume with an enclosure comprised of materials of ( 1 ) high magnetic permeability or ( 2 ) materials of high electrical conductivity , low permeability , and of sufficient thickness . in the latter case , an alternating external magnetic field creates circular currents in the conductive material , which produces a magnetic field that opposes the external magnetic field . the thickness of the material and the alternating current frequency determine the degree of shielding achievable . the so - called skin depth , the depth at which the induced current is reduced to 1 / e of its surface value , is given by : where f is the frequency of the magnetic excitation , μ is the magnetic permeability , σ is the electrical conductivity and π is a known constant . from this equation , it can be seen that a high conductivity and high permeability result in the smallest skin depth and therefore the best current confinement to the outer layers of the shield . confining the current to this skin depth produces a better shield against magnetic fields and the magnetic component of a time - varying electromagnetic field . note also that lower frequencies produce less confinement of the current and therefore are more difficult to shield . it should also be noted that low frequency rfid signals are used in the low frequency spectrum near about 125 khz , where it is more difficult to achieve shielding with thin conductive materials . the physical construction of the present invention provides a greater thickness while still maintaining the mechanical and manufacturability properties dictated by the credit card industry . generally , it is desired to confine a fraudulent scanning signal ( also referred to as an unwanted electromagnetic inquiry ) to an outer region of the shield of the present invention . and conversely it is desired not to create a shield that is excessively thin that permits significant current flow on the inside surface of the shield , thereby allowing coupling of the magnetic signal to the adjacent or enclosed rfid device . the following rules of thumb are well known in the art : 8 . 7 db of magnetic shielding results at one skin depth 10 skin depths develop nearly 87 db of magnetic shielding a graph showing the skin depth as a function of frequency for three different metals is shown in fig1 . as can be seen , above 0 . 1 mhz , copper offers a smaller skin depth when compared with aluminum and mild steel . using the rule of thumb for magnetic field shielding , more than 10 depths may be necessary for 90 db of shielding . at a frequency of 13 . 45 mhz where many rfid cards operate , this translates to a thickness of nearly 8 thousandths of an inch with copper as a preferred material . the skin depth for copper ( cu ) at 13 . 45 mhz is about 18 micrometers , so that nearly 200 micrometers of copper are required to achieve a 90 db shield effectiveness . these computations apply to faraday cages or shields where the protected object is completely surrounded or blocked with shielding material . the present invention uses a shielding approach comprising a substantially planar sandwich of multiple materials that together play at least two different roles in protecting an rfid device from unauthorized access by an attacker using an rfid skimmer . firstly , the shielding approach utilized provides a partial faraday cage ( a planar shield ) and secondly , the shield is constructed to detune the circuitry associated with the front - end rf circuits and antenna within the rfid device or card . the protective card or protective device of the present invention is constructed with a thin conductive outer layer that ensures maximum capacitive loading effect to adjacent circuits present in the rfid card . this layer also provides a limited degree of shielding effectiveness according to the material conductivity , permeability , and thickness . a central inner layer ( or layers ) of substantially greater thickness than the outer layers provides much greater shielding effectiveness . construction in this manner with individual layers preserves the flexibility of the card , provides a minimum spacing to the adjacent tuned circuits associated with the rfid card front end , and provides maximum shielding effectiveness using a thicker central layer ( s ). the detuning feature comprises a thin conductive material that capacitively loads the tuned rf circuit , and thus detunes it , within the rfid card . this tuned circuit must receive an excitation signal from the fraudulent or attacker &# 39 ; s scanning rfid skimmer to activate the card and then read the data stored on the card . capacitively loading the tuned circuit changes its oscillation or resonant frequency to the extent that the rfid skimmer cannot excite the tuned circuit to activate the rfid card . the proximity of this highly conductive material of the protective device of the present invention also detunes the antenna , thereby increasing its return loss , which effectively decouples the antenna from the front end circuits . this decoupling loss also reduces the ability of the circuits to respond to an externally applied interrogation signal , the rogue interrogating signal . construction of the inventive protective device or card is not readily obvious as the inventors have found substantial differences in performance based on choice of materials and their location in the sandwich structure . in a preferred embodiment , the protective device comprises a substantially planar card with conductive materials placed as close as feasible to the external surfaces of the sandwich . this placement allows the greatest degree of capacitive loading to an adjacent rfid card and therefore a reduction in the magnitude of the fraudulent scanning signal that reaches the rfid card . additionally , the reply signal broadcast from the rfid card will similarly be attenuated . as such , the protective card need not necessarily be placed between the reader and the rfid card to be protected , as is the case with an ordinary prior art shield . two conductive outer layers ( referred to as front and back layers for convenience although these two layers may be identical and therefore allow the user to place the rfid card against either one of the front and back layers ) are used in a preferred embodiment as the protective card of the invention may be placed in one of two possible positions against the rfid card . these conductive outer layers may be relatively thin and placed very close to or at a surface of the protective card ( i . e ., the garblecard ™) or at least as close as practical given the employed mass production and printing processes . the protective card or device also comprises one or more layers that act as a combined electric and magnetic field shield , with a shielding effectiveness in excess of that achievable with a thin conductive layer , that is , in excess of the electric field shield value alone . for example , at 13 . 5 mhz , in one embodiment the protective device provides an electric field attenuation of about 172 db combined with magnetic field attenuation in excess of about 108 db . in another embodiment the magnetic field attenuation can be as high as 122 db . single - layer thin ( 1 mil ) conductors however provide theoretical electric field attenuation due to reflection of 172 db but less than 1 db of absorption loss due to magnetic field . although reflection alone can provide reasonable protection , it is also desirable to have an effective absorption . experiments have shown that a single layer of conductive material of 1 mil thickness is not sufficient to provide adequate protection from high power or longer range reading devices . a reasonable shielding effectiveness from comprehensive testing indicates that shielding effectiveness should consist of both reflection and absorption components each in excess of about 100 db . in a typical shielding application , each layer contributes to the shielding effect , which is due to losses from reflection , and absorption processes . see the diagrammatic illustration of fig2 , where a thickness of an arrowhead indicates a relative magnitude . the inventors have computed several comparisons for reflective and absorptive losses in the tables set forth below based on near - field electromagnetic computations . the equations from which these tables are derived are known in the art . one embodiment of a multi layer protective device ( commercially known as a garblecard ™ protective device or card ) 10 is shown in fig3 . the protective device 10 is placed proximate an rfid card 14 to be protected . an rf wave 12 emanates from the rfid card 14 as in this example it is assumed , solely for explanatory purposes that a fraudulent hacker or attacker has activated the rfid card 14 ( notwithstanding the existence of the protective device 10 ) and caused generation of the rf wave 12 . two outer layers 15 and 17 comprise any material on which logos , text , etc . can be printed . the composition of these layers is not germane to the teachings of the present invention . conductive layers 18 and 20 are disposed on opposite sides of a mid - layer 24 . a thickness of each conductive layer 18 and 20 is designated “ t ”. the mid - layer 24 is shown with substantially greater thickness compared to the conductive layers 18 and 20 . layers 30 and 31 complete the sandwich structure . typically a material of the layers 30 and 31 comprises a dielectric and / or an adhesive . in one embodiment the layers 18 and 20 range in thickness from about less than about 0 . 2 mils to greater than about 1 . 5 mils . the mid - layer 24 is about 10 thousands of an inch thick . a distance between a centerline of the rfid card 14 to the layer 20 is about 35 mils . all dimensions illustrated in this non - limiting example are merely exemplary and are given in thousandths of an inch or mils . shielding effectiveness is the sum of the reflected loss and the absorption loss since both phenomena are effective to prevent reading the rfid card 14 from a location at a distance from the card , such as a distance of about 35 mils . the distance to the hacking skimmer may be very close or at a significant distance as determined by its broadcast power and received signal sensitivity . the inventors have found that the protective device 10 functions for skimmers located at a distance of many meters and for skimmers in contact with the rfid card , the latter being more challenging for protective devices of poor or lower shielding effectiveness . a skimmer may be able to overcome the effectiveness of the protective device 10 of the present invention if within several inches of the victim card . in certain applications the protective card 10 of the present invention is effective due to a combination of shielding effectiveness and a detuning effect . the shielding effectiveness depends on the combined reflection and absorption properties of the combined sandwich consisting of multiple layers as illustrated in fig3 . the detuning effect is a result of the distance between the rfid skimmer and the rfid card 14 and the extent of overlap between the protective device 10 and the rfid card 14 . as seen in the tables below , the layers 18 and 20 contribute little to the magnetic shielding effectiveness , but are effective reflectors of an incident wave , and also function as detuning elements for the rfid antenna and its associated tuning circuits in the rfid card 14 . the computed results are set forth in tables 1 and 2 below . both the electric and the magnetic shielding effectiveness are measured in decibels ( db ) and are given in successive columns of the tables corresponding to the thickness “ t ” of the layers 18 and 20 comprising copper material . note that tables 1 and 2 are not intended to show experimental results for the layer 18 , but only the effects of the two layers 20 and 24 . at a location “ a ” ( see fig3 ) and a thickness of 0 . 2 mils for the layer 20 , a magnetic field reflection of 24 db and an electric field reflection of 172 db are achieved . see table 1 and fig3 . note that the rf wave 12 first strikes the layer 20 . the corresponding absorption for either magnetic or electric fields by the layer 20 ( again , at the location “ a ” in fig3 ) is only 2 db . this material thickness of 0 . 2 mils results in a shield effectiveness of 26 db for magnetic fields and 174 db for electric fields . at the location “ b ” ( i . e ., after the rf wave 12 has passed through the mid - layer 24 of 10 mils thickness ) there is no change in the reflection numbers in table 1 , but the absorption losses are at 106 db for both the electric and magnetic fields . the last two columns of table 1 indicate the total thickness of the operative layers to the point “ b ”, the total reflection losses , the total absorption losses , and the overall shield effectiveness for the electric ( e ) and magnetic ( m ) fields . the latter parameter derived from a sum of the reflection and absorption losses for each of the electric and magnetic fields . by changing the thickness of the layer 20 to 1 . 5 mils as in table 2 , the reflective losses for both the electric and magnetic fields as reflected at locations “ a ” and “ b ” are the same as the results reported in table 1 . these results suggest that the material thickness does not affect the reflection properties . but the absorption losses for the magnetic and electric fields at location “ a ” increase to a much higher value of 16 db . the net result is an absorption of 122 db for both the magnetic and electric fields . also , table 2 reports a better overall shield effectiveness ( than reported in table 1 ) as set forth in the last line of the last two columns of table 2 . the net reflection is not increased substantially by changing the thickness from 0 . 2 mils ( table 1 ) to 1 . 5 mils ( table 2 ) as the first layer reflects a significant fraction of the impinging wave . but the material thickness is necessary for absorbing near field signals , and this is borne out by measurements of shielding effectiveness for electromagnetic waves from actual rfid cards and associated reading devices . the comparisons shown in tables 1 and 2 illustrate the need for a thicker material ( e . g ., the mid - layer 24 in fig3 ) to increase the absorption losses , while the reflective loss for the electric field is relatively constant for the layers 18 and 20 over nearly a factor of 10 ( 0 . 2 to 1 . 5 mils ) in thickness . the mid - layer 24 is sufficiently thick at 13 . 5 mhz to provide a high absorption loss for the magnetic field and virtually the same electric field reflection loss compared to the thinner material of layers 18 and 20 . it is therefore advantageous to use multiple thin layers ( at least one such layer on each side of the mid - layer 24 ) spaced apart from the center line of the protective card to achieve capacitive loading for detuning , while using a relatively thicker inner layer ( such as the mid - layer 24 , or in another embodiment multiple layers ) to provide a much higher absorptive loss for electric / magnetic fields and therefore higher overall shield effectiveness . as already indicated , the outer layers 18 and 20 serve a dual function while the mid - layer ( s ) 24 provide high absorptive and reflective losses for magnetic and electric ( near ) fields respectively . fig4 is an exploded view of another embodiment of a protective device 60 of the present invention . this embodiment comprises three layers 70 , 72 and 74 , and epoxy layers 80 and 82 to bind the three layers together . the dimensions supplied are merely illustrative . 20 mm pvc plastic card ( 85 . 60 × 53 . 98 mm ( 3 . 370 × 2 . 125 in ) an outwardly - facing surface 50 a is printed with the garblecard ™ logo . serves as the front of the garblecard ™ card . an inwardly - facing surface 50 b is smooth and bears no printing . the outwardly - facing surface 50 a may comprise a clear protective laminate . shielding material as applied to a surface 72 a using the epoxy resin material layer 80 to serve as a glue or adhesive . comprises # 100 copper 0 . 0045 ″ wire mesh extending across and covering the surface 72 a to about 1 / 16 ″ of all four card edges . this 1 / 16 ″ region allows sealing of the layer 72 and the layer 70 . 20 mm pvc plastic card ( 85 . 60 × 53 . 98 mm ( 3 . 370 × 2 . 125 in ) an outwardly facing surface 74 a carries a qr barcode that links the user to “ best use ” instructions and garblecard ™ background information and contact information when scanned . simple use instructions may also be printed on the surface 74 a . the inwardly - facing surface 74 b is smooth and unprinted and accepts the copper emulsified adhesive of the layer 82 . the layer 74 comprises a clear protective laminate . in another embodiment , the outwardly facing surface of either layers 70 or 74 ( or both layers 70 and 74 ) carries a ½ ″ iron oxide stripe from side to side ( 3 . 370 × 0 . 5 in ) to provide additional protection against magnetic stripe scanning . this stripe is centered equidistant from the top and bottom of the card 60 so as not to contact a credit card magnetic stripe . the protective device of the present invention may also include a radio frequency shielding and faraday construction that can also be accomplished with any one of three popular copper meshes as well as solid or composite materials . 1 ) # 16 mesh 0 . 011 ″ wire diameter offers the lowest shielding effectiveness . 2 ) # 22 mesh 0 . 015 ″ wire diameter is specified by the u s government tempest program . this material is a sturdy mesh and offers better shielding characteristics than the # 16 mesh . 3 ) # 100 mesh 0 . 0045 ″ wire diameter is the finest practical copper shielding mesh and very effective into the higher frequencies . one embodiment comprises material 2 ) from the above list . another embodiment uses a thin sheet of commercial aluminum foil ( 0 . 0016 mil ) as the shield . the results with this latter material appear not as effective as with thicker and higher conductivity materials . another embodiment uses magnetic materials as one or more layers with magnetic permeability greater than 1 . additional embodiments may utilize special conductive patterns that reflect or absorb energy based on their pattern design and fall into the class of engineered materials , frequency selective surfaces , etc . emulsified materials containing shielding material may also be used in construction of the protective device of the present invention . a preferred embodiment compatible with large scale manufacturing methodology consists of a card 3 . 37 × 2 . 125 inches and 30 to 35 thousands of an inch in thickness . the card is constructed of a core with 0 . 008 - inch deep cavity 3 . 14 × 1 . 86 inches in cross - section . a slug is inserted into this cavity ; the slug comprises five layers with a total thickness 0 . 0073 inches . the slug layers comprises the following : 0 . 0014 inch cooper foil , 0 . 002 inch adhesive , 0 . 0005 - inch # 100 cooper mesh , 0 . 002 inch adhesive , and 0 . 0014 inch cooper foil . the slug having three shielding layers during manufacture is inserted into the core cavity , which is then filled with liquid pvc material and formed into a solid structure . the solid completed core is then sandwiched between two pvc laminates as follows : laminate over - printing , print coating , 0 . 007 - inch pvc stock , adhesive , core insert , adhesive , 0 . 007 inch pvc stock . print coating , laminate over - printing . the completed card is 0 . 030 to 0 . 035 - inch thick and meets all fips 201 certification requirements . should an attacker attempt to read a magnetic stripe card , this added protection will be read instead of the victim &# 39 ; s card as it is a larger magnetic surface with a high magnetic density . although the present invention has been described with respect to rfid cards , magnetic strip cards can also benefit from the present invention due to the shielding and detuning effects provided . one embodiment further comprises an iron oxide ½ inch magnetic stripe to provide an extra measure of credit card security . there is little evidence that card hackers are stealing credit card information by scanning the magnetic stripes , but with this added stripe on the protective device of the present invention the attacking scanner will pick up the stronger signal , which will be garblecard . com written on all 12 lines of the card &# 39 ; s magnetic stripe based on testing and research by the inventors , using the protective device properly applied makes it more difficult for an attacker to scan an rfid card and a magnetic stripe card . like the home security system , the protective device makes the hacking process more difficult and moves the majority of would - be attackers on to victim employing protection techniques that are less effective than the protective device of the present invention . | 6 |
these and other features of the invention will appear from the following written description , and from the drawings , in which : fig1 is an axial view of the cage of the invention installed between a pair of partially depicted races ; fig2 is an enlarged view of one module viewed axially ; fig3 is a view looking radially inwardly at one module alone ; fig4 a is a perspective view of the male and female fasteners beginning to move axially together ; fig4 b is a corresponding sectional view taken along the line 4b of fig4 a ; fig5 is a perspective view of the fasteners moved partially together , with the slide barb having pried the beams apart ; fig5 b is a corresponding sectional view taken along the line 5b of fig5 a ; fig6 a is a perspective view of the fasteners moved farther together ; fig6 b is a corresponding sectional veil taken along the line 6b of fig6 a ; fig7 a is a perspective view of the fasteners moved completely together and fully engaged ; fig7 b is a corresponding sectional view taken along the line 7b of fig7 a ; fig8 is a sectional view taken along the line 8 -- 8 of fig7 a , showing the mutual clearance between the various elements of the engaged fasteners when there is no net force acting on the joint between adjacent cage modules ; fig9 is a view like fig8 but showing the response of the fasteners to an inward bending on the joint ; fig1 is a view like fig8 but showing the response of the fastener as to an outward bending on the joint ; fig1 is a view like fig1 , but illustrating a greater , deliberate outward bending on the joint pursuant to disassembly of a module ; fig1 is a corresponding sectional view taken along the line 12 -- 12 of fig1 . referring first to fig1 a molded plastic roller clutch cage according to the invention , indicated generally at 20 , is installed in the annular space between a pair of clutch races 22 and 24 , the axis of which is indicated at a . cage 20 is a concentricity control cage , meaning that it has integral journal blocks 26 that fit closely within the annular space and keep the races 22 and 24 substantially concentric . as a consequence , it is especially important that the close fitting plastic cage 20 have good conformance within the annular space , because of the plastic - steel temperature response differential described above . cage 20 is able to expand and contract freely , because it is built up from a series of seven identical separate modules , indicated generally at 28 , which have joints that give with essentially no resistance , within limits , so as to accommodate expansion and compression forces . details of the modules 28 and the forces between them are described in more detail below . referring next to fig1 and 2 , each module 28 subtends an equal angular segment of the annular space between the races 22 and 24 . the joints between adjacent modules 28 are subject to various forces , before and after installation . should cage 20 be expanded outwardly , all the inter module joints are subject to being pulled apart , as shown by the arrows labeled e . if subjected to compression , then the joints would be pushed together , as indicated by the arrows c . regular , even expansion and compression forces may be experienced by cage 20 in operation , due to the kind of thermal expansion and contraction noted above . during shipping and handling , cage 20 is likely to be subjected to uneven expansions and contraction , of a type that would tend to force it into an elliptical shape . in that case , the inter module joints may be subjected to inward bending forces , as shown by the angle and arrows labeled i , or outward bending forces , labeled o . the fasteners that make up the joints between the modules 28 , described next , accommodate all of these forces , while allowing for simple assembly , and also for deliberate disassembly . referring next to fig2 through 4b , each module 28 provides two roller pockets , for a total of fourteen conventional rollers and springs , not illustrated . the total number of rollers needed in any particular case depends on the loads that the races 22 and 24 must handle , and the number of cage modules 28 in turn , depends on how many joints are needed to give a sufficient total expansion and contraction capacity to cage 20 . the rollers are simply divided evenly among the number of modules 28 . clearly , if the roller complement were a prime number , one of the modules 28 would have to accommodate a single roller , and would not match the others in size ( unless all were made to accommodate a single roller ). the fasteners would be identical regardless . each module 28 has , at one end , a male fastener comprised of a circumferentially extending slide 30 and a coextensive rail 32 . the slide 30 and rail 32 extend for most of the axial width of the end of module 28 , terminating at a block 34 that is radially as thick as a journal block 26 . slide 30 is radially much thinner than block 34 , and approximately radially centered relative to it , while rail 32 is intermediate in thickness . this creates a general &# 34 ; t &# 34 ; shape , as viewed axially from the perspective of fig2 . slide 30 is short enough , circumferentially , that it is relatively stiff in the radial direction , a stiffness assisted by its integration to the block 34 . molded to the outer surface of slide 30 and inboard of rail 32 is an axially extending barb 36 that is radially thicker than slide 30 and comparable in thickness to rail 32 . barb 36 is axially narrow , and axially spaced from the end of block 34 by the distance indicated at s . still referring to fig2 through 4b , the opposite end of each module 28 comprises a female fastener in the form of three circumferentially extending beams , including two axially spaced beams 38 and 40 at the radially inner diameter and an intermediate beam 42 at the radially outer diameter . in the axial direction , beam 42 has a width w that is substantially equal to the quantity s noted above . in the circumferential direction , beam 42 is somewhat longer than the beams 38 and 40 . it is also , therefore , more radially flexible , in the way that a longer cantilever beam is more flexible . beam 42 is longer in part because of the fact that it is located radially farther out than the beam pair 38 , 40 , but mostly because the end of module 28 is cut back from a purely radial plane , giving it more space . in terms of the fastening operation , the beam pair 38 and 40 act as a single , axially continuous beam , but are axially spaced and separate here for a reason described below . the beams 38 and 40 are radially undercut enough to match and slightly exceed the thickness of rail 32 , effectively forming , in cooperation with the radially opposed beam 42 , an axially extending groove . the outer edge of the intermediate beam 42 is molded with a pair of axially spaced teeth 44 which are radially spaced from the outer edges of the opposed beam pair 38 , 40 by a distance t that is slightly greater than the radial thickness of the slide 30 , but less than the radial thickness of the barb 36 . adding to the radial stiffness of the beam 40 is an integrally molded block 46 of comparable thickness to block 34 . referring next to fig4 a through 6b , the assembly of the modules 28 one to another is illustrated . assembly consists simply of axially pushing the end of each module 28 into axial alignment with the end of the next , seriatim . the last module 28 is assembled with the same basic motion , the only difference being that it will fill the last gap , and slide into the ends of two adjacent modules simultaneously . the straight line pushing motion is simple and amendable to machine or robot assembly , unlike the more complex radial assembly motion of the older segmented cage design described above . specifically , as one module 28 is pushed into axial alignment with the other , the slide 30 and rail 32 simultaneously slide between the co linear beam pair 38 , 40 and opposed beam 42 , which engage opposite radial sides thereof . as seen in fig5 a and 5b , the barb 36 initially wedges between beam 38 and the first tooth 44 , flexing the longer beam 42 radially outwardly . the shorter beam 38 may be flexed radially inwardly to a small extent , as well . then , as seen in fig6 a and 6b , the barb 36 snaps past the first tooth 44 and slides with lower resistance thereafter along the surface of beam 42 until it hits the second tooth 44 . then , it wedges between the last tooth 44 and the last beam 40 , finally snapping into place behind beam 42 , specifically , behind the last tooth 44 , as seen in fig7 a and 7b . the two modules 28 cannot be pushed any farther together , because the blocks 34 and 46 simultaneously abut the beam 42 and the end of slide 30 - rail 32 respectively . once installed , the blocks 34 and 46 also assist in the concentricity control function provided by the journal blocks 26 , being of comparable radial thickness . the assembled modules 28 cannot be pulled axially apart , because the backside of barb 36 is abutted with one of the teeth 44 , although deliberate disassembly is possible with a more complex motion , as described further below . this axial fit up is close enough that there is insignificant axial shifting possible between the assembled modules 28 . a limited radial and circumferential shifting is deliberately made possible , however , as described next . referring next to fig1 and to fig8 through 10 , the response of the assembled cage 20 to circumferential and radial forces is illustrated . as best seen in fig8 the cross sectional shape of the rail 32 and slide 30 is deliberately undersized relative to the receiving groove created by the undercut beams 38 , 40 and the overhanging teeth 44 . here , that clearance averages approximately two to four thousandths of an inch , circumferentially and radially . should the cage 20 experience a post installation expansive force , as with a temperature rise , then each rails 32 can pull to the left as seen in fig8 freely and without resistance , but only until the circumferential clearance noted above is gone , and it hits the undercut beams 38 and 40 and the overhanging teeth 44 . seven times that individual circumferential clearance is sufficient to allow cage 20 to expand as much as is necessary to conform to the annular space between the races 22 and 24 . likewise , in the event of a contractive force , the rail 32 can move the right to the same degree . because of these free moving clearances in the joints , the modules 28 can also respond freely to pre installation inward and outward bending forces , but still within limits . as seen in fig9 which illustrates an inward bending force , rail 32 and slide 30 can twist inwardly , but only until they jam between the beam pair 38 , 40 , and the beam 42 . conversely , if subjected to outward bending forces , as shown in fig1 , rail 32 and slide 30 bend outwardly . this creates a leverage about the fulcrum of the stiffer , radially inner beams 38 and 40 and against the radially outer beam 42 . normal shipping and handling forces are not sufficient to bend beam 42 out enough to allow the rail 32 to pull out , however . therefore , the various modules 28 of cage 20 have sufficient integrity to constitute a structural unit , but can move almost freely after installation as structurally separate elements . referring next to fig1 and 12 , an additional advantage of the inter module fastening system is illustrated . it is possible to disassemble a selected module 28 ( or more ) by applying a specific compound force . a strong outward bending force is applied across the joints of the selected module 28 ( only one of which is illustrated ), which acts to pry the more radially flexible beam 42 radially out and away from the beams 38 and 40 . because of the relatively greater stiffness of the shorter , thicker beams 38 and 40 , especially 40 , the bending force affects the beam 42 preferentially , prying it out and away . the rail 32 can rock out and around the stiffer beams 38 and 40 , far enough that the barb 36 , which is inboard of the rail 32 , moves circumferentially away from , and is no longer blocked by , the tooth 44 . the prying apart action is not enough to let rail 32 pull completely out . it need only be great enough to allow the barb 36 to clear the teeth 44 on beam 42 . then , while maintaining the bent out relationship , the selected module 28 can be pulled out by applying an axial parting force as shown by the arrows in fig1 . most likely , it would be difficult to disassemble the selected module just one end at a time , especially if cage 20 had a significant axial width , because it would be difficult to twist cage 20 out of shape far enough to allow a single joint to be slide axially apart . however done , the simultaneous application of the prying and axial parting forces , which are orthogonal to one another , can only be done deliberately . it would be difficult to automate such a complex motion , but that would be unnecessary . disassembly of a single module 28 would most likely be done manually , as a post installation service operation . it provides the opportunity to repair only selected segments of the clutch cage 20 , rather than the entire unit , which represents a potentially significant cost savings , especially with large diameter units having many segments . replacement modules would be installed in the same way described above . variations in the embodiment disclosed could be made . fundamentally , if the only need were for a free jointed , segmented cage in which the modules could be easily assembled , with no need for later disassembly , then the fastening system would not need to be made reversible . the barb 36 could then be placed anywhere where it would snap past the flexible beam 42 . it would not necessarily have to be placed on the slide 30 , inboard of the rail 32 , so that it could rock out of interference with the tooth 44 . as disclosed , the radially outer beam 42 is the one that is made the more radially flexible , to that module disassembly is accomplished by a radially outward bending force , in order to pry the flexible beam 42 radially out . that could theoretically be reversed , with the more flexible beam being on the radially inner diameter , and with disassembly being accomplished by a radial inward bending . so long as the beam past which the barb snaps is the more flexible ( as a result of being longer or thinner ), the basic latching and de latching can be accomplished . while the shape and inter relationship of the various fastener elements and surfaces is very complex , their manufacture is potentially quite simple . the primary purpose of the fastener shapes described is to improve conformance , assembly , and disassembly , but their moldability is an added advantage . as disclosed , the various surfaces are shaped and arranged so that each module 28 can be molded by a single pair of mold elements that part along a common direction that is generally radial , thereby obviating the need for any separately movable mold slides or inserts . for example , the lack of axial overlap between the axially spaced beam pair 38 and 40 and opposed beam 42 is specifically intended to allow them to be molded with an effective radial undercut , by generally radially parting mold elements . likewise , no surface of the rail 32 overlays the slide 30 . the beam pair 38 and 40 could be one continuous beam , if the module 28 were instead molded with a pair of mold elements that parted axially . in that case , an access slot would have to be provided through the block 34 in order for a very thin mold element to slide axially through ( and back ) to create the back surface of barb 36 . in addition , it would not be possible to mold the discrete teeth 44 , since , as viewed axially , they radially overlap one another . that would not effect the basic operation of the latching mechanism , but there would be more resistance felt when pushing the barb through . the main factor driving a choice between an axial or radial mold parting direction is whether it is desired to make the sides of the roller pockets radially continuous . if so , radial parting , as here , is necessary . therefore , it will be understood that it is not intended to limit the invention to just the embodiment disclosed . | 5 |
the invention will now be described in detail with reference to the foregoing figures where like numerals are used to designate like parts . in the foregoing discussion and elsewhere in the specification and appended claims , the terms &# 34 ; lower &# 34 ; and &# 34 ; downward &# 34 ; are intended to make reference to the needle end of the hypodermic syringes and associated parts described herein , and conversely the terms &# 34 ; upper &# 34 ; and &# 34 ; upward &# 34 ; are intended to make reference to the head end thereof . fig5 illustrates a cartridge ampoule , generally indicated by reference numeral 10 , of a well - known type which consists of a cylindrical container , usually glass or clear plastic , having a necked - down end and sealed at the necked - down end with a rubber diaphragm 11 which is secured to the ampoule by a crimped - on metal collar 12 . the other end of the ampoule is closed by a piston 13 which is slidable in the bore of the ampoule . the self - aspirating concept of the present invention is used in conjunction with syringe holders of the side loading type . one such embodiment , generally indicated by the reference numeral 14 , is illustrated in fig1 with details thereof shown in fig2 and 3 . the syringe there depicted has a hollow tubular body or barrel 15 having an elongated window 16 therein for insertion of a cartridge ampoule 10 , only the lower end of window 16 being depicted in the partial section view of fig1 . the syringe holder is fitted at its lower end with a needle hub 18 which is either detachably or integrally fitted with a hypodermic needle ( not shown ), the needle hub unit itself being detachably fitted to the syringe holder , for example by means of a screw - threaded mounting . the needle is of the double - ended type so that when a cartridge ampoule 10 is inserted in the syringe barrel 15 , the inner end of the needle pierces the diaphragm 11 so that the needle is in communication with the contents of the ampoule . the barrel 15 is attached to , and extends from , a head unit 19 to which is attached a pair of finger grips 20 . in the practice of the present invention , it is necessary that the ampoule 10 be essentially immobilized within the barrel 15 of the syringe holder , and accordingly for this purpose the head 19 is equipped with a locking sleeve 21 of generally cylindrical configuration , the shoulder 22 of which is biased downwards against the rim of the cartridge ampoule by compression spring 23 . slidably mounted within the bore of the locking sleeve is a double plunger which is composed of an inner plunger rod 24 which itself is slidable within the bore of a sleeve or outer plunger 25 . the inner plunger rod is fitted at its lower end with any conventional means for making positive interengagement with the rubber piston 13 in the cartridge ampoule 10 . for purposes of illustration , this interengagement means is depicted herein as a barbed point or &# 34 ; harpoon &# 34 ; 26 which is well known in the art for the stated purpose . however , it is to be understood that other conventional means of effecting interengagement between the plunger and the piston , such as those described in the prior art section above , will serve the purpose as well . the upper end of the inner plunger is fitted with a thumb plate 27 with a skirt 40 depending therefrom , and the inner plunger and outer plunger or sleeve are biased one against the other by a coil spring 28 . the lower end of the outer plunger or sleeve is fitted with an annular rim 29 which serves to prevent removal of the inner / outer plunger assembly from the bore of the locking sleeve 21 . the lower end of the inner plunger rod is also fitted with an annular rim 30 which serves to prevent removal of the inner plunger from within the bore of the sleeve or outer plunger . the thumb plate and skirt unit are threadably engaged with the upper end of the inner plunger . the threaded interengagement of the thumb plate and skirt unit with the plunger provides a means for assembling the inner / outer plunger unit within the head of the syringe . this assembly is accomplished by first removing the thumb plate / skirt / coil spring units 27 / 40 / 28 from the outer plunger , passing the inner and outer plungers , one within the other , through window 16 and upward through the bore of locking sleeve 21 and reassembling the coil spring and thumb plate / skirt units to the inner plunger . the locking sleeve 21 , at its widest diameter , is slidable within the bore of the syringe head 19 , and at its upper end has a section of diminished diameter which is slidable through the end opening of the syringe head and the opening through a locking nut 31 to be described hereinbelow . the upper end of the locking sleeve passes through a cavity 32 in the head of the syringe which is of sufficient diameter to accommodate a compression spring 23 which , as pointed out above , serves to bias the shoulder 22 of the locking sleeve 21 downwards against the rim of ampoule 10 . the upper end of the locking sleeve 21 having the smaller diameter is tapered as at 33 in fig2 and fig3 and is furthermore provided with slots 34 which form an equal number of flexible fingers 35 . the locking nut 31 mentioned above is fitted to the head of the syringe by means of threaded engagement 36 . the pitch of the threads is preferably selected so that the locking nut can be turned from its full up to its full down position in about one quarter turn of the nut . the locking nut is fitted with a thumb tab 37 to permit positive , selective and reversible manipulation of the locking nut by the operator as will be more fully described below , and the locking nut is prevented from being fully removed from the syringe head by an annular retaining flange 38 on the ends of the fingers 35 . the interior wall of the locking nut has a sloping surface 39 which is so configured that it generally conforms to the tapered surface 33 of locking sleeve 21 . thus with the locking nut in the full up or open position , the flexible fingers 35 are uncompressed , and the inner / outer plunger assembly 24 / 25 is freely slidable in the bore of the locking sleeve . however when the locking nut is turned to its full down or closed position , the sloping surface 39 of the locking nut slides downward over the mating tapered surface of the locking sleeve forcing the fingers inward against the outer plunger 25 thereby locking it against axial movement relative to the syringe holder . thus it is seen that the locking sleeve 21 serves a dual purpose as a locking sleeve to immobilize the cartridge ampoule in the syringe barrel and as a collet to positively , selectively and reversibly lock the outer plunger against axial movement . in use the syringe of fig1 is first loaded with a cartridge ampoule 10 by withdrawing the plunger / locking sleeve against the bias of compression spring 23 , inserting the ampoule through window 16 , and releasing the plunger / locking sleeve . engagement between the inner plunger rod 24 and the piston 13 is made , and in syringes having a detachable needle and needle hub unit , such unit is then attached . after air is expelled from the cartridge by downward pressure on thumb plate 27 , the needle is inserted in the injection site . when the operator wishes to aspirate to determine whether the needle tip has pierced a vein , he turns the locking nut 31 to its full down position by applying thumb pressure against thumb tab 37 thus securely locking the fingers 35 of the collet / locking sleeve 21 against the surface of outer plunger 25 and immobilizing the same against axial movement . thereafter when further downward pressure is exerted on thumb plate 27 , the inner plunger 24 advances beyond the outer plunger 25 as shown in fig4 . when pressure on the thumb plate is released , the inner plunger is withdrawn by the force generated by coil spring 28 , and the inner and outer plungers will once again assume the relative positions with respect to one another indicated in fig1 . as the inner plunger is withdrawn , the piston 13 to which it is firmly engaged via interengagement means 26 is likewise withdrawn slightly thus generating a slight negative pressure in the ampoule and creating aspirating conditions within the same . when the locking nut 31 is returned to its full up or open position by reverse manipulation of the thumb tab 37 , the collet is unlocked , and injection can thus be made by continued downward pressure on thumb plate 27 . it will be appreciated from the foregoing description that the self - aspirating syringe provided by the present invention possesses all the attributes of an ideal aspirating syringe as enumerated above . that is the syringe is relatively simple in construction , thus minimizing the cost of production ; it is relatively simple to operate ; it is capable of manipulation with one hand ; it is capable of multiple self - aspirating actions with each cartridge ampoule ; and it is capable of expelling trapped air from the ampoule either prior to initiation of the self - aspirating action or at any time during the sequence of actions necessary for injection of the ampoule contents without , on the one hand , precluding self - aspirating action at any point in the sequence or , on the other , rendering the self - aspirating action inoperative . moreover , the self - aspirating syringe of the invention can be constructed either in whole or in part from metal , to provide reusable units , or from plastic , to provide disposable units . it will also be understood that , although the preferred embodiments of the invention have been described above in order to better illustrate the same , alternative structural features can be substituted for elements described herein without either departing from the spirit of the invention or in any way adversely affecting the operability of the same . for example , as mentioned above , alternative conventional means of achieving interengagement between the inner plunger and the slidable ampoule piston can be used . furthermore , a thumb ring conventionally used in manually operating aspirating syringes , although not essential in the operation of the present automatic self - aspirating system , can nevertheless be used in place of a thumb plate . having thus described the invention and the advantages thereof , it is considered that the invention is to be broadly construed and limited only by the character of the following claims . | 0 |
preferred embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail hereinafter with reference to the drawings . [ 0047 ] fig2 is a block diagram showing an outline of a substrate treating apparatus in a first embodiment . a disk - shaped spin chuck 1 having six cylindrical support pins 1 a erected thereon is spun by an electric motor 5 through a rotary shaft 3 connected to the bottom of spin chuck 1 . with a spin of spin chuck 1 , a wafer w supported at edges thereof by the support pins 1 a spins in a horizontal plane about a spin center p . the spin chuck 1 is surrounded by a scatter preventive cup 9 for preventing scattering of a cleaning liquid or solution s discharged from an ultrasonic nozzle 7 . the scatter preventive cup 9 is moved vertically relative to the spin chuck 1 as indicated by an arrow in fig2 when a wafer w to be cleaned is placed on the spin chuck 1 and when a transport device not shown receives a cleaned wafer w from the spin chuck 1 . the spin chuck 1 , rotary shaft 3 and electric motor 5 constitute the support means of the present invention . the nozzle 7 is supported in an inclined posture by a support arm 11 , with a discharge opening pointed to the spin center p . the nozzle 7 is vertically movable and swingable , along with the support arm 11 , by a drive mechanism 13 as indicated by arrows in fig2 . the nozzle 7 is swingable between a cleaning position above the wafer w and a standby position retracted sideways from the wafer w and scatter preventive cup 9 . the nozzle 7 has a pipe 15 connected to a barrel portion thereof . the pipe 15 extends from an ozone water feeder 21 through a control valve 19 operable under control of a controller 17 . thus , the ozone water feeder 21 supplies the nozzle 7 with ozone water having ozone dissolved in deionized water to act as the cleaning solution . the cleaning solution has ozone dissolved in a low concentration in the order of 10 ppm . as the cleaning solution is supplied to the nozzle 7 , an oscillator 7 a applies ultrasonic vibration ( e . g . 1 . 5 mhz ) to the cleaning solution . an ultrasonic vibration power source 23 applies a high frequency voltage corresponding to a natural frequency thereof to the oscillator 7 a . the nozzle 7 , pipe 15 , control valve 19 and ozone water feeder 21 constitute the cleaning solution supply means of this invention . a movable tv irradiating unit 31 ( ultraviolet emitting device ) is disposed in an irradiating position above the scatter preventive cup 9 for emitting ultraviolet light toward the wafer w . the uv irradiating unit 31 is movable between the irradiating position shown in fig2 and a standby position ( not shown ) retracted sideways from the scatter preventive cup 9 , the uv irradiating unit 31 includes a plurality of ozoneless uv lamps 33 arranged on a reflector 35 for emitting ultraviolet light toward the wafer w . the ozoneless uv lamps 33 are powered by an ozoneless uv lamp power source 37 to emit ultraviolet light . the ultraviolet light emitted from the ozoneless nv lamps 33 , preferably , is in a wavelength range of 242 . 4 nm & lt ; λ & lt ; 300 . 0 nm , so that oxygen radicals may be generate from ozone with low energy . the ozoneless uv lamps 33 in this embodiment emit light of λ = 254 nm , for example . the electric motor 5 , drive mechanism 13 , control valve 19 , ozone water feeder 21 , ultrasonic vibration power source 23 , ozoneless uv lamp power source 37 noted above are controlled en bloc by the controller 17 . next , treating processes performed by the above substrate treating apparatus will be described with reference to fig3 and 4 . first , the scatter preventive cup 9 is lowered relative to the spin chuck 1 , and a wafer w is placed on the spin chuck 1 . the scatter preventive cup 9 is raised , and the nozzle 7 is moved to the cleaning position . the uv irradiating unit 31 is moved to the irradiating position above the wafer w to start irradiating the wafer w with ultraviolet light . next , the cleaning solution s is supplied from the nozzle 7 to the wafer w spinning at a fixed low speed , to form a puddle of cleaning solution s over the upper surface of wafer w ( fig3 ). at this time , the cleaning solution s containing ozone is irradiated with ultraviolet light to become excited into a state “ o 3 → o ( 3 p )+ o 2 ”. oxygen radicals are acquired with low energy in this way . thus , oxygen radicals may be generated easily , which react with water to generate oh radicals . the activity of the cleaning solution is thereby increased to realize a significantly improved cleaning capability . it will be noted also that positive and negative ions are generated in the atmosphere around the wafer w . the ultraviolet light of this wavelength , as shown in fig8 penetrates water and air with only minor fractions thereof absorbed . this feature allows the uv irradiating unit 31 to have a large distance from the surface of wafer w . there is no need to dispose the ultraviolet light irradiating device close to the substrate as is the case with the conventional construction . the nozzle 7 may be used simultaneously with the ultraviolet irradiation in one treating chamber to realize an efficient cleaning process . since ozone is not generated at all , little consideration is required as to ventilation and the like , and the low - priced ozoneless uv lamps may serve the purpose . consequently , the apparatus may be constructed simply and at low cost . after the cleaning process in which the puddled state noted above is maintained for a fixed time , the cleaning solution is stopped and the nozzle 7 is moved to the standby position . at the same time , a spin drying process is started in which the wafer w is spun at high speed to scatter the cleaning solution s forming the puddle to the ambient ( fig4 ). the ultraviolet irradiation may be continued during the drying process also . the circuit elements formed on the surface of wafer w could fail to perform intended functions when mobile ions such as sodium ions are present inside the insulating film on the surface of wafer w . by continuing the ultraviolet irradiation during the drying process , negative ions may be generated in the wafer w to neutralize the insulating film . this measure will stabilize the operation of the elements . the ultraviolet irradiation may be stopped during the drying process . further , the ultraviolet irradiation may be effected only for a predetermined time , rather than throughout the cleaning process . the first embodiment has been described , taking the substrate spin cleaning apparatus for example . the present invention is applicable also to an apparatus for cleaning substrates without spinning the latter . it is not essential to apply ultrasonic vibration to the cleaning solution , but the cleaning solution may simply be supplied from the nozzle . [ 0073 ] fig5 is a block diagram showing an outline of a substrate treating apparatus in a second embodiment . the first embodiment has been described , taking the substrate treating apparatus for cleaning substrates for example . in this embodiment , the substrate treating apparatus is used to remove film from substrates . the film to be removed herein is photoresist film which is one example of films coating the substrates . parts identical to those of the first embodiment are shown with the same reference numbers , and will not particularly be described again . the pipe 15 connected to the nozzle 7 transmits ozone water having ozone dissolved in deionized water and acting as a treating solution , from the ozone water feeder 21 through the control valve 19 operable under control of the controller 17 . the pipe 15 has a mixing valve 43 disposed thereon downstream of the control valve 19 for mixing ammonia supplied in a predetermined quantity from an ammonia feeder 41 into the ozone water flowing through the pipe 15 . ultrasonic vibration is applied to the ozone water having ammonia added thereto . in this state , the water is supplied as a treating solution e from the nozzle 7 to a wafer w having photoresist film f formed on the surface thereof . while ammonia is added to the ozone water in this embodiment , a different base may be added thereto . next , photoresist removing processes performed by the above substrate treating apparatus will be described with reference to fig6 and 7 . after a wafer w with photoresist film f formed thereon is placed on the spin chuck 1 , the nozzle 7 is moved to the cleaning position . the uv irradiating unit 31 is moved to the position above the wafer w to start irradiating the wafer w with ultraviolet light . the treating solution e is supplied from the nozzle 7 to the wafer w spinning at a fixed low speed , to form a puddle of treating solution e over the upper surface of wafer w ( fig6 ). at this time , the treating solution e containing ozone is irradiated with ultraviolet light , whereby oxygen radicals are acquired with low energy , as described hereinbefore . thus , oxygen radicals may be generated easily , which react with water to generate oh radicals . the activity of the treating solution is thereby increased to realize a significantly improved capability for removing photoresist film f . the ultraviolet light of the wavelength emitted penetrates water and air with only minor fractions thereof absorbed . thus , as in the first embodiment , the nozzle 7 may be used simultaneously with the ultraviolet irradiation in one treating chamber to realize an efficient cleaning process . since ozone is not generated at all , little consideration is required as to ventilation and the like , and low - priced ozoneless uv lamps may serve the purpose . this apparatus , with use as the treating solution e of ozone water having ammonia , i . e . a base , added thereto , provides the following additional advantage . by adding ammonia which is a base to the ozone water , the ph of the treating solution may be controlled . generally , particles of photoresist film f and alumina separated from the wafer w tend to be positively charged , and the wafer w tends to have a negative surface potential . consequently , the photoresist film f and the like separated will adhere to the surface of wafer w by static electricity . however , by adding ammonia , the photoresist film f and the like separated may be negatively charged as is the wafer w . this results in a repulsion therebetween which prevents the photoresist film f and the like from electrostatically adhering to the wafer w again . after the film removing process in which the puddled state noted above is maintained for a fixed time , the treating solution e is stopped and the nozzle 7 is moved to the standby position . at the same time , a spin drying process is started in which the wafer w is spun at high speed to scatter the treating solution e with photoresist film f dissolved therein to the ambient ( fig7 ). the ultraviolet irradiation may be continued during the drying process also . while , in the second embodiment , ammonia which is a base is added to the treating solution having ozone dissolved therein , re - adhesion of film and the like may be prevented by adding a surface active agent in place of ammonia . in the apparatus described above , the mixing valve 43 is used to mix ammonia into the ozone water . instead of mixing ammonia midway , ozone water to which ammonia is added beforehand may be supplied from the ozone water feeder 21 . further , ammonia may be added also to the ozone water in the substrate cleaning apparatus in the first embodiment . the substrate treating apparatus for removing film in the second embodiment may of course perform the treatment by using ozone water without ammonia added thereto . in each of the foregoing embodiments , ultraviolet light is emitted from the ozoneless uv lamps 33 directly toward the wafer w . the pipe 15 may include uv lamps ( not shown ) arranged adjacent the nozzle 7 shown in fig2 and 5 for irradiating the cleaning or treating solution with ultraviolet light before being supplied to the substrate . in this case also , oxygen radicals are acquired with low energy to generate oh radicals , thereby increasing the activity of the cleaning or treating solution . in the above description , treatment is carried out only by supplying the cleaning solution s or treating solution e from the nozzle 7 . a brush or brushes may additionally be used to act on the substrate surface to promote the cleaning or film removing performance . the present invention may be embodied in other specific forms without departing from the spirit or essential attributes thereof and , accordingly , reference should be made to the appended claims , rather than to the foregoing specification , as indicating the scope of the invention . | 7 |
the following description is presented to enable one of ordinary skill in the art to make and use the invention as provided in the context of a particular application and its requirements . various modifications of the preferred embodiment will be apparent to those with skill in the art , and the general principles defined herein may be applied to other embodiments . therefore , the invention is not intended to be limited to the particular embodiments shown and described herein , but is to be accorded the widest scope consistent with the principles and novel features herein disclosed . the principles and operation of a system and a method according to the present invention may be better understood with reference to the drawings and the accompanying description . note that these drawings are given for illustrative purposes only and are not meant to limit all said patent features . the present invention , as illustrated with reference to fig1 is comprised of the following elements : i . a multimedia user interface ( 100 ), for entering comments , using voice recognition technology . ii . a comment management component ( 101 ), which includes the following modules : d . a code changes tracing for related comments updating module ( 113 ). iii . a vocal processing engine ( 102 ) which includes both text to speech ( tts ) and voice recognition ( vr ) engines , for converting text into a computer generated voice , and spoken words into text . iv . a database storage module ( 103 ) for storing system data and control information . v . a comment displaying module ( 104 ) for pronouncing and / or displaying comments to a user , using text , or computer generated voice ( text to speech technology ), or human original voice . vi . a watch variable comments monitoring module ( 105 ) for monitoring desired watch variables or expressions . vii . a testing comments monitoring module ( 106 ) for monitoring desired test items , and filling the actual result column in each test item . as illustrated in fig1 the present invention interacts with the following components : i . a development environment ( 110 ), which is the environment where the programmer / user composes its software code . ii . input mechanisms ( 112 ) such as microphone and keyboard . iii . output mechanisms ( 111 ) such as speakers and screen . the present invention components , as can be seen in fig1 describe a system that integrates with a developing environment ( 110 ), as an add - in application . the add - in application uses a multimedia user interface ( mui ) module ( 100 ), which enables interfacing it with various input mechanisms ( 112 ) such as a keyboard or a microphone , and outputting data , using one or more output mechanisms ( 111 ) such as a screen or speakers . the add - in application contains a comments management module ( 101 ), which enables browsing , searching , monitoring ( 109 ), editing and classification ( 107 ), grouping ( 108 ) of comments and code changes tracing for related comments updating module ( 113 ), which enables maintaining a correlation between comment &# 39 ; s objects and related code segments , for example , by a cyclic redundancy check of said related code segment . through this module , the add - in application displays the comments hierarchy , in a tree - like browser . the hierarchy is freely built by the programmer suitable to his requirements . this tree - like browser is a powerful tool for searching and editing comments . the add - in application uses a method of voice recognition ( vr ) and text to speech ( tts ) technology ( 102 ). voice recognition provides an efficient and natural way of adding and editing comments . by freely saying the wanted comment content , in different languages , a voice recognition technology is converting the said words into text , in the desired language , using translation software if necessary . the text to speech technology enables the programmer to hear the comments content , thus , allowing him an easy and convenient way to understand the written software code . the said technology ( text to speech & amp ; voice recognition ) is also used as a displaying mechanism ( 104 ) which helps tracking program progress and variable values . while running the program , the appropriate comments can either be displayed on the screen or be pronounced in the original programmer voice , or computer generated voice ( text to speech ). the comments data and hierarchy as well as the control information are stored in a database module ( 103 ). the database module allows keeping persistence of all the data and information entered by the programmer , which includes all comments text and voice recorded input and processed results related to the code . comments on code segments , according to the invention , can be classified into one or more different categories , such as : 1 . help — wherever a code segment appears to be complex , hard to understand or based on some algorithm , it requires a wider and richer comment description more than usually entered in the code text . classifying a comment as a help comment , allows the programmer to attach to the comment an extended and rich description . this description can include a wide text explanation of the programmer , supported by voice recognition technology , pictures , audio files , other multimedia accessories , links to related references , etc . this related description is stored in the comments database ( 103 ). the help category contains all needed descriptions that help to explain part of the code segment that the comment is related to . 2 . testing comment — a comment that includes a test item that can be attached by the programmer to the said comment that refers to an appropriate code segment which functionality influences the flow of the application . for example , a condition that checks an input validation should output a suitable result of a valid and invalid input . the code segment that deals with the said example can be tested whether the actual output result is equal to the expected result . in such a case , the comment that describes the said code segment functionality can be classified as a testing comment . the test item includes a table that describes all the possible and planned test cases of the referred code segment . the table is comprised of at least three fields : i . condition field — this field contains a variable or expression with a condition attached to it . for example , “ x & gt ; 0 ”. ii . expected result field — this field contains a variable value that is the correct result for the given expression . for example , “ y = 10 ” ( which means , according to condition field , if “ x ” is greater than “ 0 ”, “ y ” has to be equal to “ 10 ”). iii . actual result field — this field is filled in runtime process with the actual result of the variable that is mentioned in the expected result field . for example , “ y = 15 ”, which means that the final result of “ y ” differs from the expected result . furthermore , additional fields to the above mentioned ones are possible to implement , such as : “ sequence and order ” field , which determines the sequence of test cases , “ test case on / of ” field , which enables or disables the test case , “ regression test ” field , which enables comparing of the current test result with previous test results , as well as other test supporting data and control fields . the testing comments help to provide an on - going quality control mechanism for the related code . 3 . watch variable comments — a comment that is classified as watch comment contains one or more watch expressions or variables , which are related to the referred comment code segment , and are used to help following the functionality of the said code segment . a watch variable comment produces monitoring for the given watch expressions or variables , while debugging the said code segment , both in trace mode ( step by step execution ) or in run mode . monitoring is done by displaying the expressions and their values , or by pronouncing it . an example of such an item is the case where “ x indicates age ” is a comment context , related to a code segment where “ x ” is a name of a value within it . when the code is executed , the comment will be displayed or pronounced as , “ x indicates age , x equals 40 ”. all the comments categories ( for example , help comments , testing comments and watch variable comments ) are inherited from the general comment structure , so they contain a title and short description , and can be pronounced and displayed using the pronouncing and displaying mechanism ( 104 ), further more , all comments are managed by the comment management component ( 101 ), and stored in the database ( 102 ). test items inspection and result check of testing comments are performed by the testing comments monitoring module ( 106 ), which keeps track of test cases conditions , and fills the actual result column in the test item table . this module operates when the software code is in runtime or debug mode in the development environment ( 110 ), and records the actual result while code execution reaches the code lines related to the testing comment with attached test item . the test item results table is stored in the database ( 103 ) and can later be reviewed using the comment browsing module ( 109 ). comments that are classified as watch variable comments are processed by the watch variable comments monitoring module ( 105 ), which produces output when the software code is in runtime or debug time in the development environment ( 110 ). the watch variable comments monitoring module then displays the output using the comment displaying module ( 104 ). as can be seen in fig2 there are two basic steps for adding comments : stage 1 refers to preparing the basic structure for the comment , and stage 2 ( optional ) refers to the optional classification of the comment . the invention enables using textual and voice recognition technology support to enter and manage comments . according to step 1 ( preparing the comment ), the following must be executed : i . code selection ( 201 ), which is an action executed by the user to identify a section of code . this entails line selection , where the user places the cursor on a specific line and presses the mouse / keyboard button , to establish the starting point of a selection ( highlighting ). the user can adjust the relevant selection by dragging , or by specifying the line numbers that are related to comment . code selection can also be a set of separated code selections , which refers to the same comment . ii . the comment title is entered ( 202 ) by the programmer and refers to the code selection . the title is a logical identifier for a comment object , and may be added using either voice recognition or text input . the title is also used as a tag representing the comment , and may include a short or introductory description of the related ( selected ) code . iii . the comment is being classified ( 203 ) to one or more of the available categories following the comment preparation , a programmer may choose to command the system to select whether to pronounce the comment title in run time and / or debug mode , or not , which means that such comments may be displayed or pronounced for a user . the user can thereby read or listen to a comment that refers to the next code line to be executed . comments that are being pronounced declare the next phase that is to be processed by the program . the comment can be pronounced by either computer generated voice or a recorded human voice . [ 0081 ] fig3 shows the flow of entering a test case item : ii . a test item can include several test cases . for each test case entry , the programmer fills its description ( 302 ) and expected result ( 303 ), according to at least one of the variables in the selected code . iii . the actual result is automatically filled in during runtime or debugging , by comparing the actual variable value result with the expected result . the resulting table ( 304 ) for the test case item includes : both the description and the expected results , as well as other information , can be added by voice recognition input and / or simple textual input . [ 0092 ] fig4 illustrates the composing of watch variable comments , for variable follow up . according to the invention , the programmer fills in a comment description / title ( 401 ), either by voice recognition or by entering a text input ( 402 ). the programmer subsequently adds the variable expression which is to be watched ( 403 ), according to its logical name that appears in the code segment . the programmer selects whether to pronounce the item ( variable or variable expression ) value in run time or debug mode . in run time or debug mode execution , whenever the program executes code segment that contains a watch item , the value of the item is being displayed and / or pronounced in a computer - generated voice . [ 0094 ] fig5 illustrates the composing of help comments , according to the invention , wherein a programmer fills in a broad description / title ( 501 ), either by voice recognition technology or text input . alternatively , the user can add a link to a text file , bitmap file , website , etc . comments may be displayed or pronounced in various ways , such as : i . displaying a comment by its group ( fig6 ), or next to the code line , for reading and understanding the code . playing it in the design time ( while writing the code ). this may include displaying the text - based comment as a computer - generated voice or human voice , depending on how the comments were entered into the code , or as determined by the programmer , for better understanding the comment . playing the comment in debug time or runtime , as a computer - generated voice or human voice . while debugging the application , the comment , which is related to the next code line / scope that is being executed , is pronounced for code execution progress monitoring . according to the present invention , comments can be searched for in the following ways : ii . using the comments navigational interface , which is a multimedia user interface ( that includes a graphic user interface that responds to voice commands ), for editing and displaying comments . this navigational interface displays all the comments and comments groups ( fig6 ) in an explorer type interface . this interface provides the programmer an efficient interaction with all the comments that have already been entered , and allows finding the right code scope / line that is related to the comment that appears in the navigation interface . the hierarchy of groups and comments being displayed in the explorer type interface , is built and managed by the programmer , according to whichever structure he desires . [ 0103 ] fig6 also illustrates an additional embodiment of the invention , which is joining several comments of help , test , watch or any other categories , into a group . comments that are joined can relate to one or more different parts of a code segment . grouping comments is a technique that helps the programmer to better edit , navigate , manage and understand his / her code and better understanding the relationship between comment objects . an example of a group is a collection of comments that relate to implementing an arithmetical formula . [ 0104 ] fig6 shows the flow of grouping comments . the flow comprises the steps of : i . using an interface to add a group ( 601 ), which includes creating / selecting a group folder . ii . selecting at least one comment ( 602 ) to be added to a group . iii . add all selected comments to the created / selected group ( 603 ). this flow ( fig6 ) can be repeated in order to add additional comments to groups . the groups and comments can be displayed in an explorer type interface , which contains a hierarchical tree like structure view . the hierarchy of the tree like structure is built according to the programmer &# 39 ; s comments grouping methodology . this hierarchical interface allows the programmer to display the tree like structure in different criterions , such as alphabetical order , themes , importance , chronological order , hierarchical order etc . in this way , the programmer can find comments by simply querying the explorer type interface and displaying the groups and comments that match the requested criteria of the query , and accordingly may be addressed in different code segments , for editing the related code line / scope of a selected comment . the method of generating a group comment can alternatively be executed by code segment demarcation , such that all comments relating to a selected code segment can form to a single group . all operations on comments and groups such as editing , deleting , and managing , can be done using the voice recognition technology on the multimedia interface . the method of editing , for example , can be provided by an interactive menu response of the said multimedia interface to voice orders . for example , “ add comment ”, “ edit comment ”, “ open group ” or “ cancel ” voice commands can be used to manage the group or comment . this means that a comment in the said interface is linked with the related code segment line , and can be easily edited , viewed , listened to and otherwise managed . the foregoing description of the embodiments of the invention has been presented for the purposes of illustration and description . it is not intended to be exhaustive or to limit the invention to the precise form disclosed . it should be appreciated that many modifications and variations are possible in light of the above teaching . it is intended that the scope of the invention be limited not by this detailed description , but rather by the claims appended hereto . | 6 |
various aspects of the invention will now be described in connection with exemplary embodiments . to facilitate an understanding of these embodiments , many aspects are described in terms of sequences of actions that can be performed by elements of a computer system . for example , it will be recognized that in each of the embodiments , the various actions can be performed by specialized circuits or circuitry ( e . g ., discrete logic gates interconnected to perform a specialized function ), by program instructions being executed by one or more processors , or by a combination of both . a system for adaptively removing interference from a received high speed data signal according to a first embodiment is shown in fig1 . the system includes a first amplifier or amplifier chain ( amp 1 ) 110 , a second amplifier or amplifier chain ( amp 2 ) 120 , a mixer 130 , a mixer controller 140 , and an error detector 150 . amp 1 110 comprises one or more substantially linear amplifiers connected in a series to amplify a signal with unity gain across the given bandwidth . amp 2 120 , on the other hand , comprises one or more substantially nonlinear amplifiers connected in a series to amplify a signal with unity gain at lower frequencies within the given bandwidth and to provide a higher gain at higher frequencies within the given bandwidth . a received signal s is fed into both amp 1 110 and amp 2 120 simultaneously . amp 1 110 and amp 2 120 are matched for propagation delay so that the signal s passes through each respective amplifier or amplifier chain amp 1 110 , amp 2 120 and arrives at the mixer 130 as signals s 1 and s 2 at substantially the same time for practical purposes . the mixer 130 mixes signals s 1 and s 2 to produce an output signal q , which is forwarded to a receiver ( not shown ) for further processing according to the specific application . more particularly , within the mixer 130 , signals s 1 and s 2 are each weighted individually according to control signals c 1 and c 2 , respectively , and mixed to produce the output signal q . the applicant has observed that interference in the received signal , such as isi , can be adjusted out by adjusting the weight of s 1 and s 2 accordingly . the control signals c 1 and c 2 are generated by a mixer controller 140 , which is responsive to an error signal e output by an error detector 150 , which in turn is responsive to the interference in the received signal . one embodiment of an error detector 150 according to the invention is illustrated in fig2 which includes first and second filters 210 , 220 , and a comparator / amplifier 230 . the output signal q from the mixer is provided to the first filter 210 and the second filter 220 for selective filtering to produce two respective filtered signals f 1 and f 2 . each of the filters 210 , 220 are responsive to ripple caused by interference , such as isi , in the received signal , but in different ways . the first filter 210 is responsive to , i . e ., tuned to , the envelope of the ripple caused by the interference , and therefore produces a signal f 1 that corresponds to the ripple envelope . the second filter 220 is responsive to the interference ripple peaks and operates to produce a signal f 2 that corresponds to an average of the peak detected values of the interference signal . the two signals f 1 and f 2 are compared and the difference between them is amplified in comparator / amplifier 230 to produce the error signal e , which is proportional to the variance in the envelope of the ripple caused by the interference . accordingly , as the interference in the signal is adjusted out ( as described below ), the error signal e gets smaller . once the proportional error signal e is produced , the mixer 130 can adjust the weights of signals s 1 and s 2 appropriately to adjust out the interference . one embodiment of a mixer controller 140 according to the invention is illustrated in fig3 which includes a sample and hold circuit 310 , a comparator 340 , a counter 350 , and a d / a ( digital - to - analog ) converter 360 . a sample and hold circuit 310 operates to periodically sample and store at least two samples of the error signal e each taken at different times . more particularly , each time a sample of e is taken , the sample is stored as a “ new ” sample and the previously stored sample becomes an “ old ” sample . the sample and hold circuit 310 takes samples periodically , for example as triggered by a clock signal from a low frequency oscillator . with each clock cycle , a new sample is taken and the sample and hold circuit 310 provides the new sample &# 39 ; s error value 330 and the old sample &# 39 ; s error value 320 to the comparator 340 for comparison . here , the representative error value that is used in comparison can be any value indicative of the change in the energy of the error signal . for example , the error value can be a voltage , a current , or a power value . the counter 350 is incremented or decremented according to the results of the comparison as determined from a signal provided by the comparator 340 to the counter 350 . the new value of the counter 350 is provided to the d / a converter 360 with each clock cycle . the d / a converter 360 produces an analog control signal c 1 having a current incrementally proportional to the value , e . g ., binary value , in the counter 350 and an analog control signal c 2 having a current that incrementally decreases as c 1 increases , such that the current of c 1 + c 2 is substantially constant . for example , where a 4 - bit counter is used , having binary values from 0 - 15 , there are 16 incremental unit values k of current to be output by the d / a converter 360 that correspond to the 16 binary values of the counter . as the counter value increases , the c 1 current value c 1 ( k ) increases and c 2 current value c 2 ( k ) decreases , where c 1 ( k )+ c 2 ( k )= 16 k . thus , as a form of shorthand , c 1 and c 2 will be described herein as being “ complimentary ” signals , which will refer to the above relation . in operation , control signals c 1 and c 2 provide feedback to the mixer 130 that corresponds to a change in the error signal e . the value of control signals c 1 and c 2 respectively correspond to the desired weight of signals s 1 and s 2 so that the mixer 130 can adjust the relative weights of s 1 and s 2 until the error signal e is minimized . more particularly , there are incremental unit weight values that correspond to each of the incremental unit values k of current . the process for minimizing e is described further with reference to fig4 which is one embodiment of a method for adaptive equalization according to the invention . the amplifiers and counters are first initialized such that signal s 1 from amp 1 110 is given the maximum allowable weight by the mixer 130 within the parameters of the system , signal s 2 from amp 2 120 is given the minimum allowable weight by the mixer 130 within the parameters of the system , and the counter 350 is set to zero ( step 400 ). an initial sample of the error signal e is taken by the sample and hold circuit 310 and the counter is incremented to 1 ( step 410 ). during the next cycle , as determined for example by a low frequency clock signal , a new sample of the error signal e is taken by the sample and hold circuit 310 ( step 420 ), and the initial sample becomes the old sample . the old sample &# 39 ; s error value 320 and new sample &# 39 ; s error value 330 are compared in comparator 340 ( step 430 ). the comparator 340 provides either an increment or a decrement signal to the counter 350 based on the results of the comparison . if the new sample &# 39 ; s error value 330 is less than or equal to the old sample &# 39 ; s error value 320 ( step 440 ), then an increment signal is provided to the counter 350 and the counter 350 is incremented in response ( step 450 ). if , on the other hand , the new sample &# 39 ; s error value 330 is greater than the old sample &# 39 ; s error value 320 ( step 440 ), then a decrement signal is provided to the counter 350 and the counter 350 is decremented in response ( step 470 ). in either case , the new value in the counter is provided to the d / a converter 360 and corresponding control signals c 1 and c 2 are produced , which have complimentary current values proportional to the counter &# 39 ; s value , as described above . the control signals c 1 and c 2 provide an indication to the mixer 130 for adjusting the weight of each of signals s 1 and s 2 . more particularly , the weight given to signal s 1 increases and decreases as the value of c 1 increases and decreases and the weight given to signal s 2 increases and decreases as the value of c 2 increases and decreases . the values of both c 1 and c 2 will change each time the counter &# 39 ; s value is changed , since they are complimentary values . referring again to fig4 the interference is known to be decreasing when the new sample &# 39 ; s error value 330 is less than or equal to the old sample &# 39 ; s error value 320 ( step 440 ). in such a case , the counter is incremented ( step 450 ) and the weight of s 1 is decreased one incremental unit weight value while the weight of s 2 is increased one incremental unit weight value ( step 460 ). inversely , the interference is known to be increasing when the new sample &# 39 ; s error value 330 is greater than the old sample &# 39 ; s error value 320 ( step 440 ). in such a case , the counter is decremented ( step 450 ) and the weight of s 1 is increased one incremental unit weight value while the weight of s 2 is decreased one incremental unit weight value ( step 480 ). in either case , the procedure is repeated ( returning to step 420 ) to obtain a new sample of the error signal e at the sample and hold circuit 310 on the next cycle . by adaptively adjusting the relative weights of the linear and nonlinear components of the received signal as described above , the received signal is reproduced such that an optimal signal having minimal interference is provided to the receiver . for example , as illustrated in the graph of fig5 which shows the error voltage e as a function of the counter value , the error voltage e is minimized to 600 mv when counter 350 reaches the optimal counter value of 6 units . therefore , in this example , the weight of s 1 and s 2 is adaptively optimized when the values of c 1 and c 2 that correspond to a counter value of 6 are input to the mixer 130 at that particular point in time . it will be appreciated by those of ordinary skill in the art that the present invention can be embodied in various specific forms without departing from the spirit or essential characteristics thereof . the presently disclosed embodiments are considered in all respects to be illustrative and not restrictive . the scope of the invention is indicated by the appended claims , rather than the foregoing description , and all changes that come within the meaning and range of equivalence thereof are intended to be embraced . | 7 |
the subject matter described herein includes a candle having an embedded item within and methods for manufacturing and selling same . example embedded items include , but are not limited to , jewelry , such as rings , earrings , and chains , precious or semiprecious stones , pearls , etc . alternatively , or in addition , in some embodiments example embedded items include , but are not limited to , tokens or redeemable objects that can be redeemed in exchange for jewelry , such as rings , earrings , and chains , precious or semiprecious stones , pearls , etc . as an example , a method for manufacturing a candle having a ring embedded or token for a ring within is disclosed . fig1 shows a method for making a candle that contains an item according to one embodiment of the subject matter described herein . at step 100 , a first set of items , each having a first value , is created . for example , a set of rings , each ring worth $ 10 , can be collected and optionally prepared for embedding within the finished product candles . at step 102 , a second set of items , each having a second value , is created . for example , a set of rings , each ring worth $ 100 , can be collected and optionally prepared for use . other sets of rings can be collected , each additional set having rings each worth another value , such as $ 1 , 000 per ring , $ 5 , 000 per ring , and so on . the values used above are for illustration only and are not limiting . all items in a set need not be the same . for example , a set of items can include different types of items , such as rings , earrings , pins , etc ., but having the same or very similar relative value . moreover , items in one set need not be the same as items in another set . for example , the first set of items could be rings and earrings while the second set of items could be bracelets and necklaces . at step 104 , the sets of rings are combined . at step 106 , the combined set of items is distributed among a set of candles such that each candle includes one item from the combined set embedded within the candle . optionally , in some embodiments , in step 108 the candles can be sold for a first price , where the value of the embedded item is not known to the purchaser at the time of purchase . in one embodiment , the value of the item cannot be determined by the purchaser of the candle until the candle has been burned or the wax melted to expose the item ( or allow the item to be removed and unwrapped if the item has been encased in a pouch , bag , or protective wrapping .) in one embodiment , the purchaser knows that a candle might contain an embedded item but cannot determine at the time of purchase whether the candle does or does not contain the embedded item . referring again to fig1 , in some embodiments at step 100 , a first set of items , each having a first value , is created . for example , a set of rings , each ring worth $ 10 , can be collected and optionally prepared for embedding within the finished product candles . then , in some embodiments at step 102 , a second set of items , each having a second value , is created . for example , tokens , vouchers or redeemable objects ( referred to collectively as redeemable objects ) for a set of rings , each ring worth $ 100 , can be collected and optionally prepared for use . other sets tokens , vouchers or redeemable objects for rings can be collected , each additional set of tokens , vouchers or redeemable objects being redeemable for rings each worth another value , such as $ 1 , 000 per ring , $ 5 , 000 per ring , and so on . the values used above are for illustration only and are not limiting . all items , tokens , vouchers or redeemable objects in a set need not be the same . for example , a set of items can include different types of items , such as rings , earrings , pins , etc ., but having the same or very similar relative value . moreover , items or redeemable objects in one set need not be the same as items in another set . for example , the first set of items could be rings and earrings while the second set of items could be bracelets and necklaces , or redeemable objects for the same . in some embodiments , at step 104 , the sets of rings and redeemable objects are combined . at step 106 , the combined set of items is distributed among a set of candles such that each candle includes one item from the combined set embedded within the candle . thus , in some aspects a candle can have embedded therein an item from the first set of items , e . g . a ring , having a first value , or an item from the second set of items , e . g . a redeemable object for a ring of a second value . alternatively , in some embodiments at step 106 the combined set of items is distributed among a set of candles such that each candle includes one item from the first set of items , e . g . a ring of a first value , and one item from the second set of items , e . g . a redeemable object for a ring of a second value . thus , in some embodiments , a candle can have a ring with a first value , or a ring with a second value , or a ring with a first value plus a redeemable object for a ring of a second value , or a ring with a second value plus a redeemable object for a ring of a first value . in some embodiments , a candle can have a ring of a first value , or a redeemable object that is redeemable for a ring of a second value . in some embodiments , the ring of the first value is a value less than the purchase price of the candle , and the redeemable object for a ring of a second value has a value greater than , in some instances significantly greater than , the purchase price of the candle . in some embodiments , a candle can have a redeemable object redeemable for a ring of a first value , or a redeemable object that is redeemable for a ring of a second value . in some embodiments , the ring of the first value is a value less than the purchase price of the candle , and the redeemable object for a ring of a second value has a value greater than , in some instances significantly greater than , the purchase price of the candle . optionally , in some embodiments , in step 108 the candles can be sold for a first price , where the value of the embedded item ( s ) is not known to the purchaser at the time of purchase . in one embodiment , the value of the item ( s ) cannot be determined by the purchaser of the candle until the candle has been burned or the wax melted to expose the item ( or allow the item to be removed and unwrapped if the item has been encased in a pouch , bag , or protective wrapping .) in one embodiment , the purchaser knows that a candle might contain an embedded item , and / or a redeemable object that is redeemable for an item of value , but cannot determine at the time of purchase whether the candle does or does not contain the embedded item ( s ). fig2 a through 2d show the steps of manufacturing a candle having an item embedded within according to one embodiment of the subject matter described herein . in fig2 a , an enclosure or container 200 is provided . in one embodiment , enclosure or container 200 can be intended to contain the finished product , and can be made of glass , plastic , or other material , and can be transparent , translucent , opaque , or some combination . alternatively , enclosure or container 200 may not be intended to contain the finished product , e . g ., the container can be a mold that is used ( and possibly reused ) during manufacture and is not a part of the finished product . an item 202 , such as a ring , jewelry , prize , redeemable object or other item , is placed into a pouch 204 or other item container . in fig2 b , adhesive 206 can in some embodiments be applied to the pouch 204 containing item 202 , and pouch 204 can be attached to the inside wall of candle enclosure or container 200 , such that the pouch is affixed to the inside of the candle container , as shown in fig2 c . wax 208 can then be poured into candle enclosure or container 200 , covering the pouch 204 and obscuring the item 202 from view , resulting in the product shown in fig2 d . in one embodiment , a wick can be placed or affixed within container 200 prior to adding wax 208 . alternatively , a wick can be inserted into wax 208 after it has been poured into enclosure or container 200 . for example , in one embodiment , rings of different values are placed into small plastic bags , and in some embodiments each small plastic bag can be wrapped in gold foil or the like . alternatively , in one embodiment , rings and / or redeemable objects of different values are placed into small plastic bags , and in some embodiments each small plastic bag can be wrapped in gold foil or the like . for each ring and / or redeemable object wrapped in plastic and gold foil , a small gold foil indicator is glued to the gold foil that contains the ring and bag . the small gold foil indicator is glued to the inside of the glass container , which allows the customer to see the location of the ring and / or redeemable object within the container . the small gold foil indicator is visible through the glass container . wax is poured into the glass container and a wick is installed into the wet wax . in one embodiment , the wax is soy wax . the wax cools or is cooled , and labels are applied to the glass container and / or the wax . in one embodiment , the item can be affixed in more than one place to the container prior to filling the container with wax . in one embodiment , the process can include applying labels or decorations to the inside or outside of enclosure or container 200 prior to adding wax 208 . for example , the process can include applying a safety label to the bottom of a glass container that will contain the candle wax . fig3 a through 3d show the steps of an alternative method for manufacturing a candle having an item embedded within , in which the candle can be partially constructed and the item introduced or placed into the candle before construction of the candle is completed . in fig3 a , for example , a candle mold or container 300 can be partially filled with wax 302 a , which is allowed to harden until it is firm enough to support the item 304 ( e . g . ring and / or redeemable object ) in the desired location within the candle body . in fig3 b , item 304 is placed onto or into the firm wax 302 a at or near the desired location within the candle body , and in fig3 c , additional wax 302 b is placed into mold 300 . the amount of additional wax 302 b is sufficient to at least cover and obscure item 304 and can partially or completely fill container 300 . in one embodiment , a wick is then inserted into wax 302 a and 302 b . in an alternative embodiment , the wick is placed within container 300 prior to adding wax 302 a and / or wax 3028 . the subject matter described herein also includes a candle with an item embedded within , such as are shown in fig2 d and 3c . in one embodiment , the item can be a ring , other types of jewelry , other types of prizes , a redeemable object that is redeemable for jewelry or other object , or other item . in one embodiment , the candle is designed such that the existence , nature , or value of the embedded item and / or redeemable object cannot be determined without burning the candle or otherwise melting the wax so that the item is exposed to view . in one embodiment , a purchaser or recipient is not aware at the time of purchase or receipt that the candle contains an embedded item at all . in one embodiment , the purchaser or recipient is aware at the time of purchase or receipt that the candle does contain an embedded item , but the candle is designed so that at the time of purchase or receipt , a purchaser or recipient of the candle does not know or cannot determine the general nature of the item , the exact nature of the item , the absolute value of the item , the price range of the item , the value of the redeemable object or the value of the object for which it can be redeemed , and / or the value of the item relative to the purchase price of the candle . the candle can comprise wax within a shell or container , or wax not contained in a shell or container . the wax and / or container can be transparent , translucent , or opaque . for example , all or part of the container can be transparent allowing the wax to be seen , but the opacity of the wax prevents the buyer from determining the nature or value of the item embedded within . alternatively , the wax can be translucent but the container is also translucent with the result that the nature or value of the item embedded within the wax is indiscernible . alternatively , the nature or value of the item can be obscured by an opaque material ( other than the wax of the candle ) that surrounds or covers the item and where the item and the opaque covering are both embedded within the candle wax . in one embodiment , the wax and container can be transparent or translucent enough to see the item but the opaque material in which the item is wrapped obscures the nature or value of the item . in one embodiment , the item can be covered or wrapped with a material that prevents damage to the item from the heat of the candle flame as the candle wax is burned away to expose the item . the subject matter described herein also includes a method for making a candle that contains an item such that the nature and / or value of the item is obscured from the buyer and / or recipient . in one embodiment , the value of the embedded item , or object redeemable for an item , can be less than the sale price of the candle , equal to the sale price of the candle , greater than the sale price of the candle , or much greater than the sale price of the candle . for example , a candle can be sold for $ 25 that contains within it a ring which can have a value of $ 10 , $ 100 , $ 1 , 000 , or $ 5 , 000 , or a redeemable object that can be redeemed for a ring which can have a value of $ 10 , $ 100 , $ 1 , 000 , or $ 5 , 000 . | 5 |
fig1 shows a joint ( termination ) between a single - core cable 1 and a threaded post terminal 2 . the cable - end is prepared in the usual way by cutting - back to remove an end portion of the sheath 3 and expose appropriate lengths of the dielectric screen 4 , insulation ( or dielectric ) 5 and conductor 6 . a ring 7 of conductive paint is applied to ensure that there are no conductive sharp edges at the screen end . in accordance with the invention , a thick walled sleeve 8 of insulating heat - shrinkable material ( the inner component ) is applied and shrunk to enclose nearly all the exposed dielectric screen 4 and an adjacent section of the insulation 5 . after securing a spade fitting 9 to the conductor end ( by crimping or soldering ) a composite moulding 10 ( the outer component ) is pushed into place over the heat - shrunk sleeve 8 with which it makes an interference fit ; a silicone grease is preferably used to facilitate assembly . the moulding 10 , made from an ethylene - propylene - diene terpolymer rubber ( epdm ) incorporates an inner insert 11 of carbon - black loaded semi - conductive epdm , which is at conductor potential when the joint is in service ( and so relieves the space within it from electrical stress ) and an outer coating 12 of the same semi - conductive material , which is maintained at earth potential and serves both to control the distribution of electrical stress in the main insulating body 13 of the moulding and to provide an external safety screen . electrical continuity from this outer coating 12 to the cable dielectric screen 4 is established in any convenient way , for example by a semi - conductive heat - shrink sleeve 14 , and the joint is completed in a conventional manner by passing the post terminal 2 through the eye of the spade terminal 9 , securing it by means of an insulated nut 24 with an epoxy resin body and metal inserts 15 , 15 and finally snapping on a cap 16 of insulating epdm . fig2 shows a modification in which the dielectric screen 4 of the cable is stripped back to , and the semi - conducting paint 7 applied at , a point nearer the end of the insulation 5 in order to reduce electrical stress adjacent the feather edge of the insulating body 13 . the design shown in fig3 is also structurally very similar , but in this case the cable screen has been cut back further than in either of the other designs . the heat shrink inner component 8 is positioned so that it only just overlaps the semi - conducting paint 7 and it is formed with a tapered end so that it , together with the semi - conducting tube 14 which is shrunk over it , forms , in the region 20 , a stress cone . in all three cases , the inner heat shrink component 8 may be made either of an ordinary insulating material , preferably with good resistance to tracking , or from a stress grading material of high permitivity . fig4 shows one half of a straight - through joint between two single - core cables . this is otherwise similar to the joint of fig1 except that the stress - grading sleeve 8 is omitted and instead the moulding 10 is supported on two heat - shrunk insulating discs 17 , 18 . disc 17 supports an insulating tube 19 which supports part of the semi - conductive heat - shrink sleeve 14 so as to generate a natural tapered shape which forms a stress - cone . optionally this sleeve 14 is enclosed by an insulating heat - shrink sleeve 21 . fig5 illustrates a joint for a three core cable 22 in which the crutch area formed by separation of the cores 22 is enclosed by a heat - shrink breakout 24 , which fulfils for each of the three cores the function of the inner member ( 8 in fig1 - 3 ). the fitting 9 , outer member 10 and other components ( not shown in fig5 ) may be exactly as shown in fig1 - 3 . a range of joints of the type shown in fig1 is made using throughout a slip - on outer component ( moulding 10 ) with an internal diameter of 50 mm . four sizes of heat - shrinkable inner component ( sleeve 8 ) are used as follows : size 1 is extruded with inner and outer diameters of 12 and 50 mm ( wall thickness 19 mm ) and expanded to inner and outer diameters of 43 . 2 and 65 mm ( wall thickness 10 . 9 mm ). this size can be used with cable cores ranging from 12 . 6 and 26 . 4 mm in diameter ( a range of 13 . 8 mm or over 100 % of the lower limit of the range ) to give external diameters between 50 . 15 and 55 . 25 mm ( a range of 5 . 1 mm or 10 % of the lower limit of the range , which is within the acceptance tolerance of the slip - on outer component ). this replaces ten sizes of adaptor in the applicants &# 39 ; ` bimold ` range . size 2 is extruded with inner and outer diameters of 22 and 48 mm ( wall thickness 13 mm ) and expanded to inner and outer diameters of 55 . 5 and 70 mm ( wall thickness 7 . 25 mm ). this size can be used with cable cores ranging from 26 . 4 and 34 . 9 mm in diameter ( a range of 8 . 5 mm or over 30 % of the lower limit of the range ) to give external diameters between 50 . 16 and 55 . 12 ( a range of 4 . 96 mm or 10 % of the lower limit of the range , which is within the acceptance tolerance of the slip - on outer component ). this replaces five sizes of adaptor in the applicants &# 39 ; ` bimold ` range . size 3 is extruded with inner and outer diameters of 12 and 49 mm ( wall thickness 8 mm ) and expanded to inner and outer diameters of 47 . 8 and 60 mm ( wall thickness 6 . 1 mm ). this size can be used with cable cores ranging from 34 . 9 and 41 . 7 mm in diameter ( a range of 6 . 8 mm or nearly 20 % of the lower limit of the range ) to give external diameters between 50 . 30 and 55 . 23 ( a range of 4 . 93 mm or 10 % of the lower limit of the range , which is within the acceptance tolerance of the slip - on outer component ). this replaces four sizes of adaptor in the applicants &# 39 ; ` bimold ` range . size 4 is extruded with inner and outer diameters of 39 and 48 mm ( wall thickness 4 . 5 mm ) and expanded to inner and outer diameters of 53 and 60 mm ( wall thickness 3 . 5 mm ). this size can be used with cable cores ranging from 41 . 7 and 47 . 6 mm in diameter ( a range of 5 . 9 mm or over 14 % of the lower limit of the range ) to give external diameters between 50 . 21 and 55 . 21 ( a range of 5 . 0 mm or 10 % of the lower limit of the range , which is within the acceptance tolerance of the slip - on outer component ). this replaces three sizes of adaptor in the applicants &# 39 ; ` bimold ` range . ( the relatively small range - take of the larger sizes is due to the small wall thickness imposed by the decision to use the same size outer component for the whole range , and is not an inherent limitation ). | 8 |
the present invention concerns the application of gallium arsenide field effect transistor ( gaasfet ) technology to catv distribution amplifiers . due to the physical construction and the associated operational physics of fet devices , certain inherent characteristic advantages exist in fet amplifier designs over designs incorporating bjt devices . these are , in order of importance to catv , bandwidth , distortion and noise . all of these aspects have foundations theoretically developed , through the application of mathematical models ( which describe the electrical operation of the device ), in various literature . these aspects also have been demonstrated in some applications of these devices . as in any design , there are certain advantages and disadvantages to applying a certain technology to a given application . from the very beginnings of the catv industry , the only commercially available active device technology that was applicable was the bjt . in the past decade , fet devices have become available for commercial use , but only at greater economic expense to the user than bjt &# 39 ; s . therefore , they were only used in &# 34 ; high - end &# 34 ; applications where performance requirements justified the increased cost , and then only in low power applications . there were no &# 34 ; medium &# 34 ; to &# 34 ; high &# 34 ; power devices available . advances in gallium arsenide fabrication technology , as well as economic circumstances in the electronics industry , have created a situation whereby fet devices ( and technology ) may now be considered suitable for catv amplifier designs , in terms of cost and performance . the performance advantages of the fet , as an active device , used in the design of medium power amplifiers are bandwidth , distortion and noise . bandwidth advantages are obtained primarily because of the fabrication geometry necessary to elicit an electrical response associated with the fet ( physical ) device operation . gaasfets normally have excellent parasitic behavior due to material properties and device geometry . gain - bandwidth products for gaasfets are superior to those of bjt devices , for equal internal average power dissipation designs . distortion advantages are associated with the nonlinear characteristic operation of the fet device itself . fet devices exhibit square law nonlinear properties in response to large input signal excitations , while bjt devices exhibit exponential properties . since the &# 34 ; order &# 34 ; of the fet nonlinearity ( i . e ., square law ) is less than the &# 34 ; order &# 34 ; of bjt nonlinearity ( i . e ., exponential having cubic and higher order components ), so is the distortion for a given signal excitation and again , for equal internal average power dissipation . noise advantages in gaasfets are due to material properties and device construction also . fig4 shows a simplified version of a push pull , single stage , fet power amplifier 30 . t1 and 72 serve the same purposes as previously explained for a push pull amplifier design . capacitor cb is for dc decoupling . since fet devices are very accurately modeled as voltage controlled current sources , they exhibit very nearly ideal amplifier characteristics of infinite input and large output impedances . therefore , rg and rd serve as input and output impedance terminations . bias conditions ( and therefore gain and distortion characteristics ) are primarily set with vgg . correctly chosen design values for vdd and rd allow for signal amplification without distortion due to waveform &# 34 ; clipping &# 34 ;. fig5 shows a common bias configuration for a fet device and is the one used in fig4 . however , there are some drawbacks to this configuration . fet &# 39 ; s , at frequencies of interest to catv , are normally unstable . values of rd needed to achieve broadband frequency stability will often conflict with those needed to achieve other performance requirements such as device gain . frequency stability in practice is often best achieved through negative feedback compensation . bias stability and constant impedance design can also often be best achieved through negative feedback compensation . the ideal amplifier for a catv application would be one which exhibits the properties of large bandwidth , low noise and high voltage gain with minimum supply ( bias ) voltage and power requirements . fets may be so configured . in particular , fets maybe configured as a so - called &# 34 ; transimpedance &# 34 ; amplifier design . referring to fig6 transimpedance amplifier 40 is normally used as low noise , voltage amplifiers for diode detector and transmitter devices . an example of such an application would be laser diode detectors and transmitters used in fiber optic equipment and technology . the fets used in such designs are often &# 34 ; dual gate mesfets &# 34 ;. dual gate structures allow the fet to be dc biased from a different gate pin than from the gate pin where a radio frequency signal is applied . this can offer performance advantages as well as biasing advantages . this structure also includes q1 , which together with r and l provides an active load that incorporates into its structure feedback advantages . bias , gain and stability all can be achieved through this and similar designs . fig7 shows a push pull arrangement of structures of the type discussed with respect to fig6 . such an arrangement is a preferred arrangement as an amplifier in a catv power amplifier design in accordance with one embodiment of the present invention . in fig8 q1 and q3 , as well as q2 and q4 , form cascode amplifier pairs configured in a push pull arrangement . in this topology , each rs serves to correctly bias the gate to source voltage of its respective ( mesfet ) transistor q1 and q2 , for operation . t1 and t2 serve the same purpose as previously stated for the &# 34 ; push - pull &# 34 ; amplifier design . rb1 , rb2 and lb serve the special purpose of feedback control . the gain and stability , as well as input and output impedances , are effected by the choices of value of these components , for q1 and q2 . l f , c f and r f form a low pass filter and interstage impedance match . the gain , stability and frequency response of the amplifier as a whole are effected by these components . r dd , and to a lesser extent r f , are chosen to give the desired drain to source voltage for transistors q3 and q4 . r dd , also has the dual role of setting the output impedance of the ( output ) amplifier stage . r g is a feedback component for q3 and q4 . r g helps set the output gain and terminating impedance for transistors q3 and q4 . r1 and r2 help set the gate to source voltage of transistors q3 and q4 , for proper biasing . the cascode amplifier has a beneficial characteristic in that it is well suited for designs in which the gain of an amplifier needs to be variable . hence , the cascode amplifier is well suited as an amplifier that inherently has the means to have an internal , or better &# 34 ; a self - adjusting &# 34 ;, gain control ( i . e . &# 34 ; agc &# 34 ;). this can be demonstrated in the amplifier in fig8 as follows . if r2 and / or r1 were made to be variable , then the gate to source voltage of transistors q3 and q4 would be made to vary . this in turn would variably adjust the bias of transistors q3 and q4 . this effect ultimately adjusts the power gain of the amplifier . a limitation of such a gain control design ( i . e ., adjusting r1 , r2 ) is the effect on distortion characteristics of the amplifier that would result from varying the bias of the amplifier . since gaasfets are also suited to use as variable resistors , a better mechanism for amplifier gain control is demonstrated in fig8 with the incorporation of transistors q5 and q6 . since transistors q5 and q6 are directly coupled to the output amplifier stage of the cascode amplifier they will divert a certain amount of dc current through them . however , this should not pose a problem to the circuit if the correct value of gate to source voltage ( e . g ., vcontrol ) is chosen . if a &# 34 ; lightly biased &# 34 ; condition exists , or equivalently , if vcontrol is such that the drain to source current through q5 and q6 is small compared to the drain to source current that flows through q3 / q1 and q4 / q2 , then q5 and q6 will act as feedback resistors on the cascode amplifier output stage . varying the dc current through q5 and q6 , by the value of vcontrol , allows the control of gain in the cascode amplifier . as indicated , all transistors q1 - q6 comprise field effect transistors lending the circuit to monolithic integration . preferably , individual amplifier circuits are fabricated monolithic integrated circuits in the gallium arsenide technology . however , the amplifier circuit of the invention may include plural individual monolithic integrated amplifier circuits arranged in tandem as depicted in fig2 . each monolithic integrated amplifier circuit operates in cooperation with &# 34 ; external &# 34 ; biasing and embedding circuitry . fig9 is a simplified equivalent circuit schematic depicting an example of the control components of the monolithic integrated amplifier circuit with associated biasing and embedding circuitry . in fig9 monolithic integrated amplifier circuit 100 is shown in substantially the same arrangement as depicted in fig8 where transistor q3 , q4 ( fig9 ) correspond to q5 and q6 of fig8 ; however , filter components l f , r f and c f ( fig8 ) are shown removed ( other than parasitic impedances ) and feedback bias components c b , l b and r b2 ( fig8 ) are shown removed ( other than parasitic impedances ) for better high frequency performance and integration in a monolithic circuit but may be intended depending on the application . in fig9 q1 and q2 are preferably dual gate fets . a first gate of each fet is coupled respectively through d . c . blocking ( rf passing ) capacitors c as rf m1 and rf m1 , respectively . the second gate of each transistor is coupled through r v to v adj to adjust the bias point by adjusting gate to source bias voltage . similarly , the gates of transistors q3 and q4 are coupled through resistor r i to i adj to adjust the current bias in transistors q3 and q4 and thereby control feedback . rf choke inductors l are provided between voltage source v dd and the power input to integrated circuit 100 . outputs of integrated circuit 100 are coupled respectively through d . c . blocking ( rf passing ) capacitors c as rf out1 and rf out2 , respectively . fig1 depicts a preferred amplifier circuit ( such as amplifier 234 or 244 of fig1 ) having first amplifier circuit part 100 - 1 and second amplifier circuit part 100 - 2 coupled in tandem as shown in fig2 . first amplifier circuit part 100 - 1 has associated with it rf choke inductors l20 and l21 ( corresponding to rf choke inductors l in fig9 ), voltage adjust resistor r5 ( corresponding to resistor r v in fig9 ), current adjust resistor r6 ( corresponding to resistor r i in fig9 ), input d . c . blocking capacitors c34 , c35 ( corresponding to blocking capacitors c in fig9 ), monolithic integrated amplifier circuit u3 ( corresponding to integrated circuit 100 in fig9 ) and power source to ground a . c . bypass capacitors c39 , c48 . second amplifier circuit pan 100 - 2 has associated with it rf choke inductors l22 and l23 ( corresponding to rf choke inductors l in fig9 ), voltage adjust resistor r7 ( corresponding to resistor r v in fig9 ), current adjust resistor r8 ( corresponding to resistor r i in fig9 ), output d . c . blocking capacitors c28 , c29 ( corresponding to blocking capacitors c in fig9 ), monolithic integrated amplifier circuit u2 ( corresponding to integrated circuit 100 in fig9 ) and power source to ground a . c . bypass capacitors c50 , c52 . first and second amplifier circuit pans 100 - 1 and 100 - 2 are coupled through interstage d . c . blocking capacitors c26 , c27 ( corresponding to d . c . blocking capacitors c in fig9 ). in fig1 , the amplifier circuit includes input balun type transformer u6 ( corresponding to input transformer t1 in fig8 ) and output balun type transformer u7 ( corresponding to output transformer t2 in fig8 ). proper selection of resistors r5 - r8 will control operating conditions in integrated circuits u2 , u3 to provide stability , gain over the bandwidth ( i . e ., 40 mhz to 750 mhz ), etc . the circuit of fig1 demonstrates improved performance over conventional bjt ). for example , performance improvements are achieved in gain flatness , return loss , noise figure , and composite second order distortion . each integrated amplifier circuit ( e . g ., u2 and u3 ) is preferably designed to provide optimized performance ( e . g ., gain , bandwidth , low distortion , etc .) when operated at the designed bias point . for example , pre - amp 10 - 1 ( fig2 ) may be designed to operate at a lower bias current than is power amp 10 - 2 ( fig2 ). the current through the integrated amplifier circuit defines its power dissipation and is largely controlled by v adj ( fig9 ) or volt adj ( fig1 ). to afford greater flexibility to a designer , a family of integrated amplifier circuits are designed , each member of the family being designed to optimally operate at different bias points ( e . g ., 200 ma ., 275 ma ., 330 ma . and 515 ma .). for example , the designer of the circuit shown in fig1 may choose integrated amplifier circuit u3 to operate at 200 ma . and choose integrated amplifier circuit u2 to operate at 330 ma . alternatively , a designer may select integrated amplifier circuits u3 and u2 to operate at 275 ma . and 515 ma ., respectively . in this way the designer can obtain optimal performance while minimizing the power consumed in the integrated amplifier circuits , the catv line amplifier and the greater catv signal distribution network . any of these integrated amplifiers ( e . g ., u2 or u3 in fig1 ) may be removably attachable to the amplifier circuit by a connection , for example , by plug - in sockets or by solder connections . balun type transformers u6 , u7 are broadband balanced to unbalanced transformers , preferably formed around toroidally shaped ferrite cores ( e . g ., 0 . 133 &# 34 ;- 0 . 143 &# 34 ; outer diameter , by 0 . 067 &# 34 ;- 0 . 073 &# 34 ; inner diameter , by 0 . 047 &# 34 ;- 0 . 053 &# 34 ; in thickness as core type 43 produced by , for example , fair - rite products corp ., wallkill , n . y .). the baluns are so configured that an input impedance at terminal in matches a paralleled impedance at terminal rf in1 and terminal rf in2 of monolithic integrated amplifier u3 ( fig1 ) over a predetermined range of frequencies ( e . g ., 40 mhz to 750 mhz ). the baluns are so configured that an output impedance at terminal out matches a paralleled impedance at terminal rf out1 and terminal rf out2 of monolithic integrated amplifier u2 ( fig1 ) over the predetermined range of frequencies . the magnetic core of input balun u6 is preferably saturable so that terminal in is insensitive to static discharge ( fig1 ); the magnetic core of output balun u7 is preferably saturable so that terminal out is insensitive to static discharge ( fig1 ). the core is wound with ten turns each winding of bifilar wound double coated known in part as &# 34 ; heavy build &# 34 ; 34 gauge wire to achieve & lt ; 2 degrees of phase offset from 180 between output arms 1 and 2 over the band pass ( i . e ., 40 mhz to 750 mhz ), & lt ; 0 . 5 db amplitude imbalance between output arms 1 and 2 over the band pass , and & lt ; 0 . 75 db insertion loss at 750 mhz on each arm . the rf power at terminal in is split into substantially equal parts at terminals rf in1 and rf in2 of u3 in fig1 , less the insertion loss . the rf power at terminals rf out1 and rf out2 of u2 in fig1 are combined and provided at terminal out in fig1 , less insertion loss . thus , input balun u6 is capable of splitting an input signal at input terminal in into a first signal at terminal rf in1 of u3 and a second signal at terminal rf in2 of u3 ( fig1 ) such that a phase difference between the first signal and the second signal is 180 degrees plus or minus a phase offset , the phase offset being no more than 2 degrees over a predetermined range of frequencies ( e . g ., 40 mhz to 750 mhz ), a first amplitude of the first signal being equal to a second amplitude of the second signal plus or minus an amplitude imbalance , the amplitude imbalance being no more than 0 . 5 db over the predetermined range of frequencies . similarly , output balun u7 is capable of combining a first signal from terminal rf out1 of u2 with a second signal from terminal rf out2 of u2 to form an output signal at terminal out ( fig1 ), a phase difference between the first signal and the second signal being 180 degrees plus or minus a phase offset , the phase offset being no more than 2 degrees over the predetermined range of frequencies , a first amplitude of the first signal being equal to a second amplitude of the second signal plus or minus an amplitude imbalance , the amplitude imbalance being no more than 0 . 5 db over the predetermined range of frequencies . having described preferred embodiments of a novel gallium arsenide field effect transistor catv line amplifier ( which are intended to be illustrative and not limiting ), it is noted that modifications and variations can be made by persons skilled in the art in light of the above teachings . for example , the amplifier circuit described herein may be employed in reverse line amplifier 212 or in forward line amplifier 220 of fig1 . it is therefore to be understood that changes may be made in the particular embodiments of the invention disclosed which are within the scope and spirit of the invention as defined by the appended claims . having thus described the invention with the details and particularity required by the patent laws , what is claimed and desired protected by letters patent is set forth in the appended claims . | 7 |
we first note that each feature disclosed or illustrated in the present specification may be incorporated in the invention , whether alone or in any appropriate combination with any other feature disclosed or illustrated herein . we describe a sql visualization tool , hereinafter referred to as a sql visualizer , ( which can be part of microgen aptitude as noted above ). the sql visualizer can import database entities ( sql statements and procedures ) in textual form to microgen aptitude and transform them from textual form to a graphical form in the proprietary format of aptitude sql rules and aptitude sql procedures . creating aptitude diagrammatic sql procedures , database tables , views and sequences from textual sql procedures . sql rules and sql procedures are two types of aptitude graphical diagrams . aptitude sql rules are used to graphically represent sql select statements ( querying the database ) and dml ( data manipulation language ) statements changing data — such as insert , update and delete statements . aptitude sql procedure diagrams are used to graphically represent database sql procedures , which are not written in sql . the stored procedures were invented to control the usage of select and dml statements . they are close to a programming language ( for instance , the stored procedure language for oracle is called pl - sql ). they may call other stored procedures , sql select statements , dml statements like insert , update , delete and also other database commands , like ddl ( data definition language ) commands . ddl commands include e . g . statements creating database tables , views and also stored procedures . databases have separate engines to execute sql and stored procedures . the new aptitude functionality , i . e . the sql visualizer , makes it possible to convert the native database &# 39 ; s sql , dml , ddl and native stored procedure commands , which are in textual form , to a graphical representation used in aptitude , as follows : a ) sql select statements , and dml statements like insert , update and delete statements can be converted into aptitude sql rules ; and b ) native stored procedure code and ddl commands creating stored procedures , tables or views can be converted into aptitude sql procedures , which may contain blocks calling other aptitude sql procedures , and blocks creating tables or views . typically , database stored procedures contain a lot of embedded sql select and dml ( insert , update etc .) statements , which are converted by sql visualizer to sql rules , which are then referred ( using graphical blocks ) from the parent sql procedure diagram . in this way , the created aptitude sql procedures ( after the conversion ) typically contain blocks representing calls to aptitude sql rules ( of select , insert , update etc . type ), created as a result of the conversion of the dml parts of the master sql procedure . the textual sql procedure usually contains embedded sql statements . for such sql statements we produce separate sql rules that are then used in the diagrammatic sql procedure blocks ( e . g . loop , select , insert , update , delete and merge ). sql procedures may also use other sql procedures . if we find such a call we first try to find the definition of that procedure ( by its name ) in the project and use it in the diagrammatic procedure block . if we do not find it we treat the call as an external one and we put its definition into the external call format and then use it in the diagrammatic procedure block . the sql visualizer can have a toolbar 2 , shown in fig1 . the toolbar 2 can be accessible from a sql editor toolbar within aptitude . the sql visualizer toolbar 2 can contain the following controls : a sql editor 20 can be opened using an “ add new sql elements from sql statement ” command 22 from a context menu 24 as shown in fig2 . after opening the sql editor 20 , the user must put the textual sql statement into the sql editor 20 and then run the generate sql elements command 14 . any compilation errors will appear in a compilation report . if there are no errors , then the add new element dialog will pop up , where the user can name the created sql rule or procedure and then add it to an aptitude project . sql visualizer takes the first sql statement found in the sql editor , or the selected text , and translates this into the diagrammatic language . the resulting diagrammatic entities can be created one by one , or the whole script can be parsed . we now describe creating a sql rule from a sql statement . to create a sql rule from a sql statement the user needs to open a special sql editor 20 as shown in fig2 . the user puts the textual sql statement 26 into the sql editor 20 as shown in fig3 . then the user can select the dictionary control 8 . the dictionary provides definitions for a set of the database entities ( tables ) that might be used in the textual sql statement . these definitions are necessary to create an aptitude sql rule from the sql textual statement , because they provide information that is not present in the sql statement ( e . g . the sql statement may use a table name but we need the table definition to create a functional aptitude sql rule ). the dictionary is one of : project , edf ( external data format ), data schema , or database server , as shown in fig3 . there is an assumption that the tables used in the sql statements 26 are already defined in the selected dictionary 8 . if the user selects edf or data schema as the dictionary , then the tables &# 39 ; definitions are taken from this single edf or data schema . if the selected dictionary is the project , then table definitions are taken from one of the edfs or data schemas present in the project . if the user selects the database server as the dictionary , then table definitions are taken directly from the database or database schema 10 ( selected by user ). to generate a new sql rule the user needs to press the generate sql elements button 14 on the toolbar 2 . the user then has an opportunity to name the sql rule ( in this example the name “ newgeneratedsqlrule ” is chosen by the user ), and then the newly generated sql rule 28 is added to the project , as shown in fig4 . it is also possible to choose the database server as a dictionary . in such a case the sql rule would not have references to the edf &# 39 ; s tables . the tables would be locally defined in the table blocks of the sql rule as shown in fig5 . we next describe sql rule update . in the sql visualizer , it is possible to generate a textual sql statement from a diagrammatic sql rule , then to modify the sql statement as a text and then update the diagrammatic sql rule such that the changes made in the textual representation are included in the diagrammatic representation . this can be done by the following steps : 1 . generate a textual sql statement 30 from the graphical sql rule 32 , as shown in fig7 ; 2 . make changes to the text of the sql statement 30 ; and 3 . update the sql rule 32 to reflect changes made in the text of the sql statement 30 , as shown in fig7 . it is also possible to use the sql visualizer working directly with the database without the aptitude project environment , as shown in fig8 . in such a case , the user goes to the workspace explorer 34 and logs in to the database . then the user expands the database or schema node 35 and then expands the tables node , finally selecting one of the tables 36 . the user can then drag the selected table onto the sql editor 20 and then a simple sql statement of the type defined by the combo statement type 37 is created by aptitude . user can modify the statement using the sql editor . the statement type can be one of : select , inset , update , delete or merge . the user can then convert the statement into diagrammatical sql rule 38 after running the generate sql elements command 14 . we next describe creating a sql procedure diagram from sql procedure text or a ddl statement . the first steps are the same as for creating a new sql rule from a sql statement described above , but more objects are created ( sql procedure , and accompanying sql rules , table , views and sequence definitions ). the sql editor 20 is opened as described above for fig2 . when the diagrammatic sql procedure is created , the user is asked to give the new sql procedure a name , and in this example the name price validation is chosen , as shown in fig9 . the generated diagrammatic sql procedure 40 is added to the project together with its diagrammatic sql rules 42 . the sql rules 42 are added as child nodes of the sql procedure 40 in the project folders view 44 , as shown in fig1 . we next describe importing an sql procedure from a database and creating a diagrammatic aptitude sql procedure . this function takes the textual sql procedure from a database and converts it into a diagrammatic aptitude sql procedure . this can be done in the following steps : as described above for fig2 , the user opens a project , right clicks the project node in the project explorer and selects add new sql elements from sql statement this opens a new window called : “ new sql elements from sql statement input ”, as shown in fig2 . as shown in fig1 , the user goes to the workspace explorer 50 and logs in to the database . then the user expands the procedures node 52 ( showing the procedures existing in the database ), finds the procedure the user wants to import to the aptitude project ( in this example it is called price validation ), drags this procedure and drops it into the editor window 20 opened in the previous step . the editor window 20 now contains the textual sql procedure 54 , named price validation . the user executes generate sql elements toolbar command 14 . the user is asked for the name of the newly generated sql procedure , and in this example again chooses the name price validation . the generated diagrammatical aptitude sql procedure 56 is added to the aptitude project , as shown in fig1 . fig1 shows a computing device 60 , which may for example be a personal computer ( pc ), which is suitable for running the aptitude 3d software . the computing device 60 comprises a display 62 for displaying information to the developer , a processor 64 , a memory 66 and an input device 68 ( for example a mouse and / or keyboard ) for allowing the developer to input information . these elements are connected by a bus 70 via which information is exchanged between the components . having described the invention in detail and by reference to certain embodiments , it will be apparent that modifications and variations thereof are possible without departing from the scope of the invention . | 6 |
the invention describes an education framework that allows for educational assessment without testing . the framework uses a novel technique in educational assessment which is then incorporated into a network environment . this allows teachers , and school and district administrators to assess the progress of their students as well as providing graphical illustration and report generation illustrating the progress of the students . fig1 is a schematic diagram illustrating a novel education framework 2 used in accordance with the invention . the network framework 2 includes a database 18 as well as a client system 20 and a server system 4 that communicate with each other using commonly known network client - server communication systems . the client system 20 includes one more client computer systems that are coupled via a network . in this case , the client computer systems can include students 8 accessing the server 4 as well as educators 10 , such as teachers , school and district officials or administrators , accessing the server 4 . the students 8 can access the server 4 using either a password or other authentication means . the students 8 perform their daily skill activities and the data is stored in a database 18 by the server 4 . the educators 10 also access the server 4 using either a predefined password or other authentication means . the educators 10 usually access the server 4 to generate reports displaying students &# 39 ; progress as well as each student &# 39 ; s performance predictor or skill set , prescription of intensity , and other parameters . the server 4 generates the reports for viewing by the educators 10 using specific graphical representations . also , the educators 10 are allowed to generate reports specific to a student in a class , class in a school as well as to a school in a district . the server 4 receives requests for access by the client systems 20 . the requests can include standard communication protocols such as tcp / ip or the like . the server 4 processes these requests and performs the selected or requested operations . in this case , the server 4 includes a number of modules to perform the educational assessment . the server 4 includes a student performance data module 12 , a report module 16 , student parameter module 14 , and an assessment module 6 . when a student 8 sends a transmission of data 9 to the database 18 , using a client computer system , to the server 4 , that transmission 9 includes data generated by the student performing skill activities . the sever 4 receives the transmission 9 and triggers the execution of the assessment module 6 . the assessment module 6 assesses the data sent in the transmission 9 received by the server 4 and determines that the student 8 is adding data to their record . the assessment module 6 initiates the activation of the student performance data module 12 . the student performance data module 12 issues to the student 8 , via a message 11 , their individualized skill activities . the student 8 receives the message 11 that contains the individualized skill activities and proceeds in adjusting the pathway of that student 8 in the program . once the student 8 transmits the performance data 9 to the database 18 , the student performance data module 12 analyzes the data 9 from the database 18 and calculates the student &# 39 ; s performance data . the student performance data module 12 provides , via a message 5 , to the assessment module 6 the student performance data . the assessment module 6 receives the message 5 and calculates the various performance parameters used in the inventive assessment technique . also , the assessment module 6 stores the performance parameters associated with the student 8 into a database structure 18 for later retrieval or report generation . the database 18 is stored in the server 4 . the educator 10 , such as a teacher , school official or district official , can access the server 4 to generate reports or make administrative changes . using a client system the educator 10 sends a request 15 to the server 4 . the server 4 receives the request 15 and initiates the activation of the reporting module 16 that analyzes the request 15 and determines it is from an educator 10 . the reporting module 16 initiates the activation of the student parameter module 14 . the reporting module 16 determines whether the request 15 is directed in generating a report and for whom . if the educator 10 is a teacher , then the report module 16 utilizes a report specific to the class of the teacher or their student of interest . if the educator 10 is a school or district administrator , the report module 16 generates a report that include details regarding the educational assessment of the school or district as a whole , which can include the overall assessment of the district , school , grade and particular class . the reporting module 16 provides a user interface that allows an educator 10 to select the criteria of the report they are requesting . the report module 16 analyzes the criteria requested for the report and sends a request 17 to the student parameter module 14 for the required information needed for report generation . the student parameter module 14 analyzes the request 17 and requests via message 23 the student performance and assessment data needed to produce the report requested . the student parameters module 21 analyzes the message 23 and extracts the information needed to generate the requested report using the information provided by the student parameter module 14 . the assessment module 6 formulates a query to the database structure 18 to extract the needed assessment data and students information . after receiving the query from the student parameters module 14 , the database structure 18 retrieves the needed assessment data and student information and sends it to the assessment module 6 . the student parameters module 14 receives the results of the query and processes the information in a fashion that the reporting module 16 can use , and sends the information via a message 19 to the reporting module 16 . the reporting module 16 receives the message 19 and processes the received information by calculating the received assessment data and student information in a fashion that can be used for report generation . the reporting module 16 receives the message 19 and proceeds to produce reports . in particular , the reporting module 16 generates reports based on who is requesting the reports and their access privileges . in this case , a school administrator can receive a report that contains information regarding the assessment of school , grade , class or student ; district administrators can receive a report that contains information regarding assessment of the district , school , grade , class or student while a teacher may receive assessment reports showing their class or individual students . based on the contents in messages 17 and 19 , the reporting module 16 generates a report for a specific educator . the report can include various numerical , graphical , and other illustrative measures to show relevant information . after generating the reports , the reporting module 16 sends , via a message 13 , the generated report to the educator 10 . the educator 10 can review the contents of the generated reports . the education framework 2 can use standard open technologies such as linux , apache , and mysql to build the modules 6 , 12 , 14 , and 16 . the client system 20 and the server 4 can use platform independent programming languages to access the modules 6 , 12 , 14 , and 16 and necessary programming components . also , the client system 20 can include smartphones or other mobile devices . each of the computers or mobile devices of the client system 20 and server 4 have a processor , portable storage , and a processor - readable storage medium that can include but is not limited to a floppy disk , a mini - disk , a cd - rom , a dvd - rom , flash memory , data tape , and other conventional storage media as may be known to those of ordinary skill in the art . the invention utilizes a novel educational assessment technique for evaluating a student &# 39 ; s progress that relies on key elements for progress monitoring , such as , but not limited to , usage , current program level , rate . the reports generated by the reporting module 16 illustrate usage , performance predictors for kindergarten through grade 3 , and skill sets for grades 4 and above . information about student usage is valuable in determining whether students receive the greatest benefit from working on selected programs . strong usage is likely to result in more progress through the selected programs and greater skill acquisition . for each user , usage is based on finding average weekly time ( in minutes ) the user worked on the selected predefined skill activities . log in / log out time is updated when the student logs out for each student in the database 18 via the assessment module 6 and student performance data module 12 . a user &# 39 ; s average weekly time is obtained by summing daily times over an eight - week period and dividing by eight . the eight - week period includes 56 days prior to the current date . usage information is provided only for students who use the program at least once over the eight - week period . the following descriptions define usage categories : weak = average weekly time is less than or equal to 15 minutes ; fair = average weekly time is greater than or equal to 16 minutes but less than or equal to 44 minutes ; strong = average weekly time is greater than or equal to 45 minutes . information about usage status is available for individual students , classes , grades , schools and districts . aggregate information can be obtained by averaging the total times of students in the group and dividing by the number of students in the group . given that average weekly time is computed based on the 56 days prior to the current date , average weekly times during the first few weeks of use will include days with no use and is likely to be “ weak ”. as students accrue more weeks of use , the usage category becomes a better indicator . performance predictors are a key component to monitoring student progress through the selected predefined skill activities . a performance predictor is a student &# 39 ; s percent chance of reaching end - of - year benchmark . performance predictors fall between 1 %- 99 %. a student who has already reached end - of - the - year benchmark in a given month is assigned a performance predictor of 100 %. performance predictors are provided for kindergarten through third grade students who have used lexia at least once in a given month and have shown a sequential progression through lexia levels . performance predictors are calculated at the end of each month and made available on the first day of the following month . for example , a student with a performance predictor of 56 % based on september performance will have this percentage displayed beginning october 1 st and remain during the whole month of october . to determine performance predictors , a series of logistic regression analyses were performed to identify variables that were the strongest predictors in determining the likelihood of reaching end - of - year benchmarks . for every grade and month , certain variables were identified as most predictive . the most predictive variables received values reflecting their weights ( predictive strength ) in prediction equations for each month in each grade level . these prediction equations were used on a monthly basis ( august 2010 to may 2011 , as an example ) to derive a student &# 39 ; s percent chance of reaching end - of - year benchmark . there were one - to - three significant variables in each prediction equation . examples of variables used in the prediction equations include current level ( the student &# 39 ; s level in lexia reading on the last day of the month ), percent of current level complete ( percentage of units completed in the current level on the last day of the month ) and monthly rate ( number of units per minute completed during the month ). a stratified random sampling procedure was used to obtain norm samples . first students are divided into six pools based on their total standard scores on the grade : 70 and below , 71 - 85 , 86 - 100 , 101 - 115 , 116 - 130 , greater than 130 . then 4 , 28 , 68 , 68 , 28 and 4 students are randomly sampled from these pools , respectively . sampling in this manner guaranteed a sample of 200 students showing a normal distribution of reading scores . when sampling from these pools , one can consider ethnic background . proportions of different ethnicities in accordance with national demographics are maintained . for example , for pools in which had an over - representation of hispanic students , some hispanic students are omitted from the pool ( in a random fashion ) and then sampled from the remaining students . in a few cases , there were not enough students in a pool to meet the sample quota for a normal distribution ( e . g ., third graders with standard scores greater than 130 ). in these cases an adjacent pool was sampled . standard scores for students in the combined norm samples indicate a nearly perfect normal distribution . an autoplacement feature was used to establish the initial lexia reading level for 94 % of the students in the norm samples . of the students who were autoplaced , 93 % were autoplaced at the beginning of the 2010 - 2011 school year . the remaining students were autoplaced in the previous school year . those students who were not autoplaced were assigned a level by their teacher ( manual placement ). ninety - seven percent of the students showed a sequential progression through lexia levels ( i . e ., worked on one lexia reading level at a time and moved on to the next level only when the current level was completed ). for the remaining students more than one level was open for a period of time . the norm samples are also used to derive recommendations of lexia reading use . the recommendations were based on analyzing the amount of use required for students identified as “ high risk ” to reach end - of - year benchmarks . for this analysis one can chose students identified as “ high risk ” in february . by this time students in the norm samples were clearly distinguishable in terms of their likelihood of reaching end - of - year benchmarks , yet there were enough months left in the school year for “ high risk ” students to reach end - of - year benchmarks . the findings show somewhat different use patterns for kindergartners compared to first through third graders . in general , first through third graders required greater use than kindergartners to reach end - of - year benchmarks . based on the findings , one can recommend between 50 - 70 minutes of lexia reading use per week for “ high risk ” kindergartners and 80 - 100 minutes per week for “ high risk ” first through third graders . recommendations of use for students identified as “ some risk ” or “ on target ” are less intense than for “ high risk ” students , and are consistent with their likelihood of reaching end - of - year benchmarks . given that the label “ some risk ” is applied to a wide range of performance predictors ( 31 - 79 %), it is evident that not all “ some risk ” students will require the same amount of lexia reading use to reach end - of - year benchmarks . thus , for “ some risk ” students with a 31 - 50 % chance of reaching end - of - year benchmark we recommended higher amounts of lexia reading use than for “ some risk ” students with a 51 - 79 % chance of reaching end - of - year benchmark . given that lexia reading users in grades 4 - 12 are nearly always below or well below grade level , norm samples for them were unable to be obtained . however , similar procedures to the ones described above to derive use recommendations were employed for students in grades 4 - 12 . these students fall into one of three skill sets : basic , elementary or intermediate . students who used lexia reading are examined for at least 45 minutes per week and progressed from level 1 of strategies of older students ( sos ) in february , 2011 , to level 4 or 5 of sos by the end of may , 2011 . these students advanced from basic skill set to intermediate skill set . overall , greater use for students in grades 7 - 12 are found compared to grades 4 - 6 . based on the findings , one can recommend between 90 - 120 minutes of lexia reading use per week for students in grades 4 - 6 and 100 - 150 minutes per week for students in grades 7 - 12 . these recommendations apply to students who are working on basic skills in level 1 of sos or any level of early reading or primary reading . recommendations of use for students working on elementary or intermediate skill sets ( levels 2 - 5 of sos ) are less intense than for students working on basic skills and are consistent with completing intermediate skills by the end of the school year . information about the performance predictor is available for students , classes , grades , schools and districts ( for example , percentage of students in a school or district who fall under each of the performance predictor categories ). students are included in the aggregates if they used the program at least once during the last calendar month prior to the date in which the performance predictor status is provided . in addition to providing the latest performance predictor , historic performance predictors are recorded monthly on the last day of each month and displayed on the first day of the subsequent month over the course of the school year . each program level is associated with a “ skill set ” based on the grade at which the skills in that level are typically taught . information about skill set is provided for students in grades four and above to indicate the types of skills being worked on at their current ( most recent ) level . the following are the skill sets used in accordance with the invention : intermediate = skills approximately at a fourth - sixth grade level ; elementary = skills approximately at a second - third grade level ; basic = skills approximately at a kindergarten - first grade level . information about skill set is provided for students , classes , grades , schools and districts . students are included in the aggregates if they used the program at least once during the eight weeks prior to the date in which the skill set is provided . in addition to providing the latest skill set status , historic skill sets are recorded on the last day of each month and displayed on the first day of the subsequent month over the course of the school year . for students in grades kindergarten to third grade , based on student program level and rate of progress , the performance predictors can be used to indicate each student &# 39 ; s percent chance of reaching the end - of - year benchmark for his or her grade level . calculated on a monthly basis , the performance predictor is a critical measure of risk of potential reading failure . predictors are calculated on the first day of each calendar month , based on a prior month &# 39 ; s work . the first performance predictor is available the first day of second month of use . end - of - year benchmarks were established based on a normed sample as well as using grade level and state standards . the end - of - year benchmarks are correlated to performance on nationally used and previously validated progress monitoring tools that are independent of lexia reading . each student &# 39 ; s performance predictor or skill set determines the level of intensity of instruction needed to increase the likelihood of the student reaching end - of - year benchmark or to increase the grade level of the material the students are working on . this monthly prescription includes the number of minutes the student should use the program , in addition to available , recommended , scripted lessons for the teacher to target instruction . fig2 is a table 120 listing the prescription of ( instructional ) intensity recommendations categorized by grade , performance predictor or skill set . these recommendations were determined through analysis of a normed sample as discussed above . fig3 is a process flow 30 illustrating calculating current performance predictors used in accordance with the invention . the assessment module 6 performs these steps and the results are stored in the database 18 for later retrieval by the student parameter module 14 and reporting module 16 . as shown in step 32 , the student works on their software program associated with their individualized skill activities where the performance data is sent back to the server 4 to be stored via the assessment module 6 and database structure 18 , as shown in step 34 . for every month , on the last day of the month all the students who have worked in the last month including those in kindergarten , first grade , second grade , or third grade , their student activity level information with respect to their usage is determined , as step in 35 . the assessment module 6 retrieves this information from the database structure 18 . also , it is important to determine the current norm referenced data for comparison . this is accomplished by calculating the month offset into the school year from the current date using the school &# 39 ; s start month and year . note that the month offset for calculations run on the first day in a month , is the offset of the previous month since the calculation is for the previous day . the assessment module 6 stores the current performance predictor values attained in the database structure 18 . moreover , the current performance data of each of the students are compared against the month and the student &# 39 ; s grade and put into proprietary formulas , as shown in step 36 . based on the norm sample data , a student &# 39 ; s current rate and accuracy categories are determined by comparing performance data to the norm sample , as shown in step 37 . as mentioned earlier , the current performance predictors are defined as follows : on target , some risk , and high risk . afterwards , the assessment module 6 stores the performance predictors for later retrieval to the database 18 . moreover , educators can send requests to the reporting module 16 for reports , as shown in step 38 . the reporting module 16 generate reports with the parameters calculated , as show in step 39 . fig4 is a process flow 40 illustrating calculating historical performance predictors used in accordance with the invention . historical performance predictors are calculated on the first of the month by the assessment module 6 . the assessment module 6 stores the computed historical performance predictors in the database structure 18 for comparison purposes . as shown in step 41 , the student works on their software program associated with their individualized skill activities where the performance data is sent back to the server 4 to be stored via the assessment module 6 and database structure 18 , as shown in step 42 . as shown in step 43 , on the first of the month , for every student who has worked in the program the prior month the usage activity or activity level with the program is computed . this entails getting the last activity the student worked on in this time period , getting the level of the last activity the student worked on , and getting the start date of the student &# 39 ; s school . the historical performance predictors are determined for each student for comparison purposes by using proprietary formulas that are applied to the performance data to calculate historical performance predictors , as shown in step 44 . the historical performance predictors are calculated after the first month of program use in the school year after the school &# 39 ; s start date for the year . afterwards , performance data are compared to norm sample data to determine historical rate and accuracy categories , as shown in step 45 . afterwards , the assessment module 6 stores the historical performance predictors for later retrieval to the database structure 18 . moreover , educators can send requests to the reporting module 16 for reports illustrating the historical predictors , as shown in step 46 . the reporting module 16 generate reports with the parameters calculated , as show in step 47 . based on the proprietary formulas for the month and grade of the student , a student historical performance predictor is calculated , as shown in step 44 . as mentioned earlier , the performance predictors are defined as follows : on target , some risk , and high risk . afterwards , the assessment module 6 stores the historical performance predictor to the databases structure 18 for later retrieval . fig5 is a schematic diagram illustrating a district report 50 generated by the reporting module 16 in accordance with the invention . the report 50 includes regions 52 , 54 , 56 , and 58 that illustrate specific information for district officials . the region 52 defines the current performance status of the students in the districts . in particular , a number of pie charts 88 , 90 illustrate the performance predictors and skill sets of the students that are provided by the process in fig3 . the region 56 shows the progress section that displays the percentage of students in each performance predictor and skill set category in monthly intervals . as the school year progresses one can gauge student progress by monitoring how the percentages of performance predictors and skill set categories are increasing or decreasing . progress is measured monthly and displayed in month segments , and includes all students who used the program at least once in the previous calendar month for kindergarten through third grade and at least once in the last eight weeks for students in fourth grade and above . region 54 shows a usage pie chart 92 displaying student program usage based on average weekly minutes for the past 8 weeks . the usage pie chart 92 includes all grades , and therefore the number of students will be the total number of students in the performance predictors and skill set pie charts 88 , 90 . this includes only students who have used the program at least once in the previous calendar month for kindergarten through third grade and at least once in the last eight weeks for students in fourth grade and above . region 58 shows the school tables providing a concise overview of usage and status for a district &# 39 ; s top / bottom ten schools . these tables feature the most recent snapshot of performance predictors , skill sets , and usage data . a district official can view schools by clicking any school name to view a school &# 39 ; s performance predictors and skill set percentages by grade ( for example , all of the school &# 39 ; s current status , progress , and usage information ). if a district official wants to see schools sorted differently they can use the drop - down menus to view the top / bottom ten performance predictor , top / bottom ten skill sets , and top / bottom ten schools by usage . you can further sort the list by clicking any column header . also , status overall and status for grades in a certain school or district can be viewed according to the top / bottom ten performance predictor , top / bottom ten skill sets , and top / bottom ten usage . fig6 is a schematic diagram illustrating a school report 60 generated by the reporting module 16 in accordance with the invention . the report 60 includes a number of regions 51 , 53 , 55 and 57 that illustrate assessment and usage information specific for a school . the region 51 shows the performance predictors and skill sets of the students in a school . with respect to the performance predictors , they are assigned the following identifiers : on target , some risk , and high risk . with respect to the skill sets , they are assigned the following identifiers : intermediate , elementary , and basic . moreover , the region 51 includes pie charts 61 , 62 illustrating a current snapshot of performance predictors and skill sets of only students who have used the lexia reading at least once in the past 8 weeks . region 53 shows the progress section that displays the percentage of students in each performance predictor and skill set category in monthly intervals . as the school year progresses , one can gauge student progress by monitoring how the percentages of performance predictors and skill sets are increasing or decreasing . region 55 includes a usage pie chart 63 that displays student program usage based on average weekly minutes for the past 8 weeks . the usage pie chart 63 includes all grades and therefore the number of students will total the number of students in the performance predictors and skill set charts 61 , 62 . the pie chart 63 shows only the student who have used the lexia reading program at least once in the past 8 weeks . region 57 shows the school &# 39 ; s grade table providing a concise overview of a school &# 39 ; s current status . these tables feature the most recent snapshots of performance predictors , skill set , and usage data . district users can view schools by any school name to view a school combine report , for example , all of the school &# 39 ; s current status , progress , and usage information . if your district has more than 10 schools one can use the drop - down menus to view the top / bottom ten performance predictors , top / bottom ten skill sets , and top / bottom ten usage . one can further sort the list by clicking any column header . school user can view grades . if a school has more than 10 grades , one can use the drop - down menu to view top / bottom ten performance predictors , top / bottom ten skill sets , top / bottom ten usage . one can also sort the list by clicking any column or header . fig7 is a schematic diagram illustrating a teacher report 78 generated by the reporting module 16 in accordance with the invention . the report 78 includes number regions 80 , 82 , 84 , and 86 that illustrate assessment and usage information specific for a class . region 80 shows an instruction needed list that displays all students in a class who are struggling with an activity and may require explicit teacher - directed instruction in order to progress . students are grouped according to the program level and skills in which they are struggling in order to facilitate small group instruction . a teacher can click on a skill name to view a selected predefined lesson that can be used in a teacher - led instructional session with students . by clicking a student name , a student skills report is provided for a detailed look at the student &# 39 ; s current and past performance . region 82 shows a pie chart 94 displaying the performance predictor and / or skill set , depending on the grade ( s ) of the student in the class . the chart 94 is a snapshot of current and includes only students who have used the program at least once in the last calendar month for students in grades k - 3 and at least once in the past 8 weeks for students in grades 4 - 12 . region 84 shows a usage line graph 96 displaying the average minutes per week of use for the entire class . a shaded region indicates the overall or general recommended levels of usage . this graph 96 includes all students in the class who have used the program at least once in the past 8 weeks . by clicking the detail button under the class usage graph 96 , each student &# 39 ; s average weekly usage and total usage is displayed . region 86 shows a student table providing a concise overview of the class by reporting each student &# 39 ; s current status . in particular , if a student is struggling a special icon is displayed and by clicking on the student &# 39 ; s name , the teacher can view the student combined report that shows usage , performance and skill completion status . moreover , the student &# 39 ; s average weekly program usage over the past 8 weeks is displayed . the report 78 shows the student &# 39 ; s current program assignment . each student should have only one assigned at a time . when a student is determined to be struggling with one or more units a special icon is displayed in the “ lessons ” column and an icon drawing attention to the student is displayed next to the student name . by clicking the special icon in the “ lessons ” column , a lesson is provided to a teacher that can be used for teacher - led , small group instruction . when a student has completed a program level in the past two weeks , an icon is displayed in the “ certificate available ” column . by clicking this icon , detailed information regarding the achievement certificate is provided . fig8 is a schematic diagram illustrating a section of a teacher report 100 generated by the reporting module 16 in accordance with the invention that uses performance predictors . the performance predictors can also be displayed for each of the students in a separate column 102 . column 102 will display skill sets for students in grades 4 - 12 . a teacher can sort by performance predictors , which would in turn sort the recommended usage column 106 into 4 groupings ( for ease of planning ). the lines 108 around the three columns 102 , 104 , 106 indicate that the performance predictor or skill set drives the prescription of intensity . by putting the lessons along with recommended program usage under the prescription of intensity , one can drive home the message that it is not only more time on the computer but teacher intervention that can improve performance . the teacher has the two usage columns next to each other for easy comparison . the invention provides an education framework that allows for assessment without testing . this invention allows for direct control and easier access to student information that provides districts , schools , and teachers a better understanding of the educational development of their students . also , the invention provides customized , easy - to - understand reports that allow users to understand thoroughly the performance of their students as well as a way to help address student &# 39 ; s difficulties , all without stopping instruction time to administer a traditional test . although the present invention has been shown and described with respect to several preferred embodiments thereof , various changes , omissions and additions to the form and detail thereof , may be made therein , without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention . | 6 |
fig1 shows a block diagram of a circuit arrangement for carrying out a method for monitoring the phase - shifted phase voltages u 1 , u 2 , and u 3 provided with a constant range of a polyphase tachometer generator to detect phase failures . this constant range is larger than 60 el and smaller than 180 ° el . the tachometer generator and a rotor position transmitter are coupled to the rotor of a polyphase driving machine . for reasons of greater clarity , the tachometer generator , the rotor position transmitter , and the work - performing machine are not shown . the tachometer generator has a multiphase stator winding , the number of phases of which agrees with the number of phases of the work - performing machine . the tachometer generator is designed so that in each phase of the stator winding of the tachometer generator , a voltage is induced which is constant at least over a given angular range and the angular ranges , in which the individual phase voltages change from one polarity to the other , can overlap each other in time . in agreement with the three - phase stator winding of the driving machine , the tachometer generator also has a three - phase winding , of which the phase voltages u 1 , u 2 , and u 3 each are shown in a diagram versus the circular frequency ωt in fig5 . these phase voltages u 1 , u 2 and u 3 are fed to separate inputs of a summing stage 2 , and added there to form an auxiliary voltage u aux . the auxiliary voltage u aux present at the output of the summing stage 2 is fed to a limit indicator 6 via a switching element 4 . the switching element 4 is controlled via a rotor position signal u kom by an edge - controlled monostable multivibrator 8 . the rotor position signal u kom is generated by the rotor position transmitter of the driving machine ( not shown ). the rotor position signal u kom is shown in fig7 versus the circular frequency ωt . a more detailed illustration of the limit indicator 6 , a window comparator for example , is shown in fig3 . a more detailed illustration of the edge - controlled monostable multivibrator is shown in fig2 . the output of the limit indicator 6 is tied to a clock input c of a storage circuit 10 which is followed by a display that will indicate &# 34 ; tachometer fault &# 34 ;. a detailed design of the storage circuit 10 can be seen in fig4 . with reference to the overall design seen in fig1 at the output of the limit indicator 6 appears either a high signal or a low signal . by this signal the limit indicator 6 indicates that the voltage value of the auxiliary voltage u aux at the input of the limit indicator 6 is either within or without a set range of voltage values . the presence of a high level at the output of the storage circuit 10 causes &# 34 ; tachometer fault &# 34 ; to be displayed . in fig2 an embodiment of the edge - controlled monostable multivibrator 8 used in the circuit of fig1 is shown in more detail . to the input 12 is applied the rotor position signal u kom which is fed to a first input of an exor gate 14 and via a time delay stage 16 to a second input of the exor gate 14 . at the output 18 of the exor gate 14 a trigger sampling signal u t is present . a plot of the trigger sampling circuit versus the circular frequency ωt is shown in fig8 . the time delay stage 16 causes a shift in time of the rotor position signal u kom by a time t m . this time t m is also called the sampling time t m . at the output 18 of the exor gate 14 a high signal appears as long as a high signal is present at one of its inputs and a low signal at its other input . thus a high signal is obtained at the beginning of every edge of the rotor position signal u kom which remains at the high level for the sampling time t m . when the trigger sampling signal u t is at the high level , the switching element 4 is closed in the circuit of fig1 . in fig3 an embodiment of the limit indicator 6 with an integrated switching element 4 is shown in more detail . as the limit indicator 6 , by way of an example a known window comparator can be used such as that described by u . tietze ch . schenk , in &# 34 ; halbleiter - schaltungstechnik &# 34 ;, 6th edition , 1983 page 180 . this window comparator , as seen in fig3 contains two comparators 20 and 22 the outputs of which form a common output 24 of the limit indicator 6 . the noninverting input of the comparator 20 is coupled to an output of a voltage divider 26 , while the inverting input of the comparator 22 is coupled to the inverting input of the voltage divider 28 . a voltage value + u k is present at the output of the voltage divider 26 and a voltage value of - u k is present at the output of the voltage divider 28 . the auxiliary voltage u aux is received via the input 30 of the limit indicator 6 at the inverting input of the comparator 20 and at the noninverting input of the comparator 22 . the trigger sampling signal u t is fed via a trigger input 32 of the limit indicator 6 to the comparators 20 and 22 . the switching element 4 is realized by activation of the comparators 20 and 22 while the trigger sampling signal u t is at a high level . thus , it is possible to ascertain with this embodiment of the limit indicator 6 whether the auxiliary voltage u aux is within or without the range of voltage values + u k and - u k during the sampling time . in fig4 an embodiment of the storage circuit 10 used in the circuit of fig1 is shown . the exemplary embodiment of the storage circuit 10 shown in fig4 has a comparator 34 whose noninverting input is tied to its output via a series feedback circuit , comprising a diode 36 and a resistor 38 . the inverting input of the comparator 34 is connected to a voltage divider 40 and a reset input 42 . the noninverting input of the comparator 34 is tied to a clock input c of the storage means 10 . from the output 44 of the storage circuit , a high signal or a low signal is obtained depending on the signal present at the clock input . if a low signal is present at the clock input c , then the output of the comparator 34 also goes into the low state . this low state is held by the feedback circuit . the comparator 34 can be reset to its starting point by a reset signal fed to the reset input 42 . in the embodiment of the storage circuit 10 shown in fig4 a , a d - flip - flop is used , at the data input of which a high level is present with the q output tied to the &# 34 ; tachometer fault &# 34 ; display . the clock input of this d - flip - flop is preceded by an inverter . a low signal at the output of the limit indicator 6 , which indicates that the sampled voltage value of the auxiliary voltage u aux is outside the range of voltage values + u k and - u k , will therefore become a high signal at the q output of the d - flip - flop , and causes &# 34 ; tachometer fault &# 34 ; to be displayed . fig4 b shows an embodiment of the storage circuit 10 using a microprocessor of a process control . this embodiment is used if automatic intervention into the control unit controlled by the microprocessor is to be made , or documentation is to be provided by the microprocessor . this is in addition to the causing &# 34 ; tachometer fault &# 34 ; to be displayed . in fig5 each of the phase voltages u 1 , u 2 and u 3 are shown in a diagram versus the circular frequency ωt . as is shown in fig5 the phase voltages u 1 , u 2 and u 3 of the tachometer generator have trapezoidal waveforms . the constant range of these phase voltages u 1 to u 3 extends over 120 ° el . thereby , the inclined regions of the individual phase voltages u 1 to u 3 do not overlap in time . in fig6 the auxiliary voltage u aux is shown in a diagram versus the circular frequency ωt . this auxiliary voltage u aux was generated by the addition of the three phase voltages u 1 , u 2 and u 3 . due to the fact that in a drive arrangement with a three - phase drive machine , the angular range in which the individual phase voltages u 1 to u 3 of the tachometer generator are constant extends over 120 ° el , a triangular waveform of the auxiliary voltage u aux is obtained . the amplitude of the waveform corresponds to the amplitude of the individual phase voltages u 1 to u 3 . in addition , two constant voltages are shown in the diagram each with a constant amplitude + u k and - u k versus the circular frequency ωw . these two voltages + u k and - u k therefore form a range of voltage values . the rotor position signal u kom generated by the rotor position transmitter is shown in the diagram in fig7 versus the angular frequency ωt . the rotor position signal u kom is a squarewave signal , the level state of which changes every 60 ° el . thereby , the commutation instant is determined with every edge of the squarewave signal . in fig8 the trigger sampling signal u t is shown in a diagram versus the circular frequency ωt . this trigger sampling signal u t is a squarewave signal where the signal jumps to the high level at every commutation instant , i . e . every 60 ° el and remains in this level state for a time t m . this time t m is the sampling time t m , at which the auxiliary voltage u aux is present at the limit indicator 6 . in fig5 to 8 , the signal waveforms are shown for an undisturbed case , i e ., if no phase voltage fails . fig9 to 12 , on the other hand , show the corresponding signal waveforms of fig5 to 8 with a short circuit occurring in the tachometer generator . from this instant on , the phase voltage u 2 is missing . prior to this instant , all sampling voltage values are within the voltage value range + u k , - u k so that a high signal is present at the output 24 of the limit indicator 6 according to fig3 . at the instant of the short - circuit , the auxiliary voltage u aux executes a voltage jump which is then followed by a triangular voltage which has the value 0 volts over 60 ° el between two maxima . the maximum amplitude of the auxiliary voltage u aux is now twice the amplitude value of a single phase voltage u 1 or u 3 . due to the voltage jump at the instant of the occurrence of the fault , the sampled voltage value is outside the voltage value range + u k , - u k so that a low signal is present at the output 24 of the limit indicator 6 . this triggers the storage circuit 10 . the storage circuit 10 produces a low signal or a high signal at its output in dependence on the particular embodiment of the storage circuit 10 , whereby &# 34 ; tachometer fault &# 34 ; is displayed . by this method of monitoring the phase - shifted phase voltages u 1 , u 2 and u 3 having a constant range of a polyphase tachometer generator to detect a phase failure and the circuit arrangement for carrying out the method , the failure of at least one phase within an angular range of 60 ° el or 20 °. mech can be ascertained and displayed . | 6 |
referring now to the embodiment according to this invention , fig1 is a circuit diagram showing one embodiment of the digital electronic timepiece according to this invention . reference numeral 1 is the oscillating circuit employing a crystal vibrator such as a quartz crystal . the oscillating circuit 1 produces a signal of 32 , 726hz and the oscillating output signal is applied to the dividing circuit 2 having a plurality of dividing stages so that the frequency of 1hz is produced . this 1hz - signal , namely 1 second pulse is applied to the 60 - counter 3 . and the 60 - counter 3 produces a 60 seconds pulse namely a 1 minute pulse . this 1 - minute pulse is applied to the minute - counter 4 including a 10 - counter 5 and 6 - counter 6 . the output signal of the minute counter 4 , namely a 1 hour pulse is applied to the hour counter 7 which is a 24 - counter including a 12 - counter comprising the 10 - counter 8 and the binary counter 9 , and the binary counter 10 . the output signal of the hour counter , namely the 1 day pulse which is the output signal of the binary counter 10 , is applied to the week counter 11 being a 7 - counter , and is also applied to the day counter 12 being a 31 - counter including the 10 - counter 13 and the 14 . the 10 - counter 5 of the minute counter 4 consists of a 4 bits binary counter and the bcd code - output of the 4 bits binary counter is applied to the and circuits 15 , 16 , 17 , 18 respectively . the 6 - counter 6 comprises a 3 bits binary counter , and its bcd code - output is applied to the and circuits 19 , 20 , 21 respectively . the 10 - counter 8 of the hour counter 7 comprises a 4 bits binary counter and its bcd code - output is applied to the and circuits 22 , 23 , 24 , 25 respectively and also the binary counter 9 comprises a 1 bit binary counter of which the output signal is applied to the and circuit 26 . the week counter 11 comprises a 3 bits binary counter of which the bcd code output is applied to the and circuits 27 , 28 , and 29 respectively . the 10 - counter 13 of the day counter 12 comprises a 4 bits binary counter of which the bcd code output is applied to the and circuits 30 , 31 , 32 and 33 respectively . and further , the 4 - counter 14 of the day counter 12 comprises a 2 bits binary counter of which the bcd code output is applied to the and circuits 34 , 35 . one input terminal of each of the and circuits 15 - 26 receives the output signal of the display selecting circuit 38 through the line 36 . and also one input terminal of each the and circuits 27 - 35 receives the output signal of the display selecting circuit 38 through line 37 . the display selecting circuit 38 has a manual change over switch 39 which includes the movable contact 40 connected to the high level voltage supplying terminal 41 having the logical level &# 34 ; 1 &# 34 ; and fixed contacts 40a , 40b connected to the low level voltage supplying terminal 42 having the logical level &# 34 ; 0 &# 34 ; through the resistors 43 , 44 . the output signal of this display selecting circuit 38 is produced from the fixed contacts 40a and 40b of the change - over switch 39 . the fixed contact 40a is connected to line 36 and the fixed contact 40b is connected to line 37 . the respective output signals of the and circuits 15 , 16 , 17 are applied to the other terminals of or circuit 45 , 46 , 47 receiving the respective output signals of the and circuits 27 , 28 , 29 . the respective output signals of the and circuits 22 , 23 , 24 , 25 are applied to or circuits 48 , 49 , 50 , 51 receiving the respective output signals of the and circuit 30 , 31 , 32 , 33 . and the output signal of the and circuit 26 is applied to or circuit 52 receiving the output signal of the and circuit 34 . the output signals of the or circuits 45 - 47 and the and circuit 18 are applied to the decoder 53 for coverting the bcd code to a segment signal of 7 segment and the output signals of the and circuits 19 - 21 are applied to another decoder 54 . the ouput signals of the or circuits 48 - 51 are applied to another decoder 55 and further the output signals of the or circuit 52 and the and circuit 35 are applied to another decoder 56 . the output signals of the decoders 53 - 56 are fed to the display 61 through the drivers 57 , 58 , 59 , 60 . the display 61 comprises four display elements 62 , 63 , 64 , 65 each of which has seven segments arranged in &# 34 ; 8 &# 34 ; shape . there are also provided a display 67 indicating &# 34 ; h &# 34 ; meaning the hour , a display 68 indicating &# 34 ; m &# 34 ; meaning the minute , a display 69 indicating &# 34 ; d &# 34 ; meaning the date and a display 90 indicating &# 34 ; w &# 34 ; meaning the day of week . the displays 67 , 68 , 69 and 70 are drived selectively by the output signal of the display selecting circuit 38 through a driver 66 . the operation of the digital electronic timepiece having the above mentioned circuit construction will now be described . one input terminal of each of the and circuits 15 - 26 is maintained in the state of logical level &# 34 ; 1 &# 34 ; through the line 36 when the movable contact 40 of the change over switch 39 in the display selecting circuit 38 connects to the fixed contact 40a as shown in fig1 . also since one input terminal of each of the and circuits 27 - 35 is maintained in the state of the logical level &# 34 ; 0 &# 34 ;, the respective counted contents of the minute counter 4 and the hour counter 7 are applied to the decoders 53 - 56 through the and circuits 15 - 26 and the or circuits 45 - 52 , or are applied to the decoders 53 - 56 directly . accordingly , the minutes are displayed by the display elements 62 , 63 of the display 61 and the hour is displayed by the display elements 64 , 65 . at the same time , the displays 67 , 68 are driven by the driver 66 to display &# 34 ; h &# 34 ; and &# 34 ; m &# 34 ; respectively . the line 36 comes to be at logical level &# 34 ; 0 &# 34 ; when the movable contact 40 of the change over switch 39 in the display selecting circuit 38 connects to the fixed contact 40b . accordingly , the line 37 comes to be in the state of logical level &# 34 ; 1 &# 34 ; whereby the counted contents of the week counter 11 and the day counter 12 are applied to the decoders 53 - 56 through the and circuits 27 - 35 and the or circuits 45 - 52 , or are applied to the decoders 53 - 56 directly . accordingly , the day of the week is displayed as a number by the display element 62 of the display 61 . the unit date and tens date are displayed by the display elements 64 and 65 respectively . at the same time , the displays 69 and 70 are driven by the driver 66 to display &# 34 ; d &# 34 ; and &# 34 ; w &# 34 ; respectively . the day of the week is displayed as a number by the display element 62 it being assumed that &# 34 ; 1 &# 34 ; is sunday , &# 34 ; 2 &# 34 ; is monday , &# 34 ; 3 &# 34 ; is tuesday , &# 34 ; 4 &# 34 ; is wednesday , &# 34 ; 5 &# 34 ; is thursday , &# 34 ; 6 &# 34 ; is friday , and &# 34 ; 7 &# 34 ; is saturday . fig2 shows an example of displaying the time with the digital electronic timepiece according to this invention . the time 12 : 25 is displayed and the letters of &# 34 ; h &# 34 ; and &# 34 ; m &# 34 ; are displayed . fig3 shows another example of display by the time with the digital electronic timepiece according to present invention when the date and the day of week are displayed . fig3 shows the date of 25 and 2 representing monday and the letters of &# 34 ; d &# 34 ; and &# 34 ; w &# 34 ; are displayed . in fig2 and fig3 the reference numeral 71 designates the operating button to actuate the change over switch 39 in fig1 the reference numeral 72 designates the winding stem . the winding stem 72 operates a mechanical switch not shown in fig1 whereby it controls the operation of the adjusting circuit for correcting the time , the date and the day of the week . in fig2 and fig3 the same member as that of fig1 is designated by the same reference numeral . a digital electronic timepiece according to this invention has been explained in the detail by reference to the embodiment shown in the drawing . there will be obvious to those skilled in the art many modifications and variations of the above described structure . the digital electronic timepiece according to this invention is able to display all of the days week with a single display element . and also , the digital electronic timepiece according to this invention is able to have simplified circuit construction of the display and is able to avoid the problems of the arrangement of the display element and of small letters . and further , the digital electronic timepiece according to this invention is able to be simple in the electronic circuit relating to the display and to be simple in low cost . and still further , the digital electronic timepiece is able to use a simplified circuit in the display since either the time or the day of the week is displayed selectively with one display . and still further , the digital electronic timepiece can be used worldwide since the displayed figure representing the day of the week is common throughout the world . | 6 |
fig1 depicts a detailed example of a mobile computing device ( 100 ) capable of implementing the techniques and solutions described herein . the mobile device ( 100 ) includes a variety of optional hardware and software components , shown generally at ( 102 ). in general , a component ( 102 ) in the mobile device can communicate with any other component of the device , although not all connections are shown , for ease of illustration . the mobile device can be any of a variety of computing devices ( e . g ., cell phone , smartphone , handheld computer , laptop computer , notebook computer , tablet device , netbook , media player , personal digital assistant ( pda ), camera , video camera , etc .) and can allow wireless two - way communications with one or more mobile communications networks ( 104 ), such as a wi - fi , cellular , or satellite network . the illustrated mobile device ( 100 ) includes a controller or processor ( 110 ) ( e . g ., signal processor , microprocessor , asic , or other control and processing logic circuitry ) for performing such tasks as signal coding , data processing , input / output processing , power control , and / or other functions . an operating system ( 112 ) controls the allocation and usage of the components ( 102 ) and support for one or more application programs ( 114 ) such as a map navigation tool that implements one or more of the innovative features described herein . in addition to map navigation software , the application programs can include common mobile computing applications ( e . g ., telephony applications , email applications , calendars , contact managers , web browsers , messaging applications ), or any other computing application . the illustrated mobile device ( 100 ) includes memory ( 120 ). memory ( 120 ) can include non - removable memory ( 122 ) and / or removable memory ( 124 ). the non - removable memory ( 122 ) can include ram , rom , flash memory , a hard disk , or other well - known memory storage technologies . the removable memory ( 124 ) can include flash memory or a subscriber identity module ( sim ) card , which is well known in global system for mobile communications ( gsm ) communication systems , or other well - known memory storage technologies , such as “ smart cards .” the memory ( 120 ) can be used for storing data and / or code for running the operating system ( 112 ) and the applications ( 114 ). example data can include web pages , text , images , sound files , video data , or other data sets to be sent to and / or received from one or more network servers or other devices via one or more wired or wireless networks . the memory ( 120 ) can be used to store a subscriber identifier , such as an international mobile subscriber identity ( imsi ), and an equipment identifier , such as an international mobile equipment identifier ( imei ). such identifiers can be transmitted to a network server to identify users and equipment . the mobile device ( 100 ) can support one or more input devices ( 130 ), such as a touch screen ( 132 ) ( e . g ., capable of capturing finger tap inputs , finger gesture inputs , or keystroke inputs for a virtual keyboard or keypad ), microphone ( 134 ) ( e . g ., capable of capturing voice input ), camera ( 136 ) ( e . g ., capable of capturing still pictures and / or video images ), physical keyboard ( 138 ), buttons and / or trackball ( 140 ) and one or more output devices ( 150 ), such as a speaker ( 152 ) and a display ( 154 ). other possible output devices ( not shown ) can include piezoelectric or other haptic output devices . some devices can serve more than one input / output function . for example , touchscreen ( 132 ) and display ( 154 ) can be combined in a single input / output device . the computing device 100 can provide one or more natural user interfaces ( nuis ). for example , the operating system 112 or applications 114 can comprise speech - recognition software as part of a voice user interface that allows a user to operate the device 100 via voice commands . for example , a user &# 39 ; s voice commands can be used to provide input to a map navigation tool . a wireless modem ( 160 ) can be coupled to one or more antennas ( not shown ) and can support two - way communications between the processor ( 110 ) and external devices , as is well understood in the art . the modem ( 160 ) is shown generically and can include , for example , a cellular modem for communicating at long range with the mobile communication network ( 104 ), a bluetooth - compatible modem ( 164 ), or a wi - fi - compatible modem ( 162 ) for communicating at short range with an external bluetooth - equipped device or a local wireless data network or router . the wireless modem ( 160 ) is typically configured for communication with one or more cellular networks , such as a gsm network for data and voice communications within a single cellular network , between cellular networks , or between the mobile device and a public switched telephone network ( pstn ). the mobile device can further include at least one input / output port ( 180 ), a power supply ( 182 ), a satellite navigation system receiver ( 184 ), such as a global positioning system ( gps ) receiver , sensors ( 186 ) such as an accelerometer , a gyroscope , or an infrared proximity sensor for detecting the orientation and motion of device 100 , and for receiving gesture commands as input , a transceiver ( 188 ) ( for wirelessly transmitting analog or digital signals ) and / or a physical connector ( 190 ), which can be a usb port , ieee 1394 ( firewire ) port , and / or rs - 232 port . the illustrated components ( 102 ) are not required or all - inclusive , as any of the components shown can be deleted and other components can be added . the mobile device can determine location data that indicates the location of the mobile device based upon information received through the satellite navigation system receiver ( 184 ) ( e . g ., gps receiver ). alternatively , the mobile device can determine location data that indicates location of the mobile device in another way . for example , the location of the mobile device can be determined by triangulation between cell towers 104 of a cellular network . or , the location of the mobile device can be determined based upon the known locations of wi - fi routers in the vicinity of the mobile device . the location data can be updated every second or on some other basis , depending on implementation and / or user settings . regardless of the source of location data , the mobile device can provide the location data to map navigation tool for use in map navigation . for example , the map navigation tool periodically requests , or polls for , current location data through an interface exposed by the operating system ( 112 ) ( which in turn may get updated location data from another component of the mobile device ), or the operating system ( 112 ) pushes updated location data through a callback mechanism to any application ( such as the map navigation tool ) that has registered for such updates . with the map navigation tool and / or other software or hardware components , the mobile device ( 100 ) implements the technologies described herein . for example , the processor ( 110 ) can update a map view and / or list view in reaction to user input and / or changes to the current location of the mobile device . as a client computing device , the mobile device ( 100 ) can send requests to a server computing device , and receive map images , distances , directions , other map data , search results or other data in return from the server computing device . the mobile device ( 100 ) can be part of an implementation environment in which various types of services ( e . g ., computing services ) are provided by a computing “ cloud .” for example , the cloud can comprise a collection of computing devices , which may be located centrally or distributed , that provide cloud - based services to various types of users and devices connected via a network such as the internet . some tasks ( e . g ., processing user input and presenting a user interface ) can be performed on local computing devices ( e . g ., connected devices ) while other tasks ( e . g ., storage of data to be used in subsequent processing ) can be performed in the cloud . although fig1 illustrates a mobile device ( 100 ), more generally , the techniques and solutions described herein can be implemented with devices having other screen capabilities and device form factors , such as a desktop computer , a television screen , or device connected to a television ( e . g ., a set - top box or gaming console ). services can be provided by the cloud through service providers or through other providers of online services . thus , the map navigation techniques and solutions described herein can be implemented with any of the connected devices as a client computing device . similarly , any of various computing devices in the cloud or a service provider can perform the role of server computing device and deliver map data or other data to the connected devices . fig2 shows an example software architecture ( 200 ) for a map navigation tool ( 210 ) that renders views of a map depending on user input and location data . a client computing device ( e . g ., smart phone or other mobile computing device ) can execute software organized according to the architecture ( 200 ) to render map views , list views of directions for a route , or other views . the architecture ( 200 ) includes a device operating system ( os ) ( 250 ) and map navigation tool ( 210 ). in fig2 , the device os ( 250 ) includes components for rendering ( e . g ., rendering visual output to a display , generating voice output for a speaker ), components for networking , components for location tracking , and components for speech recognition . the device os ( 250 ) manages user input functions , output functions , storage access functions , network communication functions , and other functions for the device . the device os ( 250 ) provides access to such functions to the map navigation tool ( 210 ). a user can generate user input that affects map navigation . the user input can be tactile input such as touchscreen input , button presses or key presses or voice input . the device os ( 250 ) includes functionality for recognizing taps , finger gestures , etc . to a touchscreen from tactile input , recognizing commands from voice input , button input or key press input , and creating messages that can be used by map navigation tool ( 210 ) or other software . the interpretation engine ( 214 ) of the map navigation tool ( 210 ) listens for user input event messages from the device os ( 250 ). the ui event messages can indicate a panning gesture , flicking gesture , dragging gesture , or other gesture on a touchscreen of the device , a tap on the touchscreen , keystroke input , or other ui event ( e . g ., from voice input , directional buttons , trackball input ). if appropriate , the interpretation engine ( 214 ) can translate the ui event messages from the os ( 250 ) into map navigation messages sent to a navigation engine ( 216 ) of the map navigation tool ( 210 ). the navigation engine ( 216 ) considers a current view position ( possibly provided as a saved or last view position from the map settings store ( 211 )), any messages from the interpretation engine ( 214 ) that indicate a desired change in view position , map data and location data . from this information , the navigation engine ( 216 ) determines a view position and provides the view position as well as location data and map data in the vicinity of the view position to the rendering engine ( 218 ). the location data can indicate a current location ( of the computing device with the map navigation tool ( 210 )) that aligns with the view position , or the view position can be offset from the current location . the navigation engine ( 216 ) gets current location data for the computing device from the operating system ( 250 ), which gets the current location data from a local component of the computing device . for example , the location data can be determined based upon data from a global positioning system ( cips ), by triangulation between towers of a cellular network , by reference to physical locations of wi - fi routers in the vicinity , or by another mechanism . the navigation engine ( 216 ) gets map data for a map from a map data store ( 212 ). in general , the map data can be photographic image data or graphical data ( for boundaries , roads , etc .) at various levels of detail , ranging from high - level depiction of states and cites , to medium - level depiction of neighborhoods and highways , to low - level depiction of streets and buildings . aside from photographic data and graphical data , the map data can include graphical indicators such as icons or text labels for place names of states , cities , neighborhoods , streets , buildings , landmarks or other features in the map . aside from names , the map data can include distances between features , route points ( in terms of latitude and longitude ) that define a route between start and end locations , text directions for decisions at waypoints along the route ( e . g ., turn at ne 148 th ), and distances between waypoints along the route . the map data can provide additional details for a given feature such as contact information ( e . g ., phone number , web page , address ), reviews , ratings , other commentary , menus , photos , advertising promotions , or information for games ( e . g ., geo - caching , geo - tagging ). links can be provided for web pages , to launch a web browser and navigate to information about the feature . the organization of the map data depends on implementation . for example , in some implementations , different types of map data ( photographic image data or graphical surface layer data , text labels , icons , etc .) are combined into a single layer of map data at a given level of detail . up to a certain point , if the user zooms in ( or zooms out ), a tile of the map data at the given level of detail is simply stretched ( or shrunk ). if the user more further zooms in ( or zooms out ), the tile of map data at the given level of detail is replaced within one or more other tiles at a higher ( or lower ) level of detail . in other implementations , different types of map data are organized in different overlays that are composited during rendering , but zooming in and out are generally handled in the same way , with overlapping layers stretched ( or shrunk ) up to a point , then replaced with tiles at other layers . the map data store ( 212 ) caches recently used map data . as needed , the map data store ( 212 ) gets additional or updated map data from local file storage or from network resources . the device os ( 250 ) mediates access to the storage and network resources . the map data store ( 212 ) requests map data from storage or a network resource through the device os ( 250 ), which processes the request , as necessary requests map data from a server and receives a reply , and provides the requested map data to the map data store ( 212 ). for example , to determine directions for a route , the map navigation tool ( 210 ) provides a start location ( typically , the current location of the computing device with the map navigation tool ( 210 )) and an end location for a destination ( e . g ., an address or other specific location ) as part of a request for map data to the os ( 250 ). the device os ( 250 ) conveys the request to one or more servers , which provide surface layer data , route points that define a route , text directions for decisions at waypoints along the route , distances between waypoints along the route , and / or other map data in reply . the device os ( 250 ) in turn conveys the map data to the map navigation tool ( 210 ). as another example , as a user travels along a route , the map navigation tool ( 210 ) gets additional map data from the map data store ( 212 ) for rendering . the map data store ( 212 ) may cache detailed map data for the vicinity of the current location , using such cached data to incrementally change the rendered views . the map navigation tool ( 210 ) can pre - fetch map data along the route , or part of the route . thus , as the rendered map views are updated to account for changes to the current location , the map navigation tool ( 210 ) often updates the display without the delay of requesting / receiving new map data from a server . as needed , the map data store ( 212 ) requests additional map data to render views . the rendering engine ( 218 ) processes the view position , location data and map data , and renders a view of the map . depending on the use scenario , the rendering engine ( 218 ) can render map data from local storage , map data from a network server , or a combination of map data from local storage and map data from a network server . in general , the rendering engine ( 218 ) provides output commands for the rendered view to the device os ( 250 ) for output on a display . the rendering engine ( 218 ) can also provide output commands to the device os ( 250 ) for voice output over a speaker or headphones . the exact operations performed as part of the rendering depend on implementation . in some implementations , for map rendering , the tool determines a field of view and identifies features of the map that are in the field of view . then , for those features , the tool selects map data elements . this may include any and all of the map data elements for the identified features that are potentially visible in the field of view . or , it may include a subset of those potentially visible map data elements which are relevant to the navigation scenario ( e . g ., directions , traffic ). for a given route , the rendering engine ( 218 ) graphically connects route points along the route ( e . g ., with a highlighted color ) to show the route and graphically indicates waypoints along the route . the tool composites the selected map data elements that are visible ( e . g ., not obscured by another feature or label ) from the view position . alternatively , the tool implements the rendering using acts in a different order , using additional acts , or using different acts . in terms of overall behavior , the map navigation tool can react to changes in the location of the computing device and can also react to user input that indicates a change in view position , a change in the top item in a list of directions for a route , or other change . for example , in response to a finger gesture or button input that indicates a panning instruction on the map , or upon a change to a previous item or next item in a list of directions for a route , the map navigation tool can update the map with a simple , smooth animation that translates ( shifts vertically and / or horizontally ) the map . similarly , as the location of the computing device changes , the map navigation tool can automatically update the map with a simple translation animation . ( or , the map navigation tool can automatically re - position and re - render an icon that indicates the location of the computing device as the location is updated .) if the change in location or view position is too large to be rendered effectively using a simple , smooth translation animation , the map navigation tool can dynamically zoom out from at first geographic position , shift vertically and / or horizontally to a second geographic position , then zoom in at the second geographic position . such a dynamic zoom operation can happen , for example , when a phone is powered off then powered on at a new location , when the view position is re - centered to the current location of the device from far away , when the user quickly scrolls through items in a list of directions for a route , or when the user scrolls to a previous item or next item in the list of directions that is associated with a waypoint far from the current view position . the map navigation tool can also react to a change in the type of view ( e . g ., to switch from a map view to a list view , or vice versa ), a change in details to be rendered ( e . g ., to show or hide traffic details ). alternatively , the map navigation tool ( 210 ) includes more or fewer modules . a given module can be split into multiple modules , or different modules can be combined into a single layer . for example , the navigation engine can be split into multiple modules that control different aspects of navigation , or the navigation engine can be combined with the interpretation engine and / or the rendering engine . functionality described with reference to one module ( e . g ., rendering functionality ) can in some cases be implemented as part of another module . fig3 a and 3 b illustrate a generalized map view ( 300 ) and generalized direction list view ( 350 ), respectively , rendered using a map navigation tool of a mobile computing device ( 301 ). fig4 a - 4 c show example screenshots ( 401 , 402 , 403 ) of a list view of a map navigation ui . the device ( 301 ) includes one or more device buttons . fig3 a and 3 b show a single device button near the bottom of the device ( 301 ). the effect of actuating the device button depends on context . for example , actuation of the device button causes the device ( 301 ) to return to a home screen or start screen from the map navigation tool . alternatively , the device ( 301 ) includes no device buttons . the device ( 301 ) of fig3 a and 3 b includes a touchscreen ( 302 ) with a display area and three touchscreen buttons . the effect of actuating one of the touchscreen buttons depends on context and which button is actuated . for example , one of the touchscreen buttons is a search button , and actuation of the search button causes the device ( 301 ) to start a web browser at a search page , start a search menu for contacts or start another search menu , depending on the point at which the search button is actuated . or , one of the touchscreen buttons is a “ back ” button that can be used to navigate the user interface of the device . alternatively , the device includes more touchscreen buttons , fewer touchscreen buttons or no touchscreen buttons . the functionality implemented with a physical device button can be implemented instead with a touchscreen button , or vice versa . in the display area of the touchscreen ( 302 ), the device ( 301 ) renders views . in fig3 a , as part of the map view ( 300 ), the device ( 301 ) renders a full map ( 310 ) and status information ( 320 ) that overlays the top of the full map ( 310 ). the status information ( 320 ) can include time , date , network connection status and / or other information . the device ( 301 ) also renders a control section ( 330 ) that includes map navigation buttons , which depend on implementation of the map navigation tool . fig3 a shows a “ directions ” button ( arrow icon ), “ re - center ” button ( crosshairs icon ) and “ search ” button ( magnifying glass icon ). actuation of the “ directions ” button causes the device ( 301 ) to open menu for keystroke input for a destination location . actuation of the “ center ” button causes the device ( 301 ) to align the view position over the current location of the device ( 301 ). actuation of the “ search ” button causes the device ( 301 ) to open menu for keystroke input for a search for a location or locations . other buttons / controls can be accessed by actuating the ellipses , such as buttons / controls to clear the map of extra data , show / hide photographic image details , show / hide traffic data , show / hide route directions , change settings of the map navigation tool such as whether voice instructions are input or whether orientation of the view changes during progress along the route , etc . alternatively , the device includes more map navigation buttons , fewer map navigation buttons or no map navigation buttons . in fig3 b , as part of the list view ( 350 ), the device ( 301 ) renders a shortened map ( 360 ), status information ( 320 ) that overlays the top of the shortened map ( 360 ), and a list control ( 370 ). the shortened map ( 360 ) shows map details as in the full map ( 310 ) but also shows graphical details of at least part of a route between a start location and end location . the list control ( 370 ) shows text details and icons for directions along the route . fig4 a - 4 c show example screenshots ( 401 , 402 , 403 ) of list views , each including a shortened map ( 360 ) and list control ( 370 ) as well as status information ( 320 ) ( namely , time ) that overlays the shortened map ( 360 ). the screenshots ( 401 , 402 , 403 ) in fig4 a - 4 c show different list views for a route between a start location and end location . in the screenshot ( 401 ) of fig4 a , a graphical icon ( 421 ) shows the current location along the route in the map portion of the list view . part of the route ( 411 ) is shown in a highlighted color relative to the rest of the map data . the list control of the screenshot ( 401 ) includes waypoint icons ( 431 , 432 ) and text details for waypoints along the route . items in the list of direction are organized as waypoints , which represent points at which the user is given specific directions to turn , continue straight , take an exit , etc . below the waypoint icons ( 431 , 432 ), direction icons ( 441 , 442 ) graphically represent the active part of the directions , e . g ., to turn continue straight , take and exit associated with the respective waypoints . distance values ( 451 , 452 ) indicate the distance between waypoints ( as in the distance ( 452 ) between waypoints 2 and 3 ) or distance between the current location and the upcoming waypoint ( as in the distance ( 451 ) to waypoint 2 ). the color of the waypoint icons ( 441 , 442 ), text details , direction icons ( 441 , 442 ) and distance values ( 451 , 452 ) can change depending on the status of progress along the route . in fig4 a , the waypoint icon ( 431 ), text and direction icon ( 441 ) for waypoint 2 are rendered in an accent color to indicate waypoint 2 is the upcoming item in the list of directions . on the other hand , the waypoint icon ( 432 ), associated text and direction icon ( 442 ) for waypoint 3 are rendered in a neutral color to indicate waypoint 3 is further in the future . the screenshot ( 402 ) of fig4 b shows the list view after the user scrolls to the end of the list of directions , which is graphically represented with text ( 462 ). waypoint icons ( 433 ) represent a final waypoint in the map portion and list control of the list view . the map portion highlights part ( 412 ) of the route graphically . in the list control , the waypoint icon ( 433 ) is followed by text associated with the waypoint and a direction icon ( 443 ), but not a distance value since the waypoint is the final waypoint . the waypoint icon ( 433 ), associated text and direction icon ( 443 ) for the final , future waypoint are rendered in a neutral color . the screenshot ( 403 ) of fig4 c shows the list view after the user scrolls back to the start of the list of directions , which is graphically represented with text ( 461 ). the map portion shows part ( 413 ) of the route graphically , but the completed part of the route is grayed out . waypoint icons ( 434 ) represent an initial waypoint in the map portion and list control of the list view , and are also grayed out to show that the initial waypoint has been passed . another waypoint icon ( 435 ) represents a subsequent waypoint . in the list control , space permitting , the waypoint icons ( 434 , 435 ) are followed by text associated with the waypoints and direction icons ( 444 ), also grayed out , but not distance value since the waypoints have been passed . the list control also includes transit mode icons ( 472 ) that the user can actuate to switch between modes of transit ( e . g ., walking , car , bus ). tight turns are those turns that occur sequentially in less than a predetermined total distance . for example , if two or more turns occur within a distance of less than 0 . 3 miles , then the turns are treated as a special case wherein a combination instruction is created to announce the turns together as a single instruction . other predetermined distances can be used , such as distances between 0 . 1 - 0 . 5 miles . fig5 a shows an example where tight turns occurs . the map 510 shows a route 520 with multiple legs 522 , 524 , 526 and 528 . each leg has a distance associated with it . for example , both legs 524 and 526 are shown as having a distance of 0 . 1 miles . nodes n , n + 1 , n + 2 are shown between the legs representing turns that are made during the route . when two or more turns occur within a short distance or duration then the turns are considered tight turns . in this example , turns n , n + 1 and n + 2 occur within 0 . 2 miles , which can be less than a predetermined setting of 0 . 3 miles , for example . as described further below , when multiple turns occur in succession in less than a predetermined distance or duration , then an oral announcement is made treating the multiple turns as a single instruction . lane guidance can also be provided . for example , just prior to turn n , the system can perform the following : announce ( n ), announce ( n + 1 ), and lane guidance ( n + 2 ). as a further feature , after turn n is completed , an audio cue can be made to indicate that the turn was completed . in response to the audio cue , the user can provide a request or command to hear an updated announcement . for example , the user can tap the touch screen to hear an updated announcement , or the user can provide a voice command , etc . any form of user request can be used . in response to the request , the system can , for example , perform the following : announce ( n + 1 ), lane guidance ( n + 2 ). an additional feature can be that the turns remain separately listed in the list control . thus , in the written portion , the turns remain as independent instructions , despite that they are announced in a combination instruction . thus , multiple tight turns can be announced together with lane guidance prior to making the first of the tight turns . having such information in advance assists the user to navigate through a difficult portion in the route . fig5 b shows another example with two turns shown within a short distance . similar tight - turns announcements can occur for two turns , wherein lane guidance can also be provided after the second turn . fig6 is a flowchart of a method 600 for implementing a combination instruction for tight turns . in process block 610 , the system reviews route information to determine at least two turns that are a predetermined distance apart . the system can be programmed to determine at least three turns or at least four turns that are closely spaced . additionally , a user can adjust the settings for the definition of tight turns . in any event , in process block 610 , the tight turns along the route are determined sometime prior to the turns being encountered . indeed , the tight turns can be identified immediately after the route information is received from the server computer . the tight turns can also be based on other information , like a particular road segment &# 39 ; s speed limit or the user &# 39 ; s current speed as he or she approaches the turns . in process block 620 , prior to arriving at the series of tight turns an oral combination instruction is announced that includes at least two turns and lane guidance . alternatively , three turns can be announced as a single combination instruction : announce ( n ), announce ( n + 1 ), announce ( n + 2 ). fig7 shows a flowchart of a method 700 that provides additional implementation details that can be used . in process block 710 , route and distance information is received from a server computer . thus , a user first enters in destination information into a map application . the user &# 39 ; s location ( obtained from a gps , for example ) and destination are sent to a server computer . in response , the server determines the route and sends the route and distance between turns information to the client device . in process block 720 , the map application on the client device checks each turn in the route and calculates a summation of distances between turns . in process block 730 , tight turns are identified as turns having the calculated summation less than a predetermined distance . the predetermined distance can be any desired amount , such as 0 . 3 , 0 . 4 , or 0 . 5 miles . in process block 740 , the tight turns are grouped in a single voice command . thus , tight turns are treated differently than other turns . prior to reaching the series of tight turns , the turns are announced in series before reaching the first turn . thus , an example announcement can be as follows : “ turn right on 3 rd ave then left on country commons and then stay in the left lane .” in process block 750 , the tight turns can be listed as separate way points in the written instructions . thus , oral instructions for tight turns are treated differently , but written instruction can be treated the same as other turns . fig8 shows a flowchart of a method 800 for providing an audio cue . in process block 810 , a turn is announced . after the turn is completed , in process block 820 , an audio cue is played in response to completion of the announced turn . this signals the user that a user input command ( such as touching the screen ) can invoke the audio announcement of the next turn in the route . the audio cue is particularly helpful when the user is in a series of tight turns . fig9 shows different embodiments and different announcing scenarios that can be used with tight turns . the turns can be announced in any desired manner and combination . in view of the many possible embodiments to which the principles of the disclosed invention may be applied , it should be recognized that the illustrated embodiments are only preferred examples of the invention and should not be taken as limiting the scope of the invention . rather , the scope of the invention is defined by the following claims . we therefore claim as our invention all that comes within the scope of these claims . | 6 |
[ 0019 ] fig1 shows a feeder system 100 known in the art used to feed sheets of paper . the chassis 102 defines the structural framework of the feeder system 100 and has a plurality of connection points , for example 104 , 105 , and 106 . retard pad arm 108 has a back end 110 and a front end 112 opposite thereto . retard pad arm 108 also has a top side 114 and an aperture 116 located slightly past the midpoint of retard pad arm 108 towards the back end 110 . arm spring 118 is a force component having an arm attachment end 120 threaded through aperture 116 and a chassis attachment end 122 mounted to connection point 106 of chassis 102 . retard pad 124 has a trapezoidal cross - section defining a straight side 126 , an angled side 128 , top surface 130 , and a bottom surface 131 . the retard pad 124 , at bottom surface 131 , is fixed to the top side 114 of the retard pad arm 108 with the angled side 128 of retard pad 124 oriented towards the front end 112 of the retard pad arm 108 . the angle of the angled side 128 of retard pad 124 , from the front end 112 towards the back end 110 of retard pad arm 108 , is about 80 °. a feed roller 132 has a roller surface 134 and is mounted through its longitudinal axis to an axle 136 that drives the feed roller 132 in a counterclockwise rotation . the surface 134 of the feed roller 132 contacts the top surface 130 of the retard pad 124 along a line tangent to roller surface 134 , the nip 138 . a feed tray 146 has an upper side 148 and lower side 150 . the feed tray 146 is of comparable dimension to the stack of paper 140 being fed . the stack of paper 140 sits on top of the upper side 148 of the feed tray 146 . tray spring 152 is a force component having a fixing end 154 and a securing end 156 and opposite thereto . the fixing end 154 connects the tray spring 152 to the lower side 150 of the feed tray 146 . the securing end 156 is attached to the connection point 105 . a stack of paper 140 with a lead sheet 142 has a forward end 144 that is in contact with the angled side 128 of the retard pad 124 . the lead sheet 142 touches the roller surface 134 of the feed roller 132 . the lead sheet 142 is fed through the nip 138 . the two springs identified in the system , the arm spring 118 and tray spring 152 , generate the forces f n and f s , respectively . the coefficients of friction can be identified in the feeder system 100 . between the roller surface 134 of the feed roller 132 and the lead sheet of paper 142 is μ roller - paper . between the lead sheet of paper 142 and the balance of the stack of paper 140 is μ paper - paper . a driving force , which is the μ roller - paper *( f n + f s ), is responsible for feeding the lead sheet of paper 142 though the nip 138 . opposing the driving force is the retard force , which is the μ paper - paper *( f s + μ paper - retard )* f n . in normal operation , the driving force exceeds the retard force causing the stack of paper 140 to be fed through the feeder system 100 . if the driving force is too low , then misfeeds can result on the stack of paper 140 or at the nip 138 . in the printing industry , glossy paper is commonly coated with a spray or powder (“ anti - offset agents ”) that prevents the printed images from being offset ( i . e ., smearing or smudging ). when these glossy sheets of paper are fed through the feeder system 100 , the anti - offset agents transfer from the glossy sheets of paper to the roller surface 134 of the feed roller 132 . for example , when glossy paper that has anti - offset powders is used in the feeder system 100 , the anti - offset powders rub off the lead sheet of paper 142 and transfer to the roller surface 134 of the feed roller 132 . such anti - offset powders include starch , sugar or calcium carbonate . thus , the roller surface 134 becomes contaminated by developing a layer of anti - offset agents resulting in a decrease in the coefficient of friction μ roller - paper . when this occurs , the driving force is also reduced proportionally . the driving force will continuously decrease on each successive sheet of paper fed through because of the accumulation of anti - offset agents . at a certain point , the driving force will be less than the retarding forces , and consequently the feed roller 132 will fail to advance the sheet . thus , the need exists for a cleaning apparatus that could constantly function while the feeder system is in operation to maintain the existing coefficient of friction . [ 0024 ] fig2 shows a feeder system 200 known in the art with a chassis 202 that defines the structural framework of the feeder system 200 and has a plurality of connection points , for example 204 , 206 , 208 , 210 , and 212 . retard pad arm 214 has a back end 216 and a front end 218 opposite thereto . retard pad arm 214 also has a top side 220 and an aperture 222 located slightly past the midpoint of retard pad arm 214 towards the back end 216 . arm spring 224 is a force component having an arm attachment end 226 threaded through aperture 222 and a chassis attachment end 228 mounted to connection point 206 of chassis 202 . retard pad 230 has a trapezoidal cross - section defining a straight side 232 , an angled side 234 , top surface 236 , and bottom surface 237 . the retard pad 230 , at bottom surface 237 , is fixed to the top side 220 of the retard pad arm 214 with the angled side 234 oriented towards the front end 218 of the retard pad arm 214 . the angle of the angled side 234 from the front end 218 towards the back end 216 of retard pad arm 214 , is about 80 °. a feed roller 238 has a roller surface 240 and is mounted through its longitudinal axis to an axle 242 that drives the feed roller 238 in a counterclockwise rotation . the roller surface 240 of the feed roller 238 contacts the top surface 236 of the retard pad 230 along a line tangent to roller surface 240 , the nip 244 . a feed tray 252 has an upper side 253 and lower side 254 . the feed tray 252 is of comparable dimension to the stack of paper 246 being fed . the stack of paper 246 sits on top of the upper side 253 of the feed tray 252 . tray spring 255 is a force component having a fixing end 256 and a securing end 257 opposite thereto . the fixing end 256 connects the tray spring 255 to the lower side 254 of the feed tray 252 . the securing end 257 is attached to the connection point 208 . a stack of paper 246 with a lead sheet 248 has a forward end 250 that is in contact with the angled side 234 of the retard pad 230 . the lead sheet 248 touches the roller surface 240 of the feed roller 238 . the lead sheet 248 is fed through the nip 244 . a cleaning apparatus 260 has a cleaning arm 262 and cleaning head 264 . the cleaning arm 262 has an anterior end 266 and a posterior end 268 opposite the anterior end 266 , a side facing the roller 270 , a side remote from the roller 272 , and a hole 274 located in between the midpoint of the cleaning arm 262 and the posterior end 268 . a pivot 276 connects the posterior end 268 to the connection point 210 of the chassis 202 . the cleaning head 264 has an abrasive side 278 and is connected to the side facing the roller 270 near the anterior end 266 by a hinge 280 . the abrasive side 278 is in contact with the roller surface 240 of the feed roller 238 , and forms the angle α with the tangent line 279 . an attachment spring 282 having a cleaning arm - attaching end 284 and a frame - attaching end 286 provides force to abut cleaning head 264 of cleaning apparatus 260 against roller surface 240 of feed roller 238 . the cleaning arm - attaching end 284 of attachment spring 282 is threaded through the hole 274 of the cleaning arm 262 . the frame - attaching end 286 of attachment spring 282 is fixed to the connection point 212 . the cleaning head 264 can be any type of abrasive fixture that could clean the feed roller 238 . fixtures include , but are not limited to , sanding sheets , beater bars and wire brushes . preferable fixtures are blades and meshes . in one embodiment of the present invention , the cleaning head 264 is chosen to be a metal blade . the metal blade has a sharpened edge that serves as the abrasive side 278 . if a blade is used for the cleaning head 264 , then the blade is preferably made of hardened metal resistant to wear . metal is more effective in removing the anti - offset agents than other materials , such as urethane , an elastomer . most preferably is for the metal blade to be made of hardened steel with a square ground edge . it is believed that the blade scrapes the anti - offset agents from small crevices that may develop in the roller surface 240 of a feed roller 238 . a soft urethane blade would yield to the curvature of the feed roller 238 . a metal blade would be hard and strong enough to push into the feed roller 238 and scrape off the anti - offset agents . as the blade scrapes across the roller surface 240 , the roller surface 240 substantially deforms and small pieces of the feed roller 238 tend to be stretched . as the feed roller 238 continues to rotate on the axle 242 , the stretched surface snaps back to its original configuration which causes the anti - offset agents to flick off the roller surface 240 . additionally , the roller surface 240 is worn down by the blade from the abrasion . while the above is believed to be the mode of operation of the present invention , the inventors do not intend to be held to any specific hypotheses regarding the functionality of the present invention . when using a blade as the cleaning head 264 , angle a preferably is an acute angle , specifically ranging from about 0 ° to about 60 °. more preferably , α is about 15 °. the hinge 280 connects the cleaning head 264 to the cleaning arm 262 . the attachment spring 282 provides the load to keep the cleaning head 264 constantly in contact with the roller surface 240 . the load produced by the attachment spring 282 can preferably range from about 0 . 011 n / mm to about 0 . 13 n / mm . for example , if the feed roller 238 has a width of 40 mm , then the load would range from about 0 . 5n to about 5n . a force of about 0 . 6 n is preferable for use with a 40 mm width feed roller ( 0 . 015 n / mm ) 238 . any type of component that could provide the requisite load can be substituted for the attachment spring 282 . for example , the cleaning arm 262 can be mounted in such a manner that would provide the constant load . in another embodiment of the invention , is use of an abrasive mesh as the cleaning head 264 . the abrasive mesh is an open screen with bonded adhesive particles . when using the abrasive mesh , the angle a can range from about 0 ° to about 60 °. more preferably , α is about 0 ° tangent to the feed roller 238 . the face of the mesh with the bonded adhesive particles serves as the abrasive side 278 . the mesh of the open screen can range from about 100 grit to about 200 grit . the abrasive mesh can be loaded against the feed roller 238 . the proper load can range from about 0 . 011 n / mm to about 0 . 13 n / mm of the width of the feed roller 238 . for example , if a feed roller 238 with a width about 40 mm was used , then the load of the cleaning head 264 would be 0 . 5 n to about 5 n . [ 0031 ] fig3 shows a feeder system 300 with an active retard roller in lieu of a retard pad used to feed sheets of paper . the chassis 302 defines the structural framework of the feeder system 300 and has a plurality of connection points , for example 304 and 306 . retard roller arm 308 has a back end 310 and a front end 312 opposite thereto . retard roller arm 308 also has a top side 314 , a spring attachment point 316 , a cleaner arm pivot point 318 , and an aperture 320 located slightly past the midpoint of retard roller arm 308 towards the back end 310 . two c - shaped bushings 322 with their open ends oriented in the direction of the front end 312 are mounted to the top side 314 of the retard roller arm 308 . a shaft 324 is inserted within the c - shaped bushings 322 . a retard roller 326 having an integral gear 328 rotates in a counterclockwise rotation on the shaft 324 . the bushings 322 are designed such that the retard roller 326 can be easily replaced . the integral gear is driven by a gear motor 330 in communication with a pinion 332 . a feed roller 334 is in contact with the retard roller 326 . the feed roller 334 is driven in a counterclockwise rotation by separate mechanics . arm spring 336 is a load force component having an arm attachment end 338 threaded through aperture 320 and a chassis attachment end 340 mounted to connection point 306 . a cleaning apparatus 342 has a cleaning arm 344 and cleaning head 346 . the cleaning arm 344 has an anterior end 348 and a posterior end 350 opposite the anterior end 348 , a side facing the roller 352 , a side remote from the roller 354 , and a hole 356 located in between the midpoint of the cleaning arm 344 and the posterior end 350 . a pivot 360 connects the posterior end 350 to cleaner arm pivot point 318 of the retard roller arm 308 . the cleaning head 346 has an abrasive side 362 and is connected to the side facing the roller 352 near the anterior end 348 by a hinge 364 . the abrasive side 362 is in contact with the retard roller 326 . a retard arm attachment spring 366 , having a cleaning arm - attaching end 368 and a frame - attaching end 370 provides force to abut cleaning head 346 of cleaning apparatus 342 against the surface of retard roller 326 . the cleaning arm - attaching end 368 of retard arm attachment spring 366 is threaded through the hole 356 of the cleaning arm 344 . the frame - attaching end 370 of retard attachment spring 366 is fixed to the spring attachment point 316 . a feeder system 300 can have as many cleaning apparatus 342 as there are rollers . for example , a cleaning apparatus 342 can be provided for the feed roller and the retard roller . by having multiple cleaning apparatus , the maintenance of the feeder system 300 is minimized because the rollers are constantly being kept clean . if only one is used on a cleaning apparatus 342 , then , the machine may still experience misfeeds and multi - feeds . other feeder systems such as corner - buckle separators , may only require a cleaner to operate reliably . experiments were conducted to determine the efficacy of various types of cleaner heads 264 used in the cleaning apparatus 260 as shown in fig2 . the optimal cleaning head 264 cleans the feed roller 238 without reducing the life of the feed roller 238 below an acceptable limit , for example about 50 , 000 cycles . a f350 commercial feeder ( available from pitney bowes , shelton , conn .) was configured with the cleaning apparatus 260 . glossy paper coated with anti - offset powders at high concentrations was fed through the f350 commercial feeder , print side up . the test called for a maximum of 2 , 000 cycles to be run or until at least five failures ( i . e ., misfeeds or multifeeders ) were observed . seven configurations of cleaning heads 264 were tested . they were as follows : 1 . 120 grit abrasive mesh tested at 2 . 22 n ( tested at 0 . 06 n / mm ) 2 . 180 grit abrasive mesh tested at 2 . 44 n ( tested at 0 . 06 n / mm ) 3 . a square ground edge , hardened steel abrasive blade at a 15 ° angle tested at 2 . 22 n ( tested at 0 . 06 n / mm ) 4 . 34 mm fiber length wire brush ( manufactured by felton ) with the fibers being 0 . 11 mm in diameter and spaced at approximately 40 ends / mm 5 . 8 . 5 mm fiber length wire brush ( manufactured by felton ) with the fibers being 0 . 11 mm in diameter and spaced at approximately 40 ends / mm 6 . tacky roller ( manufactured by rotadyne ) that is made from a naturally tacky elastomer 7 . orange cleaning sponge ( available from block new england ) configured as a roller the results indicated that the abrasive blade and meshes exhibited the best performance . the tacky roller had to be cleaned itself after every 2 , 000 sheets . the 8 . 5 mm fiber length wire brush did function comparably to the metal blade ; however , the performance of the brush was unacceptable because it cut grooves into the feed roller 238 . as for the 34 mm fiber length wire brush , the length of the fibers made them too unabrasive to be effective as a cleaning apparatus 260 . although after cleaning , the tacky roller still functioned well as a cleaning apparatus , the constant need for cleaning the tacky roller rendered this option less than optimal in a commercial setting . the orange cleaning sponge performed poorly because the integrity of the sponge would disintegrate upon use , generating debris . charts of the results from the experiment are shown in fig4 and 5 . [ 0048 ] fig4 shows the number of misfeeds as a function of cleaner head configuration . as a control , the f350 feeder was run without a cleaning apparatus . only 450 sheets of glossy paper could be fed until a misfeed was encountered . as fig4 shows , any type of cleaning apparatus was better than nothing ; however , abrasive cleaners are superior . the 120 grit abrasive mesh , 180 grit abrasive mesh , and abrasive blade all performed well . the 8 . 5 mm fiber length wire brush would have been acceptable if the feed roller 334 did not develop grooves . [ 0049 ] fig5 illustrates any trends in feed roller 334 wear and performance . the wear of the feed roller 334 is plotted as the diameter reduction in mm per thousand feeds . the performance of the feed roller 334 is expressed as the average number of feeds before a misfeed occurs ( i . e ., misfeed rate ). from this data , a measurable diametral wear rate of at least 0 . 1 mm / thousand feeds is required to allow the feeder system 200 to operate reliably . in reading fig5 note that while no measurable diameter reduction was noted for the 8 . 5 mm fiber length wire brush , grooves were worn into the feed roller 334 indicating volume loss . it is understood that while the invention has been described in conjunction with the detailed description thereof , that the foregoing description is intended to illustrate and not limit the scope of the invention , which is defined by the scope of the appended claims . other aspects , advantages , and modifications are within the claims . | 1 |
the acyclic bisphosphonates ( iii ) are prepared by contacting an electron deficient olefin ( i ) with an activated methylene ( ii ) in the presence of a base . this reaction is so well known when the electron withdrawing group is a carbonyl group that it is termed the michael reaction , michael addition or 1 , 4 - addition . for a review of this reaction see h . o . house , modern synthetic reactions , second edition , w . a . benjamin , inc ., menlo park , calif . ( 1972 ), p 595 - 623 . however , when phosphorous is the electron withdrawing group see wo 88 / 06158 . the electron deficient olefins ( i ) and activated methylenes ( ii ) are either known to those skilled in the art or can be readily prepared by means known to those skilled in the art from known compounds . suitable bases include methoxide , ethoxide , dbu , dbn , butyl lithium , methyl lithium , carbonate , bicarbonate , lithium hemamethyldisilazane ( in thf or pyridine ), hydride , lithium diisopropylamide . it is preferred that the base be dbu , lithium hexamethyldisilane or carbonate depending on the nature of the particular activated methylene ( ii ), bicyclic ketone ( iv ) or cyclic ketone ( vi ). in the case where one of r 3 or r 4 is not -- h , then the reaction is practiced by refluxing the electron deficient olefin ( i ), activated methylene ( ii ) and base for about 0 . 5 to about 24 hours . after refluxing the mixture is diluted with water , extracted with an organic solvent such as methylene chloride , dried and concentrated under reduced pressure . the concentrate is preferably purified by ( column ) chromatography , distillation or crystallization as is know to those skilled in the art . when r 3 and r 4 are both - h the activated methylene ( ii ), usually a methyl ketone , is first cooled to about 0 ° to about - 78 °, contacted slowly with a reagent such as lithium hexamethyldisilazane , and stirred a short period of about 15 minutes to about 1 hr . the electron deficient olefin ( i ) is then added to the reaction mixture stirred cold ( about 0 °) for a short period ( about 30 min ) and then permitted to warm ( about 20 °- 25 °) and stirred for another short period ( about 30 min ). it is preferred that m is -- h . it is preferred that r 1 is -- h ( or a pharmaceutically acceptable salt thereof ), c 1 - c 2 alkyl or -- ch 2 -- c ( ch 3 ) 2 -- ch 2 -- to form a heterocyclic ring containing one phosphorous atom , two oxygen atoms , and three carbon atoms . it is more preferred that r 1 is a heterocyclic ring of where the atoms are arranged as follows -- p *( o )-- o -- ch 2 -- c ( ch 3 ) 2 -- ch 2 -- o *-- where the atoms marked by the asterisk (*) are bonded to each other resulting in the formation of a ring . it is more preferred that r 1 is -- h or c 2 alkyl . it is preferred that r 2 is 2 - pyridinyl , 3 - pyridinyl , 2 - furanyl , 2 - thienyl or -- φ optionally substituted with 1 thru 3 -- oh , -- f , -- cl , -- n ( r 2 - 7 )-- co -- r 2 - 1 where r2 - 7 is -- h and r 2 - 1 is c 1 alkyl , c 2 alkyl , -- φ optionally substituted with -- cl or -- no 2 . it is more preferred that r 2 be 2 - pyridinyl , 3 - pyridinyl , 2 - furanyl , 2 - thienyl or -- φ optionally substituted with 1 thru 2 -- f , -- cl , -- n ( r 2 - 7 )-- co -- r 2 - 1 where r2 - 7 is -- h and r 2 - 1 is c1 alkyl , c 2 alkyl or -- φ . it is even more preferred that r 2 be -- φ . it is preferred that r 3 is -- h . it is preferred that r 4 is -- h , r 2 - 4 , -- co -- o -- r 2 - 8 , -- co -- r 2 , -- cn and -- co -- nh -- r 2 . it is more preferred that r 4 be -- h , or -- φ . it is preferred that m is 1 . it is preferred that w 1 is ═ o . it is preferred that x is not present , that n 2 and n 3 be 0 . when it is desired that w 1 is -- h : w 1 - 5 where w 1 - 5 is -- oh , those compounds can readily be prepared from compounds where w is ═ o by reduction of the ketone carbonyl to the corresponding alcohol by reaction with a mild reducing agent such as sodium borohydride . this type of reduction is well known to those skilled in the art . the use of stronger reducing agents ( lithium aluminum hydride ) results in reduction of the phosphonate groups . see , examples 70 and 71 . when m is -- ch 3 , these compounds can be obtained by deprotonating the starting material under kinetic conditions with a strong base such as lithium hexamethyldisilzane or lithium diisopropyl amide and trapping the resulting anion with an appropriate electrophile . see , example 44 . the phosphonate esters can be convened to the corresponding acids as is well known to those skilled in the art . the phosphonate esters are cleaved using trimethylsilyl bromide in chloroform followed by treatment with water or by refluxing the esters in strong mineral acid . see , examples 75 - 79 . when r 3 and r 4 are not the same , the bisphosphonates have an asymmetric center at the carbon to which r 3 and r 4 are attached . the enantiomers can be separated as discussed below . the bicyclic bisphosphonates ( v ) are prepared by contacting an electron deficient olefin ( i ) with a bicyclic ketone ( iv ) in the presence of a base analogously to the production of the acyclic bisphosphonates ( iii ), see examples 4 , 25 - 29 , 37 , 38 and 77 . it is preferred that m is -- h . it is preferred that r 1 is as set forth above for the bisphosphonates ( iii ). it is preferred that z is -- o --, -- s --, -- ch 2 -- or -- n ( so 2 -- φ )--, it is more preferred that z is -- o -- or -- ch 2 --. it is preferred that r 5 is -- h , c 1 - c 4 alkyl , -- φ optionally substituted with 1 thru 3 -- f , -- cl , -- br , -- i , -- oh , c 1 - c4 , alkoxy , -- nh 2 and c 1 - c 4 alkyl , it is more preferred that r 5 is -- h , -- ch 3 or -- φ . with the bicyclic bisphosphonates ( v ) when r 5 is not -- h there exists cis and trans isomers . both are pharmacologically active and are included by the term bicyclic bisphosphonate and within the formula of the bicyclic bisphosphonate ( v ). with the bicyclic bisphosphonates ( v ) there is an asymmetric center where the phosphonate side chain attaches to the bicyclic ring system and therefore produce two enantiomers one &# 34 ; s &# 34 ; and the other &# 34 ; r &# 34 ;, either of which can be (+/ d ) and the other (-/ l ). if it is desired to utilize one of the enantiomers , the optically impure mixture can be resolved by means known to those skilled in the art , see for example , optical resolution procedures for chemical compounds , vol 1 ,: amines and related compounds , paul newman , optical resolution information center , manhattan college , riverdale , n . y ., 10471 , 1978 . for example , treatment of the racemic mixture with an optically active amino alcohol such as (-) ephedrine or alternatively with (+) ephedrine , would yield a mixture of diastereomeric isoxalidines , which can be separated most conveniently by fractional crystallization to give a isoxalidine containing only one enantiomer of the racemic mixture . by reacting the diastereomeric isoxalidine with an acid one obtains the desired enantiomer as the free bicyclic bisphosphonate . these optically pure compounds are then used in the same way as the racemic mixture . when used in this patent application the term bicyclic bisphosphonate ( v ) includes both enantiomers as well as optically impure forms thereof , the most common of which is a racemic mixture (+, dl ). when r 5 is not -- h , there exists two asymmetric centers and therefore four enantiomers ( ss , rr , sr , rs ) exist producing two diasteromeric pairs of enantiomers , one ss , rr and the other sr , rs . the diastereomeric pairs of enantiomers can be readily separated by means known to those skilled in the art . when used in this patent application the term bicyclic bisphosphonate ( v ) includes all four enantiomers as well as optically impure forms thereof , the most common of which is a racemic mixture (+). the cyclic bisphosphonates ( vii ) are prepared by contacting an electron deficient olefin ( i ) with a cyclic ketone ( vi ) in the presence of a base analogously to the production of the acyclic bisphosphonates ( iii ), see examples 30 and 31 . it is preferred that r 1 is as set forth above for the bisphosphonates ( iii ). it is preferred that z is -- o --, -- s --, -- ch 2 -- and -- n ( so 2 -- φ )--, it is more preferred that z is -- ch 2 --. it is preferred that r 5 is -- h , c 1 - c 4 alkyl , -- φ optionally substituted with 1 thru 3 -- f , -- cl , -- br , -- i , -- oh , c 1 - c4 , alkoxy , -- nh 2 and c 1 - c 4 alkyl , it is more preferred that r 5 is -- h . it is preferred that r 6 and r 8 are -- h . it is preferred that r 7 is c 1 or c 2 alkyl or -- φ , it is more preferred that r 7 is c 1 alkyl or -- φ . it is more preferred that at least two of r 6 , r 7 and r 8 are -- h , it is even more preferred that at all three of r 6 , r 7 and r 8 are -- h . chart d discloses that the keto bisphosphonates ( xi ) are synthesized by treating electron deficient olefins ( i ) with a metal acetylide ( ix ) in a nonpolar solvent at a temperature below 0 °. the metal can be lithium , sodium , or potassium and acceptable solvents include thf , dme , ether , and hexane . it is preferred that the metal is lithium , the solvent thf , and the temperature - 78 °. generation of the metal acetylide is well known to those skilled in the art . the initial adduct is purified by chromatography , distillation , or recrystallization . the diphosphonate acetylide ( x ) is converted to the keto bisphosphonate under oxidizing conditions which are well known to those skilled in the art . the oxidant can be potassium permanganate , ruthenium tetroxide , or ruthenium dioxide in the presence of sodium periodate , and the reaction can be run in a polar solvent such as acetone or methyl ethyl ketone at temperatures between 22 ° and reflux . it is preferred that the oxidant be potassium permanganate and that the reaction be run in a mixture of a non - polar solvent such as methylene chloride , chloroform , benzene , or toluene and an immiscible , polar solvent such as water in the presence of a phase transfer catalyst , as is well known to those skilled in the art . the preferred pharmaceutically acceptable cation salts include sodium , potassium , ammonium , calcium , magnesium , tromethamine ( tham ), 2 - amino - 2 -( hydroxymethyl )- 1 , 3 - propanediol , t - butyl -- nh 3 + and ho -- ch 2ch 2 -- nh 3 + . the acyclic bisphosphonates ( iii ), bicyclic phosphonates ( v ), cyclic bisphosphonates ( vii ) and keto bisphosphonates ( xi ) have the same or similar pharmacological activity of being useful as anti - arthritic agents . for convenience , the acyclic bisphosphonates ( iii ), bicyclic phosphonates ( v ), cyclic bisphosphonates ( vii ) and keto bisphosphonates ( xi ) will be identified by the term bisphosphonates . the bisphosphonates ( iii , v , vii and xi ) are useful in humans and lower animals in the treatment of diseases characterized by abnormal phosphate and calcium metabolism and as a treatment of inflammation . these diseases include osteoporosis , paget &# 39 ; s disease , periodontal disease , rheumatoid arthritis , osteoarthritis , chondrocalcinosis , septic arthritis , neurilities , bursitis , soft tissue mineralization disorders , ankylosing spondylitis , atherosclerosis , multiple myeloma of bone , metastatic bone disease , chronic granulomatous diseases and mitral valve calcification . the bisphosphonates are also useful for the treatment of hypertension , congestive heart failure and atherogenesis . the bisphosphonates ( iii , v and vii ) can be administered orally , parenterally ( intramuscularly , intravenously , subcutaneous or intraperitoneally ), transdermally or intraarticularly or by suppository . the dose is about 0 . 1 nag / patient / day to about 1 . 0 gin / patient / day . the bisphosphonates ( iii , v and vii ) can be used alone or in combination with other pharmaceutical as is known to those skilled in the art . the exact dosage and frequency of administration depends on the particular bisphosphonate ( iii , v or vii ), the particular condition being treated , the severity of the condition being treated , the age , weight , general physical condition of the particular patient , the severity of the disease or condition , other medication the individual may be taking as is well known to those skilled in the art and can be more accurately determined by measuring the blood level or concentration of the bisphosphonate ( iii , v or vii ) in the patient &# 39 ; s blood and / or the patient &# 39 ; s response to the particular condition being treated . for the diseases outlined above , intermittent therapy is indicated , as well as continual daily therapy in order to achieve maximum efficacy as is known to those skilled in the art . see , for example , &# 34 ; long - term effects of dichloromethylene diphosphosphonate in paget &# 39 ; s disease of bone &# 34 ;, p . d . dumas et al , j . cln . endocrinol . metab ., 54 , 837 ( 1982 ); &# 34 ; paget &# 39 ; s disease of bone treated in five days with ahprbp ( apd ) per os &# 34 ;, d . thiebaud et at , j . bone . min . res ., 2 , 45 ( 1987 ); &# 34 ; a single infusion of the bisphosphonate ahprbp ( apd )&# 34 ;, d . rischin et al , aust . nz . j . med ., 18 , 736 ( 1988 ); &# 34 ; reduced morbidity from skeletal metastases in breast cancer patients during long term biophoshonate ( apd ) treatment &# 34 ; a . th . van holten - verzantviiort et al , the lancet , oct . 31 , 1987 , p . 983 ; &# 34 ; sclerosis of lytic bone metastases after disodium aminohydroxypropylidene bisphosphonate ( apd ) in patients with breast carcinoma &# 34 ; a . r . morton et all , british med . j ., 297 , 772 ( 1988 ); &# 34 ; two year follow - up of biophosphionate ( apd ) treatment in steroid osteoporosis &# 34 ; i . r . reid et at , the lancet nov . 12 , 1988 , p . 1144 . the definitions and explanations below are for the terms as used throughout this entire document including both the specification and the claims . the chemical formulas representing various compounds or molecular fragments in the specification and claims may contain variable substituents in addition to expressly defined structural features . these variable substituents are identified by a letter or a letter followed by a numerical subscript , for example , &# 34 ; z 1 &# 34 ; or &# 34 ; r i &# 34 ; where &# 34 ; i &# 34 ; is an integer . these variable substituents are either monovalent or bivalent , that is , they represent a group attached to the formula by one or two chemical bonds . for example , a group z 1 would represent a bivalent variable if attached to the formula ch 3 -- c (═ z 1 ) h . groups r i and r j would represent monovalent variable substituents if attached to the formula ch 3 -- ch 2 -- c ( r i )( r j ) h 2 . when chemical formulas are drawn in a linear fashion , such as those above , variable substituents contained in parentheses are bonded to the atom immediately to the left of the variable substituent enclosed in parenthesis . when two or more consecutive variable substituents are enclosed in parentheses , each of the consecutive variable substituents is bonded to the immediately preceding atom to the left which is not enclosed in parentheses . thus , in the formula above , both r i and r j are bonded to the preceding carbon atom . also , for any molecule with an established system of carbon atom numbering , such as steroids , these carbon atoms are designated as c i , where &# 34 ; i &# 34 ; is the integer corresponding to the carbon atom number . for example , c 6 represents the 6 position or carbon atom number in the steroid nucleus as traditionally designated by those skilled in the an of steroid chemistry . likewise the term &# 34 ; r 6 &# 34 ; represents a variable substituent ( either monovalent or bivalent ) at the c 6 position . chemical formulas or portions thereof drawn in a linear fashion represent atoms in a linear chain . the symbol &# 34 ;--&# 34 ; in general represents a bond between two atoms in the chain . thus ch 3 -- o -- ch 2 -- ch ( r i )-- ch 3 represents a 2 - substituted - l - methoxypropane compound . in a similar fashion , the symbol &# 34 ;═&# 34 ; represents a double bond , e . g ., ch 2 ═ c ( r i )-- o -- ch 3 , and the symbol &# 34 ;. tbd .&# 34 ; represents a triple bond , e . g ., hc . tbd . c -- ch ( r i )-- ch 2 -- ch 3 . carbonyl groups are represented in either one of two ways : -- co -- or -- c (═ o )--, with the former being preferred for simplicity . chemical formulas of cyclic ( ring ) compounds or molecular fragments can be represented in a linear fashion . thus , the compound 4 - chloro - 2 - methylpyridine can be represented in linear fashion by n *═ c ( ch 3 )-- ch ═ ccl -- ch ═ c * h with the convention that the atoms marked with an asterisk (*) are bonded to each other resulting in the formation of a ring . likewise , the cyclic molecular fragment , 4 -( ethyl )- 1 - piperazinyl can be represented by -- n *--( ch 2 ) 2 -- n ( c 2 h 5 )-- ch 2 -- c * h 2 . a rigid cyclic ( ring ) structure for any compounds herein defines an orientation with respect to the plane of the ring for substituents attached to each carbon atom of the rigid cyclic compound . for saturated compounds which have two substituents attached to a carbon atom which is part of a cyclic system , -- c ( x 1 )( x 2 )-- the two substituents may be in either an axial or equatorial position relative to the ring and may change between axial / equatorial . however , the position of the two substituents relative to the ring and each other remains fixed . while either substituent at times may lie in the plane of the ring ( equatorial ) rather than above or below the plane ( axial ), one substituent is always above the other . in chemical structural formulas depicting such compounds , a substituent ( x 1 ) which is &# 34 ; below &# 34 ; another substituent ( x 2 ) will be identified as being in the alpha ( α ) configuration and is identified by a broken , dashed or dotted line attachment to the carbon atom , i . e ., by the symbol &# 34 ;- - -&# 34 ; or &# 34 ;. . .&# 34 ;. the corresponding substituent attached &# 34 ; above &# 34 ; ( x 2 ) the other ( x 1 ) is identified as being in the beta ( β ) configuration and is indicated by an unbroken line attachment to the carbon atom . when a variable substituent is bivalent , the valences may be taken together or separately or both in the definition of the variable . for example , a variable r i attached to a carbon atom as -- c (═ r i )-- might be bivalent and be defined as oxo or keto ( thus forming a carbonyl group (-- co --) or as two separately attached monovalent variable substituents α - r i - j and β - r i - k . when a bivalent variable , r i , is defined to consist of two monovalent variable substituents , the convention used to define the bivalent variable is of the form &# 34 ; α - r i - j : β - r i - k &# 34 ; or some variant thereof . in such a case both α - r i - j and β - r i - k are attached to the carbon atom to give -- c ( α - r i - j )( β - r i - k )--. for example , when the bivalent variable r 6 , -- c (═ r 6 )-- is defined to consist of two monovalent variable substituents , the two monovalent variable substituents are α - r 6 - 1 : β - r 6 - 2 , . . . α - r 6 - 9 : β - r 6 - 10 , etc , giving -- c ( α - r 6 - 1 )( β - r 6 - 2 )--, . . . -- c ( α - r 6 - 9 ) ( β - r 6 - 10 )--, etc . likewise , for the bivalent variable r 11 , -- c (═ r 11 )-- , two monovalent variable substituents are α - r 11 - 1 : β - r 11 - 2 . for a ring substituent for which separate α and β orientations do not exist ( e . g . due to the presence of a carbon double bond in the ring ), and for a substituent bonded to a carbon atom which is not part of a ring the above convention is still used , but the α and β designations are omitted . just as a bivalent variable may be defined as two separate monovalent variable substituents , two separate monovalent variable substituents may be defined to be taken together to form a bivalent variable . for example , in the formula -- c 1 ( r i ) h -- c 2 ( r j ) h -- ( c 1 and c 2 define arbitrarily a first and second carbon atom , respectively ) r i and r j may be defined to be taken together to form ( 1 ) a second bond between c 1 and c 2 or ( 2 ) a bivalent group such as oxa (-- o --) and the formula thereby describes an epoxide . when r i and r j are taken together to form a more complex entity , such as the group -- x -- y --, then the orientation of the entity is such that c 1 in the above formula is bonded to x and c 2 is bonded to y . thus , by convention the designation &# 34 ;. . . r i and r j are taken together to form -- ch 2 -- ch 2 -- o -- co --. . . &# 34 ; means a lactone in which the carbonyl is bonded to c 2 . however , when designated &# 34 ;. . . r j and r i are taken together to form -- co -- o -- ch 2 -- ch 2 -- the convention means a lactone in which the carbonyl is bonded to c 1 . the carbon atom content of variable substituents is indicated in one of two ways . the first method uses a prefix to the entire name of the variable such as &# 34 ; c 1 - c 4 &# 34 ;, where both &# 34 ; 1 &# 34 ; and &# 34 ; 4 &# 34 ; are integers representing the minimum and maximum number of carbon atoms in the variable . the prefix is separated from the variable by a space . for example , &# 34 ; c 1 - c 4 alkyl &# 34 ; represents alkyl of 1 through 4 carbon atoms , ( including isomeric forms thereof unless an express indication to the contrary is given ). whenever this single prefix is given , the prefix indicates the entire carbon atom content of the variable being defined . thus c 2 - c 4 alkoxycarbonyl describes a group ch 3 --( ch 2 ) n -- o -- co -- where n is zero , one or two . by the second method the carbon atom content of only each portion of the definition is indicated separately by enclosing the &# 34 ; c i - c j &# 34 ; designation in parentheses and placing it immediately ( no intervening space ) before the portion of the definition being defined . by this optional convention ( c 1 - c 3 ) alkoxycarbonyl has the same meaning as c 2 - c 4 alkoxycarbonyl because the &# 34 ; c 1 - c 3 &# 34 ; refers only to the carbon atom content of the alkoxy group . similarly while both c 2 - c 6 alkoxyalkyl and ( c 1 - c 3 ) alkoxy ( c 1 - c 3 ) alkyl define alkoxyalkyl groups containing from 2 to 6 carbon atoms , the two definitions differ since the former definition allows either the alkoxy or alkyl portion alone to contain 4 or 5 carbon atoms while the latter definition limits either of these groups to 3 carbon atoms . when the claims contain a fairly complex ( cyclic ) substituent , at the end of the phrase naming / designating that particular substituent will be a notation in ( parentheses ) which will correspond to the same name / designation in one of the charts which will also set forth the chemical structural formula of that particular substituent . cmr refers to c - 13 magnetic resonance spectroscopy , chemical shifts are reported in ppm ( δ ) downfield from tms . nmr refers to nuclear ( proton ) magnetic resonance spectroscopy , chemical shifts are reported in ppm 05 ) downfield from tetramethylsilane . ms refers to mass spectrometry expressed as m / e or mass / charge unit . [ m + h ] + refers to the positive ion of a parent plus a hydrogen atom . ei refers to electron impact . ci refers to chemical ionization . fab refers to fast atom bombardment . pharmaceutically acceptable refers to those properties and / or substances which are acceptable to the patient from a pharmacological / toxicological point of view and to the manufacturing pharmaceutical chemist from a physical / chemical point of view regarding composition , formulation , stability , patient acceptance and bioavailability . when solvent pairs are used , the ratios of solvents used are volume / volume ( v / v ). without further elaboration , it is believed that one skilled in the art can , using the preceding description , practice the present invention to its fullest extent . the following detailed examples describe how to prepare the various compounds and / or perform the various processes of the invention and are to be construed as merely illustrative , and not limitations of the preceding disclosure in any way whatsoever . those skilled in the art will promptly recognize appropriate variations from the procedures both as to reactants and as to reaction conditions and techniques . methylene bisphosphonic acid ( 12 . 8 g ) is combined with methylene bis ( diethylphosphonate ) ( 20 . 9 g ) and the mixture is heated until the solid is completely dissolved ( ca . 185 °). phosphorus pentachloride ( 121 g ) is added to the solution ( 20 °- 25 °) in small portions over 1 hour . the mixture is stirred 30 minutes then diluted with hexane ( 300 ml ) and stirred an additional 30 minutes . the mixture is filtered , the methylene bisphosphonylchloride solid is washed with cold hexane and dried briefly . the crude tetra - acid chloride ( methylene bisphosphonylchloride ) is combined with 2 , 2 - dimethyl - 1 , 3 - propanediol ( 17 . 5 g ) in chlorobenzene ( 80 ml ) and refluxed for 20 hours . the mixture is cooled , the solvent is removed under reduced pressure to give a solid . the solid is recrystallized from acetone to give the title compound , mp 193 °- 194 °; ms ( m / e ) 312 , 297 , 257 , 227 and 69 ; ir ( mineral oil ) 1491 , 1476 , 1407 , 1354 , 1312 , 1282 , 1272 , 1180 and 1052 cm - 1 ; nmr ( cdcl 3 ) 4 . 24 - 4 . 18 , 4 . 11 - 4 . 03 , 2 . 73 , 1 . 20 and 1 . 00 δ . 2 , 2 &# 39 ;- methylenebis [ 5 , 5 - dimethyl - 2 , 2 &# 39 ;- dioxide 1 , 3 , 2 - dioxaphosphorinane ] ( preparation 1 , 10 . 05 g ) is dissolved in a warm solution of methanol ( 90 ml ) containing paraformaldehyde ( 5 . 02 g ) and diethylamine ( 3 . 3 ml ) and gently refluxed for 2 . 5 hours . the mixture is cooled and the solvents removed by reduced pressure and mild heat . the residue is dissolved in toluene ( 40 ml ) and a strongly acidic ion exchange resin is added and the mixture refluxed through a dean - stark trap for 80 min . the mixture is cooled and the solvents removed by reduced pressure with mild heat . the residue is recrystallized from acetone to give the title compound , mp 193 °- 194 °; ms ( m / e ) 324 , 309 , 269 , 239 and 171 ; ir ( mineral oil ) 1574 , 1464 , 1384 , 1371 . 1281 , 1247 and 1054 cm - 1 ; nmr ( cdcl 3 ) 6 . 95 , 6 . 82 , 4 . 18 , 4 . 02 , 1 . 30 and 0 . 93 δ ; cmr ( cdcl 3 ) 146 . 6 , 138 . 8 , 32 . 5 , 22 . 0 and 20 . 7 δ . diethyl malonate ( 7 . 6 ml ) and 2 - aminothiazole ( 5 . 0 g ) are added to a solution of sodium ethoxide , prepared from sodium ( 2 . 3 g ) in ethanol ( 50 ml ). the reaction mixture is refluxed for 2 . 5 hours , then cooled in ice , treated with concentrated hydrochloric acid ( 11 ml ). the precipitate which forms is filtered . the bis 2 - aminothiazole malonate amide ( ii ) is recrystallized from ethanol and is used in part b without further characterization , nmr ( d 2 o / sodium hydroxide ) 7 . 3 and 6 . 8 δ . ethenylidenebisphosphonic acid tetraethyl ester ( i , ep 221 . 611 , 4 . 50 g ) the n , n &# 39 ;- bis ( 2 - thiazolyl ) malonamide ( ii , 2 . 52 g ), and dbu ( 0 . 25 ml ) are heated in refluxing ethanol ( 50 ml ) for 18 hours . the reaction mixture is concentrated under reduced pressure and subjected directly to chromatography ( ethyl acetate / acetone , 1 / 1 ). the appropriate fractions are pooled and concentrated to give the tide compound which is then recrystallized from methanol / water , mp 188 °- 188 . 5 °; ms ( m / e ) 568 ( m + ), 469 , 423 , 331 and 281 ; ir ( mineral oil ) 1701 , 1678 , 1566 and 1264 cm - 1 ; nmr ( cdcl 3 ) 7 . 30 , 6 . 83 , 4 . 57 , 4 . 38 , 4 . 23 , 3 . 39 , 2 . 86 , 1 . 42 and 1 . 26 δ . ethenylidenebisphosphonic acid tetraethyl ester ( i , 3 . 00 g ), ethyl acetoacetate ( ii , 1 . 4 ml ), and dbu ( 0 . 25 ml ) are heated to 500 in thf ( 20 ml ) for 1 . 5 hours . the reaction is cooled , diluted with ethyl acetate , filtered through magnesium sulfate and concentrated under reduced pressure . the concentrate is chromatographed eluting with ethyl acetate , ethyl acetate / acetone ( 1 / 1 ). the appropriate fractions are pooled and concentrated to give the title compound , ms ( m / e ) 430 ( m + ), 388 , 339 , 301 and 288 ; ir ( neat ) 2984 , 1740 , 1716 , 1478 , 1444 , 1392 , 1368 and 1250 cm - ; nmr ( cdcl 3 ) 4 . 20 , 2 . 43 , 2 . 29 , 1 . 35 and 1 . 28 δ . ethenylidenebisphosphonic acid tetraethyl ester ( i , 3 . 00 g ), dibenzoyl methane ( ii , 2 . 30 g ), and dbu ( 0 . 25 ml ) are heated to 50 ° in thf ( 20 ml ) for 15 min . the reaction mixture is cooled , diluted with ethyl acetate , filtered through magnesium sulfate and concentrated under reduced pressure . the concentrate is chromatographed eluting with ethyl acetate , ethyl acetate / acetone ( 1 / 1 ). the appropriate fractions are pooled and concentrated to give the title compound , ms ( m / e ) 524 ( m + ), 419 , 387 , 373 , 268 and 224 ; ir ( neat ) 2982 , 1736 , 1696 , 1674 , 1594 , 1580 , 1448 , 1392 and 1253 cm - 1 ; nmr ( cdcl 3 ) 8 . 07 , 7 . 58 , 7 . 46 , 6 . 18 , 4 . 17 , 2 . 65 and 1 . 29 δ . aniline ( 36 . 4 ml ), methyl acrylate ( 38 . 5 ml ) and acetic acid ( 1 ml ) are refluxed for 18 hours , then distilled , bp 0 . 4 120 °- 125 °. to a solution of the above mixture ( 50 . 0 g ) in pyridine ( 250 ml ), tosyl chloride ( 58 . 0 g ) is added over a period of 10 min . after 15 min at 22 °, the reaction is heated on the stem bath for 15 min , then just to boiling on a hot plate . the cooled reaction is then diluted with ether , washed with hydrochloric acid ( 10 %, 4 times ), sodium bicarbonate ( twice ) and saline , then dried with magnesium sulfate , and concentrated under reduced pressure to give the crude ester . the crude ester in methanol ( 80 %, 500 ml ) is treated slowly with potassium hydroxide ( 10 %, 200 ml ) and stirred overnight . the reaction is poured onto water ( 500 ml ) and acidified with concentrated hydrochloric acid . the precipitate is collect , then dissolved in sodium bicarbonate solution , filtered , acidified with hydrochloric acid ( 10 %), and filtered . the product is recrystallized from toluene , mp 139 °- 141 °. a mixture of the acid ( 15 . 97 g ) and phosphorous pentachloride ( 10 . 4 g ) in toluene ( 100 ml ) is heated to reflux for 30 min , then the reaction is cooled to 0 °, and treated with tin tetrachloride ( 8 . 8 ml ) in toluene ( 40 ml ). after 15 min at 0 ° and 18 hours at 22 °, the mixture is poured on to concentrated hydrochloric acid / ice , extracted with ethyl acetate ( 3 ×), washed with water , saturated sodium bicarbonate , and saline , dried with magnesium sulfate , and concentrated under reduced pressure . the n - tosyl - 4 - oxo - 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 - tetrahydroisoquinoline ( ii ) is recrystallized ( 2 ×) from 95 % ethanol . the ketone ( ii , 4 . 27 g ), ethenylidenebisphosphonic acid tetraethyl ester ( i , 3 . 60 g ) and dbu ( 2 ml ) are stirred in thf ( 30 ml ) for 1 hour . the reaction is diluted with ethyl acetate , washed with hydrochloric acid ( in ), saturated sodium bicarbonate , and saline , dried with magnesium sulfate , and concentrated under reduced pressure . the product is chromatographed eluting with ethyl acetate / ethyl acetate - acetone 1 / 1 ) to give the title compound , ms ( m / e ) 601 , 446 , 400 , 372 and 155 ; ir ( neat ) 2983 , 1689 , 1599 , 1574 , 1494 , 1477 , 1392 and 1254 cm - 1 ; nmr ( cdcl 3 ) 7 . 95 , 7 . 8 , 7 . 7 , 7 . 49 , 7 . 28 , 7 . 14 , 4 . 47 , 4 . 20 , 3 . 79 , 3 . 14 , 2 . 83 , 2 . 4 , 1 . 93 and 1 . 32 δ . ethyl benzoyl acetate ( 9 . 5 ml ) and 2 - aminopyridine ( 4 . 71 g ) are heated to 1400 under house vacuum for 2 hours . the reaction is cooled , and the resulting oil triturated with ether to give a precipitate . the precipitate is filtered , washed with ether , and recrystallized from acetonitrile to give an amide , n -( 2 - pyridinyl )- 3 - oxo - 3 - phenylpropanamide ( ii ). the amide ( ii , 2 . 52 g ), ethenylidenebisphosphonic acid tetraethyl ester ( i , 3 . 00 g ), and dbu ( 0 . 25 ml ) are heated to 50 ° c . in thf ( 20 ml ) for 3 hrs . the reaction is cooled , diluted with ethyl acetate , then extracted with hydrochloric acid ( 10 %, 3 ×). after back washing with ethyl acetate , the acidic fraction is neutralized with saturated sodium bicarbonate , extracted with methylene chloride , dried with magnesium sulfate , and concentrated under reduced pressure . the crude material is chromatographed eluting with ethyl acetate and acetone . the resulting oil is concentrated under reduced pressure from ether to give a solid . the solid is slurried in ether , filtered and dried under reduced pressure to give the title compound , mp 104 °- 105 °; ms ( m / e ) 540 , 435 , 420 , 403 , 163 , 121 , 105 and 94 ; ir ( mineral oil ) 1705 , 1679 , 1596 , 1578 , 1543 , 1435 and 1256 cm - 1 ; nmr ( cdcl 3 ) 9 . 77 , 8 . 28 , 8 . 10 , 7 . 60 , 7 . 47 , 7 . 01 , 5 . 16 , 4 . 16 , 2 . 65 , 1 . 34 and 1 . 26 δ ; cmr ( cdcl 3 ) 202 . 9 , 195 . 5 , 167 . 6 , 151 . 1 , 147 . 6 , 138 . 4 , 136 . 0 , 133 . 7 , 128 . 9 , 128 . 7 , 119 . 9 , 114 . 1 , 63 . 0 ( m ), 54 . 1 , 34 . 5 , 25 . 9 and 16 . 3 δ . ethyl benzoyl acetate ( 9 . 5 ml ) and aniline ( 4 . 6 ml ) are heated to 18020 in xylene ( 20 ml ) and the reaction distilled . when the volume is reduced by half , xylene ( 20 ml ) is added and distillation continued . the reaction is cooled and the precipitate filtered . the precipitate is recrystallized once with ethanol / water ( 1 / 1 ), and then again from toluene to give an amide , n - phenyl - 3 - oxo - 3 - phenylpropanamide ( ii ). the amide ( ii , 2 . 50 g ), ethenylidenebisphosphonic acid tetraethyl ester ( i , 3 . 00 g ), and dbu ( 0 . 25 ml ) are heated to 50 ° c . in thf ( 20 ml ) for 30 min . the reaction is cooled , diluted with ethyl acetate , washed with hydrochloric acid ( 1n ), saturated sodium bicarbonate , and saline , then dried with magnesium sulfate , and concentrated under reduced pressure . the crude material is chromatographed eluting with ethyl acetate . the compound is left overnight on the bench whereupon a solid formed . this is slurried in ether , filtered and dried in under reduced pressure to give the title compound , mp 104 °- 105 °; ms ( m / e ) 539 , 447 , 288 , 239 , 163 , 120 , 105 and 93 ; ir ( mineral oil ) 1699 , 1682 , 1606 , 1599 , 1589 , 1549 , 1442 and 1241 cm - 1 ; nmr ( cdcl 3 ) 9 . 55 , 8 . 08 , 7 . 57 , 7 . 46 , 7 . 30 , 7 . 09 , 4 . 96 , 4 . 17 , 2 . 58 , 1 . 38 and 1 . 28 δ ; cmr ( cdcl 3 ) 212 . 4 , 195 . 5 , 167 . 1 , 138 . 0 , 136 . 2 , 133 . 7 , 128 . 9 , 128 . 8 , 128 . 5 , 124 . 3 , 119 . 6 , 63 . 1 ( m ), 54 . 0 , 34 . 5 , 25 . 9 and 16 . 3 δ . ethyl benzoyl acetate ( 9 . 5 ml ) and 3 - aminopyridine ( 4 . 71 g ) are heated to 1400 under house vacuum for 2 hours . the reaction is cooled , and the oil triturated with ether forming a precipitate . the precipitate is filtered , washed with ether , and recrystallized from ethanol / water to give an amide , n -( 3 - pyridinyl )- 3 - oxo - 3 - phenylpropanamide ( ii ). the amide ( ii , 2 . 52 g ), ethenylidenbisphosphoric acid tetraethyl ester ( 3 . 00 g ), and dbu ( 0 . 25 ml ) are heated to 50 ° c . in thf ( 20 ml ) for 3 hrs . the reaction is cooled , diluted with ethyl acetate , then extracted with hydrochloric acid ( 10 %, 3 ×). after back washing with ethyl acetate , the acidic fraction is neutralized with saturated sodium bicarbonate , extracted with methylene chloride , dried with magnesium sulfate , and concentrated under reduced pressure . the crude material is chromatographed eluting with ethyl acetate and acetone . the appropriate fractions are pooled and concentrated to give an oil . the oil is concentrated under reduced pressure from ether to give a solid . the solid is slurried in ether , filtered and dried under reduced pressure to give the title compound , mp 108 °- 109 °; ms ( m / e ) 540 , 435 , 288 , 273 , 240 and 163 ; ir ( mineral oil ) 1699 , 1675 , 1605 , 1595 , 1579 , 1548 and 1245 cm - 1 ; nmr ( cdcl 3 ) 8 . 66 , 8 . 33 , 8 . 16 , 8 . 07 , 7 . 58 , 7 . 46 , 7 . 23 , 5 . 02 , 4 . 18 , 2 . 62 and 1 . 34 δ ; cmr ( cdcl 3 ) 195 . 1 , 168 . 0 , 145 . 0 , 140 . 9 , 136 . 0 , 135 . 1 , 133 . 8 , 128 . 9 , 128 . 5 , 126 . 9 , 123 . 7 , 63 . 2 , 53 . 8 , 34 . 6 , 25 . 7 and 16 . 3 δ . ethyl benzoyl acetate ( 9 . 5 ml ) and 2 - amino - 6 - methoxy benzothiazole ( 9 . 01 g ) are heated to 140 ° under house vacuum for 2 hours . after cooling , the residue is taken up in acetone and filtered . the precipitate is dissolved in hot dmf to give an amide , n -( 6 - methoxybenzothiazol - 2 - yl )- 3 - oxo - 3 - phenylpropanamide ( ii ). the amide ( ii , 2 . 90 g , ethenylidenbisphosphoric acid tetraethyl ester ( 2 . 55 g ), and dbu ( 0 . 25 ml ) are heated to 50 ° in dmf ( 10 ml ) for 5 days . the reaction is cooled , diluted with ethyl acetate , washed with hydrochloric acid ( 1n ), saturated sodium bicarbonate , and saline , then dried with magnesium sulfate , and concentrated under reduced pressure . the crude material is chromatographed eluting with ethyl acetate , ethyl acetate / acetone ( 1 / 1 ), acetone . the appropriate fractions are pooled and concentrated to give a solid which is recrystallized from alcohol to give the title compound , mp 206 °- 207 °; ms ( m / e ) 626 , 448 , 326 and 180 ; ir ( mineral oil ) 1705 , 1675 , 1606 , 1572 , 1560 , 1285 and 1252 cm - 1 ; nmr ( cdcl 3 ) 8 . 12 , 7 . 68 , 7 . 59 , 7 . 47 , 7 . 16 , 7 . 01 , 5 . 31 , 4 . 15 , 3 . 84 , 2 . 77 and 1 . 29 δ . ethyl benzoyl acetate ( 5 . 2 ml ) and 2 - amino4 - phenyl - 1 , 3 , 5 - thiadiazole ( 4 . 99 g ) are heated to 1400 under house vacuum for 2 hours . after cooling , the residue is taken up in ether and filtered . the precipitate is then recrystallized from acetonitrile to give an amide , n -( 4 - phenyl - 1 , 3 , 5 - thiadiazol - 2 - yl )- 3 - oxo - 3 - phenylpropanamide ( ii ). the amide ( ii , 3 . 42 g ), ethenylidenbisphosphoric acid tetraethyl ester ( 3 . 00 g ), and dbu ( 0 . 25 ml ) are heated to 50 ° c . in thf ( 20 ml ) for 30 min . after cooling , the reaction is diluted with ethyl acetate , washed with hydrochloric acid ( 1n ), saturated sodium bicarbonate , and saline , then dried with magnesium sulfate , and concentrated under reduced pressure . the crude material is chromatographed eluting with ethyl acetate , ethyl acetate / acetone ( 1 / 1 ). the appropriate fractions are pooled and concentrated to give a solid which is dissolved in ethanol , treated with charcoal , filtered through celite , and concentrated under reduced pressure . the solid is triturated with ether and filtered to give the title compound , mp 162 °- 167 ° ( dec ); ms ( m / e ) 323 , 295 , 273 , 253 , 204 and 177 ; ir ( mineral oil ) 1707 , 1700 , 1682 , 1598 , 1584 , 1565 and 1260 cm - 1 ; nmr ( cdcl 3 ) 12 . 5 , 8 . 18 , 7 . 76 , 7 . 4 , 5 . 63 , 4 . 10 , 2 . 75 and 1 . 24 δ ; cmr ( cdcl 3 ) 216 . 5 , 195 . 1 , 174 . 8 , 168 . 5 , 167 . 6 , 135 . 4 , 133 . 8 , 133 . 1 , 129 . 8 , 128 . 9 , 128 . 8 , 128 . 4 , 128 . 0 , 63 . 6 , 52 . 7 , 34 . 3 , 25 . 3 and 16 . 3 δ . phenol ( 12 . 2 g ) and phenylacetyl chloride ( 20 g ) are heated at 80 ° for 1 hour in nitrobenzene ( 115 ml ), treated with aluminum trichloride ( 22 . 7 g ), and heating maintained for 1 hour . the reaction is cooled , then poured onto acidified ice water , extracted twice with ether , and washed with water . the organic phase is extracted with sodium hydroxide ( 10 %), acidified with hydrochloric acid ( 10 %), and cooled in ice . the precipitate is collected and recrystallized from water to give a ketone , 4 &# 39 ;- hydroxy - 2 - phenylacetophenone ( ii ). the 4 &# 39 ;- hydroxy - 2 - phenylacetophenone ( ii , 5 . 860 g ), ethenylidenbisphosphoric acid tetraethyl ester ( 8 . 28 g ) and dbu ( 4 . 2 ml , 27 . 6 mmol ) are heated to 500 in thf ( 30 ml ) for 18 hours . the reaction is cooled , diluted with water , extracted with methylene chloride , dried with magnesium sulfate , and concentrated under reduced pressure . the concentrate is then chromatographed ( twice ) eluting with ethyl acetate , ethyl acetate / acetone ( 1 / 1 ). the appropriate fractions are pooled and concentrated to give the title compound , ms ( m / e ) 512 , 392 , 288 , 149 , 121 and 93 ; ir ( neat ) 2983 , 1736 , 1723 , 1704 , 1668 , 1603 , 1583 , 1515 , 1493 , 1477 , 1454 , 1443 and 1239 cm - 1 ; nmr ( cdcl 3 ) 7 . 85 , 7 . 29 , 6 . 80 , 5 . 21 , 4 . 14 , 2 . 60 , 2 . 41 , 1 . 35 and 1 . 22 δ . ethenylidenebisphosphonic acid tetraethyl ester ( i , 10 . 0 g ) and deoxybenzoin ( ii , 6 . 54 g ) in a solution of sodium ethoxide , prepared from 50 % sodium hydride ( 1 . 6 g , 33 . 3 mmol ) and ethanol ( 50 ml ), are refluxed for 21 hours . the mixture is diluted with water , extracted with methylene chloride ( 3 ×), dried with magnesium sulfate , and concentrated under reduced pressure . the product is chromatographed eluting with ethyl acetate / methanol ( 95 / 5 ). the appropriate fractions are pooled and concentrated to give the title compound . ethenylidenebisphosphonic acid tetraethyl ester ( i , 2 . 70 g ), deoxybenzoin ( ii , 1 . 96 g ), and dbu ( 0 . 15 ml ) are healed to 50 ° in thf ( 10 ml ) for 40 hours . the reaction is cooled diluted with methylene chloride , washed with water , dried with magnesium sulfate , and concentrated under reduced pressure . the residue is chromatographed eluting with ethyl acetate , ethyl acetate / acetone ( 1 / i ). the appropriate fractions are pooled and concentrated to give the title compound , ms ( m / e ) 496 , 288 , 243 and 105 ; ir ( neat ) 2983 , 1681 , 1253 , 1065 , 1042 , 1028 and 972 cm - 1 ; nmr ( cdcl 3 ) 7 . 98 , 7 . 45 , 7 . 32 , 7 . 23 , 5 . 28 , 4 . 1 , 3 . 9 , 2 . 6 , 2 . 4 , 1 . 35 , 1 . 25 and 1 . 18 δ ; cmr ( cdcl 3 ) 199 , 138 , 136 , 133 , 128 . 9 , 128 . 6 , 128 . 4 , 128 . 3 , 127 , 62 , 51 , 34 , 30 and 16 δ . following the general procedure of examples 1 - 11 using dbu as the base and making non - critical variations but starting with the appropriate electron deficient olefin ( i ) and activated methylene ( ii ), bicyclic ketone ( iv ) or cyclic ketone ( vi ), the title compounds are obtained . ethenylidenebisphosphonic acid tetraethyl ester ( i ) and ethyl benzoyl acetate ( ii ), ms ( m / e ) 492 , 387 , 355 , 301 and 288 ; ir ( neat ) 2983 , 1738 , 1685 , 1597 , 1581 , 1448 , 1392 , 1369 and 1251 cm - 1 ; nmr ( cdcl 3 ) 8 . 08 , 7 . 61 , 7 . 49 , 5 . 10 , 4 . 17 , 2 . 58 , 1 . 35 and 1 . 17 δ . ethenylidenebisphosphonic acid tetraethyl ester ( i ) and propiophenone ( ii ), ms ( m / e ) 434 , 392 , 329 , 297 , 288 , 261 , 243 , 152 , 132 and 105 ; ir ( neat ) 2983 , 1682 , 1253 , 1027 and 970 cm - 1 ; nmr ( cdcl 3 ) 8 . 03 , 7 . 57 , 7 . 47 , 4 . 1 , 2 . 4 , 2 . 0 and 1 . 29 δ ; cmr ( cdcl 3 ) 203 , 136 , 133 , 128 . 6 , 128 . 5 , 62 , 38 , 34 , 29 , 17 and 16 δ . ethenylidenebisphosphonic acid tetraethyl ester ( i ) and 4 &# 39 ;- bromo - 2 - phenylacetophenone ( ii ), ms ( m / e ) 577 , 575 , 547 , 497 , 391 , 301 and 183 ; ir ( neat ) 2981 , 1681 , 1584 , 1554 , 1395 and 1252 cm - 1 ; nmr ( cdcl 3 ) 7 . 83 , 7 . 50 , 7 . 25 , 5 . 23 , 4 . 1 , 2 . 63 , 2 . 40 , 1 . 37 , 1 . 26 and 1 . 19 δ . ethenylidenebisphosphonic acid tetraethyl ester ( i ) and 2 , 4 &# 39 ;- diphenylacetophenone ( ii ), ms ( m / e ) 573 , 545 , 391 , 301 and 181 ; ir ( neat ) 2982 , 1677 , 1603 , 1582 , 1454 , 1405 , 1392 and 1252 cm - 1 ; nmr ( cdcl 3 ) 8 . 07 , 7 . 58 , 7 . 38 , 5 . 32 , 4 . 3 - 3 . 87 , 2 . 70 , 2 . 42 and 1 . 32 δ . ethenylidenebisphosphonic acid tetraethyl ester ( i ) and 4 &# 39 ;- methoxy - 2 - phenylacetophenone ( ii ), ms ( m / e ) 527 , 499 , 481 , 301 and 135 ; ir ( neat ) 2982 , 1671 , 1599 , 1575 , 1512 , 1493 , 1476 , 1454 and 1251 cm - 1 ; nmr ( cdcl 3 ) 7 . 98 , 7 . 25 , 6 . 85 , 5 . 23 , 4 . 34 . 0 , 3 . 90 , 3 . 80 , 2 . 63 , 2 . 45 , 1 . 37 , 1 . 26 and 1 . 18 δ . ethenylidenebisphosphonic acid tetraethyl ester ( i ) and methyl phenyl acetate ( ii ), ms ( m / e ) 450 , 418 , 390 and 288 ; ir ( neat ) 2983 , 1735 , 1601 , 1584 , 1494 , 1478 and 1255 cm - 1 ; nmr ( cdcl 3 ) 7 . 31 , 4 . 01 , 3 . 57 , 2 . 40 and . 1 . 27 δ . ethenylidenebisphosphonic acid tetraethyl ester ( i ) and phenyl acetonitrile ( ii ), ms ( m / e ) 417 , 288 , 261 and 233 ; ir ( neat ) 2984 , 2242 , 1601 , 1587 , 1494 , 1478 , 1456 , 1 , 444 and 1256 cm - 1 ; nmr ( cdcl 3 ) 7 . 38 , 4 . 45 , 4 . 15 , 2 . 45 and 1 . 34 δ . ethenylidenebisphosphonic acid tetraethyl ester ( i ) and 2 - pyridinyl acetonitrile ( ii ), nmr ( cdcl 3 ) 8 . 59 , 7 . 72 , 7 . 40 , 7 . 26 , 4 . 63 , 4 . 15 , 2 . 56 and 1 . 39 δ . ethenylidenebisphosphonic acid tetraethyl ester ( i ) and 3 - pyridyl acetonitrile ( ii ), ms ( m / e ) 418 , 301 , 288 and 131 ; ir ( neat ) 2983 , 2242 , 1582 , 1577 , 1480 , 1444 , 1392 , 1368 and 1256 cm - 1 ; nmr ( cdcl 3 ) 8 . 63 , 7 . 76 , 7 . 36 , 4 . 56 , 4 . 22 , 2 . 48 and 1 . 37 δ . ethenylidenebisphosphonic acid tetraethyl ester ( i ) and 2 - thiophene acetonitrile ( ii ), ir ( neat ) 2983 , 2242 , 1478 , 1442 and 1258 cm - 1 ; nmr ( cdcl 3 ) 7 . 32 , 7 . 11 , 6 . 99 , 4 . 77 , 4 . 21 , 2 . 54 and 1 . 36 δ . ethenylidenebisphosphonic acid tetraethyl ester ( i ) and 2 - naphthyl acetonitrile ( ii ), ms ( m / e ) 467 , 288 , 181 and 152 ; nmr ( cdcl 3 ) 7 . 83 , 7 . 42 , 4 . 61 , 4 . 15 , 2 . 50 and 1 . 32 δ . ethenylidenebisphosphonic acid tetraethyl ester ( i ) and 1 - naphthyl acetonitrile ( ii ), ms ( m / e ) 467 , 422 , 311 and 152 ; ir ( neat ) 2983 , 2242 , 1599 , 1541 , 1478 , 1443 and 1254 cm - 1 ; nmr ( cdcl 3 ) 8 . 24 , 7 . 88 , 7 . 74 , 7 . 57 , 5 . 30 , 4 . 20 , 2 . 6 and 1 . 36 δ . ethenylidenebisphosphonic acid tetraethyl ester ( i ) and methyl 1 - naphthyl acetate ( ii ), ms ( m / e ) 500 , 468 , 440 and 288 ; ir ( neat ) 2983 , 1733 , 1597 , 1513 , 1442 , 1368 and 1254 cm - 1 ; nmr ( cdcl 3 ) 8 . 26 , 7 . 80 , 7 . 52 , 5 . 06 , 4 . 15 , 3 . 64 , 2 . 71 , 2 . 46 and 1 . 28 δ . ethenylidenebisphosphonic acid tetraethyl ester ( i ) and tetralone ( ii ), ms ( m / e ) 446 , 301 , 288 , 261 ; ir ( neat ) 3474 , 1682 , 1253 , 1027 and 1026 cm - 1 ; nmr ( cdcl 3 ) 7 . 93 , 7 . 40 , 7 . 22 , 4 . 14 , 2 . 96 , 2 . 88 , 2 . 57 , 2 . 21 , 1 . 85 and 1 . 28 δ . ethenylidenebisphosphonic acid tetraethyl ester ( i ) and flavanone ( ii ), ms ( m / e ) 524 , 479 , 302 and 165 ; ir ( neat ) 2983 , 1683 , 1607 , 1580 , 1499 , 1474 , 1464 and 1257 cm - 1 . ethenylidenebisphosphonic acid tetraethyl ester ( i ) and 2 - methylthiochroman4 - one ( ii ), ms ( m / e ) 478 , 462 , 432 , 302 and 165 ; ir ( neat ) 2981 , 1675 , 1590 , 1560 , 1478 , 1459 , 1437 , 1391 and 1256 cm - 1 ; nmr ( cdcl 3 ) 8 . 04 , 7 . 40 , 7 . 20 , 4 . 17 , 3 . 55 , 3 . 37 , 3 . 10 , 2 . 7 - 1 . 9 , 1 . 51 and 1 . 34 δ . ethenylidenebisphosphonic acid tetraethyl ester ( i ) and 6 - methylthiochroman4 - one ( ii ), ms ( m / e ) 478 , 302 , 288 , 191 , 177 and 165 ; ir ( neat ) 2981 , 1674 , 1602 , 1471 , 1443 , 1395 and 1253 cm - 1 ; nmr ( cdcl 3 ) 7 . 82 , 7 . 13 , 4 . 13 , 3 . 3 - 3 . 0 , 2 . 67 , 2 . 26 , 1 . 96 and 1 . 27 δ . ethenylidenebisphosphonic acid tetraethyl ester ( i ) and 4 - chromanone ( ii ), ms ( m / e ) 448 , 419 , 403 , 311 , 302 , 288 , 165 and 137 ; ir ( neat ) 2983 , 1689 , 1606 , 1580 , 1480 , 1466 , 1459 and 1251 cm - 1 ; nmr ( cdcl 3 ) 7 . 81 , 7 . 42 , 6 . 93 , 4 . 50 , 4 . 10 , 3 . 20 , 2 . 76 , 2 . 40 , 1 . 87 and 1 . 28 δ . ethenylidenebisphosphonic acid tetraethyl ester ( i ) and 2 - methyl cyclohexanone ( ii ), ms ( m / e ) 412 , 384 , 367 , 342 , 301 and 288 ; ir ( neat ) 2981 , 1706 , 1477 , 1446 , 1392 , 1368 and 1251 cm - 1 ; nmr ( cdcl 3 ) 4 . 19 , 3 . 0 - 1 . 5 , 1 . 35 and 1 . 0 δ . ethenylidenebisphosphonic acid tetraethyl ester ( i ) and 2 - phenyl cyclohexanone ( ii ), ms ( m / e ) 474 , 429 , 418 , 301 and 288 ; ir ( neat ) 2981 , 1708 , 1599 , 1581 , 1491 , 1447 and 1250 cm - 1 ; nmr ( cdcl 3 ) 7 . 4 - 7 . 1 , 4 . 19 , 3 . 85 , 3 . 55 , 2 . 9 - 1 . 7 , 1 . 35 , 1 . 83 and 1 . 11 6 ; cmr ( cdcl 3 ) 212 . 2 , 138 . 5 , 128 . 7 , 127 . 4 , 126 . 6 , 62 , 57 . 1 , 39 . 8 , 34 . 5 , 33 . 2 , 31 . 7 , 29 . 1 , 25 . 4 and 16 . 1 δ . ethenylidenebisphosphonic acid tetraethyl ester ( i ) and 2 - methoxy acetophenone ( ii ), ms ( m / e ) 450 , 435 , 345 , 317 , 288 , 157 and 105 ; ir ( neat ) 2983 , 1694 , 1598 , 1579 , 1478 , 1448 , 1392 , 1368 , 1252 cm - 1 ; nmr ( cdcl 3 ) 8 . 13 , 7 . 60 , 7 . 48 , 5 . 14 , 4 . 15 , 3 . 39 , 2 . 90 , 2 . 30 and 1 . 35 δ ; cdr ( cdcl 3 ) 199 . 0 , 134 . 6 , 133 . 3 , 128 . 4 , 128 . 4 , 80 , 62 . 5 , 49 . 4 , 32 , 28 . 9 , 16 . 2 , 16 . 1 and 16 . 0 δ . ethenylidenebisphosphonic acid tetraethyl ester ( i ) and α - phenylthio acetophenone ( ii ), ms ( m / e ) 528 , 423 , 288 and 105 ; ir ( neat ) 2982 , 1678 , 1597 , 1570 , 1474 , 1447 , 1439 , 1391 , 1367 and 1252 cm - 1 ; nmr ( cdcl 3 ) 7 . 95 , 7 . 54 , 7 . 43 , 7 . 26 , 5 . 26 , 4 . 16 , 2 . 82 , 2 . 50 and 1 . 30 δ . 2 , 2 &# 39 ;- ethenylidenebis [ 5 , 5 - dimethyl - 2 , 2 &# 39 ;- dioxide - 1 , 3 , 2 - dioxaphosphorinane ] ( i , preparation 2 ) and deoxybenzoin ( ii ), mp 209 °- 210 °; ms ( m / e ) 520 , 416 , 371 , 312 and 105 ; ir ( mineral oil ) 1679 , 1598 , 1581 , 1445 , 1408 , 1277 , 1261 , 1241 and 1065 cm - 1 ; nmr ( cdcl 3 ) 7 . 99 , 7 . 47 - 7 . 17 , 5 . 39 , 4 . 33 - 3 . 93 , 3 . 76 , 3 . 61 , 2 . 85 - 2 . 63 , 2 . 53 - 2 . 37 , 1 . 23 , 1 . 16 , 0 . 99 and 0 . 84 ; cmr ( cdcl 3 ) 199 . 2 , 138 . 2 , 136 . 1 , 132 . 6 , 128 . 8 , 128 . 6 , 128 . 3 , 128 . 2 , 127 . 1 , 76 . 7 , 50 . 8 , 32 . 2 , 30 . 4 , 28 . 5 , 21 . 7 and 20 . 6 δ . ethenylidenebisphosphonic acid tetraethyl ester ( i ) and n - phenacylbenzamide ( ii ), ms ( m / e ) 539 , 434 and 388 ; ir ( neat ) 3280 , 2982 , 1691 , 1657 , 1598 , 1580 , 1537 , 1491 , 1448 , 1392 , 1368 and 1251 cm - 1 ; nmr ( cdcl 3 ) 8 . 21 , 7 . 98 , 7 . 61 , 7 . 48 , 5 . 95 , 4 . 27 , 4 . 10 , 2 . 82 , 2 . 57 , 2 . 36 , 1 . 34 and 1 . 23 δ . ethenylidenebisphosphonic acid tetraethyl ester ( i ) and 2 -( 3 - t - butoxycarbonylaminoacetophenone ) ( ii ), mp 56 °- 57 °; ms ( m / e ) 535 , 462 , 374 , 330 and 284 ; ir ( mineral oil ) 3271 , 1712 , 1691 , 1598 , 1580 and 1251 cm - 1 ; nmr ( cdcl 3 ) 8 . 18 , 7 . 60 , 7 . 47 , 58 , 4 . 27 , 4 . 12 , 2 . 75 , 2 . 42 , 1 . 96 , 1 . 42 and 1 . 31 δ . upon standing a precipitate appeared in [ 2 -( 3 , 4 - dihydro4 - oxo - 2 - phenyl - 2h - 1 - benzopyran - 3 - yl ) ethylidene ] bisphosphonic acid tetraethyl ester ( v , example 26 ). this solid is separated and recrystallized from ether to give the cis isomer , nmr ( cdcl 3 ) 7 . 93 , 7 . 45 , 7 . 08 , 5 . 65 , 4 . 00 , 3 . 32 , 2 . 59 , 2 . 02 , 1 . 20 , 1 . 09 and 1 . 03 δ ; cmr ( cdcl 3 ) 194 . 9 , 160 . 7 , 136 . 3 , 135 . 9 , 128 . 4 , 127 . 9 , 127 . 4 , 126 . 7 , 121 . 7 , 119 . 4 , 117 . 8 , 80 . 9 , 62 . 5 , 62 . 4 , 62 . 2 , 49 . 6 , 49 . 2 , 32 , 19 . 8 , 16 . 12 , 15 . 9 , 15 . 8 and 15 . 7 δ . the mother liquor from examples 26 and 37 is nearly pure trans isomer , nmr ( cdcl 3 ) 7 . 77 , 7 . 35 , 6 . 91 , 5 . 09 , 3 . 95 , 2 . 90 , 2 . 26 and 1 . 61 δ . n - butyl lithium ( 1 . 6m in hexane , 62 . 5 ml ) is added slowly to a solution of 2 - picoline ( 9 . 9 ml ) in ether ( 100 ml ). the refluxing reaction is stirred for 30 min , then a solution of methyl 4 - methoxy benzoate ( 8 . 31 g ) in ether ( 50 ml ) is added slowly so that the reflux is maintained . after maintaining the reflux for an additional 30 min , the reaction is poured on to ice / hydrochloric acid , diluted with ethyl acetate , and extracted with hydrochloric acid ( 10 %, 3 ×). the acidic fractions are backwashed with ethyl acetate then neutralized with sodium hydroxide and sodium bicarbonate until the ph is 7 . 5 . the product is extracted into ethyl acetate , dried with magnesium sulfate , and concentrated under reduced pressure . the product is distilled bp 0 . 2 175 °- 185 °, then the solidified product is recrystallized from cyclohexane , to give 1 -( 4 - methoxyphenyl )- 2 -( 2 - pyridinyl ) ethanone ( ii ). ethenylidenebisphosphonic acid tetraethyl ester ( i , 3 . 00 g ), 1 -( 4 - methoxyphenyl )- 2 -( 2 - pyridinyl ) ethanone ( ii , 2 . 50 g ) and potassium carbonate ( 2 . 07 g ) are stirred in methanol ( 20 ml ) overnight . the reaction is concentrated under reduced pressure , taken up in ethyl acetate , washed with sodium chloride , dried with magnesium sulfate , rand concentrated under reduced pressure . the product is chromatographed eluting with ethyl acetate , ethyl acetate / acetone ( 1 / 1 ), acetone , the appropriate fractions are pooled and concentrated to give the title compound , ms ( m / e ) 527 and 240 ; ir ( neat ) 2982 , 1674 , 1499 , 1475 , 1470 , 1435 , 1321 , 1392 and 1253 cm - 1 ; nmr ( cdcl 3 ) 8 . 53 , 8 . 02 , 7 . 61 , 7 . 35 , 7 . 12 , 6 . 85 , 5 . 41 , 4 . 16 , 3 . 81 , 2 . 77 , 2 . 50 , 1 . 38 , 1 . 26 and 1 . 17 δ ; cmr ( cdcl 3 ) 196 . 5 , 163 . 2 , 158 . 8 , 149 . 7 , 136 . 7 , 131 . 1 , 129 . 3 , 122 . 8 , 121 . 9 , 113 . 5 , 62 . 8 , 62 . 7 , 62 . 4 , 62 . 3 , 62 . 2 , 55 . 2 , 53 . 5 , 33 . 9 , 28 . 4 , 16 . 3 , 16 . 2 , 16 . 1 and 16 . 0 δ . n - butyl lithium ( 1 . 6m in hexane , 62 . 5 ml ) is added slowly to a solution of 2 - picoline ( 9 . 9 ml , 0 . 10 mol ) in ether ( 100ml ). the refluxing reaction is stirred for 30 min , then a solution of methyl benzoate ( 6 . 25 ml ) in ether ( 10 ml ) is added slowly so that the reflux is maintained . after maintaining the reflux for an additional 30 min , the reaction is poured on to ice / hydrochloric acid , diluted with ethyl acetate , and extracted with hydrochloric acid ( 10 %, 3 ×). the acidic fractions are backwashed with ethyl acetate then neutralized with sodium hydroxide and sodium bicarbonate until the ph is 7 . 5 . the product is extracted into ethyl acetate , dried with magnesium sulfate , and concentrated under reduced pressure . the product is distilled to give 1 - phenyl - 2 -( 2 - pyridinyl ) ethanone ( ii ). ethenylidenebisphosphonic acid tetraethyl ester ( i , 3 . 00 g ), 1 - phenyl - 2 -( 2 - pyridinyl ) ethanone ( ii , 2 . 17 g ) and potassium carbonate ( 2 . 07 g ) are stirred in methanol ( 20 ml ) overnight . the reaction is concentrated under reduced pressure , taken up in ethyl acetate , washed with sodium chloride , dried with magnesium sulfate , and concentrated under reduced pressure . the product is chromatographed eluting with ethyl acetate . the appropriate fractions are pooled and concentrated to give the title compound , ms ( m / e ) 497 , 452 , 392 , 302 and 288 ; ir ( neat ) 2983 , 1683 , 1597 , 1580 , 1470 , 1448 and 1253 cm - 1 ; nmr ( cdcl 3 ) 8 . 52 , 8 . 02 , 7 . 60 , 7 . 49 , 7 . 37 , 7 . 11 , 5 . 46 , 4 . 12 , 2 . 75 , 2 . 55 , 1 . 36 , 1 . 25 and 1 . 16 δ . 3 &# 39 ;- fluoroacetophenone ( ii , 0 . 84 ml ) is dissolved in thf ( 23ml ) and cooled to - 78 ° and is treated with lithium hexamethyldisilazane ( lihmds , 7 . 5 ml ) and stirred for 30 minutes . a solution of ethylidenebisphosphonic acid tetraethyl ester ( i , 1 . 87g ) in thf ( 7 ml ) is added , stirred 10 minutes then warmed to 0 ° for 1 hour . the mixture is quenched with saturated ammonium chloride and then the solvents are removed under reduced pressure and mild heat . the residue is diluted with ethyl acetate and washed with saturated sodium bicarbonate ( 3 ×) saline , dried with magnesium sulfate and the solvents removed under reduced pressure with mild heat . the concentrate is chromatographed eluting with alcohol / ethyl acetate ( 5 / 95 ). the appropriate fractions are pooled and concentrated to give the title compound , ms ( m / e ) 439 ( m + ), 435 , 411 , 393 , 301 and 123 ; ir ( neat ) 1689 , 1588 , 1483 , 1444 , 1392 , 1368 , 1250 and 1164 cm - 1 ; nmr ( cdcl 3 ) 7 . 76 , 7 . 65 , 7 . 48 - 7 . 35 , 7 . 26 , 4 . 18 , 3 . 37 , 2 . 58 , 2 . 41 - 2 . 27 and 1 . 33 δ ; cmr ( cdcl 3 ) 197 . 9 , 133 . 8 , 130 . 3 , 126 . 8 , 123 . 8 , 120 . 1 , 114 . 7 , 62 . 6 , 37 . 1 , 35 . 5 , 20 . 2 and 16 . 4 δ . 4 - amino acetophenone ( 4 . 06 g ), ethyl chloroform ate ( 3 . 0 ml ), and potassium carbonate ( 4 . 20 g ) are heated in refluxing toluene ( 30 ml ) for 4 hours , then cooled , filtered and washed with boiling water . the pure material is obtained by recrystallizing from toluene to give 4 - ethoxycarbonylaminoacetophenone ( ii ). the 4 - ethoxycarbonylaminoacetophenone ( ii , 1 . 865 g ) in pyridine ( 25 ml ) at 0 ° is treated with lihmids ( 1m in thf , 19 . 0 ml ) and stirred at 22 ° for 30 min . ethenylidenebisphosphonic acid tetraethyl ester ( i , 2 . 70 g ) is added and stirring maintained for 30 min . the reaction is poured onto hydrochloric acid ( 10 %), extracted fluid with methylene chloride , washed with 10 % hydrochloric acid , sodium chloride , dried with magnesium sulfate and concentrated under reduced pressure with mild heat . pure material is obtained by chromatography eluting with ethyl acetate , ethyl acetate / acetone ( 1 / 1 ) and recrystallization from ethyl acetate to give the title compound , mp 96 - 97 ; ms ( m / e ) 507 , 462 , 380 , 3 15 , 288 and 192 . 4 - aminoacetophenone ( 2 . 42 g ), acetyl chloride ( 1 . 5 ml ), and triethylamine ( 3 . 5 ml ) are stirred in thf ( 40 ml ) at 22 ° . after 4 hours , the reaction is quenched with 10 % hydrochloric acid , extracted thrice with methylene chloride , washed with hydrochloric acid ( 1n ) and sodium chloride , dried with magnesium sulfate , and concentrated under reduced pressure with mild heat . the product is recrystallized from water to give 4 - acetamidoacetophenone ( ii ). the 4 - acetamidoacetophenone ( ii , 1 . 60 g ) in pyridine ( 25 ml ) at 0 ° is treated with lihmds ( 1m in thf , 19 . 0 ml ) and stirred at 22 ° for 30 min . ethenylidenebisphosphonic acid tetraethyl ester ( i , 2 . 70 g ) is added and the stirring continued for 30 min . the reaction is poured onto 10 % hydrochloric acid , extracted thrice with methylene chloride , washed with hydrochloric acid ( 1n ), dried with magnesium sulfate , and concentrated under reduced pressure with mild heat . the concentrate is chromatographed eluting with ethyl acetate , ethyl acetate / acetone ( 1 / 1 ), then recrystallized from ethyl acetate to give the title compound , mp 96 °- 97 °; ms ( m / e ) 477 , 432 , 340 315 , 301 , 288 and 162 . ( 4 - oxo - 4 - phenylbutylidene ) bisphosphonic acid tetraethyl ester ( iii , example 47 , 840 mg ) is dissolved in thf ( 1 . 0 ml ) and cooled to - 78 c . lithium hexamethyldisilazane ( 1m in thf , 2 . 3 ml ) is added and the reaction stirred for 1 hour at - 78 °. methyl iodide ( 0 . 5 ml ) is added and the reaction is warmed to 22 ° . after stirring for 40 min , the reaction is quenched with hydrochloric acid ( 1n ) and ethyl acetate , washed twice each with hydrochloric acid ( 1n ), sodium bicarbonate , and saline , dried with magnesium sulfate and concentrated under reduced pressure with mild heat . the crude material is purified by column chromatography eluting with ethyl acetate , ethyl acetate / acetone ( 3 / 7 ). the appropriate fractions are pooled and concentrated to give the title compound , ms ( m / e ) 434 , 406 , 389 , 302 , 297 , 165 and 105 . 4 &# 39 ;- hydroxyacetophenone ( 1 . 16 g ) dissolved in toluene ( 40 ml ) is treated with a strongly acidic ion exchange resin ( 50 mg ) and the solvent is distilled until no water remains . hexamethyldisilazane ( 5 ml ) is added and the solution is heated to reflux for 24 hours . the mixture is filtered and concentrated under reduced pressure with mild heat to give 4 &# 39 ;- trimethylsilyloxyacetophenone . 4 &# 39 ;- trimethylsilyloxyacetophenone ( ii , 1 . 65 g ) dissolved in thf ( 26 ml ) and cooled to - 78 ° is treated with lihmds ( 8 . 7 ml ) and stirred for 30 minutes . a solution of ethenylidenebisphosphonic acid tetraethyl ester ( i , 2 . 17 g ) in thf ( 5 ml ) is added , stirred 30 minutes then warmed to 0 ° for 2 hours . the mixture is quenched with hydrochloric acid ( 6n , 20 ml ) and stirred for 1 hour at 0 °. the mixture is neutralized with sodium hydroxide and concentrated under reduced pressure with mild heat . the concentrate is diluted with ethyl acetate and washed with saturated sodium bicarbonate ( 3 ×), saline , dried with magnesium sulfate and concentrated with reduced pressure and mild heat . the concentrate is chromatographed eluting with ethyl acetate . the appropriate fractions are pooled and concentrated to give the title compound , ms ( m / e ) 43 , 391 , 363 , 315 , 299 , 288 , 261 , 233 , 205 , 179 , 152 and 121 ; ir ( neat ) 3148 , 1672 , 1604 , 1584 , 1515 , 1443 , 1391 , 1369 , 1244 and 1220 cm - 1 ; cmr ( cdcl 3 ) 197 , 162 , 130 , 128 , 115 , 63 , 36 , 35 . 2 , 20 and 16 δ . 2 &# 39 ;- hydroxyacetophenone ( 1 . 89 g ) dissolved in toluene ( 65 ml ) is treated with a strongly acid ion exchange resin ( 50 mg ) and the solvent is distilled until no water remains . hexamethyldisilazane ( 8 . 5 ml ) is added and the solution is heated to reflux for 48 hours . the mixture is filtered and concentrated under reduced pressure with mild heat to give 2 &# 39 ;- trimethylsilyloxyacetophenone . 2 &# 39 ;- trimethylsilyloxyacetophenone ( ii , 2 . 89 g ) is dissolved in thf ( 45 ml ) and cooled to - 78 ° and then treated with lihmids ( 15 . 3 ml ) and stirred for 30 minutes . a solution of ethenylidenebisphosphonic acid tetraethyl ester ( i , 3 . 79 g ) in thf ( 5 ml ) is added , stirred for 30 minutes then warmed to 0 ° for 1 hour . the reaction mixture is quenched with saturated ammonium chloride and concentrated under reduced pressure with mild heat . the concentrate is diluted with ethyl acetate and washed with hydrochloric acid ( 1n ), water , saturated sodium bicarbonate , saline , dried with magnesium sulfate and concentrated under reduced pressure with mild heat . the concentrate is chromatographed eluting with ethyl acetate . the appropriate fractions are pooled and concentrated to give the title compound , ms ( m / e ) 436 , 391 , 315 , 301 , 299 , 288 , 152 and 121 ; cmr ( cdcl 3 ) 205 , 162 , 136 , 130 , 119 . 2 , 119 , 118 . 5 , 62 , 36 . 6 , 35 . 6 , 20 and 16 . 4 δ . following the general procedure of examples 41 - 46 using lihmds in thf as the base and making non - critical variations but starting with the appropriate electron deficient olefin ( i ) and activated methylene ( ii ), the title compounds are obtained . ethenylidenebisphosphonic acid tetraethyl ester ( i ) and acetophenone ( ii ), ms ( m / e ) 420 , 375 , 315 , 301 , 287 and 283 ; ir ( neat ) 1684 , 1597 , 1581 , 1449 , 1392 , 1369 , 1251 and 1164 cm - 1 ; nmr ( cdcl 3 ) 7 . 97 , 7 . 56 , 7 . 45 , 4 . 18 , 3 . 39 , 2 . 60 , 2 . 33 and 1 . 30 δ . ethenylidenebisphosphonic acid tetraethyl ester ( i ) and pinacolone ( ii ), ms ( m / e ) 343 , 315 , 301 , 287 , 259 , 231 and 213 ; ir ( neat ) 1704 , 1479 , 1466 , 1457 , 1444 , 1253 , 1164 and 1027 cm - 1 ; cmr ( cdcl 3 ) 215 . 2 , 62 . 5 , 43 . 9 , 35 . 6 , 35 . 0 , 26 . 4 , 20 and 16 . 4 δ . ethenylidenebisphosphonic acid tetraethyl ester ( i ) and 4 - morpholinoacetophenone ( ii , 0 . 94 g ), ms ( m / e ) 505 , 368 , 315 , 301 , 288 , 261 , 218 , 205 and 190 ; cmr ( cdcl 3 ) 197 . 5 , 154 , 130 , 127 . 7 , 113 . 3 , 66 . 6 , 62 , 47 . 5 , 36 . 3 , 36 . 7 , 20 . 5 and 16 . 4 δ . ethenylidenebisphosphonic acid tetraethyl ester ( i ) and acetone ( ii ), ms ( m / e ) 358 , 316 , 301 , 288 , 261 , 233 , 221 , 179 and 152 ; cmr ( cdcl 3 ) 207 . 5 , 62 . 4 , 41 . 4 , 34 . 8 , 19 . 4 and 16 δ . ethenylidenebisphosphonic acid tetraethyl ester ( i ) and 4 &# 39 ;- methylacetophenone ( ii ), ms ( m / e ) 434 , 389 , 315 , 301 , 297 , 288 and 119 ; cmr ( cdcl 3 ) 199 . 5 , 143 . 5 , 134 , 128 . 9 , 127 . 8 , 62 . 3 , 36 . 3 , 35 . 2 , 21 . 3 , 20 and 16 δ . ethenylidenebisphosphonic acid tetraethyl ester ( i ) and 4 &# 39 ;- methoxyacetophenone ( ii , 0 . 75 g ), ms ( m / e ) 450 , 315 , 313 , 301 , 288 and 135 ; ir ( neat ) 1676 , 1600 , 1576 , 1512 , 1443 , 1419 , 1392 , 1369 , 1255 and 1171 ; nmr ( cdcl 3 ) 7 . 96 , 6 . 92 , 4 . 18 , 3 . 69 , 3 . 33 , 2 . 61 , 2 . 34 and 1 . 33 δ ; cmr ( cdcl 3 ) 197 . 6 , 163 . 3 , 130 , 129 . 7 , 113 . 5 , 62 . 5 , 55 . 3 , 36 . 2 , 35 . 3 , 20 . 2 and 16 . 2 δ . ethenylidenebisphosphonic acid tetraethyl ester ( i ) and 3 - acetylpyridine ( ii , 0 . 77 ml ); ms ( m / e ) 421 , 376 , 315 , 301 , 283 , 273 , 261 , 152 and 106 ; ir ( neat ) 1690 , 1585 , 1572 , 1478 , 1443 , 1419 , 1393 , 1369 , 1251 and 1164 cm - 1 ; nmr ( cdcl 3 ) 9 . 18 , 8 . 77 , 8 . 25 , 7 . 42 , 4 . 2 , 3 . 41 , 2 . 59 , 2 . 38 and 1 . 33 δ ; cmr ( cdcl 3 ) 498 , 154 , 149 , 136 , 132 , 124 , 63 , 38 , 36 ( t ), 20 and 16 δ . ethenylidenebisphosphonic acid tetraethyl ester ( i ) , and 2 - acetylthiophene ( ii , 0 . 76 ml ); ms ( m / e ) 426 , 381 , 315 , 289 , 261 , 152 and 111 ; ir ( neat ) 1663 , 1518 , 1478 , 1443 , 1416 , 1392 , 1368 , 1355 , 1250 , 1164 and 1142 cm - 1 ; nmr ( cdcl 3 ) 7 . 77 , 7 . 62 , 7 . 12 , 4 . 2 , 3 . 32 , 2 . 58 , 2 . 36 and 1 . 33 67 ; cmr ( cdcl 3 ) 192 , 144 , 133 . 5 , 135 . 5 , 128 , 62 , 38 , 32 . 5 ( t ), 20 . 5 and 16 δ . 2 , 2 &# 39 ;- ethenylidenebis [ 5 , 5 - dimethyl - 2 , 2 &# 39 ;- dioxide - 1 , 3 , 2 ,- dioxaphosphorinane ] ( i , preparation 1 ) and acetophenone ( ii , 0 . 58 ml ), mp 199 °- 200 °; ms ( m / e ) 444 , 339 , 325 , 312 , 295 and 105 . ethenylidenebisphosphonic acid tetraethyl ester ( i ) and 2 , 3 , 4 - trichloracetophenone ( ii , 1 . 12 g ); ms ( m / e ) 522 , 487 , 385 , 315 , 301 , 288 and 207 ; ir ( neat ) 1707 , 1572 , 1442 , 1392 , 1366 , 1253 and 1170 cm - 1 ; nmr ( cdcl 3 ) 7 . 45 , 7 . 35 , 4 . 20 , 3 . 31 , 2 . 53 , 2 . 34 and 1 . 35 δ ; cmr ( cdcl 3 ) 200 , 139 , 136 , 132 . 7 , 130 . 5 , 128 , 126 , 62 , 40 . 9 , 35 . 1 , 19 . 8 and 16 δ . ethenylidenebisphosphonic acid tetraethyl ester ( i ) and 3 &# 39 ;, 5 &# 39 ;- difluoroacetophenone ( ii , 0 . 96 g ); ms ( m /) e 456 , 428 , 411 , 319 , 301 , 288 and 141 ; ir ( neat ) 1694 , 1619 , 1441 , 1392 , 1369 , 1252 , 1164 , 1122 cm - 1 ; nmr ( cdcl 3 ) 7 . 48 , 7 . 02 , 4 . 20 , 3 . 35 , 2 . 56 , 2 . 35 and 1 . 34 δ ; cmr ( cdcl 3 ) 196 . 4 , 162 . 8 , 163 . 1 , 139 . 4 , 110 . 6 , 108 . 1 , 62 . 4 , 36 . 8 , 35 . 2 , 19 . 9 and 16 . 1 δ . ethenylidenebisphosphonic acid tetraethyl ester ( i ) and 4 &# 39 ;- chloroacetophenone ( ii , 0 . 65 ml ); ms ( m / e ) 454 , 409 , 317 , 315 , 301 , 288 , 243 and 139 ; ir ( neat ) 1685 , 1589 , 1572 , 1488 , 1443 , 1397 , 1252 and 1164 cm - 1 ; nmr ( cdcl 3 ) 7 . 94 , 7 . 43 , 4 . 19 , 3 . 37 , 2 . 59 , 2 . 38 and 1 . 34 δ ; cmr ( cdcl 3 ) 197 . 6 , 139 . 2 , 134 . 7 , 129 . 1 , 128 . 6 , 62 . 3 , 36 . 6 , 35 . 1 , 19 . 9 and 16 . 1 δ . ethenylidenebisphosphonic acid tetraethyl ester ( i ) and isobutyrophenone ( ii , 1 . 35 ml ); ms ( m / e ) 448 , 403 , 343 , 301 , 287 , 243 and 105 ; ir ( neat ) 1674 , 1639 , 1597 , 1473 , 1460 , 1392 , and 1252 cm - 1 ; nmr ( cdcl 3 ) 7 . 57 , 7 . 44 , 4 . 12 , 2 . 57 , 2 . 53 , 1 . 33 and 1 . 28 δ . ethenylidenebisphosphonic acid tetraethyl ester ( i ) and 3 &# 39 ;, 4 &# 39 ;- dichloroacetophenone ( ii , 0 . 94 g ); ms ( m / e ) 489 , 443 , 351 , 315 , 301 , 288 and 173 ; ir ( neat ) 1690 , 1584 , 1556 , 1391 and 1252 cm - 1 ; nmr ( cdcl 3 ) 8 . 05 , 7 . 81 , 7 . 54 , 4 . 19 , 3 . 36 , 2 . 56 , 2 . 34 and 1 . 34 δ ; cmr ( icdcl 3 ) 196 . 9 , 137 . 6 , 136 . 2 , 133 . 3 , 130 . 7 , 130 , 127 , 62 . 6 , 37 , 35 . 4 , 20 . 1 and 16 . 4 δ . ethenylidenebisphosphonic acid tetraethyl ester ( i ) and 4 - acetylpyridine ( ii , 1 . 0 ml ); ms ( m / e ) 421 , 393 , 376 , 315 , 301 , 288 , 284 , 106 and 78 ; ir ( neat ) 3478 , 1697 , 1593 , 1556 , 1443 , 1408 , 1392 , 1369 , 1252 and 1164 cm - 1 ; nmr ( cdcl 3 ) 8 . 81 , 7 . 77 , 4 . 17 , 3 . 41 , 2 . 76 - 2 . 55 , 2 . 52 - 2 . 28 and 1 . 34 δ ; cmr ( cdcl 3 ) 198 . 6 , 150 . 8 , 142 . 6 , 121 . 0 , 62 . 8 - 62 . 2 , 37 . 2 - 36 . 8 , 35 . 3 , 19 . 9 and 16 . 4 δ . ethenylidenebisphosphonic acid tetraethyl ester ( i ) and 2 - acetylfuran ( ii , 0 . 77 g ); ms ( m / e ) 410 , 365 , 315 , 301 , 288 , 273 and 95 ; ir ( neat ) 1676 , 1570 , 1470 , 1394 , 1369 , 1252 and 1164 cm - 1 ; nmr ( cdcl 3 ) 7 . 58 , 7 . 22 , 6 . 53 , 4 . 20 , 3 . 23 , 2 . 56 , 2 . 42 - 2 . 24 and 1 . 33 δ ; cmr ( cdcl 3 ) 188 , 153 , 146 . 3 , 117 . 1 , 112 . 2 , 62 . 6 , 36 . 6 , 35 . 5 ( t ), 20 and 16 . 4 δ . acetophenone ( 1 . 17 ml ) is dissolved in thf ( 20 ml ), cooled to - 78 ° and treated with lithium bis ( trimethylsilyl ) amide . the solution is stirred for 30 minutes and a solution of ethenylidenebisphosphonic acid tetraethyl ester ( i , 2 . 7g ) in thf ( 5 ml ) is added . the solution is stirred for several minutes then warmed to 0 ° for 1 hour . n - chlorosuccinimide ( 1 . 33 g ) is added and the solution was stirred at 22 ° for 18 hours . the reaction is quenched with aqueous ammonium chloride and concentrated . the residue is diluted with ethyl acetate and washed with sulfuric acid ( 2n , 2 ×), water , sodium bicarbonate , saline and dried with magnesium sulfate and concentrated . the resultant mixture is chromatographed eluting with ethyl acetate , slowly increased from 1 to 5 % ethanol / ethyl acetate . the appropriate fractions are pooled and concentrated to give the title compound , ms ( m / e ) 454 , 426 , 322 and 105 ; ir ( neat ) 1686 , 1599 , 1581 , 1448 , 1391 , 1368 , 1259 , 1214 and 1163 cm - 1 ; nmr ( cdcl 3 ) 8 . 02 - 7 . 99 , 7 . 59 - 7 . 54 , 7 . 49 - 7 . 44 , 4 . 37 - 4 . 25 , 3 . 50 , 2 . 78 - 2 . 64 and 1 . 38 δ . another compound is formed by the reaction which is not within the scope of the invention . ethenylidenebisphosphonic acid tetraethyl ester ( i ) and freshly distilled 4 - phenyl - 3 - buten - 2 - one ( ii , 1 . 61 g ); ms ( m / e ) 446 , 401 , 288 , 131 and 103 ; ir ( neat ) 1712 , 1690 , 1662 , 1612 , 1576 , 1495 , 1450 , 1391 , 1369 and 1252 cm - 1 ; nmr , ( cdcl 3 ) 7 . 58 , 7 . 53 , 7 . 39 , 6 . 73 , 4 . 19 , 3 . 09 , 2 . 54 , 2 . 29 and 1 . 34 δ ; cmr ( cdcl 3 ) 199 , 142 , 135 , 130 , 129 , 129 , 126 , 62 , 39 , 36 , 20 and 16 . 4 δ . 2 - amino acetophenone ( 4 . 05 g ) and benzoyl chloride ( 4 . 0 ml ) in methylene chloride ( 50 ml ) at 0 ° are treated with triethylamine ( 5 . 5 ml ), warmed to 220 and stirred for 1 hour . the reaction is treated with hydrochloric acid ( 1n ) and the solvents removed by reduced pressure with mild heat to remove most of the thf . the product is isolated by filtration and purified by recrystallization from methanol to give 2 - benzamideacetophenone ( ii ). the benzamide ( ii , 1 . 67 g ) is dissolved in pyridine ( 15 ml ) at 0 °, treated with lihmids ( 1m in thf , 15 . 0 ml ) and stirred at 22 ° for 30 min . ethenylidenebisphosphonic acid tetraethyl ester ( i , 2 . 10 g ) is added and the reaction stirred for 1 hour . it is poured onto 10 % hydrochloric acid , extracted thrice with methylene chloride , washed with saline , dried with magnesium sulfate and concentrated under reduced pressure . the concentrate is purified by chromatography eluting with ethyl acetate , ethyl acetate / acetone ( 1 / 1 ) then recrystallization from methyl t - butyl ether to give the title compound , mp 100 °; ms : m / e 539 , 521 , 434 , 417 , 402 , 315 , 301 , 288 , 224 , 105 ; ir ( mineral oil ) 3223 , 1674 , 1655 , 1608 , 1587 , 1538 , 1449 and 1246 ( cm - 1 ); nmr ( cdcl 3 ) 12 . 7 , 8 . 97 , 8 . 06 , 7 . 56 , 7 . 16 , 4 . 20 , 3 . 49 , 2 . 56 , 2 . 40 and 1 . 34 δ . 3 - amino acetophenone ( 4 . 05 g ) in pyridine ( 6 ml ) at 0 ° is treated dropwise with a solution of ethyl chloroformate ( 3 . 3 mml ) in ether ( 15 ml ). the reaction is stirred for 1 hour , diluted with water , filtered , the solid recrystallized from toluene to give the carbamate , 3 - ethoxycarbonylaminoacetophenone ( ii ) the carbamate ( 11 , 1 . 45 g ) is dissolved in pyridine ( 15 ml ) at 0 ° and treated with lihmds ( 15 . 0 ml ). after stirring at 22 ° for 30 min , ethenylidenebisphosphonic acid tetraethyl ester ( i , 2 . 1 g ) is added and stirring maintained for i more hour . the mixture is poured onto hydrochloric acid ( 10 %), extracted thrice with methylene chloride , dried with magnesium sulfate , the solvents removed under reduced pressure with mild heat the concentrate is chromatographed eluting with ethyl acetate , ethyl acetate / acetone ( 3 / 7 ). the appropriate fractions are pooled and concentrated . the concentrate is triturated with toluene to give the title compound , mp 83 °- 84 °; ms ( m / e ) 507 , 462 , 435 , 370 and 288 ; ir ( mineral oil ) 3252 , 1734 , 1686 , 1598 , 1557 , 1482 and 1247 cm - 1 ; nmr ( cdcl 3 ) 8 . 02 , 7 . 97 , 7 . 75 , 7 . 60 , 7 . 33 , 4 . 20 , 3 . 37 , 2 . 64 , 2 . 40 and 1 . 30 δ . 4 - aminoacetophenone ( 3 . 88 g ) and 4 - chlorobenzoyl chloride ( 4 . 00 ml ) are cooled in methylene chloride ( 50 ml ) to 0 °, and treated with triethylamine ( 5 . 00 ml ). the reaction is stirred at 22 ° for 30 min , then poured onto 10 % hydrochloric acid . the slurry is stirred for 15 min then filtered . the precipitate is recrystallized from acetone to give the benzamide , 4 -( 4 - chlorobenzamido ) acetophenone ( ii ). the benzamide ( ii , 1 . 37 g ) is dissolved in pyridine ( 5 . 0 ml ), cooled to 0 °, and treated with lihmds ( 1m in thf , 11 ml ). the mixture is stirred for 30 min , whereupon ethenylidenebisphosphonic acid tetraethyl ester ( i , 1 . 50 g ) is added . after stirring at 22 ° for 1 hour , the mixture is poured onto 10 % hydrochloric acid and stirred for 6 hours . the solid is collected . the solid is dissolved in ethanol , treated with charcoal , filtered through celite and the solvents are removed by reduced pressure with mild heat to give a solid . the solid is recrystallized from ethanol , methyl t - butyl ether to give the title compound , mp 130 °- 131 °; ms ( m / e ) 573 , 436 , 288 and 139 ; ir ( mineral oil ) 3304 , 3191 , 1678 , 1665 , 1599 , 1533 , 1491 and 1263 cm - 1 ; nmr ( cdcl 3 ) 8 . 63 , 7 . 94 , 7 . 80 , 7 . 46 , 4 . 17 , 3 . 33 , 2 . 60 , 2 . 36 and 1 . 32 δ . 3 - aminoacetophenone ( 4 . 05 g ) and 4 - nitrobenzoyl chloride ( 5 . 75 g ) are cooled in methylene chloride ( 50 ml ) to 0 °, and treated with triethylamine ( 5 . 00 ml ). the reaction is stirred at 22 ° for 30 min , then poured onto hydrochloric acid ( 10 %). the slurry is stirred for 1 hour then filtered . the precipitate is recrystallized from dmf / water to give a benzamide , 3 -( nitobenzamido ) acetophenone ( ii ). the benzamide ( ii , 1 . 99 g ) is dissolved in pyridine ( 15 . 0 ml ), cooled to 0 °, and treated with lihmds ( 1m in thf , 14 ml ). the suspension is stirred for 30 min , whereupon ethenylidenebisphosphonic acid tetraethyl ester ( i , 2 . 10 g ) is added . after stirring at 22 ° for 1 hour , it is poured onto hydrochloric acid ( 10 %), extracted thrice with methylene chloride , dried with magnesium sulfate , and concentrated with reduced pressure and mild heat . the concentrate is chromatographed eluting with ethyl acetate , ethyl acetate / acetone ( 3 / 7 ), the appropriate fractions are pooled and concentrated . the concentrate is then recrystallized from acetone to give the title compound , mp 111 °- 112 °; ms ( m / e ) 584 , 462 , 448 , 429 , 332 , 315 , 301 and 288 ; ir ( mineral oil ) 3106 , 1684 , 1672 , 1600 , 1553 , 1521 , 1485 and 1256 cm - 1 ; nmr ( cdcl 3 ) 8 . 32 , 8 . 21 , 7 . 70 , 7 . 44 , 4 . 15 , 3 . 36 , 2 . 67 , 2 . 36 and 1 . 31 δ . the 4 - benzamidoacetopehenone ( 11 , 3 . 13 g ) is dissolved in pyridine ( 25 ml ), cooled to 0 °, and treated slowly with lihmds ( 1 . 0m in thf , 28 ml ). the reaction is stirred at 0 ° for 30 min , then treated with ethenylidenebisphosphonic acid tetraethyl ester ( i , 3 . 924 g ). after stirring at 0 ° for 30 min and 30 min at 22 °, the reaction is poured onto hydrochloric acid ( 10 %), and extracted with ethyl acetate . the combined organics are washed with hydrochloric acid ( 1n ) and saline , treated with charcoal , filtered through a pad of magnesium sulfate and concentrated under reduced pressure with mild heat . the concentrate is recrystallized from ethyl acetate to give the title compound , mp 110 °- 112 °; ir ( mineral oil ) 3315 , 1666 , 1596 , 1535 , 1258 cm - 1 ; nmr ( cdcl 3 ) 8 . 57 , 7 . 97 , 7 . 91 , 7 . 80 , 7 . 53 , 4 . 17 , 3 . 34 , 2 . 60 , 2 . 3 and 1 . 31 δ . ( 4 - oxo4 - phenylbutylidene ) bisphosphonic acid tetraethyl ester ( iii , example 47 , 1 . 80 g ) is dissolved in thf / water ( 7 / 1 , 8 ml ), treated with sodium borohydride ( 150 mg ) and stirred at 22 ° for 1 hour . the reaction is carefully acidified , extracted thrice with ethyl acetate , washed with sodium bicarbonate , dried with magnesium sulfate , and concentrated . the concentrate is chromatographed eluting with ethyl acetate , the appropriate fractions are pooled and concentrated to give the title compound , ms ( m / e ) 422 , 404 , 376 , 316 , 302 , 288 , 179 and 165 ; ir ( neat ) 3388 , 2981 , 1492 , 1478 , 1392 and 1249 cm - 1 ; nmr ( cdcl 3 ) 7 . 28 , 4 . 68 , 4 . 12 , 3 . 46 , 2 . 41 , 4 . 7 , 2 . 02 and 1 . 31 δ . following the general procedure of example 70 and making non - critical variations but starting with ( 4 - oxo - 3 , 4 - diphenylbutylidene ) bisphosphonic acid tetraethyl ester ( iii , example 11 , 1 . 00 g ), the title compound is obtained ; ms ( m / e ) 498 , 480 , 453 , 392 and 288 ; ir ( neat ) 3380 , 2982 , 1602 , 1494 , 1453 and 1249 cm - 1 ; nmr ( cdcl 3 ) 7 . 28 , 4 . 75 , 4 . 00 , 3 . 46 , 2 . 1 and 1 . 25 δ . ( 4 - oxo - 4 - phenylbutylidene ) bisphosphonic acid tetraethyl ester ( iii , example 47 , 0 . 9 15g ) is treated with solid sodium bicarbonate ( 2 . 62g ) and cold sodium hypochlorite solution ( 11 . 5 ml ) and stirred at 0 ° for 2 hours and warmed to 22 ° for 5 days . the mixture is diluted with ethyl acetate and washed twice with sodium bicarbonate , saline , dried with magnesium sulfate and concentrated . the concentrate is chromatographed eluting with ethyl acetate . the appropriate fractions are pooled and concentrated to give the title compound , nmr ( cdcl 3 ) 8 . 11 - 8 . 04 , 7 . 61 - 7 . 42 , 5 . 93 , 4 . 34 - 4 . 17 , 3 . 88 - 3 . 78 , 2 . 81 and 1 . 42 - 1 . 31 δ . ( 4 - oxo - 3 , 4 - diphenylbutylidene ) bisphosphonic acid tetraethyl ester ( iii , example 11 , 3 . 77 g ) and sodium iodide ( 2 . 28 g ) are heated in refluxing methyl ethyl ketone ( 10 ml ) for 18 hours . after 2 hours a slight cloudiness develops in the reaction , and after 4 hours the reaction solidifies . the solid is collected , then recrystallized from acetone / water , then from methanol to give the title compound , mp & gt ; 300 °; ms ( m / e ) 485 , 463 , 439 and 392 ; ir ( mineral oil ) 1685 , 1598 , 1582 , 1493 , 1235 and 1221 cm - 1 ; nmr ( cdcl 3 ) 8 . 02 , 7 . 57 , 7 . 43 , 7 . 26 , 5 . 41 , 3 . 98 , 3 . 68 , 3 . 28 , 2 . 57 , 2 . 50 , 2 . 04 , 1 . 29 and 0 . 98 δ ; cmr ( cdcl 3 ) 203 . 9 , 138 . 7 , 135 . 8 , 133 . 5 , 129 . 0 , 128 . 6 , 128 . 5 , 127 . 3 , 60 . 5 , 60 . 4 , 60 . 1 , 60 . 0 , 27 . 8 , 33 . 8 , 30 . 1 , 15 . 9 , 15 . 6 and 15 . 5 δ . ( 4 - oxo - 4 - phenylbutylidene ) bisphosphonic acid tetraethyl ester ( iii , example 47 , 2 . 10 g ) and sodium iodide ( 2 . 06 g ) are heated in methyl ethyl ketone ( 10 ml ) at reflux for 16 hours . the reaction is cooled , filtered , and washed with acetone . the precipitate is then dissolved in water and reprecipitated with acetone . the solid is collected , washed with acetone and ether , then air dried to give the title compound , mp & gt ; 300 °; ms ( m / e ) 409 , 387 and 363 ; ir ( mineral oil ) 3394 , 1683 , 1598 , 1581 , 1450 and 1250 cm - 1 ; nmr ( d 2 o ) 8 . 05 , 7 . 69 , 7 . 57 , 3 . 93 , 3 . 45 , 2 . 16 and 1 . 22 δ . ( 4 - oxo - 3 , 4 - diphenylbutylidene ) bisphosphonic acid tetraethyl ester ( ill , example 11 , 3 . 22 g ) is heated in hydrochloric acid ( concentrated , 16 ml ) at reflux for 36 hours . the reaction is concentrated under reduced pressure , then concentrated under reduced pressure twice from toluene . a portion of the residue ( 1 . 39 g ) is dissolved in methanol ( 7 . 2 ml ) then treated with a solution of sodium hydroxide ( 290 mg ) in methanol ( 3 . 5 ml ). the reaction is stirred for 30 min then filtered . the precipitate is dissolved in water ( 4 . 1 ml ), filtered through celite , then reprecipitated with acetone to give the title compound , mp & gt ; 300 °; ms ( m / e ) 429 , 407 , 389 , 385 , 365 and 105 ; ir ( mineral oil ) 1670 , 1598 , 1580 and 1217 cm - 1 ; nmr ( d 2 o ) 8 . 07 , 7 . 6 - 7 . 3 , 5 . 4 , 2 . 6 , 2 . 4 and 1 . 8 δ . [ 3 - cyano - 3 -( 2 - pyridinyl ) propylidene ] bisphosphonic acid tetraethyl ester ( iii , example 19 , 5 . 460 g ) and bromotrimethyl silane ( 7 . 8 ml ) are stirred in chloroform ( 25 ml ) at 500 for 6 hours , then concentrated under reduced pressure . the resulting oil is slurried in ethyl acetate / water and filtered , giving crude product ( 3 . 5 g ). the pink powder resisted attempts at recrystallization , but the color could be removed . the sample is suspended in water ( 50 ml ), then heated on the steam bath for 30 min , cooled and filtered . the sample is washed with ether and acetone , then air dried and finally dried in the vacuum oven to give the title compound , ms ( m / e ) 307 , 221 , 177 and 118 ; ir ( mineral oil ) 2245 , 1627 , 1540 and 1340 cm - 1 ; nmr ( cdcl 3 ) 8 . 52 , 7 . 91 , 7 . 61 , 7 . 44 , 2 . 40 and 1 . 96 δ . ( 3 - benzoyl - 1 , 5 - pentanediylidene ) tetrakisphosphonic acid octaethyl ester , 3 . 14 g ) in chloroform ( 25 ml ) is treated with bromotrimethyl silane ( 5 . 5 ml ) and stirred at 40 ° for 5 hours , then diluted with ethyl acetate and water . the water layer is separated , and freeze dried . the acid is dissolved in methanol and treated with a sodium methoxide solution ( 25 %, 3 . 0 g ). the precipitate is collected , washed with ether , then dried in the vacuum oven to a constant weight to give the title compound , ms ( m / e ) 379 , 378 , 357 , 335 and 317 ; ir ( mineral oil ) 1680 , 1600 , 1226 and 1002 cm - 1 ; nmr ( d 2 o ) 7 . 91 , 7 . 59 , 7 . 37 , 3 . 05 , 2 . 36 and 1 . 8 δ ; cmr ( d 2 o ) 204 , 145 , 134 , 131 , 129 , 126 . 6 , 126 . 3 , 46 , 35 , 27 and 25 δ . [ 4 - oxo - 4 -( 2 - thiazolylamino )- 2 -[( 2 - thiazolyl amino ) carbonyl ] butylidene ] bis phosphonic acid , tetraethyl ester ( iii , example 1 , 1 . 325 g ) and bromotrimethyl silane ( 1 . 50 ml ) are heated to 40 ° in chloroform ( 5 ml ) for 5 hours then concentrated under reduced pressure . the concentrate is treated with water and stirred overnight . a precipitate forms and is suspended in water ( 5 ml ), treated with potassium hydroxide ( 250 mg ) in water ( 5 ml ). the reaction is stirred for 1 hour , filtered through celite , and freeze dried to give the title compound , ms ( m / e ) 533 ( m + ), 385 , 347 , 309 ; ir ( mineral oil ) 1681 , 1567 , 1492 and 1270 cm - 1 ; nmr ( d 2 o ) 7 . 3 , 6 . 8 , 4 . 6 , 3 . 39 and 2 . 86 δ . ( 3 - methyl - 4 - oxo4 - phenylbutylidene ) bisphosphonic acid tetraethyl ester ( iii , example 13 , 2 . 0 g ) and bromotrimethyl silane ( 3 . 5 ml ) in chloroform ( 25 ml ) are stirred at 50 ° for 19 hours then concentrated under reduced pressure . the concentrate is dissolved in ethyl acetate and water , shaken , then the water layer separated and freeze dried . the acid is dissolved in methanol ( 10 ml ) and treated with a solution of sodium methoxide ( 25 %, 2 . 0 g ). a precipitate is collected , washed with methanol and ether , then dried in the vacuum oven to give the title compound , mp & gt ; 300 °; ms ( m / e ) 389 , 367 , 366 , 345 , 323 and 305 ; ir ( mineral oil ) 3064 , 1679 , 1597 , 1225 , 1161 , 1076 , 975 and 704 cm - 1 ; nmr ( d 2 o ) 8 . 08 , 7 . 70 , 7 . 58 , 4 . 15 , 2 . 35 , 2 . 14 , 1 . 92 and 1 . 22 δ . phenylacetylene ( ix , 4 . 4 g ) is dissolved in thf ( 43 ml ), cooled to - 78 °, and treated with lithium hexamethyldisilazide ( 1m in thf , 43 ml ). the reaction is stirred for 30 min , then a solution of ethenylidenebisphosphonic acid tetraethyl ester ( 10 . 7 g ) in thf ( 36 ml ) is added and the reaction warmed to 22 ° for 1 hour . the reaction is quenched with water , extracted thrice with ethyl acetate . the organics were then washed with water , hydrochloric acid ( 10 %), saturated sodium bicarbonate , and saline , dried with magnesium sulfate , and concentrated . the concentrate is purified by distillation , bp 0 . 1 195 °- 200 °. [ 4 - phenyl - 3 - butynylidene ] bisphosphonic acid tetraethyl ester ( x , example 80 , 3 . 01 g ) dissolved in methylene chloride ( 75 ml ) and acetic acid ( 4 . 1 ml ) is treated with benzyltriethylammonium chloride ( 0 . 42 g ) and the solution is healed to reflux . a solution of potassium permanganate ( 4 . 83 g ) in water ( 80 ml ) is added and the solution is stirred at reflux for 4 - 6 hours and monitored by tlc . when complete , the mixture is cooled and acidified with hydrochloric acid ( 10 %) and treated with sodium bisulfite to obtain a homogeneous solution . separated and washed the aqueous layer twice with methylene chloride . washed the combined organic layers with saturated sodium bicarbonate ( 3 ×), saline and dried with magnesium sulfate , then concentrated to an oil . the oil is chromatographed , eluting with ethyl acetate to give the title compound , ms ( m / e ) 434 ( m + ), 406 , 389 , 329 , 301 , 273 , 245 , 217 , 133 , 105 ; ir ( solvent ) 1720 , 1673 , 1597 , 1580 , 1450 , 1392 and 1166 cm - 1 ; nmr ( cdcl 3 ) 8 . 08 , 7 . 64 , 7 . 50 , 4 . 19 , 3 . 43 ), 3 . 34 , 1 . 33 δ ; cmr ( cdcl 3 ) 197 . 3 , 190 . 4 , 134 . 4 , 131 . 7 , 130 . 3 , 128 . 6 , 62 . 7 , 34 . 5 , 30 . 7 and 16 . 1 δ . following the general procedure of examples 80 and 81 and making non - critical variations but starting the appropriate starting material the following compounds are obtained : following the general procedure of example 41 and making non - critical variations but starting with the appropriate starting materials the following compounds are obtained : | 2 |
various features of the toothbrush of the present invention , as well as other objects and advantages attendant thereto , are set forth in the following description and the accompanying drawings in which like reference numerals depict like elements . in fig1 a toothbrush , generally depicted as 10 , is shown which toothbrush is in accordance with the present invention . toothbrush 10 has a handle section 12 which can be used to manipulate toothbrush 10 in , for example , a manner similar to known , standard toothbrush designs . at one end of handle section 12 is toothbrush head section 100 which consists , in this embodiment , of fixed brush section 22 which is affixed to head main section 112 , and axle sections 18 and 20 which extend from the sides of head main section 112 . mounted on axle sections 18 and 20 are brush sections 14 and 16 , respectively , wherein each brush section comprises a plurality of bristles collected together in “ tufts ” of bristles , in a fashion similar to known toothbrush bristle designs . the bristles are preferably chosen by the skilled artisan to be soft , pliable and bendable , yet still resilient enough to clean accumulated plaque while not being sufficiently hard to harm the gum tissues or the teeth . however , the bristles should be firm enough to convert the energy of the longitudinal movement of brush 10 along the teeth of the user , into a rotational motion of rotary brushes 14 and 16 . accordingly , it is necessary that the bristles should be long enough so that the bristles of each brush are in contact ( in normal use ) with either side ( the buccal ( facial ) and the lingual sides ) of the tooth and / or the adjacent gum tissue it should be noted that the longitudinal brushing motion is not generally desirable , since it can lead to abrasion of the side surfaces of the teeth . however , this motion is a common , natural tendency for individuals to use when brushing their teeth . use of the toothbrush of the present invention allows a user to follow their natural brushing tendency , and translates the motion into a much more desirable rotary action of the brush which minimizes or eliminates abrasion . [ 0046 ] fig2 provides additional detail of the toothbrush design wherein the tufts of bristles are attached to rotary brush cores 24 and 26 . the rotary brush cores 24 and 26 are essentially hollow tubes to which the bristle tufts can be attached , and through which axles 18 and 20 can extend . brushes 14 and 16 , and even brush 22 may be permanently affixed to toothbrush 10 , but alternatively , each brush section might be separately replaceable . the bristle tufts shown in brushes 14 and 16 are shown as being essentially perpendicular to rotary brush cores 24 and 26 . however , the bristle tufts may be positioned at different angles , or at a variety of different angles on each brush , in order to adjust the cleaning properties of the toothbrushes of the present invention . by selection of a variety of brush bristle angles , lengths , stiffnesses and the like , the brushes can effectively cleanse the surfaces of the teeth , cleanse and stimulate the gingival tissues , and extend ( at least partially ) into any concave gaps within or between the teeth . in use , as the brush is moved horizontally along the line of the teeth , ( or , more generally , the gum line of the teeth ) with a pushing and pulling motion , brushes 14 and 16 are caused to rotate as a result of the contact between brushes 14 and 16 and tooth 30 . brushes 14 and 16 will , as a result of the movement of brush 10 along the teeth , rotate in opposite directions . as a result of the rotary brush rotation , tufts from brushes 14 and 16 are able to effectively stimulate the gingival tissue 31 of the sides of tooth 30 in the area where tooth 30 meets with the gum 32 . the rotation of brushes 14 and 16 is effective at removal of material from the entrance of the gingival crevice area by gently forcing bristles from brushes 14 and 16 just beneath the gum line 35 , and sweeping out any particles or materials at or just below the gum line 35 as a result of the brush rotation . it should be noted that brushes 14 and 16 extend below the gum line 35 ( i . e . at the junction of the crown of the tooth and the gum tissue ) on the buccal and lingual sides of the tooth . as such , the rotation of the brushes also massages and / or otherwise stimulates the gum area which can aid in maintaining the health of the gums , and in turn , the underlying bone structure for the tooth . additionally brush 22 cleans the top section of tooth 30 . brush 22 , when in contact with the biting surface of the tooth , also provides a limit on the extent to which the rotary brushes can extend on the sides of the tooth , and the adjacent gum tissue . thus brush 22 also acts as a positioner to position the rotary brushes at a depth where they can provide optimal cleansing and stimulation . brush head section 100 , and in particular , head main section 112 , is shown in fig1 as being permanently affixed to the end of handle 12 . however , it should be clear to those skilled in the art that head main section 112 may be attached to handle section 12 through a flexible section , or through a connector which allows head main section 112 to rotate with respect to handle 12 through an axis of rotation which runs vertically through handle section 12 . manipulation of the handle 12 in order to keep the brushes 14 and 16 of brush head section 100 aligned with the teeth , may be facilitated as a result of the use of this connector . while the head main section 112 might be produced so that it can freely rotate with respect to handle 12 , it is typically preferred that the head main section be limited to a rotation of less than 45 degrees , and more preferably , less than 30 degrees from the line established by extending a longitudinal axis line of handle 12 . handle 12 and any part of , or all of head main section 112 ( other than the bristles of the brushes ) are preferably made of a resilient or hard plastic materials , although a wide variety of other materials , such as stainless steel might also be used . axles 18 and 20 are also preferably made of a resilient plastic material so as to provide a biasing force to keep the brushes in contact with the teeth being cleaned and / or the gum tissue bing stimulated . alternatively , a spring , or other such device could be included to provide a biasing force on brushes 14 and 16 . the biasing force on brushes 14 and 16 , when present , should be sufficient to maintain contact between the brushes and the user &# 39 ; s teeth , but should not be so great so as to cause the brushes to be pressed into the tooth to the extent that rotation of the brush is unduly restricted . the brushes are preferably freely rotatable about the axle , and thus can rotate freely as the brush main head section is pulled or pushed along the line of the teeth . however , it might also be desirable to reduce or limit the rotation rate of the rotary brush , and therefore the rotary brush might be provided with a frictional force , for example , by providing drag on the axle , so as to reduce the rate of rotation . also , the rotary brushes could be fitted with a ratchet system whereby rotation of the brush was only allowed as the brush was moved in one direction , while being held in a fixed position when moved in the other direction . further , the rotary brushes could also be fitted with a locking system to hold them in place , for cleaning or replacement , or the like . those skilled in the art will be aware that brush head section 100 can be a variety of shapes and sizes . for example , the brush head section might be produced so as to essentially totally surround the brushes , and leaving only a channel into which the user &# 39 ; s teeth would fit . concurrently , or alternatively , a protective shield might be provided around the rotary brushes to avoid contact with , and possible irritation of , the cheek area or the tongue of the user . preferably , the brush head section is kept small so as to allow the brush head section to be easily moved within the mouth of the user . however , the toothbrush of the present invention could be produced in a vary of sizes so that the user can select the toothbrush size most appropriate for their own use . also , the resiliency of axles 18 and 20 , or such other biasing means as might be used , can assist in allowing some flexibility in the size of head section 100 . the axles of for the rotary brushes might also be provided by a structure wherein one bent , common axle is used for both rotary brushes , in an arrangement , for example , similar to the design of a staple . the common axle might also be used for support of the fixed brush . this embodiment is best seen in fig3 . in fig3 a tooth brush is shown having a handle section 312 with a brush head section 300 . brush head section 300 is attached to handle section 312 at one end of handle section 312 , and is primarily comprised of a common “ staple - shaped ” ( or u - shaped ) axle 310 to which brushes may be attached . common axle 310 provides a first axle 318 and a second axle 320 for support of brushes 314 and 316 . common axle 310 also acts as support for fixed brush 322 . common axle 310 is made of a resilient plastic material so as to provide a means for exerting a force to keep the bristles of brushes 314 and 316 in contact with the teeth , and / or gingival tissue of the user . typically , the axles for the rotary brushes of the toothbrush of the present invention are essentially parallel . however , in order to further aid in keeping the bristles of the rotary brushes in contact with the teeth and / or gingival tissue , the axles of the rotary brushes can be angled towards each other to provide a torsional effect which aids in keeping at least one part of each rotary brush in good contact with the teeth or gingival tissue . this may also assist in providing a good rotary motion , with minimal excessive contact with the teeth . typically , when using this approach , the axles of the brushes are preferably less than 10 degrees off of parallel with respect to one another , and more preferably , less than 5 degrees off parallel . in fig4 an alternative embodiment of the tooth brush of the present invention is shown . in this embodiment , a foreshortened handle section 412 is connected to brush head section 400 . brush head section 400 comprises a “ wish - bone ” shaped section having two substantially parallel arms 402 and 404 . at the end of each arm is an axle section 418 and 420 to each of which are attached one rotary brush ( either 414 and 416 ) in a manner to that described previously . arms 402 and 404 are made of a resilient plastic material which can exert a force to cause rotary brushes 414 and 416 to be kept in contact with the teeth . fixed brush 422 is comprised of two overlapping “ v - shaped ” sections 424 and 426 , each of which is fixed to one arm 402 or 404 only . by overlapping sections 424 and 426 , complete coverage of the biting surface of the tooth is provided . however , since brush sections 424 and 426 are not connected , arms 402 and 404 are free to flex in order to keep rotary brushes 414 and 416 in contact with the user &# 39 ; s teeth . fig5 provides a bottom view of brush head section providing additional details . the rotary brushes may be assembled by providing an essentially hollow tube into which tufts of bristles can be inserted . in an alternative embodiment , however , each rotary brush is assembled by stacking a series of brush disk sections on top of one another . each brush disk section can hold different bristle configurations so as to provide a rotary brush with different bristle lengths , tuft patterns , tuft angles , bristle siftnesses , cross - sectional profiles ( round , ovoid , etc .) and the like . in fig6 a brush disk section 60 is shown having a central core 63 made of a plastic material . bristle tuft sections 62 have been inserted into the central core 63 and radially protrude from the surface of core 63 . alternatively , the bristles could be molded in place as the disk section is formed . at the centre of core 63 is a hole 64 . in fig7 a rotary brush 70 is shown in cross - section which has been prepared by stacking a number of disk sections 60 as shown in fig6 on top of one another . for each disk section , hole 64 is in alignment so as to produce an axle - receiving hole extending through the length of brush 70 . by selection of a number of different disk sections , various combinations of bristle or bristle tuft 75 properties can be selected . also , disks 76 which do not contain any bristles might be used to provide spaces between the bristle - bearing disks . disks 60 are preferably ultrasonically welded together so as to provide a “ one - piece ” rotary brush 70 . in an additional embodiment , the rotary brush can contain one , or a plurality of preferably flexible interdental stimulation tips which can act to provide interdental stimulation in the gap formed between the teeth . the flexible tips are preferably made of a soft , resilient plastic or rubber material which allows , as the brush rotates , the flexible tip to slide along the gingival tissue and thus engage and / or enter the interdental space bounded by the surfaces between two teeth and the gingival tissue . this action provides stimulation of gingival tissue and also aids in removing any plaque or other material found within the interdental space . as the rotary brush is moved along the surfaces of the teeth , the tip will disengage from one interdental space and the brush will rotate so as to provide the same or a similar flexible tip which can enter and / or engage the next interdental space . the process is repeated in either the forward or backward direction as the brush head is moved in the fashion previously described . accordingly , a flexible tip can enter the interdental space from either the buccal or lingual surfaces . for example , the tip ( s ) from the lingually positioned rotary brush enters the lingual aspect of the interdental space ( s ), while the tip ( s ) of the buccally positioned rotary brush enters the buccal aspect of the interdental space ( s ). the tip is preferably generally cone - shaped and might be triangular ( in cross - section ), triangular with concave surfaces ( in cross - section ), triangular with blunted edges ( in cross - section ), or cylindrical . preferably all have tips , however , will taper essentially to a point . the rotary brush might be set so as to contain only flexible tips for interdental stimulation . alternatively , a disk 60 , as described in respect of fig7 might contain one or more flexible tips , such as , for example , 2 , 3 , 4 , 6 or 8 flexible tips per disk . this disk might then be combined with other disks which contain brush bristles . thus , it is apparent that there has been provided , in accordance with the present invention , a toothbrush which fully satisfies the means , objects , and advantages set forth hereinbefore . therefore , having described specific embodiments of the present invention , it will be understood that alternatives , modifications and variations thereof may be suggested to those skilled in the art , and that it is intended that the present specification embrace all such alternatives , modifications and variations as fall within the scope of the appended claims . additionally , for clarity and unless otherwise stated , the word “ comprise ” and variations of the word such as “ comprising ” and “ comprises ”, when used in the description and claims of the present specification , is not intended to exclude other additives , components , integers or steps . | 0 |
in fig1 is illustrated a portion of a lean - to type solar greenhouse of the kind generally shown in the 1982 theme catalog entitled four seasons passive solar greenhouse and sun space published and distributed by four seasons solar corp . of farmingdale , n . y . the illustrated portion of the solar greenhouse in fig1 includes a gable end 10 and a front portion 12 having a curved - eave portion 14 and an upper sloped portion 16 . further illustrated are base sills 18 and 20 which may , for example , be mounted on a base wall or flab slab or deck ( not shown ) with appropriate fasteners . the method of mounting the base sill on the supporting ground is not a feature of the present invention and requires no further description in this text . the gable end 10 includes a plurality of parallel vertical glazing bars such as indicated at 22 , 24 , and 26 . the bar 26 is in abutting relationship against the side of a dwelling or some other such similar construction . the front portion 12 includes a plurality of vertical glazing bars 28 , 30 , 32 , 34 and 36 . the glazing bar 36 furthermore provides a connection with gable end 10 . to conform with the shape of the glazing , which it is the purpose of the glazing bars to support , the glazing bar 28 has a curved section 38 and a sloped section 40 . it terminates in an end portion 42 . glazing bars 28 , 30 , 32 , 34 and 36 have similar curved and sloped portions . glazing panes as comprised by the gable end 10 are indicated in various forms at 44 , 46 , 48 , 50 , 52 , 54 and 56 . portions of the glazing are concealed by shade fabric as indicated at 58 , 60 and 62 . the dwelling or other structure against which the solar greenhouse is mounted is not shown as its construction is not essential to an understanding of the present invention . the glazing included in the front portion 12 includes glazing panes 70 , 72 , 74 and 76 . the remaining glazing in fig1 is concealed by shade fabric or shades 80 , 82 , 84 and 86 . the number of shades and panels in fig1 is illustrative only as a greater or lesser number of panels and glazing panes may be employed in accordance with the invention which is not limited thereby . at the upper end of the solar greenhouse construction , is located a ridge structure 90 . it engages the end portion of the glazing bars at the upper extremities thereof such as indicated at 42 to support and accommodate the same . the ridge structure 90 abuts at the back wall 92 against the dwelling other similar structure associated therewith as does the vertical glazing bar 26 of the gable end 10 . also appearing in fig1 is a representative sequence of rollers 94 , 96 , 98 and 100 . these rollers in the illustrated embodiment are source rollers of shade fabric which store and supply the rolled up shade fabric upon demand . further illustrated in fig1 is a guide roll arrangement 102 which guides the shades or shade fabric in a change of direction so that the edges of these shades or fabrics may be engaged in track channels provided in the vertical glazing bars as will be described in greater detail hereinbelow . it is to be noted in the diagrammatic illustration of source rollers 94 , 96 , 98 and 100 that interior motors 110 , 112 , 114 and 116 are shown . these motors are contained and concealed within the rollers and operate to drive the same . rollers with internal motors to drive the same are commercially available . they may be obtained from somfy systems , inc . of edison , n . j . the motors are of a asynchronous capacitor start and run , single phase type rated at 120 v . and 60 hz . they are thermally protected totally enclosed brushless type motors equipped with permanently lubricated bearings requiring no maintenance and being relatively easy to wire . they include solenoid activated disc brakes which automatically stop and hold a load in any position without slippage whenever current to the motor is interrupted . the locking action assures safety and reliability of operation of the motorized system . the system can be provided with a limit switch to set the exact length of travel in both up and down directions automatically . a planetary type gear system is employed to lower motor speed and improve torque . other details of the motor system can be found in u . s . pat . no . 3 , 718 , 215 . the upper motorized rollers cooperate with corresponding motorized rollers concealed in the base sill 18 . in the illustration , one motorized system is exposed by the cutaway such as , for example , seen at 120 . the arrangement is such that , when the rollers in the sill 18 are operated to draw shade fabric downwardly , the motorized roller systems indicated at 94 , 96 , 98 and 100 permit the withdrawing of shades therefrom . the electrical system and operation is reversed when the shade 80 , 82 , 84 and 86 are to be drawn upwardly . in this case , the motorized systems indicated at 94 , 96 . 98 and 100 are actuated and the concealed systems in the base sill 18 release the material for being rolled back upon the upper rollers to expose greater and greater amounts of the glazing as the operation continues . also illustrated in fig1 in diagrammatic form , is a photoelectric sensor 126 . this photoelectric sensor is coupled in an electric circuit ( not shown ) connected with the aforementioned motors in order to drive the same in one or the other rotary directions as may be required . the photoelectric sensor 126 is representative only of any device capable of sensing an ambient condition such as solar radiation , temperature , wind and the like for purposes of automating the operation of the rollers . it will be noted , however , that while the motorized roller systems are employed in accordance with the preferred embodiment of the invention , it is also possible that the shades be operated manually and also in connection with spring loaded rollers as is the case in connection with domestic shades as are commonly and commercially available . in fact , a manually operated shade arranged is indicated in association with end 10 . thus , there are no upper rollers associated with shades 58 , 60 and 62 , these being drawn from concealed rollers and base still 20 by a manual operation of grasping rigid leading edge members indicated by way of example at 130 , 132 and 134 . also exposed in the illustration of fig1 in diagrammatic form is a blower 140 . the purpose of this blower ( as will be illustrated and described in greater detail hereinbelow ) is to evacuate air from between the shade and the associated glazing and to expell this air into the ambient atmosphere via an appropriate vent in order to reduce the temperature which prevails between the shades and the glazing thereby to reduce the possibility of damage to the glazing . fig2 illustrates on an enlarged scale a broken - away portion of the structure illustrated in fig1 with conditions somewhat altered to show a more lowered condition of the shades . for purposes of orientation , it will be seen in fig2 that there are illustrated base sill 18 , vertical glazing bar 30 and shades 80 and 82 . the base sill 18 includes an inner wall 150 and a first outer wall 152 . the outer wall 152 supports a sloped upper wall 154 from which extends a vertical wall 156 . the walls 154 and 156 cooperate to define a moisture drain 158 . a bottom wall 160 extends between and connects the inner wall 150 with the outer wall 152 . drainage channels 162 and 164 are provided in horizontal disposition within the internal chamber 166 which is cooperatively defined by walls 150 , 152 , 154 and 160 . within the chamber 166 is accommodated the motorized roller system including the internal motor 170 and the encircling roller 172 . each of the shades illustrated includes a bulbous lateral edge portion for purposes of being accommodated in and guided by track channels to be referred to hereinbelow . illustrative bulbous lateral edge portions or peripheries are indicated at 176 and 178 in fig2 . these constructions are commercially available and are generally of the type including wires extending through the bulbous peripheries and axially extending out of the same . two such wires or cables are indicated at 180 and 182 in fig2 . they extend through and are guided by track channels 184 and 186 as will be described in greater detail hereinbelow . it is to be noted that , by reason of break - away portion 188 , it is possible to see that these cables are attached to would onto roller 172 such as indicated 190 and 192 . a winding up of these cables on the roller 172 causes the shades 80 and 82 to be drawn down towards the base sill 18 thereby to effect a greater degree of shading . this means that solar radiation passing through the glazing which is permeable thereto may be intercepted by the shades thereby to effect a greater or lesser degree of shielding as desired and as may be manually or automatically controlled . it will also be noted in fig2 that the shades 80 and 82 are provided with rigid lead members 196 and 198 . these members , at their extreme downward movement , come into abutting or substantially abutting relationship with cap elements 200 and 202 which are intended to cover drains such as indicated at 158 and to conceal the internal construction of the base sill 18 from viewing or from the damaging impact of dropped articles or the like . the caps 200 and 202 also constitute safety features inasmuch as they resist the penetration of probing fingers and the like which might otherwise be damaged by engagement with moving parts within the base sill 18 under inadvertent circumstances . the cap members 200 and 202 extend generally from the vertical wall 156 to the upper lip 204 of the front wall 150 . this is satisfactory in the case where the cables , such as indicated 180 and 182 , extend through the glazing bar to the internal roller 172 which in this case acts take - up roller . in these circumstances , there is no need for the lead members 196 and 198 to move into the internal chamber 166 nor is there any need for the shade 80 or 82 to do likewise . in the event that it is desired to alter the construction so that the shade 80 and 82 can be directly taken - up on the roller 172 in addition to the cables 180 and 182 which they trail , the construction can be readily modified to provide a slot through which the shade 80 and 82 may pass . thus , for example , the cap member 200 is provided with a notch 210 providing a break - away section 212 to expose a slot or passage 214 illustrative of a passageway through which the shades may enter the internal chamber 166 for engagement and being taken - up upon an associated roller . thus , the invention includes the options whereby it is exclusively the cables which are taken - up on the lowermost roller or rollers or whereby the shades themselves are taken - up upon such roller or rollers . fig2 furthermore illustrates a second outer wall 220 . this outer wall includes a protrusion 222 in facing relationship with a protrusion 224 on the outer wall 152 . these two protrusions are provided with facing grooves 226 and 228 which have reentrant angles therein so that a thermal break member 230 having the form of a maltese cross may be entrapped therein to prevent the flow of heat from the wall 152 to the wall 220 . the glazing is illustratively shown in the form of a double paned glass or plastic structure , the spaced panes being indicated at 240 and 242 with a spacing 244 therebetween to maintain this spacing , there is provided a spacer 246 . the pane 242 rests against the vertical wall 156 and the glazing as a whole is entrapped between the walls 156 and 220 by means of a gasket 250 of a theremally insulative type . the upper walls of protrusions 222 and 224 define a platform at 252 and 254 upon which rests a pad 256 upon which rest the glazing and the spacer 246 . further reference to the construction of the vertical glazing bar 30 will be made hereinbelow since the construction of this bar and other like bars in the strucutre constitute a significant feature of the invention , especially as regards the provision of the track channels 184 and 186 . before this discussion is undertaken , however , reference will next be made to fig3 and 4 which illustrate , in greater detail and / or diagrammatically , some of the features of the ridge structure 90 appearing in fig1 . for purposes of orientation , attention is drawn in fig3 and 4 to vertical glazing bar 30 , shades 80 and 82 , motorized roller system 94 , guide roll 102 and blower system 140 which have been mentioned hereinabove . a guide 121 is shown in diagrammatic form in fig3 and its details will be later explained . from what has been stated above , it will not be obvious that the glazing bars constitute supporting members or structures for the glazing . these supporting members are accommodated in and rest against the ridge structure 90 . they provide track channels for receiving and guiding the respective shades . the ridge member 90 is structurally and functionally related therewith in a manner next to be described below . ridge structure 90 includes a rear wall 300 consisting of upper and lower parts 302 and 304 . the upper and lower parts are connected through the intermediary of a thermal break member 306 which is made of insulative material accommodated in appropriate receptacles 308 and 310 respectively provided on the upper and lower parts 302 and 304 . the ridge structure 90 also include upper wall 312 and lower wall 314 . moreover , it includes a front wall indicated at 316 . cooperatively , these walls define an internal chamber 318 within which is accommodated the blower 140 . the front wall 316 is provided with a vent indicated generally at 320 . associated with this vent is a removable shutter 322 which may be employed , for example , during cold weather seasons to shut off the escape of air from within the solar greenhouse . the front wall 316 has an auxiliary portion 324 connected thereto through the intermediary of a thermal break member 326 . this auxiliary member 324 supports a receptacle 328 which is a glazing receptacle to accommodate and support appropriate glazing panels at the upper extremity of the front portion of the glazing of the solar greenhouse . an examplary panel is diagrammatically illustrated at 330 . it may consist of spaced panes 332 and 334 separated , for example , by a spacer 336 . the panel 330 is held in place by a gasket shown at 338 . a screen for preventing the influx of insects and the like is indicated at 340 . it is associated with the vent 320 . a second vent is indicated at 342 . cooperating therewith is a gravity operated flap 344 which likewise prevents the influx of foreign matter . the strength of the flow of air passing outwardly through the vent 342 is sufficient to open the flap 344 to the extent required . fig4 specifically illustrates the flow of air . flow through the vent 320 is indicated by arrows 350 and 352 . flow of air through vent 342 is indicated by arrow 354 . the circuitous route is indicated by dotted line path 356 . it will now be noted that the utilization of the glazing bar with its track channels 184 and 186 and the function of supporting the associated glazing defines a space between the shades and glazing . this space is indicated in fig4 at s . this spacing s is a minimum of about 11 / 2 inches . it is intended to assist in limiting the temperature which air entrapped between the glazing and shade may reach . this function is further accomplished by the utilization of the blower 140 which displaces or withdraws air from between the glazing and the shades and propels this air along the route 356 through the vent 320 and expels this air into ambient atmosphere through the vent 342 . the the ridge structure and its blower cooperate with the glazing bar and the shades in both a structurally supportative and temperature controlling manner . it will not be noted that the end portion 360 at the upper extremity of the glazing bar 30 has an extremity indicated at 362 which is angularly related both to the longitudinal axis of bar 30 and to the rear wall 304 of the ridge structure 90 . this is intended to provide a space 364 within which to accommodate at least a partial intrusion of the guide roll 102 . thus the guide roll 102 may be conveniently positioned to guide the shade 80 from the roller system 94 into the associated track channels . similarly , the bottom extremity of the glazing bar 30 as indicated at 366 in fig2 is angularly related to the walls between which it extends . the purpose of this angular construction is different from that at the upper extremity . it is intended to provide an appropriate relationship with the drain 158 thereby to permit a proper resting of the bottom extremity of bar 130 on the upper wall 154 and to permit an ease in installing the glazing bar 30 when the structure is being assembled . an examination of fig5 which is in part , a section of glazing bar 30 , will next be undertaken in conjunction with an understanding of fig2 , and 4 . in fig5 appears the track channels 184 and 186 . by reference to the other figures , it will be understood that these channels extend longitudinally through the glazing bar which is itself an extended member . associated with the channel 184 is a mouth 400 . associated with the track channel 180 is a mouth 402 . these mouths are of relatively restricted dimensions . they form and constitute slots extending longitudinally along the glazing bar 30 . the track channels 184 and 186 are in a preferred embodiment of the invention preferably of circular conformation . an example diameter of these track channels is indicated at d . the width of the associated mouths 400 and 402 is indicated by way of example at w . the arrangement is such , that the width w is preferably no more than 50 % of the dimension d . this , in effect , forms a reentrant angle indicated , by way of example , at a . the purpose of this is to form a track channel in which the bulbous periphery of the associated lateral edges of the corresponding shades are entrapped . this entrapment coupled with appropriate spacing of pairs of associated glazing bars enables the shades to be held in taut condition thereby avoiding sagging and the like . it also enables the bulbous portions to be vigorously guided along appropriate paths even as these paths turn through an angle associated with the curved eave portions of the overall construction . thus the use of associated guide rolls or the like in the vicinity of the curved eave portions is avoided . it will be noted that the glazing bar include two side walls 404 and 406 . these side walls extend between and connect inner wall 408 and outer wall 410 . the arrangement of the wall is such that the glazing bar is in its preferred form quadrilateral in cross - section thereby defining four corners indicated in the drawing at 412 , 414 , 416 and 418 . the track channels 184 and 186 are generally located at the corners 416 and 418 . they are furthermore formed by interior walls indicated at 420 , 422 , 424 and 426 . the walls 420 and 424 , which partly define channels 184 and 186 , have surfaces 428 and 430 which are flat . they also have surfaces 432 and 434 which conform to the shape of the channels . on the other hand , wall 422 has surfaces 436 and 438 both of which conform to the shape of the associated channel . wall 428 likewise has surfaces 440 and 442 which conform to the shape of the associated channel 186 . in the wall 408 is provided a screw threaded groove 450 . by means of this groove , attachments of various types may be provided by fastening members threadably engaged therein to provide for the connection or hanging of various types of auxiliary members or elements on the interior of the solar greenhouse . a corresponding grooved slot 452 is provided in wall 410 . this provides for the utilization of fastening member 454 to sandwich glazing panes , for example , 456 and 458 against the supporting structure by means of a muntin 460 or clamping member which is entrapped by the head 462 to sandwich the glazing against the sealing member 464 and 466 accommodated in sealing receptacles 468 and 470 mounted on the outer wall 410 and constituting an integral part thereof . it will be furthermore noted that the wall 410 is provided with drainage grooves 472 and 474 . the provision of these sealing receptacles and drainage has been heretofore available , but never in association with track channels and never for the partial purpose for extablishing a rigid spacing therebetween so as to provide a well defined spacing between a glazing and a associated shade arrangement as in accordance with the present invention . reference to fig2 will show the orientation of screw threaded grooves 450 and 452 as well as seals 464 and 466 accommodated in their respective receptacles . the illustration will also show the orientation of drainage grooves 472 and 474 . not heretofore mentioned with respect to fig2 is the chamber 480 defined between outer walls 152 and 220 . this provides an accommodation for the upper extremity of flashing 482 the purpose of which is to provide a weather seal as between the bottom of the base sill 18 and the exterior supporting ground or other such construction . reference to fig3 will likewise show the orientation of screw threaded grooves 450 and 452 as well as of sealing members 464 and 466 as well as drainage grooves 472 and 474 . from what has been stated above , it will be readily understood that the support arrangement of the invention , when utilized in connection with glazing or the like includes a plurality of spaced parallel glazing bars , each provided with two of the afore - described track channels . these track channels are arranged in cooperating pairs and in parallel and are such that respective shades extend between these channels with the bulbous peripheries of the shades being entrapped in slidable engagement therein . the guide arrangement provided in accordance with the invention will provide a plurality of guides intended to cooperate with the aforementioned glazing bars and track channels in a manner which will become hereinafter apparent . one guide is provided as a cap for each of the aforesaid glazing bars . each cap is intended to cooperate with the bulbous peripheries of two adjacent shades . furthermore , each guide is intended to engage in and mate with the cooperating glazing bar and to provide for appropriate orientation therewith , as well as for a change of direction of the bulbous peripheries of the respective shades as they exit from or enter into the track channel provided in the glazing bars . the details of such guide 121 is illustrated in detail in fig6 - 8 wherein it is seen that the guide is formed of a body 500 having lateral edges 502 and 504 and in which is provided a square opening 506 . mounted on the body 500 are a pair of tubular extensions 508 and 510 . these tubular extensions are provided with lateral longitudinally extending slits or slots 512 and 514 . they are arranged to be in a substantially common plane and to correspond with the mouths in the corresponding track channels of glazing bar 30 . thus , the bulbous peripheries of the two corresponding shades may be accommodated in the internal circular bores 516 and 518 of tubular extensions 508 and 510 whereas the planar portion of the corresponding shades may extend through the slots 512 and 514 . to augment the function of these slots , the body 500 is furthermore provided with laterally extending slots 520 and 522 , the mouths 524 and 526 of which are flared to accommodate minor distortions of the shades as they pass into the tubular extensions with the bulbous peripheries thereon . the bores 516 and 518 and tubular extensions 508 and 510 are provided with parallel axes of symmetry indicated at 530 and 522 . extending orthogonally therethrough are two axes 534 and 536 which constitute axes or planes of symmetry for two funnel shaped tracks 538 and 540 . these funnel shaped tracks ( which are spaced from lateral edges 502 and 504 ) are open troughs which are extensions of the bores 516 and 518 . they are at least one - quarter of a circle in extent and in the illustrated embodiment are substantially of an extent of about one half of a circle . the purpose of these guide tracks 538 and 540 is to guide the change of direction of the bulbous peripheries of the associated shades as they pass into or out of the bores 516 and 518 . for this purpose , the tracks 538 and 540 are substantially tangential to the tubular extensions 508 and 510 and the bores 516 and 518 thereof . the tracks 538 and 540 have respective outer walls 542 and 544 , as well as respective inner walls 546 and 548 . these walls slope symmetrically at an angle 550 relative to axis 534 or 536 which is preferably comprised within the range of 10 °- 45 °. the most functional of these walls are the walls 542 and 544 which walls are proximal to the corresponding walls on the next continguous guides ( not shown ) included in the guide arrangement and intended to function with respect to the same shades as are engaged in the illustrated guide 121 . as will be explained in greater detail hereinbelow , the outer or proximal walls 542 and 544 are intended to guide the bulbous peripheries into the bores 516 and 518 , while at the same time exerting a stretching force on the corresponding shades . this stretching force constitutes an anti - sage feature provided in accordance with the present invention . the guide tracks 538 and 540 have radii 543 and 545 which in the preferred embodiment are about 0 . 420 and 0 . 500 inches respectively . the guide tracks 538 and 540 are also of a gradually varying radius . the radius of the tubular extensions is indicated by way of example at 560 . the radius adjacent the end of the guide track , which is distal with respect to the corresponding tubular extension , is indicated at 562 . by way of example , the radius 560 , in a preferred embodiment of the invention , is 0 . 1375 inches , while the radius 562 is 1 . 250 inches . the radius 560 is equal to one half of the diameter of the bores 516 and 518 . the upper end of glazing bar 30 is indicated at 570 . this end is sloped relative to the longitudinal axis of the glazing bar and is equally sloped relative to the axis 530 . to nest against the end 570 the guide of the invention is provided with a sloped flage 572 . the end 570 and the flange 572 slope at an angle 574 relative to the axis 530 , this angle may be , for example , in the order of magnitude of 60 ° and is preferably within the range of 45 °- 75 °. nesting against the face 580 of glazing bar 30 is a flat or planar extension 582 which extends from the body 500 . extension 582 has a face 584 which is flat and in face - to - face engagement with the face 580 . the face 584 is spaced from the corresponding tubular extensions by a distance indicated at 586 . this distance is adequate to permit the tubular extensions and the flat extension 582 to straddle the wall 588 of the glazing bar thereby to clamp the guide in position with the flange 572 resting in nesting relationship against the end 570 . furthermore , the body is provided with a sloped section 590 which also rests against the sloped end 570 . extension 582 is provided with an opening 592 . the wall 588 of glazing rod 30 is provided with a portion 596 in which is provided a threaded opening 598 . the opening 592 and the opening 598 are provided in aligned relationship to accommodate a bolt or locking member 600 by means of which the guide may be locked in position atop the associated glazing bar . from the description given above , it will be seen that the guides 121 , the details of which are illustrated in fig6 - 8 , provides for a change in direction of the shade and its bulbous peripheries . such a change in direction is illustrated in general manner in fig3 and 4 . the guide is preferably a monolithic structure fabricated of a suitable plastic or of metal . the cooperation of a plurality of these guides is diagrammatically illustrated in fig9 wherein , for purposes of orientation , some primed reference numerals are employed to enable considering the following explanation in view of structure which has been previously described . thus , for example , in fig9 appear shades 80 &# 39 ; and 82 &# 39 ; as well as guides 121 &# 39 ;, 121 &# 34 ; and 121 &# 34 ;&# 39 ;. furthermore shown are take - up rollers 121 &# 39 ; and uppermost take - up roller 94 &# 39 ;. it will be noted , of course , that while one roller 94 &# 39 ; is illustrated in fig9 that a series of such rollers corresponding to the respective shades might be readily employed in substitution therefor . furthermore shown in fig9 are glazing bars 30 &# 39 ; provided with track channels or channel tracks 184 &# 39 ; and 186 &# 39 ;. the curved guide tracks are generally radially offset relative to the associated roller 94 &# 39 ;. proximal walls of the tracks are indicated at 542 &# 39 ; and 542 &# 34 ;. distal walls are indicated by way of example at 546 &# 39 ; and 546 &# 34 ;. thus , it will be seen that the proximal walls are cooperating walls of two adjacent guides whereas the distal walls 546 &# 39 ; and 546 &# 34 ; are arranged in this pair of guides . from the illustration in fig9 it will furthermore be noted that the bulbous peripheries bp &# 39 ; and bp &# 34 ; are engaged in the channel tracks 184 &# 39 ; and 186 &# 34 ; relative to shade 82 &# 39 ; whereas the bulbous peripheries of shade 80 &# 39 ;, which are indicated at bp &# 34 ;&# 39 ; and bp &# 34 ;&# 34 ;, are respectively accommodated in channel tracks 186 &# 39 ; and 184 &# 34 ;. when , for example , the shade 82 &# 39 ; is engaged on roller 94 &# 39 ;, its width may be , for example , as shown at w &# 39 ;. thereafter , its bulbous peripheries bp &# 39 ; and bp &# 34 ; pass along proximal walls 542 &# 39 ; and 542 &# 34 ; whereby the bulbous peripheries are fanned out for subsequent accommodation in the tubular extensions 508 or 510 and thereafter in track channels 184 &# 39 ; and 186 &# 34 ;. this will cause an increase in width of the shade from that indicated at w &# 39 ; to the width indicated at w &# 34 ;. this constitutes the leading feature of the anti - sag characteristic of the novel structure of the guide arrangement of the invention , which also simultaneously performs the function of providing a change in direction , as has been referred to hereinabove as being shown in fig3 and 4 . the cap or guard provided in accordance with the invention , is also well oriented with respect to the associated glazing bar . the tubular extensions operating in conjunction with the flat extension 582 provide a bracketing device which traverses one of the walls of the associated glazing bar to hold the guide firmly in position . this characteristic feature is further enhanced by the provision of the flange 572 and the sloped wall 590 . the smooth continuation or transition of the bulbous peripheries from within the glazing bar to the take - up roller and vice versa is well provided for by the insertion of the tubular extensions 508 and 510 into the associated channel tracks of the glazing bar 30 . an anchoring of the guide device is afforded by the utilization of locking device 600 which passes through opening 592 in extension 582 to be received and accommodated in threaded opening 598 . the lateral extension of the shades into the guide device is well provided for by openings 524 and 526 as well as by the lateral slots 512 and 514 provided in the tubular extensions . there will not be obvious to those skilled in the art many modificiations and variations of the structures set forth hereinabove . these modification and variations will not depart from the scope of the invention , if defined by the following claims . | 8 |
according to the embodiment shown in fig1 the optical selector 8000 comprises an optical input gate 10 , an optical output gate 20 , a cell recognition unit 30 and an optical decision unit 40 connected in a loop structure consisting of 5 optical connections 1 , 2 , 5 , 15 and 16 . preferably , the said optical connections 1 , 2 , 5 , 15 and 16 consist of conventional optical fibres or waveguides . typically , an optical gate is a device having an input and an output for an optical signal in transit and at least one input for at least one control signal capable of changing the normal state of the said gate . more particularly , the said at least one control signal closes a gate which is normally open , or vice versa . the optical input gates 10 and output gates 20 consist , for example , of conventional interferometers of the mach - zehnder type . as illustrated in fig3 each gate comprises a 1 × 2 input coupler 21 , a 2 × 1 output coupler 22 , a 2 × 1 coupler 27 for an optical control signal 100 , a first optical propagation path 24 and a second optical propagation path 25 , and a first optical amplifier 23 and a second optical amplifier 26 . the said optical amplifiers 23 and 26 are conventional optical amplifiers , for example of the fibre type doped with rare earths or of the semiconductor type . in the illustrated embodiment , they are of the semiconductor type . preferably , the said couplers 21 , 22 and 27 are conventional 50 / 50 ( 3 db ) directional couplers made from optical fibres or waveguides . alternatively , a conventional optical circulator ( not shown ) may be used in place of the said coupler 27 for the optical control signal 100 . the input coupler 21 divides an input optical signal into two signals having substantially the same intensity , which pass along the two paths 24 and 25 of the interferometer . each of the optical paths 24 and 25 preferably consists of an optical fibre or a waveguide . the first optical semiconductor amplifier 23 is connected in the first path 24 , while the second optical semiconductor amplifier 26 is connected in the second path 25 . the amplifiers 23 and 26 are conventional optical semiconductor amplifiers , each consisting , for example , of an active ingaasp waveguide surrounded by a shell of inp . by regulating the supply current of the said optical semiconductor amplifiers or by illuminating the active waveguide with a predetermined optical control signal , it is possible to vary the density of the charge carriers inside the said active waveguide and , consequently , its refractive index . the supply current of the optical semiconductor amplifiers of the optical gate 10 is regulated in such a way as to impart a phase delay of 0 ° or 360 ° ( 2π ) to the optical signals propagated in the optical paths 24 and 25 . in this way they interfere constructively in the output coupler 22 and the optical gate 10 is open ( allowing the passage of the optical signal ). on the other hand , the supply current of the optical semiconductor amplifiers of the optical gate 20 is regulated in such a way as to impart a phase delay of 180 ° ( π ) to the optical signals propagated in the optical paths 24 and 25 . in this way , they interfere destructively in the output coupler 22 , and the optical gate 20 is closed ( blocking the passage of the optical signals ). consequently , in normal operating conditions ( in the absence of a control signal ) the input gate 10 is in an open state , while the output gate 20 is in a closed state . on the other hand , in the presence of a control signal 100 ( supplied to the amplifier 26 by the said third coupler 27 ) having a suitable intensity and wavelength , the optical signals in the two optical paths 24 and 25 are phase shifted again and the state of the optical gate 10 thus changes from open to closed and that of the optical gate 20 changes from closed to open . additionally , the gain of the said optical semiconductor amplifiers 23 and 26 is regulated in such a way that , at the input of the said output coupler 22 , the optical signals originating from the two guided optical paths 24 and 25 have the same intensity . according to one embodiment , an optical filter ( not shown ) is connected at the output of the coupler 22 to filter the ase ( amplified spontaneous emission ) generated by the optical amplifiers 23 and 26 and to reduce the quantity of noise transmitted to the following stages . the said optical filter may be of the interference type such as a conventional reference filter , a mach - zehnder filter , an interference grating or a diffraction grating . alternatively , the said gates may be made by connecting a single optical semiconductor amplifier directly along the optical path of the input signal . according to this embodiment , the gate is closed by means of an optical control signal having a wavelength and intensity such that the optical amplifier is saturated , thus preventing a further optical signal at the input of the amplifier from being transmitted to its output . according to a preferred embodiment , the cell recognition unit 30 is a wholly optical device capable of recognizing the header of an atm cell at its input . the said device allows the atm cells of bits reaching its input from the optical fibre connection 1 to pass to the optical fibre connection 5 , and , when it recognizes that the header of an atm cell is present at its input , sends an optical control impulse 222 along the optical fibre connection 2 for the optical decision unit 40 . for example , european patent application no . 97201988 . 9 in the name of the applicant describes a wholly optical device ( not shown ) which generates an output optical impulse when it recognizes a predetermined sequence of bits ( the header of an atm cell ) at its input . the said device comprises a series - parallel converter for converting a series of n bits ( a cell ) into a corresponding spatial pattern of n bits carrying the same information ; optical means for generating , from the said spatial pattern of n bits , a first two - dimensional image consisting of n rows and m columns ; optical means for carrying out a logical and operation between the elements of the said first two - dimensional image and those of a predetermined second two - dimensional image , having n rows and m columns , and for generating in this way a third two - dimensional image having n rows and m columns ; means for carrying out a logical xor operation between the elements of each column of the said third two - dimensional image , and for generating in this way a second parallel pattern with m bits ; means for carrying out a logical or operation between the bits of the said second parallel pattern with m bits , and for generating in this way the said output optical impulse . according to the embodiment shown in fig2 the optical decision unit 40 comprises a first 1 × 2 coupler 41 , a second 1 × 2 coupler 42 and a third 1 × 2 coupler 43 , a first delay unit 44 , a second delay unit 45 and a third delay unit 46 , a first flip - flop 47 and a second flip - flop 48 , and suitable connections 3 , 4 , 6 , 7 , 8 , 9 . the input of the first coupler 41 forms the input 50 of the optical device 40 , the output of the flip - flop 48 forms its first output 51 and the output of the flip - flop 47 forms its second output 52 . each of the connections 3 , 4 , 6 , 7 , 8 , 9 is preferably made from a conventional optical fibre or waveguide . the couplers 41 - 43 are conventional couplers . preferably , they are 50 / 50 ( 3 db ) directional couplers . the delay units 44 and 45 are , typically , constant delay units , in which there is a fixed and non - modifiable time interval between the moment at which the signal appears at their input and that at which the same signal begins to be available at the output , while the unit 46 is preferably of the variable delay type , in other words one in which the said time interval is modifiable . the constant delay units 44 and 45 are made , for example , from a section of optical fibre having a length l = v * t , where t is the delay which is to be obtained and v ( v = c / n ) is the velocity c of light inside an optical fibre having a refractive index n . according to the embodiment shown in fig4 the variable delay unit 46 consists of a 1 × 2 input switch 461 , a 2 × 1 output switch 462 and a certain number of 2 × 2 switches , disposed in series between the two input and output switches 461 and 462 . the input switch 461 has one input and two outputs connected , respectively , to a predetermined optical fibre delay line and to a section of optical fibre of negligible length ( which introduces a negligible delay in an optical signal passing through it ). the i - th switch has two inputs , one for a predetermined optical fibre delay line and the other for a section of fibre of negligible length , and two outputs connected to a further predetermined delay line and to a further section of fibre of negligible length . finally , the output switch 462 has two inputs , for a predetermined delay line and a section of fibre of negligible length respectively , and one output . to enable m different delays to be provided , the unit 46 preferably consists of a number , equal to log 2 m , of switches connected in series , including the input switch 461 , in addition to the output switch 462 . additionally , the predetermined optical fibre delay line connected to the output of the i - th switch preferably has a length such that it causes a delay equal to t / 2 i ( 1 ≦ i ≦ log 2 m ) in the signal in transit . the switches in series are controlled by suitable control signals c 1 − c log2m which determine the path of the signal in transit along the delay lines and / or along the sections of fibre of negligible length and , consequently , the delay applied to this signal in transit . this is because the signal arriving at one of the two inputs of the switch is sent to one output rather than to another , according to the presence or absence of the control signal . typically , a switch is a device having at least one input , at least two outputs for a signal in transit and at least one input for at least one control signal . in the absence of the control signal , the input signal leaves the device through one of the said outputs , while in the presence of the control signal the signal is switched to another of the said outputs . the said switch may consist of a device having a conventional interferometric structure of the mach - zehnder type . fig8 shows , for example , the 1 × 2 input switch 461 . this comprises an input coupler 4610 , an output coupler 4620 , two guided optical paths 4630 and 4640 , and two outputs 11 and 12 . in turn , each of the two guided optical paths 4630 and 4640 , preferably consisting of optical fibres or waveguides , comprises a conventional optical amplifier 4650 and 4660 respectively and , for the amplifier 4660 , an electrical control signal 4600 . the said optical amplifiers 4650 and 4660 are , for example , of the type consisting of optical fibres doped with rare earths or of the semiconductor type . the couplers 4610 and 4620 are conventional couplers . preferably , they are directional 50 / 50 couplers consisting of optical fibres or waveguides ( 3 db ). according to one embodiment , the amplifiers 4650 and 4660 are conventional optical semiconductor amplifiers , each consisting of an active ingaasp waveguide surrounded by a shell of inp . by regulating the supply current of the said optical semiconductor amplifiers or by illuminating the active waveguide with a predetermined optical control signal , it is possible to vary the density of the charge carriers inside the said active waveguide and , consequently , its refractive index . for the construction of the switch 461 , the supply current of the said optical amplifiers 4650 and 4660 is regulated in such a way that the signals propagated in the two optical paths 4630 and 4640 interfere constructively in the output 11 and destructively in the output 12 . conversely , the electrical control signal 4600 is selected in such a way as to make the signals propagated in the two optical paths 4630 and 4640 interfere constructively in the output 12 and destructively in the output 11 . in this way , in the absence of an electrical control signal 4600 ( in normal operating conditions ), an optical signal at the input of the switch is switched to the output 11 while , in the presence of the electrical control signal 4600 , it is switched to the output 12 . additionally , the gain of the said optical semiconductor amplifiers 4650 and 4660 is regulated in such a way that at the input of the said output coupler 4620 the optical signals originating from the two guided optical paths 4630 and 4640 have the same intensity . alternatively , as seen previously in the case of the optical gates 10 and 20 , the control signal 4600 may be optical . according to a second embodiment , the variable delay unit 46 consists of a conventional tree structure such as that shown in fig5 a - 5 d . this structure comprises an input 4607 , a plurality of sections of optical fibre ( indicated as a whole by the number 4603 in fig5 ), each having a predetermined length , and an output 4608 . in fig5 a and 5 b , conventional beam splitters ( for example , 1 × 2 directional couplers in series , indicated as a whole by the number 4604 in fig5 a and 5 b ) repeatedly divide an input optical signal and transmit it in the various sections of optical fibre 4603 . the outputs of these sections of optical fibre 4603 are then coupled by suitable couplers ( for example , 2 × 1 couplers in series , indicated as a whole by the number 4605 in fig5 ) to return to a single optical fibre at the output 4608 . optical gates ( indicated as a whole by the number 4602 in fig5 a and 5 b ) are present at the outputs of the various sections of optical fibre 4603 , only the gate corresponding to the signal delayed by the desired quantity being open ( allowing the signal to pass ), while the others are closed ( blocking the passage of the signal ). the said optical gates 4602 consist , for example of conventional interferometers of the mach - zehnder type as illustrated in fig3 . alternatively , as shown in fig5 c and 5 d , in place of the said beam splitters 4604 it is possible to connect 1 × 2 switches ( indicated as a whole by the number 4606 in fig5 c and 5 d ) which from time to time direct the input signal , according to the delay which is to be imparted to it , into different sections of optical fibre 4603 . the said switches 4606 may be , for example , of the type described previously and shown in fig8 . according to a third embodiment , the variable delay unit 46 has a structure of the loop type , as shown in fig6 . in this type of structure , the input optical signal is delayed by making it circulate for a predetermined number of times in a loop . preferably , the said loop consists of an optical fibre having a predetermined length according to the delay which is to be obtained . the signal is then collected at the output by means of a 2 × 2 switch 4601 ( of the type shown in fig8 for example ) which has the function of inserting the signal into the said optical fibre loop and of extracting it at the output of the loop . typically , the optical flip - flops 47 and 48 are two - state devices which remain in one state or another until a signal causing the transition from one state to the other is applied to them . for example , there are conventional optical devices of the set - reset ( sr ) type with two inputs and one output , in which an optical set impulse at one of the two inputs sets the state of the output to 1 ( emission of an output optical signal ) and a reset optical impulse at the other input sets the state of the output to 0 ( absence of an output optical signal ). the output of the device remains in the state 1 until an optical reset impulse causing the transition from the state 1 to the state 0 is applied to one of the two inputs . in turn , the output remains in the state 0 until an optical set impulse causing the transition from the state 0 to the state 1 is applied to the other of the two inputs . for example , according to the embodiment shown in fig7 each of the optical flip - flops 47 and 48 consists of a loop - type optical fibre structure 474 in which a conventional 2 × 2 coupler 471 and an optical gate 473 are connected . the coupler 471 is preferably of the 50 / 50 directional type and the optical gate 473 is , for example , of one of the types described previously . additionally , each flip - flop has a first set input 475 for an input optical impulse ( set ), a second reset input 476 for an optical control impulse ( reset ) and an output 477 . following an optical set impulse at the input 475 and in the absence of the optical reset impulse , an output optical signal having substantially constant intensity is transmitted to the output 477 of the flip - flop . conversely , in the presence of the optical reset impulse , no optical signal is transmitted to the output 477 of the flip - flop . the optical set impulse is coupled to the structure 474 by means of the coupler 471 and the optical reset impulse is coupled by means of the control input 476 of the optical gate 473 . the coupler 471 divides the optical set impulse into two impulses having substantially the same intensity and transmits one of them into the loop structure 474 and the other to the output 477 . in the absence of the optical reset impulse , the optical gate 473 is open and allows the optical set impulse to pass in the loop structure 474 to the coupler 471 . every time the optical set impulse transmitted into the loop structure 474 returns to the coupler 471 , half of its intensity is again transmitted to the output and the other half into the loop structure 474 . preferably , the total length of the optical fibre loop structure 474 is selected in such a way that the optical set impulse which is made to circulate in it is subsequently transmitted to the output , at the tail of the preceding optical impulse transmitted to the output . in other words , the propagation time in the loop structure 474 is preferably equal to the duration of the optical set impulse . in this way , an optical signal having a duration equal to a multiple of the duration of the set impulse is transmitted to the output 477 of the flip - flop . additionally , the gain of the optical semiconductor amplifiers of the gate 473 is preferably selected in such a way as to compensate for the losses undergone by the optical set impulse during its propagation in the loop structure 474 and thus to ensure that the said output optical signal has a constant intensity . in the presence of the optical reset impulse , the optical gate 473 is closed and thus interrupts the propagation of the said optical set impulse in the loop structure 474 . preferably , the optical reset impulse has a duration equal to that of the optical set impulse . in this way , the optical gate 473 remains closed for a sufficiently long time to extinguish the optical set impulse in the loop structure 474 . consequently , while the optical reset impulse is absent , the optical set impulse is continually retransmitted to the output , in such a way that an optical signal of virtually constant intensity is present at the output of the flip - flop . following the arrival of the optical reset impulse , however , the transmission of the said optical signal to the output 477 of the flip - flop is blocked . at the output of the flip - flop , therefore , there is an output optical impulse which is temporally aligned with the arrival of the optical set impulse and has a duration equal to the difference between the time of arrival of the optical reset impulse and the preceding time of arrival of the optical set impulse . according to one embodiment , an optical filter ( not shown ) is connected in the loop structure 474 to filter the ase ( amplified spontaneous emission ) generated by the optical amplifiers present in the optical gate 473 and to reduce the quantity of noise accumulated along the said loop structure 474 . the said optical filter may be of the interference type such as a conventional reference filter , a mach - zehnder filter , an interference grating or a diffraction grating . according to another embodiment , the optical flip - flops 47 and 48 may be of the type described in patent application ep 97122771 in the name of the present applicant . for example , as shown in fig1 , they may be formed in free space where the light beams are propagated in a vacuum or in the atmosphere between optical elements such as filters , prisms and mirrors . according to the embodiment in fig1 , a flip - flop comprises a first optical beam splitter 200 having a first input for an optical set impulse 210 , a second input and an output , a second optical beam splitter 220 having an input coupled optically to the output of the first optical beam splitter 200 and two outputs , a third optical beam splitter 280 having a first input coupled optically to an output of the second optical beam splitter 220 and a first output coupled optically to the second input of the first optical beam splitter 200 in such a way as to form a loop . the said optical beam splitter 280 also comprises a second input for an optical reset impulse 230 and a second output coupled optically to an optical amplifier 260 included in the said loop . the said optical beam splitters are , for example , conventional partially reflecting mirrors or conventional prisms . a reflecting element 240 , such as a prism , a mirror or similar , optically couples the optical amplifier 260 to an output of the optical beam splitter 220 . the said optical amplifier 260 is a conventional optical amplifier , for example of the fibre type doped with rare earths or of the semiconductor type . preferably , an optical filter 300 is connected in the loop 22 to filter the ase ( amplified spontaneous emission ) generated by the optical amplifier 260 and to reduce the quantity of noise accumulated along the loop . the said optical filter 300 , as stated previously , may be of the interference type such as a conventional reference filter , a mach - zehnder filter , an interference grating or a diffraction grating . the operation of this embodiment of the flip - flop is entirely analogous to that of the preceding one . an optical set impulse 210 input into the first optical beam splitter 200 enters the loop . the second beam splitter 220 divides the said optical set impulse into an optical signal 140 which leaves the loop and into an optical feedback signal which is transmitted to the optical amplifier 260 . the optical feedback signal is amplified by the optical amplifier 260 and then retransmitted to the optical beam splitter 220 after two reflections by the optical beam splitters 280 and 200 . the optical beam splitter 220 divides the optical feedback signal into a first portion , which maintains the output optical signal 140 even after the termination of the optical set impulse 210 , and a second portion which is again transmitted along the loop . the output optical signal 140 is then interrupted by an optical reset impulse 230 which saturates the optical amplifier 260 and thus blocks the propagation of the optical feedback signal along the loop . preferably , in this case also the gain of the optical amplifier 260 is such that it compensates for the losses undergone by the optical feedback signal in the loop and the propagation time along the loop is equal to the duration of the set impulse 210 . in one embodiment , the wavelength of the optical reset impulse 230 is different from that of the optical set impulse 210 . the filter 300 can thus be selected in such a way as to allow the wavelength of the optical set impulse 210 to pass and to stop that of the optical reset impulse 230 , preventing the optical reset impulse 230 from being transmitted to the output . according to a further embodiment shown in fig1 , the loop shown in fig1 also comprises an optical gate 360 , an optical beam splitter 340 for supplying the optical reset impulse 230 to the optical gate 360 and a reflecting element 320 in place of the optical beam splitter 280 . the optical gate is , for example , of the same type as those described previously . the operating principle of this embodiment is entirely analogous to that of the preceding embodiment . with reference to an example of operation of the optical device 40 , an optical impulse 222 at the input of the coupler 41 is divided into two optical impulses 444 and 333 of approximately equal intensity . the optical impulse 333 is transmitted along the connection 3 towards the constant delay unit 45 which delays it by a length of time equal to a predetermined time interval t c . the optical impulse 333 , delayed by the unit 45 , is then divided into two further optical impulses 666 and 777 by the coupler 42 . the first impulse 666 is transmitted to the set input of the flip - flop 48 through the connection 6 , while the second impulse 777 is transmitted to the variable delay ( t ) unit 46 and then , through the connection 7 , to the reset input of the said flip - flop 48 . in this way , with a delay t c in the arrival of the control impulse 222 at the input of the optical device 40 , the optical impulse 666 ( the set impulse ) causes the emission of an optical signal , at substantially constant intensity , from the output of the flip - flop 48 . then , after a delay t with respect to t c , the optical impulse 777 ( the reset impulse ) blocks the transmission of the said optical signal to the output of the flip - flop 48 . in turn , the optical impulse 444 is transmitted along the connection 4 to the coupler 43 , which produces an optical impulse 888 which , through the connection 8 , arrives at the set input of the flip - flop 47 , and an optical impulse 999 which , through the connection 9 , arrives at the reset input of the said flip - flop 47 . the said optical impulses 888 and 999 are temporally phase - shifted with respect to each other by a time t c by the constant delay unit 44 . in this way with a negligible delay with respect to the interval of the said optical control impulse 222 at the input of the optical decision unit 40 the optical set impulse 888 causes the emission of an optical signal , at a substantially constant intensity , from the output of the flip - flop 47 . on the other hand , the optical impulse 999 ( the reset impulse ), with a delay t c after the arrival of the said control impulse 222 , blocks the transmission of the said optical signal to the output of the flip - flop 47 . consequently , the optical device 40 generates , as a result of the optical control impulse 222 at the input , two optical impulses , of which the one at the output 52 has a duration of t c and is aligned temporally with the arrival of the optical control impulse 222 at the input ; and the one at the output 51 has a duration of t and is delayed , with respect to the arrival of the optical control impulse 222 at the input , by a time equal to t c . the optical impulse from the output 51 of the optical device 40 forms the control signal for the input optical gate 10 , while the optical impulse from the output 52 of the optical device 40 forms the control signal for the output optical gate 20 . consequently , in the presence of an optical impulse arriving , through the optical fibre connection 16 , from the flip - flop 48 , the input optical gate 10 changes its state from open to closed and maintains it until throughout the duration ( t ) of the said optical impulse . in turn , in the presence of an optical impulse arriving , through the optical fibre connection 15 , from the flip - flop 47 , the output optical gate 20 changes its state from closed to open and maintains it throughout the duration ( t c ) of the said optical impulse . fig9 ( a )- 9 ( d ) represent schematically the operation of the optical selector 8000 according to the invention . an atm cell 1000 at the input of the selector 8000 , characterized by a predetermined frequency f of arrival ( cells per second ), is transmitted from the input gate 10 , which is normally in the open state , to the cell recognition device 30 , through the connection 1 . the cell recognition device 30 permits the passage of the cell 1000 along the connection 5 towards the output gate 20 and , when it recognizes that the header of an atm cell is present at its input , generates a first optical impulse 222 , temporally aligned with the header of the cell 1000 , and transmits it to the optical device 40 through the connection 2 [ fig9 ( a )]. at this point , 1 ) with a negligible delay with respect to the generation of the optical impulse 222 , the optical decision unit 40 generates a first optical signal at the output 52 which , through the connection 15 , arrives at the output gate 20 . the said first optical signal changes the state of the output gate 20 from closed to open and thus permits the passage of the cell 1000 from the output of the optical selector 8000 [ fig9 ( b )]; 2 ) with a delay t c , equal to the duration of the cell 1000 , with respect to the generation of the optical impulse 222 , the optical decision unit 40 p 2 generates a second optical signal at the output 51 which , through the connection 16 , arrives at the input gate 10 . the said second optical signal changes the state of the input gate 10 from open to closed and thus prevents other incoming cells from entering the optical selector 8000 after all the bits of the cell 1000 have passed through the optical gate 10 [ fig9 ( c )]; and 3 ) with a further delay t [ t =( 1 / pcr )− t c ] with respect to t c , the optical decision unit 40 again causes the opening of the input gate 10 ( interrupts the emission of the said second optical signal ). therefore , if a second cell 2000 arrives in the optical selector 8000 before a time interval t pcr = 1 / pcr = t c + t has elapsed after the arrival of the first cell 1000 ( has an arrival frequency f & gt ; pcr ), the input gate 10 , being still in the closed state , prevents it from entering the optical selector 8000 [ fig9 ( d )]. additionally , even if , when the input gate 10 changes its state from closed to open , some of the bits of the second cell 2000 are still at the input of the gate 10 , the said bits are not recognized by the cell recognition device 30 as the header of an atm cell and , therefore , the optical impulse 222 is not transmitted to the optical decision unit 40 . consequently the latter does not cause the output gate 20 to open and does not permit the said remaining part of the cell 2000 to pass to the output of the optical selector 8000 . in this way , even if incomplete cells of bits enter the optical selector 8000 , they cannot then emerge from it . incoming bits can , in normal conditions , enter the optical selector 8000 through the gate 10 ( which is in the open state ) and reach the gate 20 , passing through the cell recognition device 30 ; until the cell recognition device 30 recognizes the header of an atm cell , the initial state of the selector 8000 is maintained ( gate 10 open and gate 20 closed ), and the incoming bits are thus blocked at the output ( destructive interference in the output gate 20 ); on the other hand , when the cell recognition unit 30 recognizes the header of an atm cell , i . the cell recognition unit 30 transmits the optical impulse 222 along the connection 2 ; and the optical decision unit 40 ii . causes the output gate 20 to open immediately after the arrival of the optical impulse 222 ( to permit the output of the recognized atm cell ) and keeps it open for a time interval equal to t c ( to enable all the bits of the atm cell to pass through the gate 20 ); iii . causes the input gate 10 to close after a time t c ( to enable all the bits of the cell 1000 to pass through the gate 10 ) and keeps it closed for a time interval equal to t ( to prevent new incoming cells at the input of the optical selector 8000 , with f & gt ; pcr , from entering the optical selector ). for this reason , with respect to the arrival of the optical impulse 222 at the input 50 of the optical decision unit 40 , the reset impulse 999 is delayed by a fixed delay equal to the duration t c of the cell 1000 ; the set impulse 666 is delayed by a fixed delay equal to the duration t c of the cell 1000 ; the reset impulse 777 is delayed by a total delay equal to t pcr , and by a delay equal to t with respect to the set impulse 666 . since t [ t =( 1 / pcr − t c )], as seen previously , depends on the pcr negotiated between the source and the atm network , the value of this delay is preferably modifiable by means of the variable delay unit 46 . on the other hand , since the duration t c of an atm cell is fixed , the delays t c are typically obtained by means of the constant delay units 44 and 45 . the optical selector 8000 according to the invention can therefore be used to permit the passage to the output of only those atm cells which arrive at its input with a time interval , with respect to each other , greater than or equal to t pcr ( they arrive with a frequency f ≦ pcr ) and thus to provide a wholly optical checker for atm networks . the optical selector 8000 is also capable of eliminating , in the output gate 20 , the bits which enter from the input gate 10 but which are not subsequently recognized by the atm cell recognition unit 30 . | 7 |
referring now to the drawings wherein like reference numerals designate identical or corresponding parts throughout the several views , fig1 shows a preferred embodiment of the present invention for installing poles for pole buildings attached to a skid loader 10 . a frame 20 is shown welded to the skid loader 10 via a universal type attachment plate 11 . a mounting plate 30 is slideably attached to the frame 20 along a first axis 1 as can best be seen in fig2 , by brackets 13 , which extend around and are slideable on beam 12 . looking to fig2 and 3 , a first member 40 has a second axis 2 , shown best in fig1 , the first member 40 being operatively pivotally attached to the plate 30 for pivoting about a third 3 and a fourth axis 4 . a first hydraulic cylinder actuator 31 is operatively attached to the frame 20 , via beam 12 , and to the plate 30 for moving the plate 30 back and forth along the first axis 1 thereof using a first hydraulic valve 32 . the first member 40 is attached to the plate 30 by the universal joint 16 shown in detail in fig3 . tabs 17 are welded to plate 30 , tabs 18 welded to bracket 19 and pins 21 and 22 allow pivoting of the first member 40 about axes 3 and 4 , respectively . looking at fig1 and 2 , a second turnbuckle type actuator 41 is operatively attached to the mounting plate 30 and to the first member 40 for selectively pivoting the first member 40 about the third axis 3 . looking at fig1 again , a turnbuckle type third actuator 42 is operatively attached to the mounting plate 30 and to the first member 40 for selectively pivoting the first member 40 about the fourth axis 4 . as can best be seen in fig1 and 4 , a second member 50 is rigidly attached to the first member 40 and is moveable up or down along the second axis 2 via a sixth actuator 43 , which is a hydraulic cylinder , operatively attached to the first and second members 40 and 50 for selectively moving the second member 50 up or down along the second axis 2 with respect to the first member 40 and is controlled using a hydraulic valve 44 as shown in fig1 . a threaded nut 45 , welded to second member 50 , has the post part of hydraulic cylinder 43 threaded onto it . conveyor type bearings 52 , attached to member 50 , contact member 40 and reduce the friction of the member 50 as it slides up or down with respect to member 40 . a third member 60 , as best shown in fig1 , 4 and 6 , is telescopically disposed inside of the second member 50 for movement in a direction in or out along an axis 4 substantially perpendicular to the second axis 2 . a fourth actuator 51 , which is a hydraulic cylinder , is operatively attached to the second member 50 and to the third member 60 for selectively moving the third member 60 along the fourth axis 4 with respect to the second member 50 . a hydraulic valve 53 , as can be seen in fig1 , is used to control the hydraulic cylinder 51 . looking now to fig1 , 4 , 6 and 7 , a fourth member 70 is operatively pivotally attached to the third member 60 about a fifth axis 5 substantially parallel to the second axis 2 . fourth member 70 as seen in fig6 is considered to be the l - shaped member 70 a which is welded to the member identified as fourth member 70 in fig6 . of course the fourth member 70 could all be made of one piece or of more pieces than shown in the preferred embodiment shown in the drawings . a plate 63 is welded to one end of the third member 60 as can best be seen in fig4 . bearings 64 are attached to the plate 63 . a disc 65 , which can be like a disc brake on an automobile , is rigidly attached to a rod 66 , which rod 66 is , in turn welded to the fourth member 70 thereby allowing the fourth member 70 to pivot along axis 5 with respect to the third member 60 as can best be seen in fig7 . a locking mechanism 79 as seen in fig4 and 7 , include a plate 73 , welded to plate 63 and a plate 74 , bolted rigidly to the plate 73 with a spacer 75 disposed between the plates 73 and 74 so that the disc 65 can rotate between the plates 73 and 74 . a threaded nut 76 is welded to the plate 74 to receive threaded end 77 of a stop member 78 . when it is desired to hold the plate 65 and fourth member 70 in a desired position , the stop member 78 is rotated to tighten the threaded end 77 tightly against the disc 65 to frictionally hold the disc 65 and fourth member 70 from rotating with respect to third member 60 about axis 5 . a fifth actuator 71 , which is a hydraulic cylinder , is operatively attached to the fourth member 70 and to the second clamping device 90 for controlling selective movement of the second clamping device 90 with respect to the first clamping device 80 . the first clamping device 80 is rigidly attached to the fourth member 70 and a second clamping device 90 is operatively attached to the fourth member 70 via a hydraulic cylinder 71 for movement back and forth towards and away from clamping device 80 using a hydraulic valve 72 , which is shown in fig1 . in operation , a string line is constructed to define the outline of the building . then the places where the posts are to be inserted into the ground are marked . then the post holes are dug . the post 22 is typically first placed in a post hole 21 as shown in dashed lines in fig1 , which could be done manually or with mechanized equipment . then the skid loader with the invention attached thereto is driven towards the post 22 with the clamping devices 80 and 90 farther apart than the width of the post 22 , for example as shown in fig5 . when the clamping devices 80 and 90 are disposed on each side of the post 22 , the valve 72 is actuated to shorten the length of the hydraulic cylinder 71 , which will cause the clamping device to push the post against clamping device 80 and securely hold the post 22 . after the post 22 has been clamped as shown in fig1 , the valve 44 is used to lengthen the hydraulic cylinder 43 , which will raise the second member 50 and everything attached to it , including post 22 . with the post 22 slightly raised off of the bottom of the post hole 21 , the post is “ leveled ” in all directions until it is completely vertical and moved into position so it is aligned with and adjacent to the string line . it is not so important which of the leveling steps are done first , but here is one way it can be done . assuming that the post 22 is on a corner of the building to be constructed there will be two perpendicular string lines 23 and 24 shown in dashed lines in fig1 . the mechanism 61 shown in fig1 and 4 - 7 is utilized to make the sides of the post closest to the string lines 23 and 24 parallel to the string lines by loosening the handle 78 to allow the post 22 to pivot with respect to the string line about axis 5 . after the desired pivoting of the post 22 has been done , then the handle 78 is tightened so that the threaded rod 77 is in solid contact with the disc 65 , which will prevent further rotation about the axis 5 . at that time then valve 32 is used to actuate the hydraulic cylinder 31 to move the post 22 towards and wherein the closest side of the post 22 is in close alignment with , i . e . parallel with , the string line 23 . after that , the valve 53 is actuated to cause the hydraulic cylinder 51 to move the post 22 towards the string line 24 until the post 22 is close to and the closest side of the post 22 is aligned with , i . e . parallel with , the string line 24 . a next step is to put a post level 25 , as shown in fig1 , onto the post 22 . this post level 25 can be of the type shown in u . s . pat . nos . des . 332 , 058 and 5 , 207 , 004 , both to gruetzmacher , and both of which are incorporated herein by reference in their entirety . while viewing the post level 25 , turnbuckle 41 is adjusted to pivot the post 22 about axis 4 and turnbuckle 42 is adjusted to pivot the post 22 about axis 3 , until the post is completely vertical . then the valve 44 is actuated again to cause the hydraulic cylinder 43 to lower the post 22 until it is firmly back against the bottom of the post hole 21 . at that time the post 22 is accurately held in a vertical position . then the dirt is backfilled and tamped into the hole 21 around the post 22 . alternatively , concrete can be place in the hole 21 , or at least the bottom part of the hole 21 and more backfilling can occur to hold the post 22 in place until the concrete cures , while at the same time the post is held in the vertical position by the backfilling of the dirt . once the backfilling has occurred , the operator can move on to install the next post in the next post hole using the same or a similar procedure . a second preferred embodiment is shown in fig8 - 16 . the apparatus shown in fig8 has a post 122 lying on the ground . fig8 shows a skid loader 100 with hydraulic cylinders 210 and 212 which manipulate a plate 111 which has post 120 welded perpendicular thereto . a mounting plate 130 is reciprocally mounted to the post 120 . a brief operation of the apparatus is that in fig8 a post 122 lying on the ground can be clamped and then by shortening the hydraulic cylinders 210 and 212 from the fig8 position to the fig9 position , the post 122 can be moved to an upright position over a hole in the ground shown below the post 122 in fig9 . the mounting plate 130 can be seen in fig1 , 11 a and 11 b as being movable with respect to the beam 120 by using the hydraulic cylinder 131 which is pivotally attached at one end to a bracket 131 a and which bracket 131 a is welded to a beam 112 . the other end of the hydraulic cylinder 131 is pivotally attached to a bracket 130 a which is welded to the mounting plate 130 so that when the hydraulic cylinder is lengthened , for example as shown in fig1 , the mounting plate 130 will move to the right and when hydraulic cylinder 131 is shortened , the mounting plate 130 will move to the left as viewed in fig1 . looking at fig1 a and 11 b the beam 120 is shown having a hole in it with hydraulic cylinder 131 extending through it . the mounting plate 130 is mounted in a reciprocal fashion by brackets 140 b as shown in fig9 and 10 . these brackets 140 b are welded to post 120 as can best be seen in fig1 a and 11 b . a vertical post or first member 140 is mounted to pivot about a universal joint 140 u which is bolted to the mounting plate 130 . in fig1 it can be seen that turnbuckle 141 pivots the post adjustably along axis 4 and turnbuckle 142 will pivot the post along axis 3 as shown in fig1 . looking at fig1 , turnbuckle 41 pivots post or first member 140 about the axis 4 as can be seen by the arrows at the top of fig1 . turning to fig1 , it can be seen by referring to the dashed lines that turning the turnbuckle 142 one direction or the other pivots the post or first member 140 about axis 3 . looking to fig1 , a post grasping and moving apparatus 200 is grasping and moving the post 122 vertically up or down . the post 122 is mounted to the vertical post or first member 140 by a beam or second member 160 having a hydraulic cylinder 151 attached at one end thereto , the hydraulic cylinder 151 being shown in fig1 as being attached to a bracket 165 . inside of the beam or second member 160 is a telescoping internal beam or third member 160 a which allows the bracket 165 shown in fig1 to move to the right or left depending on whether the hydraulic cylinder 151 is lengthened or shortened . looking at fig9 , it can be seen that if the hydraulic cylinder 151 is extended , the post 122 and post grasping apparatus 200 will be moved to the left . still looking at fig9 if the hydraulic cylinder 151 is shortened by using one of the levers on hydraulic control 132 , the post 122 and post grasping apparatus 200 will move to the right . looking to fig1 , the post grasping apparatus 200 will move to the right when the hydraulic cylinder 151 is lengthened and to the left when the hydraulic cylinder 151 is shortened . looking to fig1 , it can be seen that the hydraulic cylinder 151 and the beam or second member 160 extend through an opening 140 a in the upstanding post or first member 140 . the beam or second member 160 is actually welded to the post or first member 140 at the bottom of the opening 140 a as shown in fig1 . referring to fig1 , member 166 is rigidly attached to telescoping member or third member 160 a , which can also be seen in fig1 . turning again to fig1 , bearings 106 have shaft 105 disposed therein so that the receiver hitch 107 can be pivoted about the pin 105 using hydraulic cylinder 161 shown in fig1 . the post grasping and moving device 200 , looking at fig1 , is attached to the receiver hitch 107 , similar to the way that a ball hitch would be attached to the rear of a pickup truck with a receiver , and has a pin 108 which can be placed through openings in receiver hitch 107 and through receiver 109 , to which yoke 152 is rigidly attached . if it is desired to pivot the entire post grasping apparatus 200 about the pin 105 , then the hydraulic cylinder 161 as shown in fig1 will be either lengthened or shortened to cause such pivoting about the axis 5 shown in fig9 . the post grasping apparatus 200 can be seen in fig9 , 10 , 15 and 16 and has a first side or first clamping device 180 which is rigidly attached to a post 170 . the other side or second clamping device 190 of the post grasping apparatus 200 is attached rigidly to a member 191 that slides in slot 171 of beam 170 as shown in fig1 . referring again to fig1 it can be seen that a hydraulic cylinder 171 a is attached solidly through a pivot pin to beam 170 on the left and is attached to the member 191 on the right side so that as the hydraulic cylinder 171 a is lengthened to the dashed - lined position shown in fig1 , the second clamping device 190 of the grasping device 200 will be moved in that direction as well and of course when the hydraulic cylinder 171 a is shortened it will move to the solid line position shown in fig1 . this of course allows the post 122 to be solidly pinched and held between rollers 182 and 192 and rollers 183 and 193 , respectively , as shown in fig1 . the rollers or wheels 182 and 183 of part 180 of grasping device 200 are rotatable about pins 184 a and 183 a respectively and are rigidly attached to sprockets 184 and 185 . another sprocket 186 is rotatably attached to the housing or first clamping device 180 and a chain 187 is disposed around sprockets 184 , 185 and 186 as shown in fig1 . referring to fig1 , it will be seen that a hydraulic reversible motor 181 is shown , which will rotate the sprocket 186 in one direction when hydraulic fluid is run through it in one direction or will rotate the sprocket 186 in an opposite direction when the flow through the hydraulic motor 181 is reversed . referring again to fig1 , wheels 192 and 193 are rotatably attached via bearings or shafts 194 and 195 respectively , and these rollers 192 and 193 are not powered but are just idler rollers , though making them powered if synchronized with the opposite direction movement of rollers 182 and 183 would be acceptable as well . in operation , referring again to fig8 , an operator using skid loader 100 would have the apparatus attached thereto and would have lengthened the hydraulic cylinders 210 and 212 that are on the skid loader 100 so that the plate 111 is in the horizontal position shown . this will of course cause the mounting plate 130 to be in a vertical orientation and most importantly this ultimately results in the post grasping apparatus 200 be in the position shown in fig8 so that it can be moved around the post 122 . once the post grabbing parts , i . e . first clamping plate device 180 and second clamping device 190 of post grabbing device 200 are to each side of the post 122 , then the hydraulic cylinder 171 a is shortened as can be seen in fig1 until the wheels 182 , 192 , 183 and 193 solidly grasp the post , for example as shown in fig1 , wherein the post 122 will be pinched between rollers 182 and 192 and also pinched between rollers 183 and 193 . at that time , the operator would shorten the hydraulic cylinders 210 and 212 of the skid loader 100 in fig8 to move the entire apparatus to the position shown in fig9 which will move the post 122 to a vertical position . the skid loader 100 can then be driven to a position so that the post 122 is approximately above a post hole below it to which it is to be inserted . if the top or bottom of the post 122 is not totally vertical , the turnbuckles 141 and 142 can be manually adjusted as explained above . if the post 122 is too close or too far from the skid loader 100 compared to the hole , the hydraulic cylinder 151 can be either lengthened or shortened to position the post above the hole . if it is desired to pivot the post 122 so that one of the flat sides of the post 122 will be in a certain desired orientation for a pole building , then the hydraulic cylinder 161 , as shown in fig1 , can be lengthened or shortened to pivot around vertical axis 5 shown in fig9 as explained above . after this has all been done and the post 122 is in the exact position above the post hole desired , for example in the fig9 position , hydraulic motor 181 is activated so that the wheels 182 and 183 move in a clockwise direction shown in fig1 , which will cause the post 122 to be moved downwardly because accordingly idler wheels 192 and 193 will rotate in a counterclockwise direction to hold the post 122 and essentially move in an opposite rotational direction , but in unison with wheels 182 and 183 . if for any reason it is desired to pull the post 122 out of the hole or move it up for any reason , then the flow of hydraulic fluid in 181 is reversed in order to cause the wheels 182 and 183 to move in a counterclockwise direction as shown in fig1 which will of course , due to the friction of the post between the wheels 182 and 183 cause wheels 192 and 193 to turn in a clockwise direction at a similar speed as the post moves upwardly . referring again to fig1 , the button 213 is the button to control the hydraulic motor 181 for the up position . the button 214 is to control the hydraulic motor 181 for the down position . the button 215 is to control unclamping of the wheels and button 216 clamps the wheels 182 , 183 , 192 , 193 against the post 122 via hydraulic cylinder 171 a . these buttons 213 - 216 operate electric over hydraulic valves 217 a and 217 b as those shown with hoses going there from in fig1 . being more specific , the unit 217 activates electric over hydraulic valves 217 a and 217 b which controls the whole head of the post grasping and moving apparatus 200 as explained previously by using the motor and buttons 213 and 214 to turn the hydraulic motor 181 in one direction or the other to move the post up or down or buttons 215 and 216 to control clamping of the wheels by moving the hydraulic cylinder 171 a in or out as shown in fig1 in solid and dashed lines . obviously many modifications and variations of the present invention are possible in light of the above teachings . for example it is possible to use make vertical adjustments to a clamped post using the loader end of a skid loader or making vertical adjustments using a three point hitch on a tractor , but usually some tilting occurs when lifting of the post is done this way . but raising or lowering the post this way is considered to be within the scope of this invention . it is therefore to be understood that , within the scope of the appended claims , the invention may be practiced otherwise than as specifically described . | 1 |
an explanation will now be provided of a color image communication system of the present invention with reference to fig1 . fig1 shows an example of the configuration of hardware for realizing the present invention . in normal color image communication , a color image is transmitted from a color scanner i at the transmitting side to a color printer 2 at the receiving side via a communication network or the like . at that time , the following processing is performed within the color scanner 1 . that is , the image to be transmitted is read by an image input unit 3 comprising a ccd ( charge - coupled device ) line sensor or the like , and digital color signals r , g and b for each picture element are obtained , the signals r , g and b are primary - color component signals for red , green and blue , respectively . the color signals r , g and b are converted into color signals y , cr and cb ( y is a luminance signal . cr and cb are color signals ) suitable for color image compression by a color conversion unit 4 . this conversion is a linear transformation expressed by the following expression ( 1 ): ## equ1 ## a switch 9 is provided in an operation unit ( not shown ), and switches between a transmission mode ( normal mode ) for actually transmitting the image and a color correction value calculation mode ( calibration mode ) for calculating parameters of color correction performed in a color correction unit 6 ( to be described later ). a state set by the switch 9 is transmitted to a selector 5 . in the above - described communication operation , the switch 9 is set to the transmission mode . the selector 5 detects the state of the switch 9 , and the color signals y , cr and cb are transmitted to the color correction unit 6 . the color correction unit 6 corrects color characteristics peculiar to the color scanner 1 , such as characteristics of the ccd sensor of the image input unit 3 , conversion characteristics of the color conversion unit 4 and the like , and converts the color signals y , cr and cb into standard color signals y 1 , cr 1 and cb 1 . a color correction matrix m1 is preset by a color correction value calculation unit 10 , and matrix calculation expressed by the following expression ( 2 ) is performed : ## equ2 ## fig3 shows an example of the configuration of hardware illustrating the detail of the color correction unit 6 . the matrix m1 set by the color correction value calculation unit 10 is preserved in a rewritable memory 61 ( for example , a ram ). the color signals y , cr and cb for each picture element of the transmitted image are multiplied by the first , second and third columns of the color correction matrix m1 by multipliers 62 , 63 and 64 , respectively . the matrix calculation expressed by expression ( 2 ) is realized by adding respective multiplied items by adders 65 , 66 and 67 . thus , the color signals y , cf and cb are converted into the standard color signals y 1 , cr 1 and cb 1 , respectively . the standard color signals y 1 , cr 1 and cb 1 are converted into compressed color signals y 1 &# 39 ; cr 1 &# 39 ; and cb 1 &# 39 ; by an image compression unit 7 , respectively . the image compression unit 7 compresses the image using an adct ( adaptive discrete cosine transform ) method which is an encoding method for a color still - picture image . according to the adct method , the respective standard color signals y 1 , cr 1 and cb 1 are converted for every 8 × 8 picture - element block by a two - dimensional discrete cosine transform ( dct ). the compressed color signals y 1 &# 39 ;, cr 1 &# 39 ; and cb 1 &# 39 ; are obtained by performing scalar quantization of conversion coefficients of the discrete cosine transform using a predetermined quantization table , and encoding coefficients quantized by variable - length codes ( huffman codes ). the compressed color signals y 1 &# 39 ;, cr 1 &# 39 ; and cb 1 &# 39 ; are transmitted to a communication control unit 8 , which transmits the signals via the communication network such as a digital communication network , integrated services digital network ( isdn ) or the like in accordance with a communication protocol . an explanation has been provided of the flow of color signal processing within the color scanner 1 at the transmitting side in color image communication . next , an explanation will be provided of processing within the color printer 2 at the receiving side in color image communication the compressed color signals y 1 &# 39 ; cr 1 &# 39 ; and cb 1 &# 39 ; received by a communication control unit 12 via the digital communication net , work are transmitted to an image expansion unit 13 . the image expansion unit 13 expands the encoded compressed color signals y 1 &# 39 ;, cr 1 &# 39 ; and cb 1 &# 39 ; into standard color signals y 3 , cr 3 and cb 3 using the adct method . the method of expansion comprises a procedure reverse to the above - described procedure of compression . that is , the received huffman codes are decoded , decoded coefficients are subjected to inverse quantization using the same quantization table used in the quantization , and the obtained coefficients are subjected to inverse dct transform . according to the above - described procedure , the standard color signals y 3 , cr 3 and cb 3 are obtained . a switch 18 is provided in an operation unit ( not shown ) of the apparatus at the receiving side , and switches between a reception mode for receiving the image and a color correction value calculation mode for calculating parameters for color correction in a color correction unit 15 ( to be described later ). the state of the switch 18 is transmitted to a selector 14 . in the case of the reception mode , the selector 14 transmits the standard color signals y 3 , cr 3 and cb 3 from the image expansion unit 13 to the color correction unit 15 . the color correction unit 15 converts standard color signals y 5 , cr 5 and cb 5 into color signals y 6 , cr 6 and cb 6 containing characteristics of the color printer 2 in consideration of color characteristics peculiar to the color printer 2 . such characteristics include conversion characteristics of a color conversion unit 16 , output characteristics of an image output unit 17 , and the like . this conversion is performed by matrix calculation expressed by the following expression ( 3 ) using a matrix m2 preset by a color correction value calculation unit 20 : ## equ3 ## since this calculation is a 3 × 3 matrix calculation , the calculation can be realized by the same configuration of the hardware as that shown in fig3 . subsequently , the color signals y 6 , cr 6 and cb 6 are converted into color signals c ( cyan ), m ( magenta ), ye ( yellow ) and bk ( black ) suitable for printing by the color conversion unit 16 , and the received image is output from the image output unit 17 . the color conversion unit 16 comprises a table configured by a ram ( random access memory ), a rom ( read - only memory ), a gate array or the like for directly outputting c , m , ye and bk signals for the input y 6 , cr 6 and cb 6 signals . however , the c , m and ye signals may be first generated , and subsequently the bk signal may be extracted by performing ucr ( undercolor removal ). the image output unit 17 comprises a printer for performing a hard copying operation , such as a laser - beam printer , a thermal transfer printer , an ink - jet printer or the like . the ink - jet printers include a so - called bubble - jet printer which uses a head for discharging liquid drops by utilizing film boiling by thermal energy . the color conversion unit 16 may , for example , convert color signals into r , g and b signals of the ntsc system to perform display monitoring on a display unit . processing at the transmitting side and the receiving side and the flow of color signals in color image communication have been explained . next , an explanation will be provided of a method of calculating color correction values which do not depend on the particular type of apparatus . the method of calculating color correction values of the color scanner 1 at the transmitting side is as follows . that is , the color correction values correspond to the 3 × 3 matrix m1 shown in expression ( 2 ), and function so as to convert the color signals y , cr and cb containing characteristics peculiar to the scanner into the standard color signals y 1 , cr 1 and cb 1 representing original colors of the image to be transmitted . in order to obtain the color correction values , a color patch having n colors shown in fig2 is used . an explanation will now be provided of a standard color image , in this case a color patch , used in calculating color correction values of the present invention with reference to fig2 . fig2 shows an example of the color patch . the color patch is a scale of colors , wherein a large number of representable colors are printed by combining four - color inks , i . e ., cyan , magenta , yellow and black , with various ratios of the amounts of the inks . by measuring these colors in the color patch in advance by a colorimeter , color data ( y 2 , cr 2 , cb 2 ) for each of n colors are obtained . the color data ( y 2 , cr 2 , cb 2 ) for respective n colors are preserved in a look - up table 11 in order to use them in calculating color correction values . a color patch having known color data may be used in the present processing . the color patch is read by the image input unit 3 , and obtained color signals r , g and b are converted into color signals y , cr and cb by the color conversion unit 4 using expression ( 1 ). in this case , the state of the switch 9 is set to the color correction value calculation mode . the selector 5 transmits the color signals y , cr and cb to the color correction value calculation unit 10 in accordance with the state of the switch 9 . the color correction value calculation unit 10 reads original color data y 2 , cr 2 and cb 2 of a color read by the image input unit 3 and converted into color signals y , cr and cb from the look - up table 11 , and performs calculation expressed by the following expression ( 4 ): ## equ4 ## values b 11 - b 33 used to minimize the e1 are calculated for n colors . that is , the calculation is performed according to the so - called method of least squares so as to minimize errors from the squares of the color signals y , cr and cb input from the image input unit 3 and the standard color data y 2 , cr 2 and cb 2 . the obtained matrix m1 is set in the memory 61 of the color correction unit 6 . the color correction values differ in accordance with how colors in the color patch are selected . for general use , a color patch wherein colors are uniformly distributed over the entire color space may be selected . if it is desired to perform color reproduction particularly for a specific color with high accuracy , a patch of colors close to the specific color may be principally read . for example , if accuracy is needed for reddish colors , a warm - color - type color patch may be used , as shown in fig4 ( a ). if accuracy is needed for bluish colors , cold - color - type color patch may be used , as shown in fig4 ( b ). the method of calculating color correction values of the color printer 2 at the receiving side is as follows . the color correction values correspond to the 3 × 3 matrix m2 shown in expression ( 3 , and functions so as to convert the standard color signals y 5 , cr 5 and cb 5 representing original colors of the image into the color signals y 6 , cr 6 and cb 6 matched to characteristics of the printer . first , the switch 18 is set to the color correction value calculation mode by an operation unit ( not shown ). the selector 14 reads standard color signals y 4 , cr 4 and cb 4 from a look - up table 19 . values y 4 , cr 4 and cb 4 for n colors corresponding to a color patch wherein colors are uniformly distributed in the color space comprising y , cr and cb signals are preset in the look - up table 19 . the read standard color signals y 4 , cr 4 and cb 4 are subjected to no processing by the color correction unit 15 due to the state ( the color correction value calculation model of the switch 18 , are converted into color signals c , m and ye by the color conversion unit 16 , and are output as a color patch from the image output unit 17 . the color patch output from the color printer 2 is subjected to a colorimetry process by a colorimeter , whereby color data x , y and z for n colors recommended by the cie ( commission internationale de l &# 39 ; eclairage ) are obtained . the x , y and z values are input to a color conversion unit 21 , and color signals y 7 , cr 7 and cb 7 are obtained . this conversion is obtained by a linear transformation expressed by the following expression ( 5 ): ## equ5 ## the color signals y 7 , cr 7 and cb 7 are the results of outputs which can be obtained by color reproducing characteristics of the color printer 2 . that is , when the standard color signals y 4 , cr 4 and cb 4 are provided , a color patch having the values of the color signals y 7 , cr 7 and cb 7 is output . hence , if it is desired to output a color patch corresponding to the values of the color signals y 7 , cr 7 and cb 7 , the values of the color signals y 4 , cr 4 and cb 4 may be input to the printer 2 . that is , the color correction value calculation unit 20 is a unit for calculating the matrix m2 for converting standard color signals so as to represent the desired color . more specifically , values c 11 - c 33 are calculated for n colors so as to minimize the value e2 expressed by the following expression ( 6 ): ## equ6 ## the obtained matrix m2 is set in the color correction unit 15 . color correction values differ in accordance with how colors are set in the look - up table 19 , as in the case of the color scanner 1 . as explained above , according to the present embodiment , by providing a color correction value calculation unit , and a memory for storing color data of a color patch to be used in calculating color correction values both in a color scanner and a color printer or both in a scanner unit and a printer unit of an apparatus incorporating these units , each of the color scanner and the color printer can independently perform color correction without depending on the kind of the apparatus at the communication partner . hence , the present embodiment has the effects that it is possible to obtain a received output image accurately reproducing a transmitted original image , and that color reproducibility is guaranteed even if the kind of communication apparatus changes . particularly in the present embodiment , since image communication is performed using a digital network , such as the isdn or the like , error correction is performed in the network , whereby reliability of digital data is secured . hence , it is effective to standardize image signals by determining color correction parameters by a feedback system at the transmitting side , as in the present embodiment . an explanation will now be provided of a second embodiment of the present invention with reference to fig5 . in the above - described embodiment , an explanation has been provided about a case wherein characteristics of an image data processing unit before an image is compressed are corrected , and about a case wherein characteristics of the image data processing unit after the image has been expanded are corrected . in the present embodiment , however , it is also possible to perform color correction in consideration of a change in color characteristics in image compression / expansion . an explanation will now be specifically provided . in fig5 like components having the same functions as those shown in fig1 are indicated by like numerals , and an explanation thereof will be omitted . when the transmission mode is set by the switch 9 , r , g and b signals input from the image input unit 3 are converted into y , cr and cb signals by the color conversion unit 4 , are then corrected into y 1 , cr 1 and cb 1 signals in accordance with predetermined color correction parameters by the color correction unit 6 , and are subjected to compression encoding into y 1 &# 39 ;, cr 1 &# 39 ; and cb 1 &# 39 ; signals by the image compression unit 7 . in this mode , the communication control unit 8 is selected by a selector 201 and the y 1 &# 39 ;, cr 1 7 and cb 1 7 signals are transmitted . when the color correction value calculation mode is set by the switch 9 , a color patch is input from the image input unit 3 , and the same processing as described above is performed for obtained signals until the selector 201 . subsequently , the selector 201 selects an image expansion unit 202 , which expands the signals into y 1 &# 34 ;, cr 1 &# 34 ; and cb 1 &# 34 ; signals , which are input to the color correction value calculation unit 10 . in this mode , input signals are not subjected to processing by the color correction unit 6 , and are therefore output without modification . the color correction value calculation unit 10 performs the same calculation as in the first embodiment so as to minimize errors from the squares of y 2 , cr 2 and cb 2 signals stored in the look - up table and the y 1 &# 34 ;, cr 1 &# 34 ; and cb 1 &# 34 ; signals , and outputs the correction matrix m1 to the color correction unit 6 . subsequently , color correction is performed according to the correction matrix m1 . also at the receiving side , color correction in consideration of deterioration due to image expansion is performed as described below . in the case of reception , the same processing as in the first embodiment is performed . when the color correction value calculation mode is set by the switch 18 , signals y 4 , cr 4 and cb 4 of a color patch , serving as a standard image , output from the look - up table 19 are compressed by an image compression unit 203 , are selected by a selector 204 , are expanded by the image expansion unit 13 , and are transmitted to a selector 205 as y 3 , cr 3 and cb 3 signals . in this mode , both the color correction unit 15 and the color correction value calculation unit 20 are selected by the selector 205 . the signals are not subjected to processing by the color correction unit 15 , are then converted into c , m , ye and bk signals by the color conversion unit 16 . a color patch is then output from the image output unit 17 . the output color patch is subjected to colorimetry by a colorimeter , and the color correction matrix m2 is calculated according to the same procedure as in the first embodiment . as described above , according to the present embodiment , color correction can be performed in consideration of deterioration in an image due to compression / expansion . already - compressed data may be stored in the look - up table 19 as the standard signals at the receiving side . in such a case , the image compression unit 203 becomes unnecessary . hence , the configuration of circuitry is simplified . an explanation will now be provided of a third embodiment of the present invention with reference to fig6 . in the present embodiment , the portion for performing color correction calculation in the first embodiment has a detachable configuration so as to be separated from the transmitter and the receiver . that is , at the transmitting side , the look - up table 11 for outputting standard color signals y 2 , cr 2 and cb 2 and the color correction value calculation unit 10 are independently provided as a color correction value calculation device 301 , which communicates data via an i / o port 302 of the main body of the transmitter . when a standard patch is input are input , y , cr and cb signals are provided to the calculation device 301 . the correction matrix m1 is obtained by performing a calculation in the same manner as described above is output to the side of the main body . a microcomputer may , for example , be used for such a color correction value calculation device , and may be operated in accordance with a program for realizing the above - described method of calculation . at the receiving side , the look - up table 19 , the color correction value calculation unit 20 and the color conversion unit 21 are independently provided as a color correction value calculation device 303 , which communicates data via an i / o port 304 . the calculation devices 301 and 303 may be realized by a common computer by switching software . according to the present embodiment , it becomes unnecessary to provide dedicated circuitry for calculating color correction values in the transmitting side and the receiving side , and therefore the configuration of circuitry is simplified . particularly when the above - described color correction value calculation may be performed when an apparatus is shipped from a factory , it is possible to omit components for the above - described calculation device , and therefore to reduce the production cost . when an apparatus is adjusted by a serviceman , the calculation devices 301 and 302 may be realized by a portable microcomputer . alternatively , as shown in fig7 read values of y , cr and cb signals may be displayed on a display unit 305 provided in an operation unit ( not shown ), and the values may be input using a key input unit 307 of the calculation device 301 . in such a case , numerical values as the result of calculation are displayed on a display unit 308 , and the values are input using a ten - key input unit 306 provided in the operation unit . also at the receiving side , a ten - key input unit 309 may be provided , and a numerical - value display unit 310 may be provided in the calculation device 303 . as described above , by displaying and inputting numerical values manually by the operator , it becomes unnecessary to provide dedicated i / o ports , and therefore the configuration of circuitry is simplified . in the above - described embodiments , when color correction values of the color printer 2 are calculated , a color patch is first output and is subjected to colorimetry by a colorimeter . x , y and z values are then input to the color conversion unit 21 . however , when color image communication is performed by a color scanner and a color printer , or an apparatus incorporating a color scanner and a color printer , if the matrix m1 of the color scanner unit is already obtained , colorimetry by a colorimeter becomes unnecessary if an output color patch is read by the color scanner unit and output signals y 1 , cr 1 and cb 1 of the color correction unit 6 are used as input signals to the color correction value calculation unit 20 . in fig8 an image communication apparatus 401 incorporates a reader and a printer . in the present embodiment , the color correction matrix m1 of the transmitting unit ( input side ) is first determined by the above - described method . at that time , the switch 18 selects terminals a of a selector 402 . after an image standardized by the color correction unit 6 can be output , the color correction matrix m2 of the receiving side ( output side ) is determined . at that time , the switch 18 selects terminals b of the selector 402 . the switch 18 is linked with the selector 14 , and the apparatus assumes the color correction value calculation mode . the present embodiment differs from the above - described embodiments in that the color patch image output from the image output unit 17 is read by the image input unit 3 , but the method of calculation is the same as in the above - described embodiments . according to the present embodiment , the color conversion unit 21 shown in fig1 and a colorimeter becomes unnecessary , and it becomes possible to perform calculation of color correction values only by the system of the apparatus . fig9 is a diagram illustrating a fifth embodiment of the present invention . in fig9 an image communication apparatus 501 incorporates a reader and a printer as the apparatus shown in fig8 . in the present embodiment , errors due to compression / expansion of an image are also considered in determining parameters for color correction . an explanation will now be provided of the method of calculating color correction values in the present embodiment . first , a standard color image is input from the image input unit 3 , and is subjected to color conversion by the color conversion unit 4 . the color correction unit 6 passes image data without modification according to an instruction from a cpu ( central processing unit , not shown ). terminals a of a selector 505 are selected according to an instruction from the cpu , and the image data are transmitted to the image compression unit 7 . terminals b of a selector 502 are selected , and the data compressed by the image compression unit 7 are transmitted to the image expansion unit 13 . sides b of a selector 503 are selected , and the image data expanded by the image expansion unit 13 are input to a color correction value calculation unit 506 . standard image data y 2 , cr 2 and cb 2 are input from a look - up table 507 to a color correction value calculation unit 506 via terminals a of a selector 504 . the color correction value calculation unit 506 performs the same calculation of correction values as in the fourth embodiment , and the correction matrix m1 is set in the color correction unit 6 . subsequently , standard image data y 4 , cr 4 and cb 4 are output from the look - up table 507 , and are compressed by the image compression unit 7 via terminals b of the selector 504 . the compressed data are transmitted to the image expansion unit 13 via terminals b of the selector 502 , and expanded data are input to the color correction unit 15 via terminals a of the selector 503 . the data passes through the color correction unit 15 without modification in accordance with an instruction from the cpu , are subjected to color conversion by the color conversion unit 16 , and are output as a visual image on a recording medium by the image output unit 17 . the formed image is read by the image input unit 3 , is subjected to color conversion by the color conversion unit 4 , and is subjected to color correction in accordance with the color correction matrix m1 by the color correction unit 6 . terminals b of the selector 505 are selected , and color - corrected data y 7 , cr 7 and cb 7 are input to the color correction value calculation unit 506 . the standard image data y . sub . 4 , cr 4 and cb 4 are input to the color correction value calculation unit 506 via terminals a of the selector 504 . the color correction matrix m2 is calculated in the same manner as in the fourth embodiment , and is set in the color correction unit 15 . terminals a are selected for all the selectors 502 , 503 and 505 . as described above , according to the present embodiment , since the compression unit and the expansion unit can be shared in calibration , the configuration of circuitry is simplified . the look - up table and the color correction value calculation unit can also be shared . furthermore , a colorimeter may not be used . although , in the foregoing embodiments , obtained color signals are converted into color signals y , cr and cb suitable for color image compression by the color conversion unit 4 , the color signals are not limited to y , cr and cb signals . for example , y , u and v signals ( more suitable for linear transformation than r , g and b signals ) may be used , or other color values , such as y , i and q signals , l *, a * and b * signals , or the like , may also be used . while 3 × 3 primary matrix calculation as shown in expressions ( 2 ) and ( 3 ) is performed in the color correction unit 6 and 15 , respectively , the method of calculation is not limited thereto , but matrix calculation including secondary terms ( nonlinear color correction calculation ) may be performed in accordance with the capacity of the memory , calculation speed , conversion accuracy or the like . while the adct method is used for performing compression encoding and expansion decoding of an image in the image compression unit 7 and the image expansion unit 13 , the method to be used is not limited thereto , but any other method , such as dpcm ( differential pulse code modulation ), vector quantization or the like , may also be used . furthermore , the image input unit is not limited to a scanner which uses a ccd sensor , but a host computer , a vcr ( video cassette recorder ), a still - picture video camera or the like may also be used . as described above , according to the present invention , color reproducibility in color image communication can be improved . while the present invention has been described with respect to what are presently considered to be the preferred embodiments , it is to be understood that the invention is not limited to the disclosed embodiments . the present invention is intended to cover various modifications and equivalent arrangements included within the spirit and scope of the appended claims . | 7 |
fig1 shows a block diagram of the preferred embodiment of the present invention . the high - power factor switching - type battery charger supply consists of a conventional pulse width modulation circuit 16 which operates in conjunction with several novel circuits . the circuit is designed to operate from a standard 120 v 60 - cycle ac input . the 120 v input signal is connected to a full wave rectifier circuit 10 and a transformer 32 . the full wave rectifier circuit 10 provides power for the switching transistor output device 14 , and the transformer 32 provides stepped down voltage to generate the sinusoidal voltage reference and power to the remainder of the devices used in this circuit . the output of the full wave bridge circuit 10 is connected to a capacitor 11 , an inductor 12 and a capacitor 13 which provide filtering to the output of the full wave bridge circuit 10 which prevents radio frequency signals generated by the switching circuit from entering the ac source line . the filtered output of the full wave bridge circuit 10 is then connected to the collector of a switching transistor 14 . the base of transistor 14 is controlled by the pulse width modulation circuit 16 which will be discussed in more detail later . the pulse width modulated output of transistor 14 is then connected to a resistor 15 and an inductor 18 . inductor 18 acts as an energy storage device which provides a continuous charging current flow to the battery 20 during the &# 34 ; off &# 34 ; cycles of transistor 14 . resistor 15 provides a means of generating a signal related to output current flow for controlling a feedback amplifier 21 responsive to the level of the output charging current . a freewheeling diode 17 is connected between the negative terminal of battery 20 and the junction of resistor 15 and inductor 18 . the diode 17 provides protection from inductive impulses created by the overall switching circuit and the load . resistor 15 is connected to an amplifier 21 as illustrated which amplifier generates a voltage related to the current level at the output of the charging supply . the output of amplifier 21 is connected to an input of amplifiers 24 and 23 , as shown . amplifier 24 has a second input which is connected to a variable resistor 31 which provides a rectified sinusoidal voltage reference for the amplifier 24 . the transformer 32 has an output terminal connected to a diode 33 . the transformer 32 has a center tap on the output side which is connected to chassis ground . the transformer 32 also has another output terminal connected to a diode 36 . transformer 32 is designed to convert the 120 v input waveform to a 12 v level . diodes 33 and 36 provide a full wave rectified sinusoidal waveform which is then applied to a photosensitive resistor 28 . the photosensitive resistor 28 is then applied through variable resistor 31 to chassis ground . the output of amplifier 21 is also connected to an input of amplifier 23 . a second input of amplifier 23 is connected to a variable resistor 22 . resistor 22 is connected to a circuit 19 which generates a reference voltage related to battery cell voltage and temperature , and this will be discussed in more detail later . the output of amplifier 23 is connected to a resistor 29 and capacitor 30 . the capacitor 30 and resistor 29 form a low pass filter which removes high frequency information from the output of amplifier 23 and have the effect of slowing the response time of this feedback loop . resistor 29 and capacitor 30 are connected to a light emitting diode 27 which has its remote terminal connected to ground . the photosensitive resistor 28 is responsive to the output of the light emitting diode 27 and has the effect of controlling the amplitude of the positive - going sinusoidal voltage reference developed across resistor 31 . the light emitting diode 27 and resistor 28 comprise a device known as an opto - isolator 26 ( shown in dotted line ) and may be of the type vph101 available from vactrol . the pulse width modulation circuit 16 creates a variable pulse - width signal which is responsive to the voltage output of amplifier 24 . a rising voltage at the output of the amplifier 24 has effect of increasing the pulse width at the base of transistor 14 . in operation , the transistor 14 is switched on or off by the pulse - width modulation circuit 16 . the pulse - width modulation circuit 16 generates a pulse width in response to the constantly changing ac voltage reference , as well as the current demands of the load . the operating frequency of the pulse - width modulation circuit is approximately 10 khz and is many times the frequency of the ac input to the circuit . therefore , at the beginning of the ac cycle , the pulse - width modulation circuit 16 will generate a relatively long duty cycle , and as the ac voltage increases , the duty cycle is shortened . this characteristic has the effect of keeping the current and voltage at the input to the circuit nearly in phase . as the ac input voltage to the circuit rises , more current is available to the switching transistor and , therefore , less &# 34 ; on &# 34 ; time is required by the switching transistor to keep the power to the load constant . the rectified sinusoidal voltage reference is responsive to the amount of current being delivered by charging circuit to the load . as the battery voltage increases , the current to the light emitting diode 27 is decreased , and the decreased light output causes the resistance of the photosensitive resistor 28 to increase which , in turn , lowers the amplitude of the voltage reference across resistance 31 . the lower amplitude of this voltage reference results in a shorter &# 34 ; on &# 34 ; time for the switching transistor 14 , thereby reducing the power delivered to the load . fig2 is a graph depicting the relationship between one - half cycle of the 120 volt ac input waveform and the output of the pulse - width modulation circuit 16 . this graph demonstrates a possible waveform which would be generated if the switching - type charging circuit 16 was configured to charge a 48 volt battery . during the initial phase of the ac input waveform , the input voltage of the charging circuit 16 starts at ov and begins to rise . the switching transistor 14 remains on until the input voltage reaches approximately 48 v and then switches off for a short time . the transistor then switches on and off with the &# 34 ; on &# 34 ; time of the transistor becoming shorter until the ac waveform reaches its maximum voltage . as the ac voltage begins decreasing , the &# 34 ; on &# 34 ; time of the transistor 14 becomes increasingly long until the ac voltage again reaches 48 volts . the switching transistor 14 will then remain on until the ac voltage again rises above 48 volts . the pulse - width modulation circuit 16 operates at approximately 10 khz , and this provides a minimum &# 34 ; on &# 34 ; or &# 34 ; off &# 34 ; time of approximately 10 microseconds . the actual combination of &# 34 ; on &# 34 ; or &# 34 ; off &# 34 ; cycles will depend on the output current of the charging circuit and the temperature of the battery . fluctuations in the peak voltage of the ac input line will also be compensated by the pulse - width modulation circuit 16 . fig3 shows an electrical schematic of the high - power factor switching - type charging circuit supply . in addition to the components previously described in fig1 the low voltage power supply , the pulse - width modulation circuit 16 and the dc voltage reference circuit 19 are shown in greater detail . the low voltage power supply comprises a diode 34 which is connected to diodes 33 and 36 . the second terminal of diode 34 is connected to a terminal a and to a capacitor 38 . the second terminal of capacitor 38 is connected to chassis ground . terminal a provides a positive voltage of approximately 10 volts and is used to provide the positive voltage to the various amplifiers and circuits used in the dual feedback loop system . some of these circuits also require a negative voltage which is provided by a diode 37 and capacitor 39 . the negative voltage is developed at terminal b which is then connected to the amplifiers which require a negative voltage . the pulse - width modulation circuit 16 comprises a ramp generator formed by unijunction transistors 41 and 42 , a comparator 43 and a drive circuit formed by transistors 46 , 47 , 50 and 51 . in operation , the capacitor 40 begins to charge at a constant rate with a current supplied by the current source formed by the unijunction transistor 41 and resistor 60 . the capacitor voltage rises linearly until the capacitor voltage reaches the turn - on threshold of unijunction transistor 42 . when transistor 42 switches to a conducting state , current flows through the base of transistor 42 until capacitor 40 is completely discharged . the cycle then repeats continuously , thereby creating a ramp or saw - tooth waveform . the output of the ramp generator circuit is then connected to comparator 43 . the comparator is a standard operational amplifier circuit which operates without feedback . the capacitor 44 provides compensation for the operational amplifier circuit . the amplifier 24 is connected to a second input terminal of comparator 43 . the comparator 43 will have an output which is either high or lower depending on the relative output voltage of the ramp generator and the output voltage of amplifier 24 . the output signal created by comparator will then be a square wave of variable duty cycle responsive to the sinusoidal voltage reference and the output current requirement of the charging circuit . the output of comparator 43 is then coupled to transistors 46 and 47 through a resistor 45 . the emitters of transistors 46 and 47 are coupled to the bases of transistors 50 and 51 through resistor 48 . the emitters of transistors 50 and 51 are coupled to the switching transistor 14 through resistor 52 . the transistors 46 , 47 , 50 and 51 are of the general switching class of transistors and are designed to increase the output current of comparator 43 to a level required by switching transistor 14 . the terminals a and b provide power to the comparator and the associated output transistors . the comparator 43 can be of the type lm318 available from several manufacturers and the output transistors can be of the general class of switching transistors . the amplifier 23 generates a signal which is related to the output current of the regulator , as well as the temperature and voltage of the battery under charge . the amplifier 23 is connected to the output of amplifier 21 which is a signal related to the output current of the charging circuit . the amplifier 23 also has an input connected to a variable resistor 22 which in turn is connected to a dc voltage reference circuit 19 . the dc voltage reference circuit 19 generates a reference voltage which is related to the battery voltage and temperature . the battery under charge is coupled to a temperature sensitive resistor 55 which is in physical contact with the battery . the battery is also connected to a resistor 64 . the temperature sensitive resistor 55 is coupled to a resistor 56 which in turn is coupled to a resistor 57 . the second terminal of resistor 57 is coupled to the negative terminal of the battery 20 . the resistors 55 , 56 and 57 comprise a resistive divider network and provide a reduced voltage which is compatible with the input of amplifier 62 . the junction of resistors 56 and 57 provide an input to amplifier 62 . this junction is also connected to a resistor 63 . the resistor 63 is also connected to the output of amplifier 62 which provides a feedback path to control the gain of amplifier 62 . the second input terminal of amplifier 62 is connected to a resistor 58 and a zener diode 60 . the resistor 58 also has a terminal connected to the low voltage power supply a . resistor 58 and diode 60 provide a fixed voltage reference for amplifier 62 . the amplifier 62 is connected to a zener diode 65 and a resistor 64 . the zener diode also has a connection to the negative terminal of the battery 20 . these components provide a power source for amplifier 62 which is independent of the actual battery voltage . the output of amplifier 62 is coupled to a resistor 66 . the resistor 66 is then coupled to an opto - isolator 69 . the opto - isolator 69 is identical to opto - isolator 26 . the output of amplifier 62 controls the intensity of light - emitting diode 67 which in turn controls the resistance of the photo - sensitive resistor 68 . the photo - sensitive resistor is coupled to the positive low voltage power source a . the opto - isolator is required to isolate the operating potential of the dc voltage reference circuit from the lower operating potential of amplifier 23 . thus the charging voltage of battery 20 is converted to a level compatible with the voltage regulator loop . through this loop , the temperature and voltage of battery 20 control the amplitude of the sinusoidal voltage reference , which in turn , scales the output current of the charging circuit . the foregoing embodiment has been intended as an illustration of the principles of the present invention . accordingly , other modifications , uses and embodiments will be apparent to one skilled in the art without departing from the spirit and scope of the principles of the present invention . | 8 |
fig1 illustrates a service tee 10 typical of the type of service tee on which the invention is designed to operate . the service tee 10 comprises a hollow steel body 12 for connection to a steel gas main 2 , having a threaded interior wall 12a engaging a solid perforator 14 and a service outlet 16 projecting from the body 12 for connection to the service line 4 , which may be a plastic or steel pipe . an example of such a service tee is the autoperf ( trademark ) service tee manufactured by mueller co . in the united states . the service tee 10 is installed by welding a fixed end 10a of the service tee 10 to the main 2 so that the body 12 is generally perpendicular to the main 2 , and connecting the service line 4 to the service outlet 16 . the perforator 14 has a threaded exterior surface 14a complimentary to the threaded interior wall 12a of the body 12 , and a cutting tip 14b for piercing the main 2 . the perforator 14 is threaded into the body 12 through an opening 18 at the free end 10b of the service tee 10 , and rotated clockwise within the body 12 by a ratchet wrench having a hexagonal bit ( not shown ) engaging a hexagonal socket 15 in the top of the perforator 14 . the perforator thus recedes into the body 12 until the cutting tip 14b pierces the wall of the main 2 , removing a small disc - shaped section of the main wall ( the &# 34 ; coupon &# 34 ;) and leaving a hole 3 . the perforator 14 is then rotated in the other direction and retracted to the free end 10b of the body 12 , as shown in fig1 to admit gas through the body 12 and into the service outlet 16 , at the same time partially plugging the free end 10b to resist the escape of gas during the connection procedure . a steel cap 20 is screwed over the free end 10b of the tee body 12 to permanently seal the service tee 10 . fig2 and 3 illustrate a tool 30 according to the invention . the tool 30 comprises a head 40 affixed to a tubular shaft 80 which in the preferred embodiment also serves as a handle for the tool 30 . the head 40 is inserted into the excavation and engaged about the free end 10b of the service tee 10 to plug the service connection as described in detail below , and thus prepare the service tee 10 for removal by a suitable cutting tool . the head 40 comprises a housing 42 having a working face 44 preferably formed integrally with a side wall 46 and bolted to a housing plate 48 with an o - ring 50 therebetween to create a gas - tight chamber within the head 40 . the working face 44 is provided with an opening 52 in generally concentric alignment with the shaft 80 , having a tee adapter 54 with a threaded opening 56 complimentary to the threading 10c about the open end 10b of the service tee 10 , for engaging the head 40 to the free end 10b of the service tee 10 . the tee adapter 54 preferably has a frustoconical entrance 58 surrounding the opening 56 , which serves as a locator to guide the free end 10b of the service tee 10 into the opening 46 as the tool 30 is lowered to be engaged to the service tee 10 . in the preferred embodiment the tee adapter 54 is bolted to the housing 42 and can be removed and replaced with a tee adapter 54 having a different pitch or size of threading , or a different sized opening 56 , to accommodate service tees 10 of varying dimensions . it will be appreciated that the tool 30 could be adapted for a specific type or size of service tee 10 , in which case the tee adapter 44 could be welded or otherwise permanently affixed to , or formed integrally with , the housing 32 . contained within the head 40 is an adapter plate 60 , shown in fig7 which is mounted on the shaft 62 of a pneumatic motor 64 bolted to the housing plate 48 . the free end of the shaft 62 is rotatably lodged in a bearing 63 for stability . the adapter plate 60 is thus pivotable within the housing 42 upon actuation of the motor 64 , so that in each working position of the adapter plate 60 one of three openings 66 , 68 , 70 comes into alignment with the opening 56 in the tee adapter 54 ( and thus into alignment with the shaft 80 of the tool 30 ), depending upon the position set by the operator . preferably a guide pin 72 extends through a slot 74 in the adapter plate 60 to restrict the range of motion of the adapter plate 60 , providing a stopping point at each of the outer working positions . it is advantageous bias the adapter plate 60 to the central position so that it will automatically return to this position when the motor 64 is disengaged , since the motor 64 itself does not have any means for locking into the three working positions of the adaptor plate . the motor 64 thus has three possible positions : the clockwise and counterclockwise limits , as determined by the ends of the slot 74 , and the center position when the motor 64 is inactivate . in the embodiment shown the adaptor plate 60 is biased to the center position by a pair of spring biased plates 61 , but this can be accomplished by any conventional means . the adapter plate 60 is thus moved to the appropriate working position to perform each step in the method of plugging the service connection : 1 ) removing the perforator 14 ; 2 ) milling a seat for the sealing plug 180 ; and 3 ) inserting the sealing plug 180 . to each opening 66 , 68 , 70 is respectively affixed an adapter 110 , 150 or 170 , described in detail below , configured to perform each respective step of the method . as in the case of the tee adapter 54 , the adapters 110 , 150 and 170 may be detachable to accommodate service tees 10 of different types or sizes , or may be permanently affixed to or formed integrally with the adapter plate 60 in the case of a tool 30 designed for a specific type or size of service tee 10 . the shaft 80 comprises a section 82 housing the hexagonal driver bit 90 , bolted to the housing plate 48 and to a gear box 84 containing a high torque gear train 86 driven by a pneumatic gear motor 88 . the gear train 86 rotates the driver bit 90 through a conventional ball spline 92 fixed rotationally to a spur gear 86a , and movable axially within the shaft 80 by a linear pneumatic thrust actuator 94 which may be a conventional pneumatic cylinder . the actuator 94 is anchored to a second section 96 of the shaft 80 by bolts 98 threaded into an anchoring member 98a , which preferably provides a gasket 98b to seal the shaft 80 and confine the gas pressure to the region of the shaft 80 beneath the actuator 94 . the open end of the shaft 80 may be capped by a capping member 80a , which is preferably removable so that an extension tube ( not shown ) may be inserted into the open end of the shaft 80 for deep excavations . the driver bit 90 can be rotated in either direction at high torque levels by the motor 88 through hear train 86 , and can be driven through the opening 56 in the tee adapter 54 into the service tee body 12 and retracted back into the shaft 80 by the actuator 94 . the driver bit 90 is used to drive accessories for all three steps of the method of the invention , the hexagonal tip 90b being sized to fit the hexagonal socket 14c in the perforator 14 . a spring - biased ball 90a disposed at the working end of the driver bit 90 detachably retains the engagement between the driver bit 90 and each accessory . the driver bit 90 is preferably fixed to the ball spline 92 by a pair of universal joints 100 , 102 , as illustrated in fig6 . this provides the driver bit 90 with lateral and angular freedom of motion , to compensate for any potential misalignment of the driver bit 90 with the perforator 14 or other accessories . the perforator adapter 110 is illustrated in fig8 and 9 . the perforator adapter 110 comprises a hollow shaft 114 , shown in fig8 having a central bore 116 through which the driver bit 90 can extend to engage the perforator 14 , and a securing flange 118 . the bore 116 is dimensioned so as to receive the exterior threaded surface 14a of the perforator . the bore 116 has a threaded interior portion 117 for engaging the threaded exterior surface 14a of the perforator 14 . in the preferred embodiment most of the circumference of the bore 116 is smooth - walled , the threaded portion 117 being limited to a narrow column of threads , as shown at the bottom of the opening in fig8 and 9 . this ensures that the perforator 14 will thread into the bore 116 even if the bore 116 does not engage the perforator 14 in perfect alignment ( if the entire circumference of the bore 116 were threaded , a slight misalignment might cause the perforator 14 to seize in the bore 116 before being fully threaded into the shaft 114 ). in the preferred embodiment the entrance to the bore 116 is chamfered , as at 119 , to guide the perforator 14 into the bore 116 . the perforator adapter 110 is mounted to a spacer 120 having a central opening 122 in alignment with the shaft 114 . the adapter 110 is preferably mounted to the spacer 120 in loose fitting engagement , as by shoulder screws 124 slidably engaged through the securing flange 118 and into the spacer 120 . springs 126 urge the adapter 110 to the outer limit of the screws 124 , and the conical shape of the heads of screws 124 keep the adapter 110 generally centered relative to the spacer 120 while allowing the adapter 110 some freedom of motion radially relative to the spacer 120 . the spacer 120 is bolted directly to the adapter plate 60 . this arrangement helps to avoid misalignment , in that the perforator adapter 110 can shift off - centre to compensate for any misalignment between the perforator adapter 110 and the perforator 14 . the flange 118 is thus provided with recesses 128 larger than the bolts 130 which affix the spacer 120 to the adapter plate 60 , so that the bolts 130 do not interfere with the shifting motion of the perforator adapter 110 . in the embodiment shown the perforator adapter 110 is secured to the outer opening 66 in the adapter plate 60 , and provision is made about the opening 66 to accommodate the ends of the screws 124 . the milling bit 140 and milling bit adapter 150 are illustrated in fig1 and 11 . the milling bit 140 comprises a shaft 142 having a hexagonal socket 144 sized for the tip 90b of the driver bit 90 ( ie . the same size as the socket 15 in the perforator 14 ), and a carbide or other suitable cutting tip 146 configured to mill a smooth frustoconical seat in the wall of the main 2 . the milling bit 140 has a stop surface 148 that determines the depth of the seat cut into the wall of the main 2 , as described below . the milling bit 140 is removably housed in the milling bit adapter 150 . the adapter 150 comprises a body 152 with a bore 154 sized to receive the milling bit 140 in slip - fit relation , and a mouth 156 having an opening 158 through which the milling bit 140 is inserted into and extracted from the bore 154 . the mouth 158 is provided with means for removably retaining the milling bit 140 in the bore 154 , in the preferred embodiment comprising a resilient washer or membrane 160 with slots 162 , which forms a partial shroud over the opening 158 to prevent the milling bit 140 from falling out of the bore 154 . the resilient membrane 160 is thus sufficiently rigid to retain the milling bit 140 under its own weight but sufficiently flexible to allow the milling bit 140 to traverse the opening 158 upon the application of pressure , for example manual pressure when the milling bit 140 is loaded into the milling bit adapter 150 or the pressure of the actuator 94 forcing the milling bit 140 out of the adapter 150 during the milling step of the process . in the embodiment shown the milling bit adapter 150 is secured to the central opening 68 in the adapter plate 60 . the sealing plug adapter 170 and sealing plug 180 are illustrated in fig1 to 14 . the sealing plug adapter 170 comprises a body 172 projecting from a flange 176 for securing the adapter 170 to the adapter plate 60 . the body 172 has a threaded central bore 174 that engages the sealing plug 180 , which has a threaded exterior body 182 complimentary to the threaded interior 12a of the tee body 12 . the sealing plug 180 , shown in fig1 , is provided with a tip 184 which may be conical to facilitate insertion of the plug 180 into the hole 3 . the tip 184 is provided with a groove 186 for retaining a sealing gasket 188 such as an o - ring , which will seal against the frustoconical seat milled by the milling bit 140 in the wall of the main 2 . the plug 180 is provided with a hexagonal socket 190 sized to fit the hexagonal tip 90b of the driver bit 90 . in the embodiment shown the sealing plug adapter 170 is secured to the outer opening 70 in the adapter plate 60 . to prepare for use of the tool 30 of the invention , the ground above the service tee 10 to be removed is excavated by conventional means . for a &# 34 ; keyhole &# 34 ; excavation this typically involves cutting through any surface structure such as a road or sidewalk using a shell cutter or the like , and removing the &# 34 ; cookie &# 34 ;. a vacuum apparatus is used to suck away the earth over the main 2 . the steel cap 20 is removed from the service tee 10 using a suitable gripping tool ( not shown ), which may be a pipe wrench or a hydraulically actuated gripper mechanism on a handle , which grips the cap 20 and unscrews it from the body 12 of the service tee 10 . the particular means and manner of excavating the site and removing the steel cap 20 from the service tee 10 is a matter of selection out of a number of conventional alternatives and does not form part of the present invention . to prepare the tool 30 for use , if necessary the tee adaptor 54 is detached , adapters 110 , 150 and 170 appropriate for the size of the service tee 10 being removed are bolted to the adapter plate 60 through the opening 52 in the working face 44 of the housing 42 , and a tee adaptor 54 of the appropriate size is affixed over the opening 52 . with the housing 42 assembled and sealed , the operator manually pivots the adapter plate 60 ( using a tool or by hand through the opening 52 ) into the third working position , so that the opening 70 comes into alignment with the opening 52 , and loads a sealing plug 180 into the sealing plug adapter 170 by manually screwing the sealing plug 180 into the bore 174 . the operator releases the adapter plate 60 and the adapter plate returns to the second working position , with the central opening 68 in alignment with the opening 52 in the working face 44 of the housing 42 . the operator loads the milling bit 140 into the milling bit adapter 150 by pushing the milling bit 140 through the membrane 160 until the milling bit 140 is fully inserted into the bore 158 . the membrane 160 retains the milling bit 140 in the bore until the milling step of the pin - off procedure . the tool 30 is now ready for use . in the operation of the tool 30 of the invention , with the steel cap 20 removed the head 40 of the tool 30 is lowered into the excavation , the tee adapter 54 is generally aligned with the free end 10b of the service tee and the frustoconical entrance 58 helps to locate the service tee 10 and guide the head 40 so that the opening 56 comes into alignment with the tee body 12 . the operator rotates the entire tool 30 in a clockwise direction ( or as appropriate for the threading on any particular service tee 10 ) to engage the free end 10b of the service tee 10 to the opening 56 in the tee adapter 54 , thus sealing the head 40 to the service tee 10 . the operator attaches pneumatic hoses 38 from connections provided at a conventional control panel ( not shown ) provided with shutoff valves and reversing switches for the pneumatic motors 64 , 88 and actuator 94 , and starts the air compressor ( not shown ). the operator actuates the motor 64 to pivot the adapter plate 60 to the first working position , with the opening 66 and perforator adapter 110 aligned with the tee body 12 , actuates the driver bit motor 88 in the counterclockwise direction and actuates the linear actuator 94 to extend the driver bit 90 through the adapter 110 and toward the perforator 14 until the hexagonal tip 90b contacts the top of the perforator 14 . when the tip 90b is aligned with the socket 15 in the perforator 14 it engages the perforator 14 . the operator determines this by the increase in resistance on the driver bit 90 , and releases the actuator 94 so that the counterclockwise rotary motion drives the threaded perforator 14 out of the body 12 of the service tee 10 . as the perforator 14 is extracted from the tee body 12 the threaded exterior 14a of the perforator engages the threaded portion 117 of the bore 116 in the perforator adapter 110 and the continued rotation of the driver bit 90 threads the perforator 14 into the perforator holder 120 . as a further means of avoiding misalignment problems , in the preferred embodiment the distance of the perforator adapter 110 from the free end 10b of the service tee 10 is such that the perforator 14 engages the perforator adapter 110 just as it disengages from the tee body 12 . when the threaded portion 14a of the perforator 14 has fully receded into the enlarged section 115 of the bore 116 , the driver bit 90 spins freely . the operator allows a preset time for this step , based on the number of revolutions required to engage the perforator 14 within the enlarged section 115 of the bore 116 and the rotational speed of the motor 88 , and then stops the driver bit motor 88 and actuates the actuator 94 in reverse to disengage the hexagonal tip 90b from the socket 15 and fully retract the driver bit 90 into the tool 30 . the operator disengages the motor 64 and the adapter plate 60 returns to the second ( central ) working position ( as shown in fig2 ), with the opening 68 and milling bit adapter 150 in alignment with the opening 56 in the working face 44 of the housing 40 . the operator actuates the driver bit motor 88 in the clockwise direction ( or as suitable for the milling bit 140 used ) and activates the linear actuator 94 . as the driver bit 90 extends toward and contacts the milling bit 140 the hexagonal tip 90b engages the socket 144 and simultaneously rotates the milling bit 140 while driving it through the tee adapter 54 and the tee body 12 into the hole 3 cut by the perforator 14 in the main 2 when the service tee 10 was installed . the milling bit 140 cuts a smooth seat in the wall of the main 2 about the hole 3 until the stop surface 148 contacts the wall of the main 2 . after a selected time interval sufficient to complete the milling step of the procedure , the operator stops the driver bit motor 88 and actuate the actuator 94 in reverse to retract the driver bit 90 fully into the tool 30 . the milling bit 140 is retained on the driver bit 90 by the ball 90a until the milling bit 140 has been retracted fully into the bore 154 , at which point the driver bit 90 dislodges from the milling bit 140 . the operator actuates the motor 64 to pivot the adapter plate 60 to the third working position , with the opening 70 and sealing plug adapter 170 in alignment with the opening 56 in the working face 44 of the housing 40 . the operator actuates the driver bit motor 88 clockwise and the linear actuator 94 in the forward direction , and as the driver bit 90 extends toward and contacts the sealing plug 180 the hexagonal tip 90b engages the socket 190 and drives the sealing plug 180 out of the sealing plug adapter 170 and into the tee body 12 . as the sealing plug 180 reaches the main 2 the tip 184 of the plug 180 is driven into the hole 3 in the main and the gasket 188 is compressed between the sealing plug 180 and the seat cut by the milling bit 140 . when the stop surface 185 contacts the wall of the main the driver bit 90 stops rotating , signalling the operator to deactivate the driver motor 88 and retract the driver bit 90 back into the tool 30 . in the preferred embodiment the head 40 of the tool 30 is provided with a pressure relief opening 41 coupled to a pressure gauge and relief valve on the control panel ( not shown ). once the sealing operation is completed as described above , the operator opens the relief valve to relieve the gas pressure within the head 40 . leaving the head 40 engaged to the service tee 10 , the operator can test the seal by closing the relief valve and monitoring the pressure gauge to see if the pressure within the head 40 begins to rise . if the pressure in the head 40 remains stable , then the sealing procedure was successful . the service tee 10 can be cut off below the service outlet 16 by any suitable cutting tool , for example a rotary pneumatic saw ( not shown ) on an extension handle , which may have gripping means for gripping the service tee 10 to stabilize the saw during the cutting procedure and a manually or mechanically operated blade actuator for driving the saw blade through the tee body 12 . the cut portion of the service tee 10 is removed , and the pin - off may be covered by mastic to resist corrosion . the excavation is backfilled and any surface structure replaced or repaired to complete the pin - off procedure . the particular means and manner of cutting the service tee 10 and backfilling the excavation is a matter of selection out of a number of conventional alternatives and does not form part of the present invention . a preferred embodiment of the invention having been thus described by way of example only , it will be apparent to those skilled in the art that certain modifications and adaptations may be made without departing from the scope of the invention , as set out in the appended claims . | 8 |
before describing embodiments of the present invention , a conventional method is explained with reference to the drawings . fig1 is a block circuit diagram formed by using logic blocks and designed by using a conventional method . in fig1 in1 through in4 designate input terminals , out1 and out2 designate output terminals , mc ( a ) and mc ( b ) are logic blocks , and g1 is an and gate . in a block circuit diagram of fig1 logic blocks mc ( a ) and mc ( b ) have the structures shown in fig2 a and 2b , respectively . as illustrated in fig2 a , the logic block mc ( a ) consists of , for example , three nand gates g2 , g3 and g4 , and two and gates g5 and g6 . reference codes i1 and i2 are input terminals of the logic block , and o1 and o2 are output terminals of the logic block . as illustrated in fig2 b , the logic block mc ( b ) of fig1 consists of an inverting gate g7 , a nand gate g8 , and an and gate g9 . in fig2 b , i3 and i4 designate input terminals of the logic block , and o3 designates an output terminal of the logic block , in a manner similar to fig2 a . by defining the logic blocks as illustrated in fig2 a and 2b , it is possible for customers to design logic circuits as block circuits like that shown in fig1 when many kinds of gate array lsi &# 39 ; s and so on , are designed . it is therefore not necessary to develop a circuit diagram of the basic logic block level , thus simplifying the design work and preventing errors in the design work . the logic blocks may be used not only when many kinds of lsi &# 39 ; s are designed but also when an lsi has a circuit design which comprises a plurality of partially common circuit portions . each common part of the partially common circuit portions is designed by using a logic block , thereby simplifying the design work in a manner similar to the above case . embodiments of the present invention will now be described with reference to the drawings . fig3 is an example of a block circuit diagram used when one embodiment of the method of the present invention is carried out . in fig3 in1 through in4 designate input terminals , out1 and out2 are output terminals , g1 is an and gate , and mc ( c ) is a logic block . in the block circuit diagram of fig3 the same two logic blocks mc ( c ) are used in the circuit diagram . the logic block mc ( c ) has the structure shown in fig4 which is the same as that shown in fig2 a . the logic circuit represented by the block circuit diagram of fig3 is thus quite similar to the logic circuit represented by the block circuit diagram of fig1 . however , it should be noted that , in the block circuit diagram of fig3 the logic circuit is represented by using one kind of logic block mc ( c ). in the block circuit diagram of fig3 only one of the output terminals o1 is used ; the other output terminal o2 is not used in the macro cell mc ( c ) connected to input terminals in3 and in4 . in the method according to the present invention , the gate g6 , connected to unused output terminal o2 , is deleted , and , gate g4 , whose output terminal becomes open by the deletion of gate g6 , is deleted . the present invention makes it possible to partially utilize each logic block by incorporating the deletion of unused basic logic blocks and unused wirings into the da process . fig5 is a processing sequence for the case in which an embodiment of the method of the present invention is implemented . as shown in fig5 the block circuit diagram made in the above - mentioned manner and the circuit diagrams showing the structures of the logic blocks are read in by means of , for example , an optical scanner , the contents of these circuit diagrams are converted to digital codes by a digitizer , and these codes are stored on a magnetic tape . at the preprocessing stage , logic information is extracted from the digital codes stored on the magnetic tape . the logic information includes , for example , information on the kinds of basic logic blocks and the kinds of logic blocks included in the circuit diagram , as well as wiring information on terminal connections in each of the basic logic blocks and the logic blocks . it should be noted that it is possible to input logic information into a computer system directly from a keyboard in a special - purpose computer language . next , the logic information is developed into lower order circuit information , i . e ., information having the lower hierarchy . the logic information is in this way converted into circuit information for the basic logic blocks . that is , the logic information for each of the logic blocks is replaced by circuit information having the basic logic block level , thereby representing all the logic circuits with basic logic blocks . circuit information for the unused basic logic blocks and wirings is then deleted sequentially from the output terminal side back to the input terminal side . that is , basic logic blocks whose output terminals are not connected to any other circuit are detected and deleted from participating in a da process . other unused basic logic blocks whose output terminals are not connected to any other circuit as a result of this deletion are also deleted . unused basic logic blocks are sequentially deleted in a similar manner . that is , the unused basic logic blocks and the unused terminals are deleted from the logic circuit before it is developed into an actual pattern . in this way , only circuit information for basic logic blocks actually used is obtained . if necessary , a detailed circuit diagram , i . e ., a diagram of the total circuit structure , including only basic logic blocks actually used , is shown on a display device and stored on a magnetic tape . then allocation of each basic logic block in the detailed circuit diagram to the basic cell elements on a gate array lsi chip , i . e ., the disposition of each basic logic block , is then determined , and wirings to connect the basic cell elements are determined from the detailed circuit diagram information obtained by the above - mentioned process . mask data for making mask patterns is generated and stored on a magnetic tape based on the information on the disposition and the wirings of these basic logic blocks . a mask pattern generating apparatus uses the mask data recorded on the magnetic tape to make practical mask patterns , in a known manner . fig6 is another example of a block circuit diagram designed using logic blocks . the block circuit diagram includes two logic blocks lb1 and lb2 which construct a six stage shift register . each of the logic blocks lb1 and lb2 is a four stage shift register and comprises four d - type flip - flops comprising basic logic blocks cm1 , and cm2 , cm3 and cm4 , and two inverters comprising basic logic blocks cm5 and cm6 . after the aforementioned preprocessing stage in the process of fig5 the logic information for the circuits shown in fig6 and 7 are obtained . fig8 is a block circuit which is obtained after hierarchical development is effected by using the logic information for the circuits of fig6 and 7 . in fig8 each reference symbol includes information for a logic block and a basic logic block . for example , a reference symbol cm1 ( lb1 ) means the basic logic block cm1 of the logic block lb1 . fig9 is a block circuit obtained after unused basic logic blocks and unused wirings are deleted . for example , the basic logic blocks cm3 ( lb2 ), cm4 ( lb2 ), and cm6 ( lb2 ), and wirings connecting the output of the basic logic block cm6 ( lb2 ) to the clock inputs of the basic logic blocks cm3 ( lb2 ) and cm4 ( lb2 ), and so on are deleted . mask patterns are therefore formed by using the circuit information corresponding to the circuit of fig9 . fig1 a and 10b are other examples of logic blocks to which the method according to the present invention is adaptable . the logic block of fig1 a comprises four nand gates and has the same circuit structure as that of a standard 7400 type quad two input nand gate ic device . according to the present invention , it is possible to include standard ic devices , such as 74 series ic devices , in a logic block family . the logic block of fig1 b is a stack cell which is used to output a predetermined logical level signal , such a low level signal . the stack cell of fig1 b can be included in the logic block of fig1 a . it should be noted that , according to the present invention , if the stack cell and / or some nand gates are not actually used in a block circuit diagram designed by a customer , for example , they are automatically deleted . therefore , unused logic blocks are not allocated in a chip of a gate array lsi . as mentioned above , according to the present invention , it is possible to generate a block circuit diagram for making mask patterns by using logic blocks , and to partially use each logic block , so as to enable a great decrease in the kind of logic blocks employed . the capacity of the memory device for registering libraries of logic blocks can in this way be decreased , and the execution time required for computation in the design automation process can be decreased . according to the present invention , it is also possible to greatly simplify the manual work required to register the libraries of the logic blocks in a computer and to thereby prevent the generation of defective lsi and the deterioration in reliability caused by manual operation . | 7 |
in its simplest form , the apparatus for dismantling buildings of this invention is comprised of a heavy inverted u - shaped tool 10 , preferably formed of cast steel , of a suitable size , for example wherein the overall height or length of the tool is 9 &# 39 ; 7 &# 34 ; having an aperture 11 positioned about 12 &# 34 ; inwardly of its upper end 12 and an elongated slot 13 about 16 &# 34 ; wide and of a length about 6 &# 39 ; 7 &# 34 ; defining the bifurcated portion of the heavy inverted u - shaped tool 10 . the bifurcated portions form arms 14 and 15 , each of which is about 18 &# 34 ; wide . the heavy inverted u - shaped tool 10 has a thickness at least 4 &# 34 ; and may be thickened at its uppermost end around and about the aperture 11 therein if desired . the approximate weight of the above - described heavy inverted u - shaped tool 10 is about 9500 lbs . which will obviously vary when larger or smaller tools are provided for use in dismantling buildings or the like . the tool 10 , as illustrated in fig1 , 4 and 5 is attached at its uppermost end to a first cable 16 which is trained over a pulley 17 on the upper outer end of a boom 18 of a crane 19 , which is rotatably mounted on a support frame 20 along with movable continuous ground engaging interconnected treads 21 . the first cable 16 is controlled by a first winch 22 in the crane 19 . the winch is of a type that is free running in one direction , such as unwinding the first cable 16 and powered in the reverse winding operation so that the heavy inverted u - shaped tool 10 can be dropped in free falling motion from the positions illustrated in fig1 and 2 of the drawings for a falling forceful penetrating and shearing action on a building such as illustrated in fig2 and 3 of the drawings . referring again to fig1 of the drawings , it will be seen that the crane 19 is provided with a typical secondary boom 23 over which suitable boom position controlling cables 24 are positioned , some of which extend to the outer upper end of the boom 18 as will be understood by those skilled in the art and some of which extend between the upper end of the secondary boom 23 and a boom controlling winch , as shown , in the crane 19 , all of which enable the crane operator to move the boom 18 in a vertical pattern as will be understood by those skilled in the art . in the present invention , the boom is of a length sufficient to extend upwardly and outwardly to a position above a typical mill building , or the like to be dismantled , it being understood that such mill buildings and the like frequently have a vertical height comparable with a five or sixty - story conventional multistory building . a counterweight cw offsets the tool 10 weight . still referring to fig1 of the drawings , it will be seen that the apparatus for dismantling buildings includes a second cable 25 which is attached to the arm 14 of the bifurcated portion of the heavy inverted u - shaped tool 10 . the second cable 25 is engaged on a second winch 26 in the crane 19 and is positioned between a pair of guiding rollers 27 positioned one above the other on an extension 28 of the crane 19 . in operation , the crane 19 is positioned adjacent a building to be demolished as illustrated in fig3 of the drawings , with the upper outer end of the boom 18 positioned thereabove by the action of the first winch 22 winding up and thereby shortening the first cable 16 , the winch 26 controlling the second cable 25 is actuated to unwind sufficient portion of the second cable 25 to permit the tool 10 to fall freely into the building being demolished , the roof portion of which is indicated in fig3 by the letter r and the building itself by the letter b . broken line representation of roof or other building structures s are also indicated . the free fall is by gravity only . the tool 10 , which is best illustrated in the perspective elevation of fig2 of the drawings , has a raised semi - v - shaped configuration 11a on its front and back sides at either side of and below the aperture 11 which extends through the body of the tool 10 adjacent its upper end and the uppermost portion of the tool 10 is preferably somewhat thinner than the lowermost portion so as to provide areas on both sides of the upper end portion of the tool 10 defined by the semi - v - shaped curved members 11 a that will protect the end portions of the first cable 16 which is passed through the aperture 11 . such protection is highly desirable when the tool 10 is dropped by gavity on a building being dismantled to insure the protection of the first cable 16 from shearing action which might otherwise occur as the tool 10 drops through a metal structure such as roofing or a beam supporting a roof in a building being dismantled . by referring now to fig4 of the drawings , it will be seen that the tool 10 has been allowed to drop freely by causing the first winch 22 in the crane 19 to unwind or unreel the first cable 16 without any tension thereon and that the second cable 25 has been laid out or unreeled sufficiently to offer no resistance to the falling pattern of the tool 10 although a small amount of tension applied to the second cable 25 will tilt the tool 10 if desired so that one of the arms 14 or 15 will engage the metal structure , for example the roof r , of the building being dismantled before the engagement of the other arm and thus insure the piercing and tearing action necessary to permit the tool 10 to drop substantially into or through the roof r to be sure that the tool 10 is sufficiently engaged therein so that subsequent tension applied to the second cable 25 by the second winch 26 of the crane will pull the area of the building engaged away from the remainder and down into a ground engaging position as shown in fig5 of the drawings . in fig4 of the drawings , the tool 10 is shown in its initial engagement with the roof r of the building being dismantled and partially engaged over one of the supports s which will insure the pulling down and separation of the various metal parts of the roof r and its supporting structure s to accomplish the dismantling of the building as hereinbefore described as bringing the several parts of the building down to ground level or slightly above where a mobile shear on a backhoe can readily engage and cut the parts of the building into usable metal scrap . by referring now to fig5 of the drawings , it will be seen that the aforesaid action has occurred , the tool 10 having penetrated the roof r of the building being dismantled and / or become engaged upon a portion of the supporting structure thereof whereupon the second winch 26 is activated and the second cable 25 , which is attached to the arm 14 of the tool 10 by way of an aperture 14a therein upwardly from the lowermost end of the arm 14 , has been forcibly moved toward the crane 19 by the second winch 26 so as to pull the sections of the roof off and the structure s of the building being dismantled and engaged by the tool 10 toward the crane 19 thus easily and quickly pulling down the associated portions of the building in which the tool 10 was engaged to the positions illustrated in fig5 of the drawings where , as hereinbefore described , a mobile shear on a backhoe can easily gather up the torn down portions of the building and cut them into usable , saleable , scrap sizes . in fig1 and 3 of the drawings , the first cable 16 and second cable 25 are illustrated in stationary position . in fig4 of the drawings , the cable 25 is illustrated in slack position slightly unreeled with respect to the second winch 26 in the crane 19 while the first cable 16 is shown moving in an unreeling free falling action by arrors indicating the free fall action of the tool 10 into the building being dismantled . in fig5 of the drawings , the first cable 16 is shown in slack position and moving outwardly with respect to the crane 19 and downwardly toward the tool 10 freely as indicated by the arrows , while the second cable 25 is indicated by an arrow as being moved toward and reeled in by the second winch 26 after first passing between the guiding rollers 27 on the crane extension 28 to the position illustrated in fig5 of the drawings . those skilled in the art will observe that if desired , the operator of the crane can apply some tension to the first cable 16 during this pull down dismantling action and raise the portion or portions of the building engaged by the tool 10 in desired degree to permit them to be partially separated from the remainder of the parts of the building being dismantled so as to position them in more desirable relation for eventual shearing as hereinbefore described . it will thus be seen that an apparatus for dismantling buildings has been disclosed which permits an efficient method of dismantling the buildings to be used , namely suspending a tool adapted to be engaged in a building to be dismantled above said building , dropping said tool in free fall onto said building so as to punch , tear , and engage or pass through an opening formed therein by the tool , moving the tool away from the building in which it is engaged so as to tear down the engaged portion or portions thereof and positioning said portions away from said building being dismantled for further processing into scrap or sorting as to size and shape . the method hereinabove described cannot be accomplished by any apparatus heretofore known in the art and those skilled in the art will observe that the method and the apparatus on which it is dependent enable a metal building for example to be quickly and easily dismantled without the heretofore believed necessary use of a crew of workman with cutting torches and associated cranes and grapples to handle these portions of the building freed by the workman and their cutting torches . | 4 |
the present group firing system is developed on the conventional firework units to make it possible to connect the firework units for group display show . the reason that we could carry out this system is that we have changed the firework &# 39 ; structure . it is composed of some shot tubes 1 . it is installed with two lower and upper paper fuse tubes 2 , 2 ′. and the structure between the paper fuse tube 2 , 2 ′ and the shot tube 1 as shown in fig2 , 5 , 6 . in particular , as shown in fig2 , 5 , 6 , a fireworks unit includes a plurality of firing shot tubes 1 ( a , b , c , . . . ). the firing shot tubes 1 has a first firing shot tube a and a final firing shot tube t . the firing shot tubes are connected with each other through inner fuses 7 . a lower fuse tube 2 and an upper fuse tube 2 ′ are disposed in the fireworks units . each end of the lower and upper fuse tubes 2 , 2 ′ has a socket 3 . a first fuse 6 is provided in the lower fuse tube 2 and a final fuse 6 ′ is provided in the upper fuse tube 2 ′, in which the first fuse 6 is linked with the inner fuse 7 from the first firing shot tube a and the final fuse 6 ′ is linked with the inner fuse 7 ′ from the final firing shot tube t . in other words , the structure inside firework unit as we mentioned : its tubes are linked together as sequence a , b , c . . . r , s , t through inner fuse 7 . and the first shot tube a links with the fuse 6 in the lower paper fuse tube 2 through the inner fuse 7 , and the final shot tube t links with fuse 6 ′ in the upper paper fuse tube 2 ′ through the inner fuse 7 ′. with the above - mentioned structure of the fireworks unit , a basis connection system between the lower and upper paper fuse tube 2 , 2 ′ and the shot tubes 1 is obtained . as shown in fig3 and 4 , there are two firing modes if the firework units with the above - mentioned structure are operated . as shown in fig3 , two adjacent firework units link together with the lower paper fuse tubes 2 and the lower paper fuse tube 2 ′ to be connected in series attached fashion . a soft fuse hose l contains an outer fuse is inserted in one of the sockets 3 of the lower fuse tube 2 of a fireworks unit , a soft fuse hose l containing the outer fuse is inserted in one of the sockets 3 of the upper fuse tube 2 ′ of the fireworks unit and inserted in one of the sockets 3 of the lower fuse tube 2 of the other fireworks unit , a said soft fuse hose l containing the outer fuse is inserted in one of the sockets 3 of the upper fuse tube 2 ′ of the other fireworks unit , so that the group firing system is connected in series attached fashion . in this occasion , when the fuse 6 within the lower paper fuse tube 2 is fired , it transfers the fire through the inner fuse 7 from the first shot tube to the final shot tube ( a to t ), then , through the inner fuse 7 ′ from the final shot to the fuse 6 ′ in the upper paper fuse tube 2 ′, to fire the soft fuse hose l containing outer fuse between the first fireworks unit and the next fireworks unit , to fire all of the shot tubes 1 ( a to t ) of the next fireworks unit . with this connection , several adjacent firework units can be fired one by one , that is , in series firing mode . as shown in fig4 , two fireworks unit link together with the lower fuse tubes 2 to be connected in parallel attached fashion . a said soft fuse hose l containing the outer fuse is inserted in one of the sockets 3 of the lower fuse tube 2 of a fireworks unit , a said soft fuse hose l containing the outer fuse is inserted in the other socket 3 of the lower fuse tube 2 and inserted in one of the sockets 3 of the lower fuse tube 2 of the other fireworks unit , a said soft fuse hose l containing the outer fuse is inserted in the other socket 3 of the lower fuse tube 2 of the other fireworks unit , so that the group firing system is connected in parallel attached fashion . in this occasion , when the fuse 6 within the paper fuse tube 2 is fired , it transfers the fire to the next firework unit through the soft fuse hose containing the outer fuse , and meanwhile , the shot tubes 1 ( a to t ) of the first fireworks unit by the inner fuse 7 . therefore , the adjacent fireworks units are fired simultaneously , that is , in a parallel firing mode . as shown in the attached fig1 , an embodiment of the group firing system of the present invention is illustrated . the connection firework group is composed of three sets of the different fireworks units a 1 , a 2 , a 3 , a 4 , b 1 , b 2 , b 3 , b 4 , b 5 , b 6 , b 7 , b 8 , b 9 , c 1 , c 2 . these different firework units are linked by 1 to 2 paper fuse tubes 2 , 2 ′ within their inner structure and some soft fuse hoses l with fuses outside to form a display group . if firework unit b 1 shown in the upper portion in the figure is taken as the first ignited firework in the group , it can be known that firework unit b 1 is serially connected with firework units b 2 , a 4 , c 1 , a 1 through the paper fuse tubes and the soft fuse hoses l 1 , l 2 , l 3 , l 4 . since a 1 has two paper fuse tube 2 , 2 ′, l 4 is connected to b 4 , b 5 , b 6 , a 2 through soft fuse hose l 6 , l 7 , l 8 , l 9 with the lower paper fuse tube 2 ′, while a 1 is connected to b 3 through soft fuse hose l 5 with its upper paper fuse tube 2 . by the same way , after the soft fuse tube l 9 is connected to a 2 , it also is connected to b 7 through paper fuse tube ) and l 10 , at the same time , it is connected to c 2 through l 11 and upper paper fuse tube ), and is connected to a 3 , b 8 , b 9 through l 12 , l 13 , l 14 . it can be known that the conventional firework units can be combined into various connection systems by changing the structure thereof , that is , it can be connected in series connection or parallel connection . the resulted firing pattern may be in block - shape or characters - shape . furthermore , the present invention would be the structure as shown in fig7 . in which , there is just one paper fuse tube in the fireworks unit , which is used to form series connection . therefore , the fireworks unit with the one paper fuse tube is just fired together with the other fireworks units in parallel firing mode . | 2 |
in the following detailed description , reference is made to the accompanying drawings that form a part hereof , and in which is shown by way of illustration , specific embodiments in which the invention may be practiced . these embodiments are described in sufficient detail to enable those skilled in the art to practice the invention , and it is to be understood that other embodiments may be utilized . it is also to be understood that structural , procedural and system changes may be made without departing from the spirit and scope of the present invention . in addition , well - known structures , circuits and techniques have not been shown in detail in order not to obscure the understanding of this description , the following detailed description is , therefore , not to be taken in a limiting sense , and the scope of the present invention is defined by the appended claims and their equivalents . as used in the specification and in the appended claims , the singular forms “ a ”, “ an ”, and “ the ” include plural referents unless the context clearly indicates otherwise . for example , reference to “ an analyzer ” includes a plurality of such analyzers . in another example , reference to “ an analysis ” includes a plurality of such analyses . although specific terms are employed herein , they are used in a generic and descriptive sense only and not for purposes of limitation . all terms , including technical and scientific terms , as used herein , have the same meaning as commonly understood by one of ordinary skill in the art to which this invention belongs unless a term has been otherwise defined . it will be further understood that terms , such as those defined in commonly used dictionaries , should be interpreted as having a meaning as commonly understood by a person having ordinary skill in the art to which this invention belongs . it will be further understood that terms , such as those defined in commonly used dictionaries , should be interpreted as having a meaning that is consistent with their meaning in the context of the relevant art and the present disclosure . such commonly used terms will not be interpreted in an idealized or overly formal sense unless the disclosure herein expressly so defines otherwise . as used herein , the term “ computer ” is meant encompass a workstation , personal computer , personal digital assistant ( pda ), wireless telephone , or any other suitable computing device including a processor , a computer readable medium upon which computer readable program code ( including instructions and / or data ) may be disposed , and a user interface . terms such as “ application ”, “ engine ” and the like are intended to refer to a computer - related component , including hardware , software , and / or software in execution . for example , an engine may be , but is not limited to being , a process running on a processor , a processor including an object , an executable , a thread of execution , a program , and a computer . moreover , the various components may be localized on one computer and / or distributed between two or more computers . the system and method embodying the present invention can be programmed in any suitable language and technology , such as , but not limited to : assembly languages , c , c ++; visual basic ; java ; vbscript ; jscript ; node . js ; bcmascript ; dhtm1 ; xml and cgi . alternative versions may be developed using other programming languages including , hypertext markup language ( html ), active serverpages ( asp ) and javascript . any suitable database technology can be employed , such as , but not limited to , microsoft sql server or ibm as 400 . referring now to the figures , embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail . this specification describes means for regaining the type of control that makes monitoring , detection , and protection , more effective . before going into those details , it is helpful to describe features of the intel ( intel corporation , santa clara , calif .). one feature describes the means through which an os and an application communicate , showing how the cpu transfers control between them . intel cpus that support ia - 32e or 64 - bit mode introduce two new instructions , syscall and sysret to the instruction set architecture ( isa ) and a few new msrs , like ia32star and ia32lstar . the syscall instruction is used by an application to transfer context to the os and sysret is used to return execution from the os to an application . the ia32star msr holds the value loaded into the code segment ( cs ) register and the ia32lstar msr holds the value loaded into the register instruction pointer ( rip ) ( a processor register that indicates where a computer is in its program sequence ) which defines where execution will be passed to upon execution of the syscall instruction . ( the physical address is calculated from 2 parts : i .) segment address ; ii ) offset address . the cs is used to address the code segment of the memory i . e ., a location in the memory where the code is stored . the rip contains the offset within the code segment of the memory . hence cs : ip is used to point to the location ( i . e to calculate the physical address ) of the code in the memory .) rcx holds the address that execution will return to when sysret is executed ( see error ! reference source not found .). other modes of execution provide similar mechanisms to build this interface ( e . g . 32 - bit protected mode uses sysenter and sysexit or the int instruction ). referring specifically to error ! reference source not found ., starting from the left , an application 10 is executing some software (“ code ”) 11 . at some point , it wants to make a request to the operating system 15 ( via os handler 16 ) for a particular resource , e . g ., to open a file , or to access the network . within the code 11 , various high level apis are called in order to access particular functions , e . g ., an open file function may be called by the software application . in this particular example , regardless of what apis are called , by the time control is transferred over to the os to request the service , a low level instruction referred to as a system call ( syscall ) is executed . syscall , shown at 12 , is an x86 instruction defined by intel . when this system call is executed , the cpu looks at the hardware , to read a particular register ( e . g ., ia32lstar , as shown at 14 ), which specifies where execution gets passed to . in this example , the ia32lstar register 14 points to the entry point of the os handler 16 . once execution is passed to it , the os handler looks at the resources it has available , to decide whether or not it &# 39 ; s going to fulfill its access request , etc . execution of the os handler 16 proceeds until the system return ( sysret ) instruction 18 is called , which reads the rcx register 20 . the rcx register stores the address in the code 11 to which execution is to be returned . referring now to fig2 , as the techniques presented herein leverage aspects of system virtualization , it is also helpful to introduce a limited number of those features . extended page table ( ept ) facilities , enable embodiments of the invention to provide an additional layer of address translation . instead of an address translating directly from a virtual address ( va ) 20 to a physical address ( pa ) 24 ( fig2 ), embodiments of the invention provide an intermediate step in which the virtual address 20 is first translated into a guest physical address ( gpa ) 22 , and is then resolved to the physical address ( pa ) 24 . to describe this concept further , normally , when a program executes , it reads and writes virtual addresses . in a conventional system that does not include a hypervisor ( vmm ) 40 ( fig3 ), a memory management unit essentially translates from virtual address 20 straight to a physical address 24 , as shown by downward pointing arrows 26 and dashed arrow 28 . embodiments of the present invention include a hypervisor ( vmm ) 30 ( fig3 ), and a first layer of translation that is similar to that described above . the operating system wants to be able to translate virtual addresses to something it views as physical addresses , because the os is configured for managing hardware . so when the hypervisor ( vmm ) 40 is added to these embodiments , the operating system effectively controls a virtual address &# 39 ; s translation to guest physical address ( gpa ) 22 , as shown by arrows 26 and 30 . the vmm 40 then translates the gpa 22 to pa 24 as shown by arrows 26 ′ and 30 ′. the os thus views the gpa as a real physical address , even though the gpas are effectively another layer of virtual addresses . it is noted that hypervisor 40 is configured to run multiple virtual machines ( vms ), each of which may be attempting to translate from va 20 to gpa 22 . this ept translation approach , in which the hypervisor 40 controls translation from gpa 22 to physical address ( pa ) 24 , enables the hypervisor to maintain control over the real hardware and provide mapping and isolation between vms . this structure also enables the hypervisor to modify permissions and attributes to make things invisible from inside an operating system , to protect memory , etc ., as will be discussed in greater detail below . these embodiments thus provide a modified ept approach for layered translation in which the os manages a layer of translation from va 20 to gpa 22 , and a virtual machine monitor ( vmm or ‘ hypervisor ’) 40 ( fig3 ) manages a layer of translation from the resulting gpa 22 to the pa 24 . each layer also has the ability to set attributes and permissions . this provides a vmm with the indirection required to manage and isolate memory from virtual machines ( vms ). furthermore , intel &# 39 ; s implementation of ept provides the ability to set memory as executable but not readable . this means the processor can execute instructions from a page without having the ability to perform data accesses . if a data access is attempted , an ept violation occurs and execution is passed to the vmm . another feature leveraged by embodiments of the present invention involves the “ trapping ” of model . specific registers ( msrs ). a “ trap ” is an event generated by the cpu when it attempts a particular operation , and which results in control being passed to a handler , usually in the os 15 or vmm 40 where some additional behavior can be performed . in this way , a trap allows vmm 40 to intercept execution whenever less privileged software , like the os , tries to access an msr . of interest . for example , a hypervisor could register to receive notification when a virtual machine ( vm ) tries to read or write the ia32lstar msr 14 ( fig1 ). this may be useful if it wanted to detect changes to the location that the syscall instruction 12 transfers execution to . if the notification is of an attempt to read , then the hypervisor can return the msr &# 39 ; s actual state , or it can instead provide a modified or emulated version . if the operation is an attempt to write , the hypervisor has the opportunity to modify , block or emulate that write . the instant inventors have realized that as virtualization informs and mediates the behavior of the os , it is in a prime position to inspect actions of the os while remaining isolated from it . there has been much research . performed in the area of vm - introspection , which is the act of peering into the context of the os to understand fundamental information such as the state of processes and threads . most of this work has remained academic , as inefficient introspection has a tremendous negative impact on performance due to continuous translation and the prevalence of unnecessary trapping . furthermore , some of this research has also reduced system stability through incorrectly constructed accesses of undocumented application and os data structures . for these reasons , the techniques and their resulting implementations continue to evolve as academic exercises . in contrast , the embodiments shown and described herein demonstrate how a hypervisor may be used to efficiently monitor and augment system call activity with minimal , if any , a adverse impact on performance or stability . the instant inventors have recognized that traditional os only based monitoring solutions are no longer useful in many applications due to the inclusion of kernel based self - monitoring capabilities such as discussed hereinabove . the act of monitoring interactions from within the context of involved parties , without fortifying it in some way , is faulty by design . this is because a compromise of either party will render the monitoring it includes effectively useless . the present inventors have recognized that leveraging a vmm for fortification of a monitoring technology , while still allowing the monitor itself to co - exist in an involved party , is an ideal solution in many applications because of the retained efficiency of running in the context of the party , and the vmm can . provide fortification . furthermore , the hypervisor can provide a level of transparency so that if malicious software does compromise the context in which the monitor operates , the malicious software may be unable to directly detect the presence of the monitor . it is noted that embodiments shown and described herein , unlike other approaches of monitoring the syscall interface with a hypervisor , do not require the enumeration of ordinarily undocumented data and structures , and do not require access to the os source code , both of which are unrealistic in many applications and effectively make these other approaches impractical . in the following subsections , a new approach is described which enables system call monitoring without the performance , stability , and source code issues present in prior work . it also describes additional functionality that is necessary to render the invention deployable on real - world systems . these embodiments employ “ syscall monitoring ”, which is an approach used to gain execution before control has been passed to the os . this approach monitors application call parameters and blocks application activity . the techniques presented do not require source code of the os and may be dynamically installed and uninstalled . system call ( syscall ) monitoring is the act of gaining execution , in some context , before an application can successfully pass its tasking to the os . as these interactions occur with great frequency the desired technique must ensure a minimal performance impact on the activity . as systems become busier and more strained , there is usually a corresponding increase in the volume of syscall activity . as a result it is generally unacceptable to trap to any out - of - band monitor when trying to meet tight performance constraints . for this reason the approach described here leverages the facilities of a vmm in an indirect fashion . this embodiment of the invention leaves the state of the system , as seen from the context of the os , in an unaltered state . this ensures that existing security technologies , such as microsoft &# 39 ; s patchguard ™, are not triggered by the introduction of the monitoring capability , and it also helps ensure that offensive software cannot detect its presence . an overview of the approach is presented in error ! reference source not found .. referring now to error ! reference source not found ., embodiments of the present invention effectively gain control of execution inside the context of the operating system without the operating system seeing any modifications . this is important for existing security technologies , such as patchguard . as discussed above , patchguard , and similar tools , operates inside the os in the kernel to effectively verify the state of various aspects of system to make sure a root kit or a monitoring technology isn &# 39 ; t doing things it shouldn &# 39 ; t , such as attempting to modify or set a particular function pointer . if it does detect . such an attempt , patchguard may respond by effectively crashing the system . embodiments of the invention have been configured to be substantially transparent to the os , both to keep patchguard , and the like , from crashing the system , and to help ensure that an attacker will not be able to observe the monitor inside the operating system and thus be alerted to the presence of monitoring technology . as shown , code 11 of software application 10 is making a request for a resource from the os 15 , which executes system call 12 as discussed above with respect to error ! reference source not found .. the system call 12 passes execution to an address stored in hardware register ia32lstar 14 . in particular embodiments , a protection box shown at 42 updates the ia32lstar to point to monitor code 44 that has been loaded into the os . thereafter , execution is intercepted and passed at 60 to the monitor whenever the code 11 calls the system call 12 . after the monitor code has finished executing its various system monitoring operations , execution is passed at 62 to the os handler 16 , as shown , which then operates in a conventional manner . once the handler &# 39 ; s operation in completed , the sysret 18 is called to return execution to the application code 11 . it should be noted that monitor code 44 may perform any number of monitoring operations to monitor operation of the os and the system upon which the os is running , as would be familiar to those skilled in the art . as also shown , existing security 48 is a technology such as the above - referenced patchguard , which reads the ia32lstar register to be sure it &# 39 ; s pointing to the proper location , such as to the top of a particular handle or block , e . g ., to the top of the os handler 16 . embodiments of the invention are configured to trap the attempted read ( the “ read shadow ” as discussed below ) of the ia32lstar to the hypervisor as shown at 64 . the hypervisor contains a substitute value (“ fake ia32lstar ”. “ substitute ia32lstar ”, or “ substitute msr ”) value 50 , which is returned ( the “ write mask ” as discussed below ) to the existing security 48 at 66 . that way , existing security products read what the hypervisor wants to tell it , e . g ., it still points to the os handler code 16 rather than to the monitor 44 . so even though execution is passed to the monitor 44 , patchguard 48 can &# 39 ; t actually see that any modification to the ia32lstar register occurred . about the only way to see that modification did occur to that register is to actually step through the system call instruction itself with a debugger , which would start execution at the monitor 44 instead of directly at the os handler or leverage the cpu &# 39 ; s performance monitoring capabilities . moreover , the protection box shown extending from the monitor 44 to the vmm ( hypervisor ) 40 is the extended page table ( ept ) facility shown and described with respect to error ! reference source not found .. as described , the ept is used to protect the monitor code 44 within the os 15 . so even though the monitor code is inside the os , the ept may be updated , such as to mark the monitor code as ‘ read only ’. the os 15 can &# 39 ; t manipulate the ept 42 because the ept is controlled by the hypervisor ( vmm ) 40 , even though the monitor may exist inside the context of the os . it should be noted that this approach helps ensure that any other software , malicious or good , that runs in the context of the os can &# 39 ; t effectively see the monitor or remove it . it should also be noted that these embodiments do not trap to the hypervisor on every system call interaction because it &# 39 ; s too expensive . system call interactions happen thousands upon thousands of times per second . as system load goes up , more of these requests come in , which therefore gets expensive in terms of computational resources . the instant embodiments reduce his expense . it should be noted that in these embodiments , when an application ( code ) executes a system call instruction , execution is still passed to the os , i . e ., execution is ultimately passed to the os handler after operation of the monitor . there &# 39 ; s no direct trapping to the hypervisor on . these very frequent events . the system only provides indirect trapping to the hypervisor , e . g ., when patchguard tries to read the ia32lstar register , which is relatively infrequent . in addition , if an attempt was made to modify or access the monitor &# 39 ; s memory , the system would trap to the hypervisor . ( the attempted data access would be an ept violation as discussed above , with execution being passed to the vmm .) these embodiments have effectively limited the need to actually trap to the hypervisor to tasks that are infrequent . the path that occurs relatively frequently , namely , system call interaction , occurs without requiring additional trapping to the hypervisor . thus , in this approach , the primary impact on processing overhead is simply the processing of the monitor code itself . this is a notable distinction relative to conventional approaches that trap directly from system call instruction to a hypervisor , and then jump back into the os , creating a relatively high overhead burden due to the repeated switching back and forth between these modes of execution . thus , in these embodiments , the role of the hypervisor is to provide a read shadow and write mask over ia32lstar 14 and protect the monitoring code and data ( i . e ., the monitor 44 ) that has been added to the os 15 , as discussed below . the term “ read shadow ” means that when a vm reads the contents of a register the vmm will read a value different than the state in the cpu . the term “ write mask ” means that when a vm writes the contents of a register the vmm will write a value different than requested into the cpu . these embodiments do not directly intercept syscall interactions . the software responsible for actively monitoring interactions ( i . e ., the monitor 44 ) is contained in the os 15 itself , and therefore , in particular embodiments , may require additional protection . to ensure its operation and integrity , as mentioned above . for example , in particular embodiments , upon installation , monitor 44 communicates the following information to the hypervisor ( vmm ) 40 : 1 . protect the region of memory associated with the monitor ( e . g . using intel ept and intel vt - d ) 2 . saves ia32lstar to a variable ( i . e . fake_ia32lstar in error ! reference source not found .) if at any point the monitor wishes to be removed the steps above are reversed , which will restore the system to its unmonitored state . 1 . the requirement to implement a read shadow over the ia32lstar msr is needed to ensure that existing security software are not tripped . for example , patchguard occasionally verifies this msr and would bsod if it saw the modification . 2 . the write mask ensures that other software can not relocate or intermediate the execution of monitor 44 ; thus helping to prevent flatware from gaining a pre - process position to monitor 44 in the context of the os . this approach also helps to ensure stability as conventional hooking may present issues when a particular monitor wishes to be dynamically removed . after the monitor has communicated the installation information it will gain execution on every execution of the syscall instruction . the performance impact is low because it is already running in the context of the os . the cost is just the time taken to execute instructions associated with monitoring . in addition , the monitor doesn &# 39 ; t need to perform expensive address translations because it is executing in the correct context and can simply directly dereference pointers . it should be noted that the monitor would verify the integrity of the pointer before dereferencing it . with the monitor 44 running in the context of the os 15 , the hypervisor 40 provides additional protection to ensure that offensive code running at the same privilege level cannot circumvent it . the syscall instruction 1 . 2 already provides guarantees in hardware that the monitor 44 will be given control when executed , so the next requirement is to ensure that memory associated with the monitor can &# 39 ; t be tampered with . this is accomplished by leveraging ept to mark the code and data associated with the monitor as read - only and / or as executable , as discussed hereinabove , e . g ., to protect against unauthorized cpu initiated memory transactions . it should be noted that a conventional memory management unit ( mmu ), e . g ., an iommu ( input - output mmu ) may also be used to protect against device initiated memory transactions . moreover , if the cpu &# 39 ; s ept implementation supports execute - only permissions , the monitor code 44 is marked accordingly , ensuring that no process in the os can detect the monitor &# 39 ; s presence via code signature scanning , to effectively hide the monitor . this approach may be used on substantially any operating system , e . g ., linux , windows , different versions of linux , different versions of windows , including embedded versions . while the techniques presented here focus on how a new and robust form of monitoring is achieved on the intel x86 architecture it should be noted that substantially any cpu architecture that exhibits the following features is capable of implementing this solution : 1 . the instruction set architecture ( isa ) provides a mechanism to transfer execution between application and os 2 . the location that gains execution upon transfer to the os is modifiable and can be shadowed and masked by a higher privilege level 3 . cpu provides the ability to make memory executable , readable but not writeable while executing within the os 4 . return address of a system interaction can be made to induce a trap as an example , mobile ( e . g . apple iphone 6 , samsung galaxy s5 and microsoft lumia 735 ) and internet of things ( iot ) devices leverage arm [ 7 ] system on chips ( socs ) and meets the requirements with the following features : 1 . usage of the swi instruction to communicate between application and os ; 2 . inclusion of the vbar_elx register to change the location of where swi passes execution to in the os ; 3 . virtualization provides the ability to trap on vbar_elx read / write events ( e . g . msr and mrs instructions in armv8 ); 4 . stage 2 ( s2 ) page tables can enforce executable , readable but not writeable permissions ( note that alternatives to s2 , such as shadow paging or a vtlb may be used to implement the functionality of these embodiments , however s2 is far more efficient ); and 5 . the return address is stored in elr_elx and can be forced to trap by adjusting the is address to cause a fault . the embodiments hereof may be similarly implemented on x86 amd cpus and x86 cpus running in 32 - bit mode , and adaptation of the embodiments shown and described herein to such machines would be well understood by those skilled in the art in view of the instant disclosure . the embodiments discussed herein focus on the application 10 to os 15 interface , but this solution can be applied to other standardized interfaces , such as the virtual machine ( vm ) to virtual memory manager ( vmm ) interface , where a vm utilizes para - virtualization or another virtual machine interface ( vmi ) to communicate with a hypervisor . ( a vm in this scenario may be a conventional os or a nested hypervisor .) moreover , the techniques presented herein should be considered os - agnostic and not specific to microsoft windows . the examples used windows as an exemplary os but as everything presented is architectural in nature these types of monitoring capabilities could easily be used . on linux , android , apple os x , apple ios or windows phone . fig4 shows a diagrammatic representation of a machine in the exemplary form of 30 a computer system 300 within which a set of instructions , for causing the machine to perform any one of the methodologies discussed above , may be executed . in alternative embodiments , the machine may include a network router , a network switch , a network bridge , personal digital assistant ( pda ), a cellular telephone , a web appliance or any machine capable of executing a sequence of instructions that specify actions to be taken by that machine . the computer system 300 includes a processor 302 , a main memory 304 and a static memory 306 , which communicate with each other via a bus 308 . the computer system 300 may further include a video display unit 310 ( e . g ., a liquid crystal display ( lcd ), plasma , cathode ray tube ( crt ), etc .). the computer system 300 may also include an alpha - numeric input device 312 ( e . g ., a keyboard or touchscreen ), a cursor control device 314 ( e . g ., a mouse ), a drive ( e . g ., disk , flash memory , etc .,) unit 316 , a signal generation device 320 ( e . g ., a speaker ) and a network interface device 322 . the drive unit 316 includes a computer - readable medium 324 on which . is stored a . set of instructions ( i . e ., software ) 326 embodying any one , or all , of the methodologies described above . the software 326 is also shown to reside , completely or at least partially , within the main memory 304 and / or within the processor 302 . the software 326 may further be transmitted or received via the network interface device 322 . for the purposes of this specification , the term “ computer - readable medium ” shall be taken to include any medium that is capable of storing or encoding a sequence of instructions for execution by the computer and that cause the computer to perform any one of the methodologies of the present invention , and as further described hereinbelow . the present invention has been described in particular detail with respect to various possible embodiments , and those of skill in the art will appreciate that the invention may be practiced in other embodiments . first , the particular naming of the components , capitalization of terms , the attributes , data structures , or any other programming or structural aspect is not mandatory or significant , and the mechanisms that implement the invention or its features may have different names , formats , or protocols . further , the system may be implemented via a combination of hardware and software , as described , or entirely in hardware elements . also , the particular division of functionality between the various system components described herein is merely exemplary , and not mandatory ; functions performed by a single system component may instead be performed by multiple components , and functions performed by multiple components may instead performed by a single component . some portions of above description present the features of the present invention in terms of algorithms and symbolic representations of operations on information . these algorithmic descriptions and representations are the means used by those skilled in the data . processing arts to most effectively convey the substance of their work to others skilled in the art . these operations , while described functionally or logically , are understood to be implemented by computer programs . furthermore , it has also proven convenient at times , to refer to these arrangements of operations as modules or by functional names , without loss of generality . unless specifically stated otherwise as apparent from the above discussion , it is appreciated that throughout the description , discussions utilizing terms such as “ processing ” or “ computing ” or “ calculating ” or “ determining ” or “ displaying ” or the like , refer to the action and processes of a computer system , or similar electronic computing device , that manipulates and transforms data represented as physical ( electronic ) quantities within the computer system memories or registers or other such . information storage , transmission or display devices . certain aspects of the present invention include process steps and instructions described herein in the form of an algorithm . it should be noted that the process steps and instructions of the present invention could be embodied in software , firmware or hardware , and when embodied in software , could be downloaded to reside on and be operated from different platforms used by real time network operating systems . the present invention also relates to an apparatus for performing the operations herein . this apparatus may be specially constructed for the required purposes , or it may comprise a computer selectively activated or reconfigured by a computer program stored on a computer readable medium that can be accessed by the computer . such a computer program may be stored in a tangible , non - transitory , computer readable storage medium , such as , but is not limited to , any type of disk including floppy disks , optical disks , cd - roms , magnetic - optical disks , read - only memories ( roms ), random access memories ( rams ), eproms , eeproms , magnetic or optical cards , application specific integrated circuits ( asics ), any other appropriate static , dynamic , or volatile memory or data storage devices , or other type of media suitable for storing electronic instructions , and each coupled to a computer system bus . furthermore , the computers referred to in the specification may include a single processor or may be architectures employing multiple processor designs for increased computing capability . the algorithms and operations presented herein are not inherently related to any particular computer or other apparatus . various systems may also be used with programs in accordance with the teachings herein , or it may prove convenient to construct more specialized apparatus to perform the required method steps . the required structure for a variety of these systems will be apparent to those of skill in the , along with equivalent variations . in addition , the present invention is not described with reference to any particular programming language . it is appreciated that a variety of programming languages may be used to implement the teachings of the present invention as described herein , and any references to specific languages are provided for disclosure of enablement and best mode of the present invention . the present invention is well suited to a wide variety of computer network systems over numerous topologies . within this field , the configuration and management of large networks comprise storage devices and computers that are communicatively coupled to dissimilar computers and storage devices over a network , such as the internet . finally , it should be noted that the language used in the specification has been principally selected for readability and instructional purposes , and may not have been selected to delineate or circumscribe the inventive subject matter . accordingly , the disclosure of the present invention is intended to be illustrative , but not limiting , of the scope of the invention , which is set forth . in the following claims . it should be further understood that any of the features described with respect to one of the embodiments described herein may be similarly applied to any of the other embodiments described herein without departing from the scope of the present invention . | 6 |
in the drawings , fig1 schematically illustrates a system according to the invention for powering and reading rfid tags , with powering accomplished not by the reader ( although the reader could comprise one of many powering nodes ). in this system , an area contains a large number of products or components bearing rfid tags ; the products or components may be moving , as through an assembly line or assembly process , or may be stationary , stored in a warehouse or other location , even in a retail space . as explained above , readers or interrogators , such as the reader 10 shown in fig1 , are fairly costly , and the range from which they can read a powered - up id tag is generally much greater than the range over which the reader can supply rf energy to powerup a tag . with the invention a series of power nodes 12 are employed for powering the tags , these power nodes 12 being distributed fairly evenly throughout the area , or at least fairly evenly throughout portions of the area where the rfid tags will be located ( which could be along a stream of moving products ). in the schematic example of fig1 , the components or products 14 are moving on a conveyor belt 16 , and the power nodes 12 are located beneath the path of travel of these products . the rfid tags are indicated at 18 . as the drawing shows , each component or product 14 can carry several different id tags 18 ; for example , each of a number of components on a product can bear its own rfid tag . further , the items 14 could each be a bin that carries multiple individual products , with the bin 14 used to ship them loose to the end customer or to store them . as schematically shown in fig1 , the power nodes 12 emit rf energy 20 at a tag - powering frequency , which will be different from the data frequency at which the tags transmit their data . with the power nodes 12 located easily within range of the multiplicity of rfid tags 18 , the tags are powered . thus , the reader does not actually send out an interrogating signal , which was the case in the patent and the copending application referenced above . instead , the tags are powered by the power nodes 12 independent from the reader 10 . data transmission from the tags is indicated , for example , at 22 in the drawing . the reader 10 is within range of the tag transmissions and receives and reads the data . depending on how the tags are produced and set , they could transmit their data only once during a period when they are continuously powered by the nodes , or they could retransmit a preset number of times , with a fixed delay between transmissions . when powering via the nodes is discontinued , this can have the effect of resetting the tags , so that they will again transmit once or the preset number of times . fig1 also indicates the reader 10 may have capability of controlling the power nodes 12 . power node control signals 24 are sent out by the reader to control the on / off status of all power nodes within the area . as described above , this allows the system to be designed so as to power up tags only in certain portions or zones of the area . this might be because of ongoing assembly line operations , where data is only needed from certain portions of the area at certain times , or it can be for the purpose of locating the tags and their products by zone . control can be very localized , even with control of single power nodes individually . fig2 shows schematically an area 30 , represented as a simple rectangle , divided into a plurality of zones , in this example four zones denominated zones 1 through 4 . a reader 10 is shown at the center of the area in this example , at r 1 . there may be more readers in many situations , depending primarily on the size of the area 30 , the distances involved , the reading distance capability of the reader or readers employed , and possibly a use of multiple readers for distance determination as explained below . fig2 also shows a multiplicity of rfid tags 18 , which are attached to products or components ( not shown ), distributed throughout the area . distribution , of course , can be very uneven in many situations , such as an assembly line . distributed among the multiplicity of tags 18 are a number of power nodes ; in this case 24 are indicated , from n 1 to n 24 . each zone in this example is shown as having six power nodes distributed throughout the zone , but the arrangement will depend on where the tags are normally to be located , whether they are moving or stationary , etc . as outlined above , the reader r 1 ( 10 ) has , in the example of fig2 , capability of sending signals for power node control . each rfid tag transmits a unique signal . in order to determine where each of the components and rfid tags are located ( or where certain ones of them are located ), the power node control function of the reader can activate zone 1 &# 39 ; s power nodes n 1 through n 6 for a period , receiving all the transmitted responses , then shut off zone 1 &# 39 ; s power node and cause the nodes in zone 2 to be powered , reading the transmissions from all tags within that zone . this progresses through the zones , and since only one zone at a time will have tags that are powered , all transmitted signals from the rfid tags reaching the reader r 1 in a particular period of time will be known to be from the powered zone . this assumes that all tags in one zone are out of range of all power nodes of neighboring zones . thus , in an assembly operation where the tags may be constantly moving or moving intermittently through the assembly system , localized zones can be powered as desired to monitor progress . an area can be divided into fewer or many more zones if desired . in an inventory situation , tags may be located throughout a warehouse floor , with one or more readers in the area . power nodes can be switched on in localized areas to read what products are contained in many such localized areas . note that the reader 10 or r 1 merely sends an rf signal to a local receiver within the zone of interest , the receiver receives a signal and , through a relay or other devices , switches on power to the nodes in that localized zone for either a predetermined period of time or a time as signaled by the power node control signal 24 transmitted by the reader . it is also possible to determine the precise location of a particular product and rfid tag using triangulation . this can be accomplished by having multiple readers within or near a zone at a known location within the zone . each reader can then read the tags at different times ( or simultaneously ), and each reader will receive a particular tag &# 39 ; s transmission at a different transmitted signal strength which depends on where the tag is , and which can be measured by the reader . with this information and known or empirically determined distance / signal strength correlation data , a triangulation can be done to determine the location of the tag . two readers are sufficient in some cases , but sometimes three are needed . two will define two points , only one of which will be valid if the other would fall outside of the area 30 concerned . for example , fig3 shows schematically a simplified situation in which the reader r 1 is in the center of the area concerned , and the system includes two more readers r 2 and r 3 , positioned as shown . if a signal strength triangulation is used with the readers r 2 and r 3 to identify the location of a particular tag in the area 30 , a signal strength triangulation will produce two intersecting circles , represented by arcs 32 and 33 shown within the area 30 . the circles will also intersect outside the area 30 , in a mirror - image position lower on the page of fig3 , but this point will not be valid . thus , the unique location t is the unique identifier of the tag &# 39 ; s position . it could be seen from fig3 that all three readers ( or a group of three other readers ) will be needed in many cases , when two readers would produce two points both within the area 30 . the location of a tag could also be determined by time of flight of the transmitted signal from a particular tag to a plurality of readers . if each tag carries a different random transmit time delay , as is preferred for collision avoidance , then time of departure of the transmission from a tag will not be known . however , with three readers in different and known positions ( such as the readers r 1 , r 2 and r 3 in fig3 ), the time differences in receipt of the particular tag &# 39 ; s transmission among the three readers can be used to determine a unique position for the tag . with two readers the time delay can be used to plot a curve of possible positions of the tag ; the third reader narrows the locations to a single point . the above described preferred embodiments are intended to illustrate the principles of the invention , but not to limit its scope . other embodiments and variations to these preferred embodiments will be apparent to those skilled in the art and may be made without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention as defined in the following claims . | 7 |
fig5 and 6 are a top view and a cross - sectional view of a first illustrative embodiment of the invention . structure 500 includes source and drain regions 510 , 520 formed in a well 530 with a polysilicon gate finger 540 formed on a dielectric layer ( not shown ) on the surface of well 530 . these elements will be recognized as forming a mos transistor ; but it will be understood that the mos transistor is only illustrative of any active device that may be used in the practice of the invention . a second mos transistor is formed on the right - hand side of fig5 and includes the same elements bearing the same numbers followed by the suffix a . as shown in fig6 , a semiconductor substrate 605 underlies well 530 . structure 500 further includes diffusion regions 560 , 562 that make ohmic contact with well 530 , a floating polysilicon gate finger 580 between diffusion regions 560 , 562 , and ohmic contacts ( or taps ) 515 to source region 510 , ohmic contacts 525 to drain region 520 , and ohmic contacts 565 , 567 to diffusion regions 560 , 562 . the diffusion regions 560 , 562 , and contacts or taps 565 , 567 constitute the well strap . a sti region 550 surrounds the active devices and the well strap . as shown in fig5 , taps 565 and taps 567 are on opposite sides of floating gate finger 580 . while two taps 565 and two taps 567 are shown , a single tap 565 or 567 or more than two taps 565 or 567 may be used . structure 500 further comprises dummy polysilicon gate fingers 575 , 576 located on opposite sides of diffusion regions 560 , 562 and above portions of sti region 550 . as a result , the well strap is separated from the active device by only one length of the dummy polysilicon gate finger , thereby reducing the distance between the active device and the diffusion region 560 compared with the distance between the active device and the diffusion region 460 in the prior art structure of fig4 . to form structure 500 , dopants of a first conductivity - type , illustratively n - type , are first implanted in a substrate 602 of a second conductivity type , illustratively p - type , to form an n - type well 530 . sti region 550 is then formed in well 530 . an insulating layer is then formed on the surface of the well ; and polysilicon gate fingers 540 , 540 a , 575 , 576 , 580 are formed on the insulating layer . lightly doped drain regions are then formed in the well on each side of gates 540 , 540 a ; and sidewalls 542 , 542 a are then formed on the sides of gates 540 , 540 a . the gates and sidewalls are then used as masks to control the implantation of dopants during formation of the source and drain regions and the diffusion regions . illustratively p - type dopants are implanted on both sides of gates 540 , 540 a and sidewalls 542 , 542 a to form source regions 510 , 510 a and drain regions 520 , 520 a of the pmos transistors ; and n - type dopants are implanted on both sides of gate finger 580 to form diffusion regions 560 , 562 . because the gates and sidewalls shield the well regions directly underneath them , these well regions are not doped during the implantation process with the result that separate source and drain regions and separate diffusion regions 560 , 562 are formed . holes are then made in the insulating layer and contacts are formed to the source and drain regions 510 , 510 a , 520 , 520 a and the diffusion regions 560 , 562 . advantageously , the n - type diffusion regions 560 , 562 may be formed at the same time as the same process is used to form other n - type regions , such as source and drain regions , elsewhere on the integrated circuit ; and similarly , the p - type process used to form the p - type source and drain regions 510 , 510 a , 520 , 520 a may be used to form p - type diffusion regions elsewhere on the integrated circuit . fig7 is a top view of a second illustrative embodiment of the invention . structure 700 includes source and drain regions 710 , 720 formed in a well ( not shown ) with a polysilicon gate finger 740 formed on a dielectric layer ( not shown ) on the surface of the well . these elements will be recognized as forming a mos transistor ; but it will be understood that the mos transistor is only illustrative of any active device that may be used in the practice of the invention . a second mos transistor is formed on the right - hand side of fig7 and includes the same elements bearing the same numbers followed by the suffix a . the well is formed in a semiconductor substrate ( not shown ); and the cross - section of the active device , well and substrate of the embodiment of fig7 is similar to the cross - section of the active device , well 630 and substrate 605 of fig6 . structure 700 further includes diffusion regions 760 , 762 , 764 that make ohmic contact with well 730 , at least two floating polysilicon gate fingers 782 , 784 between diffusion regions 760 , 762 and ohmic contacts ( or taps ) 715 to source region 710 , ohmic contacts 725 to drain region 720 , and ohmic contacts 765 , 767 to diffusion regions 760 , 762 . no contacts are made to diffusion region 764 with the result that region 764 is left floating . the diffusion regions 760 , 762 , and contacts or taps 765 , 767 constitute the well strap . a sti region 750 surrounds the active devices and the well strap . as shown in fig7 , taps 765 and taps 767 are on opposite sides of floating gate fingers 782 , 784 . structure 700 further comprises dummy polysilicon gate fingers 775 , 777 located on opposite sides of the active device and above portions of the sti region 750 . as a result , the well strap is separated from the active device by only one length of the dummy polysilicon gate finger , thereby reducing the distance between the active device and the diffusion region compared to prior art structures . the process for forming structure 700 and the resulting structural cross - section are substantially the same as those of structure 500 except that two floating polysilicon gate fingers 782 , 784 are used instead of a single polysilicon gate finger 580 with the result that three diffusion regions 760 , 762 , 764 are formed instead of two . fig8 is a top view of a third illustrative embodiment of the invention . structure 800 includes source and drain regions 810 , 820 formed in a well ( not shown ) with a polysilicon gate finger 840 formed on a dielectric layer ( not shown ) on the surface of the well . these elements will be recognized as forming a mos transistor ; but it will be understood that the transistor is only illustrative of any active device that may be used in the practice of the invention . a second mos transistor is formed on the right - hand side of fig8 and includes the same elements bearing the same numbers followed by the suffix a . again , the well is formed in a semiconductor substrate ( not shown ); and the cross - section of the active device , well and substrate of the embodiment of fig8 is similar to the cross - section of the active device , well 630 and substrate 605 of fig6 . structure 800 further includes diffusion regions 860 , 862 that make ohmic contact with well 830 , a floating polysilicon gate finger 880 between diffusion regions 860 , 862 and ohmic contacts ( or taps ) 815 to source region 810 , ohmic contacts 825 to drain region 820 , and ohmic contacts 865 to diffusion region 860 . as shown in fig8 , the contacts 865 to diffusion region are located on only one side of the floating polysilicon gate finger 880 with the result that diffusion region 862 is left floating . the diffusion region 860 and contacts or taps 865 constitute the well strap . a sti region 850 surrounds the active devices and the diffusion regions . structure 800 further comprises dummy polysilicon gate fingers 871 , 872 located on opposite sides of the active device and above the diffusion regions . as a result , the well strap is separated from the active device by only one length of the dummy polysilicon gate finger ; and the size of diffusion region 862 is reduced by eliminating the taps on one side of the floating gate finger . the process for forming structure 800 and the resulting structural cross - section are substantially the same as those of structure 500 except that contacts to the diffusion region are formed on only one side of the floating polysilicon gate finger 880 . fig9 is a top view of a fourth illustrative embodiment of the invention . structure 900 includes source and drain regions 910 , 920 formed in a well ( not shown ) with a polysilicon gate finger 940 formed on a dielectric layer ( not shown ) on the surface of the well . these elements will be recognized as forming a mos transistor ; but it will be understood that the mos transistor is only illustrative of any active device that may be used in the practice of the invention . a second mos transistor is formed on the right - hand side of fig9 and includes the same elements bearing the same numbers followed by the suffix a . again , the well is formed in a semiconductor substrate ( not shown ); and the cross - section of the active device , well and substrate of the embodiment of fig9 is similar to the cross - section of the active device , well 630 and substrate 605 of fig6 . structure 900 further includes diffusion regions 960 , 962 , 964 that make ohmic contact with well 930 , at least two floating polysilicon gate fingers 982 , 984 between diffusion regions 960 , 962 , 964 , and ohmic contacts ( or taps ) 915 to source region 910 , ohmic contacts 925 to drain region 920 , and ohmic contacts 965 to diffusion region 960 . as shown in fig9 , the contacts 965 to diffusion region 960 are located on only one side of the floating polysilicon gate fingers 982 , 984 with the result that diffusion regions 962 , 964 are left floating . the diffusion region 960 and contacts or taps 965 constitute the well strap . a sti region 950 surrounds the active devices and the well strap . structure 900 further comprises dummy polysilicon gate fingers 971 , 972 located on opposite sides of the active device and above portions of the sti regions . as a result , the well strap is separated from the active device by only one length of the dummy polysilicon gate finger ; and the size of the diffusion region is reduced by eliminating the contacts on one side . the process for forming structure 900 and the resulting structural cross - section are substantially the same as those of structure 700 except that contacts to the diffusion region are made on only one side of the floating polysilicon gate fingers 982 , 984 . as will be apparent to those skilled in the art , numerous variations may be practiced within the spirit and scope of the present invention . for example , the well and diffusion region can be either a p - type well and diffusion region or an n - type well and diffusion region . if the active device is a transistor , it can be an nmos transistor in a p - well or a pmos transistor in an n - well . other active devices may also be used in the practice of the invention . for purposes of illustration , the contacts or taps have been depicted as a pair of contacts ; but the invention may be practiced with a single contact or with more than two contacts . other modifications will be apparent to those skilled in the art . | 7 |
ln the accompanying drawings which form a part of specification and are to be read in conjunction therewith and in which like reference numerals are used to indicate like parts in the various views : fig1 is a perspective view of a fishing boat equipped with a combined livewell and bait well constructed according to a preferred embodiment of the present invention ; fig2 is a fragmentary perspective view of the combined livewell and bait well on an enlarged scale , with the lids open and portions broken away for purposes of illustration ; and fig3 is a schematic diagram of the electric circuit used to control the pumping of water into the combined livewell and bait well . referring to the drawings in more detail and initially to fig1 numeral 10 generally designates a fishing boat having a pair of fishing seats 12 in which fishermen normally sit . each seat 12 can swivel on a pedestal 13 . in accordance with the present invention , a combined livewell and bait well unit which is generally identified by numeral 14 is mounted on the floor 15 of the boat at a location approximately midway between the two seats 12 . referring additionally to fig2 the body of unit 14 takes the form a generally rectangular tank 16 which is water tight . the tank 16 may be mounted to structural cross members 18 of the boat by means of angle brackets 20 . the tank 16 presents within it a well compartment 22 which normally contains aerated water . the water is pumped into the well compartment 22 by a dc electric pump 24 mounted near the stern 26 of the boat . pump 24 has an intake 28 which extends through the stern 26 at a location below the water level when the boat is disposed in a lake or other body of water . consequently , pump 24 draws water from the lake or other body of water . the discharge 30 of pump 24 connects with a flexible supply conduit 32 which extends along one side of the boat at a concealed location , the conduit 32 extends beneath the floor of the boat and connects with an elbow fitting 34 which extends into the tank 16 through the bottom . the downstream end of the elbow fitting 34 connects with an l shaped flexible conduit 36 carrying a spray nozzle 38 on its end . the water level in the well compartment 22 is controlled by a vertical overflow tube or drain pipe 40 having a drain opening 42 in its upper end . the drain tube 40 is mounted to the inside surface of one side of tank 16 by a mounting bracket 44 , with the drain opening 42 located near but slightly below the top of the tank 16 . the bottom end of the drain tube 40 connects with an elbow 45 which in turn connects with a drain system that directs water out of the boat 10 . it is noted that the spray nozzle 38 is located slightly above the drain opening 42 but still within the tank 16 . consequently , the water that is sprayed from the spray nozzle 38 passes through the air above the water level in the tank and is thus aerated so that the water that enters the tank is relatively rich with air . the nozzle 38 is also oriented and arranged to direct the incoming water generally along one side of the tank 16 near one end . this orientation of the nozzle causes the incoming water to swirl as it is sprayed into the tank 16 , and the incoming water thus circulates the water in tank 16 in a swirling or whirlpool pattern to enhance the water circulation in the tank . tank 16 has a rectangular top access opening 46 which provides access to the well compartment 22 . a square panel 48 covers approximately one - half of the top of the tank 16 . the panel 48 is generally rectangular and is provided with a central round opening 50 surrounded by a circular rim 52 . the opening 50 is large enough to receive the body of a conventional minnow bucket 54 . the minnow bucket 54 has openings 56 in its side to permit the bucket to fill with water when submerged . an enlarged collar or flange 58 is provided on the top portion of the minnow bucket and is too large to fit through the opening 50 . consequently , the minnow bucket can be extended through the opening 50 with its body submerged in the water in the well compartment 22 and with the flange 58 resting on rim 52 to suspend the minnow bucket in the tank . the minnow bucket 54 has the usual handle 60 and a hinged lid 62 which can be opened to provide access to the minnows that are held in the minnow bucket . in this manner , the portion of the well compartment 22 which underlies the panel 48 serves as a bait well 64 which receives the bait carried in the minnow bucket . the remaining one - half of the volume of the well compartment 22 remains unobstructed and unoccupied by the bait to provide a livewell 66 for receiving newly caught fish . a pair of lids 68 and 70 are connected with the top of the tank 16 by piano hinges 72 and 74 , respectively . lid 68 can be closed to a horizontal position in which it covers the panel 48 and the underlying bait well 64 . the lid 68 can be opened about the hinge axis to the fully open position shown in fig2 . the other lid 70 similarly can be closed to cover the livewell 66 which underlies it or moved about its hinge 74 to the fully open position shown in fig2 . preferably , the lids 68 and 70 are covered by suitable cushions 76 and 78 , respectively . when the lids are closed , the unit 14 provides spare boat seats in that persons can sit on the cushions 76 and 78 if desired . referring now to fig3 the pump 24 is driven by a dc electric motor 80 which receives electrical power from the main battery 82 of the boat . arranged in parallel between the battery 82 and motor 80 are an automatic timer switch 84 and a manual on / off switch 86 . switch 86 can be opened and closed manually in order to respectively interrupt and complete the electric circuit to control the operation of the motor 80 . the timer switch 84 can be set to complete the circuit for a selected time interval and to then interrupt the circuit for another time interval . in this manner , the operation of the pump can be controlled either manually by means of the manual switch 86 or automatically in timed cycles by means of the timer switch 84 . in operation , the pump 24 acts , when energized , to pump water from the lake or other body of water through the delivery conduits 32 and 36 to the spray head 38 . the water is then sprayed through the air above the water level in tank 16 , and spraying of the water through the air aerates the water to maintain the water in the tank in an air rich condition . when the water level rises to the level of the drain opening 42 , the entry of additional water into the well compartment 22 causes water to drain off through the drain opening and the drain pipe 40 such that it is eventually discharged back into the lake or other body of water . live fish which are caught can be placed in the livewell 66 by opening lid 70 and then inserting the fish into the livewell through access opening 46 . the minnow bucket can be placed in the bait well 64 and can be easily reached from either of the fishing seats 12 when more bait is needed . because the water in the well compartment 22 is replenished by the operation of the pump 24 and remains aerated , both the live fish and the bait are maintained in good condition at all times . it is also pointed out that the livewell 66 provides adequate room for the fish even when the minnow bucket 54 is in place in the bait well . while it is preferred that the unit 14 be located between the two fishing seats 12 so that fishermen seated in either seat have ready access to its contents , the unit can be situated in other locations such as in the stern or bow where only one of the fishermen has easy access to it . it should also be noted that a single lid can be provided for the unit 14 and that the lid need not necessarily be functional as a seat . from the foregoing , it will be seen that this invention is one well adapted to attain all the ends and objects hereinabove set forth together with other advantages which are obvious and which are inherent to the structure . it will be understood that certain features and subcombinations are of utility and may be employed without reference to other features and subcombinations . this is contemplated by and is within the scope of the claims . since many possible embodiments may be made of the invention without departing from the scope thereof , it is to be understood that all matter herein set forth or shown in the accompanying drawings is to be interpreted as illustrative and not in a limiting sense . | 1 |
fig1 schematically shows the context in which embodiments of the invention can be used . this context may relate to a system / appliance to be analyzed for faults in the medical setting or in the installation or manufacturing setting . the components denoted by ad , adm , lmm , hm and lim in fig1 and 2 may be arranged in a single system or distributed over multiple intercommunicating systems locally . as such , the component ad may be installed or implemented e . g . at the customer end and the components adm may be installed or implemented at the service center end . similarly , the components lim , hm and lmm may be integrated in adm or may be split and / or divided into individual intercommunicating and reciprocally controllable devices . a learning - based , reactive and predictive maintenance and diagnosis solution can identify appliance parts that have faults or are affected by a necessary repair / replacement e . g . t or spare parts of a product , for example a ct or mrt machine , the faults being identified automatically within the complex of appliance parts and spare parts . a transparent decision mechanism for customers and service engineers is supplied by virtue of each spare part being provided , according to the system status , with an optional probability rating . the customer can activate what is known as a “ self - diagnosis agent ” ad on his appliance , e . g . a medical engineering system hs , which analyzes the infrastructure of means and system components and appliance parts using log data and predicts a fault type . this agent ad reports that a system component is affected by a fault and a call to the service center is needed . it is also possible for the agent to go through the system on a regular basis and to monitor system states and occurring system events . if a status of the appliance appears erroneous to the agent , it outputs an ( error ) message ec e . g . “ error context ”. furthermore , it is possible for multiple customers that have such an automatic diagnosis system or agent to send their log data directly to the service center . the service center then analyzes the customer products and systems on a regular basis and monitors the status thereof . hence , a potential fault or erroneous status is displayed to the service center in good time before a service engineer is sent to the customer . it is possible for a customer to call a service center and report a fault with a product or a system . the service personnel then logs into the system of the customer remotely and starts the self - diagnosis program or the agent ad thereon . the service personnel then copies the log data onto a computer in the service center and evaluates what spare parts t are needed for the fault . it is also conceivable for the customer , after the self - diagnosis agent is started and running , to transmit the log data to the service center and hence for the service center to be informed about the system status . the self - diagnosis agent ad can — as shown in fig2 — communicate and interchange data and / or messages or reports with the following components . a self - diagnosis agent manager adm ( see fig6 ) can be used to record instances of the log data integration manager lim , the history data integration manager hm and the learning machine model manager lmm . 1 . a log data integration manager lim is shown schematically in fig3 : the component consists of a formal model that collects system terms through individual events e or grouped event stacks eg . this component converts a prescribed content “ log data ” of a log file from an appliance / system into a systematic form or into a combined feature representation in the form of a log data matrix lr . the component converts into a numerical value representation and weights the relevant log events e in order to represent system messages sm and event code frequency tf , which is shown in column 5 in log data in fig3 , in an aggregated form ea on the basis of an episode or a time window , for example an hour or a day . these features are finally represented in a log data matrix lr . finally , this component normalizes each feature value using a predefined normalization value ( tf - idf / z - score ) based , wherein tf - idf ( term frequency = frequency of occurrence and inverse document frequency ) is used to assess the relevance of terms or system terms in a document or a file e . g . log file . the weighting computed in this manner ( see second row of lr in fig3 ) for a term with reference to the log file that contains it allows better arrangement of files as search hits for a term search in the hits list than would be possible using the term frequency alone , for example . a z - score or value allows a random sample value to be taken from a file or file collection and allows computation of how many standard deviations it is above or below the mean value . where e_p relates to the individual occurrence of an event , normalized by y and the aggregation of the respective occurrence of events during a time window ( episode ) e_pt . 2 . a history data integration manager hm for interchanging what are known as history data hd is shown schematically in fig4 : this component provides a formal model in collective form , in a replacement matrix er in the example , historic data — what are known as history data hd — having been collected from each individual appliance part of the system . a ) the average life alc of an appliance / spare part is ascertained by virtue of details of an average execution time for a specific component with and without any incident since the last replacement . the alc is determined by a normalization on each component that is involved in the overall system . where y_p is an individual spare part , y_ps represents an individual spare part status and op relates to an operating status of the spare part , b ) the ongoing life cycle clc is ascertained as an ongoing day or hour representation for an individual spare part that has been in operation since its last replacement , clc = sum ( y _ ps = op ). c ) the expected life cycle elc is ascertained as a current and normalized representation by virtue of the difference value for alc and clc to ascertain the expected life cycle , the current or the ongoing life cycle ( how long has the component already been running ) is related to its average life cycle . on the basis of the collected historic data , the expected life or life cycle of a component may be related to one or more other components of the appliance or system . this relationship is derivable from the historic data . 3 . a learning machine model manager lmm is shown schematically in fig5 : this component forms a current , reactive and predictive prediction and / or decision model of the self - diagnosis agent ad . said model is specified by a formal machine learning model mm that collects features for a machine learning algorithm . it combines the presentation of log data “ log data ” from the log data integration manager lim and of the history data hd from the integration manager hm and links the combined features , in which the rows represent the appliance episodes ( for example day , hour ) and the columns reproduce the event features . these event features are derived from the system code that occurs within an episode ( for example event code , feature value , event group ) and from the historic data ( history data ) hd using alc , clc and elc of each individual appliance part or spare part t of an appliance with a corresponding episode , and ultimately into the log data matrix lr . each row contains an appliance time for all individual appliances within a system . the components specify the target values for a training on the basis of classifications that are derivable from the historic data . e . g . a specific spare part t has been replaced within a prescribed episode . while the system consists of a long list of different spare parts , this component can group individual spare parts and assign a target value and also group the remaining spare parts and likewise provide them with a target group value . for example , 25 spare parts need to be classified as an individual target and the remaining appliance parts and spare parts need to be classified with a single target value . using the feature matrix lr and the target values zw , which are associated with one another , it is possible for the learning algorithm to apply techniques of what is known as bootstrapping in order to arrive at a tree structure that , instantiated as what is known as a regression tree , or is learned using what is known as a random forest rf method . a random forest is a classification method that consists of multiple different , uncorrelated decision trees . all decision trees have grown under a particular kind of randomization during the learning process . for a classification , each tree in this forest can make a decision and the class with the most votes decides the ultimate classification . besides a classification , the random forest rf can also be used for regression . optionally , it is possible for a support vector machine svm to be used . a support vector machine divides a set of objects into classes such that the broadest possible area remains free of objects around the class boundaries ; it is what is known as a large margin classifier . support vector machines can be used both for classification and for regression . decision tree learning using the aforementioned methods uses a decision tree as a predictive model which uses the observations regarding an object for conclusions about a target value for the object , in the example the component . it is used as a predictive modeling approach in statistics , data mining and machine learning . tree models in which the target variable can assume a finite set of values are called classification trees . in these tree structures , the leaves represent class tags and branches represent relationships with functions that lead to these class tags . decision trees in which the target values can assume continuous values ( typically real numbers ) are called regression trees . the result of the component is a predictive or decision model mm that identifies the appliance part that is most likely affected by the need for maintenance ( on the basis of the target value and the trained classifier ) in a particular appliance within a particular appliance episode ( for example a day ). 4 . a self - diagnosis agent manager adm is shown schematically in fig6 : this component adm accepts individual and multiple models mm of a machine learning model manager lmm and records them on a self - diagnosis agent ad . the manager adm and the agent ad can communicate with one another remotely via a network , the agent ad being able to be implemented at the customer end and the manager adm being able to be implemented at the service end . additionally , it records the log data integration manager lim and the history data integration manager hm in order to rate the model mm . to this end , recording r may be provided for each appliance / system . in order to be able to prescribe a self - diagnosis task for the self - diagnosis agent ad , this component adm collects event log information from different services or directly from the appliance and converts it into a model representation matrix mr . predictions for unexpected appliance information are achieved by averaging the predictions of all individual regression trees that are computed by the machine learning model manager lmm . these predictions are also recorded within this component . the result of the component is a decision mark based on the target value zw and specifies the affected appliance part of the appliance . additionally , the decision is put into context using decision rules that are derived from the machine learning model mm and applied to the model representation matrix mr . although the invention has been illustrated and described in more detail by means of the preferred exemplary embodiment , the invention is not restricted by the examples disclosed and other variations can be derived therefrom by a service engineer without departing from the scope of protection of the invention . | 6 |
in the following description , numerous details are set forth to provide an understanding of the present invention . however , it will be understood by those of ordinary skill in the art that the present invention may be practiced without these details and that numerous variations or modifications from the described embodiments may be possible . the present invention generally relates to plant supportive materials for enhancing plant growth . the plant supportive materials are prepared in stable , dry nanoparticulate formulations of , for example , plant nutrients , encapsulated water , fungicides , insecticides , pest repellents , acaricides and plant growth regulators . the present invention provides such a dry formulation in a nanomolecular structure . nanoscale materials are materials whose particle diameter in the direction of the largest dimension of the particles is less than 1000 nm ( nanometers ). in the present specification , the term “ nanoparticulate ” is used synonymously with the term “ nanoscale ”. the instant invention involves encapsulating plant supportive materials , such as nutrients , water , fungicides , insect repellents , insecticides and their synergists , plant growth regulators and other molecules into a cochleate membrane protein containing a phospholipid vesicle with a large internal space which holds the active ingredients . because of their nanomolecular size , these loaded cochleates are absorbed into the foliage of plants , as illustrated in fig1 . as illustrated , a cochleate 20 contains a plant supportive material 22 . the plant supportive material 22 can be directly applied to cells of a plant , because the cochleate 22 can pass through stomata 24 , i . e . pores , of plant foliage 26 . accordingly , cochleates 20 can be applied over the leaves of plants for direct delivery of plant supportive material 22 to active cells of the plant where the cochleates fuse with cell membranes inside the leaves to deliver the plant supportive material directly into the cytoplasm of the plant cells , thereby bypassing slower and less efficient uptake methods . u . s . pat . no . 5 , 994 , 318 , which is incorporated herein by reference , teaches the use of cochleates as a means for stabilizing or preserving biologic molecules in a form that is stable at room temperature , capable of desiccation and suitable for oral administration to humans , for delivering polynucleotides to a cell . a formulation comprised of drugs , nutrients and flavors for the stabilization and delivery of the molecules to a cell is disclosed . oral ingestion of such active ingredients are described applications of these cochleate compositions . however , there is nothing suggesting that nanoparticulate agents can be used with advantage as active principles in foliar feeding of plants . in the present invention , the anhydrous interior of cochleates preserves active plant protection cargo molecules from ambient conditions while the phospholipid exterior preserves full activity in suspension for extended periods of time . cochleate delivery vehicles are stable phospholipid - cation precipitates composed of simple , naturally occurring materials , for example , phosphatidylserine and calcium . they consist of alternating layers of phospholipid and multivalent cations existing as stacked sheets , or continuous , solid , lipid bilayer sheets rolled up in a spiral configuration . in one manufacturing method , the material to be formulated is added to a suspension of liposomes comprised mainly of negatively charged lipids . the addition of multivalent metal ions such as calcium ( although other multivalent cations can be used ) induces the collapse and fusion of the liposomes into large sheets composed of lipid bilayers , which spontaneously roll up or stack into cochleates . since the entire cochleate structure is a series of solid layers , components within the interior of the cochleate structure remain intact , even though the outer layers of the cochleate may be exposed to harsh ambient environmental conditions . cochleate preparations have been shown to be stable for at least one year as a lyophilized powder at room temperature . when the cation rich membrane of a cochleate first comes into approximation to a natural plant membrane , a reordering of the cell membrane is induced , resulting in a fusion event between the outer layer of the cochleate and the cell membrane . this fusion results in the delivery of a small amount of the encochleated material into the cytoplasm of the target cell . the cochleate may slowly fuse or break free of the cell and be available for another fusion event , either with this or another cell . cochleates may also be taken up by endocytosis , and fuse from within endocytic vesicles . examples of materials to be encapsulated in the cochleates include plant nutrients such as water soluble compounds of nitrogen , phosphorus and potassium , alone or in combination , and often in conjunction with other elements such as , for example , calcium , boron , magnesium , zinc , chlorine , etc . such particular fertilizers can be made of a single component , e . g ., urea , ammonium nitrate , potassium chloride , etc ., or of multiple components often mixed with inert water soluble or water insoluble materials as in common fertilizers designated as 6 - 6 - 6 , 4 - 6 - 4 , 10 - 10 - 10 , 20 - 20 - 5 , 14 - 16 - 0 , 5 - 20 - 20 , and the like . in addition , specialized cochleate nanostructures may contain water or other optional additives such as herbicides , insecticides , trace elements , iron salts , sulfur and sulfur compounds that produce slow release of nutrients . the cochleate delivery system also can be used to deliver hormones , such as auxin , or proteins , such as tir1 , directly to the cells of plants by foliar application . the foliar application of cochleates can be conducted according to several methods , such as spraying or dusting the cochleates onto the plants . as illustrated in fig2 , for example , the cochleates can be applied to many plants 28 of a given crop planted in a field . in this example , a spreader implement 30 is moved by , for example , a tractor 32 to rapidly apply the encapsulated plant supportive materials to plants 28 . it should be noted that these methods of foliar application can also be used to deliver water directly to plants through their leaves . this method of delivery can greatly conserve water during drought conditions , when planting in dry regions , or in other situations that benefit from water conservation . in this embodiment , cochleates 20 are packed with water and / or other nutrients or plant supportive materials . because the contents of the cochleate 20 are protected , the encapsulated water will not evaporate even if the cochleates are lypholyzed into a fine dry powder . the powdered cochleates are simply applied to the leaves of a plant to provide water to the plant . a farmer , for example , can spray or dust the powdered cochleates onto a crop , as illustrated in fig2 . the cochleates 20 are taken up by foliar mechanisms through the stomata of the plant leaves whereupon the cochleate phospholipid membranes fuse with the plant cell membranes and release the water and / or other plant supportive materials directly into the cytoplasm of the leaves . thus , water is conserved until the moment it reaches the plant cell walls rather then undergoing the normal losses of water incurred with conventional or root watering techniques . in an example , four pairs of commercially grown marigold plants at the same stage of growth were placed on their sides in a greenhouse , as illustrated in fig3 . in this example , four spray bottles were filled with the following mixtures , and each spray bottle was paired with a corresponding pair of marigold plants : 1 . a commercial plant food ( specifically scott &# 39 ; s miracle - gro , available from the scott &# 39 ; s company of marysville , ohio ) containing 15 % nitrogen , 30 % phosphate , and 15 % soluble protein ( 15 - 30 - 15 ) with trace elements of boron , copper , iron , manganese , zinc and molybdenum was prepared according to instructions at one tablespoon per gallon . 2 . phosphatidylserine ( ps ) derived from soybean oil ( jarrows formulas , los angeles , calif .) 900 mg was suspended in 300 ml of the 15 - 30 - 15 solution of the commercial plant food and water . the mixture was agitated with a glass stirring rod until well mixed to create a liposomal suspension . cochleate formation was induced through addition of a solution of calcium chloride in a concentration of 10 mm . 3 . phosphatidylserine ( ps ) derived from soybean oil ( jarrows formulas , los angeles , calif .) 900 mg was suspended in 300 ml of water . water - filled cochleates were formed through the addition of 10 mm solution of calcium chloride . 4 . water only . the soil was kept moist by watering every other day . a foliar application of the mixtures was applied by spraying the leaves of each of the four pairs of plants on days 1 , 3 , 5 and 7 . on day 9 , the plants had developed , as illustrated in fig4 . specifically , a single flower bud was present in the marigold plants sprayed with only water ( bottle 4 ) and the marigold plants sprayed with water - filled cochleates ( bottle 3 ). one flower bloom appeared on the pair of plants sprayed with the solution of commercial plant food ( bottle 1 ). however , the pair of plants sprayed with the mixture of bottle 2 containing nutrients encapsulated in cochleates had measurably larger foliage , five flower blooms and ten flower buds . although only a few embodiments of the present invention have been described in detail above , those of ordinary skill in the art will readily appreciate that many modifications are possible without materially departing from the teachings of this invention . accordingly , such modifications are intended to be included within the scope of this invention as defined in the claims . | 8 |
detailed descriptions of the embodiments of the invention are provided hereinbelow . however , it should be understood that these are provided only for helping the general understanding of the present invention and it will be apparent to those skilled in the art that the invention can be performed even without these specific matters . also , in describing the invention , detailed description about related known functions or structures have been omitted where the description thereof unnecessarily obscures the substance of the invention . hereinafter , the present invention will be described in detail in reference to the appended drawings . [ 0026 ] fig1 is a block diagram of a base station system in which a smart antenna is applied , according to a preferred embodiment of the invention . hereinafter , the block construction and operations of the blocks will be described in detail in reference to fig1 . the base station system is comprises of a first module 100 , an rft ( radio frequency block ) 110 , a duplexer 120 , an antenna connection block 130 and a second module 200 . the modules constructed of a back plane are different from each other . the first module 100 is comprised of two part channel cards 101 and 102 . first module 100 also determines the shape of a ( radio ) beam , which will be formed in the base station within the channel cards , where each of the channel cards parts consists of six channel cards . in other words , the first module 100 controls a beam , which will be formed in the channel card to be mainly formed in the direction of a specific sector . a signal from each of the channel cards 101 and 102 is inputted into a signal synthesizer / distributor 103 . the signal synthesizer / distributor 103 synthesizes a signal to be transmitted . here , in synthesizing the signal , a phase of a signal received from the channel card is compared with that from the signal synthesizer / distributor 203 of the second module 200 , to generate and output suitable phases to be transmitted . the signals from the signal synthesizer / distributor 103 are inputted into channel controllers 104 and 105 . each of the channel controllers 104 and 105 controls the signals to be accorded to each channel , in which the signals were controlled and outputted , according to the specific sectors . in other words , each of the channel controllers 104 and 105 controls a frequency fa allocated to a corresponding sector and the foregoing sector according to the number of the users , and is constructed to accept a wide band . the signals from the channel controllers 104 and 105 are sent to middle frequency processing blocks 106 and 107 . each of the channel controllers 104 and 105 are connected to a receiver bus line , and connected to the middle frequency processing blocks 106 and 107 in a one - to - one corresponding manner . the signals from the channel controllers 104 and 105 are sent to middle frequency processing blocks 106 and 107 . here , the one - to - one related correspondence is correspondence according to the frequency of each channel , and each processing apparatus or processing device may not be one - to - one matched , according to the capacity thereof . each of the middle frequency processing blocks 106 and 107 outputs the inputted signals after processing into middle frequency , and the signals are sent to transmitters 108 and 109 . in other words , the middle frequency processing blocks 106 and 107 and the transmitters 108 and 109 are also connected in one - to - one relation . the middle frequency processing blocks 106 and 107 will be described more in detail in reference to following fig2 . the transmitters 108 and 109 convert the middle frequency processed signals into transmit signals , then sends the converted transmit signals to rfb 110 . the rfb converts the received transmit signals into transmit radio signals , and converts the converted transmit radio signals into transmission powers . the rfb 110 has an amplifier . the amplifier will be described more in detail in reference to following fig3 . the rfb 110 sends the converted transmit signals to an antenna connection block 130 . accordingly , transmit signals are outputted to an antenna set to each corresponding sector or fa . such an antenna connection block 130 will be described more in detail in relation with coupling of the antenna and the transmitter in fig4 . the antenna connection block 130 is connected in common with a duplexer 120 . the duplexer 120 outputs the signal via the antenna connection block 130 to a phase controlling block 208 and also outputs signals from the phase controlling block 208 to the antenna connection block 130 . the phase controlling block 208 receives the signals , via the duplexer 120 , and transmit signals to inspect the degree of distortion of the phase . the inspected signals are inputted into middle frequency processing blocks 206 and 207 , and inputted into signal synthesizer / distributor 203 through the same . the signal synthesizer / distributor 203 can output the distorted phase value from the generated signal value to the signal synthesizer / distributor 103 of the first module to compensate for the distorted phase . while the signal synthesizer / distributors 103 and 203 are discriminated in fig1 for the sake of convenience , only one device may perform the same function . the first module 100 and the second module 200 have the same construction . a difference between the first and second modules 100 and 200 is that the channel cards 201 and 202 in the second module 200 output signals to the signal synthesizer / distributor 103 in the first module 100 , and receive signals from the signal synthesizer / distributor 203 in the second module 200 . also , when the signal synthesizer / distributors 103 and 203 are constructed within one device , the channel cards 201 and 202 are located at one side of the first module 100 or the second module 200 , and process the signals directly within themselves without any operations of transmitting or receiving the signals as shown in fig1 . [ 0032 ] fig2 is a detailed illustration of the internal construction of the middle frequency processing blocks , according to the invention . hereinafter , the internal construction and the operation of the middle frequency processing blocks according to the invention will be described in reference to fig2 . also , there is a description of only channel controller 104 from the channel controllers 104 , 105 , 204 and 205 in the following description for simplicity . the channel controller 104 receives a 3fa signal received from the middle frequency processing block 106 . the 3fa signal is discriminated into first , second and third bands . in description of the signal in the first band of the discriminated signals , the first band signal is inputted as discriminated into an i channel signal i 1 and a q channel signal q 1 . the signals are inputted into interpolators 301 and 302 , processed in the interpolators 301 and 302 , and then outputted as discriminated into if 1 channel chip signals and qf 1 channel chip signals . the if 1 channel chip signals of the discriminated signals diverge into two signals . each of the diverged signals is sent to each of multipliers 310 and 311 . here , one of the diverged if 1 channel signals is synthesized with a cosine signal in the multipliers 310 , the other of the diverged signals is synthesized with a sine signal . the signal which is synthesized with the cosine signal is sent to an adder 314 , and the signal which is synthesized with the sine signal , is sent to an adder 315 . meanwhile , the qf 1 channel signals in the first band are also processed in the interpolator 302 then diverge . one of the diverged signals is multiplied with a sine signal having a negative value in a multiplier 312 , and the other of the diverged signals is multiplied with a cosine signal in a multiplier 313 . the signal multiplied in the multiplier 313 is added in the adder 315 . the signals from multiplier 310 and multiplier 312 are added in the adder 314 , then sent to an adder 316 . the signals from multiplier 311 and multiplier 313 are added in adder 315 , and then sent to adder 326 . then , signals in the second band are also discriminated into i 2 channel signals and q 2 channel signals , processed , then outputted in corresponding interpolators 303 and 304 . also , signals in the third band are also discriminated into i 3 channel signals and q 3 channel signals , processed in corresponding interpolators 305 and 306 , and then diverge into 2 signals respectively to be outputted . one of the signals from the i 3 signal is diverged into the if 3 channel that is inputted into an multiplier 320 to be synthesized with a cosine signal , and the other one of the signals , from the i 3 signal , is synthesized with a sine signal having a negative value to be multiplied in multiplier 321 . the signal multiplied in the multiplier 320 becomes one input of an adder 322 . the other one of the signals multiplied in multiplier 321 becomes one input of an adder 325 . also , signals of a q 3 channel of the third band are processed in the interpolator 306 , and outputted into two diverged signals of qf 3 . one of the diverged output signals from qf 3 is multiplied with a sine value in a multiplier 323 , and is output to be added in the adder 322 , and then outputted to adder 316 . the other one of the diverged qf 3 signals is multiplied in the multiplier 324 with a cosine value , then inputted into the adder 325 . the output of adder 325 is inputted to adder 326 . the signals from the adder 314 , the interpolated signals of the i 2 channel of the second band and the signals from the adder 322 are added in the adder 316 . also , the signals from the adder 315 , the interpolated - signals of the q 2 channel of the second band and the signals from the adder 325 are added in an adder 326 . in other words , signals added in each band are finally added and then outputted in the invention . in this manner , the shape of a beam can be managed more effectively . the signals added in the foregoing adders 316 and 326 respectively are inputted into a step - up converter 330 , and then ascended into a certain frequency band . [ 0038 ] fig3 is a detailed illustration of the internal construction of the rfb 110 , according to a preferred embodiment of the invention . hereinafter , the construction and the operation of the rfb 110 , according to the invention , will be described in detail in reference to fig3 . the signals received from the transmitters are inputted into a phase controller 401 and a delay block 406 consisting of delay lines . the phase controller 401 adjusts the dimension of the signals , so that phases of the inputted signals match a certain level . the adjusted signals are inputted into a driver 402 . the driver 402 actuates the level adjusted signals to be inputted into a frequency assignment block 403 . the frequency assignment block 403 compares and phase processes the frequency controlled signals with the inputted transmission signals to be inputted into a delay block 404 . an output from the delay block 404 is inputted into an adder 405 , where the output of the delay block 404 is added together with a value controlled in the following dsp ( digital signal processor ) 411 , then outputted . prior to being added in adder 405 , the outputs from the dsp 411 are sent to dacs 408 , 412 and 415 for converting digital signals into analog signals . the dacs converts the received digital signals into analog signals and outputs the analog signals . the signals converted in the dac 415 are inputted to a phase controller 416 . the phase controller 416 receives signals from the compensator 407 and inputs the signals into the error amplifier 417 . the error amplifier 417 amplifies error values of the received signals from the phase controller 416 and sends the amplified error values to the adder 405 . then , the adder 405 adds the compensated error values . meanwhile , signals from delay block 406 are inputted into a compensator 407 . the compensator 407 compensates distorted signals of the inputted signals by generating a reverse phase of the distorted signals . such signals are generated by using the signals from the frequency assignment block 403 and the signals delayed in the delay block 406 . also , the output signals of the adder 405 are inputted into a step - down converter 409 simultaneously with the output . the step - down converter 409 descends the signals to a certain level . for this purpose , a voltage - controlled oscillator 414 generates and outputs signals of a certain frequency . such lower level signals are converted into digital signals in an adc ( analog - to - digital converter ) 410 to be inputted into dsp 411 . the dsp 411 receives the signals of digitalized frequencies to perform a control of compensation about the same . in other words , if the frequency is rapid , a signal is generated to slow the frequency . if the frequency is slow , a signal is generated and outputted to accelerate the frequency . the signals inputted into the dsp 411 are sent to a step - up converter 413 through dac ( digital - to - analog converter ) 412 as pilot signals . the final output signals , according to such controls , are added with signals from a main amplifier in the adder 405 as described below , and the added signals are outputted . the distorted signals are compensated through such a process . also , due to the application of the dsp 411 , estimation can be made easily about control features of degradation due to the external environment , and an amplifier is delivered with a previously set factor value during manufacturing so that the power consuming amount of the dsp can be remarkably reduced . the signals from the dsp 411 are sent to dacs 408 , 412 and 415 for converting digital signals into analog signals . the dacs output analog signals converted from the received digital signals . the signals converted in the dac 408 are sent to the phase controller 401 , the signals converted in the dac 415 are inputted to another phase controller 416 , and the signals converted in the dac 412 are inputted into the step - up converter 413 . first of all , the signals inputted into the step - up converter 413 are converted with a stepping - up frequency , then inputted into the frequency assignment block 403 so that a frequency control is performed . the phase controller 416 also receives signals from the compensator 407 , and the signals from phase controller 416 are inputted to an ea ( error amplifier ) 417 . the ea 417 amplifies error values of the received signals with a certain degree of amplification , and the amplified error values are sent to the adder 405 . as the error values are compensated like above , the adder 405 adds the compensated error values to perform a compensation of phase . [ 0044 ] fig4 is a detailed illustration showing the construction of the antenna connection block and associated parts , according to a preferred embodiment of the invention . hereinafter , the construction and the operation of the antenna connection block and the associated parts according to the invention will be described in detail in reference to fig4 . transmitters of the rfb , the first module 100 and the second module 200 are adapted to cause signals from transmitters 501 , 502 and 503 to be coupled with a switching control block 510 via coupling blocks . the switching control block 510 receives inputs via distributors to control a beam shape according to the distribution and requirement of users in the base station . the distributors distribute signals received from each of the coupling blocks in twelve directions . here , the signals are distributed to each of the sectors to which each of the antennas belongs , according to values considering the number of the users . the signals from each of the foregoing distributors are connected to switches which have one destination respectively , and are connected to next switching terminals of the corresponding destination . the signals distributed by the distributors are switched as shown in fig4 . for example , if the distributor is supposed to transmit 6 signals to a sector , 3 signals to b sector , and 3 signals to c sector , the switching control block 510 controls the distributors to transmit 6 signals to a switch for transmitting the signals to a sector , and distributes 3 signals for transmitting and distributes 3 signals for transmitting to the c sector . there are 6 signals transmitted to the switches for a sector and while the other signals are sent to b sector and c sector , respectively . the switched signals are inputted into a power amplifier block 512 , amplified in the power amplifiers into a transmitting output , then sent to an antenna front end unit 514 , which is connected to an array of antennas . the antenna front - end unit 514 outputs the received signals to buffers 516 , which outputs the same to the antennas . the buffers 516 have a 4 × 4 matrix structure and performs a switching technique . the switching technique is used to accommodate a greater number of the users considering antenna features , etc . the beam shapes of the antennas can be finally adjusted more accurately by using the matrix buffer 516 . [ 0046 ] fig5 shows the structure of a frequency generating block for phase compensation of an array antenna according to a preferred embodiment of the invention . hereinafter , the construction of a frequency controlling block will be described in detail in reference to fig5 . the frequency generator 600 receives clock signals used in the base station , in which the clock signals are received every two seconds . the frequency generator 600 generates signals of 1 khz and 2 khz . the signals of 1 khz from the frequency generator 600 are inputted into a transmitting frequency compensator 602 , and the signals of 2 khz from the generator 600 are inputted into a receiving frequency compensator 604 . the transmitting frequency compensator 602 receives signals from a current transmitting level generating block 601 in order to generate current transmitting level signals , compares the signals , then outputs tx compensation signals which require the modification of transmission level . also , the receiving frequency compensator 604 receives outputs from a current receiving level generating block 603 , compares the signals , and then outputs rx compensation signals which require the compensation from received signals according to the compared values . while a detailed embodiment has been described , it should be understood that various modifications and variations can be made without departing from the scope of the invention . thus , the scope of the invention should not be limited by the above - described embodiments , but is defined by the following claims and equivalents thereof . | 7 |
embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the accompanying drawings , while also additional novel and specific features according to the invention will be apparent . firstly , the principle for generating an infrared image using a diffractive optical element is described thereafter the detailed description of some preferred embodiments are described along with detailed system operation principles . the present invention in the one aspect mentioned above , relates to the projection of a near - infrared or infrared image or a low intensity visible light image onto a reference surface . in this context reference surface is considered to comprise any form of display , such as an arbitrary 3 - dimensional surface , a plane surface or a rear projection screen , or possibly a front projection screen . instead of a more or less vertical surface there may also be a table top surface . the intensity distribution of the image is selected to have good auto - correlation and cross - correlation properties . the image formed from near - infrared or infrared light is in the sensitivity range of the camera system used to locate and track the pattern . the spectral output of a representative data projector is shown in fig1 . as can be seen , the light is confined to the wavelength range approximately of 400 - 700 nm . hereby , the light used to simultaneously project another image using the data projector is not interfering with the near - infrared or infrared image , and its associated camera detection system , since the wavelength used is different from those used by the data projector . an example of such a pattern image with good auto - correlation and cross - correlation properties as well as circular symmetry is shown in fig1 . here , and in all further intensity plots , the gray scale colors are inverted due to document printing quality reasons , such that the white and black colors are used to present low and high light intensity , respectively . only a fraction of the image as depicted in fig1 is required to locate and track the center of the whole pattern based on the methods and systems described in wo0227461 . the projected patterns from the preferred embodiments of the present invention can be described geometrically as part of conic sections , and can thus be analysed further to find the actual azimuth and elevation orientation angles and the distance of the pen relative to the reference surface . to obtain an accurate positioning of the pattern using the camera and recognition system the image must have sharp and well defined edges or alternatively be distributed over a larger area with lower contrast and sharpness requirements . a preferred embodiment for projecting the image is by using a computer generated diffractive optical element and an infrared diode laser . a phase pattern of a diffractive optical element needed to generate a pattern as in fig1 is readily made by computer calculations . there exist a vast number of computational methods to compute the diffractive optical element pattern , as reported in the scientific and technical literature [ ref : jakob blad ; “ new design method for diffractive optics ”, chalmers university of technology , göteborg ( 2003 ), pp . 15 - 23 ]. fig1 shows a phase pattern generated by using the so called “ gerschberg - saxton algorithm ” [ ref : jörgen bengtsson , “ diffractive optics design ”, chalmers university of technology , göteborg ( 1997 ), pp . 25 - 27 ] to iteratively obtain a phase pattern that can be used as the diffractive optical element to give an approximate intensity pattern as that displayed in fig1 . the gray - scale plot in fig1 , inverted here for document printing quality reasons , represents phase - levels in the range [ 0 2π ] as distributed over the diffractive optical element . the corresponding “ diffracted image ” in terms of its fourier transform is depicted in fig1 . here 256 pixels were used in the diffractive optical element at 16 phase levels , and it is seen to reproduce approximately the same intensity distribution as in fig1 apart from reduction in light level intensity due to diffraction losses . provided the light intensity level is high enough in the gray areas in fig1 , a threshold in the detection camera system can be used to encode these as “ bright / white ” ( recall that fig1 - 24 are inverted ). fig1 shows that the phase pattern for the corresponding intensity distribution of an asymmetric pattern ( with similarities to a part of the pattern in fig1 ) can be generated using the same algorithm using the same number of pixel resolution in the diffractive optical element and the same number of phase levels ( concerning meaning of “ asymmetric ”, see definition ( 5 )). to use a two discrete phase levels - gratings is interesting due to its simplicity in manufacturing and design . a two discrete phase - only grating can be used to generate any symmetric diffraction pattern without interference and mixing of the positive and negative orders ( concerning meaning of “ symmetric ” see definition ( 4 )). the diffractive optical element and corresponding diffraction pattern for the image in fig1 is displayed in fig1 and fig2 , respectively . as seen , for the same number of pixels essentially the main features of the desired pattern is reproduced , however , the resolution is lower owing to the restricted flexibility of the two discrete phase levels of the diffractive optical element . in fig2 the result from attempting to generate an asymmetric pattern using the two discrete phase level grating of fig2 , is shown . as seen , the resulting diffraction pattern in fig2 is a superposition of the original pattern and its inverted image . this is due to the difficulty of a phase - only two discrete phase level diffraction grating to produce an asymmetric pattern . thus , a phase - grating of more than two phase - levels will be a pre - requisite for producing an asymmetric pattern used in the detector camera system . moreover , it will generally give better image quality compared to the two discrete phase levels grating when used with the same pixel resolution . other examples of simple symmetric patterns that also can be made by two discrete phase levels diffraction gratings are displayed in fig2 and fig2 . the image pattern as in fig2 can be used to estimate the angular spread of the diffracted pattern owing to the resolution of the grating . consider an arbitrary line intersecting the circle through the origin . this constitutes a “ linear model ” of the two - dimensional circle , with two diffracted spots on each side of the origin . the angular deviation of a laser beam from the original beam direction by a one - dimensional diffractive grating can be estimated from the formula : α is the fan out angle as applicable for the first order diffraction steering of a laser beam by a one - dimensional blazed grating [ ref : e . hällstig , l . sjöqvist , m . lindgren ; opt . eng . volume 42 ( 3 ) ( 2003 ) pp . 613 - 619 ]. here , λ is the wavelength of the light ( unit is length ), δ is the pixel - pitch ( unit is length ) and δ is the period of the grating in pixels . the pixel - pitch can be estimated from the resolution of creating the grating and for typical diffractive optical element produced on polymer materials or micro - machined silicon the resolution is typically 0 . 5 μm or better . hence it is possible to have 1 μm as pixel pitch . the wavelength is taken as 850 nm being in the near - infrared range . using 4 phase levels equally spaced between 0 and 3π / 4 radians gives the maximum diffracted 1 st order diffracted beam to be at an angle given by : sin α ≈ 0 . 2125 and an angle of approximately 12 °. hence , 5 cm of free space propagation after reflection onto a two - dimensional grating ( or transmission through ) with similar resolution and phase - level accuracy can be used to produce an approximately 2 cm diameter circle or similar pattern . it is noted that a higher resolution or a smaller pixel pitch could generate an even larger angular spread . suggestions of embodiments that can provide the diffracted pattern as an image in close vicinity (& lt ; approx . 10 cm ) of the diffractive optical element is discussed in the following . the diffraction phenomenon generates a fourier transform of any amplitude and phase distribution on the diffractive optical element in the “ far - field ”. alternatively , the fourier transform can be moved from the far - field to become closer to the output from the diffractive optical element by using a lens or spherical mirrors acting as a lens , placed in vicinity of the diffractive optical element . the phase distribution of a lens or a curved mirror has the property to move the fourier transform of a planar wave - front to the focal plane . using two or more lenses , curved mirrors , or combinations thereof the position and size of the fourier transform pattern relative to the diffractive optical element and laser diode can be controlled . diffractive optical element with phase distribution patterns as in fig1 can be provided by manufacturers of diffractive optical elements . these can be in the form of transmissive or reflective components . these components can be used in alternative embodiments of the present invention in optically alignments with optical elements like lenses , mirrors and light sources , as illustrated in fig1 - fig . 4 . referring to fig1 and fig2 , the guiding device 16 ( pen , pointer ) with a casing 12 has a battery 1 , a printed circuit board 2 , a laser diode 3 , a refractive collimating lens 4 , a transmissive diffractive optical element 5 , a lens 6 , a tip 7 , two buttons 8 and 9 . a resulting pattern 10 is projected from the guiding device to the screen when operated closely , and a pattern 11 is projected from the guiding device to the screen when operated distantly . referring to fig3 , the guiding device 16 ( pen , pointer ) with a casing 12 has a battery 1 , a printed circuit board 2 , a laser diode 3 , a transmissive diffractive optical element 5 with or without a lens 4 mounted near the tip 7 , a reflective diffractive curved annular mirror 14 and a curved annular mirror 13 , two buttons 8 and 9 . a resulting pattern 10 is projected from the guiding device to the screen when operated closely , and a pattern 11 is projected from the guiding device to the screen when operated distantly . referring to fig4 , the guiding device 16 ( pen , pointer ) with a casing 12 has a battery 1 , a printed circuit board 2 , a laser diode 3 , a refractive collimating lens 4 , a transmissive diffractive optical element 5 mounted near the rear end 7 , a curved annular mirror 13 and a neutral window and / or another transmissive diffractive optical element 15 for the light forming the pattern for distant operation . a resulting pattern 10 is projected from the guiding device to the screen when operated closely , and a pattern 11 is projected from the guiding device to the screen when operated distantly . the casings 12 of these embodiments have the purpose to resemble a conventional whiteboard marker or pen and to provide the user with a natural , intuitive and ergonomic writing , drawing and pointing tool . one or more battery cells are supplying the energy required to emit light from the light source or a number of light sources . the printed circuit board may provide power management , the interface to the one , two or more button switches , a laser diode driver circuit , and circuits for modulating the laser , a remote infrared link and / or a radio - frequency link . the laser diode may be an infrared or near infrared diode . the purpose of the collimating lens 4 is to increase the aperture of the laser beam to cover the surface of the diffractive optical element 5 . the concave lenses 6 and convex mirrors 13 and possibly 14 are for spreading the pattern to a large area when the guiding device is operated closely to the screen . the annular shape of the mirrors 13 , 14 and the annular shape of the possibly reflective diffractive optical elements 13 , 14 makes a free field path for the central part of the laser beam forming the optical intensity image when the guiding device is operating distantly towards the screen . the guiding object can be held in different orientations and distances to the screen as illustrated in fig5 , 6 , 7 and 8 . the changes in the projected pattern image position , shape and size can be utilized to find the lateral position , the orientation ( elevation and azimuth ) and to estimate the distance from the guiding object to the screen surface . fig9 and fig1 illustrate a situation where the guiding device and the camera and recognition system are located before the front projection screen , the rear - projection screen or other display system , and where the guiding device can be used closely to the screen and distantly to the screen . when close to the screen ( fig9 ) the guiding device may be within the field of view of camera 18 . thus , if the guiding device is provided with a code pattern , there may here be a combined function comprising the method described in wo0227461 . fig1 and fig1 show a configuration where the guiding device are operated before the rear projection screen and can be used closely to the screen and / or distantly to the screen , while the projected pattern image from the guiding device is projected onto the rear projection screen surface , and can be detected by the camera and recognition system located behind the screen close to the projector . having described the invention in terms of the preferred embodiments thereof , it will be recognized by those skilled in the art of optical system design that various changes in the configurations and details of the implementations can be made without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention , as defined by the following claims . | 6 |
botanical description of the plant : the following is a detailed description of ‘ qhmtf ’ laurel oak with color terminology in accordance with the royal horticulture society ( r . h . s .) colour chart ( 2001 ) except where the context indicates a term having its ordinary dictionary meaning . my new tree has not been observed under all growing conditions , and variations may occur as a result of different growing conditions . all progeny of my new variety , insofar as have been observed , have remained genetically stable in all characteristics described hereinafter . other than as set out hereinafter , as of this time , no other characteristics have been observed which are different from common laurel oak trees , which have been observed by the inventor . parentage : naturally occurring cross - pollinated seedling of ( unknown quercus hemisphaerica parents ) grown from bare - root liner purchased in the winter of 2001 from a nursery in florida . locality where grown and observed : ‘ qhmtf ’ laurel oak trees are currently in production at in walton county , ga . this area of walton county has a clay loam soil type with rainfall that varies between 30 ″ and 60 ″ annually . this particular area is located in usda hardiness zone 7 . size and growth rate : the original parent ‘ qhmtf ’ tree , aged 5 years measured 6 . 25 ″ caliper at 12 ″ above the ground . the height of 24 ′ and spread of 13 ′ provides a 1 . 85 height to width ratio . average growth rate is between 1 . 00 ″ to 1 . 25 ″ per year . foliage : typical of the species , alternate , simple , evergreen until spring , lanceolate , elliptic to oblanceolate , obovate , or oblong - obovate , 1 . 25 ″ to 4 ″ long , ½ ″ to 1 . 25 ″ wide , acute or obtuse , usually with a bristle - tip , cuneate or obtuse at base . the spring color emerges from a greyed - orange ( rhs n170 ) to a yellow - green ( rhs 144 ). mature foliage is lustrous dark green above like ( rhs 137a ) and lighter green below like ( rhs 137c ). the fall color is a russet red like ( rhs n167b ). the petiole is 0 . 25 ″ long , yellowish like ( rhs 10b ). the petiole diameter is 1 / 16 ″. buds : imbricate , shiny greyed purple like ( rhs 183d ) ⅛ ″ to ¼ ″ long , essentially glabrous , small for oak buds . flowers : typical of species . flowers are borne in clustered catkins in march and april , usually lasting for 10 to 14 days . fruit : typical of the species being short - stalked ( virtually sessile ), the nut subglobose to ovoid about ½ ″ in both diameter and length and brown in color like ( rhs 200b ) and enclosed ¼ ″ by the saucer - shaped cap which is grey - brown like ( rhs 199b ). trunk : typical of the species . the bark is initially smooth , and brown like ( rhs n200b ), becoming darker with maturity . branching : slightly ascending to nearly horizontal at the base , emerging at 80 - 90 degrees from the trunk . upper branches are more ascending , emerging at 45 degrees or more from the trunk . color is brown like ( rhs 200b ). shape : compact , pyramidal with dense branching and dominant central leader . root system : fibrous , typical of quercus hemisphaerica . vigor : the initially discovered tree has averaged between 1 . 0 ″ to 1 . 25 ″ in caliper per year . the root development from time of softwood cuttings to a finished rooted 3½ ″ pot is five to seven weeks . disease : free from disease . pests : displays spider mite resistance but does show signs of mild leaf hopper damage . | 0 |
higher operating temp ( hot ) focal plane arrays , or other infrared detectors , may be achieved through various mechanisms , some of which include reducing the volume of the detector . as discussed above , infrared detectors are sensitive to thermal noise , which is why these detectors are typically cooled to cryogenic operating temperatures . noise mitigation may be achieved by volume reduction of the noisier bandgap regions within the infrared detector . however , reducing the detector volume may result in lost performance . accordingly , aspects and embodiments are directed to a mechanism for compensating for this lost performance . in particular , aspects and embodiments provide an approach for realizing a hot detector that addresses both the relationship between detector volume and quantum efficiency and the fundamental recombination mechanisms that limit performance at high temperatures . according to one embodiment , a hot detector leverages surface plasmon resonance for performance improvement . as discussed in more detail below , this technique may provide a powerful resonant structure to allow two - fold improvement as the longer wavelength absorber may be both very small and in some instances fully depleted . it is to be appreciated that embodiments of the methods and apparatuses discussed herein are not limited in application to the details of construction and the arrangement of components set forth in the following description or illustrated in the accompanying drawings . the methods and apparatuses are capable of implementation in other embodiments and of being practiced or of being carried out in various ways . also , the phraseology and terminology used herein is for the purpose of description and should not be regarded as limiting . the use herein of “ including ,” “ comprising ,” “ having ,” “ containing ,” “ involving ,” and variations thereof is meant to encompass the items listed thereafter and equivalents thereof as well as additional items . references to “ or ” may be construed as inclusive so that any terms described using “ or ” may indicate any of a single , more than one , and all of the described terms . referring to fig1 , there is illustrated an example of a focal plane array ( fpa ) 100 of infrared detectors 110 . in the illustrated example , the fpa 100 includes a two - dimensional array of eight detectors 110 ; however those skilled in the art will appreciate , given the benefit of this disclosure , that the fpa may include any number of detectors arranged in one , two or three dimensions . additionally , each infrared detector 110 may have any shape and dimension suitable for radiation detection . in this example , each infrared detector 110 includes multiple semiconductor layers 120 , 130 and 140 ; however , as discussed further below , in other embodiments , the detectors may include more or fewer semiconductor layers . one or more substrates 150 may provide a base upon which the semiconductor layer ( s ) 120 , 130 and / or 140 may be formed . the infrared detectors 110 may be at least partially separated from one another by gaps 160 in which little or no absorption occurs . each detector 110 may correspond to a pixel of the fpa 100 . the substrate 150 may be a wafer comprised of silicon ( si ), germanium ( ge ), cadmium telluride ( cdte ), cadmium zinc telluride ( cdznte ), gallium arsenside ( gaas ), and / or any other suitable substrate material or combination of substrate materials upon which the semiconductor layers 120 , 130 , and / or 140 may be formed . the semiconductor layer ( s ) 120 , 130 and / or 140 may be formed using any suitable semiconductor process , including epitaxy , for example , such as molecular beam epitaxy , metalorganic vapor phase epitaxy or liquid phase epitaxy . at least one of the semiconductor layers 120 , 130 and / or 140 may include a material having energy bandgaps responsive to radiation in a spectral region ( or waveband ) of interest ( referred to as an absorber layer ). some examples of materials include , but are not limited to , silicon , gaas , ingaas , hgcdte , lead chalcogenides , and super lattices . according to one embodiment , one or more of the detectors 110 are configured to leverage surface plasmon resonance to thin at least one of the semiconductor layers acting as the absorber for at least one waveband of the detector . referring to fig2 , there is illustrated an example of a single - waveband ( also referred to as single - color ) photodetector 200 , according to one embodiment . the photodetector 200 includes a semiconductor absorber layer 210 , which may be formed on a substrate 150 using any suitable semiconductor manufacturing process , as discussed above , and has an energy bandgap responsive to radiation in a spectral region of interest . a semiconductor collector layer 220 is coupled to the absorber layer 210 and provides an electrical connection for the photodetector 200 . in the illustrated example , the absorber layer 210 is an n - type layer and the collector layer 220 is a p - type layer , thereby creating a p - n junction . however , it is to be appreciated that the electrical conductivity type of the layers 210 , 220 may be reversed in other examples . in addition , as discussed further below , the device may be formed with an nbn - type configuration , rather than a p - n ( or n - p ) junction . an nbn configuration is a barrier type device where n is the doping type . the device may alternatively be formed with a pbp configuration , namely , a barrier type device where p is the doping type . a plasmonic resonator 230 is fabricated on the detector 200 and provides an electrical contact structure for the detector . the plasmon resonator 230 is a metal layer . the plasmonic resonator 230 operates by resonating incident flux , causing a field to be built up in the absorptive region ( absorber layer 210 ) of the detector 200 . generated carriers are separated and collected in the absorptive region in accord with normal operation of a photovoltaic device . in the illustrated example , the plasmonic resonator 230 is formed with a grating structure that includes protrusions or ridges 235 that are periodically spaced . the dimensions of the ridges 235 and period of the grating may be tailored to focus plasma waves into the absorber layer 210 , and to achieve a desired wavelength selectivity or polarization selectivity , as discussed further below . in addition , the design of the plasmonic resonator may be varied on a per pixel basis , to provide individualized spectral and / or polarization responses for the pixels of a detector array . responsive to incident radiation in the z - direction ( generally normal to the surface of the detector 200 ), the plasmonic resonator 230 causes a resonance in the x - y plane , thereby allowing a very thin absorber layer 210 to collect substantially all photons and maintain a high quantum efficiency . as a result , volume reduction ( thinning ) of the absorber layer 210 may not hinder optical performance of the detector 200 , thereby improving signal to noise . in one embodiment , the resonance of the plasmonic resonator 230 allows the absorber layer 210 to be sufficiently thinned such that it may be fully depleted or close or fully depleted at standard operating voltages . depletion of the absorber layer 210 means that limiting mechanisms at high temperatures , such as auger recombination , are suppressed . furthermore , as discussed above , volume reduction also reduces the sensitivity of the device to thermal noise , and reduces “ dark current .” dark current is the constant response exhibited by a receptor of radiation during periods when it is not actively being exposed to light . in particular , in the context of a photodetector or photovoltaic device , dark current refers to the relatively small electric current that flows through the photosensitive device when no photons are entering the device . as discussed above , the detector 200 illustrated in fig2 is a single - color ( or single - waveband ) device . there are several single - color implementations that may leverage surface plasmon resonance for various different sensing applications . for example , the detector 200 of fig2 may provide a narrow - band sensor that may be used for resonant detection . fig3 a illustrates an example spectral profile of the detector 200 of fig2 configured as an infrared detector ( i . e ., the absorber layer 210 is selected to include one or more materials responsive to infrared radiation ). fig3 a represents a generic spectral response . the specific spectral response of an exemplary device may be dependent on the combination of the absorber material cut - off wavelength and optical properties , absorber thickness ( which may be much thinner than a conventional absorbing layer , as discussed above ), and dimensions of the resonator . the dimensions of the resonator are typically determined by the operating wavelength , material properties , and desired response / sensitivity . for example , a device having a spectral response of the form illustrated in fig3 a may include an mwir absorber , a cut - off wavelength of approximately 5 μm , an absorber thickness of approximately 500 nm , and a resonator period of approximately 0 . 5 - 2 μm . fig3 b illustrates a corresponding diagram showing energy levels across an example of the detector 200 of fig2 . as discussed above , the width w 1 of the absorber layer 210 may be made very narrow , in one example , approximately the same as the depletion width of the detector , such that the device may be operated fully depleted . such a sensor may realize a hot detector with good performance through the reduction of thermal noise , dark current , and other limiting factors , as discussed above . according to another embodiment , a single - color photodetector may be implemented for broad - band sensing . for example , a broad - band detector may be implemented , leveraging the reduced dark current of the device , by confining the shortest wavelengths to a very narrow , optionally fully depleted absorber , while allowing other wavelengths to be absorbed through more standard absorbers . an example of such a detector is illustrated in fig4 . referring to fig4 , in one example , a single - color broad - band photodetector 400 includes an absorber layer 410 that is divided into two regions , namely , region 410 a and region 410 b , as shown by the dotted line in fig4 . absorber region 410 a may be responsive to a certain group of wavelengths , for example , the shorter wavelengths of a waveband of interest , and the absorber region 410 b may be sensitive to other wavelengths in the waveband of interest . the plasmonic resonator 230 may be configured to focus radiation with selected wavelengths into absorber region 410 a . accordingly , absorber region 410 a may be made very thin , for example ( referring to fig5 b ), the width w 2 of absorber region 410 a may be approximately the same as the depletion width . thus , in one example , the detector 400 may be operated with absorber region 410 a fully depleted and leveraging the plasmon resonance to achieve high quantum efficiency . in one example , absorber region 410 a resembles the detector 200 of fig2 in operation , and may be a very narrow - band detector . absorber region 410 b may have a wider spectral range ( or bandwidth ). for example absorber region 410 a may have a peak response at 4 . 5 μm with an fwhm response of 0 . 5 - 1 μm , while absorber 410 b has a broad - band response over the region 1 - 4 . 25 μm region . thus , the combination of the two color absorbers may cover the entire useful mwir region , while having the dark current performance of only the shorter wavelength material 410 b , which dominates dark current in the longer wavelength absorber 410 a . absorber region 410 b may not receive resonant energy from the plasmonic resonator 230 , and may absorb photons according to conventional photovoltaic processes . thus , the surface plasmonic resonator 230 may be used to manage where absorption of photons with selected wavelengths occurs within a detector device to improve performance of the device . accordingly , a broad - band device may be achieved by using the thin , narrow - band absorber region 410 a for some wavelengths , and the thicker , broader - band absorber region 410 b to capture the other wavelengths . in one example , the thickness of absorber region 410 a may be approximately 300 nanometers ( nm ) and the thickness of absorber region 410 b may be approximately 5 micrometers ( μm ). similar to fig3 a discussed above , fig5 a illustrates an example generic spectral profile for an infrared embodiment of detector 400 . in one example , the detector 400 is configured for the infrared spectral region extending from approximately 3 μm to 5 μm . in another example , the detector 400 is configured for the infrared spectral region extending from approximately 8 μm to 12 μm . as discussed above , absorber region 410 a is configured to detect a first subset of the spectral region , similar to the detector of fig2 , and absorber region 410 b is configured to detect the remainder of the spectral region ; thereby achieving a broad - band , single - color device . as discussed above , fig5 b illustrates the corresponding energy level diagram for the example detector of fig4 . as discussed above , other embodiments of detectors may include nbn detectors that instead of a p - n junction include a barrier layer between the absorber and the collector . the plasmonic resonator may be formed on the collector and the absorber may be thinned , as discussed above . one example of an nbn single - color detector is illustrated in fig6 . in this example , the detector 600 includes an absorber layer 610 , a barrier layer 620 and a collector layer 630 . the absorber layer 610 and the collector layer 630 may have the same electrical conductivity type , for example , n - type , and are separated from one another by the barrier layer 620 . as discussed above , by using the plasmonic resonator 230 to focus plasma waves into the absorber layer 610 , the absorber layer may be made very thin . in this context , “ very thin ” may be defined by optical absorption depth , rather than a physical property of the absorber layer . for example , a typical mwir absorption depth is approximately 1 - 3 μm ( and is wavelength dependent ); therefore , a conventional absorber layer may typically be 5 - 10 μm thick . in contrast , according to certain aspects of the invention , the absorber layer 610 may be “ very thin ” in that the absorber thickness may be much less than the absorption depth . for example , an absorber layer of 300 nm thickness is approximately 5 - 10 times thinner than the typical mwir absorption depth , and therefore may be considered very thin . the absorption depth is dependent on the material properties , and therefore the physical thickness of a “ very thin ” layer may be material dependent also . this example detector 600 may be a narrow - band device , and may have a generic spectral response ( an example of which is illustrated in fig7 a ) similar to that of the detector 200 of fig2 . fig7 b illustrates an exemplary corresponding energy level diagram for the example detector 600 of fig6 . a broad - band single color detector , such as that discussed above with reference to fig4 , may also be implemented using an nbn configuration . an example of single - color , dual - absorber detector 800 is illustrated in fig8 . in this example , the detector 800 includes an absorber layer 810 , which as discussed above , may be divided into two absorber regions 810 a and 810 b , one of which ( 810 b ) may be thinned due to the benefits provided by the plasmonic resonator 230 . the dual - region absorber layer 810 may provide a broad - band single color spectral response ( an example of which is illustrated in fig9 a ). in one example , the detector 800 may be constructed such that the spectral response is similar to that of detector 400 . the absorber layer 810 is separated from a collector layer 830 by a barrier layer 820 . as discussed above with respect to fig6 , in this configuration , the absorber layer 810 and collector layer 830 may have the same electrical conductivity type . the plasmonic resonator 230 is formed on the collector layer 830 . fig9 a illustrates an example of the generic spectral response of detector 800 , and fig9 b illustrates a corresponding exemplary energy level diagram . in one example , the detector 800 is configured to cover wavelength ranges from approximately 4 . 25 - 5 μm and less than 4 . 25 μm . in another example , in which inalsb and inassb materials are used , the detector 800 may be configured to cover wavelength ranges from approximately 3 . 25 - 4 μm and less than 4 μm . as discussed above , super lattices may also be used for the detector materials . according to another embodiment , a two - color ( or dual - band ) device may also be implemented using a surface plasmonic resonator , as discussed above . in one example , a dual - band detector leverages surface plasmon resonance to thin one band of the detector , particularly the band most sensitive to dark current and limiting higher temperature operation . as a result , a hot two - color or dual - band detector may be realized . in one example , for an infrared two - color detector , the detector may include two absorbing regions of different cut - off . the longer - wavelength absorbing region may be coupled to a plasmonic resonator , as discussed further below , and may be made very thin , in one example , on the order of the depletion width of the detector . this reduces the volume of the device and the dark current generating sources , while maintaining high quantum efficiency , as discussed above . the shorter - wavelength absorbing region may be a standard thickness absorber , and may not receive resonant energy from the plasmonic resonator . referring to fig1 , there is illustrated one example of a two - color detector 1000 including a plasmonic resonator 230 . the detector 1000 includes a first absorber layer 1010 comprising a material having an energy bandgap responsive to radiation in a first spectral region , and a first collector layer 1020 , which together provide detection for the first spectral region ( referred to as the first color detector ). the detector 1000 further includes a second absorber layer 1030 comprising a material having an energy bandgap responsive to radiation in a second spectral region . in the illustrated example , the collector layer for the second absorber 1030 is provided by a highly doped n + layer 1040 ; however , in other examples , layer 1040 may be a p - type layer . layers 1020 , 1030 and 1040 together provide the second color detector . a variety of other suitable electrical conductivity variations may be used for the semiconductor layers 1010 , 1020 , 1030 and 1040 . for example , as discussed further below , a dual - band detector may be implemented using an nbn configuration , as illustrated for example in fig1 . the contact structure of the second color detector is patterned to provide the surface plasmonic resonator 230 , as discussed above . in one example , the detector 1000 is an infrared detector , and the first color detector is the shorter wavelength detector and the second color detector is the longer wavelength detector . in a particular embodiment , absorber layer 1010 may have an energy bandgap responsive to a spectral range of approximately 0 . 5 μm to 5 μm , and semiconductor layer 1030 may have an energy bandgap responsive to a different spectral region , such as , for example , long - wavelength infrared ( lwir ). in another example , the dual - band detector 1000 may include one band covering the infrared spectral region from approximately 3 μm to 5 pm , and another band covering the infrared spectral region from approximately 8 μm to 12 μm . in other embodiments , semiconductor layers 1010 and 1030 may be responsive to respective ones or more of near - infrared ( nir ), short - wavelength infrared ( swir ), mid - wavelength infrared , lwir , very - long wave infrared ( vlwir ), and / or one or more other spectral regions that may or may not be within the infrared spectrum . as used herein , nir radiation includes a spectral region extending from approximately 0 . 5 to 1 μm , swir radiation includes a spectral region extending from approximately 1 to 3 μm , mwir radiation includes a spectral region extending from approximately 3 to 8 μm , lwir radiation includes a spectral region extending from approximately 8 to 12 μm , and vlwir radiation includes a spectral region extending from approximately 12 to 30 μm . longer wavelength infrared radiation is generally more sensitive to thermal noise than is shorter wavelength infrared radiation . accordingly , it may be advantageous to apply the benefits of the plasmonic resonator to the longer wavelength ( second color ) absorber layer 1030 . however , in other examples , particularly if the detector 1000 is configured for a spectral region other than the infrared region , the second color detector may be the shorter wavelength detector . in one embodiment , the second absorber layer 1030 is thinned , for example , until it is approximately a depletion region thickness . as illustrated in fig1 , the second absorber layer 1030 is sandwiched between two regions of higher band gap ( and also higher doping density ), namely the collector layers 1020 and 1040 . in one example , the second color detector is operated fully depleted . this reduces auger recombination , in some instances leaving only g - r recombination , which may be controlled through careful selection of the material quality ( for the material of absorber layer 1030 ) and is not a fundamental material limit for higher temperature operation . in one example , the second color detector using the plasmonic resonator 230 is narrow - band , and may be configured for the wavelengths most sensitive to thermal noise , dark current or other limiting effects . the shorter wavelength absorber layer 1010 may be broad - band ( as discussed above , this absorber may not be affected by the plasmonic resonator 230 ) and may be used to cover the wavelengths of the absorption spectrum of interest that are not detected by the narrow - band absorber 1030 . another example of a dual - band radiation detector that may be modified to include a plasmonic resonator 230 coupled to the absorber layer associated with one spectral band of the detector is described in u . s . patent publication no . 2011 / 0147877 titled “ multi - band , reduced - volume radiation detectors and methods of formation ,” published on jun . 23 , 2011 and incorporated herein by reference in its entirety . fig1 a illustrates one example of a spectral profile corresponding to an infrared example of the detector 1000 of fig1 . in this example , the first color detector ( using absorber layer 610 ) detects the first ( shorter wavelength and broader band , for example the 3 - 5 μm mwir window ) spectral region 1110 , and the second color detector ( using the plasmonic resonator and absorber layer 1030 ) covers the second ( narrow - band , longer wavelength , for example sections of the lwir 8 - 12 um window , with the spectral content defined by the geometry of the resonator ) spectral region 1120 . fig1 b illustrates a corresponding portion of an energy level diagram including semiconductor layers 1020 , 1030 and 1040 , and the plasmonic resonator contact 235 . as discussed above , in one example , the width w 3 of the second absorber layer 1030 may be approximately the depletion thickness of the detector 1000 . examples of thickness include approximately 5 - 10 μm for band 1 ( the standard absorber thickness ) and 300 nm for band 2 ( with plasmonic enhancement ). as discussed above , a two - color detector may be implemented using an nbn configuration , as illustrated for example in fig1 . in this example , the detector 1200 includes a first absorber layer 1210 comprising a material having an energy bandgap responsive to radiation in a first spectral region , and a second absorber layer 1230 comprising a material having an energy bandgap responsive to radiation in a second spectral region . the two absorber layers are separated from one another by a barrier layer 1220 . the plasmonic resonator 230 is coupled to the second absorber layer 1230 induces a resonance therein , as discussed above , to allow this layer to be thinned while maintaining high quantum efficiency . fig1 a illustrates an example of the spectral response of detector 1200 , which may be similar to that of detector 1000 . fig1 b illustrates a corresponding energy level diagram for an example of the detector 1200 . fig1 is a graph showing simulated dark currents for various examples of detectors using plasmonic resonators in accord with certain embodiments . dark current in amperes per square centimeter ( y - axis ) are plotted as a function of the normalized inverse operating temperature of the detector ( x - axis ; operating temperature decreasing to the right ). trace 1410 represents the dark current for a baseline single color detector without a plasmonic resonator ( standard thickness absorber ). trace 1420 illustrates the dark current for an example of a single color broad - band detector , such as that illustrated in fig4 . trace 1430 illustrates the dark current for an example of a single color narrow - band detector , such as that illustrated in fig2 . as can be seen with reference to fig1 , the dark current is substantially reduced for these example detectors utilizing the plasmon resonance . traces 1440 and 1450 corresponding to an example two - color detector , such as that shown in fig1 . trace 1440 illustrates the dark current for the first spectral region or waveband of the detector ( corresponding to absorber layer 1010 ), and trace 1450 illustrates the dark current for the second spectral region or waveband , corresponding to absorber layer 1030 . in one example , by leveraging plasmon resonance and operating the detectors fully depleted , an infrared detector may be made to perform with approximately 50 times less dark current at an operating temperature of 200 k than a conventional ( e . g ., the baseline ; trace 1410 ) infrared detector . thus , aspects and embodiments provide a single - or dual - band radiation detector , for example , an infrared detector , in combination with a plasmonic resonator . as discussed above , the plasmonic resonator allows volume reduction of the absorber layer of one band ( or selection of wavelengths ) of the detector , for example , the narrowest bandgap material , while another absorber associated with the other band / color may allow broad - band detection at wavelengths not within the narrow - band spectral region influenced by the plasmonic resonator . thus , a hot detector may be realized by employing the plasmonic resonator to achieve a thin , optionally fully depleted , absorber for one spectral region or one or more wavelengths ( e . g ., the spectral region most sensitive to thermal noise or where highest resolution / performance is desired ), and using a second absorber material for broader detector response ( e . g ., for a broad - band single color detector leveraging multiple color absorbing regions ) or dual - color applications . furthermore , according to one embodiment , the plasmonic resonator 230 may be designed to allow for selectivity in one or multiple optical regimes . for example a single narrow - band resonance can be designed , and varied across the focal plane array 100 for multi - or hyper - spectral imaging . thus , referring again to fig1 , different detectors 110 in the focal plane array 100 may be configured with different plasmonic resonators to achieve sensitivity in different spectral regions . for example , the period and / or dimensions of the ridges 235 may be varied from detector to detector to tailor each detector 110 to a specific waveband . in another example , various polarization sensitivities may be designed into the plasmonic resonators 230 , again by varying the dimensions and / or grating period of the ridges 235 . as discussed above , in some embodiments , the detectors 200 , 400 , 600 , 800 , 1000 and / or 1200 are infrared detectors , and accordingly the semiconductor layers may include materials that are capable of detecting infrared radiation in any one or more of the nir , swir , mwir , lwir and / or vlwir spectral bands . one example material capable of detecting radiation is mercury cadmium telluride ( hgcdte ). in one embodiment , the semiconductor layers 120 , 130 , 140 , 210 , 410 , 1010 and / or 1030 at least partially comprise hgcdte in the form of hg ( 1 - x ) cd x te . the x value of the hgcdte alloy composition may be chosen , for example , so as to tune the optical absorption of the corresponding semiconductor layer to the desired infrared wavelength . in other examples , the semiconductor layers 120 , 130 , 140 , 210 , 410 , 1010 and / or 1030 may comprise additional and / or alternative materials responsive to radiation . for example , the semiconductor layers 120 , 130 , 140 , 210 , 410 , 1010 and / or 1030 may comprise mercury cadmium zinc telluride ( hgcdznte ) and / or group iii - v semiconductor materials , such as , for example , gaas , algaas , inas , insb , gasb , and their alloys . as another example layers 120 , 130 , 140 , 210 , 410 , 1010 and / or 1030 may be based on a type - ii strained - layer superlattice structure . having described above several aspects of at least one embodiment , it is to be appreciated various alterations , modifications , and improvements will readily occur to those skilled in the art . such alterations , modifications , and improvements are intended to be part of this disclosure and are intended to be within the scope of the invention . accordingly , the foregoing description and drawings are by way of example only , and the scope of the invention should be determined from proper construction of the appended claims , and their equivalents . | 7 |
this application is a continuation - in - part of u . s . patent application ser . no . 08 / 176 , 324 filed on jan . 3 , 1994 for a wireless mouse , incorporated herein by reference . referring first to fig1 the wireless operation of the present invention can be better appreciated . a peripheral 10 , such as an electronic mouse or other suitable peripheral , communicates with a host adapter 20 by means of radio frequency (&# 34 ; rf &# 34 ;) signals . the other suitable peripherals include trackballs , keyboards , digitizing tablets and pointing devices used in software presentations . the mouse 10 communicates with the host adapter 20 on a suitable carrier frequency such as the range of frequencies around 27 mhz , although one skilled in the art will appreciate that many other rf carrier frequencies would be suitable for use with wireless peripherals according to the present invention . the host adapter 20 is connected to a host system 30 ( not shown ), such as a personal computer or work station , through any suitable protocol . for example , the host adapter 20 may be connected to the host system 30 through a serial port ( rs - 232 ) or a mouse port , generally referred to as a ps / 2 port . referring next to fig2 the major components of the wireless mouse 10 of the present invention may be better appreciated . the lower housing 100 serves as a platform , onto which the printed circuit (&# 34 ; pc &# 34 ;) board 110 is located by means of locating pins 120 . integral with the lower housing 100 is a ball cage 130 , such as is described in u . s . patent application ser . no . 08 / 183 , 897 , entitled integrated ball cage for pointing device and filed jan . 21 , 1994 , incorporated herein by reference . also integral with the lower housing 100 is a battery holder 140 , discussed in greater detail hereinafter . coupled to the front portion of the pc board 110 , are a plurality of switches 150a - c for user actuation in a conventional manner . a loop antenna 160 for transmitting information to the host adapter 20 is printed onto the pc board 110 and is virtually hidden from view . as will be appreciated by one skilled in the art , an antenna of such a low frequency device is generally quite long ( such as with a whip antenna ); however , the loop antenna here is very small compared to the wavelength of the transmission ( approximately 11 meters ). a button plate 180 , configured to provide a plurality of buttons 180a - c for actuating the switches 150a - c , snaps into an opening in the front of the upper housing 170 . the lower housing 100 may be connected to the upper housing 170 by a plurality of screws 190 , as shown in fig3 although other fastening means are acceptable . positioned within the ball cage is a rubber coated polymeric ball 200 of the sort described in u . s . pat . no . 4 , 951 , 034 , although numerous alternative arrangements are equally acceptable . the ball 200 may be inserted into the ball cage 130 through an opening in the lower housing 100 . in normal operation , the ball 200 is retained substantially within the ball cage 130 by means of a belly door 210 , which fastens into the bottom of the lower housing 100 , as shown in fig3 . as is conventional , the belly door 210 contains an aperture through which the ball can contact the working surface during normal operation . during operation , the rotation of the ball is converted to digital signals by means of opto - mechanical encoders on the printed circuit board 110 in a conventional manner . simply put , the opto - mechanical encoders generate a digital quadrature signal representative of the movement of the mouse across the table . other embodiments may include other techniques for generating displacement information , such as that shown in u . s . pat . no . 08 / 199 , 982 , entitled pointing device utilizing a photo detector array and filed feb . 18 , 1994 , incorporated herein by reference . fig3 further shows the battery door 220 which may be fastened to the lower housing 100 to hide the battery holder area 140 . a channel selector button 230 , in the preferred embodiment , is connected to the pc board 110 and allows a user to switch among four different transmission channels by depressing the button 230 . light emitting diode (&# 34 ; led &# 34 ;) 240 is also connected to pc board 110 and supplies users with channel selection information . the receiver , described in detail hereinafter , will automatically switch to the newly chosen channel through an electronic channel selection means . in operation , if the user presses the channel selector button 230 for a short time ( less than one second ), the led 240 blinks the number of times corresponding to the current channel number . if the user presses the channels selector button for a longer period of time ( longer than one second ), the channel decrements to the next lower channel and the led 240 blinks the number of times corresponding to the new channel number . thus , if the transmission channel is channel one and the user changes channels , the next channel will be channel four . in this embodiment , the four user selectable transmitting channels include 26 . 995 mhz , 27 . 045 mhz , 27 . 145 mhz and 27 . 195 mhz with a bandwidth of 10 khz . fig4 shows in schematic block diagram for the operation of the mouse 10 . on power up of the mouse ( insertion of two aaa batteries ), the cpu 320 downloads information from the eeprom 340 . this information includes the frequency of the current radio channel , the sampling rate of the photodetectors 310 and the identification code information for that particular mouse . in an exemplary embodiment , the identification code information could be any of 255 different combinations and allows a host adapter 20 to differentiate between two rf wireless mice operating on the same transmission frequency and in the same transmission zone , so that each mouse 10 ( transmitter ) has a single identification number that will be accepted by its corresponding host adapter 20 ( receiver ). use of the eeprom 340 aids in development and in future updates for the peripheral and , since eeproms are non - volatile memory , the eeprom 340 provides a means to store the channel and identification code information when powering the mouse down ( changing the batteries ). new information may replace outdated information on the eeprom . the movement of the ball 200 across a work surface causes a pulse train to be sent from photosources 300 to photodetectors 310 . the pulses received by the photodetectors 310 are sampled by cpu 320 , which may for example be a low power version of a motorola 68hc05 . the cpu 320 samples the photodetectors 310 in accordance with the clock signal provided by a clock generator which , in the preferred embodiment , is internal to the cpu 320 . the cpu 320 further monitors and receives user actuated key switch information 450 . the cpu 320 also controls the transmitting radio frequency by controlling the phase lock loop chip (&# 34 ; pll &# 34 ;) 350 . the cpu 320 initially receives default information about the transmitting radio frequency channel from the eeprom 340 at power up and writes this information to the pll 350 . the default value in the eeprom 340 can be altered by the user by pressing the channel selector button 400 . the new channel information will be stored in the eeprom 340 for the next wake - up ( discussed in greater detail hereinafter ) or power up of the mouse . the operation of the channel selector button 400 and the led 410 was described earlier in reference to fig3 . the cpu 320 provides switch and displacement information to the vcxo 360 and the crystal 390 which together act as a frequency shift keying (&# 34 ; fsk &# 34 ;) modulator . the frequency is changed by slightly changing the frequency of the crystal 390 . the vcxo 360 then interacts with the pll 350 and the loop filter 370 to create a frequency multiplier which generates the carrier frequency of the transmitting rf signal . the loop filter 370 assures frequency stability . the information to be transmitted is then provided to a voltage controlled oscillator (&# 34 ; vco &# 34 ;) 380 which in turn provides the modulated carrier signal to a loop antenna 430 ( discussed earlier ) through an rf amplifier 420 . the transmitted signals then are picked up by a receiver in the host adapter 20 , discussed in greater detail hereinafter . in the preferred embodiment , the fsk modulation is accomplished by switching the pll &# 39 ; s reference frequency oscillator &# 39 ; s capacitor , which creates a kind of vcxo . this allows a transmitted data signal spectrum to have dc components which is necessary with the presently used encoding process , described below . the pll 350 further has a large band width in order to follow the reference frequency changes and to achieve fast locking time when the peripheral is awakened from its sleep mode , described below . power for the system is preferably provided by a battery ( not shown ) which is contained within the battery holder 140 . preferably , an inexpensive power source will be used , such as two am batteries . if desired , a low voltage detector may be provided to signal low battery conditions to the user . as long as the battery has sufficient power , the mouse 10 will typically not turn off , but instead can operate in three power modes ( normal , standby and sleep ) to conserve energy . in normal operation , such as when the mouse is being used , the opto - mechanical encoders ( 300 , 310 ) will be sampled at full speed , the cpu 320 is clocked at its nominal speed , and displacement and button data is sent continuously to the host adapter 20 . however , after a period of nonuse , for example 20 milliseconds , the mouse 10 will enter a standby mode during which the encoders ( 300 , 310 ) are sampled less frequently , although the cpu continues to work at normal speed . however , to further conserve power in standby mode , the cpu 320 switches off the pll circuitry ( 350 - 390 ) and the rf amplifier 420 . after a further period of nonuse , for example 10 seconds , the mouse 10 enters a sleep mode in which the cpu 320 enter a stop mode and the remainder of the circuitry is in full static condition . wake up circuitry 440 periodically generates a signal which revives the cpu 320 out of its stop mode to check if any activity has occurred . the sleep timing is calibrated by measuring a first time period and discharging a timing capacitor accordingly . this feature thus allows the use of components with fairly bad tolerances while still achieving fairly precise sleep timing . in the preferred embodiment , the wake up circuitry 440 revives the cpu 320 every 80 milli - seconds . if any activity ( i . e . movement of the mouse , depression of a button or depression of the channel program button ) does occur in either standby or sleep mode , the cpu 320 returns to normal mode and powers up the rest of the circuitry . shown in fig5 is a simple flow chart describing the transitions from normal mode to standby mode to sleep mode . it will be apparent to those skilled in the art that numerous alternative approaches would also work . however , in the present instance , it can be seen that the opto - mechanical encoders are sampled at high speed ( step 510 ) to determine if the user has taken any action , either by moving the mouse or pressing a button . if a button is pressed , it sends an interrupt to the cpu 320 ; thus , the cpu 320 need not sample the buttons . if an action has been taken by the user , the mouse remains in normal mode . if no action is detected for a first period , the mouse transitions to a standby mode , and the encoders are again sampled ( step 520 ), but at a medium speed . if the sampling detects action , the mouse is switched to normal mode , at high speed . if no action occurs after a second , predetermined period , the mouse transitions to the sleep mode , operating at low frequency ( step 530 ). in this mode , the mouse &# 39 ; s circuitry is in a static condition with the wake - up circuitry 440 periodically reviving the cpu 320 so that it may see if any action has been taken . as before , any movement of either the mouse or the switches causes the mouse to switch to normal mode . in a presently preferred embodiment , the rf amplifier 420 typically communicates unidirectionally with the host adapter 20 , and thus does not receive signals back from the host adapter 20 . this unidirectional transmission further aids in reducing power consumption on the transmitting side ( mouse ). in the preferred embodiment , the data reports are transmitted at 1200 bits per second ; although , one skilled in the art will that appreciate other data transfer rates could be used . three types of reports can be transmitted from the mouse 10 to the host adapter 20 -- displacement and switch information reports , status reports , and channel change request reports . reasonably accurate and rapid reporting of displacement information can be provided by using a multiple bit report frame which includes a start bit sequence , a packet start pattern , transmitter identification code sequence , x and y displacement data , at least one crc bit , and a stop bit . in an implementation which has proven successful in testing , the displacement report frame comprises twenty - four bits , of which three bits form a start bit sequence , one bit forms the packet start pattern , four bits form the transmitter identification code sequence , eleven bits provide x and y displacement data , four bits provide crc data , and one bit forms a stop bit pattern set forth below is a graphical representation of one acceptable report frame in accordance with the present invention , although numerous other permutations will provide substantially similar performance : examining the report frame from the left : 101 is the start sequence , 1 is the packet start pattern , 1011 is the transmitter identification code sequence , 1 yyyyyxxxxx provides displacement data where the &# 34 ; 1 &# 34 ; is used to differentiate displacement reports from status information and other future extended commands , the capital letters x and y stand for the sign of the displacement and the small x and y stand for the magnitude of the displacement , the crc codes are used to ensure the accuracy of the unidirectional transmitted signal , and &# 34 ; 0 &# 34 ; is the stop pattern . therefore , the displacement portion of the report frame provides eight bits which describe the absolute value of the displacement values in the x and y directions and two bits describe the sign information (+ or -), one bit for each direction . if a switch report frame is sent , the displacement data above (&# 34 ; 1yyyyyxxxxx &# 34 ;) is replaced with the switch data (&# 34 ; 110000sssss &# 34 ;), where &# 34 ; 110000 &# 34 ; identifies a switch report frame and &# 34 ; s &# 34 ; stands for the switch information . if a status report frame is sent the displacement data is replaced with the new status information , either &# 34 ; 010aaaaaaaa &# 34 ; or &# 34 ; 011dddddddd &# 34 ; depending on whether status addresses are sent or status data is sent , respectively . typical status information which needs to be transmitted includes mouse identification code information , device type ( mouse , trackball , or other ) and the number of buttons ( one to four , usually two or three ); although , it will be appreciated that other information could also be transmitted as status information , such as battery status , firmware and hardware versions , etc . other status information can also be transmitted depending upon the particular embodiment . if a channel change request report frame is sent the displacement data is replaced with the new channel broadcast information (&# 34 ; 1bcccc10000 &# 34 ;), where &# 34 ; b &# 34 ; is the mouse &# 39 ; s led status and &# 34 ; cccc &# 34 ; is the mouse &# 39 ; s transmission channel number . whenever the host adapter 20 receives a valid data report , its cpu 600 causes the led 740 to blink , as shown in fig6 . this blinking provides feedback to the user of the mouse about the validity and usage of the chosen rf mouse channel . fig6 shows in schematic block diagram for the operation of the host adapter 20 . as with the mouse 10 , the host adapter &# 39 ; s eeprom 620 provides information to the cpu 600 and the pll circuitry at power up , such as the correct mouse identification code to look for in the data reports . on power up , the cpu 600 first detects what type of interface 610 it is using to communicate with the host system 30 , i . e . serial or ps / 2 . the cpu 600 then adapts according to which interface is found at 610 . in serial mode , the voltage available on the rs - 232 lines is regulated to 5 volts , in ps / 2 mode this regulation is not necessary . the 5 volts are used to power the cpu 600 . a second regulator is used to lower the voltage to 2 . 5 volts to power the pll 630 and the fsk receiver chip 650 . next , the cpu 600 programs the pll 630 with the initial receiver frequency information . the fsk receiver chip 650 converts the transmitted radio signal to a low frequency signal which can be manipulated by the cpu 600 . the fsk receiver chip 650 has two local oscillators lo1 and lo2 and a voltage controlled oscillator ( vco ). the second oscillator lo2 is provided by the reference frequency of the pll 630 from the crystal 660 . the first oscillator lo1 varies with the user selected channel number . lo1 is generated with the pll 630 , the filter 640 and the vco in the fsk receiver chip 650 . after the transmitted signal report is received by the loop antenna 690 at an rf frequency of approximately 27 mhz and passes through the tuning impedance adapter 680 , it is provided to the input of an fsk receiver chip 650 . the loop antenna 690 here is similar to the loop antenna of the mouse 430 , in that it is virtually hidden from sight and is much shorter than the wavelength of the signal it is receiving . the frequencies in the received signal are subtracted with the frequency of lo1 and then filtered through the first intermediate frequency (&# 34 ; if &# 34 ;) filter 710 to produce a signal which has a frequency of approximately 10 . 7 mhz . the received signal is then amplified before it is again subtracted with the frequency of lo2 . the signal is then filtered by the second if filter 720 to produce a signal which has a frequency of approximately 455 khz . this subtract / filtering process also suppresses unwanted and stray signals which are received by the loop antenna 690 , including other peripheral devices which are transmitting on one of the other four rf channels . the fsk receiver chip 650 then demodulates the signal using a demodulator quad coil 700 and equalizes it into a digital format . the process of demodulation is to convert the received signal &# 39 ; s frequency variations to magnitude variations which are then able to be detected by the cpu 600 after they pass through the level shifter circuit 670 . the state of switch 730 is read by cpu 600 which will correspondingly change between single and multiple peripheral reception by the host adapter 20 . in the single peripheral reception of the presently preferred embodiment , the cpu 600 analyzes the received , demodulated data and discards all of the data reports which do not have the correct mouse identification code attached to them . in this mode , the cpu determines the correct identification code by latching onto the identification code in the first received report and storing it in the eeprom 620 . the cpu 600 can then provide the appropriate signals to the host computer 30 , such as a personal computer or workstation , through the ps / 2 or serial host interface 610 . in the multiple peripheral reception of the presently preferred embodiment , the primary peripheral device is latched on to as it is in single device mode , described above . the first received identification code , which is not the primary identification code , is latched onto by the cpu 600 as the secondary peripheral device . this identification code is also stored in the eeprom 620 so that it may be provided to the cpu 600 at a subsequent power up . in two device mode , both peripheral devices must transmit on the same channel frequency and the cpu 600 will not accept user changes in transmission channels . all non - used channels are thus filtered out . in the presently preferred embodiment , when the cpu 600 receives simultaneous reports from both peripheral devices , the weaker of the two rf signals will be suppressed while the stronger of the two signals will be provided to the host computer 30 . one skilled in the art will appreciate , however , that many other methods could be used to prioritize and differentiate simultaneous signals received by multiple wireless peripherals and still be contained within the spirit of the present invention . the purpose for having a two device mode is to allow a user to use two pointing devices with the same host adapter 20 . thus , a user could use two of the same devices ( such as for training ), both a wireless mouse and a wireless presentation pointing device for software presentations , or a user could use a wireless mouse along with a wireless digitizing pad or trackball . further , the user can purchase the second wireless peripheral for less money because he will not also have to purchase another host adapter ( receiver ) unit . as can be appreciated from the foregoing , the omnidirectional transmission of the signal from the transmitter in the mouse 10 to the host adapter 20 eliminates most concerns about obstacles in the transmission path while at the same time permitting significantly improved freedom for the user by eliminating any mechanical connection from the mouse 10 to the host system 30 . in addition , the identification code information and the ability to choose multiple transmission channels upon which to transmit avoids most concerns of radio interference with other devices in the environment . it will be appreciated that the present invention also provides a method and means for receiving signals from more than one wireless peripheral device and that it minimizes power consumption at the transmitting end . it can further be appreciated that this same interface , while described here in detail only in connection with an electronic mouse , can similarly be used with numerous other peripherals . having fully described one embodiment of the present invention , it will be apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art that numerous alternatives and equivalents exist which do not depart from the invention set forth above . it is therefore to be understood that the invention is not to be limited by the foregoing description , but only by the appended claims . | 6 |
fig1 shows a self - service cash redemption machine 10 in which the present invention is incorporated . the machine is housed in a cabinet enclosure 11 having a front door 12 . the door 12 has an opening 14 for viewing a visual display screen 15 . below this screen 15 are two buttons 16 , identified as “ a ” and “ b ”, for allowing the user to enter selections of items on the screen 15 . to the right of the display is an area for an advertising display 17 and below that is a printout slot 18 for receiving a receipt or other printable matter that exits a printer installed inside the enclosure 11 . just below the printer output slot 18 is a coin intake area 19 for receiving coins into the machine 10 . fig2 shows the machine with the front door 12 removed . the printer 20 is now visible , along with a coin processing assembly 21 having a sorting and counting mechanism for receiving a batch of unsorted coinage from a user and for sorting coins into a plurality of denominations . the printer 20 operates under the control of a controller 30 seen in fig2 . this is a microcomputerized controller of a type disclosed in adams et al ., u . s . pat . no . 5 , 992 , 602 , issued nov . 30 , 1999 , and zwieg et al ., u . s . pat . no . 6 , 640 , 956 , issued nov . 4 , 2003 . it includes one or more microelectronic cpu &# 39 ; s , a program memory , a data memory and a program that is executed by a main cpu for controlling the operations of the machine . the controller 30 is also connected to the i / o devices such as the printer 20 , the count sensors on the sorting and counting mechanism and others to be described herein . the printer 20 can print out a voucher or receipt representing the amount of coinage fed into the coin processing assembly 21 and counted by the controller 30 through sensing devices on the sorting mechanism of the coin processing assembly 21 . the user can present this voucher or receipt in payment for merchandise , or could , where permitted , redeem it for cash in the form of notes and a small amount of change less than one dollar . an output device for issuing a card with a pre - paid credit amount , like a phone card , could also be used in place of the printer . the coin processing assembly 21 is commercially available in the assignee &# 39 ; s mach ® 6 line of dual disc coin sorters . as is well known in the art , the coins are deposited on a queueing disc and transferred to a sorting plate where they fall through slots sized for different denominations . from there , the coins are routed into coin receptacles , such as coin bags or removable bins . for details of the construction and operation of dual disc sorters , the disclosures in adams et al , u . s . pat . nos . 5 , 295 , 899 and 5 , 525 , 104 and adams et al ., u . s . pat . no . 5 , 992 , 602 , issued nov . 30 , 1999 , zwieg et al ., u . s . pat . no . 6 , 640 , 956 , issued nov . 4 , 2003 , and zwieg et al ., u . s . patent application ser . no . 10 / 896 , 472 , filed jul . 27 , 2004 , which are incorporated herein by reference . fig3 shows an enlarged detail view of an improved coin intake mechanism 40 . the coins are deposited in a funnel - shaped hopper area 41 with side walls 42 leading to a front end of an inclined conveyor 43 . the conveyor 43 is inclined at an angle of about twenty degrees to complete the funnel shape around the coin intake area together with the conveyor side walls 42 and a hopper back wall ( not seen in fig3 ). the conveyor 43 extends upward towards and through an intake opening 44 in the wall of the machine cabinet 11 . coins are fed along a feed path 45 corresponding to a longitudinal direction of the conveyor 43 . above a portion of the conveyor 43 is a solid , transparent cover 46 that blocks access to a portion of the inclined coin path 45 and to the intake opening 44 to prevent access to the intake opening 44 and to prevent access to coins in a vicinity of the intake opening 44 while the conveyor is running . if the cover 46 is lifted to resolve a problem , such as a foreign object in the feed path , the conveyor 43 will be stopped . referring next to fig4 and 5 , the cover 46 is a solid , transparent , planar member that is pivotable at one end facing towards a body of the machine 10 and opposite an end for receiving the coins . the machine 10 has a transparent window member 47 positioned above the intake opening 44 to allow a view into an interior of the cash redemption machine 10 . the cover 46 is disposed in a plane that converges toward the coin hopper area 41 at an acute angle as seen in fig4 . the cover 46 has an edge 48 facing towards the coin hopper area 41 , the edge 48 being disposed at an acute angle relative to the direction of travel of the coins so as to provide a lateral opening across the coin path 45 that becomes wider as the angled edge 48 recedes toward an intake opening 44 into a body of the cash redemption machine 10 . this will cause smaller coins to fit under any part of the cover 46 , but a larger coin on edge will move over to a wider opening before sliding under the cover 46 . this creates movement within a body of coins and relieves jamming that might otherwise occur when the coins block the opening between the conveyor 43 and the cover 46 . the conveyor 43 has a looped belt 49 that is driven through a roller 43 b by a motor 50 inside the machine cabinet 11 , with the other end of the conveyor belt 49 looping around a second roller at the hopper end . as seen in more detail in fig9 , the roller 43 b has a mid - section circumferential groove which receives a rib 49 a on the underside of the belt 49 . the rib 49 a and the belt 49 are typically formed of a resilient , elastic material . also seen in fig9 is a platen 43 a . the rib 49 a is formed along the full length of the looped belt 49 to provide lateral stability to the belts as the belt is moved by the rollers 43 b . in section , the rib has a slight taper along each side , the width of the rib 49 a being slightly narrower where it contacts the roller 43 b and the platen 43 a . fig6 is a diagram of the electronic controls portion of the machine 10 . the controller 30 is connected through an i / o interface to various input and output devices . the controller 30 is supplied with power by a power supply 31 . a service keyboard 32 is provided inside the machine for entering commands and data when the door 12 is open . a coin sorting disk level sensor 52 shown diagrammatically in fig6 , senses the level of coins on a sorting mechanism in the coin processing assembly 21 , and generates a signal to the controller to start the conveyor 43 , subject to the cover 46 being in the proper position . the controller 50 also connects to output devices such as the disc motor 55 and disc brake 54 for the coin sorter and to the conveyor feed motor 50 . the controller 30 also receives input signals from a feed path cover sensing switch 53 . the pivotable cover member 46 is connected to the switch 53 , which will sense the movement of the cover 46 and signal the controller 30 that the conveyor 43 should be stopped ( or not started ). the controller 30 is connected to control the feed motor 50 in response to these signals . the controller 50 also connects to motors and sensors in a coin sorter / diverter section 56 as more particularly described and illustrated in zwieg et al ., u . s . patent application ser . no . 10 / 896 , 472 , filed jul . 27 , 2004 . the larger i / o devices which are seen on the exterior of the machine , such as the printer 20 , the visual display 15 and the “ a ” or “ b ” buttons 16 are controlled by a personal computer ( pc ) 33 which is housed in the cabinet 11 of the machine 10 as seen in fig2 . as seen in fig6 , the pc is electrically interfaced to the buttons 16 and other i / o devices through an i / o interface circuit module 16 a . the personal computer 33 receives power from the power supply 31 through a pc power adapter 35 of a type well known in the art . as seen in fig7 , the user sees a message displayed on the display 15 to deposit coins in the hopper and depress the “ a ” button 16 , as represented by display block 60 . as represented by decision block 61 , the personal computer 33 is waiting is a delay loop for the user to start an operating sequence by operating the “ a ” 16 . when the button has been pushed , as represented by the “ yes ” result , the personal computer 33 senses the position of the sensing switch 53 as represented by decision block 62 , and if the cover 46 has not been lifted as represented by the “ yes ” result , a second check is made to see that the front door is properly closed for operation of the machine 10 , as represented by decision block 64 . if the cover 46 has been lifted , as represented by the “ no ” result from executing decision block 62 , then a further message is displayed to the user to lower the cover 46 and press button “ a ” as represented by display block 63 . if the cover has not been lifted but the door switch is not in the proper position , the routine will loop back to decision block 61 , until the door is properly closed . assuming that the disc motor 55 has been started as represented by process block 65 , then a check is made for a run signal representing the running of the sorter , and if the sorter has started up satisfactorily , the result for executing the test in decision block 66 is a “ yes ” result . the program sequence then proceeds to decision block 67 , to check for that the level of coins on the sorting disk is ok . if the result from that check is “ yes ,” then the conveyor motor 50 is started as represented by process block 68 . blocks 69 and 70 represent a check for proper current and operation of the conveyor motor 50 . the user deposits coins in the coin hopper area 41 where they are placed on the conveyor 43 to be fed into the machine 10 and processed . if more coins are to be entered , button “ a ” is pressed again . if no more coins are to be entered and a voucher or receipt is to be printed , then a display is shown on the visual display to ask the user to wait for the printing of receipt , the receipt is printed and the visual display displays a message advising the user to take the receipt . fig8 a and 8 b show an alternative construction 46 a for the cover . fig8 a shows the cover 46 a in the operating position , while fig8 b shows the cover 46 a when lifted to access the coin feed path 45 a . in this embodiment , the cover 46 a is not a solid transparent member but a wire grid that allows coins to fall through to the conveyor 43 a , but blocks other objects from entering the conveyor 43 a from above , while also allowing visibility of the coin feed path 45 a . the wire grid member 46 a is hinged and pivoted as described for the solid transparent member 46 . in the example , the wire elements 46 b of the cover 46 a run parallel to the direction of coin feeding . in still other versions , the grid member 46 a could include transverse elements running across the longitudinal elements 46 b . and , the grid member 46 a can be made of materials other than metal . in all of these variations , the operation of the sensing switch in stopping the feed motor when the cover is lifted would be the same as described above for the solid transparent cover 46 . from this description , it should now be apparent how the invention provides a coin handling machine with an improved coin intake mechanism that will resist jamming and allow resolution of problems in the coin feed path while the feed conveyor is stopped . the machine is easy and convenient to service , maintain and to remove the accumulated coinage . the machine is capable of dispensing a voucher , or a credit to the customer . | 6 |
referring to fig3 a and 3b , an exemplary embodiment of the present invention is shown . in fig3 a , device 302 is illuminated by a light source ( not shown ) having a predetermined wavelength . in a preferred embodiment , this wavelength is within either the visible spectrum of light or ultraviolet spectrum of light . light rays 330 , representing an image of device 302 , emerges from lens 304 and aperture 306 . light rays 330 are incident on dichroic splitter 308 , which in turn reflects a substantial portion of light rays 330 as reflected light rays 332 , based on properties of splitter 308 which are dependant upon the wavelength of light illuminating device 302 . as dichroic splitters are not 100 % efficient , a small portion of light rays 330 will pass through dichroic splitter 308 as light rays 334 . light rays 332 are then reflected by mirror 310 , such as a planar mirror , as light rays 336 so as to allow them to be magnified by optical relay 314 . in an exemplary embodiment , optical relay 314 is a doublet type lens assembly having a predetermined magnification factor . based on this magnification factor , light rays 336 are magnified and emerge from optical relay 314 as magnified light rays 338 . as is understood by those of skill in the art , magnified light rays 338 represent an enlarged image of device 302 . magnified light rays 338 are again redirected by mirror 320 as magnified light rays 342 to be incident on a surface of dichroic splitter 322 . in addition , light rays 334 , having been magnified by a predetermined magnification factor by optical relay 312 , are incident on an opposite surface of dichroic splitter 322 from that of magnified light rays 342 . in an exemplary embodiment , the magnification factors of optical relays 312 and 314 are different from one another . dichroic splitter 322 has properties , based on the wavelength of light illuminating device 302 , such that the undesired image rays 346 do not pass through splitter 322 , but rather are reflected away as discarded light 344 . in this way multiple images are not provided to optical detector 316 . on the other hand , dichroic splitter 322 has properties , based on the wavelength of light illuminating device 302 , allowing magnified light rays 342 to be directed toward optical detector 316 as image rays 346 . as a result , optical detector 316 “ sees ” only a single magnified image of device 302 . in a preferred embodiment of the present invention optical detector 316 may be a camera , such as a ccd or cmos camera , or a position sensitive detector ( psd ). referring now to fig3 b , device 302 is illuminated by a light source ( not shown ) having a predetermined wavelength different from the wavelength of light that illuminated device 302 as described above with respect to fig3 a . in a preferred embodiment , this wavelength is within the visible spectrum of light . in fig3 b , light rays 350 , representing another image of device 302 , emerges from lens 304 and aperture 306 . light rays 350 are incident on dichroic splitter 308 , which in turn passes a substantial portion of light rays 350 as light rays 352 , based on properties of splitter 308 which depend upon the wavelength of light illuminating device 302 . once again , as dichroic splitters as not 100 % efficient , a small portion of light rays 350 will be reflected by dichroic splitter 308 as reflected light rays 354 . these light rays will in turn be redirected by mirror 310 as light rays 356 , which will in turn be magnified by optical relay 314 as magnified light rays 358 , which are then redirected toward dichroic splitter 322 by mirror 320 as reflected light 360 . light rays 352 that emerge from dichroic splitter 308 , pass through and are magnified by optical relay 312 to become magnified light rays 362 . as a result , magnified light rays 362 are incident on dichroic splitter 322 . as discussed above with respect to fig3 a , dichroic splitter 322 has properties , based on the wavelength of light illuminating device 302 , such that undesired light rays 360 pass through splitter 322 , and thus are directed away from optical detector 316 as discarded light 364 . on the other hand , dichroic splitter 322 has properties , based on the wavelength of light illuminating device 302 , allowing magnified light rays 362 to pass through splitter 322 as image rays 366 . it is image rays 366 which are now “ seen ” by optical detector 316 . in this way multiple images are not provided to optical detector 316 and different magnifications of device 302 may be provided merely by changing the wavelength of light that illuminates device 302 . fig4 illustrates a second exemplary embodiment of the present invention in which more that two light sources are used to illuminate device 302 and provide more than two different magnifications of device 302 . in fig4 , device 302 is illuminated by one of light sources 406 , 416 , 428 , each having a different wavelength . in a preferred embodiment , these wavelengths are within either the visible spectrum of light or ultraviolet spectrum of light . illumination emitted by each of light sources is directed toward device 302 though a series of dichroic splitters 404 , 418 , 420 , and 430 . in the exemplary embodiment , only one light source is used to illuminate device 302 depending on the magnification desired . in the example illustrated in fig4 , light source 406 is used to provide magnification of device 302 through lens 412 , light source 416 is used to provide magnification of device 302 through lens 424 , and light source 428 is used to provide magnification of device 302 through lens 434 . the magnification factor of each of lenses 412 , 424 , 434 is selected as desired . in a preferred embodiment of the present invention the magnification factor of lenses 412 , 424 , 434 is 2 ×, 6 ×, and 8 ×, respectively . to illustrate how the second exemplary embodiment functions , a specific example is now discussed . if for example , it is desired to magnify an image of device 302 by a specific magnification factor achieved through lens 434 , light source 428 is activated and the remaining light sources 406 , 416 are deactivated . light rays 444 pass through dichroic splitters 430 , 420 and 418 and are reflected by dichroic splitter 404 based on the wavelength of the light rays . these light rays are then re - directed by mirror 402 to illuminate device 302 . in turn , light rays 440 , representing an image of device 302 , emerges from lens 304 , are reflected by mirror 402 as reflected light rays 442 and directed toward dichroic splitter 404 . as mentioned above , the wavelength of the light rays 446 are such that they are reflected by splitter 404 and pass through splitters 418 , 420 . the bottom surface of splitter 430 has different properties than that of the top surface of splitter 430 . as a result , light ray 446 are reflected by splitter 430 rather than passing through it . these reflected rays 448 pass through aperture 432 and are in turn magnified by lens 434 . light rays 450 , representing the magnified image of a portion of device 302 are next redirected by mirror 436 as reflected light rays 452 , which in turn , based on the wavelength of the light rays , pass through dichroic splitters 426 and 414 , and are received by detector 316 , such as a ccd or cmos camera , or a position sensitive detector ( psd ). as such , detector 316 received a magnified image of device 302 based on the wavelength of the light used to illuminate the device . similarly , the path of light used to illuminate device 302 and its reflected image is based on the wavelength of light sources 406 and 416 . referring now to fig5 a - 5c , an exemplary dichroic aperture 500 has various regions 502 , 504 and 506 . as shown in fig5 a , in aperture 500 , region 502 represents a portion of the aperture where no light can penetrate , region 504 has a diameter d1 and represents a portion where light having a first wavelength λ 1 can penetrate , and region 506 has a diameter d2 smaller than d1 and represents a portion where light having a second wavelength λ 2 can penetrate . with respect to region 506 , light having the first wavelength will also pass through this region . as is known to those skilled in the optical arts , the diameter of an optical aperture affects the depth of field ( dof ) and modulation transfer function ( mtf ) ( or optical resolution ) of the object being observed . therefore , as a result of illuminating the object to be observed by light having different wavelengths ( in this example λ 1 or λ 2 ), the dof and mtf may be controlled . for example , and as shown in fig5 b and 5c , if light having wavelength λ 1 is used , aperture 500 has diameter d1 resulting in a short dof 510 and a greater mtf . on the other hand , if light having a wavelength λ 2 is used , aperture 500 has a diameter d2 resulting in a greater dof 512 and lower mtf . although not shown in fig5 c , the portion of light having wavelength λ 2 that does not pass through aperture 500 is reflected . dichroic aperture 500 may be formed using well - known thin film coating and masking techniques , for example . although the exemplary dichroic aperture 500 is illustrated with two regions ( 504 , 506 ), the invention is not so limited . as shown in fig5 d , for example , it is contemplated that any number of regions may 510 a , 510 b , . . . 510 n be provided , each tuned to a different wavelength of light , to provide a variety of depths of field , as desired . referring now to fig6 , an exemplary embodiment of a vision system 600 using dichroic aperture 500 is illustrated . in fig6 , device 302 is illuminated by light source 602 having light rays 604 of a predetermined wavelength and / or light sources 406 or 428 also having a wavelength equal to that of light source 602 . light source 602 may be capable of providing illumination in one or more discrete wavelengths as desired . further light source 602 may be combined with either light source 406 or 428 to provide both oblique and perpendicular illumination to device 302 . those of skill in the art understand that , although it is desirable for the wavelength of light source 406 or 428 to be equal to that of light source 602 , due to manufacturing tolerances the wavelengths may vary slightly . similar to the embodiment described above , illumination for light sources 406 , 428 are incident on device 302 via dichroic splitters 404 , 408 . light rays 330 , representing an image of device 302 , emerge from lens 304 , such as an achromatic or chromatic lens as desired . light rays 330 are incident on dichroic splitters 404 , 408 , which in turn reflect a portion of light rays 330 as reflected light rays ( not shown ), based on properties of splitter 308 which are dependent upon the wavelength of light source 602 . the remaining light is incident on dichroic aperture 500 . based on the wavelength of the light , dichroic aperture 500 adjusts its effective diameter as discussed above and passes the light onto relay lens 412 , such as an achromatic lens having a predetermined magnification factor , either positive or negative . this resultant image is incident on optical detector 316 . because of the reaction of dichroic aperture to the wavelength of light from light sources 602 , 406 , 428 on device 302 , the depth of field may be either narrow 608 or deep 610 . in another exemplary embodiment , light source 602 may have a variable wavelength to adjust the dof of the object being observed , as desired . although the exemplary embodiment illustrates three light sources 602 , 406 , 428 , the invention is not so limited . it is also possible to add additional light sources similar to those of 406 , 428 with appropriate dichroic splitters as desired . of course , as the number of available wavelengths increase , the number of active areas in dichroic aperture 500 should also increase by a like number . fig7 a - 7b illustrate other exemplary embodiments of the present invention in which dichroic aperture 500 is incorporated into the embodiment described above with respect to fig4 . in an effort to provide a more concise representation , however , this exemplary embodiment addresses only two magnification paths , rather that the three magnification paths of fig4 . the invention is not so limited and it is contemplated that the invention may be used with any number of light sources ( including variable wavelength light sources ) and magnification paths , as desired . as shown in fig7 a , device 302 , disposed on substrate 301 for example , is illuminated by one of light sources 406 , 428 , each having a different wavelength . in a preferred embodiment , these wavelengths are within either the visible spectrum of light or ultraviolet spectrum of light . illumination emitted by each of light sources is directed toward device 302 though a series of dichroic splitters 404 , 408 , and 430 and dichroic aperture 500 . light for the one active light source 406 , 428 changes the effective diameter of dichroic aperture 500 , thereby adjusting the dof of observed device 302 . in the exemplary embodiment of fig7 , only one light source at a time is used to illuminate device 302 depending on the desired magnification and dof . for example , light source 406 is used to provide magnification of device 302 through lens 412 at a first dof , and light source 428 is used to provide magnification of device 302 through lens 434 at a second dof . the magnification factor of each of lenses 412 , 434 is selected as desired , as is the dof . in a non - limiting exemplary embodiment of the present invention , the magnification factor of lenses 412 , 434 is 2 ×, and 8 ×, respectively . furthermore , filters 706 , 710 may be added to respective magnification paths as desired to eliminate cross coupling between the wavelengths of light by removing any remaining undesired wavelengths of light that may have passed through dichroic splitters 404 , 406 , and 430 . additionally , and as shown in fig7 b , achromatic apertures 708 , 712 may also be added to eliminate stray light that may be present in light rays 702 , 704 respectively . as can be appreciated by one of skill in the art , this approach may be modified and expanded to use more than two light sources and magnification paths as desired . although the invention has been described with reference to exemplary embodiments , it is not limited thereto . rather , the appended claims should be construed to include other variants and embodiments of the invention which may be made by those skilled in the art without departing from the true spirit and scope of the present invention . | 6 |
referring now to the drawings by reference characters , there is shown a syringe which includes a thick - walled stainless steel barrel , generally designated 5 , a needle base 7 , a cap 9 , a threaded member 11 , and a resilient ball 13 . the barrel 5 has a proximal end 15 and a distal end 17 . the proximal end 15 has external threads 19 thereon and a smooth portion with no threads for ease in loading . the distal end 17 has a reduced diameter portion terminating in a shoulder 21 and having external threads 23 on the reduced diameter portion . the barrel includes a mirror - smooth inner cylindrical passage 25 which extends completely from one end to the other of the barrel . the needle holder ( hub ) 7 has an internal passage 27 having threads to mate with threads 23 and further has a smooth passage 29 forming a smooth continuation of the passage 25 as is best seen in fig2 the usual needle 8 is connected to the needle holder 7 . the cap 9 is larger in diameter than the barrel and has a first set of internal threads 31 adapted to mate with the threads 19 . the cap also includes a second set of threads of reduced diameter designated 33 adapted to mate with the threaded member 11 . the threaded member 11 has lands 35 which form a somewhat snug fit with the internal passage 25 of barrel 5 . the proximal end of the threaded member 11 has a handle 37 thereon so that it can be easily grasped by the fingers and turned . a resilient ball 39 forms a tight fit within the barrel 25 . this ball 39 is made of an inert resilient plastic such as nylon or teflon and can be replaced after a single use . near the distal end of the barrel 5 are one or more flat spots 41 so that the barrel can be easily grasped by forceps . it is believed apparent that the syringe described offers a number of advantages over syringes heretofore known . the needle base 17 and cap 9 are easily removed from the barrel without the use of a tool and ball 39 discarded . since the passage 25 is continuous from one end of the barrel to the other , it is easy to swab out as there are no crevices to collect dirt or other residue . since the parts are of metal in the preferred embodiment , they can be easily sterilized and will not explode under normal rise . obvious , the threaded member 11 does not come in contact with the material being dispensed so that there is no possibility of the plunger causing contamination . in addition the distance between 37 and 9 gives a reliable indication of the material remaining in the barrel 25 . | 1 |
with reference to fig1 , a dispenser comprises a stock portion 2 , and a body portion 4 , held by the stock portion 2 in a circumferential clamping arrangement 6 . the body portion comprises a first cylindrical outer wall portion 8 and a second cylindrical outer wall portion 10 held together by the clamping arrangement 6 . the body portion 4 is closed at a rear end by a threaded rear cap 12 and at the front by a threaded front cap 14 . the front cap 14 comprises a rotatable member 16 , which is arranged to cause linear movement of a linearly moveable member 18 relative to the cap . a spray nozzle 20 is secured to the linearly moveable member 18 by a threaded connection . the stock portion comprises an ergonomically shaped handle 22 accommodating a trigger 24 connected to a valve for controlling flow of pressurized fluid from a regulator 26 having a quick release connection 28 for connection to a source of pressurized fluid such as compressed air . the regulator 26 comprises a dial 30 for adjusting a dispensing pressure upstream of the regulator 26 . with reference to fig2 , the body portion 4 further comprises an inner cylindrical wall 32 defining a compartment for accepting a viscous material containing container . the inner cylindrical wall 32 is held relative to the first and second outer wall portions 8 , 10 by a flange 34 at the front , held against a shoulder 36 of the second outer wall portion 10 by a threaded ring 38 engaging a threaded outer surface of the inner wall 32 at the rear of the dispenser . the space between the first and second outer wall portions 8 , 10 and the inner wall 32 is sealed at the rear of the dispenser by an o - ring 40 . an aperture 42 at the rear of the dispenser connects a space 43 between the inner wall 32 and the outer wall portions 8 , 10 to inside the inner wall 32 . a spacer member 44 seals against the inner wall 32 with o - rings 46 on either side of the aperture 42 and is held in place by the rear cap 12 holding flange 48 of the spacer 44 against a rear end of the inner wall 32 . at an , opposed , front end of the spacer , a sealing ring 50 is an interference fit with a front portion of the spacer 44 and sealingly engages an adjacent one of the o - rings 46 . the sealing ring 50 has an outward facing radiussed chamfer 52 for sealingly engaging an inner surface of the open rear end of a viscous material containing a cartridge . an aperture 54 in the spacer 44 provides a flow path for pressurized fluid from the aperture 42 through the sealing ring 52 into an open rear end of a cartridge held against the sealing ring 50 , as described in more detail below . a tube 56 connects the space 43 , via a sealing member 58 located by the inner wall 32 and the first outer wall portion 8 to the trigger actuated valve ( not shown ) inside the stock portion 2 . depending on the setting of the trigger 24 and thus the valve , the space 43 is connected to either atmospheric pressure through an exhaust port of the valve connected to a silencer or to the regulator 26 by an inlet port of the valve to supply pressurized fluid from the regulator 26 to the space 43 . at the front of the dispenser , a fluid supply path from the space 43 to a fluid supply arrangement in the cap 14 , described in more detail below , is defined between the inner wall 32 and the second outer wall portion 10 . a ridge 60 of the second outer wall portion 10 facing the inner wall 32 limits the effective cross - section of the flow path for pressurized fluid from the space 43 to the fluid supply arrangement to limit the flow rate of fluid flow to the fluid supply arrangement for a given dispensing pressure set using the dial 30 . the cap 14 comprises a first outer o - ring 62 disposed to seal against an inner surface of the inner wall 32 and a second outer o - ring 64 disposed to seal against an inner surface of the second outer wall portion 10 . the second outer o - ring 64 is disposed forward of the first outer o - ring 62 and the two o - rings thereby define a continuation of the fluid supply path from the space 43 to the cap 14 . the first and second outer o - ring 62 , 64 are held on a cap member 66 which is rotatably secured ( that is located axially such as to allow relative rotation ) to a threaded ring 68 for engaging a corresponding thread on the second outer wall portion 10 to hold the cap member 66 relative to the body portion 4 ( and to hold a cartridge inside the inner wall 32 against the radiussed chamfer 52 of the sealing ring 50 ). the linearly moveable member 18 is accepted in a channel between an inner wall 70 and an outer wall 72 of the cap member 66 . as described in more detail below , movement of the linearly moveable member 18 relative to the cap member 66 forms or breaks a seal formed between the linearly moveable member 18 and the outer wall 72 of the cap member 66 so that pressurized fluid can flow from the flow path between the inner wall 32 and the second outer wall portion 10 through a conduit 74 in the cap member 66 along the inner wall 70 and into a space inside the linearly moveable member 18 , thereby providing an open and closeable fluid supply port for supplying fluid to a space around a dispensing nozzle 76 disposed through the cap member 66 and the linearly moveable member 18 . ( in use the dispensing nozzle is connected to a viscous material containing container , not shown in fig2 ). the linearly moveable member 18 and cap member 66 are arranged such that they are spaced further apart ( the linearly moveable member 18 being less inserted into the channel between the inner and outer walls 70 , 72 ) when the fluid supply ports are open as compared to when they are closed . fig2 depicts the linearly moveable member 18 and cap member 66 in a configuration where the supply ports are open . in this configuration , the spray nozzle 20 , secured to the linearly moveable member 18 , around the dispensing nozzle 76 , extends forward of a dispensing end 78 of the dispensing nozzle 76 to guide pressurized fluid past the dispensing end 78 so as to atomize dispensed material to create a spray of the material . as is illustrated in fig3 , the spray nozzle 20 has a portion adjacent its forward end which comprises ribs 80 for locating a corresponding linear portion 82 of the dispensing nozzle to hold the dispensing nozzle in a well - defined relationship relative to the spray nozzle 20 while at the same time providing a path for a pressurized fluid to flow along the dispensing nozzle 76 past its dispensing end 78 . as will be described in further detail below , to close the fluid supply ports , the linearly moveable member 18 is inserted further into the channel defined between the inner and outer wall 70 , 72 of the cap member 66 by rotation of the rotatable member 16 . at the same time , the spray nozzle 20 , which is secured to the linearly moveable member 18 , travels rearward along the dispensing nozzle 76 , with the ribs 80 sliding along the linear portion 82 . the respective end portions 84 and 86 of the dispensing and spray nozzles are configured to be of complementary shape , such that they mate when the linearly moveable member 18 is fully inserted into the cap member 66 to close the fluid supply ports . thus , the interior of the spray nozzle 20 is substantially sealed from material being dispensed from the dispensing end 78 of the dispensing nozzle 76 to reduce or substantially prevent material ingress to the spray nozzle 20 when the fluid supply ports are closed to dispense material as a bead , rather than as a spray . with reference to fig4 and 5 , the arrangement for opening and closing the supply ports is now described in detail . as briefly mentioned above , the linearly moveable member 18 slots into a channel between inner and outer walls 70 , 72 of the cap member 66 . the inner wall 70 defines ridges 88 which mesh with corresponding ridges 89 ( not visible in fig4 ) on an interior surface of the linearly moveable member 18 to constrain the linearly moveable member 18 for linear movement relative to the cap member 66 . the linear moveable member 18 is linked to the rotatable member 16 by a two - start high - pitch thread 90 . the rotatable member 16 is rotatably secured to the cap member 66 , together with the threaded ring 68 , by a retaining ring 92 secured to the cap member 66 by screws 94 . in this way , rotation of the rotatable member 16 results in a linear movement in and out of the channel between the walls 70 , 72 of the linear moveable member 18 . between an outer aspect of the linear moveable member 18 and an inner aspect of the outer wall 72 , a respective o - ring 96 is disposed on either side of the conduit 74 , maintained in place by a shoulder 98 of the outer wall 72 , a spacer 100 and a washer 102 . on one side of the conduit 74 , the other one of the o - rings 96 is held in place between the shoulder 98 and the spacer 100 and on the other side of the conduit 74 , one of the o - rings 96 is held in place between the spacer 100 and the washer 102 . the washer 102 , in turn , is held in its position by the rotatable member 16 . the spacer 100 comprises two rings 104 spaced by webs 106 to allow pressurized fluid to pass from the conduit 74 between the rings 104 . the linearly movable member 18 , at an end opposed to the end accepting the spray nozzle 20 , defines openings or slots 108 . when the linearly moveable member 18 is fully inserted between the walls 70 , 72 of the cap member 66 , both of the o - rings 96 seal against an outer aspect of the linearly moveable member 18 , thus isolating the conduit 74 from the space within the cap member 66 and the linearly moveable member 18 in which the dispensing nozzle 76 is accepted . in the configuration shown in fig2 and 5 , the linearly moveable member 18 is partially retracted out of the channel between the walls 70 , 72 such that the openings 108 are now extending forward of one of the o - rings 96 and the seal is broken . the conduit 74 is thus in fluidic communication with the space accepting the dispensing nozzle 76 via the openings 108 . the conduit 74 together with the o - rings 96 and the openings 108 hence provides fluid supply ports for supplying pneumatic fluid to the space accepting the dispensing nozzle 76 which can be opened and closed by linear movement of the linearly moveable member 18 when the rotatable member 16 is rotated . in operation , the cap 14 is removed from the body portion 4 and a cartridge is inserted into the space defined by the inner wall 32 to abut the radiussed chamfer 52 of the sealing ring 50 with its open end . the cap 14 is then secured to the body portion 4 , with the dispensing nozzle 76 disposed through the cap member 66 and the linearly moveable member 18 and the cartridge held in place against the sealing ring 52 by the cap member 66 . on actuation of the trigger 24 , pressurized fluid from a source of pressurized fluid connected to the quick release connector 28 is supplied to both the spacer 44 ( and hence the inside of the cartridge to drive the cartridge &# 39 ; s piston ) and to the cap 14 , as described above , with a pressure regulated by the regulator 26 . in order to dispense a bead of material , the linearly moveable member 18 is fully inserted between the wall 70 and 72 . for dispensing a spray , the linearly moveable member 18 is retracted sufficiently to allow pressurized fluid from the conduit 74 to flow through the openings 108 . the spray action can be controlled between fully closed ( no spray , bead is dispensed ) and fully open ( maximally atomized spray ) by rotation of the rotatable member 16 with the hand not holding the handle 22 , either between dispensing operations or while material is dispensed . the above description of a specific embodiment has been made in terms of an arrangement for dispensing from a container in the form of a cartridge . however , due to the readily removable nature of the spacer 44 by unscrewing the rear cap 12 , the dispenser described above can be readily adapted for dispensing viscous material from foil containers , known in the art as “ sausage packs .” this can be done by unscrewing the cap 12 , removing the spacer 44 , and in its place inserting a piston which sealingly fits the inner wall 32 and an alternative spacer behind it . the alternative spacer serves to seal the rear end of the dispenser in the same way as a rear portion of the spacer 44 and ensures that pressurized fluid from the aperture 42 is applied behind the piston . after the spacer 44 has been replaced with the piston and alternative spacer , the alternative spacer is held in place in the same way as the spacer 44 by re - fastening the rear cap 12 . the foil container is used with an alternative nozzle which has a flange for engaging the cap member 66 . pressurized fluid from the aperture 42 now drives the piston against a foil container contained inside the wall 32 to dispense viscous material in the same way as for a cartridge container . the above description has been made in terms of a specific embodiment of the invention and it will be understood that many modifications , alterations and juxtapositions of the features described above are possible without departing from the invention and are intended to be covered by the claims below . some such modifications are discussed in what follows . while , in the embodiment described above , the fluid conduit from the regulator 26 to inside of the inner wall 32 and to the cap 14 includes a fluid path defined by an outer wall or sleeve disposed around the inner wall 32 , many other arrangements for providing a fluid flow path from the regulator to the cartridge containing space and / or the cap 14 can be provided , for example using respective externally routed air hoses or a combination of externally routed air hoses and air conduits routed inside an extension of the stock portion 2 . in terms of the ready interchangeability of the spacer 44 against other pressure delivering interfaces , for example , spacers of different lengths to accommodate different cartridges or a combination of a piston and spacer for use with foil packs , as described above , it is preferable that the rear cap 12 is readily removable and , therefore , that any air connections are made on the body portion and not on the rear cap 12 . in the same light , it can be preferable that both the inlet port and the exhaust port , respectively supplying pressurized fluid and venting pressurized fluid to the space 43 , be provided within the stock portion 22 to keep any pneumatic components away from the rear end of the body portion port so as not to interfere with the ready interchangeability of the spacer 44 . however , alternative locations for these components are equally possible . it will be understood that alternative arrangements for opening and closing the fluid supply ports can be used , for example using a linearly moveable member directly actuated by the user ( rather than via a rotatable member ), a rotatable member on a thread , converting rotation of the member to linear movement relative to the cap by virtue of the thread or a purely rotational member for opening and closing the fluid supply ports , together with a corresponding rearrangement of the corresponding seals from a transverse orientation to a longitudinal orientation . while the spray nozzle 20 has been described as removeably connected to the linearly moveable member 18 , it will be understood that the spray nozzle may equally form part of the linearly moveably member 18 or other member for opening and closing the supply ports . finally , while the fastening arrangements for , for example , fastening the spray nozzle 20 to the cap 14 or fastening the cap 14 to the body portion 4 ( or the rear cap 12 ), as the fastening arrangements may equally be used , such as bayonet fastening arrangements or any other kind of suitable fastening arrangement . indeed , while the embodiment described above has a fastener at each end , other embodiments have a body portion which can only be opened at one end , either front or rear . thus , the body portion can be loaded with a container from the front with an integrally closed rear end or from the rear with an integrally formed front portion arranged to accept the dispensing nozzle through it and to provide the functionality of the cap described above in terms of supplying pressurized fluid for spray formation . the above described specific embodiment is manufactured from a combination of metal ( such as aluminium ) for the inner wall 32 and outer wall portion 8 , 10 and plastic materials ( such as acetal or nylon with glass content as necessary ) for the remaining structural components . the nozzles are manufactured from plastics such as high density polyethylene . it will be understood that any suitable combination of metal and plastic materials , including construction with all structural parts made from plastic materials can be used in alternative embodiments . numerous materials are suitable for use in the sealing parts such as o - rings , for pressure connecting hoses and tubes and other pneumatic components such as valves and connectors , as is well known to the person skilled in the art . | 1 |
inside the cylinder head 1 is provided an inlet valve 3 which is substantially coaxial with the piston and to the longitudinal axis of the cylinder to which it pertains . another tubular valve 2 is provided which is coaxial with and surrounds valve 3 and acts as an outlet valve . valve 3 , which consists of a stem 4 and a valve head 5 , is also hollow and carries a nozzle carrier 6 which is screwed in on the axis of the valve , and extends from the upper end of the stem 4 into the lower region of the compression space of the pertaining cylinder . in addition to fuel line 44 inside the nozzle carrier 6 is located an electric lead 41 which conducts the igniting current to the electrodes 11 located on the nozzle carrier 6 . the fuel line 44 through which the first pump 42 pumps fuel to the first nozzle 10 may incorporate a valve 45 through which fuel which builds up in the line 44 upon completion of the mixture forming process may flow back into the tank . the vaporizing device ( chamber ) is denoted as 43 , the ignition current source as 40 . the second pump and the second fuel line serving to form the ignitable mixture are not shown in the drawings . inside the nozzle carrier 6 is located a control needle ( not shown ) with appropriate mechanical elements which establishes a connection between a three - dimensional cam and a nozzle needle in the nozzle 10 . in order to enable the nozzle carrier 6 to be maintained at the temperature determined by the fuel , especially in the region of the compression space , the nozzle carrier is provided with bores for a heating and cooling fluid . the first fuel nozzle 10 and the second fuel nozzle 12 are installed in the lower region of the nozzle carrier 6 and the first nozzle 10 is provided with a nozzle bore which is directed substantially toward the cylinder wall . the position of the electrodes 11 at the nozzle carrier 6 depends upon the region in which the ignition mixture is located at the very moment when the spark flashes over between the electrodes . the different partial fuels , the ignition current , the heating and cooling fluid , the current to a temperature sensor provided in the region of the first nozzle 10 and the mechanical work for the actuation of the control needle are supplied to the nozzle carrier 6 via flexible leads and mechanical elements . the outer valve 2 , which is movably supported inside the cylinder head 1 in two bores , controls the outlet channel 19 which annularly encircles the outlet valve 2 . the outlet valve 2 , when closed , comes to rest upon the cylinder head 1 . the outlet channel 19 is found in the lower region of the cylinder head 1 . the inner valve 3 , which is movably supported in the insert 20 controls the inlet channel 17 which annularly encircles the outlet valve 2 . between the inlet channel 17 , which is found in the central region of the cylinder head 1 , and the outlet channel 19 , the cylinder head 1 is widened by boring so that the outer valve 2 can become movably supported . the outer valve 2 , in the region of the compression space , serves also for the formation of the outlet and the inlet channels , and it is protected against the hot exhaust gases by a tubular apron 18 . the inlet channel 17 sourrounds outer valve 2 , and openings in the stem of the outer valve 2 in the region of the inlet channel permit the gas required for the combustion to enter into the inside of tubular outer valve 2 . by the action of the inner valve 3 , the inlet channel 17 is closed and opened as the piston reciprocates in the cylinder . the lower end of outer valve 2 is constructed to serve as valve seat for the inner valve 3 . fitted in the upper region of the inside of the valve 2 , there is provided an insert 20 . the insert is fitted into outer valve 2 such that this may shift axially . the insert is held stationary by supports ( not shown ) which are attached to the cylinder head and reach across the stem of the outer valve 2 . the cam shaft acts via rocker arms upon the valves 2 , 3 or upon connection parts at the valve stems . the upper contour of the compression space is defined by the substantially flat valve head 5 and the configuration of the cylinder head 1 , which may be that of a circular arc , for example . the piston 32 has a parabolical or circular depression 30 and incorporates a piston recess 31 in the region of the longitudinal axis . when piston 32 moves in the region of the upper dead center position , part of the nozzle carrier 6 will be in recess 31 . the depression 30 carries at the rim of piston recess 31 a spoon - like element 35 which faces the second nozzle 12 or the first nozzle 10 and since inlet valve 3 is not allowed to rotate , this situation will occur on each piston stroke . in the drawings , reference is also made to the voltage source 40 and the lead to the electrodes 41 . the fuel pump for the formation of the basic mixture is denoted as 42 , the fuel vaporizing device ( chamber ) as 43 and the fuel line as 44 . the relief valve is denoted as 45 . the fuel jet is denoted as 13 . the helical stream of mixture enveloped by air is indicated at 14 , the combustion gases are indicated at 15 , and the ring of air is denoted as 16 . finally , the outlet valve may also take the form of a sleeve valve 28 disposed in the cylinder , while the inlet valve is disposed in the cylinder head as described , both valves being coaxially located on the longitudinal axis of the cylinder . the outlet channel related to the sleeve valve is denoted as 29 in fig2 and 4 . microturbulence in the inflowing air may be reduced effectively if the inlet channel is funnel - shaped in the region of the cylinder head ( fig3 ). furthermore , an appropriately designed inlet channel , such as a swirl ( vortex ) channel , may be used instead of the inlet channel provided with guide vanes ( fig2 ). alternatively , the outlet opening of the nozzle 10 may be oriented so that the longitudinal axis of the nozzle 10 is not perpendicular to the longitudinal axis of the cylinder , but that it features a component relative to the longitudinal axis of the cylinder . furthermore , the outlet opening of the nozzle 10 may be oriented so that it features a circumferential component relative to the nozzle carrier , i . e . that it is inclined against a plane extending parallel to the longitudinal axis of the cylinder . the circumferential component , moreover may take such a form that the longitudinal axis of the nozzle 10 is a tangent to the circumference of the nozzle carrier . the fuel jet may initially follow the direction of rotation of the helically rotating air or move in the opposite direction . according to a further embodiment , a plurality of first fuel nozzles 10 , rather than one , are provided which may , for instance , be offset 180 ° to each other or 90 ° to each other and feature different bores , producing different jet configurations , in which case the openings of these nozzles may be arranged in such a manner that they will not only point in different outward directions , but also be inclined against planes extending parallel to the longitudinal axis of the cylinder . according to yet another embodiment of the invention , a plurality of first nozzles 10 having identical or different bores and pointing in the same or different outward directions may be combined in one or a plurality of nozzle bodies . the needles changing the cross - sections of the bores of the first nozzles 10 can be omitted if fuel injection starts at the nozzle with the smallest bore and is delayed at the nozzle with the greater bore by 40 crank angle degrees , for example . in that case , the fuel flow in the lines is controlled by means of additional valves . it may be advantageous to use first nozzles 10 of a type which provides slender jet configurations . the most expedient number of nozzles 10 depends , among other things , on the configuration of the fuel jet and the angles at which the air hits the fuel jet . these angles , which change during the mixture forming process , are determined by the pitch angle of the guide vanes and / or the configuration of the inlet channel and the blow - in angles of the jet . it may be advantageous to select the pitch angle of the guide vanes , the mean valve opening cross - section , and / or the design of the inlet channel so that the ratio of the engine speed to the mean speed of the rotating air is between 1 : 2 and 1 : 8 . if the ratio of engine speed to mean air speed is in the range of 1 : 2 to 1 : 8 and the fuel is blown / injected into the air by means of one or two nozzles 10 , then the pitch of the helically flowing air in the region of the nozzle ( s ) 10 meets the requirements for the formation of a substantially dynamically balanced mixture zone enveloped by the air . a mean pitch of the air rotating helically in the region of the first nozzles 10 and the fuel jet which is advantageous for the number of nozzles required and the distribution of fuel in the mixture is obtained if the ratio of engine speed to mean air speed is in the range from 1 : 2 to 1 : 8 . in any embodiment of the invention , it is important that the number of nozzles and the various parameters of the jets of blown - in or injected fuel be adapted to the helically rotating air and its parameters in such a manner that a coherent mixture zone is formed which is enclosed by a transition zone of small volume and a ring of air and in which the fuel is distributed so as to meet the requirements of a low - consumption and low - pollution engine . by adapting the various parameters related to the fuel to the variable parameters related to the helically rotating air , a favorable ratio of mixture volume to air volume meeting the requirements of a low - consumption and low - pollution engine can be achieved under all conditions of engine loading . in any embodiment of the invention it is also important that , taking into account the primary and secondary motions of the air and the residual gas , the outlet openings of the nozzles 10 be oriented in such a manner as to assure a favorable distribution of the fuel in the basic mixture and a high degree of utilization of the air flowing in the inner and intermediate regions of the piston - swept and compression spaces and to minimize enrichment of the residual gas with fuel . moreover , if one or a plurality of nozzles 10 are used , the single nozzle or one or two of a plurality of nozzles 10 or all nozzles 10 may be disposed in the region between the end of the nozzle carrier and the valve head so that the nozzle carrier projects beyond that part of the nozzle carrier which carries the nozzles . the nozzle carrier may be shorter than shown in the drawings and the recess 31 in the piston may be correspondingly less deep or be omitted entirely . in that case , an advantageous arrangement is one in which the nozzle opening is again oriented outwardly and with a component directed downwardly toward the piston in order to thereby counteract the deflection of the fuel jet by the secondary motion of the air . as already mentioned , the ignitable mixture is formed by the nozzle ( s ) 10 or the nozzle ( s ) 12 in the region of the nozzle carrier and the piston crown taking into account the parameters related to the second partial fuel stream and the air and / or mixture swirl and considering the construction of the piston and the nozzle carrier . alternatively , the ignitable mixture may be formed in the substantially cylindrical or spherical recess in the piston . the most appropriate state of aggregation of the fuel for the formation of the ignitable mixture depends on the state of aggregation of the fuel intended for the formation of the basic mixture . for any type of ignition mixture formation it is important that a composition of the mixture be achieved which may be ignited by a normal ignition spark . if the ignitable mixture is formed by means of a second pump and by the second nozzle 12 , it is important that the two partial streams of fuel delivered by the pumps be correlated in a predetermined manner such that the proper value for the air ratio in the ` cloud ` of ignitable mixture is obtained . furthermore , the amount of residual gas flowing in the region of the nozzle carrier and the amount of gas flowing out of the recess in the piston during ignition mixture formation if the ignitable mixture is formed outside the recess in the piston must also be taken into account in determining the amount of fuel required to form the ignitable mixture . blow - in or injection of the second partial fuel stream for forming the ignitable mixture commences at positions of the piston located about 5 to 50 crank angle degrees before the position of the piston at ignition , depending on how the ignitable mixture is formed . the second partial fuel stream may be delivered by a second pump , vaporized in a further chamber and fed to the nozzle 12 via an appropriate heated line ( cooled if the fuel is injected in the liquid state ), this line being equipped with a relief valve like the line for the first partial fuel stream . it may also be expedient to keep the cross - section of the line between the fuel pump and the fuel vaporizing device in which the fuel exists in the liquid state , very narrow and the distance between the fuel pump and the fuel vaporizing device very short . the most appropriate placing of the electrodes on the circumference and / or in the region of the end face of the nozzle carrier will depend upon the position of the ignitable mixture at the moment of sparking . the spoon ( s ) 35 provided in the region of the recess in the piston swirl ( s ) the flow in the region of the recess in the piston . these spoons 35 may also be used to advantage in the embodiment of the invention in which the ignitable mixture is formed in the recess 31 in the piston . microturbulence in the region of the recess in the piston and of the nozzle carrier facilitates the formation of the ignitable mixture , reduces the rate of flow in the region of the electrodes and mixes the residual gas flowing around the nozzle carrier with fresh gas . discontinuous combustion and pressure fluctuatons in the cylinder are avoided . according to a further embodiment of the invention , the fuel may be injected or blown into the helically rotating air during the intake stroke . in that case , it is advisable to provide a plurality of first nozzles because the pitch with which the air flows into the cylinder and hits the fuel jet is comparatively large . as a result , one or more helical stream ( s ) of mixture is ( are ) formed which extends ( extend ) toward the piston and which is ( are ) compressed like a helical spring during the compression stroke . with this type of mixture formation , too , it is important that the fuel pump delivery curves be adapted to suit the fuel demand characteristics of the engine . while the air density changes significantly during mixture formation when fuel is blown in or injected and the mixture is formed during the compression stroke , fluctuations of the air density in the cylinder during the intake stroke are comparatively slight . consequently , the amount of fuel required per crank angle degree during a single mixture forming process is also subject to comparatively slight fluctuations only . if the mixture forming process starts during the intake stroke and ends during the compression stroke , a stream of fuel - air mixture is formed which initially extends toward the piston and then toward the cylinder head . as a result , part of the helically rotating air contacts the fuel jet twice and is twice enriched with fuel , a fact which must be taken into account in adapting the fuel delivery curves to the fuel demand characteristics of the engine . it may be advantageous to equip the individual fuel lines in the fuel pumps with valves . it may also be advantageous to install a shut - off valve in the fuel line downstream of the fuel vaporizing device and a further relief valve between the fuel vaporizing device and the shut - off valve in order to permit the fuel vaporizing device to be relieved between successive fuel delivery cycles . since only part of the total air is enriched with fuel according to the method of this invention , it may be expedient to employ pressure charging and charge air cooling to improve the specific power output of the engine . if pressure changing is employed , the fuel pump delivery curves must be adapted to the corresponding fuel demand curves . the function of the engine and the advantages obtainable from practice of the invention are described below : helically rotating air flows from the inlet channel into the cylinder . the piston - swept and compression spaces of the cylinder are symmetrical about the cylinder axis and a free fluid flow is generated therein which shows no special peculiarities . the primary and secondary motions of the air when the air flows from the piston - swept space into the compression space and thereby deflects the jet of fuel , carrying along fuel from the jet so that a helically flowing mixture zone is formed which is then transformed into a well defined basic mixture enclosed in a ring , or a cylinder , of pure air if the blow - in depth of the fuel jet is appropriately selected . the engine can be governed by changing the volume of the mixture zone on the one hand ( fuel - air ratio constant ) and the fuel - air ratio in the mixture zone on the other hand ( volume constant ) or by combining those two methods . the methods described permit the amount of fuel delivered to the engine during a single mixture forming process to be distributed over a comparatively small or a comparatively large amount of air , as desired . thus , a predetermined amount of fuel may be distributed over a predetermined amount of helically rotating air in such a manner that a mixture zone of comparatively small volume is formed with a low air ratio . alternatively , a mixture zone of comparatively large volume and high air ratio may be formed with the same amount of fuel by changing the nozzle cross - section and / or the fuel vapor temperature and / or the differential pressures between the fuel delivery device and the air in the cylinder , thereby causing the configuration of the fuel jet , i . e . the depth to which the fuel penetrates into the helically rotating air , to be changed . conversely , a mixture zone of large volume and low fuel - air ratio or a mixture zone of small volume and high fuel - air ratio may be formed by selecting and adjusting the fuel and air parameters accordingly . if the parameters relating to the fuel are appropriately adjusted and adapted to suit the parameters relating to the air flow , with the amount of fuel being determined by the current momentary and / or desired load , a zone of basic mixture may be formed which meets the requirements of efficient , low - pollution combustion in terms of air ratio and volume . in order to achieve the desired objectives , it is important that the zone of basic mixture thus formed be as lean as possible . an important advantage is the result that , when lean mixtures are burned , the maximum flame temperature becomes lowered , which brings about three essential improvements : the thermal and frictional losses decrease , the dissociation is lower and , as the gas taken in is only slightly throttled , the pumping losses are reduced . the thermal efficiency of the engine due to these improvements is greatly raised . the reduction of the maximum flame temperatures causes a considerable drop in the amount of oxides of nitrogen in the exhaust gas . as the combustion occurs in a space in which the volume of the ignition mixture is small , no zones of a high flame temperature are created , thus the creation of nitrogen oxides is considerably reduced . the creation of nitrogen oxides is further reduced by the expansion of the burning mixture zone during which the ring of pure air is compressed . the manner in which the mixture is formed according to the present invention not only enables a mixture zone to be formed which is enclosed by a ring of pure air , but also enables the fuel to be substantially evenly distributed in said mixture zone , which also counteracts the formation of pollutants with respect to nitric oxides . as there is , furthermore , an excess of air in the basic mixture and because the volume of the ignition mixture zone is so small , the arising of carbon monoxide is prevented in addition . how the basic mixture , which is transformed into hot burning gases during combustion , acts with respect to the amount of hydrocarbons in the exhaust gas and with respect to the thermal efficiency may best be described as follows : owing to the deflection of the jet of fuel in the direction of rotation of the air , the basic mixture is encased by a transition zone which is small in volume and which separates the basic mixture from the enveloping air . during combustion and expansion , the shape of the basic mixture ( burning gases ) substantially retains its rotary symmetry , because the forces which go into action ( as the temperature difference is so great between the hot burning gases and the air which does not participate in the combustion , and also because the gas rotates ) maintain the hot burning gases in the inner region of the piston - swept space and the compression space . the transition layer between the hot burning gases and the cold air becomes heated during the combustion and the expansion and the hydrocarbons which may be present in the transition zone will become burned . during operation of the engine , no mixture enters into the gap between piston and cylinder , and this means that the amount of hydrocarbons in the exhaust gas is , therefore , lowered still more . when the engine is cold , no fuel condenses on the wall of the cylinder and the cylinder head . this brings about an improvement of the quality of the exhaust gas and a decrease of the wear and tear on the engine as there is no oil washed off the cylinder wall surface . the amount of oil consumed is lowered , and the lubricating performance of the oil is not reduced because no fuel becomes mixed into it . there is no binding or seizing of the piston . to this must be added that the thermal efficiency of the engine is further raised substantially due to the lowered heat transition into the cylinder , cylinder head and piston during combustion and expansion because the air ring , or air cylinder , which surrounds the hot burning gases has an insulating effect . the insultating air ring or air cylinder reduces not only the direct heat losses ( to he walls ), but also the indirect heat losses ( to the exhaust gas ). the heat losses caused by the nozzle carrier and the recess in the piston are more than balanced by the insulating effect of the air ring or air cylinder . the mixture zone and the burning gases expand during combustion and compress the ring or cylinder of air by which it is they are surrounded . the pressures in the cylinder and the peak temperatures of the burning gases thus remain relatively low , which reduces the formation of nitrogen oxides and increases thermal efficiency . moreover , the compression ratio can be very high , even if fuels with regular octane numbers are used , without causing pressure - rise knock , which , in turn , has a favorable effect on thermal efficiency . concentrating the mixture in the inner region of the combustion space and surrounding the hot combustion gases by an envelope of air affords important thermodynamic advantages . by dispensing with intake air throttling and using pressure charging ( substituting pressure for volume ) approximately the same gas mass can be obtained in the mixture zone as the gas mass distributed over the entire space in a comparable conventional engine with intake air throttling but without pressure charging . the volume and surface reduction resulting from the concentration of the mixture and combustion gases in the inner and medium regions of the combustion space in conjunction with the inclusion of the combustion gases in an envelope of air acting as an insulator substantially reduces the wall heat losses so that the thermal efficiency increases considerably . a further advantage resulting from the concentration of the mixture in the inner region of the combustion space is the reduction in length of flame travel . the short flame travels permit even lean mixtures to be burned with sufficient speed , thereby optimizing heat release in terms of thermal efficiency . owing to the rapid combustion of the mixture and the existence of the air envelope surrounding the combustion gases , the system behaves thermodynamically and in terms of heat losses in a manner similar to the behavior of a system with the same amount of fuel distributed over the entire available space and the entire air and with sufficiently rapid combustion of the lean mixture . since the combustion of lean mixtures tends to be very slow and incomplete , only part of the air in the cylinder is mixed with fuel according to the mixture formation process of the invention which the remaining part remains free of fuel . this permits very high total air ratios ( air ratio of the mixture plus air ratio of the air ) to be used without adversely affecting the combustion process if , for instance , the air ratio in the mixture zone is 1 . 5 while the gas in the mixture zone accounts for one - third and the air in the surrounding envelope for two - thirds of the total gas mass in the cylinder . all these features contribute towards reducing the specific fuel consumption of the engine . furthermore , the engine may be operated with a very high air ratio , which has the effect that consumption is considerably reduced . the engine may be operated with gasoline , light hydrocarbons and / or their mixtures , gasoline - methanol mixtures , methanol , methanol - water mixtures , ethanol , ethanol - water mixtures , liquified petroleum gas and all gaseous fuels , i . e . fuels which need not be vaporized . if gaseous fuels are used , the fuel vaporizing device is replaced by means which deliver the gaseous fuel in accordance with the operating parameters of the engine . | 5 |
various embodiments and aspects of the disclosure will be described with reference to details discussed below . the following description and drawings are illustrative of the disclosure and are not to be construed as limiting the disclosure . numerous specific details are described to provide a thorough understanding of various embodiments of the present disclosure . however , in certain instances , well - known or conventional details are not described in order to provide a concise discussion of embodiments of the present disclosure . as used herein , the terms “ comprises ” and “ comprising ” are to be construed as being inclusive and open ended , and not exclusive . specifically , when used in the specification and claims , the terms “ comprises ” and “ comprising ” and variations thereof mean the specified features , steps or components are included . these terms are not to be interpreted to exclude the presence of other features , steps or components . as used herein , the term “ exemplary ” means “ serving as an example , instance , or illustration ,” and should not be construed as preferred or advantageous over other configurations disclosed herein . as used herein , the terms “ about ” and “ approximately ” are meant to cover variations that may exist in the upper and lower limits of the ranges of values , such as variations in properties , parameters , and dimensions . the present specification discloses numerous example embodiments . the scope of the present patent application is not limited to the disclosed embodiments , but also encompasses combinations of the disclosed embodiments , as well as modifications to the disclosed embodiments . references in the specification to “ one embodiment ,” “ an embodiment ,” “ an example embodiment ,” etc ., indicate that the embodiment described may include a particular feature , structure , or characteristic , but every embodiment may not necessarily include the particular feature , structure , or characteristic . moreover , such phrases are not necessarily referring to the same embodiment . further , when a particular feature , structure , or characteristic is described in connection with an embodiment , it is submitted that it is within the knowledge of one skilled in the art to affect such feature , structure , or characteristic in connection with other embodiments whether or not explicitly described . furthermore , it should be understood that spatial descriptions ( e . g ., “ above ,” “ below ,” “ up ,” “ left ,” “ right ,” “ down ,” “ top ,” “ bottom ,” “ vertical ,” “ horizontal ,” etc .) used herein are for purposes of illustration only , and that practical implementations of the structures described herein can be spatially arranged in any orientation or manner . numerous exemplary embodiments are described as follows . it is noted that any section / subsection headings provided herein are not intended to be limiting . embodiments are described throughout this document , and any type of embodiment may be included under any section / subsection . furthermore , disclosed embodiments may be combined with each other in any manner . as used herein , the term “ patient ” is not limited to human patients and may mean any organism to be treated using the diffusion phantoms disclosed herein . as used herein , “ hydrogels ” refer to materials that are formed by crosslinking polymer chains , through physical , ionic or covalent interactions and are known for their ability to absorb water . an example of a physical interaction that can give rise to a hydrogel is by thermal treatment of the liquid hydrogel precursor which , prior to being subjected to a freeze thaw cycle is a liquid or near liquid . the process of freezing the liquid precursor acts to freeze the water contained in the polymer / water mixture and ice particles causes the polymer strands to be topologically restricted in molecular motion by other chains thus giving rise to the “ entanglement ’ cross linking to produce the hydrogel . hydrogels that have been produced by a freeze thaw cycle are sometimes referred to as “ cryogels ”. hydrogels characterized by cross linking that are produced through ionic or covalent interactions typically require a cross linking ( xl ) agent and / or an initiator and activation by methods such as heat or radiation . referring to fig1 , 3 , 4 and 5 , a cerebrospinal diffusion phantom constructed in accordance with the present invention is shown generally at 10 . diffusion phantom 10 comprises a base section 12 , an exterior housing 14 adapted to couple with base section 12 , and a handle 16 located in housing 14 adapted to be gripped by a user moving the phantom 10 around . fig2 also shows a scanning location reference marker 11 which provides a reference for locating the phantom 10 in a mri machine . phantom 10 in fig2 also provides registration targets 13 where a navigation pointer tool can select these registration targets 13 to register phantom 10 with a medical navigation system can be mounted . fig5 and 6 shows an exploded view of phantom 10 in which it can be seen that base section 12 mounts to a seal plate 30 , inner housing 32 , and outer shell 18 . when the phantom 10 is assembled , as can be seen from fig5 one ( 1 ) o - ring 15 seals the inner housing 32 and the two ( 2 ) o - rings 13 and 14 seal the outer housing 18 and inner housing 32 . in reference to the embodiment shown in fig4 , a central pillar 46 mounts to the base 12 and acts as support for the circular micro - rod bundle mounts 47 , the resolution module 48 and the q - ball module 49 . a micro - rod bundle 40 are shown associated with the circular bundle mounts 47 . a plug 50 is used to seal the seal plate 30 after topping up matrix fluid during assembly . the circular bundle mounts 47 act as a configurable support structure to the micro - rod bundles 40 and serve an additional purpose as fluid buffers to prevent fluid motion during a scanning protocol should the matrix material be fluid . this feature is to improve image clarity . fig6 is an extended exploded view of all components of the phantom of fig1 to 4 . micro - rod bundles 40 can be seen in fig5 and 6 where they are mounted in various orientations . referring to fig5 , once base 12 and internal housing 32 are sealed together , they are locked together using five ( 5 ) bolts 20 which are passed through holes in base 12 and corresponding holes in the peripheral shoulder in internal housing 32 , indicated by the dashed lines and the bolts are threaded into their corresponding nuts as shown . the flat bottom section of base 18 ( i . e ., exterior end ) allows it to be securely placed on a bench - top or other flat surface . the handle provided by 34 in this section provides a grip for when a user is placing it into ( and removing it from ) an mri head - coil . in addition , the flat surfaces 51 on the upper housing section 18 allows the user to steady the phantom 10 before transporting . it should be noted that in some embodiments the phantom 10 is produced from a material capable of withstanding a freeze - thaw cycle if using a cryogel as matrix material . in addition the phantom 10 may include a marker ( not shown ) for landmarking and / or correct orientation in the mr coil . in an alternate embodiment , the housing may be constructed and function as follows . using various ties , the fiber modules are attached at their ends and along their lengths to three circular elements that are designed to enable the maximum number of fastening locations . these circular elements are attached to a center column that is mounted to an inner housing and they can slide , and be fastened to various locations on the column . these elements are unique in that they enable multiple configurations for fiber bundles to be positioned in x , y , z directions , ‘ kissing ’, diagonally , curved and interweaving . this center column also enables attachment of modules for various modules described in further detail below . water can diffuse a radial distance of approximately 6 - 10 μm between the time of excitation and signal acquisition for a standard dti protocol . this means that water within this distance from a micro - lumen channel wall or micro - rod wall will demonstrate restricted diffusion . water that is not within this distance of a wall or barrier , will maintain free diffusion . to increase the level of anisotropic diffusion within a micro - rod channel or against a micro - rod , it is useful to restrict the diffusion more in the radial direction . with increasing radial restriction ( i . e . reduced radial dimension ), this decreases water in the voxel which may decrease the received anisotropic signal . to promote ideal signal , the cross - sectional surface area needs to be increased to get more water within the voxel . two possible embodiments are disclosed in fig5 and 6 , with respect to the fiber emulating micro - rod bundles 40 being mounted on the circular bundle mounts 47 in phantom 10 or in additional phantoms . in one embodiment , a flexible micro - lumen rod containing at least one ( 1 ) and as many as nineteen ( 19 ) micro - lumen channels of a diameter that allows an extreme aspect ratio may be used which facilitates the detection of diffusion in a liquid when the micro - lumen channels are filled with the liquid . the micro - lumen rod is comprised of a flexible material that allows it to be bent to span multiple directions and to isolate the liquid interior from the matrix material and it is cut to give desired lengths without cracking or otherwise deteriorating the inner structure . the micro - lumen channels can be filled by a number of methods including vacuum backfilling . fig7 shows a cross sectional view of one such embodiment of a flexible micro - rods 52 , 54 and 56 having nineteen ( 19 ) channels of three different sizes . a single central channel 56 has the largest diameter , six ( 6 ) channels 54 of a slightly smaller diameter surround the central micro - lumen channel 56 , and twelve ( 12 ) smaller diameter channels 52 surround channels 54 . fig8 shows a cross sectional view of another embodiment of a flexible micro - rod 70 which also contains nineteen ( 19 ) micro - channels 72 all having the same diameter . the micro - rod embodiments in fig7 and 8 are non - limiting example embodiments of flexible micro - rods with multiple micro - lumen channels . it may be conceived that other micro - rod permutations with any number of micro - lumen channels and / or diameter sizes may be used . as an example , the micro - lumen channels as seen in fig7 and 8 may have a size in the range of 0 . 5 micrometers to 10 micrometers . in an alternate approach , a flexible plastic micro - rod that is threaded with thread sizes proportional to the size of voxels may be used . this approach to axon fiber mimicry accounts for the fact that diffusion is restricted in the volume closest to the surface . the shapes disclosed herein are designed to balance the trade - off between increasing signal and restricting radial diffusion . fig9 to 13 illustrates the cross - sectional views of several non - limiting embodiments of flexible pulled micro - rods used to mimic cerebrospinal diffusion fiber tracts in a diffusion phantom . the cross - section can be consistent along the entire length of the micro - rod and should be designed to maximize the wettable surface area of the micro - rod . for example , in the micro - rod structure 80 . in fig9 , indentations with circular cross - sections 84 would maximize the wettable surface area . fig1 to 13 illustrates cross sections of alternate embodiments of pulled micro - rods forming part of the present disclosure . fig1 is a cross sectional view of an alternate embodiment of a flexible micro - rod used to mimic cerebrospinal diffusion fiber tracts in the present diffusion phantom . in this embodiment in fig1 , a shape such as a rhodonea curve ( where k = 4 ) is representative of an idealized cross section where the surface area is maximized in each voxel . in a further embodiment , a fractal pattern ( not shown ) can also be used to maximize the wettable surface area and result in greater diffusion restriction in each voxel . referring to fig1 , micro - rod 94 includes a flexible pulled micro - rod material 96 showing six ( 6 ) indents or channels along the length of micro - rod 94 . the embodiment of a micro - rod 100 in fig1 shows a flexible pulled micro - rod material 102 having eight ( 8 ) indents or channels 104 running along the length of the rod 100 . in a further embodiment shown in fig1 at micro - rod 100 , a pulled flexible micro - rod material 112 is shown having eight ( 8 ) channels 114 . the indents or channels in the micro - rod surface seen in fig1 to 13 are chosen to be of a size to be narrow in comparison to the distance water can diffuse on the timescale of a dti protocol , thereby restricting the possible diffusion in all directions except for along the direction of the fiber . it will be appreciated that the embodiments of fig9 to 13 are only exemplary in nature . the embodiment shown in fig1 incorporates the use of multi - rod bundles wherein the multi - rod bundles contain a multitude of bicomponent rods before the separation process ( i . e , pre - processing stage ). at this stage , there are a multitude of rods of material b 122 embedded in material a 120 . these bicomponent rods may be extruded from the same spinneret ( small , thimble - shaped , metal nozzle having fine holes through which a spinning solution is forced to form a micro - rod ), resulting in both polymers contained within the same micro - rod . fig1 further depicts the cross - section of a bicomponent rod . in this embodiment , there are 61 micro - rods of material b 122 made out of polypropylene ( pp ) that is surrounded by a water - soluble material material a 120 . material a 120 in this embodiment may be polyvinyl alcohol ( pva ). the micro - rods 122 made of material b have substantially uniform diameter and are embedded through material a 120 in substantially uniform spacing . those skilled in the art would be able to determine appropriate substitutes for these materials . the ‘ sea ’ material can be removed by placing the fibers in warm water for a few hours , or using a combination of warm water and ultra - sonication as an example . fig1 shows the bi - material flexible micro - rod after removal of the material a constituent , as well as , the unique micro - lumen regions generated by this process . it is these regions that function to provide anisotropic restriction of diffusion motion . the scale of the micro - lumen structure is dependent on the tightness of the packing of the micro - rod bundle , the diameter of the material b micro - rods 122 , and the sectional geometry of the rods themselves ( i . e ., they may contain the internal lumen structures as alluded to in fig7 to 13 ). further , each micro - rod 122 of material b is of substantially uniform spacing & amp ; uniform diameter based on manufacture tolerance requirements and / or limitations . fig1 shows the bicomponent rods before the separation process . at this stage , there are a multitude of micro - rods 122 of material b ( polypropylene ( pp ) embedded in the matrix 120 made of material a ( polyvinyl alcohol ( pva )). fig1 also illustrates bicomponent rod windings of fiber strands 126 on a production bobbin 124 . in fig1 , the bicomponent rods 130 are wound on a bobbin 124 with 144 bicomponent rods per strand . each strand 126 contains approximately 8800 polypropylene ( pp ) micro - rods ( material b ). the fiber strands 126 are wound onto a square shaped spindle 128 ( see fig1 ) using a motorized spinner to generate a rod bundle with a set number of aligned bicomponent rods 130 . the revolutions are counted to determine the total number of micro - rods within the rod bundle . for example , 200 revolutions equates to 400 strands segments per bundle , resulting in a total of 3 . 5 million micro - rods per bundle . to remove matrix 120 made of material a and introduce water between the micro - rods 122 ( material b ), the u - bolt containing the rod bundle is placed into a water bath for dissolving material a . thereafter the material is then placed in an ultrasonication bath . the warm water and ultrasonication is then repeated one or more times to ensure complete removal of the pva ( material a ). in this embodiment , the strands 126 in fig1 are initially brown in colour before removal of the pva , and become white after the dissolving and ultrasonication process . sonication also breaks up the micro - rods 122 ( material b ) and allows water to become entrapped between them . the flexible micro - rod bundles 122 are then secured at each end to maintain alignment of the fibers using thread or zipties and are removed from the u - bolt . the flexible micro - rod bundles 122 can then be wrapped or manipulated to maintain a tight flexible micro - rod bundle and then fastened in various orientations to the interior of inner housing 32 suitable for mr imaging . in this example , the flexible micro - rod bundles 122 are tightly bundled using various techniques which may include , but are not limited to sewing thread , heat shrink tubing collars , ziptie collars , twisted fiber , or no manipulation . the zipties at the ends help keep tension on the flexible micro - rod bundles 122 to reduce motion during scanning . fig1 illustrates how the strands are spun onto a spindle 128 , heated and ultrasonicated in a water bath 129 . in this embodiment , the spindle 128 is attached to a controlling motor which rotates the strands off of the bobbin 124 as seen in fig1 . one advantage to using bicomponent micro - rod materials is that the alignment of the inner material 122 ( material b ) within a bicomponent rod 130 remains unaffected during the winding process and can only shift during the removal process of matrix 122 ( material a ). during this process , all micro - rods made of material b are under tension which should allow the material b to remain in an aligned configuration . this provides more uniform packing of the material b micro - rods 122 once the material a material is removed , in turn providing more uniform micro - lumen avenues between the material b micro - rods 122 where the anisotropic diffusion of water occurs . fig1 a illustrates the formed micro - rod bundles , shown from the process illustrated in fig7 to 17 . in fig1 a , the phantom is supported by the internal scaffold support structure also referred to as circular bundle mounts 47 so that the phantom simulates brain fibers travelling in all three orthogonal directions . using various ties , the micro - rod bundle modules are attached at their ends and along their lengths to three circular elements that are design to enable the maximum number of fastening locations . these circular elements are attached to a center column that is mounted to the main housing and they can slide , and be fastened to various locations on the column . these elements are unique in that they enable near infinite configurations for fiber bundles to be positioned in x , y , z directions , ‘ kissing ’, diagonally , curved and interweaving . fig1 b illustrates a processed dti image of micro - rod bundles supported within the phantom . the top image of fig1 shows the dti image of the micro - rod bundles . the bottom image of fig1 b provides a close - up magnified view of two strand of the micro - rod bundles . fig1 a and 18b are illustrative of a head phantom support structure for scanning the head region , however , the micro - rod bundles 122 and circular bundle mounts 47 may be incorporated into additional phantoms for scanning of other anatomical body parts ( i . e ., a diffusion phantom for a leg , spine , hip , abdominal regions , etc .) where anisotropic diffusion of water may be present in tissue and nerve images . as seen in fig5 , when assembled , internal housing 32 is sealed against base section 12 using o - ring 15 , creating a liquid tight seal that encloses the matrix material . the micro - rod bundles 40 as shown in fig1 are submerged in this matrix material . anisotropic diffusion is a function of the aspect ratio of the lumen micro - structure generated by the flexible micro - rod elements . by having an extreme length ( i . e ., infinitely long on the time scale of the mr acquisition ) and a small width and height , this acts to restrict the direction that diffusion can take place to the direction of the micro - rod elements . thus the liquid can be water or an aqueous based solution of a material to tune the mr visibility ( e . g . copper sulfate solution ). to improve the mr visibility of the matrix material in the phantom , one can tune the mr properties of the matrix material to increase the relative signal within a typical mr diffusion measurement . the mr relaxation properties which control the relative amount of signal generated within an imaging sequence are the t1 and t2 relaxation times . the t1 relaxation rate determines how quickly the mr signal recovers in between repeated data acquisitions , thus to maximize signal in a dti acquisition the t1 relaxation time should be short compared to the mr imaging repetition rate ( tr ). similarly the t2 relaxation rate determines how quickly the mr signal decays away when trying to measure it so the t2 relaxation rate should be long relative to the time before data is acquired ( commonly referred to as the time of echo , te ). as the liquid in the micro - lumen structure is aqueous , one can add soluble materials such as copper , nickel , and / or iron salts to change and optimize the t1 and t2 responses . the diffusion phantom 10 disclosed herein may be filed with a matrix material which is chosen to be magnetic resonance ( mr ) compatible and give mr signals including signals in the range of human tissue . these materials could include but are not limited to polyvinyl alcohol ( pva ) cryogel , pva solution , cross - linked polyacrylate polymer gel , water , mineral oil or a solution of salt such as copper sulfate or similar materials . exemplary formulations are disclosed in international publication wo / 2015 / 003271 , which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety . the matrix material is also interchangeable as the micro - rod bundles are modular and separable from the matrix . in other words the matrix material may be removed leaving the micro - rod bundles intact in its preselected configuration and replaced with a different matrix material if that is desired . one use for diffusion phantoms disclosed herein is for calibration and support of diffusion weighted magnetic resonance imaging ( dw - mri ). a gold standard for the quantitative validation of dw - mri is crucial for clinical purposes but is still not available . for the determination of the accuracy and precision and the evaluation of artifacts in a dw - mri experiment , a phantom is required which has a well - known structure and diffusion behaviour similar to that in brain white matter . the use of phantoms with a well - known connectivity and anisotropy would also be useful for testing fiber tracking algorithms . moreover , the origin of the dw - mri signal in brain white matter is not completely understood . several models exist , based on specific assumptions about the diffusion in the complex geometry of brain white matter . validation of those models is also necessary . the diffusion phantom disclosed herein has several advantageous features . it can be configured to produce a diffusion signal along tracts in well - defined paths . the diffusion is produced using flexible micro - rods to generate multiple lumen microstructures , filled with water , or other useful liquids such as aqueous solutions containing contrast agents or salts that can help minimize magnetic susceptibility differences between fluid and micro - rods . these micro - rods can include preexisting lumen structures in their aspect ratio to increase the number of lumen within the flexible micro - rod bundle , as shown in fig7 to 13 . this increases the diffusion signal since in this manner a greater volume of water will experience restricted diffusion at the lumen walls . it is noted that several separate lumen side by side are more effective than one large lumen , depending on the size . for example , if one large lumen is small enough that it will restrict the radial diffusion to the point of measurement then this is advantageous ( if the wall is thin enough ). it is preferred to maximize the amount of water in the voxel while also restricting diffusion so that there is enough non - water micro - lumen tube material to adequately restrict the diffusion . as an alternative to using micro - rods with enclosed lumen , diffusion can be created with micro - rods with sectional profiles that are optimized to increase the perimeter area ( i . e ., outer surface ). the diffusion signal can be increased in a scalable and predictable way by increasing the number of micro - rods passing through the same voxel . in this embodiment , it is preferable to increase the number of lumen to the point where the restricted radial diffusion is such that it can be measured in the dti protocol . any further increase in number of lumen would be unfavourable since there will be less water per voxel . this limit in the number of lumen needed will change based on the b - value of the diffusion sequence . for higher b - values there would be required more lumen , and conversely , for lower b - values , less lumen . this is because the b - value determines what diffusion length the system is sensitive to a lower b - value typically refers to a larger diffusion lengths and a higher b - value typically refers to a shorter diffusion lengths . as discussed above , the micro - rod bundles 40 , 122 are placed in a scaffold support structure comprised of circular holders 47 that allows for predictable , repeatable and stable mechanical positioning of the micro - rod bundles . when mounted on this scaffold structure , the micro - rod orientations may be chosen to demonstrate the ability to distinguish diffusion in orthogonal directions , along diagonal paths and in curved paths that change direction . thus , the micro - rod bundles 40 , 122 may be configured to provide a curved path and a u - shaped path to give some non - limiting exemplary configurations . in one embodiment , the micro - rod bundle positioning can be configured to provide simulation of tractography of brain white matter fiber tracts wherein the simulated brain fiber tractography can display brain fiber tracts that touches , crosses or interweaves . thus , the set of micro - rod bundles described here is idealized simulation of nerve fibers , in that all orthogonal directions and curved paths are covered . in this embodiment , simulated nerve fibers that cross each other in the same voxel can be distinguished , and simulated nerve fibers that run together and then separate , can also be distinguished . fig2 is a perspective view showing a diffusion phantom 10 resting on a table 130 being inserted into an mri device 132 . the phantom 10 is placed on a flat surface 24 on table 130 as it is positioned inside the mri machine . fig2 high level system diffusion phantom system . the diffusion phantom 10 ( or phantom calibration body ) is placed onto into a mri device 132 , where the received signal can be acquired , processed and shared . the mri device 132 may be connected to a computer processor 134 , database 136 and computer readable media 138 . partial volume effects ( when a voxel contains two or more types of material ) can be problematic in post - processing . by housing multiple micro - rod bundle thicknesses , an included resolution module 48 , as seen in fig4 and 6 , can be used to develop scanning methods that decrease resolution based biases . the resolution module 48 includes bicomponent rod bundles of varying diameters that can create dti signals corresponding to the varying diameters . resolution module 48 enables the mr technical to tune the mr machine protocols to obtain the desired dti resolution . in a further embodiment , the qbi ( q - ball imaging ) module 49 , as seen in fig4 and 6 , can be used to validate more elaborate diffusion imaging techniques like q - ball imaging by enabling the resolution of fiber crossings for evaluation of angular accuracy . the module is comprised of a column - mountable fixture which supports three intersecting and crossing rings of bicomponent rod bundles of different diameter . qbi module 49 is mounted to the center pillar 46 as seen in fig4 and 6 . for supporting q - ball imaging , a sound measurement tool such as qbi module 49 is indispensable . in a further embodiment ( not shown ), an isotropic diffusion module can be mounted to center pillar 46 , similar to one seen in fig4 and 6 . the isotropic module can enable calibration to a series of diffusion rates . the isotropic diffusion module is comprised of a column - mountable fixture which supports a multitude of vials containing a water - soluble polymer ( i . e ., povidone ) in an aqueous solutions of various concentrations . in an alternate embodiment , the phantom can accommodate a quality assurance module ( qa module ). one such example is the american college of radiology ( acr ) accreditation module . the qa module may be a separate module from the dti module . fig1 a and 19b illustrates an exemplary diffusion phantom with a qa module and an anisotropic dti module . fig1 a shows and exploded view of the diffusion phantom with both a dti module 140 and qa module 142 . fig1 b shows an assembled view of diffusion phantom seen in fig1 a . the qa module 142 , as seen in fig1 a includes necessary elements required for quality assurance verification and validation for acr mri accreditation . qa module 142 enables measurements of geometric accuracy , high - contrast spatial resolution , slice thickness accuracy , slice position accuracy , image intensity uniformity , percent - signal ghosting and low - contrast object detectability . in further embodiments ( not shown ), the diffusion phantom as seen in fig1 a and 19b may further comprise of a column - mountable plate . in an alternate embodiment , the center pillar 46 as seen in fig4 and 6 is secured at both ends by a vibration dampening element ( not shown ). a vibrational damping element will act to reduce vibration of the micro - rod bundle modules during the scanning process . this feature is to improve the image clarity . in further alternate embodiments , microelectromechanical systems ( mems ) such as accelerometers and drop sensors can be attached to phantom 10 to monitor excess vibration . further sensors such as thermometers can also be attached to phantom 10 to monitor temperature fluctuations . different bicomponent rods may be able to represent differentially myelinated nervous tissue by varying the spaces between the close packed structures of the difference radii of the micro - rod elements . this may be illustrated in fig1 where by changing the relative spacing between micro - rod 122 within water - soluble material a 120 would generate the dti imaging characteristic of differentially myelinated nervous tissue . this gives us the ability to approximate the diffusion properties of a variety of structures . a person skilled in the art using the aforementioned method of creating differentially myelinated nervous tissue would be able to create simulated version of different types ( e . g . various types of tissues , such as tendons , ligaments , spinal cord , different fiber groups such as , corticospinal , slf , ifo , corpus collosum ; various nerve tissue models such as pediatric , natal , neonatal , in - utero ; and different disease and injury states such as multiple sclerosis , edema , traumatic brain injury . in a further embodiment , different processing conditions may be used to partially process the bicomponent rods to remove the water soluable matrix 120 , ( material a ) in fig1 , which could show partial diffusion and blocked channels along sections of the simulated axon fiber . fig2 illustrates an exemplary orthopedic phantom . the orthopedic phantom as seen in fig2 may be used to mimic the structure of a knee , hip , spine or other orthopedic structures where it can be imaged in a mri . one objective of the orthopedic phantom is to provide a calibration of these anatomical structures before an actual procedure . the orthopedic phantom displays the diffusion tensor image ( dti ) generation process and shows the flexibility of the micro - rod bundle manufacturing process to mimic diffusion signals corresponding to different tissues or different tissue states in the body . the orthopedic phantom of fig2 , consist of a number of components to simulate bony structure , soft tissue , tendons and ligaments and fluids . the orthopedic phantom as seen in fig2 illustrates a sectional view of a knee having bone structure 150 , bone marrow 152 and simulated muscle tissue 154 . embedded within the simulated muscle tissue 154 are micro - rod bundles . in a further embodiment , the orthopedic phantom as seen in fig2 may also include resolution and spatial modules to mimic staples or bone screws to test scanning abilities where an orthopedic implant is present . while the applicant &# 39 ; s teachings described herein are in conjunction with various embodiments for illustrative purposes , it is not intended that the applicant &# 39 ; s teachings be limited to such embodiments . on the contrary , the applicant &# 39 ; s teachings described and illustrated herein encompass various alternatives , modifications , and equivalents , without departing from the embodiments , the general scope of which is defined in the appended claims . except to the extent necessary or inherent in the processes themselves , no particular order to steps or stages of methods or processes described in this disclosure is intended or implied . in many cases the order of process steps may be varied without changing the purpose , effect , or import of the methods described . | 6 |
[ 0072 ] fig1 is a block diagram showing the construction of a data broadcast content preview system 100 according to an embodiment 1 of the present invention . the preview system 100 is composed of an input unit 111 , a control unit 112 , a content storage unit 113 , a ts packetizing unit 114 , a transmission unit 115 , a data broadcast receiving apparatus 116 , a display unit 117 , a web server 118 , and a pseudo - web server 119 . the preview system 100 is composed of hardware components , such as cpu , rom , ram , a hard disk , and a decoder . the rom or the hard disk stores a computer program . the preview system 100 performs its function by the cpu operating under the computer program . the input unit 111 receives a user input and outputs the received input to the control unit 112 . for example , the input unit 111 receives various inputs , such as an instruction directing to activate the preview system , a user id , an instruction specifying a data broadcast content to preview , a selection of an accumulation content , a selection of a web content , an instruction directing to start previewing , and an instruction directing to terminate previewing . the content storage unit 113 includes a data broadcast content storage 1131 , an accumulation content storage 1132 , a web content storage 1133 , and a management information storage 1134 . the data broadcast content storage 1131 stores data broadcast contents , and each broadcast content is stored with its attribute in the same directory . each data broadcast content stored in the data broadcast content storage 1131 includes link information . the link information shows a linked destination for at least one of the accumulation contents stored in the accumulation content storage 1132 or the web contents stored in the web content storage 1133 . here , the “ linked destination ” is a piece of information specifying a storage location at which the accumulation content or the web content is to be stored in the data broadcast receiving apparatus 116 , the web server 118 , or in the pseudo - web server 119 . the accumulation content storage 1132 stores accumulation contents , and each accumulation content is stored with its attribute in the same directory . the web content storage 1133 stores web contents , and each web content is stored with its attribute in the same directory . in this embodiment and other embodiments that follow , a data broadcast content makes up one program together with an accumulation content , and / or a web content , and each program belongs to a program series made up of a plurality of , periodically updated programs . the “ attribute of a content ” is a piece of information that is separately generated for each of the data broadcast contents , the accumulation contents , and the web contents , and that includes a destination location , a series id , an episode number , a valid period , a program series title , and a source location of the content . the “ destination location ” is a path specifying a linked destination where the content is to be transferred or transmitted . the “ series id ” is an identifier for identifying the program series to which the program constituted by the content belongs . the accumulation contents bearing the same series id have the same destination location , so that there always is one accumulation content stored at the destination location . thus , when an accumulation content is transferred to one destination location , the accumulation content currently stored at the destination location is overwritten with the newly transferred accumulation content . the same description applies to the web contents . the “ episode number ” is the number showing the version of the program constituted by the content . for example , the latest version among a plurality of programs each having the same series id is the one bearing the largest episode number . the “ valid period ” is a period during which the content is valid . the “ program series title ” is the title of the program series to which the program constituted by the content belongs . the “ source location ” is the storage location showing where in the content storage unit 113 each resource file constituting the content is stored . the management information storage 1134 stores a broadcast content schedule , an accumulation content schedule , a web content schedule , and user management information . here , the “ broadcast content schedule ” is information on a broadcasting date , an event id , a broadcasting start - time and airtime , i . e ., a period of time during which the data broadcast content is broadcast , of each data broadcast content . the broadcast content schedule also includes information on a title of the program series to which the program constituted by each content belongs . the “ event id ” is an identifier uniquely identifies a data broadcast content . fig3 shows one example of the broadcast content schedule . the “ accumulation content schedule ” is information on a broadcasting date , a valid period , a series id , an episode number , a broadcasting start - time and a broadcasting end - time of each accumulation content . the accumulation content schedule also includes information on a title of the program series to which the program constituted by each accumulation content belongs , and an area where the accumulation content is to be broadcast for . fig4 shows one example of the accumulation content schedule . the “ web content schedule ” is information on a valid period , and a series id , an episode number of each web content . the web content schedule also includes a title of the program series to which the program constituted by each content belongs . fig5 shows one example of the web content schedule . the “ user management information ” is information regarding registered users of the preview system 100 , and shows , for each user , the user name , and the authority level granted for the user , the path specifying the storage location within the data broadcast receiving apparatus 116 or the web server 118 that the user is permitted to use . [ 0097 ] fig6 shows one example of the user management information . as shown in fig6 each user has assigned according to the authority level a path ( indicated as path 1 , path 2 , or path 3 in the figure ) that is available for the user . the ts packetizing unit 114 first encodes the data broadcast content that is repeatedly outputted from the control unit 112 into variable length data called section , and then divides the section into a fixed length packet called tsp ( transport stream packet ), followed by output to the transmission unit 115 . ( hereinafter , the above operation to assemble into tsp is referred to as “ ts packetizing ”) the transmission unit 115 transmits to the data broadcast receiving apparatus 116 the data broadcast content that has been ts packetized . here , the data broadcast content may be transmitted to the data broadcast receiving apparatus 116 after multiplexing with separate video data ts and audio data ts . the data broadcast receiving apparatus 116 is composed of cpu , ram , rom , a hard disk , and a decoder . fig7 is a block diagram showing the construction of the data broadcast receiving apparatus 116 . the data broadcast receiving apparatus 116 is composed of a receive unit 1161 , an accumulation unit 1162 , a recording medium 1163 , and a reproduction unit 1164 , and a web acquisition unit 1165 . the receive unit 1161 receives from the transmission unit 115 the ts corresponding to the data broadcast content , and outputs the ts to the reproduction unit 1164 . the accumulation unit 1162 includes the recording medium 1163 . the accumulation unit 1162 receives from the control unit 112 the accumulation content that is collectively transferred on a module - by - module basis as one folder , and records the received accumulation content as one folder onto the recording medium 1163 together with accumulation content information regarding the accumulation content . the recording medium 1163 is a large capacity , rewritable recording medium , such as a hard disk , dvd - ram , cd - rw , and a semiconductor memory . the “ module ” is a component constituting the accumulation content , and includes , for example , a bml text file or a material file . in other words , the module is a collection of data that is a logical unit to be transmitted in data broadcast transmission or reception by a broadcast receiving apparatus . the “ accumulation content information ” is a piece of information generated by the control unit 112 for each accumulation content each time it is transferred by the control unit 112 . the accumulation content information shows a storing date , a series id , and an episode id of a corresponding accumulation content . [ 0106 ] fig8 is a view showing the accumulation contents recorded onto the recording medium 1163 in a multilevel hierarchy of directories . in fig8 resource files constituting an accumulation content are collectively stored on a module - by - module basis in a corresponding folder , such as “ data ”, “ dataa ”, “ datab ”, which in turn contained in a directory , such as “ fortune_week ”,“ fortune_day ” and “ shopping ”. for example , the directory “ shopping ” contains two folders “ dataa ” and “ datab ” each of which further contains resource files constituting modules of the accumulation content . to be more specific , the “ dataa ” folder contains resource files , “ index . bml ” and “ picture . jpg ”, and the “ datab ” folder contains resource files , “ shopping . bml ”, “ data1 . jpg ” and “ data2 . jpg ”. in addition , the directories named “ fortune_week ”, “ fortune_day ” and “ shopping ” each contain a “ data . inf ” file in which the accumulation content information of the accumulation content is contained . the recording medium 1163 stores a transferred accumulation content and corresponding accumulation content information in a same directory . in addition , the recording medium 1163 stores , at a predetermined storage location , information on setting as to which area the broadcast service is to be provided for ( hereinafter referred to as “ setting information ”). the setting information is set in advance by the user , and “ kinki ” area is selected as the broadcast service area in this specific example . the web acquisition unit 1165 acquires a web content from the web server 118 or the pseudo - web server 119 , and outputs the acquired web content to the reproduction unit 1164 . selection as to which of the two web servers a web content is to be acquired from may be made in the initial setting or may be instructed by the user at the time of performing acquisition . the reproduction unit 1164 decodes the ts packetized data broadcast content that is inputted from the receive unit 1161 to reproduce the decoded data broadcast content on the display unit 117 . in addition , the reproduction unit 1164 reads an accumulation content from the recording medium 1163 , and reproduces the read accumulation content onto the display unit 117 . further , the reproduction unit 1164 reproduces a web content acquired from the web acquisition unit 1165 onto the display unit 117 . the display unit 117 displays the accumulation content and the web content that are inputted from the reproduction unit 1164 . the web server 118 includes a memory , is connected to the data broadcast receiving apparatus 116 via the internet , and stores a web content transferred from the control unit 112 to the memory . the pseudo - web server 119 includes a memory , is connected directly to the data broadcast receiving apparatus 116 bypassing the internet , and stores a web content transferred from the control unit 112 to the memory . the control unit 112 controls operations of the preview system 100 . to be more specific , the control unit 112 operations for activating the preview system 100 , registering a content , previewing a content , and terminating previewing . first , description is given to the activating operation . the input unit 111 receives an instruction directing to activate the preview system 100 and a user id ( a user name , in this case ), and outputs the received input to the control unit 112 . in response , the control unit 112 reads the user management information from the management information storage 1134 to determine whether the inputted user id matches any of the user ids recorded in the user management information . when there is a match , the control unit 112 connects the data broadcast receiving apparatus 116 to the web server 118 or to the pseudo - web server 119 . note that the connection of the data broadcast receiving apparatus 116 to the web server 118 or to the pseudo - web server 119 is not necessarily made at the time of activation . instead , the connection may be made later when necessary . here , whether to connect to the web server 118 or to the pseudo - web server 119 may be determined in advance , or it may be determined according to a user instruction given at the time of activation . next , description is given to the content registering operation . the control unit 112 performs two types of registering operations : one is accumulation content registering and the other is web content registering . first , the accumulation content registering operation is described . the input unit 111 receives an event id inputted by a user to specify a data broadcast content to preview , and outputs to the control unit 112 the inputted event number . in response , the control unit 112 reads from the management information storage 1134 the broadcast content schedule and the accumulation content schedule , and further reads from the recording medium 1163 the setting information and all the pieces of accumulation content information recorded therein . with reference to the read broadcast content schedule , the control unit 112 specifies the broadcasting date and the broadcasting start - time of the data broadcast content that corresponds to the inputted event id . next , with reference to the read accumulation content schedule , the control unit 112 selects accumulation contents scheduled to be broadcast within a predetermined period ( e . g . seven days ) prior to the broadcasting start - time and the broadcasting date specified above ( hereinafter , this selection is referred to as the “ first selection ”). also with reference to the accumulation content schedule information , the control unit 112 then selects , from among the accumulation contents selected in the first selection , accumulation contents each bearing a largest episode number of all the accumulation contents with a same series id ( hereinafter , this selection is referred to as the “ second selection ”). in the case where there is only one accumulation content having a certain series id , that accumulation content is selected . further , with reference to the accumulation content schedule , the control unit 112 selects , from among the accumulation contents selected in the second selection , accumulation contents of which broadcasting area includes the broadcasting area (“ kinki ” area in this case ) specified in the setting information ( hereinafter , this selection is referred to as the “ third selection ”). still further , the control unit 112 selects from among the accumulation contents selected in the third selection , accumulation contents other than the ones of which series id and episode number both match those indicated in any pieces of the accumulation content information . that is to say , to be selected in this selection is only accumulation contents that have not yet been recorded in the recording medium 1163 . ( hereinafter , this selection is referred to as the “ final selection ”.) the control unit 112 reads an attribute of each accumulation content stored in the accumulation content storage 1132 one by one to see whether both the series id and the episode number indicated in the read attribute match those of any of the accumulation contents selected in the final selection . if they match , the control unit 112 then reads all the resource files corresponding to the matching accumulation content from the accumulation content storage 1132 , and transfers the read rescore files to the accumulation unit 1162 to store the thus transferred resource tiles in the recording medium 1163 . the storage location within the accumulation content storage 1132 where each resource file is stored is specified by the path to the source location indicated in the attribute of the matching accumulation content , and the storage location within the recording medium 1163 where each read resource file is to be stored is specified by the path to the destination location also indicated in the attribute of the matching accumulation content . here , it is applicable , at the time when a newly selected accumulation content is transferred , to delete from the recording medium 1163 all the accumulation contents that have been stored . this arrangement is effective to eliminate undesirable influence on preview that maybe caused by accumulation contents irrelevant to the selected data broadcast content remain undeleted in the recording medium 1163 . further , the control unit 112 generates a piece of accumulation content information for each accumulation content at the time of transferring the accumulation content , and stores the thus generated piece of accumulation content information in the same directory with the accumulation content . the accumulation content information shows a storing date , a series id , and an episode id of the accumulation content . now , description is given to the operation performed by the control unit 112 for registering a web content . first , the control unit 112 reads the web content schedule from the management information storage 1134 . with reference to the read web content schedule , the control unit 112 then selects web contents of which valid period begins before , and ends after the broadcasting start - time of the selected data broadcast content . here , it may be applicable to read an attribute of all the web contents stored in the web content storage 1133 instead of the web content schedule , so that the above selection may be made with reference to the read attributes . next , the control unit 112 reads an attribute of each web content stored in the web content storage 1133 one by one to see whether both the series id and the episode number indicated in the read attribute match those of any of the selected web contents . if they match , the control unit 112 then reads from the web content storage 1133 all the resource files corresponding to the matching web content , and transfers the read resource files to the web server 118 or the pseudo - web server 119 to store the thus transferred resource files in the memory . the directory of the web content storage 1133 in which each resource file is stored is specified by the path to the “ source location ” indicated in the attribute of the matching web content , and the storage location in the memory where the read resource file is to be stored is specified by the path to the destination location also indicated in the attribute of the matching web content . here , it is applicable , at the time when a newly selected web content is transferred , to delete from the memory of the web server 118 or of the pseudo - web server 119 all the web contents that have been stored . this arrangement is effective to eliminate undesirable influence on preview that may be caused by web contents irrelevant to the selected data broadcast content remain undeleted in the memory . note that the accumulation content registering operation described above may be performed in the similar manner to the web content registering operation . in this case , the description is given by the above description for the web content registering provided that the “ web content storage 1133 ” appearing therein is replaced by the “ accumulation content storage 1132 ” and the “ web content ” is replaced by the “ accumulation content ”. next , description is given to the operation for content previewing . in response to an input from the input unit 111 directing to start previewing , the control unit 112 repeatedly reads from the data broadcast content storage 1131 the data broadcast content that is selected through the content registering operation , outputs the read data broadcast content to the ts packetizing unit 114 , and directs the reproduction unit 1164 to start previewing . lastly , the operation for terminating previewing is described . in response to an input from the input unit 111 directing to terminate previewing , the control unit 112 terminates the preview of content . note that the operation for new content registering may be prohibited while preview is being performed . now , description is given to the process sequence from the content registering operation to the previewing operation . fig1 is a flowchart showing the above sequence . the control unit 112 sequentially performs the operation for accumulation content registering ( step s 1101 ), the operation for the web content registering ( step s 1102 ), and the operation for previewing ( step 1103 ) in the stated order . note that the operation for accumulation content registering may be preceded by the operation for web content registering . hereinafter , description is given in detail to the operation for accumulation content registering ( step s 1101 ), the operation for web content registering ( step s 1102 ), and the operation for previewing ( step 1103 ) with reference to flowcharts . [ 0142 ] fig1 is a flowchart showing the sequence of the accumulation content registering operation . hereinafter , with reference to fig1 , description is given to the accumulation content registering operation . when receiving from the input unit 111 an input selecting a data broadcast content for preview ( step s 1201 : y ), the control unit 112 reads from the management information storage 1134 the broadcast content schedule ( step s 1202 ) as well as the accumulation content schedule ( step s 1203 ). the control unit 112 further reads from the recording medium 1163 the setting information as well as all the pieces of the accumulation content information recorded therein ( step s 1204 ). with reference to the broadcasting date and the broadcasting end - time indicated in the read accumulation content schedule , the control unit 112 makes the first selection from among all the accumulation contents indicated in the read accumulation content schedule ( step s 1205 ), and further makes the second selection by selecting , from among the accumulation contents selected in the first selection , accumulation contents each having a largest episode number among accumulation contents having a same series id ( step s 1206 ). the control unit 112 further makes the third selection by selecting , from among the accumulation contents selected in the second selection , accumulation contents of which broadcasting area includes the broadcasting area (“ kinki ” area ) indicated in the setting information ( step s 1207 ). the control unit 112 further makes the final selection by selecting , from among the accumulation contents selected in the third selection , accumulation contents other than the accumulation content that have been already recorded in the recording medium 1163 ( step s 1208 ). to this end , the control unit 112 compares the series id and the episode number of each accumulation content selected in the third selection with those indicated in any piece of the read accumulation content information . if they match , it is determined that the matching accumulation content has already been recorded in the recording medium and thus excluded from the final selection . next , the control unit 112 reads from the accumulation content storage 1132 all the resource files corresponding to each accumulation content selected in the final selection , and transfers the read resource files to the accumulation unit 1162 to store the thus transferred files in the recording medium 1163 ( step s 1209 ). here , the storage location within the accumulation content storage 1132 where each resource file is stored is specified by the path to the “ source location ” indicated in the attribute of the accumulation content , and the “ storage location ” in the recording medium 1163 where the read resource file is to be stored is specified by the path to the destination location also indicated in the attribute of the accumulation content . next , the control unit 112 generates a piece of accumulation content information showing the storing date , the series id , the episode number of for each accumulation content transferred , and stores the thus generated piece of accumulation content information in the same directory with the accumulation content is stored ( step s 1210 ). [ 0146 ] fig1 is a flowchart showing the sequence of the web content registering operation . hereinafter , the description is given to the sequence of the web content registering operation with reference to the flowchart in fig1 . following to the step s 1210 shown in fig1 , the control unit 112 reads the web content schedule from the management information storage 1134 ( step s 1301 ). with reference to the read web content schedule , the control unit 112 then selects web contents of which valid period begins before , and ends after the broadcasting start - time of the selected data broadcast content ( step s 1302 ). next , the control unit 112 reads an attribute of each web content stored in the web content storage 1133 one by one to see whether both the series id and the episode number indicated in the read attribute match those of any of the selected web content . if they match , the control unit 112 then reads from the web content storage 1133 all the resource file corresponding to the matching web content , and transfers the read resource files to the web server 118 or to the pseudo - web server 119 to store the thus transferred resource files in the memory ( step s 1303 ). the storage location within the web content storage 1133 where each resource file is stored is specified by the path to the “ source location ” indicated in the attribute of the matching web content , and the storage location within the memory where the read resource file is to be stored is specified by the path to the “ destination location ” also indicated in the attribute of the matching web content . [ 0148 ] fig1 is a flowchart showing the sequence of the content previewing operation . hereinafter , description is given to the content previewing operation with reference to the flowchart in fig1 . when receiving from the input unit 111 an input directing to start content previewing ( step s 1401 : y ), the control unit 112 repeatedly reads from the data broadcast content storage 1131 the data broadcast content that is selected through the content registering operation , and outputs the read data broadcast content to the ts packetizing unit 114 ( step s 1402 ), and directs the reproduction unit 1164 to start previewing ( step s 1403 ). the reproduction unit 1164 receives the data broadcast content inputted from the receive unit 1161 after transmitted from the transmission unit 115 . prior to the transmission , the data broadcast content has been packetized into ts by the ts packetizing unit 114 . upon receipt of the data broadcast content , the reproduction unit 1164 decodes the data broadcast content to reproduce , so that a first page for the data broadcast content is displayed on the display unit 117 ( step s 1404 ). the first page includes buttons , which is displayed in gui , and each button is to move the first page to a page provided by the accumulation content or the web content that is linked from the data broadcast content . here , the user makes an input via one of the buttons in the first page being displayed , thereby selecting one of the accumulation contents or the web contents all linked to the data broadcast content ( step s 1405 : y ). in response to the user input , the reproduction unit 1164 reads the selected accumulation or web content from the specified storage location , and reproduces the read accumulation or web content on the display unit 117 ( step s 1406 ). with the above operations , the user is allowed to preview the accumulation content and the web content both linked to the selected data broadcast content just as in the actual broadcasting . when receiving from the input unit 111 an input directing to terminate the content previewing ( step s 1407 : y ), the control unit 112 terminates the content previewing . when receiving no such an input , the processing goes back to the step s 1405 . in the embodiment 1 described above , the control unit 112 performs , in the accumulation content registering operation , the finale selection by excluding the accumulation contents that have been already recorded in the recording medium 1163 from the accumulation contents selected in the third selection . in an embodiment 2 described below , the final selection is made by selecting , from among the accumulation contents selected in the third selection , accumulation contents each linked to the selected data broadcast content . [ 0155 ] fig1 is a block diagram showing the construction of a data broadcast content preview system 200 according to the embodiment 2 of the present invention . except a control unit 212 , the components constituting the preview system 200 are the same as those of the preview system 100 according to the embodiment 1 . the embodiment 2 is similar to the embodiment 1 except that the accumulation content registering operation performed by the control unit 212 differs from that performed by the control unit 112 . thus , description is given mainly to the difference in the two operations for accumulation content registering . the control unit 212 performs the same operations as the control unit 112 up to the third selection . thus , description is given to the operations ( corresponding to the step s 1208 in fig1 ) that are performed by the control unit 212 after the third selection is made . [ 0159 ] fig1 is a flowchart showing the operation performed by the control unit 212 for the final selection . first , the control unit 212 makes the third selection in the same manner as the control unit 112 ( step s 1207 ). the control unit 212 then reads the selected data broadcast content from the data broadcast content storage 1131 ( step s 1701 ). next , the control unit 212 analyzes the bml text included in the read data broadcast content ( step s 1702 ) to extract a character string describing the path to the linked destination ( step s 1703 ). ( in the example shown in fig1 , to be extracted is the character string “ hdd / user1_b / shopping / data ” that is preceded by the tag “ a ”, and in another example ( not illustrated ), to be extracted is a character string that is preceded by the tag “ arib - file ://” according to the arib standards .) next , the control unit 212 reads from the accumulation content storage 1132 an attribute of each accumulation content selected in the third selection ( step s 1704 ). the control unit 212 then compares the extracted character strings with the character string that is included in the read attribute and that specifies the “ destination location ” ( hereinafter referred to as “ path - specifying character string ”) to see if the path - specifying character string matches any of the extracted character strings ( step s 1705 ). if there is a match ( step s 1705 : y ), the control unit 212 selects , in the final selection , the accumulation content corresponding to the attribute including the matching path - specifying character string ( step s 1706 ). next , the control unit 212 judges whether the path - specifying character strings included in all the read attributes are compared with the extracted character strings ( step s 1707 ). when judging yes in the step s 1707 , the control unit 212 terminates the processing , and when judging no in the step s 1707 , the control unit 212 performs the step s 1705 for another path - specifying character string . when there is no match in the step s 1705 ( step s 1705 : n ), the control unit 212 performs the step s 1707 . after the final selection , the control unit 212 transfers the accumulation contents selected in the final selection to the recording medium 1163 that is included in the accumulation unit 1162 where the transferred accumulation contents are stored . yet , these operations are the same as those in the embodiment 1 , and thus description thereof is omitted . note that the operations performed by the control unit 212 for the final selection as described above may be added to the sequence showing in fig1 between the step s 1302 and the step s 1303 . to be more specific , the control unit 212 reads from the web content storage 1133 an attribute of each web content selected in the step s 1302 . next , the control unit 212 compares the path - specifying character string included in the read attribute with the character strings extracted from the bml text included in the selected data broadcast content . if the path - specifying character string matches any of the extracted character strings , the control unit 212 selects , from among the web contents selected in the step s 1302 , a web content corresponding to the attribute having the matching path - specifying character string . in this case , the step s 1303 shown in fig1 is performed to the thus selected web contents . alternatively , the above additional operations may be performed without performing the steps s 1301 and s 1302 . that is , the selection through the above addition operations is made directly to the web contents stored in the web content storage 1133 . hereinafter , description is given to an embodiment 3 of the present invention . the feature of the embodiment 3 lies in that the selection of the accumulation contents and the web contents to be registered through the content registering operation is made based on project information generated in advance . the project information includes a list of the accumulation contents and the web contents a linked to each data broadcast content . [ 0168 ] fig1 is a block diagram showing the construction of a data broadcast content preview system 300 according to the embodiment 3 . the preview system 300 is composed of the same components as the preview system 100 of the embodiment 1 except a control unit 312 and a content storage unit 313 . hereinafter , description is given mainly to the difference of this embodiment from the embodiment 1 . the content storage unit 313 includes the data broadcast storage 1131 , the accumulation content storage 1132 , the web content storage 1133 , and a management information storage 3134 . that is , the content storage unit 312 is composed of the same components as the content storage unit 113 of the embodiment 1 except the management information storage 3134 . the management information storage 3134 stores project information and content management information . the “ project information ” is a piece of information generated for each data broadcast content stored in the data broadcast content storage 1131 , and includes an event id identifying a broadcast content , a list of content management information storage locations , and a list of preview start files . the “ list of content management information storage locations ” is a list showing storage locations within the management information storage 3134 where pieces of content management information are stored . here , the pieces of content management information correspond to accumulation contents and web contents each linked to the data broadcast content . the “ list of preview start files ” is a list showing names of resource files to be displayed in a first page when the data broadcast content is selected . fig1 shows one example of the project information . the “ content management information ” is a piece of information that is generated for each of the accumulation content and web content . each piece of the content management information shows a destination location to which the content is to be transferred for storage , the valid period , the title of the program series to which the program constituted by the content belongs , the source location , and the content configuration . fig2 shows one example of the content management information . the “ content configuration ” shows the module configuration of each resource file of the content , and the directories in which each resource file is to be stored at the destination location along with the name of the resource file to be stored therein . in the example shown in fig2 , the content is composed of two modules : “ data a ” and “ data b ”. the former module is composed of two resource files : “ index . bml ” and “ picture . jpg ”, and the latter module is composed of three modules : “ shopping . bml ”, “ data1 . jpg ” and “ data2 . jpg ”. when transferred to the destination location , the “ data a ” module and the “ data b ” modules are to be stored in folders named “ data a ” and “ data b ”, respectively , and both the folders reside in the “ hdd / user_b / shopping ” directory . [ 0178 ] fig8 shows the tree structure of the recording medium 1163 i . e ., the destination location , where the content configured as above is stored in the “ shopping ” directory . as described above , each accumulation content is stored in the recording medium 1163 in accordance with the module structure shown in the content management information . the control unit 312 performs the following operation for content registering . fig2 is a flowchart showing the content registering operation performed by the control unit 312 . upon receipt of an event id inputted by a user for specifying the data broadcast content to preview , the input unit 111 passes the inputted event id to the control unit 312 ( step s 2101 : y ). in response , the control unit 312 reads from the management information storage 3134 the project information that includes the inputted event id ( step s 2102 ). with reference to the read project information or , more specifically , to the list of content management information storage locations , the control unit 312 specifies destination storage locations of pieces of content management information corresponding to accumulations content and web contents each linked to the selected data broadcast content ( step s 2103 ). the control unit 312 reads each piece of the content management information from the thus specified destination storage locations ( step s 2104 ), and then reads each content stored in the content storage unit 313 at the storage location specified in the read content management information ( step s 2105 ). the control unit then transfers each of the read contents to the destination location indicated in the content management information ( step s 2106 ). up to this point , a data broadcast contents preview system according to the present invention has been described by way of the above embodiments . however , it goes without saying that the present invention is not limited to the above specific embodiments , and various modifications may be made as follows . 1 . in the above embodiments 1 - 3 , a data broadcast content constitutes a program together with at least one accumulation content and at least one web content , and the program belongs to a program series composed of a plurality of , periodically updated programs . however , there may be a content that solely constitute one independent program that does not belong to any program series . a series id and an episode number are assigned to such a program , and the program will be the only program bearing that particular series id . 2 . in the above embodiments 1 - 3 , accumulation contents and web contents to be registered are automatically selected by the control unit 112 , 212 or 312 in accordance with the selected data broadcast content . however , the accumulation contents and web contents to be registered may be selected directly by a user via the input unit 111 . 3 . in the above embodiments 1 and 2 , to be displayed at the time when the preview is started is the first page for a selected data broadcast content . alternatively , a preview content selection page may be displayed . the “ preview content selection page ” is a page that is displayed on the display unit 117 after the preview system is directed to start previewing and that is used for selecting a content to start previewing with . fig9 shows one example of the preview content selection page . in the example shown in fig9 the page includes gui components of selection buttons used for selecting a content to be displayed on the display unit 117 . the preview content selection page is generated and displayed on the display unit 117 as follows . that is , the control unit 112 or 212 generates a first page content based on the attributes of the selected broadcast content , the accumulation contents and web contents that are registered through the content registering operation . the first page content includes a description of a path specifying the storage location of each content . the control unit 112 or 212 then transfers the thus generated first page content to the recording medium 1163 and stores it at a predetermined storage location . this operation is performed , for example , after the step s 1303 in the web content registering operation shown in fig1 . further , the first page content may be transmitted together with the data broadcast content . to be more specific , the “ first page content ” is a bml text file that is generated with reference to the attributes of each of the selected data broadcast content , accumulation contents , and includes a script for linking to each content . [ 0191 ] fig1 is a view showing one example of the first page content . the first page content shown in fig1 is a description for displaying the preview content selection page shown in fig9 . in response to the instruction directing to start preview received from the control unit 112 or 212 , the reproduction unit 1164 reads the first page content recorded in the recording medium 1163 at the predetermined storage location , and reproduces the read first page content on the display unit 117 , whereby the preview content selection page is displayed . this operation may be performed in the content previewing operation as an alternative to the step s 1404 . further , in the embodiment 3 , the control unit 312 may generate the first page content with reference to the list of preview start files that is included in the project information . the control unit 312 then transfers the thus generated first page content to the predetermined storage location within the recording medium 1163 . this operation may be performed after the step s 2106 in the content registry operation shown in fig2 . 4 . in the modification 3 above , the generated first page content is stored in the recording medium 1163 . in the case where the recording medium is nonvolatile ram ( hereinafter referred to as “ nvram ”, the following modification maybe made . that is , to be stored in the nvram is a bml text including the script for a linking to the first page content that is stored at a predetermined storage location ( for example , in a hard disk ). ( hereinafter , such a bml text is referred to as a “ link - specifying content ”). upon receipt of a preview start instruction , the reproduction unit 1164 refers to the link - specifying content stored in nvram so as to specify the storage location of the first page content . thereafter , the reproduction unit 1164 reads the first page content from the specified storage location , and reproduces the read first page content . [ 0195 ] fig2 is a view conceptually illustrating the operations for reading the first page content from the linked storage location to reproduce . in the example shown in fig2 , the link - specifying content “ portal . bml ” is stored in nvram included in the data broadcast receiving apparatus , and the first page content is stored in the hard disk ( hdd ) also included in the data broadcast receiving apparatus . in addition , fig2 also illustrates with the arrows the process sequence performed by the data broadcast receiving apparatus after receipt of the preview start instruction . to be more specific , the data broadcast receiving apparatus first accesses the link - specifying content stored in nvram so as to specify the storage location of the first page content . the data broadcast receiving apparatus then reads the first page content stored at the specified storage location in hdd , and reproduces the read first page content . in response to a user input selecting a content , the data broadcast receiving apparatus acquires the selected content , i . e ., one of the linked accumulation contents “ scene1 . bml ” and “ scene2 . bml ”, and the linked web content “ index . bml ” from the storage location specified by the first page content . with this arrangement , it is not necessary to repeatedly write an first page content onto the nonvolatile ram , so that wearing of the nonvolatile ram is prevented . 5 . in the above embodiments 1 - 3 , a first page content is generated each time the content registering operation is performed . alternatively , it is applicable to prestore , in the content storage unit 113 for example , a template content that includes a script describing a destination location of a content and a script describing a page layout for the preview content selection page . in this case , each time the content registering operation is performed , a character string specifying a destination location where each contents selected through the registering operation is to be stored based on the attribute of the content . a first page content is generated by merging the template content and the generated character string . 6 . in the above embodiments 1 - 3 , a first page content generated may be deleted from the recording medium 1163 at the time of system activation or termination , or at the time when receiving a user instruction . this modification is effective to prevent that the content selected by one user is previewed by another user without permission . 7 . in the above embodiments 1 - 3 , a first page content is linked not only to a bml text file but also to a material file . in the case where the first page content is linked to a material file , the bml text file that refers to the material file is retrieved from the files stored in the same directory , and the retrieved bml file is read . as a result , the graphics is displayed as a part of the preview content selection page . 8 . the attribute of each content according to the above embodiments 1 - 3 may further includes information that is contained in the content management information according to the embodiment 3 . in this case , the need for the content management information in the embodiment 3 is eliminated . 9 . in the above embodiments 1 - 3 , the selected broadcast content is specified by the event id . alternatively , it may be specified by the broadcasting date or the series id . alternatively , it is applicable to display the data broadcast schedule stored in the management - information storage 1134 , so that a user may input via gui a selection of a data broadcast content to preview . although the present invention has been fully described by way of examples with reference to the accompanying drawings , it is to be noted that various changes and modifications will be apparent to those skilled in the art . therefore , unless such changes and modifications depart from the scope of the present invention , they should be construed as being included therein . | 7 |
this detailed description begins with a technical description of the manufacturing requirements for pwb imaging , including image sharpness , resist uniformity in thickness ; registration ( accuracy of placement ) and hole tenting . also the light intensity requirements of the uv curable photopolymers to achieve polymerization is defined . next , this detailed description illustrates the techniques for mating the coated phototool with a copperclad printed wiring board ; the near - simultaneous technique for curing ; the selection of high temperature photo imaging means hereinafter termed a phototool , followed by the preferred embodiment for production printed wiring board imaging . throughout this disclosure the process of joining together the substrate , the photopolymer and the phototool into a unified assembly is referred to as mating . computer grade pc boards are typically manufactured in panel form in sizes of the order of 18 by 20 inches ( 0 . 46 m by 0 . 5 m ). conductor lines and spaces are of the order of 0 . 010 inches wide ( 0 . 025 cm ) with sharply defined edges , free of nicks and bulges . additionally , the imaging resist forming the conductors must maintain a constant thickness , consistent with the plating or etching chemicals , temperature and immersion time . too thin a resist results in breakdowns and the plating of metal at unwanted locations . with regard to image placement on the copper - clad board , the 18 by 20 inch ( 0 . 46 m by 0 . 05 m ) panel will typically have an accuracy of 0 . 002 inches ( 0 . 05 mm ) on drilled hole location , requiring that the imaging be accurate to within 0 . 005 inches ( 0 . 13 mm ) in order to maintain an annular ring of the order of 0 . 005 inches ( 0 . 13 mm ) around the hole . as described earlier , the uv curable photopolymers used in pwb manufacture have been developed to be applied by screen printing over the copper surface and cured by conveying under 200 watt - per inch mercury vapor lamps at a speed of 12 feet ( 3 . 66 m ) per minute . the surface temperature rise is significant , for the board receives approximately 200 watt - seconds of energy per square inch of area . typically , surface temperatures in excess of 300 degrees f . are experienced . the aforementioned 200 watt - seconds per square inch ( 6 . 45 cm 2 ) energy requirement is for photopolymer whose surface is exposed to air . most all of the tested photopolymers are affected by air to the extent that the exposure energy can be reduced to only 50 watt - seconds per square inch ( 6 . 45 square cm ) when the air is completely excluded by the mating process described herein . a phototool , as used herein , is a transparent sheet with light opaque areas corresponding to the image to be reproduced , and this phototool is placed between the uv lamp and the substrate to control those areas of photopolymer to be hardened . the terms photo image , photomask and phototool can be used interchangeably . while it is possible to image the coated pwb with the phototool off - contact , it is not cost - effective , since an expensive collimated light source is required ; other light sources will produce light undercutting , reduced line widths , and loss of line fidelity . in order to use a non - collimated light source and still achieve fine line imaging , it is necessary for the phototool to intimately contact the photopolymer , as is accomplished herein . fig1 shows a section of a pwb 1 in which the phototool is being mated to the coated surface 3 . pwb 1 has been previously roughly coated with photopolymer layer 3 . phototool 4 is positioned above and off contact with pwb 1 with opaque areas 7 registered to drilled holes 47 in the pwb 1 . assembly 6 movable in the direction of arrow 46 has rubber blade 10 of 50 durometer , which traverses the top surface of phototool 4 . force f 1 in direction 8 on phototool 4 causes the phototool to contact the photopolymer and force f 2 in the direction of movement 9 causes blade 10 to traverse the topside of the phototool and progressively mate the phototool with the photopolymer . this technique purges the photopolymer of air bubbles which may have been entrapped during the coating cycle , and also prevents the entrapment of air resident between the phototool and photopolymer surface . this mating technique has several highly desirable features not readily obtainable otherwise . first , the photopolymer surface , when coated , may be mottled or have an orange - peel effect . these surface irregularities are smoothed out and the mated surface conforms to the smooth plastic surface topology of phototool 4 as well as the substrate . in the case of a pwb the substrate carries a copper layer 52 surface which is to be conformed to the image of the phototool 4 , for example . this is illustrated in fig1 with crosshatched photopolymer area 2 being in surface to surface contact because of the previous scanning of surface contact member 10 , preferably a rubber blade , across the phototool 4 surface . while this mating technique smoothes out surface irregularities , there is no tendency for the photopolymer to be forced out ahead of the blade and thereby reduce the coating thickness . at the point 5 where the blade edge contacts the phototool , the instantaneous pressure may reach 300 pounds per square inch ( 2067 kpa ). this high pressure causes any trapped air bubbles to burst and the air is forced out ahead of the blade . experiments with the substitution of a rubber roller in the manner of u . s . pat . no . 3 , 837 , 887 -- k . akamatsu et al ., sept . 24 , 1974 in lieu of the blade yielded inferior results , for air was entrapped under the phototool . on those areas of the phototool now mated with the ( crosshatched ) photopolymer , a strong holding force is maintained between the phototool and pwb surface . thus , atmospheric pressure 11 ( fig1 ) maintains the phototool in intimate contact with the photopolymer surface indefinitely , without an outside vacuum source . phototool opaque areas 7 ( which usually do not constitute surface irregularities ) are in intimate contact with the photopolymer surface , and the photopolymer can be exposed with a non - collimated light source and produce high fidelity reproduction of images on the phototool on the pwb plating resist pattern . fig2 shows a preferred method for curing photopolymer 3 . for this purpose , uv lamp 14 and reflectorfocuser 13 are mounted on the same movable transversing assembly 21 as blade 10 . after the blade causes the phototool to mate with the photopolymer , light rays 12 expose and polymerize the photopolymer layer 2 directly beneath the phototool transparent areas . light rays 12 cannot expose those areas ahead of blade 10 . fig2 shows the coolant dispensing apparatus ; reservoir 15 , supplying coolant 17 to sponge 16 and thence to phototool 4 in a film shown as droplets 18 . shuttering is accomplished automatically by pivoted shutter 19 as the assembly 21 is lowered into contact with phototool 4 . light shroud 20 contacts phototool 4 and slides upward along the reflector - focuser 13 , and actuates the pivoting shutter 19 which opens to expose the mated photopolymer . arrow 53 shows the reciprocal movement of the transversing assembly to move from rest into engagement on transversal and then back into a spaced separation position from the photopolymer layer 3 . fig2 shows 3 distinct zones or conditions of photopolymer . photopolymer 2 under lamp 14 is polymerized as shown by crosshatching , while photopolymer 2 under sponge 16 is under vacuum but not yet exposed as indicated by lining ; photopolymer 3 is not yet contacted by phototool 4 and is therefore at atmospheric pressure as indicated by dotting . this progressive exposure method is an advancement in the art of producing printed plates with photopolymers , since present systems require a time of several seconds for drawdown of the entire phototool before the exposure begins as for example in the aforementioned u . s . pat . no . 4 , 070 , 110 . similarly vacuum drawdown techniques are costly and time consuming . since the disclosed system requires no external vacuum and exposes during scanning , this drawdown period and equipment is eliminated . the following sections describe the preferred phototool construction techniques to image the major photopolymer resists in use in pwb manufacture and photopolymers used in graphics imaging . ______________________________________manufacturer product code description______________________________________w . r . grace corp . spr 7263 lr plating resistcolumbia , md . spr 7263 m etch resistdynachem corp . sr 30 h screen resisttustin , calif . mac dermid corp . 9403 uv plating resistwaterbury , conn . colonial printing ink uv 50 - 48 solder maske . rutherford , n . j . advance processing & amp ; uval graphics imagingsupply corp uv curable photo - chicago , ill . polymer______________________________________ these photoresists have been developed to be screen printed to a thickness of 1 to 2 thousandths of an inch ( 0 . 025 mm to 0 . 05 mm ), and cured by a two - lamp assembly , each lamp rated at 200 watts per linear inch ( 2 . 54 cm ), with a conveyor speed of 12 feet per minute . with the disclosed equipment the phototool is placed between the lamp and pwb , subjecting the phototool to temperature ranging up to 300 degrees f . while the phototool temperature can be reduced to less than 100 degrees f . by utilizing a different lamp source and increasing the exposure time to the order of 40 seconds , the preferred embodiment is the use of polyester sheet and a high temperature silicone rubber layer to bond the opaque areas 7 ( fig1 ) to the sheet 4 ; and the use of a liquid coolant on the surface of the sheet . referring to fig1 phototool 4 is seen to be subjected to a horizontal force 9 which tends to stretch the phototool and thereby introduce registration errors . polyester sheet in the thickness of 4 to 8 thousandths of an inch ( 0 . 1 to 0 . 2 mm ) provides the stability needed by the phototool , plus the ability to withstand short temperature excursions to 250 degrees f . phototool opaque areas consist of etched metal foil , preferably aluminum . to make a phototool , a sheet of clear polyester and a thin sheet of aluminum foil are laminated together with a thin layer of clear silicone rubber adhesive bonding the two securely . the foil is given a pre - etch in sodium hydroxide in order to reduce the foil thickness to the order of 0 . 0001 inch ( 0 . 0025 mm ). the foil is then coated with a photographic etch resist , exposed , washed out and then etched again to produce the phototool image in etched foil . etched aluminum foil is preferred over other black emulsion systems since a large area of black emulsion would absorb large quantities of heat which could distort the phototool , while the aluminum surface reflects heat and reduces the total amount absorbed . for use in this invention the phototool is previously coated and imaged for subsequent use in imaging substrates . the aforementioned polyester sheet 4 with bonded foil is stretched in phototool frame 24 , fig3 coated and inserted into the apparatus of fig4 . exact registration between the phototool pattern and substrates to be imaged in production is achieved by placing a production substrate onto the substrate mounting plate 22 in register such as by use of registration pins 27 . next the master artwork is placed in frame 24 over the substrate in exact register . the mounting plate is secured to the phototool frame as in fig3 in register by means of hinge 23 . the resilient blade 10 is drawn across the polyester sheet 4 which was previously developed from an artwork master and photopolymer coated polyester sheet , thereby transferring the artwork in the form of a foil surface 7 . the flexible polyester sheet phototool 4 is coated over the foil surface with silicone rubber adhesive , dow corning product code 734 rtv , which serves two major functions . first , the resilient rubber can accommodate small dirt particles on the pwb surface . during the mating cycle pwb surface irregularities can cause a separation to exist between phototool and pwb surface which will mar the image over a much wider area than the irregularity itself . the silicone rubber , being resilient , conforms to the irregularity and reduces the marred area . secondly , the silicone rubber adhesive forms a non - stick surface on the phototool to which hardened photopolymer will not adhere . while a silicone rubber adhesive is the preferred bonding material for the foil coating , other materials can be used . polyethelene was used in tests conducted by the applicant , with good results . polyethelene provides a non - stick surface and has the added advantage of providing a surface which does not dewet when coated with photopolymer . however , polyethelene is thermoplastic and if subjected to temperatures of 250 degrees f . can melt and react with the photopolymer and thereby damage the phototool . the phototool can also be made from polyester photographic film having either a silver halide emulsion or a diazo emulsion , with a suitable non - stick surface added . the aforementioned heat build up in large opaque areas may distort and damage this type of phototool . thus far in this disclosure , the use of a flexible phototool has been described . the phototool need not be flexible in all cases . for example , when imaging flexible printed wiring circuits , the phototool may be a glass plate and the flexible substrate mated with the phototool by drawing the blade across the flexible substrate . thus , in the frame of fig3 simply the substrate and phototool are interchanged in position . the photo scanning need then occur on the opposite side . depending on exposure time and distance of phototool from uv lamps , the temperature rise of the phototool can be up to 300 degrees f . and beyond . there are two practical techniques for reducing substrate temperature rise in conventional uv lamp conveyorized systems . first , the uv lamps can be water - jacketed to reduce convected thermal transfers and non - functional infra - red radiations . however , the cooling water must be distilled and exceptionally free of minerals and other impurities , which could reduce light output . the cost of piping and a stainless - steel heat exchanger is prohibitive . a second technique for substrate cooling is to force cold air , at 30 degrees f . onto the substrate while under the uv lamp . this cooling technique is expensive and wasteful of energy . a water spray on printed substrates to prevent overheating presents the hazard of water impinging on the hot lamp surface and causing catastrophic damage . this disclosure teaches a way of introducing a liquid coolant onto the phototool surface at the trailing edge of the mating blade . a 50 percent water - alcohol solution is applied across the width of the phototool by a sponge . while many liquids can be used , it is necessary that the phototool be wetted completely and beading of coolant prevented . the coolant absorbs heat from the phototool by evaporation , yet does not significantly reduce the transmittance of the uv light energy . the alcohol - water solution will keep the phototool temperature to 200 degrees f . or lower . as shown in fig2 reservoir 15 contains the coolant solution , which is applied to phototool 4 by sponge 16 . when two successive lamps are used , coolant film shown as droplets 18 is partially evaporated by the first lamp 14 , and remain in diminished quantity to provide phototool cooling when passing under the second uv lamp . coolant solution is introduced after the mating blade , as the solution would be forced ahead of the blade if introduced there . in fig2 uv light source 14 is a commercially available medium pressure mercury vapor lamp , whose length is chosen to correspond to the width of the substrate to be imaged . one suitable lamp is manufactured by canrad - hanovia company of newark , n . j . the lamp is mounted in radiator 13 , fig2 which is manufactured by the same company . fig3 shows a fixture for mounting the phototool and pwb in register and off contact . the fixture shown in fig3 is used when precise registration is required , when a conveyorized uv curing unit is used as the exposure source , or when a pre - registered fixture is needed , but the process of fig2 can be carried out by hand without the need of a fixture . in the fixture 42 , pwb 1 mounts on base 22 and is registered via pins 27 . phototool 4 is mounted on frame 24 which maintains the phototool in registration with drilled pwb 1 . hinge 23 allows frame 24 to be raised and lowered for placement and removal of pwb 1 . spacers 26 maintain off - contact distance between phototool 4 and pwb 1 top surface . in fig3 mounting base 22 has a metal strip 48 affixed to the under side , whose purpose is to cause the generation of an electrical signal when the exposure assembly is conveyed in direction 49 past a sensor 50 serving to actuate a lowering mechanism at control center 51 for positioning the mating blade 10 . a similar electrical signal at 52 will in turn cause the mating blade to rise . thus contact of the phototool at the leading edge of the image area with the blade 10 is automated . also the signal at sensor 52 will also cause the blade to be raised automatically at the trailing edge of the image area . the following chart shows the process steps of this invention to be followed where hole tenting is not required . f . separate the phototool from the pwb leaving hardened photopolymer on pwb . g . wash out unexposed paste photopolymer on pwb and post cure if desirable . h . blot the phototool to remove any photopolymer paste adhering thereto , and reinstituting the cycle . the pwb is coated , step b , by screen printing to the desired thickness , normally from 0 . 5 to 2 thousandths of an inch ( 0 . 013 mm to 0 . 051 mm ), as determined by plating bath requirements ( temperature , immersion time , plating current density and chemical composition ), and the plating thickness to be deposited . the photopolymer thickness is controlled primarily by the screen fabric thickness and percent open area . for example , a 156 mesh polyester fabric will coat the pwb to a thickness of approximately 1 mil , while a 230 mesh fabric will deposit a coating 0 . 3 mils ( 0 . 076 mm ) thick . the phototool is maintained off - contact , but correctly positioned above the coated pwb by the fixturing as shown in fig3 . off contact distance is of the order of 0 . 060 inches ( 0 . 15 cm ) for a 12 by 18 inch ( 0 . 3 by 0 . 46 m ) pwb . the phototool is mated with the coated pwb by pressing the blade down at one end of the pwb and drawing the blade across the pwb length , using a downward force of 2 pounds ( 8 . 9 n ) per linear inch ( 2 . 54 cm ) of blade length . step e , exposure to uv light source , may be accomplished concurrently with the phototool mating step d . alternatively , the positioning fixture ( with mated phototool ) may be exposed to a remote light source . as previously described , the mating process forces out all air from the photopolymer , and all air from between the phototool and photopolymer surface , producing a vacuum . this vacuum is maintained indefinitely , provided the phototool does not start to lift away at the pwb edge in response to the upward pull of the phototool . thus , without the use of an external vacuum source , the mated phototool pwb can be exposed to various light sources to effect polymerization . while the preferred embodiment uses tubular mercury vapor lamps to effect exposure in several seconds under the lamps , a flip - top platemaker exposure system of lower power can be used for exposure , but the exposure time increases . other suitable lamp sources are the drawer type exposure units such as the colight dmvl - hp with exposure times of the order of 2 minutes . the washout of unexposed photopolymer , step f , is accomplished by using a solvent spray bath lasting from 10 to 30 seconds . the du pont &# 34 ; a &# 34 ; processor with trichlorethane is one combination of equipment and solvent which produced excellent quality images . step h , the blotting of the underside of the phototool is required to smooth out unexposed photopolymer which remains on the phototool after the exposed pwb is removed . if left on the phototool , then the next image may be marred by the presence of entrapped air . usually it is necessary to blot the phototool after every second or third exposure cycle , depending on the photopolymer coating thickness on the pwb . blotting is accomplished by use of a rubber roller to obliterate the patterns and distribute the remaining photopolymer more evenly . where selected holes are to be tented by the photoimaged resist , the primary difference in the procedures for hole tenting is step b , in which the phototool is coated rather than the pwb . another difference is that blotting the phototool is not necessary when tenting , since the next step , phototool coating , obliterates the residual photopolymer patterns . as described earlier , the phototool has a thin layer of clear silicone rubber on the underside . when a coating of photopolymer is applied by screen printing ( or other means ) onto the silicone rubber , the photopolymer will develop &# 34 ; fish - eyes &# 34 ; or voids which will continue to expand in area with time . this is caused by the inability of the wet photopolymer to grip the silicone rubber , and the photopolymer surface tension causes the photopolymer to form beads , similar to the beading of water on a waxed surface . in order to prevent the formation of fish - eyes or voids , the disclosed apparatus exposes or flashes the photopolymer through the phototool as the coating is being applied . this flashing step is of sufficient intensity to slightly polymerize the photopolymer over the clear areas of the phototool , but not to the point of exterior surface hardening . that photopolymer above the phototool opaque areas need not be flashed . it would appear that his flashing step is critical with regard to lamp intensity and exposure time , but in practice it is not . the photopolymers listed in this disclosure , and all photopolymers tested are air - inhibited , meaning that the photopolymer cure with less uv energy in the absence of air than is required in the presence of air . thus , as the phototool is coated with photopolymer via screen printing , only a thin line of photopolymer immediately under the squeegee is deprived of air , for the screen fabric is off - contact , and touches the phototool only along a line underneath the squeegee . previously deposited photopolymer , though exposed , will retain a wet surface for good adhesion to the substrate to be printed . this flashing technique is an important aspect of tenting holes in pwb resist imaging , for the flashing ensures a thicker film over the tented hole than would be attained without flashing , for without flashing the photopolymer would thin out at the edges of the holes and would be more likely to break down during washout and immersion in the plating solution . this flashing step has produced a polymerized image which is hardened on the phototool side , but wet on the exterior side , so that the next step of phototool mating with the substrate can be considered to be an image transfer technique . the apparatus and procedures disclosed herein can also be used to image pwb using dry film photoimaging resists as manufactured by the du pont company and others . the following du pont photopolymers are representative of those which can be mated and exposed as described herein : type 6 ; 1105 ; 1010 ; x1135 ; 1020 and 310 . the procedure shown in the foregoing chart a through f are followed as described for paste - consistency photopolymer , with the exception of the coating cycle , wherein the dry film photopolymer is laminated to the pwb by a heated roller laminator . using the disclosed mating and exposing apparatus , the resolution of dry film images can be significantly improved . this increased resolution is achieved by removing the protective polyester sheet which covers the dry film photopolymer prior to exposure . the manufacturer recommends leaving the polyester film in place during exposure and up to the time of development . however , the film , being 0 . 75 mils ( 0 . 019 mm ) thick separates the phototool emulsion from the photopolymer surface during exposure and results in loss of image fidelity . when the cover sheet is removed , the unexposed dry film is tacky to the point that a phototool cannot be placed on the photopolymer and moved about to achieve register . the disclosed apparatus used in accordance with these procedures mates the phototool without air entrapment and exposes the photopolymer without the normal vacuum drawdown period , saving time and improving image fidelity . in arriving at the preferred embodiment substrates were imaged using three available production equipments modified as described . while these alternates do not provide the capability for coating , mating and exposing as readily as the preferred embodiment , they have high production capacities or other merits . a substrate can be coated via screen printing , placed in the exposure fixture and imaged with a modified conveyorized uv curing unit , consisting of horizontal tubular uv lamps with a conveyor belt for moving substrates under the lamps . these uv curing units can be used for producing images per this disclosures by the addition of a mating blade assembly and phototool coolant - dispensing apparatus as shown in fig4 . conveyor belt 36 conveys the phototool assembly 42 under blade 10 . blade 10 is pulled downward by vacuum cylinders 40 , for a period of time beginning when the leading edge of metal strip on the bottomside of phototool assembly 42 bridges electrical contacts mounted under conveyor belt 36 . the conveyor belt on most uv curing units are made of fiberglass mesh encased in a heat resistant plastic , enabling the filaments comprising the electrical contacts to extend thru the mesh and contact the blade control strip . this action permits precise control of the blade and prevents the blade from striking the leading or trailing edge of the phototool frame . co - mounted with blade 10 is reservoir 15 containing the phototool coolant which is dispensed by a sponge not shown in fig4 . uv curing unit 37 is a standard 2 lamp system manufactured for example by argus manufacturing inc . of hopewell , n . j . or colight inc . of minneapolis , minn ., modified to accommodate blade 10 , blade activator vacuum cylinder 40 , and blade activator switch previously described . lamps 41 expose the photopolymer . the use of a modified uv - curing unit as an exposure source has two attributes not afforded by the preferred embodiment . first , the use of a modified uv curing unit permits a much higher rate of production , for many different types of images can be exposed sequentially with no uv curing unit changes . this allows a large production facility to coat pwb on multiple screen printers and to expose with a single high speed curing unit . the second attribute of the use of uv curing unit is that substrates of exceptional length can be mated and exposed , obviating the need for oversize cabinetry . the second alternative apparatus is the use of an automatic screen printer with modifications including the addition of a tubular lamp integrally mounted with the print bar assembly ; a power supply ; and coolant dispensing apparatus . precision automatic printers , such as made y autoroll , can maintain the required registration without the need for fixturing as shown in fig3 . the automatic printers can be used in two ways ; with and without positioning fixture 42 . when used without the positioning fixture , the coated substrates are mated and exposed , with registration being maintained by the printer . when used with the positioning fixture then a single printer can mate and expose different types of intermixed pwb for high speed production . the third alternative apparatus which can be used for exposure of mated substrates is the use of a platemaker , such as the units made by nuarc of chicago , ill . the nonstop platemaker has a cabinet - mounted lamp and a swivel top which allows one substrate to be exposed while a second substrate is being prepared on the top surface . when used as an exposure source for imaging as disclosed herein , an exposure fixture as in fig3 is mounted on each side of the flip - top ; one exposure fixture for each side of a double sided pwb , for example . the substrates are coated on auxiliary equipment and mated manually . this alternative apparatus represents the least expensive method for imaging per this disclosure in a manual environment . having therefore set out the construction and operation of a preferred embodiment of the invention and advanced the state of the art , these features of novelty believed descriptive of the spirit and nature of the invention are set forth with particularity in the appended claims . there is provided an improved process and apparatus for making precision photo images particularly useful in the production of printed wiring circuits , where a resist image is put on a copper - clad board to limit the plated metal to those areas which will become electrical conductors . thus , a uv curable photopolymer of paste - consistency is applied over the board surface and selectively exposed through a phototool in contact with the wet photopolymer , producing a hardened resist pattern which withstands the subsequent solvent wash - out step . additionally , the disclosed process and apparatus provides an improvement in half - tone dot printing , particularly for substrates heretofore imaged by screen printing . | 8 |
referring now to the drawings , wherein the depictions are for the purpose of illustrating certain exemplary embodiments only and not for the purpose of limiting the same , fig2 shows an exemplary cap 12 insertable within the vial or test tube 14 . as fig2 shows , the test tube 14 is formed of a cylindrical - shaped body that may be a transparent glass or plastic structure . the cap 12 may be any known type configured to seal or close an opening of the test tube 14 . the cap 12 may be formed of or include any known substance such as rubber or plastic polymer . in one embodiment , the outer surface of the test tube 14 is configured to receive visual indicia such as a description or scannable code . the teachings of the disclosure herein may readily be applied to various types of test tubes and caps and therefore is not intended to be limited thereby . fig2 shows a hand - held apparatus 10 for installing the cap 12 on the test tube 14 according to an embodiment of the present invention . the apparatus 10 includes a top portion 16 , a cylindrical - shaped body 18 , and a coupling portion 20 . the cylindrical - shaped body 18 is intended to ergonomically receive a user &# 39 ; s palm and fingers when gripped in use . the coupling portion 20 is configured to engage the cap 12 around an outer periphery . the apparatus 10 is formed of any suitable compliant material that is sufficiently rigid to adequately transfer forces generated by the user , while still being compliant enough to provide comfort and minimize uncomfortable inflammation . some examples of such material include a polyurethane foam rubber , various metals , a contained gel , or polymer - based . the apparatus 10 is preferably integrally formed into a contiguous structure ; however it is contemplated by the disclosure herein that portions of the apparatus may be separately coupled together such as the top portion 16 and the body 18 and / or the coupling portion 20 and the body 18 . in one embodiment , portions of the apparatus 10 may be hollow . in a further embodiment , the apparatus 10 is formed of sufficiently rigid material to transfer the user applied force from the apparatus 10 to the cap 12 , to secure the cap 12 to the test tube 14 without causing any damage to the cap 12 . fig3 shows a side view of the apparatus 10 . as fig3 shows , the top portion 16 is vase - shaped , although the top portion 16 may be shaped in any number of configurations including flush with the body 18 . in one embodiment , a top surface 17 of the top portion is slightly recessed to ergonomically receive a user &# 39 ; s thumb . in this way , pressure and force from a user is more efficiently transferred to the cap 12 via the apparatus 10 . fig4 shows a top view of the apparatus 10 and coupling portion 20 including a cavity 22 and a plurality of flanges 19 . the flanges 19 are preferably longitudinal arranged and radially extended and spaced toward a center region of the cavity 22 . in one embodiment , however , the flanges 19 are flexible and configured to moveably engage a cap . the flanges 19 may be integrally formed of the apparatus 10 . in one embodiment , the flanges 19 are molded to inner walls of the cavity and configured to flex upon receipt of a cap . the cavity 22 is preferably circular - shaped , but may be sized and adapted to receive a particular size cap 12 . for example , a diameter of an outer periphery of the cavity 22 is preferably slightly larger than a diameter of a corresponding cap diameter . fig5 shows a perspective view of the coupling portion 20 of the apparatus 10 . as fig5 shows , the space between the flanges 19 open into the cavity 22 . the spaces between the flanges 19 enable a cap to freely exit the cavity 22 without suction forces inhibiting an exit . in one embodiment , the flanges 19 are tapered or pointed at an engagement end . the tapered ends 23 enable decreased frictional forces to be applied to cap sidewall . the decreased frictional forces enable preferable release of caps upon coupling to a test tube , and decrease inhibition of the cap from the coupling portion 20 . fig6 shows a cross - sectional view of the coupling portion 20 of the apparatus 10 along line a - a as shown in fig5 . as fig6 shows , the coupling portion 20 is defined by a bottom wall 24 . the bottom wall 24 is preferably substantially flat and configured to engage a top surface of the cap 12 . when in engagement with the cap 12 , the bottom wall is at least substantially flush against the top surface of the cap 12 . in this way , the user generated force applied to the apparatus 10 is adequately distributed to the cap 12 and applied substantially evenly to the cap 12 , enabling desirable user control of the force direction . further , because the flanges 19 engage the cap 12 at points along a cap sidewall , preferable frictional forces are effectively utilized , enabling preferable release of an engaged cap . accordingly , the coupling portion 20 along with the apparatus 10 can be disengaged quickly and easily from the cap 12 , thereby enabling a user to install a plurality of caps in a short period of time . it is contemplated that the disclosure herein can be applied with any type of cap that fits on any standard sized test tube , including but not limited to : 12 mm , 13 mm , 16 mm , and 17 mm diameter test tubes and test tube caps . such cap types can include but are not limited to screw caps or flange caps . the flange cap 12 may include an upper and / or lower flange , extending outward around the periphery of the lower section of the cap 12 . according to an embodiment of the present disclosure , the apparatus 10 is configured for use in installing a cap 12 into a test tube 14 containing an inwardly pointed flange that extends around the inner periphery of the test tube 14 . in locking a flange - type cap 12 into a sealed position , the cap 12 is pushed into the opening of the test tube 14 through a downwardly directed force indicated by the arrow shown in fig1 . in pushing the cap 12 into the test tube 14 , the lower flange is displaced over and beneath the inwardly pointed test tube flange , so that the inwardly pointed flange is positioned between the upper and lower flanges of the cap 12 . this in turn secures the cap 12 to the test tube 14 creating a seal about the opening . according to an exemplary embodiment of the present disclosure , in operation , the apparatus 10 is placed in use by first placing a cap 12 over the opening of the test tube 14 . the user then grasps the body 18 of the apparatus 10 and couples the cap 12 into the cavity 22 of the coupling portion 20 . finally , a user generates a force in the direction indicated by the arrow shown in fig1 in relation to the test tube 14 and the cap 12 . this force is transferred from the apparatus 10 , through the coupling portion 20 , and to the cap 12 , thereby causing the cap 12 to engage within the opening of the test tube 14 and create a closed and sealed structure . fig7 - 8 show an embodiment of the apparatus 10 having a selectively severable body 18 from a tool portion . fig7 shows an embodiment of the apparatus 10 having a severable body 18 . as fig7 shows , the severable body 18 may include a coupling means 30 . the coupling means 30 may be a mechanical screw . in one embodiment , the coupling means 30 is a screw shaft having an outer surface being formed with a helical male thread and groove , wherein a corresponding coupling tool is formed of a helical female thread and groove . although it is contemplated herein that the coupling means 30 may be a helical female groove wherein the corresponding tool sets are formed of a helical male groove . the helical male groove is configured to rotatably mate with a helical female groove on a corresponding coupling portion as described herein below . fig8 shows a cross - sectional view of the severable body 18 of the apparatus 10 along line b - b as shown in fig7 . as fig8 shows , the severable body 18 may include a hallow interior in one embodiment . in one embodiment , the severable body 18 is integrally formed into a contiguous structure , and rigidly formed to transfer the user applied force from the severable body 18 to an attached tool or coupling portion . as fig8 shows , the coupling means 30 preferably includes a plurality of helically - shaped threads and grooves on an outer surface configured to couple to an inner surface of a coupling portion , wherein the threads and grooves of the coupling means are sized and adapted to mesh or couple to corresponding threads and grooves of the coupling tool . fig9 - 12 show an embodiment of a coupling portion 20 configured to selectively couple to the severable body 18 described herein above and shown in fig7 and 8 . as fig9 and 10 show , the coupling portion 20 is configured to engage a cap of a test tube so that a user may couple the cap to the test tube . as described herein above with respect to fig3 - 5 , the coupling portion 20 includes a cavity 22 and a plurality of flanges 19 . within the coupling portion 20 , the flanges 19 are preferably longitudinal arranged and radially extended and spaced toward a center region of the cavity 22 . in one embodiment , however , the flanges 19 are flexible and configured to moveably engage a cap . the flanges 19 may be integrally formed of the coupling portion 20 . in one embodiment , the flanges 19 are molded to inner walls of the cavity and configured to flex upon receipt of a cap . the space between the flanges 19 open into the cavity 22 of the coupling portion 20 . the cavity 22 is preferably circular - shaped , but may be sized and adapted to receive a particular size cap 12 . fig1 shows a side view of the coupling portion 20 . fig1 shows a cross - sectional view of the coupling portion 20 along line c - c as shown in fig1 . as fig1 shows , the coupling portion 20 includes a coupling means 32 configured to engage the coupling means 30 of the severable body 18 . the coupling means 32 preferably includes helically - shaped threads and grooves on an inner surface configured to couple to an outer surface of a shaft portion such as the severable body 18 , wherein the threads and grooves of the coupling means 32 are sized and adapted to mesh or couple to corresponding threads and grooves of the coupling means 30 . according to an exemplary embodiment of the present disclosure , in operation , the coupling portion 20 is coupled to the severable body 18 by rotatably screwing the coupling means 32 over the coupling means 30 . during engagement of the coupling portion 20 to the severable body 18 , the coupling portion 20 may be rotated relative to the severable body 18 , moving the coupling means 32 axially relative to the coupling means 30 of the severable body 18 . fig1 - 16 show a second embodiment of a coupling portion 20 configured to selectively couple to the severable body 18 described herein above and shown in fig7 and 8 . the second embodiment is included herein as exemplary to illustrate and describe a coupling portion 20 configured to engage larger vial caps . upon a careful reading of the teachings herein , one skilled in the art will readily adapt the teaching to any sized vial or cap size including adapting the coupling portion to engage caps from 8 mm , 12 mm , and 15 mm shell vials . as fig1 shows , the second embodiment of a coupling portion 20 may be funneled outward to form the cavity 22 with a larger void space . fig1 shows a top view of the second embodiment of a coupling portion 20 . a diameter 34 of an outer periphery of the cavity 22 may be adapted and sized to accommodate different sized vial caps . as described herein above , the diameter 34 is preferably slightly larger than a diameter of a corresponding cap diameter . in this way , the cap does not stick inside the cavity 22 requiring a user to manually remove the cap from the coupling portion 20 . fig1 shows a side view of the second embodiment of the coupling portion 20 . fig1 shows a cross - sectional view of the coupling portion 20 along line d - d as shown in fig1 . as fig1 shows , the second embodiment of the coupling portion 20 includes a coupling means 32 configured to engage the coupling means 30 of the severable body 18 , similar to the coupling portion 20 shown in fig9 - 12 . as above , the coupling means 32 preferably includes a plurality of helically - shaped threads and grooves on an inner surface configured to couple to an outer surface of a shaft portion such as the severable body 18 , wherein the threads and grooves of the coupling means 32 are sized and adapted to mesh or couple to corresponding threads and grooves of the coupling means 30 . the space between the flanges 19 open into the cavity 22 of the coupling portion 20 . the cavity 22 is preferably circular - shaped , but may be sized and adapted to receive a particular size cap 12 . fig1 - 20 show a de - capper attachment tool 40 configured to selectively couple to the severable body 18 described herein above and shown in fig7 and 8 . the de - capper attachment tool 40 is configured to remove a cap from a vial such as the vial 14 shown in fig1 . the tool 40 is formed of a first and second member 42 and 44 , respectively , and a base 46 . the first and second members 42 and 44 are preferably convexly curved outwardly . in one embodiment the tool 40 is integrally formed . the second member 44 includes a concave - shaped end configured to provide a lifting force from a user onto a cap . the first member 42 includes a convex - shaped end configured to provide a downward force on an opposite end of a vial cap . in this way , a user may use the tool as a lever force upon the vial cap , wherein the effort from a user is concurrently communicated to the vial cap as an upward force to a first end and a downward force to a second end . in one embodiment , the first and second members 42 and 44 have straight ends . fig2 shows a cross - sectional view of the de - capper attachment tool 40 . as fig2 shows , the de - capper attachment tool 40 includes a coupling means 49 configured to engage the coupling means 30 of the severable body 18 . the coupling means 49 preferably includes a plurality of helically - shaped threads and grooves on an inner surface configured to couple to an outer surface of a shaft portion such as the severable body 18 , wherein the threads and grooves of the coupling means 49 are sized and adapted to mesh or couple to corresponding threads and grooves of the coupling means 30 . according to an exemplary embodiment of the present disclosure , in operation , the second member 44 of the tool 40 is slid between a cap and vial by a user . the first member 42 is pressed upon a top surface of the cap . the user exerts a rocking motion with the apparatus creating a lever force that simultaneously exerts a lifting force on a first side of the cap and a depression force on a second side of the cap , removing the cap from the vial . for embodiments of a vial having a snap cap , where the snap cap covers outer edges of the vial , the second member 44 is placed between the snap cap and an outer surface of the vial . the user may then use the apparatus 10 to lift the snap cap upward and over opening of the vial . the disclosure has described certain preferred embodiments and modifications thereto . further modifications and alterations may occur to others upon reading and understanding the specification . therefore , it is intended that the disclosure not be limited to the particular embodiment ( s ) disclosed as the best mode contemplated for carrying out this disclosure , but that the disclosure will include all embodiments falling within the scope of the appended claims . | 8 |
reference will now be made in detail to embodiments , examples of which are illustrated in the accompanying drawings . while the disclosure will be described in conjunction with these embodiments , it will be understood that they are not intended to limit the disclosure to these embodiments . on the contrary , the disclosure is intended to cover alternatives , modifications and equivalents , which may be included within the spirit and scope of the disclosure as defined by the appended claims . furthermore , in the following detailed description , numerous specific details are set forth in order to provide a thorough understanding . however , it will be recognized by one of ordinary skill in the art that embodiments may be practiced without these specific details . embodiments are described in the context of design and operation of integrated semiconductors . more particularly , embodiments relate to power efficient multiplexers . it is appreciated , however , that embodiments may be utilized in other areas of semiconductor design and operation . the following description of embodiments is directed toward pfets ( or p - type metal oxide semiconductor field effect transistors ( mosfets )) formed in surface n - wells and / or nfets ( or n - type mosfets ) formed in surface p - wells when a p - type substrate and an n - well process are utilized . it is to be appreciated , however , that embodiments are equally applicable to nfets ( or n - type mosfets ) formed in surface p - wells and / or pfets ( or p - type mosfets ) formed in surface n - wells when an n - type substrate and a p - well process are utilized . consequently , embodiments are well suited to semiconductors formed in both p - type and n - type materials , and such embodiments are considered within the scope of the disclosure . fig1 illustrates a schematic of a novel power efficient multiplexer 100 , in accordance with embodiments . power efficient multiplexer 100 comprises an inverter 110 and a transmission gate structure 120 . transmission gate structure 120 comprises transmission gates 121 and 122 . a bit value in latch 130 determines whether transmission gate 121 is “ open ” or “ closed ,” for example whether transmission gate 121 passes a signal or not . similarly , the bit value in latch 130 determines whether transmission gate 122 passes a signal or not . both transmission gates 121 and 122 are controlled by the same bit value and that bit value &# 39 ; s complement . consequently , either transmission gate 122 will pass a signal , or transmission gate 121 will pass a signal , but not both simultaneously . for example , in the embodiment of fig1 , a zero value in latch 130 will cause transmission gate 121 to pass signal a 125 , while causing transmission gate 122 not to pass any signals . consequently , transmission gate structure 120 will select signal a 125 corresponding to a zero value in latch 130 . similarly , a one value in latch 130 will cause transmission gate 122 to pass signal b 126 , while causing transmission gate 121 not to pass any signals . consequently , transmission gate structure 120 will select signal b 126 corresponding to a one value in latch 130 . the signal , a 125 or b 126 , selected by transmission gate structure 120 is inverted by inverter 110 to produce output 140 of power efficient multiplexer 100 . it is to be appreciated that static power consumption in modern semiconductor processes , e . g ., processes with a minimum feature size of about 0 . 13 microns and smaller , is no longer a negligible component of total power consumption . for such processes , static power may be one - half of total power consumption . further , static power , as a percentage of total power , is tending to increase with successive generations of semiconductor process . advantageously , inverter 110 comprises stacked field effect transistors ( fets ). in general , an inverter stage , whether conventional or stacked , forms a leakage path , e . g ., a series “ string ” of devices coupled from operating voltage ( vdd ) to ground . as current leaks through such leakage paths , static power is consumed by the inverter stage . as described more completely in u . s . patent application ser . no . 10 / 864 , 271 , entitled “ stacked inverter delay chain ” to masleid and burr , incorporated herein by reference in its entirety , an inverter comprising stacked field effect transistors can consume less static power than a conventional inverter to produce a comparable delay . further , such leakage paths within a stacked inverter suffer less leakage than a conventional inverter , yielding additional beneficial leakage reductions . in a conventional inverter , exactly one transistor is on while the other transistor is off . as an unfortunate consequence , approximately the full bias voltage is applied to the off transistor , resulting in a maximum possible leakage for the off transistor . in contrast , in a stacked inverter multiple transistors are either on or off in series . for example , in the embodiment of fig1 , for a “ high ” state , two transistors are on , while two transistors are off . consequently , each “ off ” transistor has significantly less than full bias voltage applied . it is appreciated that leakage current generally decreases exponentially as voltage decreases . for example , a factor of two reduction in off bias voltage produces about a factor of eight reduction in leakage current per leakage path . it is to be further appreciated that such leakage induces non zero voltages at intermediate nodes between the off transistors . such voltages induce body effects in the transistors . such body effects increase the threshold voltage of the affected transistors . an increased threshold voltage generally produces beneficial decreases in leakage current . consequently , in addition to a decrease in a number of leakage paths , in accordance with embodiments , the leakage current of each path is very beneficially reduced due to an induced body effect and a highly non - linear relationship between bias voltage and leakage current . thus , inverter 110 significantly reduces static power consumption , in comparison to a conventional inverter . it is to be appreciated that more or fewer stacked fets can be can be included in inverter 110 in order to achieve differing signal propagation and / or power characteristics , in accordance with embodiments . for example , physical differences between electrons and holes , and between n - type and p - type dopants , as well as constructive differences in device geometry and dopant placement , result in differences in efficiency between n - type devices and p - type devices . because electron mobility is higher than hole mobility , n - type devices are more efficient than p - type devices . however , the degree of difference depends on constructive differences that can vary with process . such physical and constructive differences also produce other behavior differences , such as a difference in sensitivity to body effects . consequently , different levels of benefit , e . g ., in leakage reduction , are to be expected between stacks of n - type devices and stacks of p - type devices . to allow for such effects , in accordance with embodiments , it is possible to stack different numbers of transistors on either or both legs of a stacked inverter ( e . g ., fig3 and fig4 ). such variations allow increases in load and / or decreases in drive capability , enabling a wide variety of loading and drive characteristics , as well as enabling differing body effects . also of benefit in reducing power consumption , particularly static power consumption , of power efficient multiplexer 100 is transmission gate structure 120 . it is to be appreciated that transmission gates , for example transmission gates 121 and 122 , are characterized as having no direct path between power ( vdd ) and ground . consequently , transmission gates are characterized as having extremely small leakage , and thus very little static power consumption . it is appreciated that a variety of factors , e . g ., operating voltage , operating temperature and / or manufacturing process variations , can affect the speed of operation of an integrated circuit . it is generally desirable for a multiplexer to track speed changes of other circuitry of an integrated circuit . for example , if other circuits of an integrated circuit operate faster , generally a multiplexer is required to select a desired signal more quickly in order for the overall circuit to function . because embodiments comprise stacked devices , they are similar to many logic circuits that also comprise stacked devices , e . g ., nand and / or nor logic gates . consequently , embodiments match or track changes in operating speed of complex logic more accurately than multiplexers comprising very simple inverters . it is to be appreciated that embodiments are well suited to selecting among more than the two signals illustrated in fig1 , and embodiments comprising more than two selectable signals are to be considered within the scope of the disclosure . embodiments are thus shown to offer significant and highly beneficial improvements in tracking timing changes of other circuits and in static power ( leakage current ) consumption in comparison to the conventional art . fig2 illustrates a flow chart for a method 200 of selecting one electronic signal from a plurality of electronic signals , in accordance with embodiments . in 210 , the plurality of electronic signals is accessed . for example , referring to fig1 , the plurality of electronic signals is accessed at transmission gates 121 and 122 . in 220 , a plurality of transmission gates is configured to select one electronic signal from the plurality of electronic signals . for example , referring to fig1 , a zero value in latch 130 will cause transmission gate 121 to pass signal a 125 , while causing transmission gate 122 not to pass any signals . consequently , transmission gate structure 120 will select signal a 125 corresponding to a zero value in latch 130 . in 230 , the one electronic signal is inverted utilizing a stacked inverter circuit , for example stacked inverter circuit 110 of fig1 . the foregoing descriptions of specific embodiments have been presented for purposes of illustration and description . they are not intended to be exhaustive or to limit the disclosure to the precise forms disclosed , and many modifications and variations are possible in light of the above teaching . the embodiments were chosen and described in order to best explain the principles of the disclosure and its practical application , to thereby enable others skilled in the art to best utilize the disclosure and various embodiments with various modifications as are suited to the particular use contemplated . it is intended that the scope of the disclosure be defined by the claims appended hereto and their equivalents . | 7 |
the forthcoming description sets forth various embodiments envisioned for practicing the present invention . this description is not to be taken in a limiting sense , but is made for the purpose of illustrating the general tenants of the invention . to ascertain the scope of the invention , one should reference the issued claims . the present invention remedies the problems associated with the prior art by incorporating a service tool or tools into a standard operating component of a power - operated device , and further by selecting a component that is permanently coupled to the power - operated device . subsequently , a further aspect of the invention provides mobility for the fixed component to which the service tool or tools are integrated . providing mobility for the fixed component allows practical use of the service tool or tools while preserving their permanence to the power operated device , virtually eliminating any of the service tool &# 39 ; s vulnerability to being misplaced . looking now to the figures attached hereto , features and embodiments are now further described in detail . turning first to fig1 , an embodiment of a tool holder 1 of the present invention is shown with respect to a chain saw 6 , as an example of a power - operated device in relation to the present invention . specifically , fig1 illustrates a tool holder 1 , a folding service tool 2 , cord locking means 3 , pull cord 4 , manual starter 5 and chain saw 6 . it is important to note that the chain saw 6 depicted is only an example of a power - operated device , and an embodiment of the present invention may be incorporated into the manual starter 5 of any power - operated device including , but not limited to , lawn mowers , weedwackers , hedgers , blowers , and tree trimmers . the manual starter 5 of the chain saw 6 incorporates a pull cord 4 . those skilled in the art are aware that a manual starter 5 will typically further comprise a rewind mechanism coupled to the pull cord 4 and a clutch assembly for engaging a flywheel of the chain saw &# 39 ; s 6 engine , whereby pulling the pull cord 4 turns the engine crank shaft and starts the chain saw 6 . in accordance with one functional aspect of the present invention , the tool holder 1 is shaped as pull handle and is permanently coupled to the pull cord 4 , allowing an operator to utilize the tool holder 1 to retract the pull cord 4 and subsequently start the chain saw 6 for operation . fig1 depicts a cord locking means 3 , opposing the wind back force applied to the pull cord 4 by the rewind mechanism of the manual starter 5 . consequently , the pull cord 4 is locked in a retracted state . with the pull cord 4 locked in a retracted state as shown , an operator may use the service tool 2 to service the chain saw 6 . focusing now on fig2 , greater insight is gained into a tool holder 1 and cord locking means 3 of the present embodiment . depicted are a tool holder 1 having a handle 11 and shaft 12 segment , a folding service tool 2 , a service tool - shaped cavity 23 , a pivot axis 24 , socket - shaped cavities 25 , a notch 26 , a conduit 27 , and a chamber 28 . further , a cord locking means 3 comprised of a hollow cylinder 30 , a coil spring 31 , and a piston 32 having a head 321 and shaft 322 are shown . also shown are a pull cord 4 and coupling means 41 . the service tool 2 is permanently attached to the tool holder 1 by the pivot axis 24 . the pivot axis 24 permits the service tool 2 to fold out , as illustrated , to perform service functions and to fold into the service tool - shaped cavity 23 when it is not in use . both distal ends of the tool holder handle segment 11 have socket shaped cavities 25 which may be used to loosen or tighten a sparkplug , nuts , bolts , and other components of a power - operated device . additionally , a distal end of the handle segmental has a notch 26 that may help facilitate the loosening and tightening of wing nuts , for example , or the cap of a fuel can . the tool holder shaft 12 has a conduit 27 allowing the pull cord 4 to pass into the chamber 28 where a coupling means 41 at the end of the pull cord 4 is housed . in the embodiment depicted , the coupling means 41 is a knot , permanently coupling the pull cord 4 and the tool holder 1 . those skilled in the art will know that various other means useful for coupling the tool holder 1 and pull cord 4 , such as various types of glue , may be used by this or alternative embodiments of the present invention . cord locking means 3 is comprised of a hollow cylinder 30 , which houses a coil spring 31 and the shaft of a piston 322 . the hollow cylinder 30 has two opposing holes , roughly the circumference of the pull cord 4 , aligned on its surface . additionally , a portion of the piston shaft 322 has a conduit through its midsection , having roughly the circumference of the pull cord 4 . these holes in the surface of the hollow cylinder 30 in conjunction with the conduit through the piston shaft 322 , allow the pull cord 4 to run through the cord locking means 3 . coil spring 31 is positioned between the closed end of the hollow cylinder 30 and the end of the piston shaft 322 , whereby it exerts a moving force on the piston 32 . in the embodiment of the cord locking means 3 shown in fig2 , in steady state the coil spring 31 exerts a lateral force on the end of the piston shaft 322 causing misalignment of the openings to the conduit in the piston shaft 322 and the holes in the hollow cylinder 30 . consequently , a pinching force is applied to the section of the pull cord 4 that runs through the conduit in the piston shaft 322 . as result , the pull cord 4 is prevented from sliding through the cord locking means 3 , and the cord locking means 3 is fixed to a section of the pull cord 4 . in an alternative embodiment , as described herein below , the coil spring 31 may be fixed to the end of the piston shaft 322 , whereby it exerts a rotating force on the end of the piston shaft 322 causing misalignment of the openings to the conduit in the piston shaft 322 and the holes in the hollow cylinder 30 . by depressing the piston head 321 and aligning the holes in the hollow cylinder 30 with the openings of the piston shaft &# 39 ; s 322 conduit , as shown in fig2 , the pull cord 4 is allowed to pass freely through the cord locking means 3 . an operator may effectively lock the pull cord 4 in a retracted state by depressing the piston head 321 and subsequently sliding the cord locking means 3 down the length of a retracted pull cord 4 proximate to the manual starter . consequently , a rewind mechanism of the manual starter is prevented from drawing in the pull cord 4 by the cord locking means 3 , and the tool holder 1 coupled to the pull cord 4 may be used to service a power operated device to which it is attached . turning now to fig3 through 5 , side perspective , front perspective , and end perspective images are shown of an alternative embodiment of the present invention . depicted is a tool holder 7 resting in a sheath 8 , which is shaped similar to a pull handle . detailed are the tool holder 7 , a folding service tool 2 , socket wrench shaped end 71 of the tool holder , the tool holder sheath 8 having receptacle 81 and shaft 82 segments , and pull cord 4 . the tool holder 7 is cylindrical in shape , with an end formed as a socket wrench 71 . the tool holder sheath 8 is roughly t - shaped , giving the present embodiment the characteristic shape of a starter cord pull handle . the sheath 8 is comprised of a vertically oriented shaft segment 82 connected to a horizontally oriented receptacle segment 81 . the receptacle segment 81 is open , such that it has a cross section of approximately c - shape . as illustrated in fig3 through 5 , the receptacle 81 can receive the tool holder 7 , whereby the tool holder 7 in combination with the sheath 8 can be used as a pull handle to facilitate starting a power - operated device . one skilled in the art will understand that the tool holder 7 of this and alternative embodiments and the sheath 8 , may be composed of , but not limited to , various woods , fiberglass , polymers , metals , and composites . furthermore , the exact dimensions of the tool holder 7 of this and alternative embodiments and the sheath 8 , may vary in order to meet the specifications of a particular power - operated device . focusing now on fig6 , further insight is gained into the present embodiment of the invention comprised of a tool holder 7 and a sheath 8 . shown are the tool holder 7 , a folding service tool 2 , a socket - shaped cavity 71 , a pivot axis 72 , a chamber 73 , the tool holder sheath 8 having a receptacle 81 and shaft 82 segments , a pull cord 4 , and coupling means 41 . shaft segment 82 of the sheath 8 is hollow and open where it connects to the receptacle segment 81 . the bottom of the shaft 82 is also open , which allows the pull cord 4 to pass through the shaft 82 to the tool holder 7 , where a permanent connection is made between the tool holder 7 and the pull cord 4 . the tool holder 7 has a chamber 73 for the purpose of housing a coupling means 41 . the coupling means 41 may be , for example , a knot 41 at the end of pull cord 4 permanently coupling the pull cord 4 and the tool holder 7 . the tool holder 7 has a socket - shaped cavity 71 formed in an end , which facilitates using the tool holder as a socket wrench . in the embodiment represented in fig6 , folding service tool 2 is housed in the tool holder &# 39 ; s 7 top surface and fixed thereto by the pivot axis 72 . in fig6 folding service tool 2 is a screwdriver . however , in this and alternative embodiments the folding service tool 2 could be any of a range other service tools including various wrenches , files , knives , feeler gauges , picks , and brushes , all of which may be of different size and type . moreover , although the folding service tool 2 is shown housed in the top surface of the tool holder 7 , it may be just as advantageous and conceivable to house a service tool 2 in the bottom surface of a tool holder 7 . additionally , in this and alternative embodiments , folding service tool 2 may be complimented by a plurality of folding service tools of different make , size , and type , for performing a variety of service functions on a power operated device . looking now at fig7 and 8 , a tool holder 7 of the present embodiment is shown removed from its sheath 8 . illustrated are tool holder 7 , folding service tool 2 , pivot axis 72 , socket wrench shaped end 71 of the tool holder , the tool holder sheath 8 having a receptacle 81 and shaft 82 segments , and pull cord 4 . the openings of the shaft 82 allows the sheath 8 to slide up and down the length of the pull cord 4 when the pull cord 4 is retracted , the reason for which will be described later in the application . consequently , the tool holder 7 may be separated from the sheath 8 allowing the service tool 2 to be used to service a power - operated device . the pivot axis 72 is mounted in an end of the tool holder 7 and has a service tool 2 pivotally attached . pivot axis 72 permits the service tool 2 to fold - out , as illustrated in fig8 , to service a power - operated device and to fold into the tool holder 7 when the service tool 2 is not in use . one skilled in the art will know that various other hinging or pivotal embodiments , such as a small ball - and - socket assembly , can be used to permanently attach the service tool 2 to the tool holder 7 of this or alternative embodiments . furthermore , it should be apparent that the pivot axis 72 , or equivalent , is not restricted to being mounted in an end of the tool holder 7 and could , for example , be mounted in the center of the tool holder 7 . such a centered pivot axis placement may be advantageous for an embodiment having a plurality of service tools of shorter length . fig9 and 10 further illustrate a tool holder 7 of the present embodiment of the invention . tool holder 7 , a folding service tool 2 , socket wrench shaped end 71 of the tool holder , a pivot axis 72 , and pull cord 4 , are shown . in the embodiment depicted in fig9 the top surface of tool holder 7 has a holding cavity for housing service tool 2 , which is roughly the shape and size of the service tool 2 pivotally attached thereto . in alternative embodiments of the tool holder 7 , the holding cavity may be larger , whereby it does not conform to the size and shape of a particular service tool 2 . this may be advantageous for standardizing the manufacturing of a tool holder 7 for different service tool types , or : required for embodiments having a plurality of service tools . the socket wrench shaped end 71 of tool holder 7 , may be used to loosen or tighten a sparkplug , nut , bolt , or other components of a power - operated device . an operator may unfold the service tool 2 and use it to provide leverage when using the socket shaped end 71 of the tool holder 7 . one skilled in the art will understand that the socket wrench shaped end 71 may be of standard or metric unit and may be any of various socket sizes well known in the art . the size of the components on a power - operated device to be serviced , will likely dictate the size and unit to which the socket shaped end 71 conforms . furthermore , in this and alternative embodiments , either or both ends of the tool holder 7 may be shaped as a particular size and unit of socket wrench , to aid in servicing different sized components of a power - operated device . focusing now on fig1 through 13 , insight is gained regarding an alternative embodiment of a tool holder 7 of the present invention . illustrated are the tool holder 7 , a folding service tool 2 , a holding cavity 74 , a pivot axis 72 , and a socket wrench insert 13 . the service tool depicted in fig1 and 12 is a file . the holding cavity 74 for this service tool 2 in the tool holder &# 39 ; s 7 top surface is roughly the shape and size of a larger alternative embodiment of a service tool 2 , namely a screwdriver . correspondingly , the pivot axis 72 is capable of being temporarily removed from the tool holder 7 whereby the service tool 2 mounted on the pivot axis 72 may also be removed and replaced by an alternative embodiment of service tool 2 , such as a screwdriver . the tool holder 7 has a cavity formed in an end , which as illustrated in fig1 , can receive a socket wrench insert 13 . this cavity in an end of the tool holder 7 is advantageous in that it facilitates the interchanging of socket wrench inserts 13 of different size and unit , as required to service various components of different size and unit on a power operated device . turning now to fig1 through 19 , cord locking means incorporated into a sheath of the present embodiment of the invention are described . the cord locking means serves to lock a pull cord in a retracted state so that a range of motion is granted to a tool holder of the present invention , allowing the tool holder to be used to service components of a power operated device . looking first to fig1 , a v - notch cord lock embodiment 14 is illustrated . shown are a tool holder sheath 8 having receptacle 81 and shaft 82 segments , v - notch 14 having an open 141 and tapered 142 end , and a pull cord 4 . the v - notch 14 is in a top edge of tool holder sheath &# 39 ; s receptacle 81 . one skilled in the art will know that alternatively , the v - notch 14 may be in a side edge of tool holder sheath &# 39 ; s receptacle 81 segment . the v - notch 14 is characterized by an opening 141 in one end , which tapers to converge to a single point at an opposite end 142 . an operator will utilize the v - notch 14 by retracting the pull cord 4 , sliding the sheath 8 down the length of the pull cord 4 proximate to a manual starter , inserting a segment of the pull cord 4 into the open end 141 of the v - notch 14 and pressing this segment of the pull cord 4 into the tapered end 142 of the v - notch 14 . the tapered end 142 of the v - notch 14 applies a pinching force on the inserted segment of the pull cord 4 , such that the sheath 8 is prevented from sliding along the length of the pull cord 4 . in this state , with the pull cord 4 retracted and the tool holder sheath 8 fixed proximate to the manual starter , via the v - notch 14 , a rewind mechanism of the manual starter is prevented from drawing in the pull cord 4 . consequently , a range of motion is supplied to a tool holder , fixed to an end of the pull cord 4 . focusing now on fig1 and 16 , a cord lock embodiment comprised of a pair of bodies 15 having a plurality of teeth 151 is illustrated . shown are a tool holder sheath 8 having receptacle 81 and shaft 82 segments , a pair of bodies 15 having a plurality of teeth 151 , pivot axes 152 , coil springs 16 , and a pull cord 4 . the pivot axes 152 are fixed parallel to each other in the inner surface of the tool holder sheath &# 39 ; s shaft 82 . a pair of bodies 15 are pivotally mounted on the pivot axes 152 . a surface of each body 15 contains a plurality of teeth 151 , and the bodies 15 are mounted on the pivot axes 152 so that the surfaces having a plurality of teeth 151 are opposed and are spaced by a distance sufficient for receiving the pull cord 4 . a coil spring 16 is positioned between the inner surface of the shaft 82 and each body 15 , whereby a coil spring 16 engages a body 15 exerting a lateral force that causes , a body 15 to pivot about the pivot axis 152 toward an opposing body 15 . an operator can insert a segment of the pull cord 4 between the bodies 15 by pulling the pull cord 4 sideways towards the side of the shaft 82 where the bodies 15 are pivotally mounted , as illustrated in the end view of the shaft 82 shown in fig1 . when the pull cord 4 is inserted between the bodies 15 , the lateral force exerted by the coil springs 16 on the bodies 15 cause the plurality of teeth 151 to forcibly engage the pull cord 4 , creating an applied compressive force on the pull cord 4 , which prevents the tool holder sheath 8 from sliding along the length of the pull cord 4 . consequently , after retracting the pull cord 4 , sliding the sheath 8 down the length of the pull cord 4 adjacent to a manual starter , and inserting the pull cord 4 between the bodies 15 , the rewind mechanism of a manual starter will be prevented from drawing in the pull cord 4 . subsequently , a tool holder of the present invention that is fixed to the pull cord 4 may be used to service a power - operated device . turning to fig1 , shown is an embodiment of a cord locking means comprised of a piston 18 and coil spring 19 assembly . detailed are a tool holder sheath 8 having receptacle 81 and shaft 82 segments , a hollow cylinder 17 , a piston 18 having a shaft 181 and flat head 182 , a coil spring 19 , and a pull cord 4 . in the embodiment depicted in fig1 , the shaft 82 of the tool holder sheath 8 has a hole in one side . the hollow cylinder 17 has an open end , and is arranged horizontally in the shaft 82 with its open end aligned on the hole in the side of the shaft 82 . piston shaft 181 is positioned within the hollow cylinder 17 and the piston head 182 is external to the sheath 8 . the hollow cylinder 17 has two opposing holes aligned on its surface , which are roughly the circumference of pull cord 4 . additionally , the piston shaft 181 has a conduit through its midsection , also roughly the circumference of pull cord 4 . the holes in the surface of the hollow cylinder 17 in conjunction with the conduit through the piston shaft 181 , allow the pull cord 4 to run through the present embodiment of the cord lock . the coil spring 19 is positioned between the closed end of the hollow cylinder 17 and the end of the piston shaft 181 , whereby a moving force is exerted on the piston 18 . in steady state , as shown in fig1 , the coil spring 19 exerts a lateral force on the end of the piston shaft 181 causing misalignment of the openings to the conduit in the piston shaft 181 and the holes in the hollow cylinder 17 . consequently , a pinching force is applied on the segment of the pull cord 4 in the piston shaft &# 39 ; s 181 conduit , and the pull cord 4 is prevented from sliding through the conduit in the piston shaft 181 . as a result , the sheath 8 is fixed to a segment of the pull cord 4 . to counter - act the lateral force applied to the piston shaft 181 and unfix the sheath 8 , an operator can depress the piston head 182 , aligning the holes in the hollow cylinder 17 with the openings of the conduit in the piston shaft 181 , allowing the pull cord 4 to slide freely through . by depressing the piston head 182 and subsequently sliding the sheath 8 down the length of a retracted pull cord 4 proximate to a manual starter , an operator can lock the pull cord 4 in a retracted state , and a tool holder of the present invention may be used to service a power - operated device . in fig1 and 19 an alternative embodiment of a cord locking means comprised of a winged piston 20 and coil spring 19 , assembly , is taught . detailed are a tool holder sheath 8 having receptacle 81 and shaft 82 segments , a hollow cylinder 17 , a winged piston 20 having a shaft 201 and winged head 202 , a coil spring 19 , and a pull cord 4 . in the embodiment depicted in fig1 , the shaft 82 of tool holder sheath 8 has a hole in one side . hollow cylinder 17 has an open end , and is arranged horizontally in the shaft 82 with its open end aligned on the hole in the side of shaft 82 . piston shaft 201 is positioned within hollow cylinder 17 and winged piston head 202 is external to the sheath 8 . the hollow cylinder 17 has two opposing holes , roughly the circumference of the pull chord 4 , aligned on its surface . similarly , a portion of the piston shaft 201 has a conduit through its midsection , also having roughly the circumference of the pull cord 4 . the holes in the surface of the hollow cylinder 17 in conjunction with the conduit through the piston shaft 201 , allow the pull cord 4 to run through the present embodiment of the cord lock . an end of the coil spring 19 is permanently fixed to the closed end of the hollow cylinder 17 , and the other end of coil spring 19 is permanently fixed to the end of the piston shaft 201 , whereby a moving force is exerts on the winged piston 20 . fig1 , depicting a cross section of the hollow cylinder 17 and the piston shaft 201 , shows the piston shaft 201 as it would be positioned when the coil spring 19 is in steady state . in steady state the coil spring 19 exerts a rotating force on the end of the piston shaft 201 causing misalignment of the openings to the conduit in the piston shaft 181 and the holes in hollow cylinder 17 . consequently , a pinching force is applied on the segment of pull cord 4 that runs through the conduit in the piston shaft 201 , and the pull cord 4 is prevented from sliding through this conduit . as a result , the sheath 8 is fixed to a section of the , pull cord 4 . by turning the winged piston head 202 , an operator can counter - act the torque applied to the piston shaft 201 and align the holes in the hollow cylinder 17 with the openings to the conduit in the piston shaft 201 , permitting the pull cord 4 to slide freely through . by turning the winged piston head 202 and subsequently sliding the sheath 8 down the length of a retracted pull cord 4 proximate to a manual starter , an operator can lock the pull cord 4 in a retracted state , and a tool holder of the present invention may be used to service a power - operated device . turning now to fig2 through 23 , different tool holder and sheath embodiments are shown incorporated with a mechanism for reducing the recoil of a manual starter . focusing first on fig2 and 21 a recoil reducing mechanism comprised of a coil spring 22 and hollow piston 21 assembly is shown incorporated into a tool holder 7 . detailed are a tool holder 7 , a cavity 75 , a tool holder sheath 8 having receptacle 81 and shaft 82 segments , a hollow piston 21 having a shaft 211 and head 212 , a coil spring 22 , a washer 23 , a pull cord 4 , coupling means 41 , and a pull cord conduit 42 . the present embodiment of the tool holder 7 has a cavity 75 having a hole at its base . the cavity 75 houses the hollow piston 21 and coil spring 22 assembly comprising the recoil reducing mechanism . piston shaft 211 has a void throughout , which forms a conduit 42 through which the pull cord 4 runs . piston head 212 is hollow and contains the coupling means 41 at the end of the pull cord 4 , permanently coupling the pull cord 4 and the tool holder 7 . the coupling means 41 depicted in fig2 and 21 is a knot . a coil spring 22 and washer 23 are disposed around the piston shaft 211 . an end of the coil spring 22 engages the base of the piston head 212 and the other end engages the washer 23 , which is centered on the hole in the base of tool holder cavity 75 . piston shaft 211 and the segment of the pull cord 4 contained therein ., pass freely through the hole in the base of tool holder cavity 75 . when the coil spring 22 is in steady state , as shown in fig2 , it retracts the piston 21 into the cavity 71 . when an operator pulls on the tool handle 7 to retract the pull cord 4 this force is opposed by a manual starter &# 39 ; s rewind mechanism coupled to the opposite end of the pull cord 4 . this applied pulling force exerted by the operator creates an increased tension on the pull cord 4 , causing the piston 21 to move downward . consequently , a segment of the piston shaft 211 will pass through the hole in the base of the tool holder cavity 75 . fig2 illustrates the state of the recoil mechanism when the tension in the pull cord is increased . as depicted , the downward movement of the piston exerts a force that causes the coil spring 22 to compress . this piston 21 movement and subsequent compression of the coil spring 22 dissipates a majority of the opposing force created by the manual starter &# 39 ; s rewind mechanism , effectively making the retraction of the pull cord 4 easier for the operator . looking now to fig2 and 23 , an alternative embodiment of a recoil reducing mechanism comprised of a deformable body integrated into a tool holder 7 is depicted . detailed are the tool holder 7 , a tool holder sheath 8 having receptacle 81 and shaft 82 segments , a deformable body 24 having a shaft 241 and head 242 , a pull cord 4 , a coupling means 41 , and a pull cord conduit 42 . deformable body 24 is made of a composite material having elastic qualities , whereby an applied pulling force on an end of the body will cause the body to stretch and the body will return to original form after the cessation of that applied force . the deformable body &# 39 ; s head 242 is fixed permanently within the base of the tool holder 7 and the deformable body &# 39 ; s shaft 241 passes through an opening at the base of the tool holder 7 . a void exist in the lower segment of the deformable body &# 39 ; s shaft 241 forming a conduit 42 through which the pull cord 4 passes . a coupling means , demonstrated as a knot 41 at the end of pull cord 4 , is disposed in the deformable body &# 39 ; s shaft 241 at the top of the pull cord conduit 42 . fig2 illustrates the tool holder 7 and deformable body 24 in an un - stretched state . when an operator pulls on the tool handle 7 to retract the pull cord 4 this force is opposed by a manual starter &# 39 ; s rewind mechanism coupled to the opposite end of the pull cord 4 . fig2 illustrates the effects that a pulling force on the tool holder 7 has on the deformable body 24 . as depicted , the pulling force and increased tension on the pull cord 4 causes the deformable body &# 39 ; s shaft 241 to stretch . the stretching of the deformable body &# 39 ; s shaft 241 effectively dissipates a majority of the opposing force created by the manual starter &# 39 ; s rewind mechanism , making the retraction of the pull cord 4 easier for an operator . while particular embodiments of the tool holder and cord locking means have been described and illustrated herein , it will be appreciated that various alternative embodiments encompassing changes and modifications may be contemplated by those skilled in the art , it is intended therefore that the appended claims cover all such changes and modifications which fall within the scope of the present invention . all references cited herein are incorporated by references . | 1 |
as noted briefly above , trace flexures or wireless flexures have been built with either a subtractive process or an additive process that provides a planar device in which the stainless steel ( if used ), the dielectric polyimide film layer , and the conductive copper layers are all essentially uniform thickness throughout their extents . the polyimide layer is the same thickness everywhere on a single part within manufacturing tolerances , and there has been no profiling in the film thickness by design . this is also true of the other layers . the electrical properties of the wireless flexure are a function of the thickness of the layers , the dielectric and physical material properties of each material , and the geometry , or mechanical layout , of each layer . in calculating the capacitance c of a wireless flexure , one takes into consideration the spacing between the conductive traces , the width of the traces , the thickness of the copper traces and the polyimide film , the conductivity of the stainless steel and the copper , and the dielectric properties of the polyimide . this provides the capacitance per unit length . all of these parameters are chosen and therefore known in a given device . in designing a flexure for a suspension device , after the initial choice of thickness of each material is made , the thickness of each layer is normally held constant . for a subtractive process part , this is a matter of convenience and cost . the copper layer may be thickness - controlled by etching down the thickness starting at the original layer thickness . the dielectric film layer between the copper and the stainless steel cannot be easily accessed to etch under the copper . the stainless steel layer could be etched but this variation will not have much effect on the device electrical performance . in the additive process , the layers can be built up to any desired thickness up to a certain point , which is approximately 10 microns for copper , and 25 microns for a dielectric film such as a polyimide film . the steel layer of the flexure is the starting point ; it can be chosen initially and reduced from that starting value . as frequencies approach 500 mhz and above , capacitance ( c ) and impedance ( z ) become increasingly important to the wireless flexure design . the capacitance represents the amount of electrical signal that must be used to charge the device before each pulse is transmitted . impedance represents the load that the electrical signal does work on . capacitance affects the signal response as a function of time (“ time domain ”) and impedance affects the signal response as a function of frequency (“ frequency domain ”). a trace circuit design can be thought of as two separate designs , one for the read circuit and one for the write circuit . the read circuit connects the read elements of the recording head to the actuator circuitry . the write circuit connects the write elements to the actuator circuitry . present design trends typically design the write traces to be as close as possible to 110 ohms impedance , and the read traces to be as close as possible to 60 ohms impedance . in some cases , the target may be 100 ohms for read traces and 80 ohms for write traces . assuming no losses , the z ( impedance ) equals sqr ( l / c ), or square root of inductance divided by capacitance . inductance is basically fixed by the length of the trace , and so cannot be easily controlled . therefore , in this invention control of z is through controlling c in a novel manner . the capacitance is separately specified for a given design with a maximum value , typically 2 pf or 3 pf per trace . controlling ( increasing ) c is commonly done by increasing the trace width beyond the normal ( small ) value of 0 . 0016 inches or by reducing the separation between traces below the usual value , also 0 . 0016 inches . increasing the width increases the capacitance to ground directly in proportion to width . decreasing the spacing to the adjacent trace increases the capacitance trace to trace . controlling ( decreasing ) c is usually done by increasing the trace - to - trace spacing or by removing the stainless layer under portions of the traces . in the invention the suspension and method control the relationship between l and c to a specified value that is different for the read and write sides of the same part , and hold c to be less than a max value . in a mechanically and electrically critical part such as a disk drive suspension flexure it is difficult to achieve the desired z and c control simultaneously and also meet the mechanical requirements for stiffness and frequency response in the space allocated . using prior art techniques , such as the removal of the stainless steel layer under the traces , makes the part be asymmetrical when the z is adjusted by controlling the c . for example , the read side ( 60 ohms ) would require larger capacitance than the write side ( 110 ohms ), so the traces would have to be wider than the other ( write ) side and the flexure would be asymmetrical mechanically , or the stainless would have to be removed from the write side , again leading to asymmetrical mechanics . the asymmetry of the mechanics is because the moduli of elasticity of stainless and copper are very high relative to polyimide . it is difficult or impossible to meet all of the conflicting requirements simultaneously with prior art techniques with even the presently most advanced circuit designs having performance characteristics far different from the optimum . thus , by using such design techniques , a wireless flexure and a suspension assembly thereof can be constructed that meets the specification for read and write impedance and stiffness but not at the same time capacitance or resistance . this problem is solved in the present invention flexure by grading or tapering the dielectric polyimide film or layer thickness selectively to achieve the desired capacitance , e . g . as part of the original film material , or by etching or otherwise removing part of an original film layer . most of the capacitance from trace to trace is controlled by the trace to stainless steel layer capacitance , and this capacitance is controlled by the thickness of the polyimide . the polyimide contributes only a negligible amount to the stiffness , so varying the thickness of the polyimide does not change the stiffness much and the change is controllable . thus , for a doubling of the film thickness the pitch or roll stiffness is increased less than 10 per cent . if the polyimide film layer thickness is reduced to half , the pitch or roll stiffness is also reduced by less than 10 per cent . there is accordingly considerable freedom in changing the film thickness without undue effects on mechanical properties . the capacitance per unit length in an area can be doubled ( or halved ) with only a minor change in stiffness . this fact suggests a solution to the dilemma involved in trying to design for both stiffness and impedance and underlies the present invention . in a typical design situation , the existing design of a conventional suspension flexure that had relied on a series of holes to control capacitance and thus impedance but had the correct impedance only on the write side , is modified to eliminate the holes and correct the impedance is for the read side without changing the already correct impedance on the write side . to do this , the polyimide thickness at the left and right lateral portions of the load beam rigid section is altered differentially . for example , assuming the film thickness was a uniform 0 . 00071 - inch in the old design , providing a correct capacitance / impedance for the write side but too low a capacitance and too high an impedance for the read side , a new capacitance must be realized on the read side . to do so , calculate the new capacitance value as follows : c 1 / c 2 = z 2 { circumflex over ( )} 2 / z 1 { circumflex over ( )} 2 this means there is a need to make a 1 . 56 increase in capacitance of the read traces to reduce the read impedance to the desired value of 80 ohms . this can be achieved by reducing the thickness of the polyimide from 0 . 00071 inches to 0 . 00045 . the calculation of the desired thickness is simply c = ka / d a is area of capacitor , d is spacing between plates , k is a constant c 1 / c 2 = d 2 / d 1 the result means that to achieve the correct impedance for the read side there needs to be a reduction in the polyimide thickness to 0 . 00045 inches , a reduction that will have no significant effect on the stiffness , or stiffness symmetry . with reference now to the drawings in detail , in fig1 and 3 , the invention suspension is at 10 to comprise in part flexure 16 having a steel underlayer 11 that will be attached ( fig2 and 3 ) to a stainless steel load beam 12 . load beam 12 has a predetermined shape that is not critical here and that is dictated by desired mechanical properties and mass considerations . load beam 12 has a rigid section 14 . flexure 16 in assembled condition with the load beam 12 extends along the length of at least the load beam rigid section 14 and supports a slider ( not shown ) at the distal end of the load beam for operative association with a disk ( not shown ). the flexure 16 comprises an assembly of the stainless steel underlayer 11 , copper trace conductors 28 defining read conductor circuit 22 and read copper trace conductors 26 defining read conductor circuit 24 . flexure 16 further comprises , disposed between the steel underlayer 11 and the trace conductors 26 , 28 a plastic insulative film 30 , typically polyimide film , that spaces the trace conductors from the load beam steel underlayer 11 ( and thus from the load beam 12 ) a distance that determines the trace conductor capacitances . a second plastic film 31 covers the exposed trace conductors 26 , 28 above the film 30 . see fig2 and 3 . in order to provide the differential capacitance that is a feature of the invention , and that enables the controlled , varied impedance between the read and writes sides of the suspension , the dielectric film 30 has , in a direction lying transverse to the longitudinal axis l — l of the load beam a differential thickness . this thickness ranges from a lesser thickness t in a first lateral portion 32 of the film 30 adjacent one edge margin 42 of the stainless steel layer 11 to a greater thickness t in a second lateral portion 36 adjacent the other edge margin 46 of the stainless steel layer 11 . read conductor circuit 22 comprises plural trace conductors 28 and defines a read circuit that is attached to the film 30 first lateral portion 32 at a spacing equal to thickness t to be relatively closer to the stainless steel layer 11 , and load beam 12 , across that film portion . write conductor circuit 24 comprises plural trace conductors 26 and defines a write circuit that is attached to the film second lateral portion 36 at a spacing equal to thickness t to be relatively farther from the steel layer 11 and load beam 12 , across that film portion . as noted above , the differential spacing provides a capacitance differential respectively between the steel layer 11 and the read and write circuits 22 and 24 . the capacitance differential provides the desired selected and different impedances for the circuits . the invention thus provides greater control of impedance values in a flexure and in a disk drive suspension incorporating the flexure , a differential in impedance between read and write circuits , and a controlled thickness in the film insulative layer in the suspension flexure , differentiated between the read and write circuits , to vary the circuit capacitance and thus the impedance to optimize the impedance values for each circuit without compromise of the other circuit impedance . the foregoing objects are thus met . | 6 |
reference will now be made in detail to the preferred embodiments of the present invention , examples of which are illustrated in the accompanying drawings . fig3 a and 3b are perspective views of exemplary fluorescent lamps of a backlight device according to the present invention . in fig3 a , an external electrode fluorescent lamp ( eefl ) 31 may have external electrodes 33 and 33 a formed at both ends of the eefl lamp 31 , such that light is emitted when a power is applied to the external electrodes 33 and 33 a . an insulating layer 32 may partially enclose the external electrodes 33 and 33 a . in fig3 b , a cold cathode fluorescent lamp ( ccfl ) 31 a may have internal electrodes 34 and 34 a at both ends of the ccfl lamp 31 a , such that light is emitted when a power is applied to the internal electrodes 34 and 34 a . in addition , lamp holders 35 and 35 a may be formed at both ends of the ccfl lamps 31 a for holding the internal electrodes 34 and 34 a and the power incoming lines 36 and 36 a . fig4 a and 4b are perspective views of an exemplary direct - type backlight device according to the present invention , and fig4 c is a cross - sectional view of the exemplary backlight device illustrated in fig4 b . in fig4 a , a backlight device may include a plurality of fluorescent lamps 31 arranged parallel to each other , first and second lower lamp fixing assemblies 41 a and 41 b arranged facing each other , first and second upper lamp fixing assemblies 43 a and 43 b arranged facing each other , and conductive layers 47 a , 47 b , 47 c , and 47 d formed along sides of the lamp fixing assemblies 41 a , 41 b , 43 a , and 43 b . the fluorescent lamps 31 may be eefl lamps and may have external electrodes 33 and 33 a , and insulating layers 32 at both ends thereof . in addition , the first and second lower lamp fixing assemblies 41 a and 41 b may face each other at a predetermined interval to correspond to a length of the fluorescent lamps 31 , and may have a plurality of grooves 45 formed along the sides thereof . further , the first and second upper lamp fixing assemblies 43 a and 43 b may be arranged at the same predetermined interval as the first and second lower lamp fixing assemblies 41 a and 41 b , and may have a plurality of grooves 45 a formed along the sides thereof to correspond the grooves 45 . the grooves 45 and 45 a may be formed such that the fluorescent lamps 31 completely penetrate the first and second upper and lower lamp fixing assemblies 43 a , 43 b , 41 a , and 41 b . also , the grooves 45 may accommodate about half of the diameter of the fluorescent lamps 31 and the grooves 45 a may accommodate the remaining half of the diameter of the fluorescent lamp 31 . accordingly , the ends of the fluorescent lamps 31 may be securely fixed within the grooves 45 and 45 a of the lower and upper lamp fixing assemblies 41 a , 41 b , 43 a , and 43 b , as shown in fig4 b , thereby making the installment / replacement of the fluorescent lamps 31 easier . in addition , as shown in fig4 b , the conductive layers 47 a , 47 b , 47 c , and 47 d may contact the ends of the fluorescent lamps 31 for applying a power to the fluorescent lamps 31 . the conductive layers 47 a , 47 b , 47 c , and 47 d may be formed by filling a conductive material inside a trench along the sides of the lower and upper lamp fixing assemblies 41 a , 41 b , 43 a , and 43 b . alternatively , the conductive layers 47 a , 47 b , 47 c , and 47 d may be formed by coating a conductive material on a surface of the lower and upper lamp fixing assemblies 41 a , 41 b , 43 a , and 43 b . also , a connector 61 may connect the conductive layers 47 a , 47 b , 47 c , and 47 d to a driving circuit ( not shown ) for driving and supplying a power to the fluorescent lamps 31 . accordingly , the number of connectors used within the backlight device may be reduced and the interconnection between the fluorescent lamps and the driving circuit may be simplified . as shown in fig4 c , the first and second upper lamp fixing assemblies 43 a and 43 b may have a tapering width , wherein the width of the surfaces contacting the lower lamp fixing assemblies 41 a and 41 b may be larger than a width a of the opposing surfaces . for example , the first and second lamp fixing assemblies 43 a and 43 b may have an inclined angle θ of about 10 ° to about 30 °. also , the external electrodes 33 and 33 a may be partially exposed within an effective luminous area , and the partially exposed portions may have a length x . the length x may depend on the incline angle θ and a height h of the first upper and lower lamp fixing assemblies 43 a and 41 a or of the second upper and lower lamp fixing assemblies 43 b and 41 b . for example , the exposed length x of the electrodes 33 and 33 a may be within about 35 % of the height h of the first and second upper and lower lamp fixing assemblies 43 a , 43 b , 41 a , and 41 b , i . e ., x ≦ 0 . 35h . if the incline angle θ is set at a range of about 20 - 24 °, the length x may correspond to about 20 % of the height h , i . e ., x = 0 . 2h . accordingly , the width a of the first and second upper lamp fixing assemblies 43 a and 43 b may be reduced and the luminance at both ends of the fluorescent lamps 31 may be enhanced without diminishing quality of image within the effective luminous area . furthermore , the partially exposed portions of the external electrodes 33 and 33 a may be covered with the insulating layer 32 to avoid formation of a dark line around ends of the fluorescent lamps 31 caused by oxidization of the external electrodes 33 and 33 a . for example , the insulating layer 32 may be made of a white insulating material . in fig4 c , the backlight device may further include a non - luminous area , wherein luminance within the area drops to a value of less than about ½ of the luminance of an effective luminous area of the device . generally , the non - luminous area of a unit fluorescent module is influenced by the width a of an upper surface of the upper lamp fixing assemblies 43 a and 43 b , such that the narrower the width a is , the smaller the non - luminous area . accordingly , it is possible to decrease the width a by exposing the electrodes 33 and 33 a outside the upper and lower lamp fixing assemblies 43 a , 43 b , 41 a , and 41 b , and by covering the exposed portion of the electrodes 33 and 33 a with the insulating film 32 . further , it is possible to lengthen the electrodes 33 and 33 a , thereby reducing the amount and the frequency of driving voltage applied thereto . with a reduced amount of driving voltage , less heat may be generated and the life of the fluorescent lamp may be extended . in addition , the backlight device may further include a light scattering member ( not shown ), such as a diffusion sheet or a diffusion plate , arranged above the first and second upper lamp fixing assemblies 43 a and 43 b for uniformly distributing light emitted from the fluorescent lamps 31 onto a lcd panel ( not shown ). the backlight device may also include a reflection plate ( not shown ) arranged below the first and second lower lamp fixing assemblies 41 a and 41 b for directing light emitted from the fluorescent lamps 31 onto a center portion of the lcd panel . in addition , the height h of the upper and lower lamp fixing assemblies 43 a , 43 b , 41 a , and 41 b may be defined by a length from an upper surface of the reflection plate to a lower surface of the light scattering member . fig5 a is a perspective view of another exemplary direct - type backlight device according to the present invention , and fig5 b is a cross - sectional view of the exemplary backlight device illustrated in fig5 a . in fig5 a , a backlight device may include a plurality of fluorescent lamps 31 a arranged parallel to each other , first and second lower lamp fixing assemblies 51 a and 51 b arranged facing each other , first and second upper lamp fixing assemblies 53 a and 53 b arranged facing each other , and power - incoming lines 36 and 36 a . the fluorescent lamps 31 a may be ccfl lamps and may have internal electrodes 34 and 34 a at both ends thereof . in addition , the fluorescent lamps 31 a may have a plurality of lamp holders 35 and 35 a formed at both ends of the fluorescent lamps 31 a for holding the internal electrodes 34 and 34 a and the power incoming lines 36 and 36 a . furthermore , the power - incoming lines 36 and 36 a may connect the electrodes 34 and 34 a to a driving circuit ( not shown ) via a single connector ( not shown ) for driving and supplying a power to the fluorescent lamps 31 a . accordingly , the number of connectors used within the backlight device may be reduced and the interconnection between the fluorescent lamps and the driving circuit may be simplified . in addition , the first and second lower lamp fixing assemblies 51 a and 51 b may face each other at a predetermined interval to correspond to a length of the fluorescent lamps 31 a , and may have a plurality of grooves 55 formed along the sides thereof . further , the first and second upper lamp fixing assemblies 53 a and 53 b may be arranged at the same predetermined interval as the first and second lower lamp fixing assemblies 51 a and 51 b , and may have a plurality of grooves 55 a formed along the sides thereof to correspond the grooves 55 . the grooves 55 and 55 a may be formed such that the fluorescent lamps 31 a completely penetrate the first and second upper and lower lamp fixing assemblies 53 a , 53 b , 51 a , and 51 b . also , the lamp holders 35 and 35 a may have the same diameter , such that the grooves 55 may accommodate about half of the diameter of the lamp holders 35 and 35 a , and the grooves 55 a may accommodate the remaining half of the diameter of the lamp holders 35 and 35 a . accordingly , the ends of the fluorescent lamps 31 a may be securely fixed within the grooves 55 and 55 a of the lower and upper lamp fixing assemblies 51 a , 51 b , 53 a , and 53 b , thereby making the installment / replacement of the fluorescent lamps 31 a easier . as shown in fig5 b , the first and second upper lamp fixing assemblies 53 a and 53 b may have a tapering width , wherein the width of the surfaces contacting the lower lamp fixing assemblies 51 a and 51 b may be larger than the width a of the opposing surfaces . for example , the first and second lamp fixing assemblies 53 a and 53 b may have an inclined angle θ of about 10 ° to about 30 °. also , the electrodes 34 and 34 a may be partially exposed within an effective luminous area , and the partially exposed portions may have a length x . the length x may depend on the incline angle θ and a height h of the first upper and lower lamp fixing assemblies 53 a and 51 a or of the second upper and lower lamp fixing assemblies 53 b and 51 b . for example , the exposed length x of the electrodes 34 and 34 a may be within about 35 % of the height h of the first and second upper and lower lamp fixing assemblies 53 a , 53 b , 51 a , and 51 b , i . e ., x ≦ 0 . 35h . if the incline angle θ is set at a range of about 20 - 24 °, the length x may correspond to about 20 % of the height h , i . e ., x = 0 . 2h . accordingly , the width a of the first and second upper lamp fixing assemblies 53 a and 53 b may be reduced and the luminance at both ends of the fluorescent lamps 31 a may be enhanced without diminishing quality of image within the effective luminous area . the backlight device may further include a non - luminous area , wherein luminance within the area drops to a value of less than about ½ of the luminance of an effective luminous area of the device . generally , the non - luminous area of a unit fluorescent module is influenced by the width a of an upper surface of the upper lamp fixing assemblies 53 a and 53 b , such that the narrower the width a is , the smaller the non - luminous area . accordingly , it is possible to decrease the width a by exposing the electrodes 34 and 34 a outside the upper and lower lamp fixing assemblies 53 a , 53 b , 51 a , and 51 b . further , it is possible to lengthen the electrodes 34 and 34 a , thereby reducing the amount and the frequency of driving voltage applied thereto . with a reduced amount of driving voltage , less heat may be generated and the life of the fluorescent lamp may be extended . in addition , the backlight device may further include a light scattering member ( not shown ), such as a diffusion sheet or a diffusion plate , arranged above the first and second upper lamp fixing assemblies 53 a and 53 b for uniformly distributing light emitted from the fluorescent lamps 31 a onto a lcd panel ( not shown ). the backlight device may also include a reflection plate ( not shown ) arranged below the first and second lower lamp fixing assemblies 51 a and 51 b for directing light emitted from the fluorescent lamps 31 a onto a center portion of the lcd panel . in addition , the height h of the upper and lower lamp fixing assemblies 53 a , 53 b , 51 a , and 51 b may be defined by a length from an upper surface of the reflection plate to a lower surface of the light scattering means . fig6 a and 6b are perspective views of another exemplary direct - type backlight device according to the present invention , and fig6 c is a cross - sectional view of the exemplary backlight device illustrated in fig6 b . in fig6 a , a backlight device may include a plurality of fluorescent lamps 31 arranged parallel to each other , first and second lower lamp fixing assemblies 61 a and 61 b arranged facing each other , first and second upper lamp fixing assemblies 63 a and 63 b arranged facing each other , and conductive layers 67 a , 67 b , 67 c , and 67 d formed along the sides of the lamp fixing assemblies 61 a , 61 b , 63 a , and 63 b . the fluorescent lamps 31 may be eefl lamps and may have external electrodes 33 and 33 a , and insulating layers 32 at both ends thereof . alternatively , the fluorescent lamps 31 may be replaced by the ccfl lamps 31 a , shown in fig3 b , such that only the power - incoming lines 9 and 9 a may be extended outside of the lamp fixing assemblies 61 a , 61 b , 63 a , and 63 b . in addition , the first and second lower lamp fixing assemblies 61 a and 61 b may face each other at a predetermined interval to correspond to a length of the fluorescent lamps 31 , and may have a plurality of grooves 65 formed along the sides thereof . further , the first and second upper lamp fixing assemblies 63 a and 63 b may be arranged at the same predetermined interval as the first and second lower lamp fixing assemblies 61 a and 61 b , and may have a plurality of grooves 65 a formed along the sides thereof to correspond the grooves 65 . the grooves 65 and 65 a may be formed such that the fluorescent lamps 31 only partially penetrate the first and second upper and lower lamp fixing assemblies 63 a , 63 b , 61 a , and 61 b . also , the grooves 65 may accommodate about half of the diameter of the fluorescent lamps 31 and the grooves 65 a may accommodate the remaining half of the diameter of the fluorescent lamp 31 . accordingly , the ends of the fluorescent lamps 31 may be securely fixed within the grooves 65 and 65 a of the lower and upper lamp fixing assemblies 61 a , 61 b , 63 a , and 63 b , as shown in fig6 b , thereby making the installment / replacement of the fluorescent lamps 31 easier and reducing external impact on the fluorescent lamps 31 . as shown in fig6 c , the first and second upper lamp fixing assemblies 63 a and 63 b may have a tapering width , wherein the width of the surfaces contacting the lower lamp fixing assemblies 61 a and 61 b may be larger than a width a of the opposing surfaces . for example , the first and second lamp fixing assemblies 63 a and 63 b may have an inclined angle θ of about 10 ° to about 30 °. also , the external electrodes 63 and 63 a may be partially exposed within an effective luminous area , and the partially exposed portions may have a length of x . the length x may depend on the incline angle θ and a height h of the first upper and lower lamp fixing assemblies 63 a and 61 a or of the second upper and lower lamp fixing assemblies 63 b and 61 b . for example , the exposed length x of the electrodes 33 and 33 a may be within about 35 % of the height h of the first and second upper and lower lamp fixing assemblies 63 a , 63 b , 61 a , and 61 b , i . e ., x ≦ 0 . 35h . if the incline angle θ is set at a range of about 20 - 24 °, the length x may correspond to about 20 % of the height h , i . e ., x = 0 . 2h . accordingly , the width a of the first and second upper lamp fixing assemblies 63 a and 63 b may be reduced and the luminance at both ends of the fluorescent lamps 31 may be enhanced without diminishing quality of image within the effective luminous area . the backlight device may further include a non - luminous area , wherein luminance within the area drops to a value of less than about ½ of the luminance of an effective luminance area of the device . generally , the non - luminous area of a unit fluorescent module is influenced by the width a of an upper surface of the upper lamp fixing assemblies 63 a and 63 b , such that the narrower the width a is , the smaller the non - luminous area . accordingly , it is possible to decrease the width a by exposing the electrodes 33 and 33 a outside the upper and lower lamp fixing assemblies 63 a , 63 b , 61 a , and 61 b , and by covering the exposed portion of the electrodes 33 and 33 a with the insulating film 32 . further , it is possible to lengthen the electrodes 33 and 33 a , thereby reducing the amount and the frequency of driving voltage applied thereto . with a reduced amount of driving voltage , less heat may be generated and the life of the fluorescent lamp may be extended . fig7 a is a perspective view of another exemplary direct - type backlight device according to the present invention , and fig7 b is a cross - sectional view of the exemplary backlight device illustrated in fig7 a . in fig7 a , a backlight device may include a plurality of fluorescent lamps 31 arranged parallel to each other , first and second lower lamp fixing assemblies 71 a and 71 b arranged facing each other , a lower supporting system 91 a , 91 b , and 91 c formed between the lower lamp fixing assemblies 71 a and 71 b for supporting the lower assemblies 71 a and 71 b , first and second upper lamp fixing assemblies 73 a and 73 b arranged facing each other , and conductive layers 77 a , 77 b , 77 c , and 77 d formed along the sides of the lamp fixing assemblies 71 a , 71 b , 73 a , and 73 b . the fluorescent lamps 31 may be eefl lamps and may have external electrodes 33 and 33 a , and insulating layers 32 at both ends thereof . alternatively , the fluorescent lamps 31 may be replaced by the ccfl lamps 31 a , shown in fig3 b , such that only the power - incoming lines 9 and 9 a may be extended outside of the lamp fixing assemblies 71 a , 71 b , 73 a , and 73 b . the first and second lower lamp fixing assemblies 71 a and 71 b may also have a plurality of grooves 75 formed along the sides thereof . further , the first and second upper lamp fixing assemblies 73 a and 73 b may have a plurality of grooves 75 a formed along the sides thereof to correspond the grooves 75 . the grooves 75 and 75 a may be formed such that the fluorescent lamps 31 completely or partially penetrate the first and second upper and lower lamp fixing assemblies 73 a , 73 b , 71 a , and 71 b . also , the grooves 75 may accommodate about half of the diameter of the fluorescent lamps 31 and the grooves 75 a may accommodate the remaining half of the diameter of the fluorescent lamp 31 . accordingly , the ends of the fluorescent lamps 31 may be securely fixed within the grooves 75 and 75 a of the lower and upper lamp fixing assemblies 71 a , 71 b , 73 a , and 73 b , as shown in fig7 b , thereby making the installment / replacement of the fluorescent lamps 31 easier . in addition , the first and second lower lamp fixing assemblies 71 a and 71 b may face each other at a predetermined interval to correspond to a length of the fluorescent lamps 31 , and the lower supporting system 91 a , 91 b , and 91 c . furthermore , the first and second lower lamp fixing assemblies 71 a and 71 b may be integrally formed with the lower supporting system 91 a , 91 b , and 91 c . accordingly , the first and second lower lamp fixing assemblies 71 a and 71 b may be accurately arranged to securely affix the fluorescent lamps 31 . inner surfaces of the first and second lower assemblies 71 a and 71 b and the lower supporting systems 91 a , 91 b , and 91 c may be formed of material having good light reflection ability , such as synthetic resin , to perform as a reflection plate . alternatively , a reflective material may be coated onto the inner surfaces of the first and second lower assemblies 71 a and 71 b and the lower supporting systems 91 a , 91 b , and 91 c . accordingly , a reflection plate may be formed , thereby irradiating light emitted from the fluorescent lamps 31 toward a lcd panel ( not shown ). furthermore , the first and second upper lamp fixing assemblies 73 a and 73 b may have a tapering width , wherein the width of the surfaces contacting the lower lamp fixing assemblies 71 a and 71 b may be larger than a width a of the opposing surfaces . for example , the first and second lamp fixing assemblies 73 a and 73 b may have an inclined angle θ of about 10 ° to about 30 °. also , the external electrodes 33 and 33 a may be partially exposed within an effective luminous area , and the partially exposed portions may have a length of x . fig8 a is a perspective view of another exemplary direct - type backlight device according to the present invention , and fig8 b is a cross - sectional view of the exemplary backlight device illustrated in fig8 a . in fig8 a , a backlight device may include a plurality of fluorescent lamps 31 arranged parallel to each other , first and second lower lamp fixing assemblies 81 a and 81 b arranged facing each other , a lower supporting system 191 a , 191 b , and 191 c formed between the lower lamp fixing assemblies 81 a and 81 b for supporting the lower assemblies 81 a and 81 b , first and second upper lamp fixing assemblies 83 a and 83 b arranged facing each other , an upper supporting system 100 a and 100 b formed between the upper lamp fixing assemblies 83 a and 83 b , and conductive layers 87 a , 87 b , 87 c , and 87 d formed along the sides of the lamp fixing assemblies 81 a , 81 b , 83 a , and 83 b . the fluorescent lamps 31 may be eefl lamps and may have external electrodes 33 and 33 a , and insulating layers 32 at both ends thereof . alternatively , the fluorescent lamps 31 may be replaced by the ccfl lamps 31 a , shown in fig3 b , such that only the power - incoming lines 9 and 9 a may be extended outside of the lamp fixing assemblies 81 a , 81 b , 83 a , and 83 b . the first and second lower lamp fixing assemblies 81 a and 81 b may also have a plurality of grooves 85 formed along the sides thereof . further , the first and second upper lamp fixing assemblies 83 a and 83 b may have a plurality of grooves 85 a formed along the sides thereof to correspond the grooves 85 . the grooves 85 and 85 a may be formed such that the fluorescent lamps 31 completely or partially penetrate the first and second upper and lower lamp fixing assemblies 83 a , 83 b , 81 a , and 81 b . also , the grooves 85 may accommodate about half of the diameter of the fluorescent lamps 31 and the grooves 85 a may accommodate the remaining half of the diameter of the fluorescent lamp 31 . accordingly , the ends of the fluorescent lamps 31 may be securely fixed within the grooves 85 and 85 a of the lower and upper lamp fixing assemblies 81 a , 81 b , 83 a , and 83 b , as shown in fig8 b , thereby making the installment / replacement of the fluorescent lamps 31 easier . in addition , the first and second lower lamp fixing assemblies 81 a and 81 b may face each other at a predetermined interval to correspond to a length of the fluorescent lamps 31 , and the lower supporting system 191 a , 191 b , and 191 c . furthermore , the first and second lower lamp fixing assemblies 81 a and 81 b may be integrally formed with the lower supporting system 191 a , 191 b , and 191 c . accordingly , the first and second lower lamp fixing assemblies 81 a and 81 b may be accurately arranged to securely affix the fluorescent lamps 31 . the first and second upper lamp fixing assemblies 83 a and 83 b may face each other at the same predetermined interval as the first and second lower lamp fixing assemblies 81 a and 81 b . further , the first and second upper lamp fixing assemblies 83 a and 83 b may be integrally formed with the upper supporting system 100 a and 100 b . accordingly , the first and second lower lamp fixing assemblies 83 a and 83 b may be accurately arranged to securely affix the fluorescent lamps 31 . furthermore , the first and second upper lamp fixing assemblies 83 a and 83 b may have a tapering width , wherein the width of the surfaces contacting the lower lamp fixing assemblies 81 a and 81 b is larger than a width a of the opposing surfaces . for example , the first and second lamp fixing assemblies 83 a and 83 b may have an inclined angle θ of about 10 ° to about 30 °. also , the external electrodes 33 and 33 a may be partially exposed within an effective luminous area , and the partially exposed portions may have a length of x . the aforementioned backlight devices may be used as light sources at a rear side or a front side of a display , or as a light emitting device by themselves . the aforementioned backlight device of the present invention has the following effects . first , lamp electrodes may expose in an effective luminous area of the backlight device , thereby decreasing a width of the upper lamp fixing assemblies and enhancing efficiency of the device . second , lamp electrodes may be lengthened , thereby lowering the driving voltage and extending the life of the fluorescent lamps . third , the upper lamp fixing assemblies may have a tapering width , thereby widening the effective luminous area . fourth , supporting systems for supporting the upper and lower lamp fixing assemblies may be formed , thereby accurately arranging the lamp fixing assemblies and securely affixing the fluorescent lamps . it will be apparent to those skilled in the art that various modifications and variations can be made in the backlight device and the method of fabricating the same of the present invention without departing from the spirit or scope of the invention . thus , it is intended that the present invention cover the modifications and variations of this invention provided they come within the scope of the appended claims and their equivalents . | 6 |
the principles of the present invention are particularly useful when embodied in an apparatus for measuring vehicle wheel alignment , such as shown in fig1 generally indicated by the reference numeral 10 . the apparatus 10 generally includes two cooperating pairs of drive rollers 11 , 11 ( only one pair being shown in fig2 ) for rotating front and rear wheels 12a , 12b and 12c , 12d , respectively , of a motor vehicle 13 while retaining the vehicle 13 in a predetermined position , two pairs of front and rear measuring units 14a , 14b and 14c , 14d between which the front and rear wheels 12a - 12d are to be disposed with a predetermined space leaving between each of the wheels 12a - 12d and a corresponding measuring unit 14a - 14d , and four electronic circuit units 15a - 15d connected respectively with the measuring units 14a - 14d for electronically processing the data obtained by the measuring units 14a - 14d . all the measuring units 14a - 14d are structurally and functionally the same and hence only the right front measuring unit 14b is described hereinbelow in detail with reference to fig2 . the measuring unit 14b is slidably mounted on a horizontal base 14b &# 39 ; and laterally movable in a direction perpendicular to the longitudinal axis of the vehicle 13 . the measuring unit 14b includes two pairs of photoelectric sensors 16a , 16b and 16c , 16d for optoelectronically measuring the distance between a reference vertical plane and the outer side surface of a tire 17 fixed about the right front wheel 12b . each of the photoelectric sensors 16a - 16d comprises an optical displacement sensor constructed to produce , in such a manner known per se , an analog output signal whose magnitude varies proportional to the distance between the tire side surface and the reference vertical plane . the sensors 16a , 16b or 16c , 16d of each pair of equidistantly spaced from a plane extending in tangent to a circle defining the central diameter d 0 ( fig4 ) of the tire 17 . the sensors 16a - 16d are mounted on a linear support member 18 in aligment with each other and they are disposed in the reference vertical plane in confronting relation to the tire 17 . the support member 18 is normally held in a horizontal position and extends parallel to the longitudinal central axis of the motor vehicle 13 . the support member 18 is angularly movable about its midportion between the horizontal position ( fig2 ) and a vertical position ( fig7 ). the apparatus 10 further includes a first follow - up means for adjusting the position of measurement to follow - up the displacement of each wheel 12a - 12d in a first direction parallel to the longitudinal axis of the vehicle 13 , and a second follow - up means for adjusting the position of the measurement to follow - up the displacement of each wheel 12a - 12d in a second direction perpendicular to the longitudinal axis of the vehicle 13 . the first follow - up means ( i . e ., first adjusting means ) comprises , as shown in fig2 a stepping motor 19 operatively connected with the support member 18 via a cam 20 . the stepping motor 19 is mounted on the measuring unit 14b , and the cam 20 is coupled with a drive shaft of the stepping motor 19 for co - rotation therewith . the cam 20 is held in driving engagement with the support member 18 so as to convert a stepwise angular motion of the stepping motor 19 into a linear reciprocating motion of the support member 18 in the first direction . the stepping motor 19 is connected with the electronic circuit unit 15b and is driven by the latter to move the support member 18 in synchronism with the movement of the wheel 12b so as to follow - up the displacement of the wheel 12b in the first direction . the second follow - up means ( i . e ., second adjusting means ) comprises a fluid - actuated cylinder 21 fixedly mounted on the base 14b &# 39 ; and having a piston rod 22 connected to the measuring unit 14b . the cylinder 21 is operatively connected with and driven by the electronic circuit unit 15b to move the measuring unit 14b in the second direction , in synchronism with the displacement of the wheel 12b in the second direction . the cylinder 21 may be operatively coupled with a cylinder ( not shown ) connected with the measuring unit 12a so as to reciprocate the measuring units 12a , 12b simultaneously in the same direction . with this arrangement , the distance between the side surface of each tire 17 and the corresponding reference vertical plane is always kept constant . all the electronic circuits units 15a - 15d are structurally and functionally identical and hence only one unit 15b is described hereinbelow in detail with reference to fig3 . the electronic circuit unit 15b includes two transducers 23 , 24 connected respectively with the two pairs of sensors 16a , 16b and 16c , 16d for producing analog voltage signals corresponding in magnitude to analog input signals received from the respective sensors 16a - 16d . the transducers 23 , 24 are connected with a pair of analog - to - digital ( a / d ) converters 25 , 26 , respectively , so that the analog voltage signals representing the distance between the tire side surface and the reference vertical plane are converted by the a / d converters 25 , 26 into digital signals . the digital signals from the a / d converters 25 , 26 are then inputted through a data bus consisting of eight lines , into a microcomputer 27 indicated by a chain rectangle . the microcomputer 27 comprises a central processing unit ( cpu ) 28 , a read only memory ( rom ) 29 , a random access memory ( ram ) 30 , and a clock pulse generator 31 having a quartz oscillator for generating reference clock pulses . after having been delivered to the microcomputer 27 , updated data regarding the status of the foregoing distance are stored in the ram 30 for a predetermined interval of time ( approximately 1 . 0 second ). upon expiration of this interval of time , the stored data are read out from the ram 30 and processed in the cpu 28 to obtain a digital output signal indicative of a toe - in angle of the wheel 12b . the digital output signal is then delivered to a digital - to - analog ( d / a ) converter 32 which in turn produces an analog output signal to be displayed on an analog display unit 33 . the digital output signal from the microcomputer 27 is also supplied to a digital driver 34 and then indicated by a digital display unit 35 driven by the digital driver 34 . the microcomputer 27 continuously receives the updated data on the displacement of the wheel 12b from the sensor inputs and , based on the input data , it produces output control signals for enabling the measuring unit 14b to follow - up a displacement of the wheel 14b either in a first direction parallel to the longitudinal axis of the vehicle 13 , or in a second direction perpendicular to the first direction . to this end , the output control signals are delivered to the stepping motor 19 and the cylinder 21 , respectively , through a stepping motor driver 36 and a cylinder driver 37 . the operation of the microcomputer 27 is described below with reference to the flow chart shown in fig6 in which the measurement of a toe - in of the front wheels 12a , 12b is achieved . when a main switch is closed , the microcomputer 27 is driven to proceed the program stored therein from a first step i . in the next step ii , the cpu 28 is reset or initialized to clean - up its contents and then the operation proceeds to the following step iii in which the data on the distance between each sensor 16a - 16d , i . e . the reference vertical plane and the tire side surface of each wheel 12a , 12b are read in .. in the next step iv , the input data are computed to determine whether the right front wheel 12b has been displaced . for this determination , the following equation is used : b - a = c - d where a , b , c or d is a distance between one of the sensors 16a - 16d and the tire side surface of the right front wheel 12b ( fig4 ). if the result does not satisfy the foregoing equation , then the operation proceeds in the direction &# 34 ; no &# 34 ; to a step v in which the position of the measuring unit 14b is adjusted by the stepping motor 19 so as to follow - up the displacement of the wheel 12b until the foregoing equation is satisfied . on the contrary , when the judgement in the step iv is coincident with the foregoing equation , then the operation proceeds in the direction &# 34 ; yes &# 34 ; to commence a judgement on the left front wheel 12a . this judgement is achieved in a step vi by employing the equation : f - e = g - h where e , f , g or h is the distance between one of the sensors 16a - 16d and the tire side surface of the left front wheel 12a . if the judgement does not satisfy the equation , then the operation proceeds in the direction &# 34 ; no &# 34 ; to a step vii in which positional adjustment of the measuring unit 14a is effected in the same manner as done in the step v . when the last - mentioned equation is ratiofied , the operation proceeds to the next step viii . in the step viii , a toe - in t is computed in accordance with a equation which is derived in the following manner . as shown in fig5 the toe - in t is equal to the difference between the maximum distance b between the central vertical planes of the opposite wheels 12a , 12b , and the minimum distance a between the central vertical planes of the wheels 12a , 12b ( t = b - a ). the difference is the same as the difference between the maximum joint width of the opposite wheels 12a , 12b and the minimum joint width of the wheels 12a , 12b ( t = b - a = bo - ao ). the maximum and minimum joint widths bo , ao are obtained in accordance with the following equations ( 1 ) and ( 2 ), respectively . in equations ( 1 ) and ( 2 ), l is the distance between the opposed reference vertical planes , do represents the central diameter of the tire 17 , d is the outside diameter of the tire 17 , and e , f , g or h is the distance between the tire side surface of each wheel 12a , 12b and the corresponding reference vertical plane , as measured on the central diameter do of the tire 17 ( see fig4 ). the distance e , f , g or h is determined by the equation it appears from the foregoing description that the toe - in can be computed based on the distances a - d which are detected by the respective sensors 16a - 16d . then the operation proceeds to a step ix in which the computed toe - in is displaced on the display units 33 , 35 . according to the present invention , it is also possible to adjust the position of the measuring units 12a , 12b to follow - up the lateral displacement of the wheels 12a - 12b . this adjustment is achieved by displacing the measuring units 12a , 12b in such a manner that the equations : a - e = b - f and g - c = h - d are always satisfied . when a camber angle θc is to be measured , the guide member 18 is angularly moved from the horizontal position to a vertical position shown in fig7 . in the camber angle measurement , the microcomputer 27 proceeds the program stored therein in the same manner as done in the toe - in measurement described above . the camber angle θc may be determined on the basis of the data regarding the distances detected by the sensors 16a - 16c . obviously , many modifications and variations of the present invention are possible in the light of the above teachings . it is therefore to be understood that within the scope of the appended claims , the invention may be practiced otherwise than as specifically described . | 6 |
it is understood that the terminology used herein is for the purpose of describing particular embodiments only and is not intended to be limiting . as used in this specification , the singular forms “ a ”, “ an ”, and “ the ” include plural referents unless the content clearly indicates otherwise . the following terms in the glossary as used in this application are to be defined as stated below and for these terms , the singular includes the plural . various headings are present to aid the reader , but are not the exclusive location of all aspects of that referenced subject matter and are not to be construed as limiting the location of such discussion . also , certain us patents and pct published applications have been incorporated by reference . however , the text of such patents is only incorporated by reference to the extent that no conflict exists between such text and other statements set forth herein . in the event of such conflict , then any such conflicting text in such incorporated by reference us patent or pct application is specifically not so incorporated in this patent . ala means α - linolenic acid or cis , cis , cis - 9 , 12 , 15 - octadecatrienoic acid , having 18 carbons , 3 cis double bonds , that is modified by reduction of the carboxylic acid to a methylene moiety to be r of formula ( i ), rs - 5 -(( 9z , 12z , 15z )- octadeca - 6 , 9 , 12 - trien - 1 - yl ) thiazolidine - 2 , 4 - dione , as shown by the formula below : dha means cis , cis , cis , cis , cis , cis - 4 , 7 , 10 , 13 , 16 , 19 - docosahexaenoic acid or docosahexaenoic acid , having 22 carbons , 6 cis double bonds , that is modified by reduction of the carboxylic acid to a methylene moiety to be r of formula ( i ), rs - 5 -(( 4z , 7z , 10z , 13z , 16z , 19z ) docosa - 4 , 7 , 10 , 13 , 16 , 19 - hexaen - 1 - yl ) thiazolidine - 2 , 4 - dione , as shown by the formula below : dpa means cis , cis , cis , cis , cis - 7 , 10 , 13 , 16 , 19 - docosapentaenoic acid or docosapentaenoic acid , having 22 carbons , 5 cis double bonds , that is modified by reduction of the carboxylic acid to a methylene moiety to be r of formula ( i ), rs - 5 -(( 7z , 10z , 13z , 16z , 19z ) docosa - 7 , 10 , 13 , 16 , 19 - pentaen - 1 - yl ) thiazolidine - 2 , 4 - dione , as shown by the formula below : epa means cis , cis , cis , cis , cis - 5 , 8 , 11 , 14 , 17 - eicosapentanenoic acid or eicosapentanenoic acid , having 20 carbons , 5 cis double bonds , that is modified by reduction of the carboxylic acid to a methylene moiety to be r of formula ( i ), rs - 5 -(( 5z , 8z , 11z , 14z , 17z )- eicosa - 5 , 8 , 11 , 14 , 17 - pentaen - 1 - yl ) thiazolidine - 2 , 4 - dione , as shown by the formula below : eta means cis , cis , cis , cis - 8 , 11 , 14 , 17 - eicosatetranoic acid or eicosatetraenoic acid , having 20 carbons , 4 cis double bonds , that is modified by reduction of the carboxylic acid to a methylene moiety to be r of formula ( i ), rs - 5 -(( 8z , 11z , 14z , 17z )- eicosa - 8 , 11 , 14 , 17 - tetraen - 1 - yl ) thiazolidine - 2 , 4 - dione , as shown by the formula below : ete means cis , cis , cis - 11 , 14 , 17 - eicosatrienoic acid or eicosatrienoic acid , having 20 carbons , 3 cis double bonds , that is modified by reduction of the carboxylic acid to a methylene moiety to be r of formula ( i ), rs - 5 -(( 11z , 14z , 17z )- eicosa - 11 , 14 , 17 - triene - 1 - yl ) thiazolidine - 2 , 4 - dione , as shown by the formula below : hpa means cis , cis , cis , cis , cis - 6 , 9 , 12 , 15 , 18 - heneicosapentaenoic acid or heneicosapentaenoic acid , having 21 carbons , 5 cis double bonds , that is modified by reduction of the carboxylic acid to a methylene moiety to be r of formula ( i ), rs - 5 -(( 6z , 9z , 12z , 15z , 18z )- heneicosa - 6 , 9 , 12 , 15 , 18 - pentaen - 1 - yl ) thiazolidine - 2 , 4 - dione , as shown by the formula below : hta means cis , cis , cis - 7 , 10 , 13 - hexadecatrienoic acid , having 16 carbons , 3 cis double bonds , that is modified by reduction of the carboxylic acid to a methylene moiety to be r of formula ( i ), rs - 5 -(( 7z , 10z , 13z )- hexadeca - 7 , 10 , 13 - trien - 1 - yl ) thiazolidine - 2 , 4 - dione , as shown by the formula below : sda means cis , cis , cis , cis - 6 , 9 , 12 , 15 - octadecatetraenoic acid or stearidonic acid , having 18 carbons , 4 cis double bonds , that is modified by reduction of the carboxylic acid to a methylene moiety to be r of formula ( i ), rs - 5 -(( 6z , 9z , 12z , 15z )- octadeca - 6 , 9 , 12 , 15 - tetraen - 1 - yl ) thiazolidine - 2 , 4 - dione , as shown by the formula below : tha means cis , cis , cis , cis , cis , cis - 6 , 9 , 12 , 15 , 18 , 21 - tetracosahexaeonic acid , having 24 carbons , 6 cis double bonds , that is modified by reduction of the carboxylic acid to a methylene moiety to be r of formula ( i ), rs - 5 -(( 6z , 9z , 12z , 15z , 18z , 21z )- tetracosa - 6 , 9 , 12 , 15 , 18 , 21 - hexaen - 1 - yl ) thiazolidine - 2 , 4 - dione , as shown by the formula below : tpa means cis , cis , cis , cis , cis - 9 , 12 , 15 , 18 , 21 - tetracosapentaeonic acid , having 24 carbons , 5 cis double bonds , that is modified by reduction of the carboxylic acid to a methylene moiety to be r of formula ( i ), rs - 5 -(( 9z , 12z , 15z , 18z , 21z )- tetracosa - 9 , 12 , 15 , 18 , 21 - pentaen - 1 - yl ) thiazolidine - 2 , 4 - dione , as shown by the formula below : omega - 3 fatty acids means naturally occurring , straight - chain c 16 - c 24 fatty carboxylic acids pufa means polyunsaturated fatty acids that are either naturally occurring omega - 3 fatty acids or derivatives thereof the present invention provides thiazolinediones derived from the above polyunsaturated omega - 3 fatty acids ( pufas ) as insulin sensitizers to treat type2 diabetes ( t2d ), and as depicted by the following formula ( i ) r is joined from the methylene group formed by reduction of the carboxylic acid of cis , cis , cis - 7 , 10 , 13 - hexadecatrienoic acid ( hta ), cis , cis , cis - 9 , 12 , 15 - octadecatrienoic acid ( ala ), cis , cis , cis , cis - 6 , 9 , 12 , 15 - octadecatetraenoic acid ( sda ), cis , cis , cis - 11 , 14 , 17 - eicosatrienoic acid ( ete ), cis , cis , cis , cis - 8 , 11 , 14 , 17 - eicosatetraenoic acid ( eta ); cis , cis , cis , cis , cis - 5 , 8 , 11 , 14 , 17 - eicosapentanenoic acid ( epa ), cis , cis , cis , cis , cis - 6 , 9 , 12 , 15 , 18 - heneicosapentaenoic acid ( hpa ), cis , cis , cis , cis , cis - 7 , 10 , 13 , 16 , 19 - docosapentaenoic acid ( dpa ), cis , cis , cis , cis , cis , cis - 4 , 7 , 10 , 13 , 16 , 19 - docosahexaenoic acid ( dha ), cis , cis , cis , cis , cis - 9 , 12 , 15 , 18 , 21 - tetracosapentaeonic acid ( tpa ) or cis , cis , cis , cis , cis , cis - 6 , 9 , 12 , 15 , 18 , 21 - tetracosahexaeonic acid ( tha ). in 2013 the us fda approved the takeda drug alogliptin ( 2 -({ 6 -[( 3r )- 3 - aminopiperidin - 1 - yl ]- 3 - methyl - 2 , 4 - dioxo - 3 , 4 - dihydropyrimidin - 1 ( 2h )- yl } methyl ) benzonitrile , that is a dipeptidyl peptidase - 4 inhibitor ( dpp - 4 ) to treat t2d in three formulations : 1 ) as a stand - alone with the brand - name nesina ®; 2 ) combined with metformin using the name kazano ®, and 3 ) when combined with pioglitazone using the name oseni ®. also takeda co ., the inventor of pioglitazone , has reintroduced the combination , oseni ®, as a safer alternative to the largely withdrawn pioglitazone alone . thus , the present invention compounds of formula ( i ) are used to treat t2d in combination with omega - 3 acids , especially eicosapentaenoic acid ( epa ) or its ethyl ester , or docosohexaneoic acid ( dha ) or its ethyl ester ; or metformin and / or rosiglitazone or pioglitazone . in a clinical study of combination therapy of fenofibrate , which lowers triglycerides and raises hdl , and rosiglitazone , paradoxically and unexepectedly a substantial fall in hdl levels was observed ( lena normen , et al ., diabetes care , 27 ( 9 ), 2241 - 2242 ( september 2004 )). however , unlike fenofibrate , which is a peroxisome proliferator - activator receptor alpha ( pparα ) agonist , rosiglitazone is a pparγ activator . both receptors have a distinct tissue expression . pparα is expressed at high levels in the liver ; whereas pparγ is expressed in many tissues , with the highest concentrations in adipose and skeletal muscle cells . because the omega - 3 acids are already known to be mild - pparγ agonists , the present invention utilizes the formation of compounds by modifying the carboxylic acid of the pufa and covalently joining a thiazolidinedione functionality and has tested if these compounds have “ souped - up ” pparγ activity , and / or other unique biological properties . such compounds can be used alone as a pharmaceutically - acceptable formulation , such as a tablet or other formulations , or in combination with a thiaglitazone such as rosiglitazone or pioglitazone , in treating t2d , and possibly also assuring safe cardiovascular health and minimizing other known side - effects of the latter drugs . this combination treatment can be administered either as a single formulation or concurrently administered . the prevalence and incidence of alzheimer &# 39 ; s disease , and its devastating effects on the lives of patients and care giver families are well known . the health care costs to society are onerous , and will continue to grow with the aging population . enormous strides have been made in understanding the pathology of the disease which leads to the build - up of amyloid plaques in the brain , which are aggregates of amyloid beta ( aβ ) peptides . fundamental advances have been made in discovering inhibitors of the extra - cellular and intra - cellular neuronal biochemical enzymes such as β - secretage ( bace1 ) or γ - secretase ( gs ) to stop the amyloid or intraneuronal τ - tangles build - up ; and even reverse these processes through treatment with specific monoclonal antibodies . however , in spite of massive scientific research and investments in reversing the cognitive decline of ad , these have yielded scant benefits . consensus is emerging that the best approach would be to treat before the disease has progressed too far , and even before disease symptoms become apparent . multi - targeted alzheimer &# 39 ; s drugs , for example dual bace / acetylcholineesterase inhibition or gsm / pparγ active agents would offer additional benefits ( harrie j . m . gisjen , et al ., “ secretase inhibitors and modulators as a disease - modifying approach against alzheimer &# 39 ; s disease ”, annual reports in medicinal chem ., 47 , 55 - 69 ( 2012 )). the presence of omega - 3 fatty acids , especially dha in the brain is ubiquitious . clinical studies in 4 year old children support the beneficial effects of docohexaenoic acid ( dha ) on cognitive function ( nct 00351624 ; 2006 - 2008 ; sponsored by martek biosciences corporation ). it would be an interesting study to follow such treated children over decades regarding the incidence of onset of symptoms of alzheimer &# 39 ; s disease relative to the untreated group . in the meantime , it is worth exploring in a prospective study , if the dha thiaglitazone , a pparγ agonist , either alone , or in combination with a gamma secretase modulator ( gsm ), or other prescribed clinical agents would slow down the decline of cognitive function in pre - ad patients . the general synthesis of the compounds of formula ( i ) is described in the general scheme below and the procedures are based on the literature provided below . the procedures used in the examples are based on reported literature on the synthesis of thioazolidinediones , see for example : 1 ) les a . pucko , et al ., “ optimization of the reduction of a 5 - benzylidenethiazolidine - 2 , 4 - dione derivative supported by the reaction resonce surface analysis : synthesis of pioglitazone hydrochloride ”, org . proc . res . dev ., 8 , 157 - 162 ( 2004 ); 2 ) thomas mendgen , et al ., “ privileged scaffolds or promiscuous binders : a comparative study on rhodanines and related heterocycles in medicinal chemistry ”, j . med . chem ., 55 , 743 - 753 ( 2011 ); 3 ) o . p . goel , et al ., “ n - tert - butoxycarbonyl - l - leucinal ”, org . syn . 8 , 68 - 70 ( 1993 ); and 4 ) h . f . anwar , et al ., “ first total synthesis of a polyunsaturated chromone metabolite isolated from the brown algae zonaria tournefortii ”, org . letters , 11 ( 3 ), 587 - 588 ( 2009 ). this invention will be further clarified by a consideration of the following examples for synthesis of compounds of formula ( i ), which are intended to be purely exemplary of the present invention . the examples for epa - tz and dha - tz are generally applicable to all pufas . epa ethyl ester ( 65 %, tci america , 25 . 0 g , 0 . 076 mol ) was dissolved in dichloromethane ( 120 ml ) under an argon atmosphere . the solution was cooled in acetone / dry ice batch and 1m diisobutylaluminum hydride ( 140 ml ) in dichloromethane was added dropwise over 1 h , while cooling in an acetone / dry ice bath . after the addition was complete , the solution was stirred for 3 h at − 78 ° c . the reaction mixture was quenched with saturated ammonium chloride ( 100 ml ) added dropwise , followed by 5 % aqueous hcl ( 100 ml ). additional dichloromethane ( 200 ml ) was added and the mixture warmed to rt . after filtration , the dichloromethane layer was separated , dried over sodium sulfate , filtered , and concentrated . the crude epa aldehyde ( 15 . 8 g yellow oil ) was purified by column chromatography on silica gel ( 300 g ) eluting with ethyl acetate / heptanes ( 1 : 10 ) to yield epa aldehyde ( 8 . 85 g , 40 % yield , 65 - 70 % purity by nmr ) as a clear oil . the epa aldehyde ( 8 . 85 g , 0 . 031 mol ) and 2 , 4 - thiazolidinedione ( 4 . 6 g , 0 . 039 mol ) were dissolved in ethanol ( 150 ml ) under an argon atmosphere at rt . piperidine ( 0 . 60 ml , 0 . 006 mol ) was added and the solution was heated under reflux for 3 h . the solution was cooled to rt and concentrated under reduced pressure . dichloromethane ( 100 ml ) was added . the dichloromethane solution was washed with 5 % aqueous hydrochloric acid ( 100 ml ) and water ( 100 ml ). the solution was then dried over sodium sulfate , filtered , and concentrated under reduced pressure . the crude condensed epa - tz conjugate was purified by column chromatography on silica gel ( 250 g ) eluting with ethyl acetate / heptanes ( 1 : 3 ) to produce the olefinic epa - tz conjugate ( 8 . 65 g , 73 % yield ) as a yellow oil ( purity 65 - 70 % by nmr ). in a separate flask , dimethylglyoxime ( 6 . 6 g , 0 . 057 mol ) and cobalt chloride hexahydrate ( 1 . 3 g , 0 . 0054 mol ) were mixed in dmf ( 60 ml ). the olefin was dissolved in methanol ( 100 ml ) and sodium hydroxide ( 1 . 3 g , 0 . 033 mol ) in water ( 60 ml ) was added . after mixing , the cobalt chloride / dimethylglyoxime solution was added to the olefin . the mixture was warmed to 30 - 40 ° c . on a water bath and sodium borohydride ( 2 . 0 g ) was added in portions over 3 h . after a total of 5 h at 30 - 40 ° c ., the mixture was cooled to rt and concentrated under reduced pressure . the crude material was added to dichloromethane ( 200 ml ) and washed with 5 % hydrochloric acid ( 200 ml ). the dichloromethane solution was dried over sodium sulfate , filtered , and concentrated . the crude orange oil ( 9 . 5 g ) was purified by column chromatography on silica gel ( 200 g ) eluting with ethyl acetate / heptanes ( 1 : 4 ). the procedure generated the epa - tz conjugate ( 6 . 2 g , 72 % yield , 70 % purity by hplc ) as a light yellow oil . the epa - tz conjugate was purified in portions ( 0 . 8 g ) twice , by reverse phase chromatography on a c18 cartridge ( 100 g ) using an automated mplc system ( combi - flash ), eluting with 40 - 90 % methanol / water over 24 min and 90 % methanol / water over 20 min ( observing at 233 nm , rt = 32 - 34 min ) the mplc purification , after concentration and drying , generated 0 . 63 g light tan gel that was epa - tz conjugate ( 95 . 8 % purity , hplc ) and is further characterized by : chemical formula : c 23 h 33 no 2 s ; molecular weight : 387 . 58 chromatographic purity ( hplc ): 95 . 8 % ( rt = 11 . 735 min , 80 - 95 % meoh / h 2 o over 10 min , luna c18 , 5μ , 4 . 6 × 250 mm , 1 . 0 ml / min , 10 μl injection , 40 ° c ., uv detection , 230 nm ) hrms ( mmi - tof - ms ): calculated for c 23 h 34 no 2 s ( m + h ) + : 388 . 2310 . found : 388 . 2314 . 1 h nmr ( 300 mhz , cdcl 3 / tms ): δ 8 . 51 ( s , 1h ), 5 . 42 - 5 . 27 ( m , 10h ), 4 . 27 ( dd , 1h , j = 9 . 3 , 4 . 2 hz ), 2 . 90 - 2 . 75 ( m , 8h ), 2 . 21 - 2 . 00 ( m , 5h ), 1 . 99 - 1 . 96 ( m , 1h ), 1 . 58 - 1 . 38 ( m , 4h ), 0 . 98 ( t , 3h j = 7 . 8 hz ) 13 c nmr ( 75 mhz , cdcl 3 / tms ): δ 175 . 7 , 171 . 4 , 132 . 1 , 129 . 4 , 128 . 6 , 128 . 4 , 128 . 3 , 128 . 2 , 128 . 1 , 127 . 9 , 127 . 1 , 52 . 0 , 32 . 9 , 29 . 1 , 27 . 0 , 26 . 8 , 25 . 9 , 25 . 8 , 20 . 8 , 14 . 5 . dha - aid cl - 400 ( 40 %, lonza , 20 . 0 g ) which contained bis and triglycerides of dha and other fatty acids , was mixed with thf ( 200 ml ), methanol ( 200 ml ), and water ( 200 ml ) containing sodium hydroxide ( 40 g , 1 mol ) at rt overnight under an argon atmosphere . after 20 h , the solution was concentrated by 50 % on a rotary evaporator . the solids that formed were washed with thf ( 50 ml ). the thf filtrates were combined and concentrated . water ( 100 ml ) was added and the mixture was acidified to ph 2 with concentrated hcl . the product was extracted with diethyl ether ( 2 × 100 ml ). the ether extracts were combined , dried over sodium sulfate , filtered , and concentrated . the remaining yellow solid ( 6 . 5 g ) was dissolved in heptanes ( 200 ml ) and stored overnight in a − 10 ° c . freezer . the solids were filtered and the dha enriched filtrate was concentrated . the process generated a mixture of acids that was roughly 50 - 60 % dha acid ( 1 in scheme 2 ), as a yellow oil , and is further characterized by : 1 h nmr ( 300 mhz , cdcl 3 / tms ): major component δ 5 . 42 - 5 . 27 ( m , 12h ), 2 . 90 - 2 . 75 ( m , 10h ), 2 . 40 - 2 . 25 ( m , 4h ), 2 . 21 - 2 . 00 ( m , 2h ), 0 . 98 ( t , 3h j = 7 . 8 hz ). the dha acid mixture 1 ( 4 . 68 g , 14 . 2 mmol ) was dissolved in dichloromethane ( 20 ml ) under an argon atmosphere , at rt . to the dha solution , was added n , o - dimethylhydroxylamine hydrochloride ( 1 . 39 g , 14 . 2 mmol ), 4 -( n , n - dimethylamino ) pyridine ( 1 . 74 g , 14 . 2 mmol ), and edc ( 3 . 0 g , 15 . 6 mmol ). after stiffing for 20 h at rt , the solution was extracted with 10 % hydrochloric acid solution ( 2 × 150 ml ). the dichloromethane was dried over sodium sulfate , filtered , and concentrated . the crude product ( 5 . 0 g tan oil ) was purified on silica gel ( 100 g ) eluting with ethyl acetate / heptanes ( 1 : 20 ) to generate the dha - amide mixture ( 2 in scheme 2 ) ( 4 . 7 g , 89 % yield ) as a tan oil that was 60 - 65 % dha - amide by nmr and is further characterized by : 1 h nmr ( 300 mhz , cdcl 3 / tms ): major component δ 5 . 45 - 5 . 26 ( m , 12h ), 3 . 64 ( s , 3h ), 3 . 14 ( s , 3h ), 2 . 90 - 2 . 75 ( m , 10h ), 2 . 50 - 2 . 35 ( m , 4h ), 2 . 04 ( m , 2h ), 0 . 97 ( t , 3h j = 7 . 5 hz ); 13 c nmr ( 75 mhz , cdcl 3 / tms ): major component δ 173 . 8 , 131 . 9 , 128 . 8 , 128 . 6 , 128 . 5 , 128 . 2 , 128 . 1 , 128 . 0 , 127 . 8 , 127 . 0 , 32 . 0 , 25 . 8 , 25 . 7 , 22 . 6 , 20 . 7 , 14 . 4 . dha amide from part b ( 3 . 55 g , 9 . 55 mmol ) was dissolved in diethyl ether ( 15 ml ) under an argon atmosphere . the dha solution was added drop - wire to a mixture of lithium aluminum hydride ( 0 . 55 g , 14 . 5 mmol ) in diethyl ether ( 50 ml ) that was cooled in acetone / dry ice batch that maintained the temperature at or below − 50 ° c . after the addition was complete , the solution was stirred and slowly warmed for 3 h to 0 ° c . the flask was cooled again to − 50 ° c . and the experiment was quenched by drop - wise addition of potassium bisulfate ( 1 . 6 g ) in water ( 15 ml ). additional diethyl ether ( 50 ml ) was added and the mixture warmed to 0 ° c . after filtration , the salts were washed with additional diethyl ether ( 2 × 50 ml ). the combined diethyl ether extracts were dried over sodium sulfate , filtered , and concentrated . the crude dha aldehyde ( 2 . 9 g colorless oil ) was purified twice by column chromatography on silica gel ( 100 g ) eluting with ethyl acetate / heptanes ( 1 : 20 ) to prepare dha aldehyde ( 3 in scheme 2 ) ( 0 . 7 g , 23 % yield , 85 - 90 % purity by nmr ) as a clear oil and further characterized by : 1 h nmr ( 300 mhz , cdcl 3 / tms ): δ 9 . 78 ( s , 1h ), 5 . 50 - 5 . 22 ( m , 12h ), 2 . 90 - 2 . 75 ( m , 10h ), 2 . 51 - 2 . 45 ( m , 4h ), 2 . 08 ( m , 2h ), 0 . 98 ( t , 3h j = 7 . 5 hz ); 13 c nmr ( 75 mhz , cdcl 3 / tms ): δ 201 . 7 , 132 . 2 , 128 . 6 , 128 . 7 , 128 . 6 , 128 . 5 , 128 . 1 , 127 . 9 , 127 . 2 , 44 . 0 , 26 . 0 , 25 . 9 , 20 . 9 , 20 . 5 , 14 . 6 . dha aldehyde from part c ( 1 . 50 g , 4 . 8 mmol ) was dissolved in ethanol ( 30 ml ) with thiazolidine - 2 , 4 - dione ( 0 . 81 g , 6 . 8 mmol ), and a catalytic amount of piperidine ( 103 mg , 1 . 2 mmol ). the mixture was heated under reflux for 2 h . the heat was turned off and the solution slowly cooled to rt over 1 . 5 h . the ethanol was removed under reduced pressure and dichloromethane ( 100 ml ) was added . the dichloromethane was extracted with 5 % hcl ( 100 ml ) and water ( 100 ml ). the dichloromethane was dried over sodium sulfate , filtered , and concentrated . the remaining orange oil ( 1 . 94 g ) was purified on silica gel ( 100 g ), eluting with 10 - 30 % ethyl acetate in heptanes . the experiment produced dha - tz olefin intermediate ( 4 in scheme 2 ) ( 1 . 45 g , 74 % yield , purity 85 - 90 % by nmr ) as a light yellow oil and is further characterized by : 1 h nmr ( 300 mhz , cdcl 3 / tms ): δ 7 . 04 ( t , 1h , j = 7 . 5 hz ), 5 . 50 - 5 . 22 ( m , 12h ), 2 . 85 - 2 . 75 ( m , 10h ), 2 . 40 - 2 . 25 ( m , 4h ), 2 . 08 ( m , 2h ), 0 . 98 ( t , 3h j = 7 . 5 hz ); 13 c nmr ( 75 mhz , cdcl 3 / tms ): δ 167 . 0 , 165 . 2 , 138 . 6 , 132 . 2 , 130 . 2 , 128 . 7 , 128 . 6 , 128 . 5 , 128 . 5 , 128 . 2 , 128 . 1 , 128 . 0 , 127 . 8 , 127 . 5 , 127 . 1 , 126 . 9 , 32 . 1 , 26 . 0 , 25 . 9 , 25 . 8 , 20 . 9 , 14 . 6 . dha - tz olefin intermediate from part d ( 0 . 62 g , 1 . 5 mmol ) was mixed with methanol ( 12 ml ) and sodium hydroxide ( 0 . 2 g , 5 mmol ) in water ( 5 ml ) at rt for 5 min to this solution was added a mixture of dimethlglyoxime ( 0 . 54 g , 4 . 6 mmol ) and cobalt chloride hexahydrate ( 0 . 2 g , 0 . 84 mmol ) in dmf ( 10 ml ). the solution was heated to 30 - 40 ° c . and sodium borohydride ( 450 mg , 10 . 5 mmol ) was added in portions over 5 h . after 5 h , the solution was cooled to rt in a water bath and diluted hydrochloric acid was added ( 100 ml , 5 % hcl ). the product was extracted twice with diethyl ether ( 100 ml each ). the combined diethyl ether extracts were dried over sodium sulfate , filtered , and concentrated . the crude product was purified on silica gel ( 10 g ) eluting with 0 - 30 % ethyl acetate in heptane to made dha - tz analog ( 5 in scheme 2 ) ( 0 . 22 g , 35 % yield ) as clear oil and is further characterized by : chemical formula : c 25 h 35 no 2 s ; molecular weight : 413 . 62 ; hrms ( mmi - tof - ms ): calculated for c 25 h 36 no 2 s ( m + h ) + : 414 . 2466 . found : 414 . 2477 . 1 h nmr ( 300 mhz , cdcl 3 / tms ): δ 8 . 26 ( br s , 1h ), 5 . 50 - 5 . 27 ( m , 12h ), 4 . 27 ( dd , 1h , j = 9 . 3 , 4 . 2 hz ), 2 . 90 - 2 . 75 ( m , 10h ), 2 . 21 - 1 . 95 ( m , 5h ), 1 . 66 - 1 . 42 ( m , 2h ), 0 . 97 ( t , 3h j = 7 . 5 hz ); 13 c nmr ( 75 mhz , cdcl 3 / tms ): δ 174 . 4 , 170 . 1 , 132 . 2 , 129 . 3 , 128 . 8 , 128 . 5 , 128 . 3 , 128 . 2 , 128 . 1 , 127 . 2 , 51 . 9 , 32 . 8 , 27 . 1 , 26 . 8 , 26 . 0 , 25 . 9 , 20 . 9 , 14 . 6 ; and the proposed anti - diabetic mechanism of action of the compounds of formula ( i ) includes the activation of pparγ , which is well known to induce metabolic changes that ameliorate diabetes . to determine if these compounds can activate pparγ or the members of the ppar family of nuclear receptors ( pparα and pparδ ), the ability of these compounds to activate ppar receptors in a cell - based chimeric receptor transcription assay were tested . this is a standard nuclear receptor ligand activity assay that utilizes the ligand binding domain of the ppar receptor fused to a heterologous gal4 dna binding domain . the transcriptional read - out is from a gal4 - regulated luciferase reporter . in this assay , compounds that activate the receptor cause an increase in luciferase activity measured in a luminometer . the data are shown in table 1 below ( average luciferase values from transcription assay ). even though it was not possible to calculate an ec 50 value for the epa ethyl ester as control , it is notable that it showed a mild stimulatory activity on pparγ at high doses ( table 1 ). given that the goal of the present medicinal chemistry strategy was to increase the pparγ stimulatory activity of epa , these data clearly show that the strategy was a success . the results of this assay demonstrate the epa - tz and dha - tz induced the activation of pparγ with a potency ( ec 50 ) of 12 and 10 μmolar , respectively . table 2 below is a summary of the calculated ec 50 values and a graph of the dose response curves are shown in fig1 . the ability of epa - tz and dha - tz to activate pparγ is similar to troglitazone and pioglitazone ( pparγ ligands used as antidiabetic agents in humans ), both of which have potency in the same low micro molar range ( see t wilson , et al ., “ the ppars : from orphan receptors to drug discovery ”, j . med . chem . 43 ( 4 ), 527 - 50 ( 2000 feb . 24 )). although the invention has been described with reference to its preferred embodiments , those of ordinary skill in the art may , upon reading and understanding this disclosure , appreciate changes and modifications which may be made which do not depart from the scope and spirit of the invention as described above or claimed hereafter . accordingly , this description is to be construed as illustrative only and is for the purpose of teaching those skilled in the art the general manner of carrying out the invention . | 2 |
this invention involves the formation of a true covalent bond between molecules of methicone and the oxide linkages of crystals . the actual polymerization is driven by a three way combination of mechanical energy ( mixing rapidly ), thermal energy ( baking ), and a catalyst . the process of preparing crystalline emulsions for application to the skin involves the following steps . the crystals of this invention are small and have sharp edges so as to be able to abrade a surface such as skin . the crystals include , but are not limited to magnesium oxide crystals , aluminum oxide crystals or a combination thereof . preferably , magnesium oxide crystals are used . materials , such as silicon dioxide , which are rounded function poorly in this invention as they have no edges to abrade a surface . the crystals used herein are of a particle size about 40 - 2000 microns , preferably about 100 - 1200 microns , most preferably about 600 - 800 microns . a combination of methicone , crystals and catalyst is used in the invention . the methicone to crystal weight / weight percentage is about 0 . 01 - 10 . 0 %, preferably about 0 . 2 - 5 %, and most preferably about 1 - 2 %. the catalyst is a compound that can be safely used in the production of cosmetics . for example , ammonia and live steam are safe catalysts because they completely vaporize out of the mixture during processing . ammonia is the preferred catalyst of the invention . the catalyst to crystal - methicone mixture weight / weight percentage is about 0 . 001 - 10 . 0 %, preferably about 0 . 05 - 4 . 0 %, and most preferably about 1 - 2 %. the methicone is cured to the crystals with mixing and the action of a catalyst . the crystals are first mixed with methicone and catalyst . this mixing is preferably performed rapidly . during the mixing covalent bonds are formed between the methicone molecules and the oxide linkages of the crystals . the mixing can be accomplished with a hammermill with a large screen , such as a ¼ ″ screen , or other rapid mixers known to those in the art , such that there is a complete uniformity of coating with the methicone and catalyst on the crystals . the components are mixed until a slurry is formed . the mixing and formation of a slurry is followed by baking the slurry until the mixture is dry in order to remove the catalyst from the mixture . the baking takes place at a temperature within the range of about 150 ° f .- 450 ° f ., preferably between about 225 ° f . and about 375 ° f ., most preferably at about 300 ° f . baking is performed until the mixture is dry and the catalyst is removed . baking occurs for approximately 1 hour when baking at 300 ° f . the mixture is dry when the water content of the mixture is less than or equal to about 2 %, preferably less than about 1 %, most preferably less than about 0 . 1 %. the dried mixture of coated crystals is lipophilic and hydrophobic which allows the coated crystals to remain suspended in an emulsion . the coated crystals can be tested to determine whether true covalent bonds were formed between the methicone and the crystals . first , the coated crystals are placed into a standardized aqueous lotion and allowed to sit for about 12 - 18 hours . if the methicone is not completely bonded to the crystals , then bubbles of h 2 will appear . the final step , after making the coated crystals , is mixing the coated crystals with the carrier to create the crystalline emulsion . the carrier is any gel , lotion , thick solution , cream , paste , wax , or like substance , or any combination thereof known by those in the art that would allow the carrier to hold the coated crystals . the coated crystal to carrier ratio is within the range of about 2 %- 99 %, preferably about 50 % ( 1 : 2 ). however , the range may vary with the carrier used , as long as an emulsion can be maintained and sufficient amounts of crystals are present to act as abraders . additional compounds may be added to the crystalline emulsion , including ; vitamin c , vitamin e , herbal extracts , perfumes , thickeners , surfactants , moisturizers and any other similar compound or combination thereof known to those in the art and desired to be used in a cosmetic . a generous amount of the crystalline emulsion should be applied to the skin , for example on the face of a user , avoiding the eye area . the user then gently rubs the emulsion with his / her fingertips , applying light to medium pressure , in a circular motion between about 10 to about 15 times . the rubbing should not exceed about 30 circles in order to prevent excess abrasion of the skin . then the face is rinsed thoroughly with warm water and patted dry . this procedure can be performed several times a week , preferably about once every 3 to 5 days . in order to obtain the maximum benefits of the skin rejuvenation treatment , a further embodiment of this invention involves the use of the crystalline emulsion in a system of products that provide complete treatment and skin care . this system involves six phases , the application of the crystalline emulsion being one of these phases . phase one involves the use of a face and body cleanser daily . the user should wet his / her face with warm water , work a small amount of the cleanser into a lather , and smooth over the face and body . the cleanser is then rinsed off and the face is patted dry . phase two is the application of the crystalline emulsion which should preferably be done about once every 3 to 5 days . phase three involves the daily use of a toner that acts as an exfoliant to remove excess dead skin cells , oil residue and / or dirt and to calm skin redness , minimize pores and condition the skin . the toner is applied to a cotton pad which is gently used to wipe the face . the user should wait about 5 minutes before proceeding to the next phase . phase four involves the daily use of a vitamin c collagen gel to protect and nurture new skin cells . a small amount should be applied to the face in a circular motion . phase five involves the use of a vitamin enriched sun protecting day moisturizing cream to protect the new skin cells from sun damage , pollution and dehydration . a small amount should be applied to the face twice daily . phase six involves the use of an anti - aging treatment cream to increase moisture retention , reduce redness and diminish fine lines . a small amount should be applied to the face at night in a circular motion . thus , novel compositions and methods have been described . various changes may of course be made , without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention . magnesium oxide crystals between 600 - 800 microns in size were combined with methicone , where the methicone to crystal weight / weight percentage was 1 - 2 %. ammonia was added to the mixture as a catalyst , where the ammonia to crystal - methicone mixture weight / weight percentage was 1 - 2 %. these three components were rapidly mixed in a hammermill with a large ¼ ″ screen until a slurry was formed and the crystals were uniformly coated with the methicone and catalyst . the slurry was baked at 300 ° f . for one hour . after baking , the dried mixture of coated crystals had a water content less than 0 . 1 %. the coated crystals were tested to determine whether true covalent bonds formed between the methicone and crystals by placing the crystals in a standardized aqueous lotion and allowing the lotion to sit for 18 hours . bubbles did not appear in the lotion . the coated crystals were mixed with a gel , where the coated crystals to gel ratio was approximately 1 : 2 , to create the crystalline emulsion . | 0 |
fig1 , 2 , 4 through 7 , and 10 through 24 illustrate a first exemplary embodiment of an air blowing system 100 including substantially identical first and second air blowers , 102 b and 102 t respectively . each of the blowers includes a base 104 including a foot portion 106 with two separated supports , 108 l and 108 r , projecting upwardly there - from to form a yoke that defines a horizontal tilt axis 110 . each of the blowers includes a blower housing 112 tiltably affixed to the base at and tiltable relative to the base about the horizontal tilt axis , and including an axial fan 114 having a fan blade driven by an electric motor when energized for forcing airflow through and from the blower housing . each of the blowers includes a nema - type power cord 116 suited to plug into and connect with a standard nema - type wall outlet or extension cord ( see any reference source for standard nema plug and outlet configurations , such as http :// www . nooutage . com / nema_configurations . htm ) for supplying energy to the system . a control switch 118 is electrically disposed between the power cord and the electric motor for selectably allowing or denying energy to the electric motor and varying the motor &# 39 ; s rotational speed . and a nema - type power outlet 120 is integrated into the top of each blower and electrically connected to the blower &# 39 ; s power cord such that the blower &# 39 ; s outlet is live whenever its power cord is plugged into the wall outlet or extension cord . in non nema regions , equivalent power cords and outlets are be substituted . the two blowers may be used individually or simultaneously but separately as complete and independent fans in what will be referred to as a “ first operational mode ”. in this first operational mode , as depicted in fig2 , the power cord of the one or both blowers to be used is plugged into the same or separate wall outlets 200 and the control switch of the one or both is turned to any of several selectable rotational speeds . the motor of the one or both is thereby energized to rotate the associated fan blade according to the selected speed and produce an airflow of the selected intensity . the fans may be used in separate rooms or used in the same room to provide two cooling airflows in different locations or to direct two air flows towards the same point from different locations . each fan can , of course , be set to operate at a different speed , and each fan can be independently turned and tilted to select the desired airflow direction . each blower has a threaded hole 126 into its underside 128 . as best seen in fig1 and 22 , a removable coupling 130 is selectably affixable into the underside by screwing a threaded top portion 132 of the coupling into the threaded hole of the second blower until the flange 134 of the coupling seats firmly against the underside . each blower also has a round hole 140 into its top side 142 which may receive a cylindrical lower portion 136 of the coupling . a locking screw 144 is threaded through the top side to selectably engage a groove 146 in the cylindrical lower portion . when the coupling is threaded into the underside of the second or “ top ” blower 102 t and the coupling &# 39 ; s lower portion is fitted down into the round hole of the first or “ bottom ” blower , and the thumbscrew of the bottom blower is at least partially screwed into the coupling &# 39 ; s groove , and when the power cord 116 of the top blower is plugged into the power outlet 120 of the bottom blower , the two blowers and coupling form the stacked blower system of fig1 , 2 , 4 through 7 and 10 through 20 , in what will be referred to as the “ second operational mode ”. in this “ second operational mode ”, the two blower units are assembled together to from a single blower unit capable of providing two airflows in a variety of different manners with each having distinct , differently directable , and independently controllable airflows , while obtaining power from a single wall outlet or extension cord . both blowers are tiltable relative to their respective bases so that the upward or downward slope of the airflow from each blower may be adjusted as desired , at the same or different slopes . the assembly may be rotated as a whole to adjust the horizontal direction of the bottom blowers &# 39 ; airflow , and the top blow may be rotated relative to the bottom blower by the pivotable fit of the coupling &# 39 ; s lower portion into the bottom blower &# 39 ; s top hole . optional tightening of the lockscrew until it seats fully into the coupling &# 39 ; s groove and securely against the coupling pivotally locks the two blowers in the existing pivotal relationship . with the power cord of the top blower plugged into the lower blower &# 39 ; s power outlet , the first or bottom blower becomes a “ master ” blower and the second or top blower becomes a “ slave ” blower , wherein only the bottom blower needs to be plugged into a wall outlet or extension cord to provide power to the entire assembly , thereby reducing the number of available wall outlets of extension cords that must be occupied . referring to fig2 and 24 , and alternate resting position is shown for the air blowing system . in this configuration , the base of the bottom blower is pivoted rearwardly relative to the blower &# 39 ; s housing . a ratcheting mechanism within the joint that affixes the housing to the base causes the base and housing to snap between numerous distinct semi - fixed angular relationships . by “ semi - fixed ”, it is meant that the base will rigidly maintain the position relative to the housing unless a substantial force is exerted to overcome the holding forces of the ratcheting mechanism . these angular positions include the semi - fixed position depicted , which is found to provide improved anti - tipover stability of the blowers compared to the arrangement of fig1 and 2 , especially when the blowers are stacked together . this is because the footprint of the assembly is enlarged by this arrangement compared to that shown in fig1 and 2 . the blowers may alternatively be mounted to a vertical wall in either the first or second operational modes . as shown in fig1 , the underside 128 includes keyholes 150 which are intended to receive nail heads or screw heads ( not shown ) protruding from a wall 300 so that the base of the independent blowers in the first operational mode or base of the bottom blower in the second operational mode may be attached against the wall . fig1 through 12 show that the selectable directability of the airflows is still available in the wall mounted disposition . fig2 shows an alternate version of screw or nail hanging openings 152 in the underside . fig1 through 17 are top views of the assembly in the second operational mode to demonstrate the relative pivotability of the two blowers when stacked together . referring to fig3 , 8 , and 9 , it can be appreciated that the system is adaptable to using any reasonable number of intermediary blowers ; single intermediary blower 102 m of the three - blower system 400 of fig3 and 8 or multiple intermediary blowers 102 x of the multi - blower system 500 fig9 . in such arrangements , one additional coupling is used for each intermediary blower added ; each attached the same as shown in fig1 . from the foregoing , it will be clear that the present invention has been shown and described with reference to a preferred embodiment that merely exemplifies the broader invention revealed herein . certainly , those skilled in the art can conceive of alternative embodiments . for instance , those with the major features of the invention in mind could craft embodiments that incorporate one or more major features while not incorporating all aspects of the foregoing exemplary embodiment . obviously , many modifications and variations of the present invention are possible in light of the above teachings . it is to be understood , therefore , that the invention can be practiced otherwise than as specifically described . with this in mind , the claims that follow will define the scope of protection to be afforded the invention , and those claims shall be deemed to include equivalent constructions insofar as they do not depart from the spirit and scope of the present invention . certain of these claims may express certain elements as a means for performing a specific function , at times without the recital of structure or material . as the law demands , any such claims shall be construed to cover not only the corresponding structure and material expressly described in the specification but also equivalents thereof . | 5 |
turning now to fig1 , there is shown the stent component 1 of a stent - valve in accordance with the present invention . the stent 1 is typically made from a laser machined shape memory metal such as nitinol or elgiloy or any other medical grade metal suitable for stents , stent - grafts and the like . further , the stent component can be made using wire forms with and without welding . the stent 1 consists of a proximal end 2 opposite a distal end 3 . the distal end 3 contains a band of hexagonal shaped elements with adjacent elements sharing a common side . this band of hexagonal elements is herein called a fixation ring 4 . the fixation ring 4 can also be comprised of diamond shaped or zig - zag shaped elements , etc . each hexagonal element 3 a is formed in a geometry such that both the upper apices 5 and the lower apices 6 extend radially outward from the central portion of the fixation ring 4 as best shown in fig1 and 3 . the purpose of the angle of the apices 5 and 6 , as will later be demonstrated , is to contact the inner wall of a blood vessel in order to prevent the stent from moving distally ( or proximally ) in the blood vessel ; in other words , such apices fixates the stent in place against the inner wall of the blood vessel . a plurality ( preferably , at least three ) suspenders or connectors 7 hang from the fixation ring 4 and attach the fixation ring 4 to a lower securing ring 8 . the securing ring 8 preferably comprises a band of zig - zag elements 9 ( although this ring 8 can also include diamond shaped or hexagonal shaped elements , etc .). the lower part of the securing ring 8 is comprised of elements 10 that project generally downward to feet 11 that project radially inward . the securing ring 8 is suspended in place by the fixation ring 4 . fig2 illustrates an exemplary non - collapsible prosthetic heart valve 20 for use in conjunction with the present invention . the valve 20 includes a substantially rigid annular base 21 with three flexible leaflets 22 a , 22 b , 22 c attached along its upper surface 23 . the base 21 and leaflets 22 a , 22 b , 22 c may be formed from a biochemically inert polymeric material . alternatively , the rigid base may be formed from a metal , such as titanium , stainless steel , nitonol , etc . it will be appreciated by those skilled in the art that fluid flowing in the direction of arrow 24 will displace the leaflet 22 a , 22 b , 22 c axially and move through a central gap formed by the axial displacement of the leaflets 22 a , 22 b , 22 c ; while fluid traveling in the opposite direction of arrow 24 will cause the leaflets 22 a , 22 b , 22 c to close by opposing each other and thus block the flow of fluid in this opposite direction . any other non - collapsible prosthetic heart valve may be used , including , but not limited to , mechanical valves ( e . g ., tilting disk ), non - collapsible bioprosthetic valves and other non - collapsible polymer - based prosthetic valves . fig3 shows the valve 20 placed in the stent 1 with the base 21 of the valve resting on the feet 11 of the stent . it will be appreciated by those skilled in the art that the valve 20 can be sutured , glued to , mechanically attached , force fit , locked into or otherwise rigidly attached to the securing ring 8 of the stent 1 . it can further be appreciated that the securing ring 8 may be heat treated at a very small diameter and expanded such that valve 20 fits into the securing ring stent such that inward forces of the expanded securing ring hold the valve 20 in place . it should be noted that this is the reverse of a typical stent design that relies on outward forces to hold it in place . it can also be appreciated by those skilled in the art that the feet 11 can be designed as a harness or the like to capture the valve 20 which will enable easy assembly of the stent - valve in the operating room . as shown in fig4 , a seal 40 is preferably disposed around the securing ring 8 . the seal may be an annulus of foam , a multiplicity of strands , a rolled sewing cuff , or the like . the seal 40 prevents blood from leaking around the device once it is fixated . in addition , the seal 40 can be made porous to allow tissue ingrowth and facilitate permanent fixation of the device . further , for certain applications , such as for aortic valve replacement as discussed below , the seal 40 can also take the form of an annular wedge such that a wide potion of the wedge remains in the ventricle , while the remaining portion of the wedge lies in the aorta , much like a cork in a bottle . in another aspect of the present invention , the stent valve device described above is loaded into and deployed from a deployment catheter as shown in fig4 - 10 . after the valve 20 is secured in place to the securing ring 8 and the seal 40 disposed around the securing ring 8 , the fixation ring 4 is compressed radially inwards as shown in fig4 . a catheter 50 is provided with an upper nose cone 51 rigidly secured to an inner - body 60 as shown in fig5 . the inner - body 60 can be hollow to accommodate a guide wire , endoscope , fiber optics , fluid passage way , and the like . the inner - body 60 extends the entire length of the catheter where it can terminate with a hub with a luer or the like ( not shown ). the nose cone 51 holds the fixation ring 4 in its compressed state while the catheter is guided through the vasculature to the deployment site . a restrictor 61 is rigidly secured to a mid - body 62 . the mid - body 62 is concentric over the inner - body 60 and can be attached to a grip or the like ( not shown ) to enable holding in place during deployment . the restrictor 61 is disposed distally adjacent the fixation ring 4 and prevents the fixation ring from moving distally when the nose cone 51 is moved forward to enable deployment of the stent - valve device . the deployment catheter 50 also includes a second inverse or lower cone 53 securely attached to an outer - body 64 . the outer - body 64 is concentric over the mid - body 62 and can be attached to a grip or the like ( not shown ) to enable holding in place during deployment . the second cone 53 is inserted through the valve 20 ( e . g ., through the flexible leaflets and base the valve ) where it nests or otherwise mates concentrically with the upper nose cone 51 as best shown in fig5 and 10 . the proximal end of the upper nose cone 51 includes cutouts 65 through which pass the suspenders 7 of the stent as the stent is fixation ring 4 is held in its compressed state under the upper nose cone 51 as best shown in fig5 and 10 . the stent - valve is deployed as shown in fig6 - 9 . the catheter 50 ( and the stent - valve housed therein as shown in fig5 and 10 ) is introduced into the deployment area preferably by an intercostal penetration methodology . the catheter is then positioned in place at the deployment site ( fig6 ). while the restrictor 61 is held in place by securing the mid - body 62 , the upper nose cone 51 is advanced forward thereby allowing the fixation ring 4 to deploy ( fig7 ). the outward radial force produced by the fixation ring 4 combined with the angled orientation of the apices of the fixation ring 4 securely attach the fixation ring 4 to the vessel wall 70 . the suspenders 7 and securing ring 8 with feet 11 hold the valve 20 in place and the seal 40 prevents fluid from flowing around the valve 20 . after the fixation ring 4 is deployed , the entire catheter assembly is retracted through the valve 20 by pulling the bodies 60 , 62 , 64 rearward ( fig8 and 9 ) and out of the body . the lower cone 53 is shaped to mate with the upper nose cone and thereby protect the leaflets of the valve 20 from damage when the assembly is retracted back through the leaflets after deployment . fig9 shows the stent - valve assembly deployed and secured to the vessel wall 70 at the deployment site . fig1 illustrates the stent - valve assembly loaded into the deployment catheter 50 prior to introduction into the body . fig1 illustrates the deployment and fixation of the stent - valve assembly of the present invention in the ascending aorta 72 . it can be located at or near the original location of a removed aortic valve or it can be inserted through an old aortic valve where it essentially pushes the leaflets of the old aortic valve aside . it is placed in the ascending aorta 72 just distal to the left ventricle 83 with the upper fixation ring 4 located distal to the coronary arteries 71 a , 71 b and the lower securing ring 8 placed proximal to the coronary arteries 71 a , 71 b and above the ventricle . the suspenders 7 of the stent are rotated / located so as not to interfere with blood flow to the coronary arteries 71 a , 71 b . the deployment catheter 50 is inserted below the deployment site through the wall of the left ventricle 83 by cutting a slit in the left ventricle at site 80 which is thereafter repaired . alternate entrance sites within the left ventricle 83 may be used . the left atrium 82 and left ventricle 83 are shown as landmarks within the heart for simplicity of description . alternatively , the stent - valve assembly can be deployed from above the deployment site ( e . g ., from the aorta where a slit can be made , for example , at site 81 as shown in fig1 ). in this alternative embodiment , the fixation ring 4 is disposed proximal relative to the securing ring 8 . a deployment catheter 50 ′ as shown in fig1 - 14 can be used to deploy the stent - valve at the intended deployment site . the catheter 50 ′ includes an outer cannula 101 whose distal end 103 holds the fixation ring 4 in its compressed state as shown in fig1 . an inner push rod 105 is disposed within the outer cannula 101 with its distal end 107 disposed adjacent the fixation ring 4 . the inner push rod 105 can be hollow to accommodate a guide wire , endoscope , fiber optics , fluid passage way , and the like . the outer cannula 101 is retracted back ( with the push rod 105 held in place axially ) to allow for deployment and fixation of the fixation ring 4 and the valve 20 secured thereto as shown in fig1 . the catheter 50 ′ is retracted further ( fig1 ) and out of the body . turning now to fig1 , there is shown an alternate stent component 1 ′ for a stent - valve in accordance with the present invention . the stent 1 ′ is typically made from a laser machined shape memory metal or wire forms as described above . the stent 1 ′ contains a band of hexagonal shaped elements with adjacent elements sharing a common side , referred to as a fixation ring 4 ′. the fixation ring 4 ′ can also be comprised of diamond shaped or zig - zag shaped elements , etc . each hexagonal element 3 a ′ is formed in a geometry such that both the upper apices 5 ′ and the lower apices 6 ′ extend radially outward from the central portion of the fixation ring 4 ′. small barbs 13 , 15 project from the apices 5 ′ and 6 ′, respectively , as shown . the purpose of the angle of the apices 5 ′, 6 ′ and the barbs 13 , 15 is to contact the inner wall of a blood vessel in order to prevent the stent 1 ′ from moving distally ( or proximally ) in the blood vessel ; in other words , such apices and barbs aid in fixating the stent in place against the inner wall of the blood vessel . a plurality ( preferably , at least three ) elements 10 ′ project generally downward ( preferably from the bottom apices 6 ′ of the ring 4 ′) to feet 11 ′. the feet 11 ′ project radially inward and then upward as shown in fig1 . the feet 11 ′ support the non - collapsible valve element 20 as shown in fig1 . a seal 40 ′ is preferably disposed around the elements 10 ′ and the base of the valve element 20 . the seal 40 ′ may be an annulus of foam , a multiplicity of strands , a rolled sewing cuff , or the like . the seal 40 ′ prevents blood from leaking around the valve element 20 once it is fixated . in addition , the seal 40 ′ can be made porous to allow tissue ingrowth and facilitate permanent fixation of the device . further , for certain applications , such as for aortic valve replacement as discussed herein , the seal 40 ′ can also take the form of an annular wedge such that a wide potion of the wedge remains in the ventricle , while the remaining portion of the wedge lies in the aorta , much like a cork in a bottle . the stent - valve device of fig1 is preferably loaded into and deployed from a deployment catheter in a manner similar to that described above with respect to fig4 - 14 . after the valve 20 is supported by the feet 11 ′, the fixation ring 4 ′ is compressed radially inwards ( in a manner similar that shown in fig4 ) and loaded into the catheter ( e . g ., into the nose cone 51 ( fig5 ) or in the outer cannula ( fig1 )). the catheter is introduced into the body and located adjacent the intended deployment site . the catheter is manipulated to the deploy the fixation ring 4 ′ from the distal end of the catheter , where it expands and contacts the vessel wall for fixation of the ring 4 ′ and the valve 20 secured thereto . the catheter is then retracted out of the body . the apices and barbs of the fixation ring 4 ′ aid in fixating the stent - valve device 1 ′ in place against the inner wall of the blood vessel . advantageously , the prosthetic stent - valve devices described herein and the associated deployment mechanisms and surgical methods are minimally invasive and thus eliminate the multitude of sutures that are traditionally used to implant a heart valve . it also avoids total severing and re - suturing of the aorta which is standard practice for deploying prosthetic valves . by eliminating these complex procedures , the implantation time can be reduced significantly . although the above stent device is described as holding and deploying a non - collapsible prosthetic valve , it can be appreciated by those skilled in the art that the prosthetic valve , if designed to be compressed , can be made flexible and be compressed down and introduced through a small catheter . it is further appreciated by those skilled in the art that this device can be introduced percutaneously through a small hole in the iliac or femoral artery in the groin . there have been described and illustrated herein several embodiments of a stent - valve assembly and a deployment catheter and surgical methods for use therewith . while particular embodiments of the invention have been described , it is not intended that the invention be limited thereto , as it is intended that the invention be as broad in scope as the art will allow and that the specification be read likewise . thus , while particular geometries and configurations of the stent component have been disclosed , it will be appreciated that other geometries and configurations can be used as well . for example , the self - expanding fixation ring of the stent may be replaced by a fixation ring that is expanded through the use of an expandable balloon disposed inside the fixation ring . in addition , while particular configurations of the deployment catheter component have been disclosed , it will be understood that alternative configurations of the deployment catheter can be used . for example , instead of ( or in conjunction with ) a catheter housing or sheath that restrains the fixation ring , a suture can be used for this purpose . once the fixation ring is located , the suture can be cut ( or possibly pulled through ) to release the fixation ring where it expands and fixates the stent - valve assembly in place . such suture tension may be worthwhile as it keeps the valve from jumping which may happen when pushed from a catheter ( commonly referred to as the “ water melon seed ” effect ). also , while particular applications have been disclosed for replacement of the aortic valve of the left ventricle of the heart , it can be readily adapted for use in the replacement of other heart valves ( e . g ., pulmonary valve ). it will therefore be appreciated by those skilled in the art that yet other modifications could be made to the provided invention without deviating from its spirit and scope as claimed . | 0 |
the following embodiments of the invention shown in the figures are the embodiments presently preferred by the inventor , but over time other embodiments and uses in other areas may become preferred to those skilled in the art . the dimensions of the valve cover and holes could vary , but typical dimensions would be : holes 1 . 07 by 3 . 06 inches ; space between holes 1 . 49 to 1 . 1 inches ; lip of valve cover 3 . 85 inches by 18 . 44 inches ; raised portion of valve cover 2 . 99 inches by 17 . 58 inches . fig1 shows the valve covers with the openings on the top for hydraulic flat tappet cams and hydraulic roller cams . the adjustments will be made through the top only . the valve adjustment tool is inserted through the top access openings for access to the adjusting nut . fig4 section a - a shows the adjustments being made through the top access . fig3 shows the engine with the adjustment tool through the top access . fig5 shows the valve covers with the openings on the top and side for solid lifters cams and solid roller cams . the adjustments will be made through the top and side . the valve adjustment tool is inserted through the top access openings for access to the adjusting nuts , while the feeler gauge will be inserted through the side holes . fig8 section a - a shows the adjustments being made through the top and side access . fig7 shows the engine with the adjustment tool through the top access with the feeler gauge through the side access . the plugs stay the same for both types of valve covers . tests were run in may of 2009 . while testing the engine at idle to 5000 revolutions per minute , there wasn &# 39 ; t any oil pumped out of the valve cover while the top plugs were removed . valve adjustments were made through the adjustment access holes , without removing the valve cover , while the engine was running with oil remaining within the head . when the rubber plugs were in place the seal was excellent . design variations may include different shaped access openings with different shaped rubber plugs . ( the size , shape and location of the openings will be self limiting .) variations in color and graphics for the rubber plugs . the rubber plugs could have billet covers that would be removable . rubber plugs could be connected for removal of all plugs at once . valve covers can be made with the rubber plugs for access to valve trains for v - 8 , v - six , straight six and four cylinder engines with adjustable type valve train . a number of changes are possible to the methods , parts , and uses described above while still remaining within the scope and spirit of the invention . the specifics about the form and use of the invention described in this application ( including the specifics in the summary , abstract , preferred embodiment , additional embodiments , and alternative embodiments , etc .) are examples and are not intended to be limiting in scope . those skilled in the art will recognize certain modifications , permutations , additions , subtractions and sub - combinations thereof , and may discover new fields of use . the scope of the invention is to be determined by the claims and their legal equivalents , not the examples , purposes , summary , preferred embodiments , alternative or additional embodiments , operation , tests , parameters , or limitations etc . given above . it is intended that the claims are interpreted to include all such modifications , additions , subtractions , permutations and sub - combinations as are within their true spirit and scope , including those which may be recognized later by those skilled in the art . | 5 |
[ 0020 ] fig1 illustrates a schematic view of an embodiment of a 1t1r memory array 10 . a 24 bit 1t1r memory array is shown . as shown , there are four word lines 12 , labeled w 1 - w 4 , and six bit lines 14 , labeled b 1 - b 6 . each bit 16 ( indicated by dashed lines ) is formed by a transistor 18 and a resistive element 20 , accordingly this memory element may be referred to as a 1 - transistor , 1 - resistor memory bit , or a 1t1r memory bit . each transistor 18 has a gate 22 , which is connected to one of the word lines 12 . the resistive element 20 is connected between a drain 24 of a transistor 18 and a bit line 14 . the transistor 18 has a source 26 connected to a common source 28 ( designated vs ). as shown in this embodiment , the sources 26 of adjacent transistors 18 are connected together , which may reduce array area . [ 0021 ] fig2 illustrates a planar view of a 1t1r memory array 10 during processing . as shown in this embodiment , there are four word lines 12 , labeled w 1 - w 4 , and three bit lines 14 , labeled b 1 - b 3 , which form a 12 bit memory array . [ 0022 ] fig3 shows a cross - section of the memory array of fig2 taken through one of the bit lines 14 , and corresponds to the cross - section identified as “ a - a ” in fig2 . fig4 shows a cross - section that corresponds to “ b - b ” in fig2 which is a cross - section taken between two adjacent bit lines 14 . a standard process , which is well known to those of ordinary skill in the art , may be used to form any desired wells and shallow trench isolation ( sti ) 48 on a substrate 50 . a gate oxide 52 is grown over the substrate 50 . a layer of polycide 54 is deposited , followed by a layer of oxide 56 , and a layer of nitride 58 . the term oxide as used herein refers to silicon oxide , including silicon dioxide . the term nitride refers generally to silicon nitride . for example , the polycide 54 may be between approximately 100 nm and 200 nm thick ; the oxide 56 may be between approximately 100 nm and 200 nm thick , and the nitride between approximately 50 nm and 100 nm thick . photoresist is deposited and patterned . the layers of polycide 54 , oxide 56 and nitride 58 are then etched to form gate stacks 60 , as shown in fig3 and fig4 . phosphorous or arsenic n + source / drain ion implantation is then performed to produce source regions 62 and drain regions 64 . the n + ion implantation may include lightly doped drain ( ldd ). the n + ion implantation may include halo ion implantation . both of these implantation processes may be used in connection with support circuitry , if any , so that these processes performed in connection with the memory array need not add process steps to the total process . a layer of nitride is deposited , preferably to a thickness of between approximately 50 nm and 150 nm , and etched to form nitride sidewalls 66 , as shown in fig5 and 6 . fig5 corresponds to fig3 following formation of the nitride sidewalls 66 . fig6 corresponds to fig4 following formation of the nitride sidewalls 66 . a salicide process is then performed to salicide the n + areas , which correspond to the source / drain regions 62 and 64 , and the p + areas , which within the memory array correspond to the p - well tie ( not shown ). the salicide process may be used to form common source lines , for example between adjacent transistors . if the memory array is being formed simultaneously with support circuitry the p + areas may also correspond to source / drain regions of some of the support circuitry ( not shown ). silicon oxide 70 is deposited by a cvd process to a thickness suitable for planarization using a cmp process . for example , the silicon oxide may be deposited to a thickness of about 1 . 5 times the height of the gate stack 60 . the silicon oxide 70 is then planarized using a cmp process . in one embodiment the planarization will be stopped at the nitride 58 , resulting in the structure shown in fig7 which corresponds to fig5 following deposition and planarization of silicon oxide 70 , and fig8 which likewise corresponds to fig6 following additional processing . photoresist is applied and patterned for bit contact etch . a selective etch of the oxide is used to open bit contacts . because of the high selectivity of oxide to nitride etch , overlap of the mask pattern over the nitride 58 is tolerable . due to the selectivity of the etch process the silicon oxide is etched without etching the nitride on top of the gate stack , this provides at least some self alignment of the bit contacts . a barrier metal , such as , tin , tan , taaln x is deposited to form a thin barrier layer ( not shown ). a bottom electrode material is then deposited . for example the bottom electrode material may be platinum or iridium . the bottom electrode material is planarized , for example using cmp , to the level of the nitride 58 to produce bottom electrodes 74 . the resulting structure is shown in fig9 which corresponds to the cross - section at the bit line , and fig1 , which corresponds to the cross - section between adjacent bit lines . in one embodiment , a resistive memory material 76 is deposited over the bottom electrodes 74 across the memory array 10 . alternatively , the resistive memory material 76 is deposited over an entire wafer and removed from areas outside the memory array 10 . the resistive memory material 76 is composed of any material that is capable of changing resistance in response to electrical pulses , for example a cmr and htsc materials , such as pcmo . a top electrode 78 is then formed by depositing a top electrode material , such as platinum or iridium , patterning and etching the top electrode material to form one , or more , top electrodes 78 , which correspond to the bit lines 14 . the resulting memory array structure is illustrated by the cross - sectional view shown in fig1 , which corresponds to the cross section at a bit line , and fig1 , which corresponds to the cross section between adjacent bit lines . in a second embodiment , a layer of resistive memory material 76 is deposited overlying the memory array and etched to form resistive memory studs ( not shown ) overlying the bottom electrodes 74 . a thin layer of between approximately 10 and 50 nm of a barrier insulator , such as si 3 n 4 , al 3 o 5 or tio 2 is deposited , followed by a layer of oxide . the layer of oxide has a thickness suitable for cmp planarization , for example 1 . 5 times the height of the resistive memory studs . the layer of oxide is then planarized level with the resistive memory studs , possibly using cmp . the planarization process removes the barrier insulator from the tops of the resistive memory studs , prior to formation of the top electrodes 78 . in a third embodiment , resistive memory studs are formed using a single damascene process . a layer of oxide is deposited to a thickness of between approximately 100 nm and 300 nm . trenches are etched through the oxide to the bottom electrodes 74 . a thin layer of barrier insulator , such as si 3 n 4 , al 3 o 5 or tio 2 , between approximately 10 nm and 50 nm thick is deposited along the trenches , including on trench sidewalls . the barrier insulator is plasma etched to remove barrier insulator from planar surfaces , including the bottom electrodes 74 , leaving barrier insulator on the trench sidewalls . the resistive memory material 76 is deposited and planarized to form resistive memory studs ( not shown ). top electrodes 78 are then formed overlying the resistive memory studs . although the above embodiment , utilized an n + ion implant for the formation of the source and drain regions , a p + ion implant could have been used instead . one process of forming transistors has been described in connection with the formation of the 1t1r resistive memory array . this process may be used to form support electronics as well as the memory array . for example , the support electronics and the memory array transistors may be formed using at least some of the process steps described above . an alternative process for forming transistors may be used , including for example a process that incorporates a high - k dielectric material . once the transistors are formed , contact is made to the drain and a resistive memory material is deposited , as described above to form a 1t1r resistive memory array . a 1t1r resistive memory device structure along with a memory array comprising multiple 1t1r bits has been provided , and described . the present invention is not limited to any particular array size or configuration . other variations and embodiments of the invention may occur to those of ordinary skill in the art . the scope of the invention shall be defined by the claims , without being limited by any preferred embodiment . | 7 |
referring to fig1 and 2 , one or more substrates 10 will be polished by a chemical mechanical polishing apparatus 20 . an exemplary polishing apparatus 20 includes a machine base 22 with a table top 23 that supports a series of polishing stations , including a first polishing station 25 a , a second polishing station 25 b , and a final polishing station 25 c , and a transfer station 27 . transfer station 27 serves multiple functions , including receiving individual substrates 10 from a loading apparatus ( not shown ), washing the substrates , loading the substrates into carrier heads , receiving the substrates from the carrier heads , washing the substrates again , and finally , transferring the substrates back to the loading apparatus . a description of a similar polishing apparatus may be found in u . s . pat . no . 5 , 738 , 574 , the entire disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference . each polishing station includes a rotatable platen . at least one of the polishing stations , such as first station 25 a , includes a polishing cartridge 102 mounted to a rotatable , rectangular platen 100 . the polishing cartridge 102 includes a linearly advanceable sheet or belt of fixed - abrasive polishing material . the remaining polishing stations , e . g ., second polishing station 25 b and final polishing station 25 c , may include polishing pads 32 and 34 , respectively , each attached to a circular platen 30 . each platen may be connected to a platen drive motor ( not shown ) that rotates the platen at thirty to two hundred revolutions per minute , although lower or higher rotational speeds may be used . assuming that substrate 10 is a 300 mm diameter disk , then rectangular platen 100 may be about thirty inches on a side , and circular platen 30 and polishing pads 32 and 34 may be about thirty inches in diameter . each polishing station 25 a , 25 b , and 25 c also includes a combined slurry / rinse arm 52 that projects over the associated polishing surface . each slurry / rinse arm 52 may include two or more slurry supply tubes to provide a polishing liquid , slurry , or cleaning liquid to the surface of the polishing pad . for example , the polishing liquid dispensed onto the fixed - abrasive polishing sheet at first polishing station 25 a will not include abrasive particles , whereas the slurry dispensed onto the standard polishing pad at second polishing station 25 b will include abrasive particles . if final polishing station 25 c is used for buffing , the polishing liquid dispensed onto the polishing pad at that station would not include abrasive particles . typically , sufficient liquid is provided to cover and wet the entire polishing pad . each slurry / rinse arm also includes several spray nozzles ( not shown ) which provide a high - pressure rinse at the end of each polishing and conditioning cycle . the polishing stations may include an optional associated pad conditioner apparatus 40 . the polishing stations that include polishing pad , i . e ., polishing station 25 a , may include an optional unillustrated cleaning apparatus to remove grit or polishing debris from the surface of the polishing sheet . the cleaning apparatus may include a rotatable brush to sweep the surface of the polishing sheet and / or a nozzle to spray a pressurized cleaning liquid , e . g ., deionized water , onto the surface of the polishing sheet . the cleaning apparatus can be operated continuously , or between polishing operations . in addition , the cleaning apparatus could be stationary , or it could sweep across the surface of the polishing sheet . in addition , optional cleaning stations 45 may be positioned between polishing stations 25 a and 25 b , between polishing stations 25 b and 25 c , between polishing station 25 c and transfer station 27 , and between transfer station 27 and polishing station 25 a , to clean the substrate as it moves between the stations . in the exemplary polishing system , a rotatable multi - head carousel 60 is supported above the polishing stations by a center post 62 and is rotated about a carousel axis 64 by a carousel motor assembly ( not shown ). carousel 60 includes four carrier head systems mounted on a carousel support plate 66 at equal angular intervals about carousel axis 64 . three of the carrier head systems receive and hold substrates , and polish them by pressing them against the polishing sheet of station 25 a and the polishing pads of stations 25 b and 25 c . one of the carrier head systems receives a substrate from and delivers a substrate to transfer station 27 . each carrier head system includes a carrier or carrier head 80 . a carrier drive shaft 78 connects a carrier head rotation motor 76 ( shown by the removal of one quarter of the carousel cover ) to carrier head 80 so that each carrier head can independently rotate about its own axis . in addition , each carrier head 80 independently laterally oscillates in a radial slot 72 formed in carousel support plate 66 . the carrier head 80 performs several mechanical functions . generally , the carrier head holds the substrate against the polishing surface , evenly distributes a downward pressure across the back surface of the substrate , transfers torque from the drive shaft to the substrate , and ensures that the substrate does not slip out from beneath the carrier head during polishing operations . a description of a suitable carrier head may be found in u . s . pat . nos . 6 , 183 , 354 and 6 , 857 , 945 , filed may 21 , 1997 , the entire disclosures of which are incorporated herein by reference . referring to fig3 a , 3 b , and 3 c , polishing cartridge 102 is detachably secured to rectangular platen 100 at polishing station 25 a . polishing cartridge 102 includes a feed roller 130 , a take - up roller 132 , and a generally linear sheet or belt 110 of a polishing pad material . an unused or a fresh portion 120 of the polishing sheet is wrapped around feed roller 130 , and a used portion 122 of the polishing sheet is wrapped around take - up roller 132 . a rectangular exposed portion 124 of the polishing sheet that is used to polish substrates extends between the used and unused portions 120 , 122 over a top surface 140 of rectangular platen 100 . the rectangular platen 100 can be rotated ( as shown by phantom arrow a in fig3 a ) to rotate the exposed portion of the polishing sheet and thereby provide relative motion between the substrate and the polishing sheet during polishing . between polishing operations , the polishing sheet can be advanced ( as shown by phantom arrow b in fig3 a ) to expose an unused portion of the polishing sheet . when the polishing material advances , polishing sheet 110 unwraps from feed roller 130 , moves across the top surface of the rectangular platen 100 , and is taken up by take - up roller 132 ( as shown in fig1 ). referring to fig4 , in some embodiments , the polishing sheet 110 includes two layers . an upper polishing layer 119 is formed from a polishing material and a lower layer 116 , such as a backing layer or carrier layer is formed from a film . the upper polishing layer 119 can be formed from a resin , such as a phenolic resins , polyurethane , urea - formaldehyde resin , melamine formaldehyde resin , acrylated urethane , acrylated epoxy , ethylenically unsaturated compound , aminoplast derivative having at least one pendant acrylate group , isocyanurate derivative having at least one pendant acrylate group , vinyl ether , epoxy resin , and combinations thereof . the sheet can also include fillers , such as hollow microspheres or voids . lower layer 116 is a backing layer composed of a material such as a polymeric film , e . g ., polyethylene terephthalate ( pet ), paper , cloth , a metallic film or the like . in some embodiments , the two layers are bonded together , such as with an epoxy or an adhesive , e . g ., a pressure sensitive adhesive , or by welding the two layers together . the polishing layer can be between 10 and 150 mils , such as between 20 and 80 mils , such as around 40 mils thick . the polishing sheet 110 can be about twenty , twenty five or thirty inches wide . referring to fig1 a - 11c , in some implementations , the upper polishing layer of the polishing sheet 110 has grooves in the top surface . the grooves can be of any configuration , but can be rotationally and translationally invariant . the grooves can be x - grooves , shown in fig1 b , that is , grooves that are arranged perpendicular to the direction of travel of the sheet , xy - grooves , shown in fig1 a , that is , grooves that are perpendicular and parallel to the direction of travel of the sheet , diagonal grooves , or other suitable groove pattern . in fig1 a - 11b , the arrows indicate the direction of travel . the grooves can be between about 45 and 5 mils deep , such as between about 35 and 15 mils , such as about 25 mils deep . in some implementations , the grooves are spaced closely together to aid in bending the polishing sheet , as described further herein . referring again to fig3 a , 3 b and 3 c , a transparent strip 118 can be formed along the length of polishing sheet 110 . the transparent strip 118 or window may be positioned at the center of the sheet , that is , the window can run the length of the polishing pad and be approximately equidistant to each pad edge , and may be between about 0 . 2 and 1 inch wide , such as between about 0 . 4 and 0 . 8 inches wide or about 0 . 6 inches wide . the transparent strip will be aligned with an aperture or transparent window 154 in rectangular platen 100 to provide optical monitoring of the substrate surface for end point detection , as discussed in greater detail below . the top surface of the transparent strip 118 can be planar with the top surface of the polishing portion of the polishing sheet 110 . this arrangement prevents slurry from collecting on the transparent strip 118 and adversely affecting any metrology that is performed through the transparent strip 118 . the feed and take - up rollers 130 and 132 should be slightly longer than the width of polishing sheet 110 . the rollers 130 , 132 may be plastic or metal cylinders about 20 ″ long and between about 2 ″ and 2 . 5 ″ in diameter . because the polishing sheet 110 passes around the rollers 130 , 132 many times , the transparent strip 118 is formed of a material that is not prone to cracking , crazing , delaminating or splitting , such as at the pad / strip interface . ideally , the transparent strip is formed of a material sufficiently durable to hold up to conditioning with a diamond coated conditioning tool . in some implementations , the transparent strip 118 is integral with the backing layer , that is , the transparent strip 118 and the backing layer are made of the same material and are a single unit . in some implementations , the transparent strip can be molded to the polishing layer . in some implementations , the top surface of the transparent strip 118 is substantially planar with the top surface of the polishing sheet 110 . a commercially available material having many of the desired properties of the transparent strip is calthane nd 3200 polyurethane ( cal polymers , long beach , calif .). the material is a two part clear non - ambering urethane elastomer , and it has a transmittance of at least 80 % ( for a 150 mils thick sheet ) for wavelengths of 350 nm and greater ( out to the end of the visible light spectrum at about 700 nm ). the material has a refractive index of about 1 . 48 . without being limited to any particular theory , it is believed that the high transmission of this polyurethane material ( in contrast to currently available polyurethane window materials ) is the use of a polyurethane material that is substantially free of internal defects . although current polyurethanes used for windows are generally free of additives , such materials can include internal defects , such as bubbles or voids , cracks , or microdomains ( e . g ., small areas of differing crystalline structure or orientation ) that act to diffuse or scatter the light . by forming the polyurethane substantially free of internal defects , it is possible to achieve a high optical clarity . in some implementations , the transparent strip 118 is formed from a polyurethane material , for example , calthane nd 3200 . the material forming the transparent strip can have hardness on the shore d scale of between about 50 and 80 , such as 60 . in some implementations , the material forming the transparent strip has a thickness of between about 50 mils and 55 mils . rectangular platen 100 includes a generally planar rectangular top surface 140 bounded by a feed edge 142 , a take - up edge 144 , and two parallel lateral edges 146 . a groove 150 ( shown in phantom in fig3 a and 3c ) is formed in top surface 140 . the groove 150 may be a generally - rectangular pattern that extends along edges 142 - 146 of top surface 140 . a passage 152 through platen 100 connects groove 150 to a vacuum source 200 ( see fig5 ). when passage 152 is evacuated , exposed portion 124 of polishing sheet 110 is vacuum - chucked to top surface 140 of platen 100 . this vacuum - chucking helps ensure that lateral forces caused by friction between the substrate and the polishing sheet during polishing do not force the polishing sheet off the platen . as discussed , aperture 154 is formed in top surface 140 of rectangular platen 100 . a compressible subpad 300 may be placed on the top surface of the platen 100 to cushion the impact of the substrate against the polishing sheet as shown in fig1 and 14 . in addition , platen 100 may include an unillustrated shim plate . shim plates of differing thickness may be attached to the platen to adjust the vertical position of the top surface of platen . the compressible subpad can be attached to the shim plate . the subpad can be separate from the polishing sheet , that is , not integral with the polishing sheet or not adhered together . the subpad 300 can be formed from a single material or can be formed from multiple layers of materials . a pad formed of multiple layers of materials can be a stacked pad . in one embodiment , a stacked subpad has a layer of ic polishing material stacked on a layer of foam , such as a soft foam , for example , suba iv , available from rohm and haas of newark , del . the upper layer of the stacked pad can be between about 40 and 120 mils thick , such as between 60 and 100 mils , such as around 80 mils thick . the lower layer of the subpad can be between about 30 and 70 mils , such as between about 40 and 60 mils , such as around 50 mils thick . referring to fig1 , the subpad 300 can have grooves that are the same or different from the grooves in the polishing layer . referring to fig1 , the grooves can be circular , oval , off - center circular , or spiral . the grooves in the subpad 300 can be of sufficient depth and width such that when a vacuum is pulled on the subpad , grooves are introduced into the polishing sheet even if the overlying polishing sheet does not have grooves . the grooves can have a depth between about 30 and 50 mils , such as between about 35 and 40 mils . in some implementations , the grooves in the subpad can have a greater width , pitch , and / or depth than the grooves in the polishing surface . in some implementations , the groove pattern of the polishing surface is different than the groove pattern of a subpad . the subpad 300 can be circular , rectangular or any shape that is suitable for use with the platen 100 . referring to fig2 - 21 , a pattern of grooves 306 is formed in one or more layers of the subpad material that support a polishing surface 302 . the polishing surface 302 is pulled into the groove pattern by vacuum ( as shown by the vertical arrows ). the result is that a pattern of grooves is formed in the polishing surface 302 . this groove pattern facilitates slurry distribution between the wafer and the polishing surface 302 , and , consequently improves the process performance of the polisher . thus , grooves are not required in the polishing surface . one advantage of forming grooves in the subpad 300 is that a web - style pad or linear sheet can exhibit or provide a circular or spiral groove pattern in the polishing surface and still be advanced in small increments without changing the location of the groove pattern . the subpad has a surface that need not be a polishing layer . that is , the surface roughness or coefficient of friction of the subpad need not be sufficient for polishing a substrate surface . additionally , the polishing pad or polishing sheet alone may not have much structural rigidity . the subpad can provide the structural rigidity . the polishing performance of the polishing sheet or pad is influenced by the mechanical properties of the subpad . a stiff subpad and a softer subpad will provide different polishing results with the same polishing sheet or polishing pad . because the subpad does not wear away as quickly as a polishing sheet or polishing pad , the subpad can have a longer useful life than the polishing layer . thus , when the polishing sheet is advanced or changed , the same subpad can be continued to be used . as illustrated by fig5 , rectangular platen 100 is secured to a rotatable platen base 170 . rectangular platen 100 and platen base 170 may be joined by several peripheral screws 174 counter - sunk into the bottom of platen base 170 . a first collar 176 is connected by screws 178 to the bottom of platen base 170 to capture the inner race of an annular bearing 180 . a second collar 182 , connected to table top 23 by a set of screws 183 , captures the outer race of annular bearing 180 . annular bearing 180 supports rectangular platen 100 above table top 23 while permitting the platen to be rotated by the platen drive motor . a platen motor assembly 184 is bolted to the bottom of table top 23 through a mounting bracket 186 . platen motor assembly 184 includes a motor 188 having an output drive shaft 190 . output shaft 190 is fitted to a solid motor sheath 192 . a drive belt 194 winds around motor sheath 192 and a hub sheath 196 . hub sheath 196 is joined to platen base 170 by a platen hub 198 . thus , motor 188 may rotate rectangular platen 100 . platen hub 198 is sealed to lower platen base 170 and to hub sheath 196 . a pneumatic control line 172 extends through rectangular platen 100 to connect passage 152 , and thus grooves 150 , to a vacuum or pressure source . the pneumatic line 172 may be used both to vacuum - chuck the polishing sheet and to power or activate a polishing sheet advancement mechanism , which is further described in u . s . pat . no . 6 , 135 , 859 , filed apr . 30 , 1999 , the entire disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference . the platen vacuum - chucking mechanism may be powered by a stationary pneumatic source 200 such as a pump or a source of pressurized gas . pneumatic source 200 is connected by a fluid line 202 to a computer controlled valve 204 . the computer controlled valve 204 is connected by a second fluid line 206 to a rotary coupling 208 . the rotary coupling 208 connects the pneumatic source 200 to an axial passage 210 in a rotating shaft 212 , and a coupling 214 connects axial passage 210 to a flexible pneumatic line 216 . vacuum - chucking passage 152 can be connected to flexible pneumatic line 216 via pneumatic line 172 through rectangular platen 100 , a passage 220 in platen base 170 , a vertical passage 222 in platen hub 198 , and a passageway 224 in hub sheath 196 . o - rings 226 may be used to seal each passageway . a general purpose programmable digital computer 280 is appropriately connected to valve 204 , platen drive motor 188 , carrier head rotation motor 76 , and a carrier head radial drive motor ( not shown ). computer 280 can open or close valve 204 , rotate platen 100 , rotate carrier head 80 and move carrier head along slot 72 . referring to fig6 , in some embodiments an aperture or hole 154 is formed in platen 100 and is aligned with transparent strip 118 in polishing sheet 110 . the aperture 154 and transparent strip 118 are positioned such that they have a view of substrate 10 during a portion of the platen &# 39 ; s rotation , regardless of the translational position of the polishing head . an optical monitoring system 90 is located below and secured to platen 100 , e . g ., between rectangular platen 100 and platen base 170 so that it rotates with the platen . the optical monitoring system includes a light source 94 and a detector 96 . the light source generates a light beam 92 which propagates through aperture 154 and transparent strip 118 to impinge upon the exposed surface of substrate 10 . referring to fig9 b and 10b , in some implementations , the material that is used to form the transparent strip 118 in the polishing sheet 110 also forms the lower layer 116 of the polishing sheet 110 . for example , the material can be a polymer material . referring to fig9 a , in some implementations , the transparent strip 118 is formed with the lower layer 116 . the material that forms polishing layer 119 can then be formed on the lower layer 116 , such as by casting . if any of the polishing layer material covers the transparent strip 118 , this material can be removed from over the transparent strip 118 . the exposed surface of the transparent strip 118 can be substantially planar with the exposed surface of the polishing layer 119 . referring to fig1 a , in some implementations , the polishing layer 119 is fabricated before the lower layer 116 . a recess is formed in the polishing layer 119 or the polishing layer 119 is formed of two separate pieces . the lower layer 116 and transparent strip 118 are then fabricated on the polishing layer 119 . the transparent strip 118 can therefore by formed simultaneously with the lower layer 116 and can be integral with the lower layer 116 . there may not be a seam at the junction of the lower layer 116 and the transparent strip 118 . either of the polishing layer 119 or the lower layer 116 can be formed by molding , extruding , casting , shaping with pinch rollers , ablating or mechanical milling . in some instances , the layer that is formed first is allowed to dry or cure . the second layer is then fabricated on top of the first . in some implementations , the two layers are formed separately and adhered or welded together . in any of the implementations , the transparent strip 118 extends from the top surface of the polishing sheet to the bottom surface of the polishing sheet , yielding a window . the top surface of the polishing layer is substantially free of abrasives . grooves can be formed in the polishing surface after or while the surface is being formed . the transparent strip 118 can be free of grooves . however , in some implementations , grooves are also formed in the transparent strip 118 . in some implementations , the window extends the entire length of the polishing layer . in some implementations , the carrier layer extends across the width of the polishing layer . referring to fig2 - 24 , an alternative method is shown for forming the window 404 in the polishing sheet 110 . referring to fig2 , a polishing sheet is formed from a material suitable for polishing a substrate . the polishing sheet can be formed by molding , cutting or extruding . a plurality of dovetail - like openings 402 , fissures or grooves are formed in the polishing sheet . the two halves are separated by the desired width of the window 404 . referring to fig2 , material that can be dried , cured or hardened is inserted into the groove ( as indicated by the arrow ). the material , such as a liquid precursor of the window material , is then dried , cured or hardened forming a composite polishing sheet . referring to fig2 , the window material is intimately bonded to the polishing material , with projections of the window material interlocking with projections of the polishing material ( not shown ). the window material can be selected so that the window material and polishing material of the composite polishing sheet will wear evenly or uniformly and bend around the same radii without delaminating . other process steps may also be required , such as cutting the sheet or skiving the sheet from a cast block of pad material . the window can be centered and generally equidistant from the edges of the sheet or be between the edge of the polishing sheet and the center , as shown in fig2 . the window can extend substantially the entire length of the polishing sheet . in some implementations , a surface of the window can be substantially planar with a surface of the polishing sheet . in operation , cmp apparatus 20 uses optical monitoring system 90 to determine the thickness of a layer on the substrate , to determine the amount of material removed from the surface of the substrate , or to determine when the surface has become planarized . the computer 280 may be connected to light source 94 and detector 96 . electrical couplings between the computer and the optical monitoring system may be formed through rotary coupling 208 . the computer may be programmed to activate the light source when the substrate overlies the window , to store measurements from the detector , to display the measurements on an output device 98 , and to detect the polishing endpoint , as described in u . s . pat . nos . 6 , 159 , 073 and 6 , 280 , 289 , filed nov . 2 , 1998 , the entire disclosures of which are incorporated herein by reference . in operation , exposed portion 124 of polishing sheet 110 or the subpad is vacuum - chucked to rectangular platen 100 by applying a vacuum to passage 152 . a substrate is lowered into contact with polishing sheet 110 by carrier head 80 , and both platen 100 and carrier head 80 rotate to polish the exposed surface of the substrate . after polishing , the substrate is lifted off the polishing pad by the carrier head . the vacuum on passage 152 is removed . the polishing sheet is advanced , such as by applying a positive pressure to pneumatic line 172 to trigger the advancement mechanism . alternatively , the positive pressure is used to blow the sheet off the platen and ease sheet advancement . this exposes a fresh segment of the polishing sheet . the polishing sheet is then vacuum - chucked to the rectangular platen , and a new substrate is lowered into contact with the polishing sheet . thus , between each polishing operation , the polishing sheet may be advanced incrementally . if the polishing station includes a cleaning apparatus , the polishing sheet may be washed between each polishing operation . the amount that the sheet may be advanced will depend on the desired polishing uniformity and the properties of the polishing sheet , but should be on the order of 0 . 05 to 1 . 0 inches , e . g ., 0 . 4 inch , per polishing operation . assuming that the exposed portion 124 of polishing sheet is 20 inches long and the polishing sheet advances 0 . 4 inches after each polishing operation , the entire exposed portion of the polishing sheet will be replaced after about fifty polishing operations . when the substrate has been polished , the carrier head removes the substrate from the polishing layer , that is , the carrier head dechucks the substrate from the polishing surface . the substrate can be removed from the polishing surface by applying a suction to the back of the substrate and lifting . the slurry in combination with a flat wafer can make it difficult to remove the substrate from the polishing surface because of the strong surface tension . in some implementations , the polishing sheet , polishing pad or subpad has a feature , such as a groove or an embossed feature , that can aid in wafer dechuck . during polishing , the substrate is in contact with a portion of the polishing surface that does not include or is not over the feature . after polishing , the edge of the substrate is moved over the feature , where the feature can serve as a dechuck enhancement feature . referring to fig1 - 19 , in some implementations , a subpad 300 has a feature 304 suitable to assist with substrate dechuck . when no platen vacuum is applied , the polishing surface 302 does not follow the contour of the feature 304 in the subpad ( fig1 ). when a vacuum is applied , the polishing surface 302 conforms to the feature 304 . a substrate is not over the feature during polishing . during dechuck , a substrate is partially over the feature . fig1 - 19 show plan views of the substrate during polishing and during dechuck , respectively . in the polishing sheet , the dechuck feature can be formed along the centerline of the sheet , along an edge or between the edge and the centerline of the polishing sheet . referring to fig7 , at second polishing station 25 b , the circular platen may support a circular polishing pad 32 having a roughened surface 262 , an upper layer 264 and a lower layer 266 . lower layer 266 may be attached to platen 30 by a pressure - sensitive adhesive layer 268 . upper layer 264 may be harder than lower layer 266 . for example , upper layer 264 may be composed of microporous polyurethane or polyurethane mixed with a filler , whereas lower layer 266 may be composed of compressed felt fibers leached with urethane . a two layer polishing pad , with the upper layer composed of ic 1000 or ic - 1400 and the lower layer composed of suba iv , is available from rohm and haas of newark , del . ( ic 1000 , ic - 1400 and suba iv are product names of rohm and haas ). a transparent window 269 may be formed in polishing pad 32 over an aperture 36 in platen 30 . referring to fig8 , at final polishing station 25 c , the platen may support a polishing pad 34 having a generally smooth surface 272 and a single soft layer 274 . layer 274 may be attached to platen 30 by a pressure - sensitive adhesive layer 278 . layer 274 may be composed of a napped poromeric synthetic material . a suitable soft polishing pad is available from rohm and haas , under the trade name politex ™. polishing pads 32 and 34 may be embossed or stamped with a pattern to improve distribution of slurry across the face of the substrate . polishing station 25 c may otherwise be identical to polishing station 25 b . a transparent window 279 may be formed in polishing pad 34 over aperture 36 . in some implementations , the circular polishing pad 32 , 34 can have a spiral groove or multiple spiral grooves , such as two spiral grooves starting 180 degrees apart , giving a groove - to - groove pitch in the radial direction , or three , four , or more spiral grooves . although the cmp apparatus is described as vacuum chucking the polishing sheet to the platen , other techniques could be used to secure the polishing sheet to the platen during polishing . for example , the edges of the polishing sheet could be clamped to the sides of the platen by a set of clamps . also , although the rollers are described as connected to the retainers by pins that are inserted through apertures , numerous other implantations are possible to rotatably connect the rollers to the platen . for example , a recess could be formed on the inner surface of the retainer to engage a pin that projects from the end face of the roller . the retainers 160 may be slightly bendable , and the rollers might be snap - fit into the retainers . alternately , the recess in the inner surface of the retainer could form a labyrinth path that traps the rollers due to tension . alternately , the retainer could be pivotally attached to the platen , and the roller could engage the retainer once the retainer is locked in position . in addition , although the cmp apparatus is described as having one rectangular platen with a grooved surface and two circular platens with round polishing pads , other configurations are possible . for example , the apparatus can include one , two or three rectangular platens . the pad , sheet and subpad embodiments described herein can be used with continuous belts , non - rotating platen systems , and polishing systems with only one polishing station . in fact , one advantage of cmp apparatus 20 is that each platen base 170 is adaptable to receive either a rectangular platen or a circular platen . the polishing sheet on each rectangular platen may be a fixed abrasive or a non - fixed abrasive polishing material . the polishing sheet can include multiple layers which are bonded together . similarly , each polishing pad on the circular platen can be a fixed - abrasive or a non - fixed abrasive polishing material . the standard polishing pads can have a single hard layer ( e . g ., ic - 1000 ), a single soft layer ( e . g ., as in a politex ™ pad ), or two stacked layers ( e . g ., as in a combined ic - 1000 / suba iv polishing pad ). different slurries and different polishing parameters , e . g ., carrier head rotation rate , platen rotation rate , carrier head pressure , can be used at the different polishing stations . one implementation of the cmp apparatus may include two rectangular platens with fixed - abrasive polishing sheets for primary polishing , and a circular platen with a soft polishing pad for buffing . the polishing parameters , pad composition and slurry composition can be selected so that the first polishing sheet has a faster polishing rate than the second polishing sheet . when a subpad and the polishing sheet 110 are used together , the polishing sheet 110 slides across the subpad between or during polishes . with some of the polishing sheets described herein , a number of wafers and each wafer will be polished by a portion of the polishing sheet that has not previously been used to polish another pad . alternatively , the polishing sheet can be moved incrementally rather than a full length between each substrate polish . pad wear will not be a factor in polishing subsequent wafers , because each wafer is exposed to substantially the same polishing pad conditions . a steady - state for the pad surface will result once the sheet has been incremented the distance equal to the diameter of the polishing area . grooves in the top surface of the polishing sheet that are perpendicular to the direction of travel of the polishing sheet can aid the polishing sheet in bending when the sheet is rolled or stretches across the small radius of the feed roller 130 before reaching the wafer . if a system has grooves in a subpad , the subpad can form temporary grooves in the polishing surface , aiding in slurry transport and flow across the surface of the pad . the temporary grooves can be more pronounced when a vacuum is applied to the subpad . alternatively , or in addition , the polishing surface of a polishing pad can have grooves . the grooves of a pad or a subpad can have a spiral shape . the spiral grooves can pump slurry toward the polishing surface . the spiral grooves originate from the center of the pad or subpad and move out towards the outer edge . as the platen rotates , the spirals converge toward or away from the center of the polishing area . the grooves perform a global action of either retaining slurry on the platen or moving exhausted slurry and / or polish waste products off the platen and away from the wafer . if the platen is rotated in the direction of increasing spiral groove radius so that the spiral appears to converge , that is move toward the center , slurry is transported toward the center . if the platen is rotated in the direction of decreasing spiral groove radius so that the spiral appears to expand , spent slurry and waste products are moved off of the platen more quickly than by centrifugal force alone . a pad or subpad with multiple spirals , e . g ., two spirals , can move the slurry faster than a pad or subpad with a single groove . in addition to any slurry transporting or pumping action , spiral grooves in the polishing layer or subpad can control polishing undulations or in homogeneities in removal of material from the wafer surface . in some implementations , the subpad can have a thickness of about 150 mils . in some implementations , the spiral grooves can have a depth of between about 40 mils and 60 mils , such as about 50 mils , and a width of between about 400 mils and 600 mils , such as 500 mils . the pitch of the grooves can be about 1 inch . alternative embodiments of the platen can have a central region of top surface free from grooves to prevent potential deflection of the polishing sheet into the grooves from interfering with the polishing uniformity . a number of embodiments of the invention have been described . nevertheless , it will be understood that various modifications may be made without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention . accordingly , other embodiments are within the scope of the following claims . | 1 |
in a first preferred embodiment , a user such as a police officer desires to use the method in connection with a long weapon such as a shotgun to minimize the range that a shot pellet will travel , and accordingly , decrease the risk that innocent bystanders will be injured by stray shot pellet . in this first preferred embodiment , a user begins at a first step , the holstered position , as is substantially illustrated and represented as fig1 . to further illustrate the details of the first preferred embodiment , the user would place a long weapon is in a first , holstered position whereby the weapon , 1 , has a butt - stock , 2 , and a front stock , 3 . the butt - stock , 2 , is connected to a retractable cord , 5 , which can be constructed of multi - ply elastic cording material . the retractable cord , 5 , is housed within a protective sleeve , 7 , to keep the multi - ply elastic cording material from becoming entangled with other objects and also to retain the integrity of the multi - ply elastic cording material . the protective sleeve , 7 , is attached to a vest , 9 , substantially along the back of the user such that the cord has a tendency to pull the butt - stock towards the under - arm region of the user . a benefit of this arrangement is that the butt - stock is readily accessible at all times to the user and is within easy reach . the front stock , 3 , is secured within a front - stock holster , 11 . the front - stock holster , 11 , is secured to the body of the user with a belt attachment , 13 . the front - stock , 3 , is substantially surrounded by a front - stock holster , 11 , by virtue of the corresponding mimic design of the front - stock holster in relation to the exterior shape of the front - stock . the front - stock holster , 11 , has and the weapon is secure in the first , holstered position . fig2 better illustrates the first preferred embodiment available to the front - stock holster , 11 , which is connected to the user with a corresponding belt attachment . the front - stock holster is located a comfortable distance below the user &# 39 ; s waist , to minimize unnecessary arm movement . the external side of the front - stock holster , 17 , which is the side facing away from the leg of the user , has one or more outwardly curved regions , 19 to facilitate and permit the user to easily find and locate the front - stock holster without looking down or away from the mission underway . in this first preferred embodiment , the internal side of the front - stock holster , 21 , which is the side facing towards the leg of the user , is generally flanged toward the body of the user . the internal side of the front - stock holster , 21 , has a retaining strap , 25 , that can be used to cover and thereby secure the front - stock at an attachment region , 27 , located on the external side of the front - stock holster , 17 . generally , a retaining strap may use traditional hook - and - loop technology to secure the retaining strap , 25 , to the attachment region , 27 . fig3 helps illustrate the first preferred embodiment available to the butt - stock retention means . in this figure , the butt - stock , 2 , is connected to a retractable cord , 5 , using a connection , 6 . in many circumstances , the type of connection is immaterial ; however , in this first preferred embodiment , the connection , 6 , comprises a dual swivel to prevent the retractable cord , 5 , from becoming twisted . the retractable cord , 5 , is shown in this figure as a plurality of cords or in a multi - ply assembly . in many instances , it is desirable to use an external covering to properly assemble and maintain the plurality of cords or multi - ply cord assembly . the retractable cord , 5 , is housed within a protective sleeve , 7 . the protective sleeve , 7 , is shown in fig3 with an opening , 8 , through which the cord may retract and extend within the protective sleeve , 7 . in this first preferred embodiment , fig4 represents a cross - sectional view of the front - stock holster , 11 . it is apparent from fig4 that the overall shape of the front - stock holster gains function from mimicking the overall relative shape of the front - stock such that the front - stock holster grips the front - stock substantially and conforms to the front - stock . the interior portion of the front - stock holster , 23 , is generally shaped to accept a semi - rounded front - stock . to expand on this grip function , it has been useful to use a tension bolt , 15 , to retain the gripping ability of the front - stock holster . while more than one tension bolt may be suitable to keep a grip on the front - stock , no set number is contemplated in this first preferred embodiment . to further expand on this grip function , the interior portion of the front - stock holster , 24 , is further depicted to have a compressible gripping element . in this first preferred embodiment , the compressible gripping element comprises a soft rubber coating or an insertion of neoprene rubber material coated with a soft fabric . the first preferred embodiment of the method further contemplates a user moving the weapon from a first , holstered position to a second , free position whereby the butt - stock is still retractably connected to the user but the front - stock is no longer secured in the front - stock holster . in this second step , the user may , without substantial restriction , utilize the weapon for tactical purposes , including sighting and firing the weapon . to further illustrate the second step , the user may , without looking down , locate the front - stock holster by feeling for one or more outwardly curved regions , 19 , on the external side of the front - stock holster , 17 , with his right hand . reference to the right hand is made not as a limitation but ; instead , to properly illustrate the ease of operation of this method . the user would then remove , with the same right hand , the retaining strap , 25 , from the attachment region , 27 , which is located on the external side of the front - stock holster , 17 . in this first preferred embodiment , the retaining strap employs traditional hook - and - loop technology , and this movement remains fluid , without complicating or distracting interruption . because the overall shape of the front - stock holster gains function from mimicking the overall relative shape of a generic front - stock such that the front - stock holster grips substantially the front - stock and conforms to the front - stock , the weapon remains holstered until the user decides to actively remove the weapon from the front - stock holster with his right hand . even when the user removes the front - stock from the front - stock holster , the weapon is still attached to the user because the butt - stock , 2 , remains connected to a retractable cord , 5 , properly housed within a protective sleeve , 7 , attached to the user with a vest , 9 . the protective sleeve , 7 , is shown in fig3 with an opening , 8 , through which the cord may suitably retract and extend within the protective sleeve , 7 . as a continuation of this second step , the user may grasp the front - stock area of the weapon with his right hand to remove the front - stock from the front - stock holster and also controllably extend the retraction cord thereby moving the butt - stock away from his body and away from the first , holstered position , to afford him opportunity to grasp the butt stock or a grip region with his left hand . this swift , fluid movement facilitates quick and unobstructed access to the weapon and further obviates the need for the user to switch hands to do a single operation . as a third step to this first preferred embodiment , the user may elect to return the weapon to the first , holstered position by releasing his left hand grasp from the butt - stock or the grip region and controllably returning with his right hand the front - stock portion of the weapon back into the front - stock holster , thereby permitting the retraction cord to retract and return the butt - stock portion to a first , holstered and secured position near the body of the user . the user may leave the front - stock in the front - stock holster without the additional security of the retaining strap , 25 , or the user may elect to secure the front - stock with his right hand by placing the retaining strap , 25 , over the front - stock and connecting to the attachment region , 27 , properly located in this first preferred embodiment between the one or more outwardly curved regions , 19 , on the external side of the front - stock holster , 17 . in a second preferred embodiment , a user may elect to use the method in connection with smaller , handheld weapons . in this instance , the terms butt - stock and front - stock are used , not as terms of limitation , but merely as terms of reference . typically , a traditional handheld weapon such as a pistol does not have a front - stock ; however , it does have a front barrel portion that will be considered analogous or homologous to a front - stock and the front barrel portion will be referred to as a front - stock in this embodiment and for purposes of the present specification or claims . also , the term butt - stock is applied to handheld weapons such as pistols to comprise the grip of a traditional pistol , but the term butt - stock will be used for purposes of the present specification or claims . in the second preferred embodiment , the method contemplates a user moving the handheld weapon from a first , holstered position to a second , free position whereby the butt - stock is still retractably connected to the user but the front - stock is no longer secured in the front - stock holster . in this first step , the front - stock holster may comprise a traditional enveloping structure that covers substantially most of the front - stock region as is common to the industry , or it may comprise instead only a semi - enveloping structure that employs a magnet to substantially retain the position of the front - stock within or abutted next to , the front - stock holster . in this second step , the user may , without substantial restriction , utilize the weapon for tactical purposes , including sighting and firing the weapon . however , in the second preferred embodiment , the user need only grasp the butt - stock of the handheld weapon to release or withdraw the front - stock from the front - stock holster and simultaneously or subsequently controllably extend the retraction cord thereby moving the butt - stock away from his body and away from the first , holstered position , to afford him opportunity to sight or fire the handheld weapon . the method then contemplates a user returning the handheld weapon back to a first , holstered position by returning the front - stock portion of the weapon back into the front - stock holster with one hand , and the retraction means selectively or automatically returning the butt - stock portion to a secured position near the body of the user . it is understood that there is a high degree of flexibility in the design of the retention means or retractable cord . the type of retractable cord , namely , the material used , is not the only element of flexibility in design . importantly , the ability to selectively retract the butt - stock is specifically contemplated , either by use of a mechanical actuator or a voice - recognition or sound controlled system whereby the user would audibly or physically command the retraction means to selectively retract the weapon back to a holstered position , i . e ., verbal command or push - button . it is also understood that there is a high degree of flexibility in the design of the retraction cord connection to the butt - stock . this connection may be fixedly connected to the weapon or it may be releaseably connected to the weapon at the butt - stock region . while the drawings herein depict the connection occurring at the terminus of the butt - stock , this is for illustration only and is not intended as a limitation since the connection may suitably work in a variety of locations on the weapon , although , the principal advantage of the present invention is best achieved with the attachment or connection occurring in close proximity to the butt - stock or grip area . it is also understood that there is a high degree of flexibility in the design of the front - stock holster . while a general effort to mimic and surround the outside shape and structure of the front - stock to facilitate adequate gripping is contemplated , the invention specifically contemplates designing front - stock holsters that substantially mirror certain weapon designs . indeed , where the front - stock holster is used in connection with a handheld weapon , the front - stock holster will gain significant function in substantially mimicking the overall shape of the handheld weapon . use of magnetic elements to further enhance the gripping - ability of the front - stock holster to a front - stock is specifically contemplated . indeed , use of this technology may reduce or alleviate the need for the front - stock holster to substantially envelope the front - stock . for example , the present invention specifically contemplates a front - stock holster that serves to retain the front - stock not through gripping and tension as is disclosed in the first preferred embodiment , but instead through magnetic attraction such that the front - stock holster may serve purely as a highly - magnetized place or area to secure the weapon instead of a traditional holster . other modifications , changes and substitutions are intended in the foregoing , and in some instances , some features of the invention will be employed without a corresponding use of the other features . for example , a retention means or retractable cord that is not attached to a vest is contemplated such that the retention means is used in connection with a holster strap otherwise fastened to the user &# 39 ; s body , i . e ., across the user &# 39 ; s chest , back , waist , or leg . in addition , it may not be necessary for a front stock retaining strap to be used , or it may prove beneficial to use retaining straps that offer a higher degree of security than does a traditional hook - and - loop fastening system . the advantages to the present invention are discussed in previous sections ; namely , that the present invention brings together the field of tactical arms and ease of use . | 8 |
we have found that the blood of farmed , domesticated stocks of coldwater fishes , especially the salmonids ( salmon and trout ), contains quantities of fibrinogen and thrombin similar to human blood , and these clotting factors can be extracted from salmonid blood by known methods . we have demonstrated that clots ( fibrin sealants ) made from polymerization of salmonid fibrinogen and thrombin , or salmonid fibrinogen and mammalian thrombin , have clot strength and elasticity ( fig1 and 2 ), clotting times ( fig3 ), fibrinolytic characteristics , and adhesion to mammalian tissue similar to those of clots made with highly purified human fibrin . all testing was performed with trout ( oncorhynchus mykiss ) and / or salmon ( salmo salar ) plasma or components . although the only purified trout or salmon protein used was fibrinogen , we have demonstrated the efficiency of endogenous trout thrombin and factor xiiia ( fig4 ). bovine thrombin was used for proof of concept and to demonstrate the compatibility of the fish and mammalian clotting factors . a 2 mg / ml quantity of trout fibrinogen was clotted by addition of 1 unit / ml bovine thrombin and 1 mmca2 + in excess of the 5 mm edta added to inhibit spontaneous plasma polymerization . the two left lanes show high ( hmw , lane 1 ) and low ( lmw , lane 2 ) molecular weight standards on a 10 % sds - polyacrylamide gel , along with the molecular weights ( in 1000 ) of the standards . the three bands around 60 kda in lane 4 are characteristic of the aα , bβ , and γ chains of fibrinogen . a higher molecular weight band corresponds to fibronectin ( fn ), an expected containment of fibrinogen preparations made by ammonium sulphate precipitation . after addition of thrombin , there are several characteristics of changes typical of fibrin formation evident in lane 3 . first , the mobility of aα and bβ chains increases as the a and b peptides are cleaved by thrombin . second , the band corresponding to the γ chain disappears , and another band at higher molecular weight corresponding to a covalently ligated γr dimer appears because of the activity of trout factor xiiia that copurifies with fibrinogen and is activated by thrombin . polypeptides that are not part of fibrinogen are unaltered by thrombin . the strength of the fish sealant is similar to that of the human - bovine product , as shown in fig1 . an important characteristic of fibrin gels is that they are strain - hardening ; that is , they become stronger the more they are deformed up to a limit strain typically on the order of 100 %. at 100 % strain , the maximum clinically realistic level , fish , bovine , and human gels show similar characteristics when tested on mouse skin in a rheometrics rfs - 2 fluid spectrometer using standard methods ( janmey et al ., 1992 ). adhesion to the mouse skin was equally strong with all three gels . fig2 shows that salmonid fibrinogen polymerized by bovine thrombin forms clots ( gels ) with strain - hardening and nearly total elastic recovery after deformation that is characteristic of human fibrin gels . the elastic or shear modulus g2 ( the ratio of stress to strain ) of clots ( gels ) made with trout fibrinogen is compared in fig3 with those made from human fibrinogen . both show similar clotting times and result moduli in excess of 10 pa ( 100 dynes / cm 2 ). fibrinolytic properties of the fish - derived gel were tested by adding human plasmin . when 0 . 3 u / ml human plasmin was added to 2 . 5 mg / ml trout fibrinogen , prior to the addition of thrombin , the solution did not clot , as shown by the absence of a measurable elastic modulus . when plasmin was added immediately after thrombin , polymerization occurred , but the clots were much weaker than control clots made without plasmin , and dissolved shortly after gelation . therefore , trout fibrinogen is a suitable substrate for human plasmin , and concerns that its use could result in embolic or thrombotic complications are eliminated . the safety advantages of deriving the components of a fibrin sealant , fibrinogen and thrombin , from salmonid blood can be best understood in the context of the evolutionary biology of these fish . the fishes as a group ( phylum ) are widely separated from mammals , and as such , their disease organisms have evolved on separate paths . these differences are exemplified in standard laboratory methods in which various fish cell lines must be used to propagate fish viruses , as mammalian cell lines are used for mammalian viruses ( wolfe , 1988 ). another difference is temperature . in coldwater fish such as salmon or trout , their maximum body temperature is the same as the water in which they live -- normally between about 0 ° c . and 18 ° c ., a temperature range nearly 30 ° c . below that of humans or most other mammals . therefore , these fish have few , if any , infectious agents that can survive in humans . these are just some of the manifestations of the wide evolutionary distance between fish and mammals that result in safety from infectious agents . clotting factors derived from human or bovine blood may be inconsistent in quality due to variations in both genetics and environment of the donors . in contrast , domesticated , farmed fish that serve as blood donors are well - defined as to diet , habitat , reproductive status , life history , and genetic background . the degree of control that aquaculture provides for these donor animals results in improved uniformity of product . unlike autologous cryoprecipitate , pre - tested salmonid fibrinogen offers consistent concentrations and generally greater quality control . clotting time ( thrombin time ) in salmon and trout plasma was measured by standard coagulation laboratory techniques using bovine thrombin . compared to a human reference range of 12 - 16 seconds , mean salmon thrombin time was 6 . 8 seconds and trout thrombin time was 7 . 1 seconds . for applications requiring a fibrin sealant , the present invention , derived from fish , can be used with similar efficacy , and advantages in safety , quality control , and product content over the human / bovine - derived fibrin sealants currently in use . the process begins with the consistent and reproducible conditions in which donor fish are reared . all fish used as plasma sources preferably are 1 ) progeny of domesticated brood stock ; 2 ) inspected for fish disease under the protocols of the american fisheries society blue book ; 3 ) 1 kg . or more in weight ; 4 ) fed a commercially manufactured pelleted feed appropriate to the species ; and 5 ) held in waters monitored and found free of environmental pollutants or toxins . the coldwater fishes used as donors preferably are rainbow trout ( o . mykiss ) and atlantic salmon ( s . salar ). these species are selected because they are reared in large numbers , and individuals grow large enough ( over one kilogram ) so that blood can be drawn easily . other farmed cold - water fishes , such as halibut or cod , may be used as donor fish and might satisfy all the above criteria . the fish are preferably starved for 24 hours to reduce handling stress . fish are preferably anesthetized to a loss of reflex activity in a solution of tricane methane - sulfonate ( ms - 222 ) or in carbon dioxide bubbled through the water . whole blood is then drawn from the caudal vein or artery of the fish by known methods such as using a needle and syringe , vacuum tube , or other vacuum device . with all of these devices , one part of a 1 m solution of sodium citrate is added to nine parts of whole blood as an anticoagulant . the whole blood is held at about 1 ° c . to 4 ° c . for no more than about four hours before centrifugation . the separation of blood cells and plasma preferably is done at about 4 ° c . and at least about 1000 g for about ten minutes . the plasma may then be frozen , preferably at - 20 ° c ., or extracted immediately . extraction procedures are preferably known methods currently used for bovine thrombin and fibrinogen . extraction of prothrombin is preferably performed by first using a solution of barium chloride . one part of a 1 m solution of cold ( 4 ° c .) barium chloride is added to eleven parts plasma and stirred for about 30 minutes . the mixture is then centrifuged at about 3500 g for about 30 minutes and the pellet containing the prothrombin is frozen , preferably at - 20 ° c . activation of the prothrombin to thrombin and subsequent extraction methods are preferably carried out with the thawed prothrombin according to the methods of ngai and chang ( 1991 ). fibrinogen may be extracted from the supernatant using the ammonium sulfate methods described by silver et al . ( 1995 ). one part of a saturated ( 4 . 5 m ) solution of ammonium sulfate at about 4 ° c . is added to three parts of the supernatant . the mixture is centrifuged , preferably at about 14 , 000 g at about 4 ° c . for about 8 minutes . the fibrinogen is resuspended in tris buffered saline ( ph 7 . 4 ) at room temperature at a concentration of 2 . 5 mg / ml . the thrombin is resolublized in 40 mm calcium chloride at a concentration of 0 . 25 - 1 nih units / ml . commerically available bovine or human thrombin may be used at similar concentrations with the fish fibrinogen to achieve similar results , but without the degree of safety provided by the fish thrombin . the two components may be applied to the wound or leakage simultaneously using a commercially available double syringe or spray applicator . | 8 |
fig1 shows the basic diagram of an amplifier arrangement in accordance with the invention . the arrangement comprises a first npn transistor t 1 , whose emitter is connected to the output 2 to which a load r l is connected . by means of a first diode d 1 the collector of the transistor t 1 is connected to a terminal 4 for a first supply voltage v 1 . the collector - emitter path of a second npn transistor t 2 is arranged in series with the collector - emitter path of the transistor t 1 and the collector of this transistor t 2 is connected to a terminal 10 for a second supply voltage v 2 which is higher than the first supply voltage v 1 . the base of the transistor t 1 is connected to the emitter of a pnp transistor t 3 , arranged as an emitter follower . the emitter of this transistor is connected to the terminal 10 for the supply voltage v 2 by means of a first current source 5 supplying a current i 1 . the current source 5 comprises a pnp transistor t . sub . 6 whose base is at a reference voltage v r . the collector of the transistor t 3 is connected to the terminal 11 which is common to the first supply voltage v 1 and the second supply voltage v 2 . the input signal v i is applied to the base 6 of the transistor t 3 . a first current path is arranged between the terminal 10 for the supply voltage v 2 and the emitter of the transistor t 3 and comprises the series arrangement of a second current source 7 , the emitter - collector path of a pnp transistor t 5 and a second diode d 4 . the second current source supplies a current i 2 and comprises a pnp transistor t 4 whose base is at the reference voltage v r . the emitter of the transistor t 5 is connected to the base of the transistor t 2 . a second current path is arranged between the junction point 3 between the transistor t 1 and the transistor t 2 and the common terminal 11 and comprises the series arrangement of a third diode d 2 , a fourth diode d 3 and a third current source 8 . the current i 3 carried by this current source is smaller than the current i 2 supplied by the current source 7 . the base of the transistor t 5 is connected to the junction point 9 between the diodes d 2 and d 3 and its collector is connected to the current source 8 by means of a fifth diode d 5 . the arrangement operates as follows . for low input voltages v i the transistor t 3 receives the current i 1 from the current source 5 directly and the current i 2 from the current source 7 via the collector - emitter path of the transistor t 5 and the diode d 4 . if the base current of the transistor t 5 is ignored the current i 3 carried by the current source 8 is furnished by the first power supply voltage v 1 via the diodes d 1 , d 2 and d 3 . in this situation the diode d 5 is cut off . the voltage between the base and the emitter of the transistor t 2 is substantially o v because this voltage is equal to the difference between the base - emitter voltage of the transistor t 5 and the voltage across the diode d 2 . consequently , the transistor t 2 is cut off so that for low input voltages the collector of the transistor t 1 is connected to the power supply voltage v 1 via the diode d 1 . the input signal v i is applied to the base of the transistor t 1 via the emitter - follower transistor t 3 . this input signal v i also appears on the anode of the diode d 5 . the voltage on the cathode of the diode d 5 is three diode voltages lower than the supply voltage v 1 . therefore , the diode d 5 is turned on for a specific input voltage v i . a part of the input voltage v i then appears on the cathode of the diode d 2 . as the input voltage v i increases further the diode d 2 will become less conductive , so that the current for the current source 8 through the diode d 3 decreases and that through the diode d 5 increases . above a specific input voltage the diode d 2 is turned off so that substantially the entire current i 3 flows through the diode d 5 . then only the base current of the transistor t 5 flows through the diode d 3 . the voltage on the base of the transistor t . sub . 2 follows the voltage v i via the base - emitter junction of the transistor t 5 , the diodes d 3 , d 5 and d 4 , and the base - emitter junction of the transistor t 3 . as this input voltage increases further the transistor t 2 is therefore turned on so that the voltage on the junction point 3 also increases . at a specific input voltage the diode d 1 is cut off so that the collector of the transistor t 1 is connected to the high supply voltage v 2 via the collectoremitter path of the transistor t 2 . as the input voltage v i increases further the transistor t 4 will be bottomed , so that the voltage on the base of the transistor t 2 cannot increase any further . subsequently , the transistor t 1 is bottomed and the diode d 4 is cut off . the entire current i 1 from the current source 5 then flows into the base of the transistor t 1 so that there is no current in the transistor t 3 . the maximum output voltage is then reached . the voltage v o on the output 2 is now equal to : v cest4 = the collector - emitter voltage of the transistor t 4 during saturation , v cest1 = the collector - emitter voltage of the transistor t 1 during saturation , and v bet2 = the base - emitter voltage of the transistor t 2 . as the voltage v cest4 and v cest1 are substantially 100 mv , it follows from the above equation that the output 2 can be driven to the value of the second supply voltage v 2 minus substantially one base - emitter voltage (≈ 0 . 6 v ). as a result of this large output voltage swing the amplifier arrangement has a high efficiency . fig2 is a modification of the arrangement shown in fig1 in which identical parts bear the same reference numerals as in fig1 . during the change - over from the first supply voltage v 1 to the second supply voltage v 2 the voltage between the collector and the base of the transistor t 1 in the arrangement shown in fig1 is equal to one diode voltage , namely the sum of the voltages across the diodes d 4 , d 5 , d 3 and the base - emitter junctions of the transistors t 5 and t 2 . this means that during change - over to the second supply voltage v 2 the first transistor t 1 is not yet driven into full conduction . in the embodiment shown in fig . 2 , the diode d 4 is replaced by the base - emitter junction of a transistor t 30 , which has its emitter connected to the collector of the ttansistor t 5 , its base to the base of the transistor t 3 , and its collector to the common terminal 11 . during the change - over from the first supply voltage v 1 to the second supply voltage v 2 a voltage of zero volts appears between the collector and the base of the transistor t 1 so that change over is effected at the instant at which the transistor t 1 will be saturated . as a result of this , the transistor t 1 is driven over the entire range of the first supply voltage v 1 , which leads to an increased efficiency . otherwise , the operation and the output voltage swing of the arrangement are the same as for the arrangement shown in fig1 . the principle of two supply voltages as explained with reference to fig1 and 2 may be extended to an arbitrary number of supply voltages . fig . 3 shows an amplifier arrangement with three supply voltages , in which figure identical parts bear the same reference numerals as in fig . 1 . a transistor t 21 has its collector - emitter path connected in series with the collector - emitter path of the transistor t 2 and has its collector connected to a third supply voltage v 3 . the collector of the transistor t 2 is now connected to the second supply voltage v 2 via a diode d 21 and the current source 7 is connected to the third supply voltage v 3 . the driver circuit for the transistor t 21 is of the same type as that for the transistor t 2 . a current source 27 supplying a current i 20 is arranged between the third power supply voltage v 3 and the base of the transistor t 21 . this current source 27 comprises a transistor t 24 , whose base is at a reference voltage v r . the base of the transistor t 21 is connected to the base of the transistor t 2 by the series arrangement of the emitter - collector path of a transistor t 25 and a diode d 24 . the series arrangement of two diodes d 22 , d 23 and a current source 28 carrying a current i 23 is arranged between the junction point 33 between the emitter of the transistor t 21 and the collector of the transistor t 2 and the common terminal 11 . the base of the transistor t 25 is connected to the junction point 29 between the diode d 22 and the diode d 23 and the collector of the transistor t 25 is connected to the current source 28 by means of a diode d 25 . the operation of the circuit arrangement can be explained very simply by means of the principle described with reference to fig . 1 . for low input voltages v i the transistor t 1 is coupled to the first supply voltage v 1 . the transistors t 2 and t 21 and the diodes d 5 and d 25 are cut off . the current i 20 from the current source 27 flows to the emitter of the transistor t 5 via the emitter - collector path of the transistor t 25 and the diode d 24 and further to the emitter of the transistor t 3 via the emitter - collector path of the transistor t 5 and the diode d 4 . the current i 23 carried by the current source 28 is derived from the supply voltage v 2 via the diodes d 23 , d 22 and d 21 . at increasing input voltages v i the transistor t 2 is driven into conduction and the first supply voltage v 1 is disconnected , as described with reference to fig . 1 . at a further increase the transistor t 2 is driven further into conduction . above a specific input voltage v i the diode d 25 is turned on . as a result of this , the transistor t 21 is turned on and the diode d 22 is turned off , so that above a specific input voltage the second supply voltage v 2 is disconnected and the collector of the transistor t 1 is coupled to the third supply voltage v 3 . as the input voltage v i increases further the transistor t 24 is bottomed . the voltage on the base of the transistor t 21 then cannot increase any further . if the input voltage v i increases even further , the diode d 24 is cut off , after which the transistor t 2 is bottomed , in which situation the voltage on the base of the transistor t 2 can increase until the transistor t 4 is bottomed . subsequently , the diode d 4 is cut off and the transistor t 1 is saturated . as a result of this , there is no current in the transistor t 3 so that the maximum output voltage is reached . the maximum voltage v 0 on the output 2 is then equal to : v cest24 = the collector - emitter voltage of the transistor t 24 in the case of saturation . it is to be noted that in the present embodiment the diode d 4 may be connected to the collector of the transistor t 5 instead of to the emitter . as a result of this , the change - over from the second supply voltage v 2 to the third supply voltage v 3 is effected at the instant at which the transistor t 2 is saturated , so that the transistor t 2 is driven to an optimum extent . the amplifier arrangement in accordance with the invention is very suitable for use in a push - pull amplifier , of which fig4 shows a first embodiment . the push - pull amplifier comprises an input stage , which in the present embodiment has its simplest form and comprises two transitors t 11 and t 12 arranged as a differential pair , whose common emitter terminal is connected to the positive second supply voltage + v by means of a current source comprising a transistor t 10 whose base is at a reference voltage v r . the input signal v ii of the push - pull amplifier is applied between the bases of the transistors t 11 and t 12 . the collector of the transistor t 12 is connected directly to the output of the input stage and the collector of the transistor t 11 is connected to the said output by means of a current mirror comprising the transistors t 13 and t 14 , which output is connected to the input of a miller stage . in the present example , the miller stage comprises a transistor t 15 , whose emitter is connected to the negative supply voltage - v 2 . a frequency compensation capacitor c 1 is arranged between the collector and the base of the transistor t 15 . the collector of the transistor t 15 is connected to the positive supply voltage + v 2 by the series arrangement of two diodes d 6 and d 7 and a current source comprising the transistor t 9 , whose base is at a reference voltage v r . the output stage comprises two complementary circuits , which are each substantially identical to the circuit arrangement shown in fig1 . therefore , identical parts bear the same reference numerals as in fig1 the complementary parts being denoted by primes . the arrangement differs from that shown in fig1 with respect to the following points . the transistor t 2 and the transistor t 8 are arranged as a darlington pair , a resistor r 1 being arranged between the base and the emitter of the transistor t 2 to provide a rapid turn - off of the darlington pair . a resistor or a diode may be arranged between the base and the emitter of the transistor t 8 for protection purposes , and in the case of a diode its forward direction should be opposite to that of the base - emitter junction of the transistor t 8 . similarly , the transistor t 1 forms a darlington pair with a transistor t 7 . the emitters of the complementary output transistor t 1 and t 1 &# 39 ; are connected to the common output 2 , to which the load r l is connected . a resistor r 2 is arranged between the emitters of the transistors t 7 and t 7 &# 39 ; and has the same function as the resistor r 1 . the current source 8 is common to the two complementary circuits . the collectors of the transistors t 3 and t 3 &# 39 ; are interconnected and are also connected to the output 2 . it is to be noted that the collectors of the transistors t 3 and t 3 &# 39 ; may alternatively be connected to the emitter of the transistor t 7 &# 39 ; and the emitter of the transistor t 7 , respectively or , if resistors having low resistance values are arranged in the emitter lines of the transistors t 1 and t 1 &# 39 ;, to the emitter of the transistor t 1 &# 39 ; and the emitter of the transistor t 1 , respectively . the output signal of the miller stage is applied to the bases of the transistors t 3 and t 3 &# 39 ;. the diodes d 6 and d 7 between the bases of the transistors t 3 and t 3 &# 39 ; provide a class - ab bias for the output stage . the push - pull principle is known per se and therefore will not be explained here . since the transistor t 2 and the transistor t 8 are arranged as a darlington pair , the maximum output voltage swing is now equal to : consequently , the maximum output voltage is one baseemitter voltage lower than for the arrangement in fig1 . the minimum output voltage lies equally far above the negative supply voltage - v 2 as the maximum output voltage lies below the positive supply voltage + v 2 . a second example of a push - pull amplifier in accordance with the invention is described with reference to fig5 . for simplicity only the output stage , which is relevant to the invention , is shown , and identical parts bear the same reference numerals as in fig4 . the emitters of the transistors t 4 and t 6 are connected to the terminal 10 for the supply voltage + v 2 by means of a resistor r 3 . a capacitor c 2 is arranged between the output 2 and the end 15 of the resistor r 3 which is not connected to the terminal 10 . by means of the capacitor c 2 the output signal is boot - strapped so that the voltage on the collectors of the transistors t 4 and t 6 can be raised above the supply voltage + v 2 . as far as the operation of the arrangement is concerned this results in the transistor t 8 , instead of the transistor t 4 , being saturated when the transistors t 8 and t 2 are turned on as a result of an increasing input signal . the collector of the transistor t 8 is now connected to the supply voltage + v 2 , while as a result of bootstrapping the base of the transistor t 8 can be driven beyond this supply voltage . therefore , the maximum output voltage becomes equal to : bootstrapping results in an increase of the maximum output voltage swing of the arrangement by one base - emitter voltage . it is to be noted that in the present embodiment the current - source transistor t 10 of the input stage ( see fig4 ) is connected directly to the positive second supply voltage + v 2 and that the emitters of the transistors t 13 , t 14 and t 15 are connected directly to the negative supply voltage - v 2 . a third embodiment of a push - pull amplifier is described with reference to fig6 in which identical parts bear the same reference numerals as in fig5 . in the present embodiment the current - source transistors t 4 and t 6 are replaced by a resistor r 4 and a resistor r 5 , respectively . as a result of bootstrapping the same signal voltage appears on the base of the transistor t 8 and on the cathode of the diode d 4 as on point 15 . consequently , a constant voltage is obtained across these resistors , so that the resistors r 4 and r 5 again operate as current sources . fig7 shows a push - pull amplifier in accordance with the fourth embodiment of the invention , and identical parts bear the same reference numerals as in fig6 . this embodiment differs from that shown in fig6 in that the diode d 4 is replaced by an emitter - follower transistor t 16 , whose emitter is connected to the collector of the transistor t 5 , whose collector is connected to the negative supply voltage - v 2 , and whose base is connected to the emitter of the transistor t 3 . when , in the embodiment shown in fig4 the transistors t 8 , t 2 are turned on the resistance at the emitter of the transistor t 3 decreases suddenly because the resistance which is seen at the base of the transistor t 8 is connected in parallel with the resistance which is seen at the base of the transistor t 7 . this results in a sudden decrease of the input resistance of the arrangement , which leads to distortion of the input signal . by replacing the diode d 4 by a transistor t 16 , the resistance which is connected in parallel with the input resistance of the transistor t 7 when the transistors t 8 , t 2 are turned on is increased by a factor equal to the currentgain factor of the transistor t 16 . thus , when the transistors t 8 , t 2 are turned on the decrease in the input resisresistance of the transistor t 3 is substantially smaller , so that the resulting distortion is also reduced substantially . it is to be noted that the emitter - follower transistor t 16 may also be used in the embodiments shown in fig1 and 3 . the invention is not limited to the embodiments shown . within the scope of the invention many modifications will become obvious to those skilled in the art . for example , the diodes in the present embodiments may be replaced by diode - connected transistors . further , all or some of the bipolar transistors in the arrangement , as shown , for example , in fig8 may be replaced by mos transistors , in which case &# 34 ; emitter &# 34 ;, &# 34 ; collector &# 34 ; and &# 34 ; base &# 34 ; should read : &# 34 ; source &# 34 ;, &# 34 ; drain &# 34 ; and &# 34 ; gate &# 34 ;, respectively . finally , it is to be noted that the embodiments shown in fig4 , 6 and 7 may also be equipped with the amplifier arrangement shown in fig3 . | 7 |
the detailed discussion set forth below is intended as a description of the presently preferred embodiment of the invention , and is not intended to represent the only form in which the present invention may be constructed or utilized . the description sets forth the functions and sequence of steps for constructing and operating the invention . it is to be understood , however , that the same or equivalent functions and sequences may be accomplished by different embodiments that are intended to be encompassed within the spirit and scope of the invention . the substrates of the present invention is a high purity ( 99 . 9 %) aluminum oxide , al 2 o 3 , with a very densely packed grain structure greater than 3 . 90 grams per cubic centimeter and an average grain size of less than 1 micron , resulting in an as fired surface finish of approximately 0 . 03 microns . conventional commercial thin - film grade 99 . 6 % alumina have an as sintered density of 3 . 86 - 3 . 90 grams per cubic centimeter and an average grain size of 2 μm , resulting in a surface finish of 0 . 08 microns . see table 2 below for a comparison between the substrate of the present invention and the prior art . table 2______________________________________substrate material properties high - purity alumina conventional ( present aluminaproperty units invention ) ( prior art ) ______________________________________al . sub . 2 o . sub . 3 content % 99 . 9 99 . 6density g / cm . sup . 3 3 . 97 3 . 86 - 3 . 90avg . grain size μm & lt ; 1 & lt ; 2grain packing very dense as sinteredsurface finish μ 0 . 03 0 . 08______________________________________ suitable high purity alumina ceramic material is &# 34 ; naltus &# 34 ; alumina ceramic material marketed by asahi chemical industry company of japan . surface cleanliness is very important in adhesion of the thin - film metallization to the substrate . prior to the sputter deposition , the substrates are cleaned in a 10 % hydrochloric acid and then scrubbed and rinsed . when placed inside the sputtering chamber before sputter deposition , a 3 minute radio frequency etching process is applied . the thin - films consist of a sputter deposited underlying refractory metal , preferably a titanium ( ti )- tungsten ( w ) mixed composition , followed by preferably a gold layer . the refractory metal alternatively may be titanium , tungsten , titanium nitride or molybdenum . the breakdown of the preferred refractory metallization source material is a high purity ( 99 . 9 %) 10 - 90 weight percent ti - w , although other compositions such as 20 - 80 weight percent are also acceptable . the deposited composition of the ti - w on the anode may differ from that of the cathode source by 3 - 5 weight percent . sputter deposition of the direct current - magnetron technique is performed , with power of 4500 volts and an argon backfilled vacuum of 3 × 10 - 5 mbar . gold is subsequently deposited atop the ti - w layer . typical deposited thicknesses are 1500 - 3000 angstroms for the underlying metals and up to 2 microns for the gold . the magnetron technique uses a closed magnetic field loop to confine and compress the plasma causing the ionized gas to sputter efficiently . the ti - w / au metallization , as deposited on the high purity ( 99 . 9 %) aluminum oxide ( al 2 o 3 ) substrate , has improved strength for being heated and processed at temperatures up to 550 ° c . an additional vacuum annealing procedure may be applied to further increase the mechanical strength and durability of this metallization . in this procedure , the as - deposited metallized substrates are placed in a vacuum oven and heated to between 500 °- 600 ° c . for 20 - 30 minutes under 0 . 05 torr vacuum . the vacuum annealed metallization shows improved strength and may be processed at temperature up to 600 ° c . without deforming its patterns or losing adhesion . the vacuum annealing procedure may also be done with a trace of nitrogen , such as 5 % nitrogen in the 0 . 05 torr vacuum . as shown in fig3 a fused multi - layer module having thin - film microcircuits is thus formed by disposing a glass binding material layer 2 intermediate substrate layers 1 such that the substrate layers 1 are disposed in substantially overlapping registry . the glass binding material layers 2 fuse the substrate layers 1 together to form an infrared high - density multi - layer integrated circuit module . it is understood that the high temperature resistant thin - film system described , as applied to integrating infrared detector arrays to signal conditioning electronics , represents only a preferred embodiment of the invention . indeed , various modifications and additions may be made to the preferred embodiment , without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention . these modifications and additions may be obvious to those skilled in the art and may be implemented to adapt the present invention for use in a variety of different applications . | 2 |
although the present invention will be described with reference to the embodiments shown in the drawings , it should be understood that the present invention can be embodied in many alternate forms of embodiments . in addition , any suitable size , shape or type of elements or materials could be used . reference is first made to fig1 for illustrating a base station 10 , such as but not limited to satellite communications base station , that is suitable for practicing this invention . the base station 10 includes an antenna 12 for transmitting signals to and for receiving signals from a base orbiting satellite 30 . referring now to fig1 and 3 . the base station 10 and the orbiting satellite 30 include circuitry for transmitting coded signals 51 and circuitry for decoding received signals 61 . the circuitry for transmitting coded signals includes a multi - rate pseudo - noise ( pn ) code generator 52 , transmitting timing and control circuitry 50 , a transmitter 54 , data source 56 , and an antenna 58 . the circuitry for receiving the coded signal includes a receiver front end 62 , a synchronization detector 68 , receiving timing and control circuitry 66 , a multi - rate pn code generator 64 , data estimator 70 , and an antenna 60 for receiving signals . the coding method for this invention is assumed to be based on cdma such as is known from or that is similar to air standards is - 95 pcs or w - cdma , although the teaching of this invention is not intended to be limited only to that particular type of cdma system . the present invention , providing significant reduction in pn code acquisition time over conventional pn code acquisition time , could be used with any suitable type of radio telephone system or suitable electronic device referring now to fig3 and 4 , there is shown a block diagram of a transmitter and receiver system and a method flow chart incorporating features of the present invention . the transmitter 54 transmits data 56 modulated by a carrier signal and further modulated by multi - rate pn code generator 52 through antenna 58 . the pn code generator 52 is controlled by timing and control circuitry 50 . the receiver 62 receives the twice modulated carrier signal 120 via antenna 60 . the signal is auto - correlated with a pn code 122 supplied by multi - rate pn code generator 64 . if the signal auto - correlation peak is found then the signal is a desired signal and is further demodulated to retrieve data 126 and recover synchronization 68 . the synchronization then tracks the pn timing 128 via the timing and control circuitry 66 and signals the transmitting system and the receiving system to contemporaneously shift to a higher rate pn code 132 via their respective multi - rate pn generators 52 , 64 . thus , for purposes of illustration , if the lower rate pn code duration is designated as tc low , and the higher rate pn code duration is designated as tc high the search time , or pn code acquisition time , is reduced by a factor of tc low / tc high . for example , in the prior art the search time for a pn code duration is the processing gain times an uncertainty factor . using the lower code duration tc low , the processing gain is tb / tc low , where tb is the message bit duration . without the current invention the processing gain when shifting to a higher rate pn code would be tb / tc high . assuming that tc high is some multiple 1 / m of tc low then the processing gain equation can be rewritten as tb * m / tc low . then , assuming an average search rate of k / rb per chip of uncertainty , the pn search time is then ( m * tb / tc low )* k / rb , where rb is the message bit rate . thus , the average search time has been increased by a factor of m when shifting from a low rate pn code to a high rate pn code . by contrast , the current invention uses a narrow bandwidth timing recovery loop to maintain the timing lock achieved during the acquisition of the first or lower rate pn code while both multi - rate generators contemporaneously shift to the higher rate pn code . since the timing lock is maintained the search time equation is the original gain times the uncertainty factor , which in this example is tb / tc low *( k / rb ). thus , the average search rate has been reduced by a factor m when shifting from the lower rate pn code to the higher rate pn code . referring now to fig5 there is shown a flow chart of a second method of the present invention . the transmitter transmits 140 a low rate pn modulated signal . the transmitter calculates a probability of detection ( pd ) 142 by the receiver 62 . if the pd is greater than a predetermined amount 144 the transmitter will shift 146 the multi - rate pn generator 52 to a higher rate pn code after a predetermined amount of time or event . meanwhile , the receiver 62 receives 160 the signal and auto - correlates 158 with the low rate pn code generated by the multi - rate pn generator 64 . if the signal auto - correlation peak is found 156 then the data is decoded 154 and the synchronization detector 68 and the timing and control circuitry lock 152 on to the signal timing . the receiver also calculates the pd and if greater than the predetermined amount will shift 150 the multi - rate pn generator 64 to the higher pn code 148 after the predetermined amount of time or event . the processing gain and search times are calculated as before . it should be understood that the foregoing description is only illustrative of the invention . various alternatives and modifications can be devised by those skilled in the art without departing from the invention . accordingly , the present invention is intended to embrace all such alternatives , modifications and variances which fall within the scope of the appended claims . | 7 |
referring to fig1 , an adhesive dispensing system 10 includes a pair of guns 12 , 14 , a dispensing unit 16 for supplying liquid hot melt adhesive 18 to the guns 12 , 14 , and hoses 20 connecting the dispensing unit 16 to the guns 12 , 14 . the dispensing unit 16 includes a reservoir , such as tank 22 , holding a volume of liquid hot melt adhesive 18 , a manifold 24 in fluid communication with the tank 22 , a pump 26 constructed according to the principles of the present invention and coupled to the manifold 24 , and a controller 28 . the tank 22 comprises side walls 30 joined by a base 32 that collectively define the reservoir holding the adhesive 18 . a tank outlet 36 proximate the base 32 is coupled to a passage 38 that connects to an inlet 40 of the manifold 24 . the manifold 24 may optionally include a manifold heater 42 operationally controlled by controller 28 for heating the liquid hot melt adhesive 18 while resident inside manifold 24 . the tank 22 may optionally include a tank heater ( not shown ) controlled by controller 28 for raising the temperature of the liquid hot melt adhesive 18 while resident in the tank 22 . optionally , hoses 20 may be configured to be heated and cord sets 21 , also operationally controlled by controller 28 , may be used for heating and controlling the temperature of hoses 20 in a known manner . pump 26 , which is coupled to the manifold 24 , pumps liquid hot melt adhesive 18 from the tank 22 into the manifold 24 . manifold 24 divides the adhesive 18 into separate flows and directs the distinct flows to a plurality of outlet ports 48 . the outlet ports 48 are configured to be coupled to the hoses 20 whereby the liquid adhesive 18 is supplied through hoses 20 to the guns 12 , 14 . the guns 12 , 14 , which may be mounted to a frame 50 , include one or more modules 52 that apply the adhesive 18 to a desired product ( not shown ). modules 52 may be coupled to their own individual manifolds 54 for supplying liquid hot melt adhesive 18 , actuating air , and process air thereto . although system 10 illustrates two gun manifolds 54 , additional hoses ( not shown ) identical to hose 20 may transfer liquid hot melt adhesive 18 to additional gun manifolds ( not shown ) identical to manifold 54 that are located respectively behind manifolds 54 . other systems 10 may have a single gun , or may have other guns , like guns 12 , 14 and , furthermore , the guns 12 , 14 may take on many different configurations , according to the particular adhesive dispensing requirements , without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention . the guns 12 , 14 and / or the gun manifolds 54 may each incorporate heat exchanger / mixers and heaters ( not shown ) for blending and / or elevating the temperature of the liquid hot melt adhesive 18 . with reference to fig2 , pump 26 includes a pump housing 56 enclosing a pumping chamber 58 , an inlet 60 coupling the tank 22 in fluid communication with the pumping chamber 58 , and outlet ports 48 each in fluid communication with a corresponding one of the guns 12 , 14 . pump 26 may include additional outlet ports 48 each coupled with gun 12 , gun 14 , or another gun ( not shown ). generally , pump 26 moves liquid hot melt adhesive 18 from the inlet 60 to the outlet ports 48 . an upper section 64 of housing 56 houses the pneumatic components of the pump 26 and a lower section 66 of housing 56 houses the hydraulic components of the pump 26 . the upper section 64 of the housing 56 includes an air cylinder 68 , an air piston 70 disposed inside the air cylinder 68 , and a pump shaft 72 extending from the air piston 70 to connect with a piston or plunger 76 positioned inside the pumping chamber 58 . an air logic valve 74 regulates the air pressure supplied to the air cylinder 68 by alternatively filling and emptying air chambers 68 a , b defined inside the air cylinder 68 on opposite sides of the air piston 70 for reciprocating the air piston 70 relative to the air cylinder 68 . air chamber 68 a communicates with an air port 78 and , in a like manner , air chamber 68 b communicates with an air port 80 . suitable fittings are used to connect ports 78 , 80 with the air logic valve 74 having appropriate internal valving for supplying pressurized air to air chambers 68 a , b to move air piston 70 and pump shaft 72 . engaged with a blind threaded hole 75 defined in the plunger 76 is a threaded tip 73 of pump shaft 72 . the threaded hole 75 is offset laterally from the center of plunger 76 , although the present invention is not so limited . the present invention contemplates that the pump shaft 72 and plunger 76 may be coupled together in alternative fashions known to persons of ordinary skill in the art and is not limited to the illustrated threaded engagement . piston pump 26 pumps liquid hot melt adhesive 18 to the guns 12 , 14 on both the upstroke and the downstroke . reciprocation of the air piston 70 by cyclically filling and draining air chambers 68 a , b moves the plunger 76 inside pumping chamber 58 for pumping successive volumes of the liquid hot melt adhesive 18 from the inlet 60 to the outlet ports 48 , as detailed below . to that end , the periphery of plunger 76 has a close fit and tight clearance with an interior wall 77 of pumping chamber 58 . although the piston pump 26 is illustrated in fig2 as bi - directional , the invention is not so limited . in particular , the piston pump 26 may be uni - directional and incorporate a return spring for shifting the air piston 70 on the downstroke . other suitable actuation methods apparent to persons of ordinary skill in the art are contemplated by the invention . pump shaft 72 is positioned in a bore 83 with a clearance sufficient to permit reciprocating movement thereof . a seal 82 prevents pressurized air from leaking downwardly out of air cylinder 68 into the bore 83 . another seal 84 , which is mounted within lower housing section 66 , prevents pressurized liquid from escaping from the pumping chamber 58 of housing section 66 into bore 83 . in effect , the seals 82 , 84 isolate the pneumatic and hydraulic portions of the pump 26 . movement of the air piston 70 and pump shaft 72 causes the plunger 76 to cyclically vary the volume of an upper section 58 a and a lower section 58 b of pumping chamber 58 . plunger 76 defines a barrier that segregates amounts of liquid hot melt adhesive 18 in the two sections 58 a , 58 b . coupling the outlet ports 48 with upper and lower outlet passageways 88 , 90 defined in the lower section 66 of housing 56 is an intermediate passageway 86 defined partially in lower housing 66 and partially in manifold 24 . the outlet passageways 88 , 90 converge at the intermediate passageway 86 . positioned in outlet passageway 88 is a check valve 92 and , similarly , a check valve 94 is located in outlet passageway 90 . check valve 94 prevents back flow from outlet passageway 90 into the lower section 58 b of pumping chamber 58 during the upward stroke or upstroke of plunger 76 , as shown in fig2 . similarly , check valve 92 prevents back flow from outlet passageway 88 into the pumping chamber 58 during the downward stroke or downstroke of plunger 76 , as shown in fig3 . check valves 92 , 94 may be any suitable check valve that closes by fluid pressure to prevent return flow and that opens at a characteristic cracking pressure to permit forward flow in a desired direction . in the illustrated embodiment , each of the check valves 92 , 94 is characterized by a valve seat and a compression spring that biases a valve body or ball against the valve seat . the pressure inside the upper and lower sections 58 a , 58 b of the pumping chamber 58 varies as the plunger 76 is reciprocated therein , which regulates the opening and closing of check valves 92 , 94 . exemplary check valves 92 , 94 suitable for use in the invention are available commercially from the lee company ( westbrook , conn .). as an alternative to the check valve configuration detailed herein , other varieties of check valves may be utilized in the outlet passageways 88 , 90 without affecting the operation principles of the piston pump 26 . extending from the inlet 60 of pump housing 56 through the lower section 66 to the upper section 58 a of the pumping chamber 58 is an inlet passageway 96 . branching from the inlet passageway 96 is another inlet passageway 98 that communicates with the lower section 58 b of the pumping chamber 58 . successive volumes of liquid hot melt adhesive 18 are supplied from tank 22 through the inlet passageways 96 , 98 to the pumping chamber 58 as the pump 26 operates . the plunger 76 includes a throughbore 100 and a shaft 102 slidingly received in the throughbore 100 with a clearance sufficient to permit free vertical movement of shaft 102 within throughbore 100 . the throughbore 100 is offset from the threaded opening 75 in plunger 76 by a distance sufficient to accommodate coupling pump shaft 72 with plunger 76 while simultaneously allowing unhindered vertical movement of shaft 102 . affixed to , or otherwise associated for movement with , one free end of the shaft 102 is a ball or valve body 104 . the alignment of shaft 102 for axial movement along its length within throughbore 100 and the positioning of valve body 104 on shaft 102 cooperate for engaging valve body 104 with a valve seat 106 , which is defined at the intersection of inlet passageway 96 with the pumping chamber 58 . the valve seat 106 coincides with the outlet from the inlet passageway 96 . affixed to , or otherwise associated for movement with , the opposite free end of the shaft 102 is another ball or valve body 108 which is positioned on shaft 102 for engaging a valve seat 110 . the valve seat 110 is defined at the intersection of the inlet passageway 98 with the pumping chamber 58 and coincides with the outlet from the inlet passageway 98 . the valve seats 106 , 110 may be located at other positions within the corresponding inlet passageways 96 , 98 , such as recessed within the passageways 96 , 98 at the intersection with pumping chamber 58 . compressed between the valve body 104 and an upper surface 76 a of the plunger 76 is a biasing element , in the form of compression spring 112 having coils helical wrapped about a length of the shaft 102 , that applies an upward resilient bias force to the shaft 102 and valve body 104 at least during a portion of the upstroke when valve body 104 is in contact with valve seat 106 . similarly , another biasing element , in the form of compression spring 114 having coils helical wrapped about another length of the shaft 102 , compressed between the valve body 108 and a lower surface 76 b of the plunger 76 applies a downward resilient bias force to the shaft 102 and valve body 108 at least during a portion of the downstroke when valve body 108 is in contact with valve seat 110 . valve body 104 and spring 112 are positioned inside the upper section 58 a of the pumping chamber 58 . valve body 108 and spring 114 are positioned inside the lower section 58 b of the pumping chamber 58 and on an opposite side of plunger 76 from valve body 104 and spring 112 . the shaft 102 extends through the space circumscribed by inside the helically - wound coils of the springs 112 , 114 , which prevents buckling or lateral deflection of the springs 112 , 114 when compressed . the shaft 102 , valve bodies 104 , 108 , valve seats 106 , 110 , and springs 112 , 114 effectively replace conventional check valves found in the inlet passageways 96 , 98 of conventional pumps used for pumping traditional hot melt adhesives . the length of the shaft 102 , the characteristics ( e . g ., length and spring constant ) of springs 112 , 114 , and the range of motion of the plunger 76 are collectively chosen such that the valve body 104 has adequate clearance relative to valve seat 106 for entry of liquid hot melt adhesive 18 through inlet passageway 96 during the downward stroke of plunger 76 and valve body 108 has adequate clearance relative to valve seat 110 for entry of liquid hot melt adhesive 18 through inlet passageway 98 during the upward stroke of plunger 76 . the length of shaft 102 , the characteristics of springs 112 , 114 , and the range of motion of plunger 76 are also selected such that the valve bodies 104 , 108 are engaged with the corresponding valve seats 106 , 110 during the upward and downward strokes of plunger 76 , respectively . in operation and with reference to fig1 - 3 , pump 26 of dispensing unit 16 continuously pumps liquid hot melt adhesive 18 from the inlet 60 to outlet ports 48 by orchestrated movements of plunger 76 caused by operation of the air logic valve 74 alternatingly filling and exhausting the air chambers 68 a , 68 b . this action moves the air piston 70 and pump shaft 72 at a rate suitable for causing the pump 26 to pump the liquid hot melt adhesive 18 from tank 22 to guns 12 , 14 . at the bottom of the downstroke of plunger 76 as shown in fig3 , valve body 108 contacts valve seat 110 and is urged against the valve seat 110 by the biasing force applied by spring 114 , which is compressed between the plunger 76 and valve body 108 . the upper section 58 a of pumping chamber 58 is occupied by an amount of liquid hot melt adhesive 18 . the pump shaft 72 is poised to move upwardly , and both of the check valves 92 , 94 are momentarily closed . pump shaft 72 moves upward when pressurized air is introduced into air chamber 68 b under the control of air logic valve 74 and pressurized air is simultaneously exhausted from air chamber 68 a . during this upward stroke or upstroke , as shown in fig2 , valve body 108 eventually lifts from contact with valve seat 110 as the biasing force applied by spring 114 to valve body 108 is gradually removed and the fluid pressure increases in inlet passageway 98 as the volume of lower section 58 b expands . a gradual increase in the biasing force applied by spring 112 to valve body 104 may also contribute to lifting valve body 108 from contact with valve seat 110 . this supplies additional force for lifting the valve body 108 from the valve seat 110 . after valve body 108 is separated from valve seat 110 , a fresh amount of liquid hot melt adhesive 18 flows through inlet 60 and through the inlet passageway 98 into the lower section 58 b of pumping chamber 58 . the ball of check valve 92 is moved by the increasing fluid pressure in upper section 58 a of pumping chamber 58 away from its seat to permit flow from the upper section 58 a into the outlet passageway 88 . thus , an amount of liquid hot melt adhesive 18 inside the upper section 58 a of pumping chamber 58 is forced into outlet passageway 88 as the volume of upper section 58 a is reduced by upward movement of plunger 76 . the amount of liquid hot melt adhesive 18 expelled from pumping chamber 58 is transferred through passageways 86 , 88 to outlet ports 48 , which in turn direct the pumped amount of liquid hot melt adhesive 18 to the guns 12 , 14 through lines 20 . the top of the plunger 76 at the conclusion of the upward stroke is preferably at a level at , or below , an inlet 88 a to outlet passageway 88 . hence , the amount of liquid hot melt adhesive 18 pumped in the upstroke is substantially equal to the change in volume of the upper section 58 a during the upstroke . during the upward stroke of plunger 76 , the ball of outlet check valve 94 is forced onto its seat by its spring and by the increased fluid pressure in outlet passageway 90 . this blocks back flow from outlet passageway 90 into the lower section 58 b of pumping chamber 58 . spring 112 is incrementally compressed between the plunger 76 and the valve body 104 as the plunger 76 moves upward . at the top of the upward stroke , valve body 104 contacts valve seat 106 and is urged against the valve seat 106 by the biasing force applied by spring 112 , which is compressed between the plunger 76 and the valve body 104 . the lower section 58 b of pumping chamber 58 is occupied by a fresh amount of liquid hot melt adhesive 18 . the pump shaft 72 is poised to move downwardly , and both of the check valves 92 , 94 are again momentarily closed . as shown in fig3 and as a continuation of the dispensing cycle , pump shaft 72 moves downward when pressurized air is simultaneously introduced into air chamber 68 a and exhausted from air chamber 68 b . during this downward stroke or downstroke , valve body 104 lifts from valve seat 106 due to the gradual removal of the biasing force applied to valve body 104 by spring 112 , as spring 112 decompresses , in conjunction with the increased fluid pressure in inlet passageway 96 as the volume of upper section 58 a expands . a gradual increase in the biasing force applied by spring 114 to valve body 108 , as spring 114 is incrementally compressed between plunger 76 and valve body 108 , may also contribute to lifting valve body 104 from contact with valve seat 106 . this assists in lifting the valve body 104 from valve seat 106 . after valve body 104 is separated from valve seat 106 , a fresh amount of liquid hot melt adhesive 18 flows through inlet 60 and inlet passageway 96 into the upper section 58 a of pumping chamber 58 . during the downstroke of plunger 76 , the ball of check valve 92 is forced onto its seat by its spring and by the increased fluid pressure in outlet passageway 88 . this prevents back flow from outlet passageway 88 into the lower section 58 b of pumping chamber 58 . concurrently , the ball of outlet check valve 94 is moved by the increasing fluid pressure in upper section 58 a of pumping chamber 58 away from its seat to permit flow from the lower section 58 b into the outlet passageway 90 . thus , an amount of liquid hot melt adhesive 18 inside the lower section 58 b of pumping chamber 58 is forced into outlet passageway 90 as the volume of lower section 58 b is reduced by movement of plunger 76 . at the conclusion of the downward stroke , the bottom of the plunger 76 is preferably at a level at , or above , an inlet 90 a to outlet passageway 90 . hence , the amount of liquid hot melt adhesive 18 pumped in the downstroke is substantially equal to the change in volume of the lower section 58 b during the downstroke . the liquid hot melt adhesive 18 expelled from pumping chamber 58 is transferred through passageways 86 , 90 to outlet ports 48 , just as described above with respect to the upward stroke . in this manner , successive fresh amounts of liquid hot melt adhesive 18 filling pumping chamber 58 are pumped by each dispensing cycle of pump 26 , which consists of a single upward stroke of plunger 76 and a single downward stroke of plunger 76 , to the guns 12 , 14 . while the present invention has been illustrated by the description of various embodiments thereof , and while the embodiments have been described in considerable detail , it is not intended to restrict or in any way limit the scope of the appended claims to such detail . additional advantages and modifications will readily appear to those skilled in the art . the invention in its broader aspects is therefore not limited to the specific details , representative apparatus and methods and illustrative examples shown and described . accordingly , departures may be made from such details without departing from the scope or spirit of applicant &# 39 ; s general inventive concept . | 5 |
hereinafter , the present invention will be described in further detail by examples . it will however be obvious to a person skilled in the art that these examples are provided for illustrative purpose only and are not construed to limit the scope of the present invention . immobilization of cell adhesive rgd peptides on bovine bone - derived bone mineral particles bovine bone - derived bone mineral particles were washed with ethanol under reduced pressure and then left to stand in a vacuum oven at 100 ° c . for 20 hours so as to remove impurities from the surface . the surface of the bone mineral particles was treated with a solution of 3 - aminopropyl ethoxysilane ( aptes ) dissolved in hexane , followed by washing . this resulted in the formation of amine residues on the surface , to which crosslinker bmb was then added and bound . the crosslinker - bound bone mineral particles were allowed to react with peptides of seq id no : 1 and seq id no : 2 for 12 hours , followed by washing . this yielded the bone mineral particles having the peptides immobilized on the surface . immobilization of cell adhesive rgd peptides on synthetic hydroxyapatite and tricalcium phosphate bone graft powders of synthetic hydroxyapatite and tricalcium phosphate were washed with ethanol under reduced pressure and then left to stand in a vacuum oven at 100 ° c . so as to remove impurities from the surface . the surface of the bone mineral particles was treated with a solution of 3 - aminopropyl ethoxysilane ( aptes ) in hexane , followed by washing . this resulted in the formation of amine residues on the surface , to which crosslinker bmb was then added and bound . the bone mineral particles with the bound crosslinker were allowed to react with peptides of seq id no : 1 and seq id no : 2 for 12 hours , followed by washing . this yielded the bone mineral particles having the peptides immobilized on the surface . immobilization of cell adhesive rgd peptides on bone graft material of chitosan a bone graft material of chitosan prepared in the form of a powdery or porous scaffold was added to 2 ml of phosphate buffer ( ph 7 . 4 ) to hydrate the surface . to this solution , sulfo - smcc as a crosslinker was added at a concentration of 5 mg / ml , and the mixture was stirred for 2 hours to introduce functional groups on the surface of the chitosan bone graft material . after 2 hours of reaction at ambient temperature , the chitosan bone graft material was washed and allowed to react with a solution 10 mg of a peptide of seq id no : 1 dissolved in 100 μl of phosphate buffer for 24 hours . then , the reaction was washed , thus yielding the chitosan bone graft material with the peptide immobilized thereon . immobilization of cell adhesive rgd peptide on bone graft material on bone graft material of polylactic acid a grafting powder or porous scaffold of polylactic acid were added to phosphate buffer ( ph 4 . 7 ) to hydrate the surface , followed by reaction with 20 mg / ml of cystamine hydrochloride solution . to this solution , edc was added dropwise to activate the carboxylic acid on the surface of the bone graft material . the mixture was reacted for 24 hours , washed , and allowed to react with 1 ml of dithiothreniol ( dtt ) solution ( 30 mg / ml ) for 24 hours so as to introduce sulfhydryl groups onto the surface of the polylactic acid . the modified polylactic acid grafting material was mixed with a cell adhesive rgd peptide ( seq id no : 1 ) so as to induce s — s bonds between the sulfhydryl groups of the bone grafting material and the peptides , thus immobilizing the peptides on the grafting material . for use as tissue growth factor - derived peptides in this example , peptides were chemically synthesized by adding a cgg spacer to the n - terminal end of each of amino acid sequences of seq id no : 3 and seq id nos : 6 - 9 , which contain the cell adhesion and activation domain of bone morphogenetic protein bmp - 2 so as to introduce cysteine into the n - terminal end . bovine bone - derived bone mineral particles were washed with ethanol under reduced pressure and then left to stand in a vacuum oven at 100 ° c . for 20 hours so as to remove impurities from the surface . the surface of the bone mineral particles was treated with a solution of 3 - aminopropyl ethoxysilane ( aptes ) in hexane , followed by washing . this resulted in the formation of amine residues on the surface of particles , to which sulfo - smcc as a crosslinker was then added at a concentration of 5 mg / ml . this mixture was stirred for 2 hours so as to introduce functional groups onto the surface of the bone graft material . after 2 hours of reaction at ambient temperature , the bone graft material was washed , and allowed to react with a solution of 10 mg of the peptides dissolved in 100 μl of phosphate buffer for 24 hours , followed by washing . this yielded the bone mineral particles with the peptides immobilized thereon . immobilization of tissue growth factor - derived peptides on particles of synthetic bone graft material in this example , the same peptides as used in example 5 used as tissue growth factor - derived peptides . as synthetic bone graft materials , mineral particles of synthetic hydroxyapatite and tricalcium phosphate were washed with ethanol under reduced pressure and stored in a vacuum oven at 100 ° c . for 20 hours so as to remove impurities from the surface . the surface of the particles was treated with a solution of 3 - aminopropyl ethoxysilane ( aptes ) in hexane , followed by washing . this resulted in the formation of amine residues on the surface , to which 5 mg / ml of sulfo - smcc as a crosslinker was added . the mixture was stirred for 2 hours to introduce functional groups onto the surface of the bone graft material . after 2 hours of reaction at ambient temperature , the bone graft material was washed , and allowed to react with a solution of 10 mg of the peptides dissolved in 100 μl of phosphate buffer for 24 hours , followed by washing . this yielded the bone graft particles with the tissue growth factor - derived peptides immobilized thereon . immobilization of tissue growth factor - derived peptides on bone graft material and scaffold of chitosan a bone graft material and scaffold made of chitosan was added to 2 ml of phosphate buffer ( ph 7 . 4 ) so as to hydrate the surface , to which crosslinker sulfo - smcc was added at a concentration of 5 mg / ml . the mixture was stirred for 2 hours so as to introduce functional groups onto the surface of the chitosan bone graft material . after 2 hours of reaction at ambient temperature , the chitosan bone graft material was washed , and allowed to react with a solution of 10 mg of the tissue growth factor - derived peptide of example 5 dissolved in 100 μl of phosphate buffer , followed by washing . this yielded the chitosan bone graft material and scaffold having the peptide immobilized thereon . immobilization of tissue growth factor - derived peptide on bone graft material and scaffold of polylactic acid a bone grafting powder or porous scaffold of polylactic acid was added to phosphate buffer ( ph 4 . 7 ) to hydrate the surface and allowed to react with 20 mg / ml of cystamine hydrochloride solution . to the reaction mixture , crosslinker edc was added dropwise to activate the carboxylic acids on the surface of the polylactic acid bone graft material . after 24 hours of reaction , the resulting material was washed , and allowed to react with 1 ml of dithiothreniol ( dtt ) solution ( 30 mg / ml ) for 24 hours so as to introduce sulfhydryl groups onto the surface of the polylactic acid . the bone graft material was mixed with a tissue growth factor - derived peptide of seq id no : 8 having a cgg spacer bound thereto , so as to spontaneously induce a s — s bond between the bone graft material and the peptide , thus immobilizing the peptide on the bone graft material . for use as bone sialoprotein - derived peptides in this example , a peptide of seq id no : 15 , a peptide including an active domain structure for the induction of calcification , and a peptide of seq id no : 27 including a cell adhesion functional site , were chemically synthesized . bovine bone - derived bone mineral particles were washed with ethanol under reduced pressure and then left to stand in a vacuum oven at 100 ° c . for 20 hours so as to remove impurities from the surface . the surface of the bone mineral particles was treated with a solution of 3 - aminopropyl ethoxysilane ( aptes ) in hexane , followed by washing . this resulted in the formation of amine residues on the surface , to which 5 mg / ml of crosslinker sulfo - smcc was then added . the mixture was stirred for 2 hours so as to functional groups onto the surface of the bone graft material . after reaction , the bone graft material was washed , and allowed to react with a solution of 10 mg of the bone sialoprotein - derived peptides dissolved in 100 μl of phosphate buffer for 24 hours , followed by washing . this yielded the bone mineral particles having the peptides immobilized thereon . in this example , the same peptides as used in example 9 were used . hydroxyapatite and tricalcium phosphate mineral particles were washed with ethanol under reduced pressure and then left to stand in a vacuum oven at 100 ° c . for 20 hours so as to remove impurities from the surface . the surface of the particles was treated with a solution of 3 - aminopropyl ethoxysilane ( aptes ) in hexane , followed by washing . this resulted in the formation of amine residues on the surface , to which 5 mg / ml of crosslinker sulfo - smcc was then added . the mixture was stirred for 2 hours so as to introduce functional groups onto the surface of the bone graft material . after completion of the reaction , the bone graft material was washed , to which a solution of 10 mg of the same peptides as used in example 9 , which have been dissolved in 100 μl of phosphate buffer , was added and allowed to react for 24 hours . the reaction product was washed , thus yielding the bone graft material having the peptides immobilized thereon . immobilization of peptides containing adhesion and activation sites of bone sialoprotein on bone graft material of chitosan in this example , the same peptides as used in example 9 were used . a bone graft material and scaffold of chitosan were added to 2 ml of phosphate buffer ( ph 7 . 4 ) to hydrate the surface . to this solution , 5 mg / ml of crosslinker sulfo - smcc was added and stirred for 2 hours to introduce functional groups onto the surface of bone graft material . after completion of the reaction , the chitosan bone graft material was washed , to which a solution of 10 mg of the peptides dissolved in 100 μl of phosphate buffer was added and allowed to react for 24 hours , followed by washing . this yielded the chitosan bone graft material and scaffold having the peptides immobilized thereon . immobilization of peptides containing adhesion and activation sites of bone sialoprotein on bone graft material and scaffold of polylactic acid in this example , the same peptides as used in example 9 were used . a bone graft material and scaffold of polylactic acid were added to phosphate buffer ( ph 4 . 7 ) so as to hydrate the surface , and then allowed to react with 20 mg / ml of cystamine hydrochloride solution . to the reaction mixture , crosslinker edac was added dropwise to activate the carboxylic acids on the surface of the polylactic acid . after 24 hours of reaction , the reaction product was washed , to which 1 ml of dtt solution ( 30 mg / ml ) was added and allowed to react for 24 hours so as to introduce sulfhydryl groups onto the surfaces of the bone graft material and the scaffold . the bone graft material and the scaffold were mixed with the peptides so as to spontaneously induce s — s bonds between the bond graft material and the peptides , thus immobilizing the peptides on the bone graft material . a barrier membrane of chitosan was added to 2 ml of phosphate buffer ( ph 7 . 4 ) to hydrate the surface of the barrier membrane . to the solution , 5 mg / ml of crosslinker sulfo - smcc was added and the mixture was stirred for 2 hours so as to introduce functional groups onto the surface of the barrier membrane . after completion of the reaction , the barrier membrane was washed , to which a solution of 5 ml of each of a cell adhesion peptide having seq id no : 1 , a bmp - 2 - derived peptide used in example 9 , and a bone sialoprotein - derived peptide used in example 9 , which has been dissolved in 100 μl of phosphate buffer , was added and allowed to react for 24 hours . after washing , the barrier membrane having the peptides immobilized thereon was obtained . a barrier membrane of polylactic acid was added to phosphate buffer ( ph 4 . 7 ) so as to hydrate the surface , and is allowed to 20 mg / ml of cystamine hydrochloride solution . to the reaction mixture , crosslinker edc was added dropwise to activate the carboxylic acids on the surface of the polylactic acid . after 24 hours of reaction , the barrier membrane was washed , to which 1 ml of dtt solution ( 30 mg / ml ) was added and allowed to react for 24 hours so as to introduce sulfhydryl groups onto the surface of the barrier membrane . the resulting barrier membrane was mixed with each of a cell adhesion peptide of seq id no : 1 , a bmp - 2 - derived peptide used in example 5 and a bone sialoprotein - derived peptide used in example 9 so as to spontaneously induce s — s bonds between the barrier membrane and the peptides , thus immobilizing the peptides on the barrier membrane . the surface of an implant made of titanium was treated with nitrogen plasma so as to form amine groups on the surface . to the implant , 5 mg / ml of crosslinker sulfo - smcc was added and stirred for 2 hours so as to introduce functional groups onto the surface . after completion of the reaction , the implant was washed , to which a solution of each of 5 ml of a cell adhesion peptide having seq id no : 1 , a bmp - 2 - derived peptide used in example 5 and a bone sialoprotein - derived peptide used in example 9 , which has been dissolved in 100 μl of phosphate buffer , was added and allowed to react for 24 hours . the resulting implant was washed , thus the obtaining the implant having the peptides immobilized thereon . analysis of surface of bone graft materials according to the present invention in order to analyze the surface of each of the peptide - immobilized bone graft materials prepared in examples 1 - 12 , the bone graft materials were fixed with 2 % glutaraldehyde solution . the fixed bone graft materials were treated with 1 % osmium tetroxide solution , followed by washing , dewatering and drying . the surface of the prepared bone graft materials was analyzed by an xps method which determines the presence or absence of bonds by identifying elements immobilized on the surface of a substance . in this respect , the presence or absence of bonds were determined depending on the presence or absence of sulfur since there are disulfide bonds between the bone graft material and the peptides immobilized on the bone graft material according to the present invention . fig1 shows the results of analysis of peptides immobilized on a bone graft material of chitosan according to the present invention . in fig1 , ( a ) shows the surface of a bone graft material made of chitosan , which has not been modified with peptides , and ( b ) shows a bone graft material having a sulfur - containing peptide immobilized on the surface . as shown in fig1 , the presence of sulfur on the surface of the peptide - immobilized bone graft material was observed , suggesting that the peptides were immobilized . furthermore , the content of sulfur in the peptide - immobilized bone graft material was measured in order to determine the immobilization rate of the peptide in the total surface area of the bone graft material . as a result , as shown in table 1 below , sulfur was not detected in the chitosan with no peptide whereas 8 . 66 % of sulfur was detected in the peptide - immobilized chitosan . osteoblasts (( mc3t3 cell line ) were inoculated on the peptide - immobilized bone graft materials prepared in examples 3 , 7 and 11 and then cultured for each of 4 hours and 1 day . the bone graft materials with the cultured osteoblasts were fixed with 2 % glutaraldehyde solution . the fixed bone graft materials were added with a fluorescent - labeled phalloidin solution treated with 1 % triton x - 100 , thus staining the cytoplasm . then , after the samples were washed and fixed , the cells adhered to the bone graft materials were observed with a confocal laser scanning microscope ( fig2 ). in fig2 , ( a ) shows the cell adhesion to the bone graft material with no peptide , and ( b ) and ( c ) show the cell adhesion to the bone graft materials on which the bmp - derived peptide and the bone sialoprotein - derived peptide have been immobilized , respectively . as a result , for the bone graft material with no immobilized peptide , the spherical and unstable adhesion of the cells was observed , whereas on the surfaces of the bone graft materials with the bmp - and bone sialoprotein - derived peptides , the stable adhesion of the cells ( including the elongation of the cytoplasm in most of the cells after 4 hours of the cell culture ) was observed . fig3 shows the results of quantitative analysis for the cell adhesion . as shown in fig3 , the chitosan bone graft materials modified with the peptides showed a remarkable increase in the adhesion of the cells as compared to the chitosan bone graft material with no immobilized peptide , and this increase was proportional to the amount of the immobilized peptides up to any concentration . expression of differentiation marker proteins in osteoblasts cultured on surface of peptide - immobilized bone graft material according to the present invention in order to determine the expression of differentiation marker proteins in osteoblasts cultured on the surface of the peptide - immobilized bone graft material according to the present invention , the expression level of differentiation marker proteins smad 1 , 5 and 8 was analyzed by western blot . osteoblasts were inoculated on the surfaces of the bone graft material and the peptide - immobilized bone graft material and then cultured for 2 weeks . after culturing , total protein in the cells was extracted , and quantified by measuring the absorbance at 280 nm . 2 μl of the protein solution ( 1 mg / ml ) was taken and electrophoresed on acrylamide gel , followed by reaction with an antibody to differentiation marker proteins smad 1 , 5 and 8 . then , the protein solution was allowed to react with a labeled secondary antibody , and protein bands appearing by the development of the gel were observed and their density was measured ( fig4 ). as a result , as shown in fig4 , the expression of the smad proteins cultured on the surface of the peptide - immobilized bone graft material was significantly increased as compared to the case of the cells cultured on the bone graft material with no immobilized peptide . this suggests that the cells grown on the surface of the bone graft material having the tissue growth factor - derived peptide immobilized on the surface are differentiated into bone tissue in a facilitated manner . the peptide - immobilized bone graft materials prepared in examples 1 - 5 were grafted in rabbit cranial circular defects in order to examine their bone regeneration ability . at the cranial sites of anesthetized rabbits , circular bone defects with a diameter of 8 mm were formed . the bone graft material and the peptide - immobilized bone graft materials were grafted into the bone defects at an amount of 50 mg / defect , and the bone membrane and the skin were double sutured to each other . at 2 weeks after the grafting , the animals were sacrificed , and samples collected from the animals were fixed in formalin solution and then the tissue was embedded so as to prepare samples having a thickness of 20 μm . the prepared samples were stained with basic fuchsine and toluidine blue , thus preparing non - decalcified samples . the prepared samples were photographed with an optical microscope . fig5 shows the bone regeneration effect of the peptide - immobilized bone graft materials . as shown in fig5 , the inventive bone graft materials having the osteogenesis - promoting peptide adhered to the surface , which have been applied to the rabbit cranial defects ( b ), showed remarkable bone regeneration ability within 2 weeks as compared to the bone graft material with no peptide ( a ). although the present invention has been described in detail with reference to the specific features , it will be apparent to those skilled in the art that this description is only for a preferred embodiment and does not limit the scope of the present invention . thus , the substantial scope of the present invention will be defined by the appended claims and equivalents thereof . those skilled in the art will appreciate that simple modifications , variations and additions to the present invention are possible , without departing from the scope and spirit of the invention as disclosed in the accompanying claims . as described above , the present invention provides the bone graft material and scaffold having a surface immobilized with the cell adhesion - inducing peptide and / or the tissue growth factor - derived peptide , which can achieve the desired tissue regeneration effect even at the low concentration dose level . the inventive bone graft material and the scaffold for tissue engineering applications , have the osteogenesis - promoting peptides immobilized on the surface , can promote the adhesion of cells and the differentiation of cells into bone tissue , and can prevent rapid degradation of a tissue growth factor caused by its simple incorporation according to the prior art , and side effects resulting from its leakage into the body . moreover , they allow a great reduction in the costs caused by applying a large amount of the tissue growth factor to increase its local concentration . | 0 |
fig1 shows an administration device 10 in the form of an infusion pump for insulin that is in wireless communication with a communications terminal 20 . the administration device 10 comprises a housing 1 , provided with suitable holding means , to enable it to be either secured by the user to his clothing or directly to his body so that it may be constantly carried around . the insulin is contained in a reservoir , which in the example embodiment is formed by an ampoule 2 . a piston 5 is shiftably accommodated in said ampoule 2 . displacement of the piston 5 occurs by means of a spindle drive , the driven member 6 of which ( a threaded rod in this embodiment ) is straightly and axially moved with regard to the housing 1 by means of the rotary drive of a drive member 7 , which in this embodiment is a threaded sleeve . the rotary drive of the threaded sleeve 7 is caused by a stepper motor 9 via a gear 8 with a spur wheel meshing with said threaded sleeve 7 . a power part of a control for the motor 9 is given reference number 9 a . by means of rotation - secured , straight guidance of the threaded rod 6 in the housing 1 , the threaded rod 6 is axially moved and urged against the rear of the piston . under the action of the threaded rod 6 , the piston 5 is moved to an ampoule outlet , thereby displacing insulin through said ampoule outlet . a fluid line 3 is connected to said ampoule outlet , at the free front ends of which an infusion needle n is fixed , which the user pierces under his skin and then fixes it on his skin so that he can self - administer insulin . further included in the fluid line 3 is a valve 4 , likewise accommodated in the housing 1 , which only enables insulin to flow when a minimum pressure , given by said valve 4 , is exceeded in said ampoule 2 . a position sensor 14 measures the actual value of the angular position of the stepper motor 9 and transmits it via signal lines as the actual position p to a radio interface 13 and to an emergency control 11 provided in the housing 1 . if run properly , the emergency control 11 is driven in a stand - by mode . the emergency control 11 is connected to the position sensor 14 and the power element 9 a via signal lines . it receives the actual position p from the position sensor 14 and transmits its adjusting signal c ′ to the power element 9 a , if the emergency control 11 has been activated , to move the motor 9 to a subsequent desired position . an electric battery , provided in the housing 1 , is the energy source 12 for the energy - consuming components of the administration device 10 . a reaction force f , exerted by the piston 5 on the housing 1 , is constantly measured by an energy sensor 15 and outputted in the form of a measurement signal representing the measured reaction force f . the measured reaction force f is supplied to said radio interface 13 and a threshold comparator 16 via signal lines , the comparator triggering an acoustic alarm of an alarm means 17 when a given upper threshold value for the measured reaction force f has been exceeded or when a given lower threshold value of said force has been fallen short of . the energy sensor 15 , the comparator 16 and the alarm means 17 form a device to trigger an emergency alarm . the entire driving mechanism of the piston 5 , namely , the spindle drive comprising driven member 6 and drive member 7 , gear 8 , motor 9 with power element 9 a , along with the position sensor 14 as well as the emergency control 11 , are together shiftably positioned on a straightly guided platform in the housing 1 in and against the advancement direction of the piston 5 . arrangement of the platform occurs in and against the advancement direction of the piston 5 in a free - floating manner . the energy sensor 15 , e . g ., a suitably arranged wire strain gauge , is arranged at an underside of the platform or opposite to the housing 1 so that it outputs a measurement signal when the platform and the housing 1 are urged together , this measurement signal representing the acting force . this force corresponds to the reaction force f exerted by the piston 5 on the threaded rod 6 and thus on the platform . via the radio interface 13 , there is wireless communication between the administration device 10 and the communications terminal 20 , which has been designed in the embodiment as an integrated remote indicator and control unit , and is provided with a radio interface 23 . both radio interfaces 13 and 23 are each provided with a receiving member 13 . 1 or 23 . 1 and with a transmitting member 13 . 2 or 23 . 2 . the administration device 10 permanently or periodically transmits those values of the measured reaction force f and the actual position p via transmitter 13 . 2 that are received by the receiving member 23 . 1 and are transmitted via signal lines to a microprocessor 21 . from the actual position p , the processor particularly determines the supplied basal rate , preferably in insulin units per hour iu / h , dose amounts in insulin units iu as well as the filling state of the ampoule 2 and / or the actually remaining residual amount iur and / or the presumed residual feed time . the determined basal rate and the dose amounts are stored . the reaction force f is compared by the microprocessor to a given upper threshold value for this force . exceeding the upper threshold value determines the occurrence of an occlusion in the fluid guiding system , which is stored together with its moment of occurrence . by determining a lower threshold value and comparison therewith , a leakage in the fluid guidance system can be detected and its time of occurrence can be stored . at the same time , processor 21 forms a variable control 22 for the motor 9 in normal operation , in which the emergency control 11 remains in its stand - by mode . the control function will be taken over by the emergency control 11 instead of the processor control 21 if there is an emergency case such as a communication error or any other detected control error leading to a loss of control signals . otherwise , the motor is controlled by the processor control 22 via wireless transmission of its adjusting signals c . fig2 is a front view of the communications terminal 20 . all components of the communications terminal 20 are included in a lightweight housing that can be held in a person &# 39 ; s hand . the measurement signals p and f as well as the adjusting signals c are exchanged via interface 23 by interface 13 . a visual display 24 displays information of relevance to the user . indicated data or data that can be indicated upon request in a display mode are at least operating parameters of the administration device 10 . readability of data , especially in the case of continuously performed administration , has considerably been improved by means of the remote indicator , which can also be comfortably hand - held . the variety and complexity of the indicated information can be increased without having to increase the weight and the dimensions of the administration device . the operation of the device has been further improved in that the communications terminal 20 has not only been designed as a remote display , but also as a remote control . in this connection , the terminal 20 is provided with input means 26 in the form of keys used to act upon the processor 21 , and thus also on control 22 formed by the processor . for example , pressing a key can cause a bole output , which is either spontaneous or programmed in advance in a delayed manner depending on the input . the visual display 24 and keys 26 may also cooperate by indicating on said display 24 , for example , key settings or data that can be selected via keys 26 . furthermore , the communications terminal 20 comprises an acoustic alarm indicator 25 , which acoustically alerts one to dangerous malfunctions of the communications terminal 20 and also of the administration device 10 . as concerns the operational function , the administration device 10 can be switched on or off by means of the communications terminal 20 and a dose supply can be activated or at least increased or reduced . furthermore , the basal rate and the temporary basal rate can be set and preferably also changed . filling the catheter after replacement of the ampoule can also be done in such a controlled manner . according to fig3 , the essential components of the communications terminal 20 are linked to each other and depicted in the form of a block diagram . the microprocessor 21 is the central component and controls both the visual display 24 and the acoustic indicator 25 in response to input signals obtained from the interface 23 or the input means 26 . also indicated is an energy source 27 . the communications terminal 20 is provided with a monitoring means 29 to monitor the position of the stepper motor 9 . to do so , it receives the actual position p of the position sensor 14 via the interface 23 together with the desired value from the processor control 22 . if a given maximum difference is exceeded in terms of its absolute value , the acoustic alarm 25 delivers an alarm signal . any deviations that are still tolerable will be indicated and the user can take them into account and compensate for them via the remote control at the next opportunity , e . g ., by means of an extra dose supply . no control occurs . in the event of failure of the processor control 22 , the comparison between desired / actual values , effected merely for security , can also be performed by the emergency control 11 , an intolerable deviation will be indicated by the alarm means 17 . the microprocessor 21 has access to an individual memory 30 of the communications terminal 20 , in which in particular a setup of an individual person and the historical administration data are stored or continuously accumulatingly stored . it is further possible to store blood - sugar measurement values over the time , either in an individual area of the memory 30 or in another memory of the communications terminal . this allows the user to compare the administration history to the timely assigned blood - sugar measurement values so that he can draw valuable conclusions therefrom , possibly also for future administrations and individual settings of his administration device . the communications terminal 20 is the user &# 39 ; s electronic diary . a blood - sugar measuring means is likewise integrated into the housing of the communications device . the blood - sugar measuring means comprises a sensor 28 a and a transducer 28 b . the sensor 28 a measures the blood - sugar content of a blood sample and / or a cell fluid sample . the transducer 28 b receives a measurement signal outputted from the sensor 28 a , the size thereof depending on the blood - sugar content of the sample , and transmits it to the microprocessor 21 , i . e . to an evaluation means 28 formed by the microprocessor . the measurement value obtained by the processor is stored in the memory 30 so that it is available for representation on the display 24 at a later time . referring to fig3 a , the sensor 28 a is a commonly used sensor , particularly in the form of a strip , having a sample region 33 for applying the sample and a contact region 35 for insertion into the transducer 28 b so as to be in contact therewith . the blood - sugar measuring means consists of the sensor 28 a , the transducer 28 b , used as the receiving and contacting means for the sensor 28 a , a connection means for connection to the processor 21 , and the processor 21 itself , by which the evaluating function is met if programmed in application - specific manner and which performs in the embodiment all further tasks involved with the evaluation and representation of the measurement signals of the sensor 28 a . the blood - sugar measuring means can either completely , as described above , or partially be designed as an independent module that is inserted into a prepared slot of the communications terminal 20 so as to be connected with the processor 21 . if integrated into the detachable module , the evaluation means 28 can be formed by a converter which converts the measurement signal , received from the sensor 28 a , into a signal the processor 21 can read . according to another embodiment , the evaluation means 28 itself can store a measurement signal , received from the sensor 28 a , in the memory 30 so that it does not have to be stored by the processor 21 . detection of the blood - sugar contents can also be performed by such a transducer and evaluation module . a memory can also be a component of the module to temporarily store therein the measured sensor signals . a measurement means in the basic form of a pure transducer 28 b or in one of the above developed forms may advantageously be used for any kind of device , in particular a generic device without operating parameter display , for example , in combination with a pure remote control or a remote display including other displayed data . according to the embodiment in the form of a detachable module , it may advantageously also be ( in a basic form or in one of the above developed forms ) an independent product that does not depend on a specific device to administer a fluid product . in such a form , it is especially comfortable when used to support any therapy monitored by a user . it can have an own display so that it can be used without a computer like common evaluation means . fig4 shows a representation as it appears on a touch screen of a palm top computer after selection of a loaded diabetes program . the display is a combined graphic display and input means . the display permanently , semi - permanently or on demand shows the accumulated amount of insulin administered per hour as basal rate during the last hours in the form of a bar chart in insulin units per hour . any extra dose supplies , caused by the user , are also permanently shown . a normal dose is represented by a simple vertical line and an extended dose is represented by an above offset line . the amount administered by said dose is indicated by the vertical line length . the time axis indicates the period of the last hours , for example the last 24 hours , with exact time indications . the administered insulin amounts are detected by the processor 21 from actual positions p and stored in the memory 30 so as to be available at any time for display purposes and further evaluation purposes . as long as the monitoring device 29 does not detect a malfunction , the desired positions can be simply taken by the control 21 instead of the actual positions p and be used to determine the delivered insulin amounts . finally , the total amount of insulin administered during the last 24 hours before reading is permanently shown in the form of its numeric value behind a summation sign . under the display area , the display is provided with an input area with input fields 26 . assigned to each of the input fields 26 is a graphic symbol representing the respective function . the meaning of input fields 26 from the left to the right are as follows : bread units be , notebook nb , status of ampoule sa , malfunctions ff , blood - sugar display ba and blood - sugar measurement bm . pressing one of these fields activates the function thereof , repeated pressing deactivates the function . any conceivable combination of fields may be active at a time . fig4 shows the display in a condition in which only fields ff and ba are activated . pressing field be enables the bread units obtained to be entered manually including indications concerning time and amount . pressing field nb enables the user to input personal notes that are important for him , which will be stored together with the time input by the user or , if the user does not define the time , automatically together with the moment of time the nb field was activated . at the same time , there will be a real - time representation on the display of the bread units or notes input for the indicated period which correspond to the activated input field . pressing field sa displays the current level of the ampoule in percent of the filling amount of a new ampoule and / or as still remaining residual amount of insulin or as estimated residual feed time . furthermore , the time of the last ampoule change may also be additionally indicated . activating field ff suitably indicates a real - time representation of any deviation from the desired operation , e . g . an occlusion , a communication error or a power failure , within the warning symbol . pressing field ba brings about the display of the blood - sugar contents obtained by measurements , e . g . in milligram of sugar per deciliter of blood at the time of the respective measurement . this time is determined by the user by pressing field bm . automatic determination of this time would also be conceivable . other fields may be programmed as well . represented in fig5 , in addition to the wireless communication with the communications terminal 20 , is also the possibility of communication with a computer 20 ′ via the same interface 13 , it being a notebook in fig5 . to use a standard computer 20 ′ equipped with a comparatively large monitor considerably increases the variety and complexity of the applicability of the remote display and the remote control . by means of the personal computer 20 ′, the administration device can be entirely configured and / or programmed , by the manufacturer , with the exception of the settings concerning the individual person . in some embodiments , the individual settings may be preset or programmed as well . in some embodiments , the individual on - spot configuration for the user , and in particular the evaluation possibilities available to the user , e . g ., comparing the administration history with the blood - sugar values , can be performed very comfortably and extensively . wireless communication can also be used by the manufacturer for economical configuration and / or quality control purposes . particularly with regard to quality control , it is not necessary to establish wire connection between the administration device to be checked and the computer employed for checking purposes . quality control can be performed by means of wireless communication , for example , or the production line without interrupting production . in the foregoing description , preferred embodiments of the invention have been presented for the purpose of illustration and description . they are not intended to be exhaustive or to limit the invention to the precise form disclosed . obvious modifications or variations are possible in light of the above teachings . the embodiments were chosen and described to provide the best illustration of the principals of the invention and its practical application , and to enable one of ordinary skill in the art to utilize the invention in various embodiments and with various modifications as are suited to the particular use contemplated . all such modifications and variations are within the scope of the invention as determined by the appended claims when interpreted in accordance with the breadth they are fairly , legally , and equitably entitled . | 6 |
a portion of the heat exchanger core to be assembled by the apparatus and method of the invention is shown in fig1 . plate pairs 10 which will form tubes when brazed consist of plates 12 and 14 which when stacked form a heat exchanger core adapted to be used as an evaporator . the plate pairs 10 are stacked to define a space 16 therebetween for the flow of air . the space 16 includes a corrugated metal center or fin 17 with louvers struck out therefrom for increasing the heat exchange efficiency . only a portion of the center 17 is illustrated . for standard plate pairs 10 the individual plates 12 and 14 are configured identically , one of the plates is simply inverted and rotated 1800 relative to the other . each plate has a flat peripheral edge portion 18 and the portions 18 of the two plates are formed so as to engage one another prior to braze jointure . thus each pair of plates , when brazed , forms a tube for refrigerant . inlet and outlet manifolds 24 , 26 are formed by outwardly offset and generally circular portions 28 in each end of plates 12 and 14 . an opening 30 is provided in the top surface at one end and an opening 32 is provided with an outwardly raised flange portion 34 at the other end . thus , the plates are designed so that , when stacked , the flange portion 34 surrounding opening 32 fittingly engages the opening 30 . this provides a registering relationship between the plates of two adjacent tubes . in some cases the plates 12 and 14 are not configured identically in the sense that an opening 30 may be omitted to structure the manifold for fluid flow management through the core . the plate on either end of the core will be equipped with an inlet or outlet fitting at the opening 30 or 32 . thus the core is made up primarily of &# 34 ; standard &# 34 ; plate pairs combined with a few &# 34 ; special &# 34 ; plate pairs . in any event they all couple together in the same manner . the plate and heat exchanger structures are more fully described in the u . s . pat . no . 4 , 470 , 455 to sacca . the general organization of the assembly machine is shown in fig2 . a pallet 40 comprises an open - sided frame 42 with vertical end plates 44 at each corner of a horizontal base plate 45 . four rods 46 supported by the end plates 44 extend longitudinally along each side to pass through and hold a plurality of perforated blocks 48 which can slide a limited amount along the rods . a coil spring 49 under compression surrounds alternate rods 46 on each side between an end plate 44 and the nearest block 48 to hold the blocks together against the other end of the frame unless the spring force is overcome . the blocks 48 each have a slot 50 for receiving the edges of a plate pair 10 adjacent an offset portion 28 . each block also has an outboard cam follower 52 extending to the side of the pallet . a lead screw 54 with its axis parallel to the rods 46 at each side of the path of the pallet engages just a few of the cam followers 52 at a given time . the lead screws 54 are synchronously rotated by servomotors 56 to advance the corresponding blocks 48 longitudinally so as to precisely position the blocks and to advance the entire pallet 40 as well . a microprocessor based controller 57 controls the servomotors . the lead screws are positioned at a loading station for plate pairs 10 and the pallets 40 are carried to the loading station by a power and free conveyor 58 which depends on a frictional contact to drive the pallet . the lead screws engage the cam followers of the blocks and positively and precisely position the blocks at a feed plane where plate pairs are dropped into the slots 50 in the blocks 48 . as shown in fig2 the first few blocks are holding plate pairs 10 and subsequent blocks are prepared to receive a plate pair being inserted as indicated by an arrow 60 . the width of the blocks is such that when they are nested together the adjacent plate pairs 10 are stacked together as shown in fig1 . a critical function of the pallet system is that the pitch of the lead screw 54 is greater than the width of the blocks so that the few blocks that are actively engaged by the lead screws are spaced far enough to permit insertion of the plate pairs 10 without interference by an adjacent plate pair and the adjacent pairs are moved into a nested assembly as they are released by the lead screws . the plate pairs 10 may not necessarily be loaded at the same station since it may be more convenient to have separate loading stations for each type of plate pair , standard or special . the conveyor 58 carries the pallet from one station to the next . at each station the blocks 48 are spaced apart as they pass the feeding plane and the proper plate pairs are inserted into empty slots according to a preset program . centers 17 are also supplied to the pallet in the same manner . center insertion occurs after all the plates are inserted since the plate pairs 10 position and laterally support the centers . a center loading station is shown in fig2 downstream from the plate loading station . lead screws 62 driven by servomotors 64 are on opposite sides of the conveyor 58 . the optimum spacing of the blocks for center insertion is less than for the plate pair insertion . thus the lead screws 62 at the center loading station have a smaller pitch than those at the plate pair loading station . accordingly , the pallet 40 can provide various insertion spacings under control of the lead screws at a various stations . a special feature at the center loading station is an auxiliary lead screw 66 drivingly coupled to each lead screw 62 by a shaft 68 but spaced from the lead screw 62 by a distance of perhaps one half the length of a pallet 40 . the purpose of the lead auxiliary screw 66 is to engage a pallet 40 &# 39 ; which is waiting to enter the center loading station and positively advance the pallet at a rate determined by the motor 64 speed . in the absence of the lead screw 66 the pallet would be advanced by the power and free conveyor 58 which relies on friction to move the pallet and is accordingly limited in its ability to accelerate the pallet . the positive advancement is most advantageous when the waiting pallet is touching or nearly touching the pallet in the station . by positively advancing the waiting pallet 40 &# 39 ; it can be accelerated quickly for positioning in the station under control of the lead screw 62 , thus minimizing the time lapse between the last center insertion in one pallet 40 and the first center insertion in the next pallet . the benefit of minimizing the time lapse is to allow the supply of centers to proceed at a more uniform rate . in the most efficient arrangement the centers are fed to the pallet directly from the machine making the centers . that machine operates best at a constant output rate but it can vary its rate somewhat to accommodate the time lapse between pallets , providing that the time lapse is small . in other words , it is not desirable to stop the supply of centers each time a pallet is positioned in the loading station but some slow down is permissible . the positive advancement of the waiting pallet by the lead screw 66 in conjunction with the control by lead screw 62 permits its precise positioning in the loading station in the minimum time . details of the assembly machine are better shown in fig3 , 5 and 6 and include some elements not shown in fig2 . the base plate 45 has a large central aperture 70 and a short pedestal 72 at each end between the end plates 44 . a platen 74 ( fig5 ) is supported on the pedestals with its upper surface flush with the bottom edges of the elements to be loaded into the pallet and is the support for centers when they are first loaded and are not yet held by the adjacent plates . the platen 74 also is used to lift the assembled core out of the pallet via an elevator , not shown , which pushes up through the large aperture 70 in the base plate . the slot 50 in each block is configured to the shape of the plates 10 so that the plate pairs nest in the slot . the blocks also have relief to accommodate the offset portions 28 of the plates . each block 48 has , in addition to the slot 50 and the cam follower 52 , two flat side faces 75 which abut similar faces in adjacent blocks , two large holes 76 and two small holes 77 receiving the rods 46 . the four holes are positioned at corners of a rectangle and two diagonal small holes 77 are surrounded by a boss 78 protruding beyond the faces 75 on one side of the block and containing a bushing 80 for sliding on the rods 46 . the other set of diagonal holes 76 are large enough to receive the bosses 78 of the adjacent block . for the blocks to fit together with the adjoining faces 75 in contact two block types ( for each side of the pallet ) are used alternately so that each boss 78 of one block will align with and fit in the corresponding large hole 76 of the adjacent block . one type of block rides on two of the rails and the other type rides on the other two rails . the bosses protrude toward the end of the pallet 40 that contains some free space for block movement . the springs 49 on two of the rods reside in the space and extend between the end plates 44 and the bosses 78 of the end block to press the blocks together in the absence of the lead screws . when the lead screws engage some of the blocks the springs 49 are compressed due to the separation of those blocks . the frame 42 is moved by the lead screws 54 via forces acting through the blocks and the springs 49 if the springs are in the leading edge of the pallet . the other end of the pallet may be positioned in the front in which case the force from the lead screws is delivered directly by the blocks to the frame 42 . the lead screws 54 comprise helical threads 82 having a pitch determined by the block thickness and the block separation appropriate for a particular loading station . the thickness of each thread is sufficient to span the distance between adjacent cam followers 52 . this assures that each block will be positively positioned by the screw threads . the cam followers 52 are essentially elliptical to accommodate the pitch angle of the threads . fig7 shows the lead screw 62 connected to the auxiliary lead screw 66 and coupled respectively to a pallet 40 in the center loading station and a waiting pallet 40 &# 39 ;. the screw driving shaft 66 is supported in three spaced bearing blocks 84 and is driven at one end by a motor ( not shown ). each screw 62 , 68 is mounted on the shaft 66 and keyed thereto by a pin 86 passing through a hub 88 on the screw and through the shaft . the screw 62 is the same as the screw 56 at the plate loading station except for a smaller lead and thread width to conform to the smaller block spacing required for the center insertion . the pallets 40 , 40 &# 39 ; are shown with one closely following the other . a bumper 90 is fixed to the trailing end of each pallet for desired spacing of the waiting pallet from the one being loaded . this allows the leading blocks of the waiting pallet to smoothly mesh with the screw 68 . in operation , the waiting pallet 40 &# 39 ; is brought into contact with the rear end of the pallet 40 by the conveyor 58 preferably before the pallet 40 enters the loading station . when the first blocks of the pallet 40 &# 39 ; reach the screw 68 the blocks will be captured by the screw so that the pallets 40 and 40 &# 39 ; will be advanced together by the screws 62 and 68 . when the pallet 40 is fully loaded with centers the motors 64 will accelerate to quickly remove the pallet 40 and simultaneously move the waiting pallet 40 &# 39 ; into the station with accurate positioning for the insertion of the next center dropped into the loading plane . accurate positioning of the blocks is assured by driving the blocks directly by the lead screws and by driving the lead screws by servomotors under computer control . the amount of rotation of the servomotors and thus the position of each block is precisely controlled by the computer program . | 8 |
representative practices , procedures and embodiments in accordance with the present invention will now be described in relation to the accompanying figures in which , like reference numerals are utilized to designate like components throughout the various views . turning to fig1 , a space 10 is illustrated incorporating a traditional carpet floor covering installation . in such a traditional installation a carpeting material such as broadloom carpet 12 is installed in covering relation to an underlay padding 14 in covering relation to a subfloor 18 . as will be appreciated , the subfloor 18 may be formed of a wide array of materials including wood , concrete , raised access paneling , or the like as will be well known to those of skill in the art . as illustrated , an arrangement of tack strips 16 is disposed around the perimeter of the space 10 being carpeted so as to hold the carpet 12 in tension following installation . after installation of the carpet system furniture may be introduced into the space 10 . as will be appreciated , such furniture such as a chair 22 or the like may be adapted for discretionary repositioning by the occupants of the space 10 . the furniture installation may also include one or more affixed furniture pieces 24 which are secured at a substantially fixed position within the space 10 . such fixed furniture installations may be particularly desirable in hotel and office environments wherein a standardized orientation of individual furniture pieces is desirable to facilitate uniform appearance and systematic cleaning . as illustrated in fig1 a , in a typical installation of affixed furniture pieces 24 , an arrangement of brackets 26 is used to secure the affixed furniture pieces 24 across the subfloor 18 . the portions of the brackets extending away from the affixed furniture pieces 24 may thereafter be covered by the carpet 12 and / or underlay padding 14 so as to hide the attachment . thus , in such installations , the base of the affixed furniture pieces 24 typically rests on top of the carpet 12 . thus , in the event that there is a need to replace the carpet 12 the affixed furniture pieces 24 must be unbolted from the subfloor and relocated prior to replacement . since the carpet is in large pieces , such removal is often necessary even if the damaged portion of carpeting is outboard of the furniture item . fig2 illustrates a space 40 such as a hotel room or the like incorporating a floor covering installation formed from a multiplicity of cooperating modular tile elements 25 adapted to cover an interior portion of the space 40 inboard of a border strip 27 which extends at least partially along the perimeter of the space 40 at the intersection between the subfloor 18 and walls 29 . as illustrated , it is contemplated that the border strip may also extend in a path substantially around one or more affixed furniture pieces 24 so as to define a border between the modular tile elements 25 and the base of such affixed furniture pieces 24 . thus , in such a floor covering system the border strip 27 will travel in a path around such affixed furniture pieces . however , as illustrated in fig2 a ( wherein like elements are designated by like reference numerals with a prime ) it is also contemplated that the border strip 27 ′ may travel in a path substantially coextensive with the subfloor perimeter . as best illustrated through simultaneous reference to fig2 and 3 and 2 a and 3 a respectively , regardless of whether the border strips extend in a pattern around fixed furniture pieces 24 or remain adjacent to the walls 29 , the width of the border strips is preferably selected such that the interior modular tile elements 25 , 25 ′ may be placed across the interior of the space 40 , 40 ′ without the need to substantially trim or otherwise adjust the dimensions of the tile elements 25 , 25 ′ from their original dimensions as manufactured . thus , according to the potentially preferred practice each of the modular tile elements 25 , 25 ′ is preferably of the same size after installation is complete . an example of the steps in an exemplary process for the installation of flooring in fig3 a is : 1 ) measure the distance between the parallel wall structures in the room . this will yield the 2 full wall - to - wall measurements for the room in fig3 a ( wtw 1 , wtw 2 ). 2 ) divide each measurement from # 1 above by the length or width size of the carpet tile being used ( as an example only : 24 ″× 24 ″). wtw 1 ″/ 24 ″= y . aa tiles needed where y will represent the number of full tiles and “. aa ” will represent the total strip size needed . 3 ) strip size “. aa ” from # 2 above is converted to inches . . aa × 24 ″= bb inches of strip total bb ″/ 2 walls = cc ″ of strip on floor for each wall 4 ) if cc ″ is & lt ; 4 ″ ( which is the minimum desirable strip width on a floor strip for the wtw 1 dimension would be either 5 ) repeat steps 2 through 4 for the other wall - to - wall direction measurement ( wtw 2 ). 6 ) install strips around perimeter walls in the width ( s ) calculated and then install interior carpet tiles in full tile increments . as illustrated , it is contemplated that the coverage by the interior modular tile elements 25 , 25 ′ across the interior of the space 40 may be interrupted by selectively placed tile elements of different construction and / or appearance . in particular , it is contemplated that the floor covering system may include one or more entry way tiles 28 , 28 ′ located at a threshold of an entry way door 31 , 31 ′. by way of example only , and not limitation , it is contemplated that such entry way tiles 28 , 28 ′ may be formed of a material of enhanced durability and / or stain resistance relative to the interior modular tile elements 25 , 25 ′ so as to provide a convenient localized collection point for moisture , dirt and other debris which may be adhered to a user &# 39 ; s shoes as he or she enters the space . as illustrated it is also contemplated that the floor covering installation may include one or more selectively placed insert or message tile elements 30 , 30 ′ at locations across the interior of the space . preferably , such insert tiles 30 , 30 ′ have a shape which is substantially equivalent to that of the interior modular tile elements 25 , 25 ′ covering the remainder of the interior . however , the insert tiles 30 , 30 ′ will preferably be visually distinct from the surrounding interior tile elements 25 , 25 ′. by way of example , such insert tiles may be formed from materials different from the interior tile elements 25 , 25 ′ and / or may be printed with different colors , designs , logos , safety information , or other data for viewing by an occupant . it is contemplated that the interior modular tile elements 25 , 25 ′ the border strips 27 , 27 ′ as well as any entry way tiles 28 , 28 ′ and insert tiles 30 , 30 ′ which may be used may be formed from a wide range of materials and combinations of materials as are known to be suitable for floor covering installations . by way of example only , and not limitation , it is contemplated that any of the tile and / or strip elements may be formed from materials such as carpeting , hardback or cushion back carpet tiles , pieces or portions of such carpet tiles , broadloom , attached cushion broadloom , hardwood flooring , laminate flooring , vinyl flooring , ceramics , granite , marble , and other materials as may be known to those of skill in the art . it is also to be appreciated that such materials may be used in combination with one another within the installation . that is , a border strip of one material may be used in combination with interior modular tile elements of another material . likewise , interior modular tile elements of different materials such as carpet and ceramic , carpet and wood , wood and ceramic and the like may be used . while the present invention is in no way limited to the use of one or more materials , according to one potentially preferred practice it is contemplated that at least a portion of the interior modular tile elements 25 , 25 ′ will be carpet tiles . such carpet tiles may be formed according to any of the practices as will be well known to those of skill in the art and may include tufted , bonded , woven , knit or non - woven face constructions . such carpet tiles may employ any number of different backing layers including cushioning or rigid backing materials as will be well known to those of skill in the art . such tiles may also include various releasable adhesives or other friction enhancing coatings to facilitate placement across the underlying subfloor . in the event that carpet tiles are used as the interior modular tile elements 25 , 25 ′ it is contemplated that the face layer of such carpet tile may be of any suitable known construction including , but not limited to loop pile , cut pile , and combinations of cut and loop pile with pile heights preferably ranging from about { fraction ( 1 / 64 )} inch to about 1 . 5 inches or greater . the message or insert tiles 30 , 30 ′ may likewise be carpet tiles . however , as previously indicated , it is also contemplated that other materials such as ceramics , wood , vinyl , laminates and the like may be used in construction of the insert tiles . preferably , such insert tiles are provided with an appearance that is different from that of the interior modular tile elements forming the body of the interior installation so as to provide a desired decorative pattern . by way of example only , and not limitation , fig1 a - 13h illustrate various representative insert tiles which may be used in combination with surrounding carpet tile elements 25 , 25 ′ at the interior of the space being covered . thus , in fig1 a the insert tile 30 a is simply a carpet tile of a preselected color which may be different from that of the surrounding tiles . in fig1 b , the insert tile 30 b is printed with a brick design . in fig1 c the insert tile 30 c is printed with a stone design . in fig1 d , the insert tile 30 d is formed of wood or wood veneer . in fig1 e , the insert tile 30 e is printed with a geometric pattern . in fig1 f , the insert tile 30 f is printed with a corporate logo . in fig1 g the insert tile 30 g is printed with a family crest . in fig1 h , the insert tile 30 h is printed with a floral pattern . of course , such patterns are merely representative and may be used either alone or in combination with other insert tiles to provide a desired visual effect . it is also contemplated that the modular tile elements disposed across the interior of the space being covered may have various sizes and shapes . that is , the present invention is in no way limited to a single tile dimension . thus , by way of example only , a sample of contemplated sizes and shapes for the interior modular tile elements is provided in fig4 a , 4b . however , it is to be understood that in a given installation each of the tiles will preferably be of the same size and shape so as to reduce complexity . as previously indicated , the border strip 27 , 27 ′ which is utilized may be of any suitable material or combination of materials . by way of example only , such border strips may include wood or stone inlays , rubber boundary strips or carpet strip arrangements . according to one potentially preferred practice , the border strip may be formed from a unitary strip 50 of material such as traditional broadloom carpet . of course , it is to be understood that similar constructions may be used for border strips 27 ′ in installations where the border strips outline affixed furniture . by way of example only , and not limitation , an exemplary cross sectional construction of a tufted broadloom carpet 51 including a pile surface 52 and an attached cushion layer 53 is provided in fig7 a . likewise , a tufted broadloom carpet 51 ′ having a pile surface 52 ′ with no attached cushion is illustrated in fig7 b . of course , carpets having face constructions other than tufted configurations such as bonded , woven , knit and non - woven constructions may likewise be used . as will be appreciated , such materials may be readily formed into an elongate strip construction as illustrated in fig7 by cutting techniques as will be well known to those of skill in the art . referring to fig8 and 8 a , one contemplated arrangement for a border strip 27 formed from a unitary strip of carpet 50 is illustrated . as shown , in this construction the unitary elongate strip 50 is folded into a generally open “ l ” shaped geometry for placement along the intersection between the subfloor 18 and an adjacent vertical boundary surface such as the edge of affixed furniture 24 or a wall element 29 . in this arrangement a first leg of the border strip 27 projects away from the vertical boundary surface while a second leg extends partially up the vertical boundary surface projecting away from the subfloor . interior modular tile elements may thereafter be placed in adjacent relation to the edge of the first leg so as to establish a substantially continuous covering across the subfloor as illustrated in fig1 a . it is also contemplated that the border strip 27 , 27 ′ may be formed from multiple pieces of cooperating material rather than as a single unitary structure . as illustrated in fig9 , according to one contemplated practice two elongate strips of carpeting material 54 , 55 as previously described may be used to form the individual legs of the border strip . such an installation is illustrated in fig1 and 10 a . as will be appreciated , such a construction for the border strips 27 may facilitate the development of a sharp corner for insertion at the intersection between the subfloor 18 and an adjacent vertical boundary surface which may be desirable in some instances . morever , such a multi - pieced construction permits the legs of the border strip 27 to be formed of different materials which may be desirable in some instances . of course , as with the prior described construction an arrangement of interior modular tile elements may be placed in adjacent relation to the horizontal leg of the border strip to establish a substantially continuous covering relation across the subfloor ( fig1 b ). while it may be desirable in many instances to utilize a border strip of “ l ” shaped construction , it is also contemplated that the edge strip 27 , 27 ′ may be substantially planar such that it extends away from the vertical boundary surface across the subfloor but does not include a vertical leg element . such an installation is illustrated in fig1 . as previously indicated , the present invention provides substantial advantages in relation to the repair and / or replacement of the floor covering material following the initial installation . by way of illustration , in fig5 there is illustrated an arrangement of interior modular tile elements 25 such as may be disposed inboard of a surrounding border strip in the manner previously described . as shown , in the arrangement of interior modular tile elements 25 two of such tile elements are illustrated as being stained or damaged . as shown in fig6 , such stained or damaged tile elements may be replaced by replacement tile elements 125 without the need for replacement of any surrounding or adjacent tile elements and with no need to reposition or remove furniture . insert tiles 30 may likewise be inserted and replaced as desired such as to periodically change a message imprinted thereon . moreover , the entire floor covering installation may be easily replaced in a staged manner by repositioning furniture within the space as necessary to gain access to the tile elements and then placing new tile elements in place . that is , it is generally unnecessary to remove the furniture from the space during replacement of floor covering installations in accordance with the present invention . thus , after an installation is made according to the present invention , repair and / or replacement may be effected with minimal effort . the present invention also substantially facilitates the ability to place floor covering materials around affixed furniture pieces so as to avoid the use of carpeting in locations beneath such furniture which will be invisible to a user . such installation is achieved by the patterning of border strips around such affixed furniture pieces in a manner such as is illustrated in fig2 and 3 . in the past , such selective patterning of floor coverings has been difficult due to the need to apply tack strips at the interface between such fixed furniture and the edge of the floor covering materials . while the invention has been illustrated and described in relation to certain embodiments , constructions and procedures , it is to be understood that such embodiments , constructions and procedures are illustrative only and that the present invention is in no event to be limited thereto . to the contrary it is contemplated that modifications and variations embodying the principles of this invention will no doubt occur to those of skill in the art and it is thus intended that the present invention shall extend to all such modifications and variations as may incorporate the broad principles of the invention within the full spirit and scope thereof . | 0 |
as stated in the background , hot plasmas resident in the magnetospheres of the earth and other planets present a challenging target for space - borne particle detectors , and particularly for ion composition instruments . these plasmas have source regions both in the solar wind and in the planetary ionospheres , so there is typically a mixture of ions such as hydrogen , helium , oxygen , nitrogen , and other minor species with density ratios that are in some cases very high . the varying mass / charge ratios and fluxes present a difficult challenge in attempting ion composition analysis . this description is directed to systems and methods for solving the dynamic range problem in the few - ev to several - kev energy / charge range . this energy / charge range is important for space physics research , where the dominant ions are of low mass / charge ( typically h +), and the minor ions are of higher mass / charge ( typically o +). the technique described herein involves using radio - frequency ( rf ) modulation of a deflection electric field in an electrostatic analyzer used with a time - of - flight ( tof ) instrument . the analyzer reduces h + counts into the tof instrument by a controllable amount of up to factors of 1000 , while reducing o + counts by a known and calibratable several percent . fig1 illustrates representative ion fluxes that will be encountered in the earth &# 39 ; s magnetosphere region by a particle analyzer in space . typical applications of such particle analyzers are the ion composition instruments used on a spacecraft , such as a spacecraft used for nasa &# 39 ; s magnetospheric multiscale ( mms ) mission . the h + fluxes are representative of a compressed dayside boundary region ( magnetopause ) with density of 80 cm − 3 and 400 km / s bulk flow , similar to the high - speed flows observed in reconnection . the o + fluxes are modeled after the beams observed in the low latitude boundary layer , which lies just outside the magnetopause . the magnetotail fluxes are modeled after plasma sheet encounters , including the o + composition representative of disturbed magnetospheric conditions . as shown in fig1 , the proton fluxes are often extremely high . in contrast , in the same part of the magnetosphere , important minor ions will have fluxes of only a few percent of the proton flux . because of thermalization by the bow shocks , which slow the solar wind in front of the magnetospheres , and wave turbulence within the magnetospheres , the ion distribution function covers a wide energy range with significant flux at all entrance angles to a particle analyzer . two major problems limit the dynamic range of space - borne ion composition instruments ( particle analyzers ). the first is simply the requirement for very high counting rates , a requirement that results when an instrument that is sensitive enough to detect minor species in a tenuous plasma region must also measure major species in a more dense region . the second is the spillover from dense major species into channels tuned to minor species . fig2 illustrates an ion composition analyzer 110 , which provides improved dynamic range in accordance with the invention . analyzer 110 is a “ tophat ” type electrostatic analyzer 110 , and provides ions to the entrance of a time - of - flight ( tof ) mass analyzer 120 . together , analyzer 110 and tof analyzer 120 measure three - dimensional composition - resolved distribution functions of hot plasmas in space . more specifically , fig2 is a planar section view of a toroidal analyzer 110 with deflection plates 116 and 118 that create an ion path within the analyzer 110 . the ion path is segmented into a dc entrance section 112 and an rf exit section 114 . an example of a suitable deflection plate gap is 4 . 1 mm , constant throughout the analyzer 110 . in the example of fig2 , analyzer 110 has a curved - plate and toroidal configuration for the ion path . in other words , deflection plates 116 and 118 form a curved toroidal path . other configurations may be used , such as the more common spherical tophat geometry , or such as various non - tophat geometries ( cylindrical , hemispherical , etc . ), or parallel plate geometries . the technique involves the incorporation of a radio - frequency ( rf ) deflection voltage in the exit segment 114 of the analyzer 110 . a dc deflection voltage is applied to the entrance segment 112 as a pre - filter to the rf section . the entrance section 112 applies the dc deflection electric field to the ions within , and presents a nearly monoenergetic beam ( δe / e ˜ 0 . 2 ) to the exit section 114 . the same dc deflection voltage is applied to the exit section 114 , but an additional rf voltage is superimposed on it . without the dc pre - filtering , the rf deflection section 114 would simply sample adjacent parts of the wide energy spectrum typically encountered in magnetospheric environments . fig2 further illustrates ray tracing of the ion paths through the analyzer 110 . appropriate software can be used to simulate ion paths through analyzer 110 . an example of such software is the simion ™ software , available from scientific instrument services , inc . for purposes of example , the paths of h + and o + ions are shown . analyzer 110 can reduce the h + flux to extremely low levels while keeping the o + flux nearly unaffected . in the electrostatic analyzer 110 , the rf deflection voltage causes only slight deflections of slower - moving heavy ions ( such as oxygen ), which execute several oscillations about the center line between the deflection plates as they transit the rf deflection section . these ions will tend to remain within the deflection plates during an rf period . lighter , faster - moving ions ( such as hydrogen ) will strike the deflection plates in a time short compared to the rf period of the deflection voltage . thus , the analyzer 110 acts as a high - pass mass / charge filter ( or equivalently , a low - pass velocity filter ). by varying the frequency and magnitude of the rf deflection voltage , the filtering can cover a fairly wide range of energies and can be tuned to transmit known fractions of ions at all masses . in this way it solves both of the dynamic range problems ( count saturation and major species spillover ) mentioned above . in the example of fig2 , a uniform mixture of h + and o + ions enters the “ tophat ” of the analyzer 110 from the left and is deflected into the entrance region 112 by the dc field . h + and o + ions at an energy / charge of 1 kev fill the field of view of the analyzer 110 , which has a dc potential difference of 189 v across the deflection plates in the dc section . the entrance section 112 of the ion path , with its dc field , is an “ energy filter ”. all ions within a selected narrow energy band regardless of mass , are transmitted through this section 112 and enter the exit section 114 . the dc potential is selected to choose the energy to be transmitted . in volts , the potential is typically about 15 % or so of the energy in electron volts . the ions then travel into the exit region 114 where rf is applied . in the rf section , a 5 mhz 150 v signal is added to the dc deflection potential . the applied voltage may vary . in the rf section , the o + ions are transmitted by the analyzer 110 and enter the tof analyzer 120 . for the deflection voltage and rf frequency used , the h + ions are seen to be totally absorbed by the plates 116 and 118 , while the o + ions exhibit a high transmission fraction . in the exit section 114 of the ion path , the rf frequency is chosen so that a heavy ion will undergo many cycles of low - amplitude spatial oscillation as it traverses the deflection plates . lighter ions will undergo a much smaller number of higher - amplitude oscillations along their paths . the result is a high transmission of heavy ions ( e . g ., o +) and a successively lower transmission as the ion mass decreases and the ions begin to strike the deflection plates . by varying the rf frequency and voltage , ion filtering can be optimized for certain combinations of ions at various energies . for a fairly narrow energy range , such as that for h + at the magnetopause , a single frequency rf deflection voltage is sufficient to allow accurate o + measurements while reducing the h + count rate to a known and manageable level . the specific electrostatic analyzer 110 used is a variation on a conventional tophat analyzer . instead of spherically symmetric deflection plates , the analyzer 110 has a toroidal geometry , which is somewhat more efficient by volume and has focusing characteristics that are better suited to coupling with a tof mass - analyzer 120 . to illustrate the technique in mathematical terms , consider the effect of a peak rf voltage v 0 at frequency f applied across a deflection gap δy in a parallel - plate analyzer , in which the dc applied deflection voltage is zero . the deflection from the central plane of the analyzer as a function of time is given by : because of the difference in velocity between light and heavy ions with the same energy / charge ( e ), it is more relevant to examine the dependence of the deflection ( y ) from the central plane of the analyzer on the distance down the segment of the analyzer that has the rf voltage applied . because v x =√ 2e / m is constant , we can substitute t = x / v x in equation ( 2 ). fig3 illustrates plots of y as a function of distance ( x ) for h + and o + with equal energies / charge of 1 kev for the following selected analyzer parameters : v 0 = 150 v , δy = 4 mm , and f = ω / 2π = 5 mhz . phases of the rf voltage when the ions enter the analyzer 110 are noted on the h + curves . as shown in fig3 , the path of the ions through the analyzer depends on the phase of the rf deflection voltage at t = 0 . this effect is illustrated for phase angles between 0 ° and 90 °, the results of which are representative of the full range of angles . it is evident from fig3 , that for analyzer segments of a few cm in length , the h + ions will be deflected into the plates while the o + ions will not . eventually , of course , the o + ions will also strike the plates if they are too long . fig4 a and 4b illustrate results of a laboratory test using the system of fig2 , with relative transmission of 1 kev singly - charged oxygen ions ( fig4 a ) and protons ( fig4 b ) as a function of applied rf frequency . the optimum response is seen to be at about 5 mhz . at this frequency , the proton counts are reduced by nearly three orders of magnitude while the o + counts are reduced by only about 25 % as compared to the response with a dc deflection voltage . fig5 illustrates results of another laboratory test using the system of fig2 , with the transmission ratio of 1 kev protons as a function of the peak - to - peak voltage of the 5 mhz deflection potential . a thousand - fold reduction in proton throughput is possible . the throughput can be regulated to intermediate values . in sum , the above described system and method solves the problem of spillover of major ion signals in mass analyzers , which results in contamination of minor ion signals . it provides a controllable reduction of major ion throughput with little or no reduction in minor ion throughput . the rf technique described herein can be tailored for effective use in many space and laboratory environments . the method will separate high mass ions from low mass ions regardless of flux differences , and is particularly useful when the light ions have significantly higher fluxes than the heavy ions of interest , a situation that would otherwise cause measurement problems . in space applications , the heavy ions of interest have lower fluxes than the lower mass ions , which favors application of the method herein . the use of analyzer 110 with a tof analyzer 120 is but one application of the invention . analyzer 110 could be used without tof analyzer , acting as a lower resolution mass spectrometer . also , tof analyzer 120 could be replaced by other types of mass analyzers , such as a magnetic sector mass analyzer . | 7 |
the present invention relates to a nasal mask . the invention is applicable to masks of differing constructions . as representative of the invention , fig1 and 2 illustrate a nasal mask 10 constructed in accordance with a first embodiment of the invention . the mask 10 includes a shell 20 . a forehead support assembly 30 extends upward from the shell 20 . a face cushion 40 is supported on the shell 20 . the mask 10 also includes headgear 80 connected with the forehead support assembly 30 and with the shell 20 , for helping to hold the mask on the user &# 39 ; s head . the shell 20 is preferably made of a rigid plastic material , which is preferably optically transparent and impermeable to gas or air . the shell 20 has a rounded triangular configuration when viewed from the front , being narrower on top by the nasal bridge region and wider by the base of the nose . the shell 20 includes a front wall 22 ( fig4 ) and a side wall 24 . the forehead support assembly 30 extends upward from the side wall 24 of the shell 20 . the front wall 22 and the side wall 24 of the shell 20 define a central chamber 32 in the mask 10 . a circular inlet aperture 34 in the front wall 22 of the shell 20 permits gas to enter the central chamber 32 . a gas inlet tube 36 is rotatably attached to the front wall 22 of the shell 20 so that it covers the inlet aperture 32 . gas to be delivered to the patient flows into the shell 20 through the gas inlet tube 36 , and into the central chamber 32 in the shell . the cushion 40 covers the wearer &# 39 ; s nose and directs the gas from the central chamber 32 into the user &# 39 ; s nasal passages , while blocking flow of gas out of the sides of the mask 10 . the shell 20 has a plurality of molded - in ribs 42 ( fig5 - 7 ) on the inner side surface of the side wall 24 . the ribs 42 are spaced apart around the side wall 24 . each one of the ribs 42 has an end portion 44 that projects inwardly from the side wall 24 of the shell 20 to form a post . the shell 20 includes a retaining ring 50 for retaining the cushion 40 on the shell . the retaining ring 50 is a one piece molded plastic member that is fixed inside the shell 20 . the retaining ring 50 could be formed in another manner , or made from more than one piece . the retaining ring 50 has a non - planar configuration that closely follows the configuration of the outer peripheral edge of the shell side wall 24 . the ring 50 has a plurality of sleeves 52 spaced apart along the ring at locations that align with the posts 44 on the shell 20 , when the ring is mounted on the shell . to secure the ring 50 to the shell 20 , the sleeves 52 on the ring are heat staked on the posts 44 of the shell . when the ring 50 is secured to the shell 20 , a gap 54 is formed outward of the ring and inward of the side wall 24 of the shell . the gap 54 extends completely around the ring 50 and inside the side wall 24 of the shell 20 . the retaining ring 50 in cross - section has a notch 56 ( fig7 ) presented away from the outer peripheral edge of the sidewall 24 of the shell 20 and toward the side wall of the shell , in a direction along the length of the ribs 42 . the cushion 40 serves two basic functions : user comfort and sealing . thus the cushion 40 is preferably made from a bio - friendly elastomeric material which is both substantially gas impermeable and elastic enough to conform comfortably to the contours of a person &# 39 ; s face . a preferred material is silicone . the cushion 40 may take any appropriate shape ; the shape shown in the drawings is preferred . the cushion 40 is preferably molded as one piece , as shown in the illustrated embodiment . the cushion 40 has a side wall 60 , an inner wall 62 , and an outer wall 64 . the side wall 60 of the cushion 40 extends completely around the cushion . the outer wall 64 , which is the portion of the cushion 40 that contacts the user &# 39 ; s face , extends laterally inward from the side wall 60 . the outer wall 64 has a generally triangular central opening 66 , which receives the user &# 39 ; s nose , for enabling passage of gas from the central chamber 32 of the mask 10 into the user &# 39 ; s nasal passages . the outer wall 64 of the cushion 40 extends completely around the cushion . thus , when the mask 10 is used , there is complete sealing contact between the outer wall 64 of the cushion 40 and the user &# 39 ; s face . the inner wall 62 of the cushion 40 , like the outer wall 64 , extends laterally inward from the side wall 60 . the inner wall 62 is thicker than the outer wall 64 . as a result , the inner wall 62 is stiffer and stronger than the outer wall 64 . the inner wall 62 of the cushion 40 extends for most , but not all , of the extent of the outer wall 64 . the inner wall 62 is discontinuous ( not present ) in the region of the nasal bridge . a gap 68 ( fig8 ) is formed between two ends 70 of the inner wall 62 , in the region of the nasal bridge . this gap 68 enables the mask 10 to conform more closely to the user &# 39 ; s face , at the region of the nasal bridge . this also reduces the possibility of irritation by rubbing of the relatively stiff inner wall 62 on the nose , thus providing a more comfortable mask . although the inner wall 62 does help the sealing function by supporting the outer wall 64 , it is not needed everywhere , and this region is selected to maximize comfort . the side wall 60 of the cushion 40 terminates in an outer peripheral tongue 72 ( fig5 - 7 ) of the cushion , for mounting to the shell 20 . the tongue 72 is of a reduced material thickness as compared to the side wall 60 . for example , the thickness of the tongue 72 may be from one quarter to one half the thickness of the side wall 60 . the tongue 72 extends from the side wall 60 by a distance long enough for it to mount releasably in the gap 54 of the shell . the tongue 72 terminates in a retaining flange 74 . the retaining flange 74 extends for the entire extent of the tongue 72 , in a direction transverse to the tongue . in the illustrated embodiment , the retaining flange 74 extends at substantially a right angle to the tongue 72 . the retaining flange 74 may be of the same or substantially the same material thickness as the tongue 72 . the tongue 72 of the cushion 40 is inserted into the gap 54 between the retaining ring 50 and the shell side wall 24 to secure the cushion to the shell 20 . the tongue 72 is inserted far enough into the gap 54 so that the flange 74 on the tongue engages in the notch 56 of the retaining ring 50 . the flange 74 and the tongue 72 are captured between the retaining ring 50 and the side wall 24 of the shell 20 . this engagement holds the cushion 40 on the shell 20 . because the retaining ring 50 and the gap 54 extend completely around the shell 20 , and the tongue 72 extends completely around the cushion 40 , the cushion is held securely on the shell around its entire extent . the cushion 40 is removable from the shell for cleaning or replacement purposes . the user can pull with enough force to remove the tongue 72 and the retaining flange 74 from the gap 54 between the ring 50 and the shell side wall 24 . in this manner , the cushion 40 is disengaged from the shell 20 . after this is done , the same cushion 40 or another cushion 40 can be inserted and attached to the shell 20 . the headgear 80 of the mask 10 includes two side straps 82 ( fig1 - 2 and 9 - 11 ). the side straps 82 are attached to opposite left and right sides of the mask shell 20 in identical manners . the attachment of one strap 82 will be described in detail . the mask shell 20 includes a shell connector 84 ( fig1 ) for receiving the side strap 82 . the shell connector 84 is in the form of a projection from the side wall 24 of the shell 20 . the shell connector 84 includes two side arms 85 that extend outward from the side wall 24 of the shell 20 . the arms 85 are spaced apart from each other . a cross - arm 86 extends between the two arms 85 , at a predetermined distance from the side wall 24 . the cross arm 86 and the arms 85 are substantially co - planar and together define an opening 88 in the shell connector 84 . the shell connector 84 also includes a tab 90 . the tab 90 is a portion of the shell connector 84 that extends from the cross arm 86 , in a direction generally toward the side wall 24 of the shell 20 . the tab 90 also extends out of the plane of the side arms 84 , in a direction away from the user &# 39 ; s face . the tab 90 has an end portion 92 that is spaced apart from the cross arm 86 by a predetermined distance . the headgear 80 includes a strap connector 94 for engagement with the shell connector 84 . the strap connector 94 includes a generally rectangular plastic loop 96 having four legs 98 , 100 , 102 and 104 . the inner leg 98 of the loop 96 is secured on the end of the side strap 82 by folding over and connecting with a hook and loop fastener for adjustability . the four legs 98 - 104 of the loop 96 define an opening 108 in the strap connector 94 . the dimensions of the opening 108 are selected so that the shell connector 84 can fit inside and through the opening in the strap connector 94 . the strap connector 94 also includes a tab 110 . the tab 110 of the strap connector 94 extends from the inner leg 98 of the strap connector loop 96 , in a direction into the opening 108 , for a predetermined distance . the tab 110 does not extend completely to the opposite ( outer ) leg 102 of the loop 96 . rather , the tab 110 has an end portion 112 that is spaced apart from the outer leg 102 of the loop 96 , defining a gap 114 . the tab 110 of the loop 96 is resiliently bendable relative to the legs 98 - 104 of the loop . the strap connector 94 is engageable with the shell connector 84 to connect the side strap 82 to the shell 20 in a releasable manner . the strap connector 94 is moved into a position adjacent to the shell connector 84 as shown in fig1 . the tab 90 of the shell connector 84 is then inserted into the opening 108 in the strap connector 94 , with the parts at a substantial angle to each other . the tab 90 of the shell connector 84 is , specifically , inserted into the gap 114 between the tab 110 and the outer leg 102 of the strap connector 94 . the outer leg 102 of the loop 96 engages the side arms 85 of the shell connector 84 . the strap connector 94 is then pivoted downward relative to the shell connector 84 , pivoting generally about the outer leg 102 of the loop 96 . the tab 110 of the strap connector 94 passes under the cross arm 86 of the shell connector 84 . the cross arm 86 and the tab 90 of the shell connector 84 move through the gap 114 between the end portion 112 of the tab 110 on the strap connector 94 , and the outer leg 102 of the loop 96 . the size of this gap 114 , that is , the distance between the end portion 112 of the tab 10 on the strap connector 94 , and the outer leg 102 of the loop 96 , is slightly less than the combined length of the cross arm 86 and the tab 90 on the shell connector 84 . therefore , the tab 110 on the strap connector 94 must bend or flex by a small amount in order to enlarge this gap so that the tab on the shell connector 84 can pass through the gap . the tab 110 on the strap connector 94 bends , then snaps back to its free position as it passes under the cross arm 86 . this snapping movement is both audible and tactile , and indicates to the user that the side strap 82 is connected to the shell 20 . when the parts are thus connected , the end portion 112 of the tab 110 on the strap connector 94 is disposed in the opening 88 in the shell connector 84 . at the same time , the outer leg 102 of the loop 96 on the strap connector 94 is on the opposite side of the arms 85 of the shell connector 84 . as a result , the shell connector 84 is captured in the loop 96 of the strap connector 94 . this joining of the shell connector 84 with the strap connector 94 secures the side strap 82 to the mask shell 20 . this connection is loose enough so that when the side strap 82 is secured to the mask shell 20 , the loop 96 of the strap connector 94 is pivotable relative to the shell connector 84 . this freedom of movement enables the side straps 82 to be fitted more comfortably to the user &# 39 ; s head . to release the side straps 82 , the user lifts the strap connector 94 , pivoting it upward in a movement generally opposite the pivoting movement used to connect the two pieces . as this pivoting movement occurs , the tab 110 of the strap connector 94 deforms , bending or flexing a small amount as needed to enable it to pass under the cross arm 86 of the shell connector 84 . as it passes , it snaps back to its starting or free position , with an audible and tactile snap . this snap indicates to the user that the side strap 82 is disconnected from the shell 20 . the configuration of the shell connector 84 and the strap connector 94 permits the side strap 82 easily to be attached to and detached from the shell 20 , with a minimal risk that the strap will be accidentally detached during use , for example , as the user moves around during sleep . the forehead support assembly 30 ( fig1 - 15 ) of the mask 10 is adjustable . the forehead support assembly 30 includes a support bar 120 and an adjuster 140 . the support bar 120 is a portion of the shell 20 that is fixed to the other parts of the shell including the shell side wall 24 . the support bar 120 includes two spaced apart side walls 122 that define between them a slot 124 . the side walls 122 have an arcuate configuration extending upward and inward from the side wall 24 of the shell 20 . the side walls 122 have respective flanges 126 that extend inwardly toward each other . the center of curvature ( or axis ) 125 ( fig1 ) of the side walls 124 is spaced apart from the support bar 120 and other parts of the mask shell 20 , rather than being located on the mask . the center of curvature in the illustrated embodiment would be within the user &# 39 ; s head when the mask is in use . the support bar 120 includes a flexible member 130 that extends upward from the shell side wall 24 into the slot 124 between the support bar side walls 122 . the flexible arm 130 is formed as one piece with the shell 20 and the support bar 120 . the flexible arm 130 has an outer end portion 132 that includes two pawls 134 on either side of a button 136 . the button 136 is a portion of the support bar 120 that is manually engageable to effect flexing movement of the flexible arm 130 and thereby movement of the pawls 134 relative to the side walls 122 of the support bar 120 . the pawls 134 are movable with the button 136 upon flexing of the flexible arm 130 in response to application of force to the button . the adjuster 140 is a portion of the forehead support assembly 30 that is supported on the support bar 120 for movement relative to the support bar and the other parts of the shell 20 . the adjuster 140 includes an arcuate engagement portion 142 that has the same center of curvature as the side walls 122 of the support bar 120 . the engagement portion 142 has a laterally extending central wall 144 and two side walls 146 extending from the central wall . the lower portion of the central wall 144 includes an opening 148 for receiving the button 136 . each one of the side walls 146 has a groove or slot 149 that receives a respective flange 126 of one of the side walls 122 of the support bar 120 . this engagement , and only this engagement , supports the adjuster 140 on the support bar 120 for arcuate sliding movement about the center of curvature 125 . because the center of curvature 125 is spaced apart from the mask 10 including the shell 20 and the support bar 120 , the adjuster moves in a wide arc . this provides more horizontal movement without much vertical movement , than would an adjuster pivoting about a pivot axis on the shell itself . each one of the side walls 146 of the engagement portion 142 of the adjuster 140 has a set of inwardly extending ( toward the center of curvature ) locking teeth 150 . the locking teeth 150 extend from the side walls 146 and are disposed in the slot 124 of the support bar 120 , between the side walls 122 of the support bar . the locking teeth 150 are presented toward and engageable by the pawls 134 of the support bar 120 . the adjuster 140 has an upper end portion 152 that extends upward from the engagement portion 142 . the adjuster 140 has a strip - like or bar - like configuration and , as a result , the upper end portion 152 is not substantially wider than the engagement portion 142 . thus , the adjuster 140 when viewed from the front ( as in fig2 ) has an i - shaped configuration , rather than a t - shaped configuration . the adjuster 140 ( fig1 ) has left and right slots 154 and 156 in its upper end portion 152 . the slots 154 and 156 extend parallel to each other , through the material of the adjuster 140 , from the front side surface to the back side surface . the headgear 80 of the mask 10 includes a forehead strap assembly 160 ( fig2 ) that , in the embodiment shown in fig1 and 2 , includes left and right forehead straps 162 and 164 . the forehead straps 162 and 164 extend outward from a central location , above the shell 20 , wrapping around the user &# 39 ; s forehead , to help secure the mask . 10 to the user &# 39 ; s face . the two straps 162 and 164 are identical to each other . the straps 162 and 164 are made from a fairly thick , resilient material , so as to provide a cushioning effect when worn by a user . the two straps 162 and 164 may be joined to each other as one piece , on the side or back of the head . each one of the slots 154 and 156 in the upper end portion 152 of the adjuster 140 is dimensioned to accept one of the forehead straps 162 and 164 . the left forehead strap 162 is passed through the left slot 154 ( fig2 a ) in the forehead adjuster 140 . in a similar manner , the right forehead strap 164 is passed through the right slot 156 in the forehead adjuster 140 . the left strap 162 is brought back on itself to form a loop 166 . an end portion 161 of the left strap 162 is secured to another portion 163 of the left strap 162 with a suitable securing , such as a hook and loop fastener 165 . use of a hook and loop fastener 165 , as illustrated , provides adjustability for the length of the left forehead strap 162 . the right strap 164 is brought back on itself to form a loop . an end portion 161 of the right strap 164 is secured to another portion 168 of the right strap with a suitable securing , such as a hook and loop fastener 169 . use of a hook and loop fastener 169 , as illustrated , provides adjustability for the length of the right forehead strap 164 . when the left and right straps 162 and 164 are connected with the forehead adjuster 140 in this manner , a relatively large amount of strap material is present between the forehead adjuster 140 and the user &# 39 ; s forehead . this strap material , as mentioned above , is resilient . therefore , a substantial cushion is present between the forehead support assembly 30 and the user &# 39 ; s forehead . this cushion provides a very comfortable strap attachment , without the necessity for separate cushion members or cushioning pieces on the adjuster 140 . the engagement of the pawls 134 of the support bar 120 , with the teeth 150 of the adjuster 140 , ( fig1 - 15 ) locks the adjuster in position relative to the support bar . to move the adjuster 140 relative to the support bar 120 , the button 136 , which is fixed to the support bar and thereby the shell 20 , is depressed ( pushed in , toward the forehead of the user ). the flexible arm 130 bends . this bending movement causes the pawls 134 to move inward , out of engagement with the arcuate tooth sets 150 on the adjuster 140 . the adjuster 140 is then free to move relative to the support bar 120 . the user can move ( slide ) the adjuster 146 to any position within its range of motion , to accommodate varying head configurations including differing front to back distances between the nose and the forehead of the user . releasing the button 136 allows the pawls 134 to move into engagement with the teeth 150 , thereby locking the adjuster 140 in any selected one of its plurality of possible positions relative to the support bar 120 and the shell 20 . because the button 136 is mounted on the shell 20 , it can be pushed with one hand or finger that stays in place during the adjustment of the forehead support assembly 30 . there is no need to simultaneously depress the button 136 and move it , which can be a more difficult operation , especially if the user can not directly see the parts , which is the case if the user is trying to adjust the mask 10 while wearing the mask . [ 0077 ] fig1 - 18 illustrate an alternative forehead support assembly 30 a of a mask 10 a . in the forehead support assembly 30 a , the upper end portion 142 a of the forehead adjuster 140 a includes a snap hook 170 . the snap hook 170 has a multiply curved configuration including a body portion 172 and an end portion 174 that curves back toward the body portion . the end portion 174 is spaced apart from the body portion 172 by a predetermined distance to define a gap 178 . the hook 170 is slightly resilient , so that the end portion 174 of the hook is resiliently movable away from the body portion 172 . associated with the forehead support assembly 30 a is a forehead strap assembly 80 a that includes a forehead strap 190 and a stiffener or other type of reinforcing member 180 . a clevis 182 is fixed to the reinforcing member 180 . the clevis 182 has a base 184 and two ends 186 , spaced apart in a forked configuration . a cylindrical pin 188 extends between the ends 186 of the clevis 182 , in a direction parallel to the length of the forehead strap 190 . the pin 188 and the base 184 of the clevis 182 define a passage 192 . the thickness ( diameter ) of the pin 188 is slightly greater than the width of the gap 178 in the snap hook 170 . to attach the shell 20 to the forehead strap 190 , the user places the snap hook 170 adjacent the pin 188 . the end portion 174 of the hook 170 is moved through the passage 192 in the clevis 182 ; the pin 188 moves through the gap 178 in the hook . as this movement occurs , the snap hook 170 resiliently deforms , with its end portion 174 bending slightly outward , to fit over the pin 188 . after the pin 188 passes through the gap 178 in the hook 170 , the hook resiliently returns to its free state . the snap fit engagement of the hook 170 with the pin 188 secures the forehead support assembly 30 a to the forehead strap 190 . this helps to hold the mask l 0 in place on the user &# 39 ; s face . in addition , the clevis and pin combination supports the hook 170 on the pin 188 for pivotal movement relative to the forehead strap 190 . as a result , the forehead support assembly 30 a and the forehead strap 80 a are adjustable relative to each other by pivoting . this pivoting movement can accommodate wearers &# 39 ; foreheads of differing slopes or sizes . [ 0082 ] fig1 - 20 illustrate a second alternative forehead support assembly 30 b for a mask 10 b . the forehead support assembly 30 b includes a movable member or adjuster 200 having a t - shaped configuration when viewed from the front , as for example in fig1 . the t - shaped configuration of the movable member 200 includes a base 202 and two arms 204 that extend laterally from the base . the arms 204 are mirror images of each other . each arm 204 has a main body portion 206 that has a non - planar configuration ( as can be seen in fig2 ) adapted to a typical forehead curvature . the main body portion 206 of each arm 204 has an inner slot 208 and an outer slot 210 . the inner slot 208 is located closer to the base 202 of the adjuster 200 , and the outer slot 210 is located farther from the base , near the outer end portion 211 of the arm 204 . the slots 208 and 210 extend vertically in the arms 204 . the movable member 200 is made from a relatively hard material so that it can bear the load of the forehead straps . this relatively hard material can be uncomfortable to the user if the movable member 200 rides against the user &# 39 ; s forehead . located between the slots 208 and 210 , on each arm 204 , is a spacer 212 . the spacer 212 is a portion of the arm 204 that projects , or protrudes , in a direction toward the forehead of the user , from the main body portion 206 of the arm . thus , the spacer 212 projects toward the center of curvature of the arms 204 . the purpose of the spacer 212 is to keep the forehead adjuster 200 , and specifically the main body portion 206 of the arm 204 , spaced apart from the user &# 39 ; s forehead , to prevent rubbing , irritation , etc . in the embodiment illustrated in fig1 and 20 , the spacer 212 is molded as one piece with the main body portion 206 , as a rectangular box - shaped projection . the spacer 212 has an outer end wall 214 that is spaced apart from the plane of the main body portion 206 : the outer end wall 214 is connected with the main body portion of the arm by four side walls 216 , to form the box - shaped configuration . the outer end wall 214 of the spacer 212 is the portion of the arm 204 that is closest to the forehead of the user , closer than the end portion 211 of the arm , even taking into account the overall curved configuration of the arm . the headgear of the mask includes a forehead strap assembly 220 that includes two forehead straps 222 . the forehead straps 222 extend outward from a central location , wrapping around the forehead , to help secure the mask to the user &# 39 ; s face . the two straps 222 are identical to each other . the straps 222 are made from a fairly thick , resilient material , so as to provide a cushioning effect when worn by a user . each strap 222 is passed through the inner and outer slots 208 and 210 and is brought back on itself to form a loop 224 . the looped strap 222 extends around the spacer 212 , overlying the outer end wall 214 of the spacer . the loop 224 is disposed between the spacer 212 and the forehead of the user . the combination of the spacer 212 and the loop 224 maintains the member 200 in a position spaced apart from ( not in contact with ) the forehead of the user , even taking into account the overall curved configuration of the arms 204 . in other embodiments , the spacers 212 need not be formed as one piece with the arms 204 . for example , the spacers 212 could be separate elements that are connected with the arms 204 to provide the spacing function . the spacers 212 could also be adjustable in thickness , either within themselves , or by providing separate spacers of differing thicknesses . [ 0091 ] fig2 illustrates a third alternative forehead support assembly 30 c of a mask 10 c . in the forehead support assembly , the movable member 230 has a t - shaped configuration when viewed from the front , similar to fig1 . the t - shaped configuration includes a base and two arms 232 each having an outer end portion 234 with a vertically extending slot 236 that is dimensioned to accept one of the forehead straps 238 . the left forehead strap 238 is passed through the slot 236 in the left arm 232 and is brought back on itself to form a loop 240 . in a similar manner , the right forehead strap 238 is secured to the right arm 232 to form a loop 240 in the right strap . a separate cushioning strap 242 extends between the left and right forehead straps 238 . the cushioning strap 242 may be made from the same material as the left and right forehead straps 238 . the cushioning strap 242 has first and second slots 244 located at opposite ends of the cushioning strap . the loops 240 of the forehead straps 238 extend through the slots 244 . as a result , the cushioning strap 242 is located inward of the forehead adjuster 230 , between the forehead adjuster and the user &# 39 ; s forehead . the cushioning strap 242 is slightly longer than the distance between the two slots 236 at the outer ends 234 of the arms 232 of the forehead piece 230 . the length of the cushioning strap 242 is selected so that when the mask 10 c is in place , the cushioning strap self - adjusts to a position snug against the user &# 39 ; s forehead and also snug against the arms 232 of the forehead piece 230 . thus , the cushioning strap 242 provides a cushioning effect for the forehead piece 230 , increasing the comfort level of the wearer of the mask 10 c . [ 0095 ] fig2 illustrates a forehead adjuster 140 a that is constructed in accordance with a further embodiment of the invention . the adjuster 140 a is similar to the adjuster 140 ( fig1 ) and is adjustable in the same manner . the upper end portion 152 a of the adjuster 140 a , rather than having aplanar , bar - shaped configuration like the upper end portion of the adjuster 140 , has a three - dimensional , cut - out configuration . the upper end portion 152 a of the adjuster 140 a ( fig2 ) includes three generally vertically extending posts 250 , 252 and 254 that are spaced apart from each other . the central post 250 is an extension of the central wall 144 a of the adjuster 140 a in a vertical direction rather than continuing the arcuate shape of the central wall . the side posts 252 and 254 are vertical extensions of the side walls 146 a of the adjuster 140 a . the side posts 252 and 254 curve up and forward to meet the central post 250 . a pair of slots are formed in the upper end portion 152 a of the adjuster 140 a . a right slot 156 a is defined between the right side post 252 and the central post 250 . a left slot 154 a is defined between the left side post 254 and the central post 250 . a forehead strap assembly ( not shown ) can be connected with the adjuster 140 a . a right strap would pass through the right slot 156 a , wrapping around the right side post 252 . a left strap would pass through the left slot 154 a , wrapping around the left side post 254 . alternatively , a single strap could pass through both slots 154 a and 156 a , in front of the left and right side posts 252 and 254 and behind the central post 250 . [ 0099 ] fig4 and 23 illustrate an exhalation vent portion 260 of the mask 10 . the vent portion 260 includes a thickened wall area 262 in the lower part of the side wall 24 of the shell 20 . five circular exhalation openings 264 are formed at equally spaced intervals in the thickened area 262 . the exhalation openings 264 extend from the exterior of the mask 10 to the central chamber 32 of the shell 20 . the exhalation openings 264 enable exhaled air to flow out of the mask 10 . the exhalation openings 264 are located below ( when the mask is in use ) the gas inlet aperture 34 . this location is selected to enable efficient venting of the mask 10 , as it is substantially in line with the nasal passages . it is also an area chosen to minimize annoyance from the exhaled air , either to the user or to a bed partner . the exhalation openings 264 are configured to vent air at a thirty - five degree angle from vertical ( thirty five degrees up from straight down , if the user is standing ). this angle is 55 degrees from the axis of the gas inlet . this angle is selected to minimize irritation from exhaled air hitting the user &# 39 ; s chest , while also minimizing irritation to someone close by , for example a bed partner . the circular openings 264 provide less noise than a slot . the total flow area of the five openings 264 is selected to optimize venting and pressures in the mask while minimizing noise . from the above description of the invention , those skilled in the art will perceive improvements , changes , and modifications in the invention . for example , the present invention is shown as being incorporated in a nasal mask only . the invention may be incorporated into a combined nasal / mouth mask ( a mask with a central cavity 16 and face cushion 14 large enough to encompass the user &# 39 ; s nose and mouth ), or in a mouth mask only . such improvements , changes , and modifications within the skill of the art are intended to be included within the scope of the appended claims . | 0 |
in one embodiment , the invention separates the high temperature combustion chemical reaction of the main fuel charge from the low temperature pre - ignition chemical reaction process . this is done by the use of an active radical initiator ( ari ), in conjunction with a relatively low compression temperature and / or very lean fuel air mixture inside the main combustion chamber . the pre - ignition chemical reaction process of the main charge is made irrelevant by operating the main fuel charge at conditions too lean and / or too cold to ignite , such that without the onset of initiator &# 39 ; s multiple active radical plumes of the present invention , the ignition of main charge will not generally occur . a lean fuel air mixture is generally required for a high cycle efficiency and very low emissions engine . fig1 depicts schematically and in cross section a portion of an internal combustion engine pertaining to one embodiment of the present invention . the internal combustion engine is intended to represent any such engine that uses petroleum or non - petroleum based fuel such as gasoline , diesel , propane , kerosene , natural gas , hydrogen , methanol , ethanol , coal slurry and others . referring to fig1 , 1 is an engine body . the body comprises a cylinder block 2 , a cylinder head 3 , a piston 4 , an intake port 5 , an exhaust port 6 , an intake valve 7 , an exhaust valve 8 , a port injector 9 and / or in - cylinder direct injector 10 , and ari 11 . a combustion chamber 17 is formed inside the cylinder block 2 , and the main fuel charge is injected from the port injector 9 and / or in - cylinder direct injector 10 into the combustion chamber 17 . the in - cylinder direct injector 10 is center located in this embodiment , and can be replaced with ari 11 when the port injector 9 is used . the intake port 5 is connected to an intake manifold 12 , and exhaust port 6 is connecting to an exhaust manifold 13 . the engine is provided with a turbocharger 14 . turbocharger 14 includes turbine 15 and compressor 16 . a mass flow sensor 18 is provided upstream from the compressor 16 for the purpose of measuring the intake mass flow rate . an air cleaner 19 is provided upstream from the air mass sensor 18 . an intercooler 20 is provided downstream from the compressor 16 for the purpose of cooling the intake air . the exit of the turbine 15 is connected through an exhaust pipe 21 to an after treatment device 22 . the engine may also be equipped with an exhaust gas recirculation ( egr ) system . the egr system comprises an egr tube 26 , egr cooler 23 , and egr valve 24 . the engine cooling water 29 is used to cool the egr gas . an intake throttle 25 is provided upstream from the connection between the egr tube 26 and intake manifold 12 for high egr rate operations . the port injector , in - cylinder direct injector , and ari are all connected to a common rail 27 with supply pump 28 . depending on the particular engine and means of introducing the main fuel charge into the combustion chamber , the fuel supply arrangement may be varied . a very high common rail pressure is only required when the main fuel charge is injected into a conventional direct injection diesel engine with a high pressure common rail fuel system . an electronic control unit ( ecu ) 30 is provided for the purpose of electronically controlling the engine operation including port injection , in - cylinder injection , egr valve , intake throttle , and ari retraction and compression timing to meet the combustion and operation requirements of the present invention . as described here , the precise timing of when the ari should inject its active radical charge into the main combustion chamber will depend on the operating environment of the engine , including factors such as fuel type , engine compression ratio , engine displacement , aftertreatment device , engine speed , engine load or fuel rate , charge air temperature and pressure , engine intake air flow rate , exhaust gas recirculation rate , fuel injection characteristics , engine coolant and lube temperatures , and other key engine parameters , etc . generally , the timing should be set for the combustion to occur slightly before engine top dead center for best cycle efficiency with optimum heat release placement . as shown here the present embodiment is a turbocharged engine , however , the present invention may also be effective in a natural aspirated ( na ) or two stroke internal combustion engines . as shown in fig2 that there are many applications of ari . the application details and benefits are described as follows , fig2 a . shows application of the ari ( 35 a ) to spark ignited gaseous or liquid fueled engines including gasoline , methanol , ethanol , methane , propane , natural gas , hydrogen , and etc . for all the conventional spark ignited engines the throttling of the intake charge is required at idle and light load conditions to avoid engine misfire and high unburned hydrocarbons and carbon mono - oxide emissions at the expense of throttling loss . with the substitution of ari ( 35 a ) for a spark ignition system , the modified engine can be operated at ari mode at idle and light load conditions , and gradually transition to ari + hcci mode at medium and high load conditions with a diesel like cycle efficiency and very low exhaust emissions . this is believed to be partly due to the ability of ari to ignite and combust a mixture that is too lean to support a self - sustaining and propagating flame front with multiple active radical plumes thereby allowing a charge leaner than is possible in a conventional spark ignited engine , and partly the ability of ari to precisely time the start of combustion of the main fuel charge where the vast majority of the premixed charge will burn by compression ignition without the presence of a self - sustaining and propagating flame front such as in a spark ignited engine with clean burning , faster heat release , and optimum heat release placement . the above engines can be further optimized with a center located ari , improved combustion chamber design , and higher compression ratio . there is no need for the ari to be located on the cold side of the combustion chamber , as is often true with spark plugs , to avoid engine knocking . the ecu 30 can effect the transition between ari and ari + hcci operating modes . fig2 b shows application of the ari ( 35 b ) to diesel , hcci , pcci , or its derivatives . the use of ari ( 35 b ) in conjunction with in - cylinder temperature and composition control can prevent the main fuel charge from auto - ignition . the ignition timing of the main fuel charges can be controlled entirely by the onset timing of the multiple active radical plumes of ari . in one embodiment , the invention overcomes the major technical barriers of homogeneous charge compression ignition ( hcci ) or premixed charge compression ignition ( pcci ) processes such as controlling ignition timing and burn rate over all engine operating conditions , poor start - ability , poor transient response , and high hydrocarbons and carbon mono - oxide emissions . also , on some embodiments , improvements in key engine attributes such as specific power output , fuel economy , and exhaust emissions are realized . the existing hcci and pcci engines without the present invention can only operate at hcci or pcci modes at very limited operating conditions such as part load to medium load , and need to revert to conventional homogeneous charge spark ignition ( hcsi ) or compression ignition direct injection ( cidi ) mode at idle , light load , high load , high speed , and for cold start to avoid the uncontrolled combustion , poor start - ability , and high hydrocarbons and carbon monoxide emissions . ari , ari + hcci , and ari + pcci engines can operate on gasoline , diesel , and alternative fuels . fig2 c shows the application of the ari ( 35 c ) to a conventional diesel engine with reduced compression ratio for higher specific output , as shown schematically in fig3 , for both a constant pressure and a constant volume cycle the mean effective pressure ( i . e . engine output )- to - peak cylinder pressure limit can be substantially increased with a lower compression ratio . the major technical barrier of implementing such an approach is that there is a conflicting requirement in engine compression ratio between the engine start - ability and engine specific output . a good start - ability will require a higher compression ratio ; on the contrary , a higher engine specific output will require a lower compression ratio to keep the engine operating within the peak cylinder pressure design limit . in one embodiment , the ability of api to generate multiple active radical plumes to ignite the main fuel charge at a much lower compression temperature and pressure can allow a lower compression ratio high specific output engine to be developed with excellent start - ability and cold start white smoke . fig2 d . shows application of an ari ( 35 d ) as a cold starting aid and cold start white smoke control device at a very cold ambient conditions . with the addition of an ari to a conventional diesel engine , the ari can be used as a cold stating aid or a cold start white smoke control device to ignite the main fuel charge mixture at relatively low compression temperatures caused by a very low ambient temperature conditions . no glow plug , intake air heater , variable valve timing , or variable compression ratio are required . as shown in fig4 a , during the engine intake stroke the ari plunger is seated to avoid the slippage of residual fuel into the main combustion chamber and , subsequently , unburned hydrocarbons and carbon monoxide emissions . no communication between main combustion chamber and ari mixing & amp ; compression chamber is allowed during the engine intake stroke for both ari durability and poor exhaust emissions concerns as shown in fig4 b , at some point during the compression stroke the ari plunger is beginning to retract and to draw the prescribed amount of compressed charge into the ari mixing & amp ; compression chamber for the active radical generation . the timing of retraction will depend on the engine design features and operating conditions . the higher the engine boost the more retarded is the retraction timing . similarly , the higher the engine speed , the more advanced is the retracing timing . the size of metering and mixing & amp ; compression chambers is carefully matched to the main engine design and application . as shown in fig4 c , at some crank angle degree before the prescribed ignition timing of the main charge the ari plunger will descend , and start the simultaneous injection , mixing and compression processes for active radical generation . the compression temperature , compression pressure , and mixture composition of ari can be optimized by controlling the retracting and compression timings , and the sizes of upper metering chamber and lower mixing & amp ; compression chamber inside the ari to achieve the optimum active radical generation to ignite the main fuel charge at the precise timing . too much compression of mixture may lead to high temperature combustion and carboiling inside the ari , resulting in poor active radical generation and ari durability . as shown in fig4 d at the end of active radical generation and injection processes , the ari plunger will remain seated all the way through the expansion and exhaust strokes . no communication between main combustion chamber and ari active radical preparation chamber is allowed for unburned hydrocarbons and initiator carboning controls . the device shown in various stages of operation in fig4 ( a ) to ( d ) is representative of any device that is useful in performing the active radical initiation method of the present invention when in communication with an internal combustion engine &# 39 ; s combustion chamber when the chamber contains a fuel mixture that is sufficiently lean and / or cool to be unable to support auto ignition . an ari within the scope of the present invention can be designed to meet a variety of design goals , but an ari generally performs the following functions : 1 . separates a controllable pre - ignition chemical reaction process of the pilot fuel charge inside the ari from an uncontrollable pre - ignition chemical reaction of the main charge inside the combustion chamber , to allow the ignition timing of the main charge be controlled without delay between the onset of multiple active radical plumes and the ignition of the main fuel charge . 2 . draws in a controlled amount of the compressed charge to the ari mixing & amp ; compression chamber at the appropriate time for the preparation of active radical generation process . 3 . meters a controlled amount of pilot fuel for the preparation of active radical generation process . 4 . simultaneously injects , mixes , and compresses the pre - determined amount of pilot fuel and compressed charge for the controlled pre - ignition chemical reaction and active radical plumes generation . 5 . injects active radical plumes for a controllable ignition timing of the main charge . 6 . liberates an adequate amount of ignition energy and a high concentration of active radical plumes for a combustion of the main fuel charge . in one embodiment , the amount of energy liberated by the ari to attack the main fuel charge for the start of the ignition is greater than the energy liberated by the spark or plasma plugs used in the today &# 39 ; s spark ignited engines . the amount of energy liberated and active radical generated by ari can also be further optimized by adjusting the amount of pilot fuel into the ari . this high ignition energy and high active radical concentration will allow the combustion of main fuel charge to proceed at much leaner conditions , which result in lower peak combustion temperatures and lower nox emissions . the leaner the main charge mixture , the higher the ignition energy and active radical concentration are required for the combustion of main fuel charge to achieve a fast and clean combustion with optimum heat release placement for high engine cycle efficiency and ultra low exhaust emissions . 7 . provides adequate fueling capacity to act as a direct injector for starting and light load operations without the introduction of additional fueling into the combustion chamber by either port injector or in - cylinder direct injector . 8 . the functioning of the ari can shorten the time of pre - ignition process significantly as compared to the main charge pre - ignition process to minimize the impact of heat transfer and boundary conditions on pre - ignition process . as mentioned earlier , due to the transient nature of the engine operating conditions and the sensitivity of the pre - ignition process to the small change in temperature and mixture quality inside the combustion chamber it is almost impossible to have a controllable pre - ignition chemical reaction through the very long intake and compression processes inside the combustion chamber . some or all of these design goal statements are met by the ari design shown schematically in fig5 . the ari housing 11 of fig5 includes a nozzle body ( 31 ), plunger ( 32 ), return spring ( 33 ), and the descending and drive mechanism of reciprocable plunger ( 32 ) which has plume ejecting end 45 oriented toward the nozzle of and mixing and compression chamber ( 36 ). a maximum volume of pilot fuel metering chamber ( 35 ), and a maximum volume of pilot fuel mixing and compression chamber ( 36 ) is created when the ari plunger is fully retracted . these maximum volumes are determined based on engine site and application requirements . the fuel metering chamber ( 35 ) and mixing and compression chamber ( 36 ) together comprise an interior chamber . plunger 32 and / or nozzle body ( 31 ) has an interior passageway 46 and / or 39 respectively between fuel metering chamber ( 35 ) and mixing and compression chamber ( 36 ). as the ari plunger is descending both metering chamber 35 and mixing & amp ; compression chamber 36 are beginning to decrease to provide compression and mixing energies for the injection , mixing , and compression processes to proceed simultaneously . the pilot fuel inside the metering chamber 35 is supplied through the pilot fuel supply means / feed port of nozzle body ( 37 ); the amount of pilot fuel metered is determined by the feed port opening duration , feed port fuel pressure , and size of the metering chamber . the feed port is completely closed during the simultaneous injection , mixing , and compression processes . the descending motion of plunger link ( 34 ) and plunger coupling ( 72 ) can be accomplished by any one of various conventional means , such as cam drive , hydraulic drive , or electromagnetic drive , as shown in fig6 a - 6 c . the selection of each approach may depend on the design of the engine and space available for the incorporation of ari . in general , a cam drive system offers simplicity , but hydraulic or electromagnetic systems offer flexibility . the compression spring ( 33 ) retracts plunger ( 32 ). the injection and mixing of pilot fuel is accomplished , as shown in fig5 , by introducing the pilot fuel from fuel supply inlet ( 63 ) to metering chamber ( 35 ), then injecting into mixing & amp ; compression chamber ( 36 ) either through plunger fueling passage ( 46 ), or through the nozzle body fueling passage ( 39 ). the fuel in mixing & amp ; compression chamber is represented as mixture cloud 80 in the chamber . sufficient mixing can be achieved by either or both methods . final selection can be based on the ease of manufacturing and initial cost . preferable , the injection & amp ; mixing of pilot fuel , and compression of the prepared fuel - air mixture , occurs simultaneously to achieve the optimum conditions of temperature , pressure , and mixture composition histories to achieve the best yield of active radical formation without high temperature combustion reaction inside the ari . the direction and number of active radical plumes 43 are optimized by the nozzle tip hole geometry to achieve the multiple ignition sites for a fast and clean combustion process . ari housing 11 may have external threads 40 that mate with internal threads 41 of cylinder head 3 , and be sealed thereto via washer 42 . as shown in fig6 a , and electromagnetic drive system for the ari may be driven by solenoid coil 61 , and the fuel supply 63 may be introduced to metering chamber 35 via fueling passage 37 . as shown in fig6 b , a hydraulic drive system may be utilized by incorporating a hydraulic supply 64 through one way valve 65 into interior chamber 68 . a corresponding outlet one way valve 66 and outlet port 67 may be incorporated into the opposing side of the ari . as shown in fig6 c , a cam drive system may be utilized by incorporating a cam 70 that drives push rod 71 through plunger coupling 72 . the ari of the present invention finds application in a variety of combustion systems including internal and external to help achieve low exhaust emissions and high cycle efficiency . the system can be applied to petroleum and non - petroleum based fuels including gasoline , diesel , kerosene , methanol , ethanol , natural gas , propane , hydrogen , and etc . the system can also be applied for both mobile and stationary applications including any automotive , industrial , marine , military , and power generation . | 5 |
the conductive support which can be used as an anode in the present invention includes gold electrodes , platinum electrodes and carbon electrodes , preferably carbon electrodes such as a graphite electrode , a carbon taste electrode and a glassy carbon electrode . a glassy carbon electrode is most advantageous . cathodes which can be used in the determination include various electrodes , e . g ., a platinum electrode , a carbon electrode , a gold electrode , a palladium electrode and a silver electrode . reference electrodes for potential determination include a silver / silver chloride electrode and a saturated calomel electrode . a cathode and a reference electrode may be integrated into one body by using a palladium electrode , a silver electrode , a silver / silver chloride electrode , a saturated calomel electrode etc . the diaphorase that can be used in the present invention includes various species originating in microorganisms or animals . preferred are those enzymes of thermophilic bacteria with an optimum growth temperature of from 50 ° to 85 ° c ., for example , microorganisms belonging to the genus bacillus ( e . g ., bacillus stearothermophilus , bacillus thermoproteolyticus and bacillus acidocaldarius ), the genus thermoactinomyces , the genus thermus and the genus thermomicrobium . bacillus stearothermophilus is the most preferred . specific examples of useful strains of bacillus stearothermophilus are atcc 7933 , atcc 7954 , atcc 10194 , atcc 12980 , nca 1503 ( atcc 29609 ), and uk 563 ( ferm p - 7275 ). the amino - acid dehydrogenase that can be used in the present invention includes various enzymes originating in microorganisms and animals . preferred are those of thermophilic bacteria having an optimum growth temperature of from 50 ° to 85 ° c . examples of such thermophilic bacteria are the same as those enumerated above . those produced by microorganisms belong to the genus leuconostoc or yeasts are also preferred . each of the diaphorase and the amino acid dehydrogenase can be obtained from the organisms according to known purification methods described , for example , in robert k . scopes , purification - principles and practice , springer - verlag , n . y . ( 1982 ). to separate and purify the enzymes , a solution containing a microorganism culture , an animal cell culture or animal - tissue , being smashed , is centrifuged , and then the resulted supernatant is subjected to a separation column generally used for enzyme purification , such as an ion - exchange column chromatography , a hydrophobic column chromatography , an affinity column chromatography and a gel column chromatography , to obtain the enzyme preparation with suitable purity . some of the enzymes are also commercially available . each of the diaphorase and the amino acid dehydrogenase may be used at an arbitrary concentration . in a preferred embodiment , a solution of each enzyme in a concentration of from 0 . 1 to 30 % by weight , and more preferably from 0 . 5 to 20 % by weight , is applied to a conductive support in an amount of from 1 to 200 g / m 2 , preferably from 1 to 150 g / m 2 , more preferably from 1 to 120 g / m 2 . the polyfunctional aldehyde that can be used as a crosslinking agent includes bifunctional aldehydes such as glutaraldehyde , succinic aldehyde and glyoxal , and preferably glutaraldehyde . it is used as a solution in a concentration of from 0 . 1 to 10 % by weight , and preferably from 0 . 5 to 3 % by weight , and dropped on a conductive support in an amount of from 0 . 1 to 3 g / m 2 . immobilization of diaphorase and an amino - acid dehydrogenase on a conductive support by a polyfunctional aldehyde crosslinking agent can be carried out by dropping solutions of the three components on a support either separately or in any combination thereof . in a preferred embodiment , a solution of a polyfunctional aldehyde is dropped lastly and the three solutions are uniformly mixed on the support . amino acid determinations using the enzyme electrode of the present invention can be conducted , for example , by dipping the electrode in a buffer solution containing nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide ( hereinafter abbreviated as nadh ) or nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate ( hereinafter abbreviated as nadph ), which is a substrate for an amino - acid dehydrogenase , and a diaphorase mediator and measuring the stationary current of an electrode current generated on addition of a sample under analysis . as a buffer solution , a 0 . 01 to 0 . 5m sodium phosphate buffer solution at a ph of from 5 to 10 , and preferably from 7 to 9 , is usually employed . the measurement temperature is from 0 ° to 60 ° c ., and preferably from 20 ° to 40 ° c . mediators of diaphorase include ferrocene , ferrocene derivatives , n , n , n &# 39 ;, n &# 39 ;- tetramethylphenylenediamine , 2 , 6 - dichlorophenolindophenol , p - iodonitrotetrazolium violet , nitro blue tetrazolium , quinone compounds , e . g ., vitamin k , and cytochrome c , with ferrocenylmethanol and ferrocenyl - 1 - ethanol being preferred . in the above - described analysis system , the conjugated enzyme electrode according to the present invention enabled a determination with striking rapidity requiring a response time of about 30 seconds . besides excellence in rapidity , the enzyme electrode of the present invention exhibited excellent durability , that is retaining performance for more than half a year without any means commonly employed for stabilization of an immobilized enzyme membrane , such as covering with a selective permeable membrane , e . g ., cellulose membranes ( e . g ., cellulose acetate and nitrocellulose ), or various natural or synthetic high polymer membranes . using the enzyme electrode according to the present invention , it is possible to produce a flow injection type analyzer , by which system automating and shorter analysis time would be achieved . the simple structure of the enzyme electrode of the present invention makes it possible to prepare various microelectrodes for amino acid determination by selecting an amino - acid dehydrogenase specific to each amino acid to be determined , thereby permitting a reduction in the requisite amount of a sample to be analyzed and broadening of the application to microsamples . the present invention is now illustrated in greater detail with reference to examples , but it should be understood that the present invention is not limited thereto . all the percents are by weight unless otherwise indicated . a glassy carbon disc having a diameter of 3 mm (&# 34 ; gc - 20 &# 34 ; produced by tokai carbon k . k .) was polished with sand paper and alumina abrasive grains having a particle size of 0 . 05 μm and then washed with distilled water in a ultrasonic cleaner . on the thus polished surface were dropped 0 . 4 μl of a 60 mg / ml solution of bacillus stearothermophilus diaphorase ( produced by unitika ltd .) and 20 μl of a 14 mg / ml solution of bacillus stearothermophilus leucine dehydrogenase ( produced by unitika ltd . ), which were then mixed together . then , 0 . 5 μl of a 2 % glutaraldehyde solution were dropped thereon by means of a microsyringe and mixed with the enzyme solution without delay . the mixed solution was freed of the solvent by allowing the support to stand at room temperature for one day to thereby prepare an immobilized enzyme membrane . the resulting enzyme electrode was preserved in a 0 . 05m phosphoric acid buffer solution ( ph = 7 . 5 ) at 4 ° c . before use . the enzyme electrode , a potentiostat (&# 34 ; hab - 151 &# 34 ; produced by hokuto denki k . k . ), and an x - y recorder (&# 34 ; wx 43096 &# 34 ; produced by graphtec co .) were assembled into a three - electrode system . a 0 . 05m phosphoric acid buffer solution ( ph = 7 . 5 ) was used as a basal solution . a magnetic stirrer was set about 1 mm under the electrode to agitate the solution at a rate of 800 rpm or more . the electrode potential was measured using a silver / silver chloride electrode as a standard at a temperature controlled at 30 ° c . the above prepared glassy carbon electrode having immobilized thereon diaphorase and leucine dehydrogenase was immersed in a 50 mm phosphoric acid buffer solution ( ph = 7 . 5 ) containing 0 . 5 mm nadh and 0 . 1 mm ferrocenyl methyl alcohol , and the electrode potential was fixed at 0 . 2 v . leucine was added to the buffer solution and , after a steady state was reached ( within about 30 seconds ), an oxidation current was measured . dependence of the oxidation current on leucine concentration under the stationary state ( i st ) ( corrected for a residual current ) is shown in fig1 . fig1 is a graph showing the relationship between the stationary current i st in a buffer solution containing nadh and ferrocenyl methyl alcohol as a mediator of diaphorase , with an applied voltage of 0 . 2 v ( ordinate ) and the leucine concentration in the sample ( abscissa ). as is apparent from fig1 the stationary current i st shows good linearity up to a leucine concentration of 50 μm , and the detection limit was 2 μm . fig2 shows reproducibility when a sample containing leucine at a concentration of 50 μm was analyzed 110 times over 170 days . the coefficient of variation was within 5 % proving the enzyme electrode of the present invention is markedly excellent in reproducibility and durability . leucine in human urine was determined , without any pretreatments to the sample , by using the conjugate enzyme electrode for leucine determination as prepared in example 1 . the result obtained is shown in table 1 below . the result agreed very closely with that obtained by conventional spectroscopic analysis using leucine dehydrogenase which is also shown in table 1 . table 1______________________________________method of analysis measured value______________________________________method of invention 40 μmspectroscopic analysis 34 μm______________________________________ on the same polished glassy carbon disk as used in example 1 were dropped 0 . 9 μl of a 60 mg / ml solution of bacillus stearothermophilus diaphorase ( produced by unitika ltd .) and 20 μl of a 20 mg / ml solution of bovine liver glutamate dehydrogenase ( produced by oriental yeast k . k .) and the solutions were mixed . then 0 . 5 μl of a 1 % glutalaldehyde solution were dropped by means of a microsyringe . the mixed solution was treated in the same manner as in example 1 to prepare an enzyme electrode for glutamic acid determination . glutamic acid in soy sauce was determined , without any pretreatments to the sample , in the same manner as in example 1 using the above prepared electrode ( measurement time : within 30 seconds ). the result obtained is shown in table 2 below . for comparison , the result obtained by using an amino acid analyzer (&# 34 ; hitachi amino acid analyzer &# 34 ;) is also shown . both results showed good agreement with each other . table 2______________________________________method of analysis measured value______________________________________method of invention 123 mmamino acid analyzer 128 mm______________________________________ while the invention has been described in detail and with reference to specific examples thereof , it will be apparent to one skilled in the art that various changes and modifications can be made therein without departing from the spirit and scope thereof . | 8 |
in accordance with an aspect of the embodiment , fig1 shows a concealed carry apparatus . a band is made from an elastic strap 101 , a first end section 103 and a second end section 102 . the band can be passed around the torso or an extremity and the end sections joined such that the elastic strap 101 is lightly stretched . the second end section 102 is shown as an elongated piece because it enables the band to fit a range of body sizes . a pocket assembly 103 with a gun holstering pocket 104 and a magazine holstering pocket 105 can be formed from the elastic material . the end sections shown in fig1 can be made with a hook and loop material . the first end section 103 can be hook material . the second end section 102 can be hook material . using hook material with an elongated second end section 102 is advantageous because the hook material can help make the concealed carry apparatus more comfortable . in accordance with an aspect of the embodiment , fig2 shows a concealed carry apparatus . it is essentially the same apparatus as that shown in fig1 , but from a different perspective . the elastic strap 101 is shown folded back on itself because it is convenient to make the pocket assembly 103 from an uncut length of elastic strap material . the second end section 102 is shown extending through the entire length of the pocket assembly 103 because it can form an extra layer of material between a holstered gun and the wearer . a piece of comfortable slip resistant material 201 is shown where it can be sewn to the band . observing the positions of the elastic strap 101 , second end section 102 , and comfortable slip resistant material 201 , it is obvious that all the layers can be sewn at once to join all the parts and to form the pocket assembly . in accordance with an aspect of the embodiment , fig3 shows a pocket assembly 103 . the pocket assembly 103 is formed when , as discussed above , the elastic strap 101 , second end section 102 , and comfortable slip resistant material ( not shown ) are joined . the act of joining , sewing in particular , forms seams 301 . the seams 301 form the pocket assembly 103 . the seam pattern shown is adapted for a wearer of the concealed carry apparatus to have the magazine holstering pocket 105 in front of the gun holstering pocket . fig3 also shows a trigger access hole 302 . in accordance with an aspect of the embodiment , fig4 shows a pocket assembly with a holster liner 401 . as discussed above , a holster liner 401 can help prevent the elastic strap 101 from getting cut by repeated gun holstering and unholstering . the holster liner material can be stitched into the gun holstering pocket during that same operation as forms the pocket assembly 103 . in accordance with an aspect of the embodiment , fig5 shows a pocket assembly with a shaped opening . the entrance to the gun holstering pocket 103 is shaped to allow one handed holstering . stiffening , stretching or molding the opening to the gun holstering pocket 103 can cause it remain somewhat open when no gun in holstered . another way to form the opening is by fixing a wire , plastic , or similar element to the entrance to the gun holstering pocket 103 . in accordance with an aspect of the embodiment , fig6 shows a concealed carry apparatus with anti ballistic material 601 . the antiballistic material 601 is shown as a number of independent overlapping sections because antiballistic material 601 is rarely as elastic as the material used for the elastic strap 101 . if the antiballistic material 601 is sufficiently elastic , it can be used as the elastic strap 601 . otherwise , the antiballistic material 601 must be fixed to the elastic strap 101 and second end section 102 via sewing or another fastening method . note that the antiballistic material 601 can be fixed to only the elastic strap 101 , only the second end section 102 , or both . in accordance with an aspect of the embodiment , fig7 shows a concealed carry apparatus with two pocket assemblies . the purpose of this figure is to show how easily a second pocket assembly 703 can be added to the concealed carry apparatus . the only major difference is that an extra piece of material 701 can be used to position the first end section 101 . alternatively , the second pocket assembly 703 can also be an end section if a fastener , such as hook material 702 , is sewn to the outside surface . in accordance with an aspect of the embodiment , fig8 shows a person wearing a concealed carry apparatus 802 . the concealed carry apparatus 802 encircles the torso of the person 801 and positively holds a gun 804 and a magazine 803 . the concealed carry apparatus shown is adapted for the person 801 to grab the gun 804 with the right hand . another person can prefer a concealed carry apparatus adapted for left handed use . the embodiment and examples set forth herein are presented to best explain the present invention and its practical application and to thereby enable those skilled in the art to make and utilize the invention . those skilled in the art , however , will recognize that the foregoing description and examples have been presented for the purpose of illustration and example only . other variations and modifications of the present invention will be apparent to those skilled in the art following the reading of this disclosure , and it is the intent of the appended claims that such variations and modifications be covered . the description as set forth is not intended to be exhaustive or to limit the scope of the invention . many modifications and variations are possible in light of the above teaching without departing from the scope of the following claims . it is contemplated that the use of the present invention can involve components having different characteristics . it is intended that the scope of the present invention be defined by the claims appended hereto , giving full cognizance to equivalents in all respects . | 0 |
one embodiment of a syringe kit for mixing two medicinal chemicals according to the present invention will be described below referring to the attached drawings . a syringe kit for mixing two medicinal chemicals according to one embodiment is used to mix a medicinal chemical a and a medicinal chemical b when necessary , for example . as shown in fig1 , a syringe kit for mixing two medicinal chemicals according to one embodiment comprises a first barrel 2 ( see fig2 and 3 ) and a second barrel 4 ( see fig4 and 5 ), wherein a first plunger 1 is inserted into the first barrel 2 in a freely slidable manner and a medicinal chemical a is contained in the inner space in advance , and a second plunger 3 is inserted into the second barrel 4 in a freely slidable manner and a medicinal chemical b is contained in the inner space in advance . the first plunger 1 has a gasket ( not shown in drawings ) and an end plate 1 a , wherein the gasket is attached to the tip portion which faces the inner space of the first barrel 2 and the end plate 1 a is formed at the rear end portion of the first plunger 1 which protrudes from the rear end portion of the first barrel 2 . the second plunger 3 is similarly configured and the second plunger 3 has a gasket ( not shown in drawings ) at the tip portion which faces the inner space of the second barrel 4 , and an end plate 3 a is formed at the rear end portion of the second plunger 3 which protrudes from the rear end portion of the second barrel 4 . although the material constituting the first barrel 2 is not limited to a specific material , it is preferable to use a material which is generally used for syringes , which is optically transparent and which has a grass transition point or a melting point of 110 ° c . or higher , for example , polypropylene , polymethylpentene , polyolefin like cyclic polyolefin , polyethylene terephthalate , polyethylene naphthalate , amorphous polyarylate , etc . cyclic polyolefin is especially desirable in view of a high transparency , a high steam sterilization property and a good medical agent non - absorption property . the first barrel 2 is integrally formed by one of the aforementioned various types of synthetic resins using injection - molding so that a flange 2 a is formed at the rear end portion . similarly , the second barrel 4 is integrally formed by one of the aforementioned various synthetic resins using injection - molding so that a flange 4 a is formed at the rear end portion . the first barrel 2 and the second barrel 4 may be formed by either an identical synthetic resin or a similar type of synthetic resin ( hereinafter , called as a similar type of synthetic resin ) or different synthetic resins or different types of synthetic resins ( hereinafter , called as different types of synthetic resins ). here , as shown in fig2 and 3 , a connecting tube portion 2 b is formed at the tip portion of the first barrel 2 , and a male screw 2 c is formed on the outer periphery of the connecting tube portion 2 b . the male screw 2 c is constituted as a trapezoidal screw with a large lead angle and a less winding number . an inner tapered surface 2 d is formed on the inner periphery of the connecting tube portion 2 b . the inner tapered surface 2 d has a taper angle in a range between 6 % and 12 %, preferably in a range between 6 % and 10 %. in general , nozzles of commercially supplied injectors have a taper ( which corresponds to the outer tapered surface 4 e according to the present invention ) of about 6 % usually . therefore , it is preferable to set the taper angle of the inner tapered surface 2 d to 6 % because it is possible to connect a commercially supplied injector to the first barrel according to the present invention . in this case , the male screw 2 c needs to have a shape and size which is suitable to screw together with a commercially supplied injector . additionally , it is preferable to set the taper angle of the inner tapered surface 2 d to a range between 6 % and 10 % as described above because it is possible to use a commercially supplied injector and the second barrel designed according to the present invention as well . alternatively , it is effective in some applications to intentionally set the taper angle of the inner tapered surface 2 d to an angle for which a commercially supplied injector cannot be used . on the other hand , as shown in fig4 and 5 , a nozzle portion 4 c having a center hole 4 b is formed at the tip portion of the second barrel 4 , and a screw tube portion 4 d is formed at the external side of the nozzle portion 4 c in a concentric fashion . an outer tapered surface 4 e is formed on the outer periphery of the nozzle portion 4 c . the outer tapered surface 4 e has the aforementioned taper angle and fits tightly and smoothly to the inner tapered surface 2 d on the inner periphery of the connecting tube portion 2 b . a female screw 4 f is formed on the inner periphery of the screw tube portion 4 d . the female screw 4 f is screwed together with the male screw 2 c on the outer surface of the connecting tube portion 2 b in a freely removable manner . it is preferable to arrange so that the taper angle of the inner tapered surface 2 d and that of the outer tapered surface 4 e are concerted in view of a good sealing performance , however they do not need to be concerted always as described above . either one of the surface of the male screw 2 c of the connecting tube portion 2 b of the first barrel 2 and the surface of the female screw 4 f of the screw tube portion 4 d of the second barrel 4 is roughened to a predetermined surface roughness . in this embodiment , the surface of the female screw 4 f of the screw tube portion 4 d of the second barrel 4 is not roughened , whereas the surface of the male screw 2 c and the outer periphery of the connecting tube portion 2 b of the first barrel 2 shown in fig6 are roughened to a surface roughness in a range between ra1 . 0 and ra2 . 0 . additionally , it is constituted so that the tip portion of the nozzle portion 4 c of the second barrel 4 is positioned in the connection tube portion 2 b of the first barrel 1 in a condition that the inner tapered surface 2 d of the connecting tube portion 2 b of the first barrel 2 and the outer tapered surface 4 e of the nozzle portion 4 c of the second barrel 4 are in a taper - fitted condition ( see fig8 ). in a syringe kit for mixing two medicinal chemicals according to one embodiment as described above , for example , when the medicinal chemical a in the first barrel 2 is mixed with the medicinal chemical b in the second barrel 4 , the male screw 2 c on the outer periphery of the connecting tube portion 2 b of the first barrel 2 and the female screw 4 f on the inner periphery of the screw tube portion 4 d of the second barrel 4 shown in fig1 are screwed together , and the inner tapered surface 2 d on the inner periphery of the connecting tube portion 2 b of the first barrel 2 and the outer tapered surface 4 e on the outer periphery of the nozzle portion 4 c of the second barrel 4 are taper - fitted ( see fig7 ). during the operation , because either the surface of the male screw 2 c and the outer periphery of the connecting tube portion 2 b of the first barrel 2 or the surface of the female screw 4 f and the inner periphery of the screw tube portion 4 d of the second barrel 4 or both of them ( in this embodiment , the surface of the male screw 2 c of the connecting tube portion 2 b of the first barrel 2 ) is roughened to a surface roughness in a range between ra1 . 0 and ra2 . 0 , stick and slip phenomena are prevented . additionally , it is preferable in view of a secured sealing performance to roughen neither the inner tapered surface 2 d on the inner periphery of the connecting tube portion 2 b of the first barrel 2 nor the outer tapered surface 4 e of the nozzle portion 4 c of the second barrel 4 . therefore , in a syringe kit for mixing two medicinal chemicals according to one embodiment , it is possible to prevent slip and slip phenomena which tend to occur when the male screw 2 c on the outer periphery of the connecting tube portion 2 b of the first barrel 2 and the female screw 4 f on the inner periphery of the screw tube portion 4 d of the second barrel 4 are screwed together or they are released from a screwed condition , and thus it is possible to ensure a smooth and steady operation . additionally , in a syringe kit for mixing two medicinal chemicals according to one embodiment , the tip portion of the nozzle portion 4 c of the second barrel 4 is positioned in the connecting tube portion 2 b of the first barrel 2 in a condition that the inner tapered surface 2 d on the inner periphery of the connecting tube portion 2 b of the first barrel 2 and the outer tapered surface 4 e on the outer periphery of the nozzle portion 4 c of the second barrel 4 are taper - fitted ( see fig8 ). thus , in a condition that the connecting tube portion 2 b of the first barrel 2 is connected to the screw tube portion 4 d of the second barrel 4 as shown in fig7 , the gasket of the first plunger 1 of the first barrel 2 can slide in the first barrel 2 with a sufficient stroke . as a result , it is possible to sufficiently and certainly mix the medicinal chemical a in the first barrel 2 with the medicinal chemical b in the second barrel 4 . a syringe kit for mixing two medicinal chemicals according to the present invention is not limited to the aforementioned embodiment . for example , it is possible to roughen only the surface of the female screw 4 f and the inner periphery of the screw tube portion 4 d of the second barrel 4 to a surface roughness in a range between ra1 . 0 and ra2 . 0 while the surface of the male screw 2 c and the outer periphery of the screw tube portion 4 d of the second barrel 4 are not roughened . it is also possible to roughen both the surface of the male screw 2 c and the outer periphery of the connecting tube portion 2 b of the first barrel 2 and the surface of the female screw 4 f and the inner periphery of the screw tube portion 4 d of the second barrel 4 . the most preferable embodiment is to roughen only the surface of the male screw 2 c and the outer periphery of the connecting tube portion 2 b of the first barrel 2 . this embodiment can be used as a commercially supplied injector . it is also possible to change the surface roughness for roughening within a range between ra1 . 0 and ra2 . 0 depending upon the type of synthetic resin which constitutes the first barrel 2 or the second barrel 4 . by setting the surface roughness to this range , it successfully prevent stick and slip phenomena even when the first barrel 2 and the second barrel 4 are formed by either a same type of synthetic resin or different types of synthetic resins . it is impossible to effectively prevent stick and slip phenomena by using synthetic resins which is generally used for syringes if the surface roughness is less than ra1 . 0 . the screwed connection may be loosened because of a decreased screwed connection resistance during the mixing operation if the surface roughness is higher than ra2 . 0 . | 0 |
the invention is further described and illustrated by the following embodiments and examples . as a particular description of a tuning example , the following is done . an initial frequency range of either 1 +/− 0 . 3 ghz or 2 . 5 +/− 0 . 5 ghz is considered likely to be optimal . an initial tuning scan of that frequency range is employed starting at 1 ghz . at 1 ghz , an assessment is made of the absorption by the sample in the system . if the absorption is not sufficiently optimized , then an incremental increase in the frequency is made and the absorption is observed at the new frequency . the initial tuning scan is conducted until the absorption is maximal . if the absorption is maximal , then a fine tuning scan is optionally employed to further improve absorption . for tuning , an incremental change in frequency is selected to be approximately an order of magnitude lower than the initial frequency . for fine tuning , an incremental change is selected to be between about an order of magnitude to about three orders of magnitude lower than the initial frequency . for example , if the initial frequency is 1 ghz , then a tuning scan increment can be 0 . 1 ghz and a fine tuning scan increment can be 5 mhz . the increment size for tuning and fine tuning is particularly significant at the lower initial frequencies . the frequency selection , including initial frequency selection and that achieved by tuning and fine tuning , can be influenced by the category of corn . corn categories can include soft , medium , and hard corn . the process can include the delivery of a first volume of corn with treatment of the first volume , followed by delivery of a second volume of corn with treatment of the second volume . the determination of cracking in kernels is known in the art and can be performed using microscopy , back - illumination techniques , or other techniques . as a particular description of a pulse profile , the following is done . an emf is pulsed on for a pulse width of one second followed by a delay ( pulse off ) of 50 seconds . this cycle of pulse and delay is repeated for a period of one hour . next , there is a rest period of between 2 to 8 hours at about less than 75 % r . h ., depending on the desired final moisture level of the drying product . during the rest period , significant migration of moisture from the inside of a corn kernel to the outside continues to occur after the pulsed emf treatment . reduction of moisture in the corn sample can continue to occur immediately following the one hour pulse period and also can continue during later portions of the 8 hour rest period , including portions beyond the initial 45 minutes after the one hour pulse period . the pulse width can vary from about 100 microseconds to about 60 seconds . the delay width can vary from about 1 second to about 3600 seconds . in a particular embodiment the pulse width will have a range from about 0 . 5 seconds to about 5 seconds , and the delay width will range from about 10 seconds to about 5 minutes . in specific embodiments , the invention contemplates application of pulsed emf wherein there is a cycle of pulse and delay , ranging from about 10 minutes to several hours . following such a cycle , the rest period can extend from about 2 hours to about 24 hours . for large scale systems , a power source capable of generating from about 5 to about 20 kw is used . for a particular large scale system , the power source is capable of generating about 10 kw . a conventional fan is optionally used to facilitate removal of moist air and evaporation from the kernel surface . in another example , multiple sources of electromagnetic fields are used . the multiple emf sources can use the same frequency or different frequencies . in a particular embodiment , there is safety equipment for protection of the operator from the emf . for example , a metallic enclosure can be used , such as a metallic storage bin , also equipped with a safety relay capable of automatically shutting down the electrical power to the emf source . as a more foolproof operation , a locked door should be also installed behind the safety relay , that could only be unlocked after the mains power to the emf source was shut down automatically by the relay . corn harvests from two consecutive years were employed for corn drying tests by pulsed emf . the corn selected for such tests was divided into three categories according to the corn hardness : soft corn , medium hardness corn , and hard corn . complete drying curves by both pulsed emf and conventional oven drying , as well as water sorption isotherms of corn were obtained for all three categories of corn . such corn drying curves were found to be significantly different from each other . pulsed emf frequencies that were tested span the range from 30 mhz to 2 . 45 ghz . fastest drying of corn was obtained at 2 . 45 ghz , whereas the lowest percentage of cracks in corn was obtained at 200 mhz for 6 hr exposure to pulsed emf , and an effective applied power level of 1 kw . high - resolution , solid - state ( cp - mass ) nmr and nir techniques were employed to evaluate corn composition and quality factors related to composition . drying of corn at 2 . 45 ghz and microwave pulsed power levels of 500 w achieved corn drying with 1 . 5 hr of pemf energy use , with less than 6 % cracks , for a 10 % r . f . heating cycle . such tests indicate that efficient corn drying from a level of 24 - 20 % moisture to 12 % is feasible by pulsed emf , and that energy savings of about 50 % are practically attained without causing an unacceptably large percentage of cracked corn . the nmr methodology was described in a previous publication ( baianu and kumosinski , 1994 ). the most difficult of the three categories to dry without cracks was found to be the soft corn , with an initial moisture content at harvest of about 24 %. table 1 shows drying efficiency and corn quality results for a pulsed emf application at indicated times for different types and masses of corn . table 2 indicates data corresponding to larger volumes of corn on the order of kilograms . the results of table 2 are consistent with higher efficiency and energy savings at the kilogram scale in comparison to tests of lots about one order of magnitude lower . a greater sample load can translate into such benefits due to the contribution of the favorable filling factor . the combined results at the kilogram scale and the 0 . 1 kg scale indicate the scalable nature of the methods and apparatus of the invention . although applicant does not wish to be bound by a particular theory , a possible simplified explanation of a mechanism , or sequence of events , is as follows . the filling factor , or q - factor , of the equipment is defined as the ratio of the total volume occupied by the wet corn , or any other sample to be treated , to the total volume irradiated by the pulsed emf source in the enclosed system containing the corn , or any other sample . the q - factor is therefore , a unitless real number which is less than 1 . 0 and larger than zero . this factor contributes to the determination of how effectively the energy of the pulsed emf is being used for drying corn . as an example , data from drying several pounds of wet corn when compared to several ounces of wet corn , show a marked increase in the effectiveness of energy usage for drying corn in the case of samples from 2 lbs to 5 lbs , as the q - factor increases from about 0 . 02 to about 0 . 4 , e . g . about twenty - fold . note that an additional contribution to the pemf efficiency for drying is the dielectric ‘ constant ’, or ‘ permitivity ’, ∈ wc , of the wet corn , which — in its turn — depends on both moisture level in the corn and the pemf frequency range . soft , hard , and medium hardness corn from consecutive harvest years was collected in illinois at incoming moisture levels of about 24 %. several sets of fresh corn were dried by pulsed emf within a week from harvesting each year ; the remainder of the corn harvest was stored in 4 separate lots ( see table 3 ). the fewest cracks and best results were obtained only with fresh corn and lot # 1 ( helium - classified corn , stored at 4 ° c .). pulsed emf drying of corn was carried out with laboratory - built , or commercial , resonant probe circuits tuned at frequencies of 30 mhz , 200 mhz , 360 mhz and 2 , 450 mhz ( 2 . 45 ghz ). pulsed emf power sources were operated at 10 levels ranging from 100 w to 1000 w ( 1 kw ). to cover this wide range of frequencies and power levels , four different setups of lab equipment were employed . water sorption isotherm of individual seeds of soft , medium hardness and hard corn were obtained with the isopiestic method , and the aoac salt solution standards , as previously reported ( lioutas et al ., 1986 ). such measurements allowed us to determine specific hydration levels in terms of the total amounts of ‘ bound ’ water ( nb ) for soft , medium , and hard corn , as well as the amounts of ‘ weakly ’ bound , or trapped , water in each type of corn for various relative vapor pressures of water in the corn kernels . this information is useful for both determining the optimum drying level of corn and for selecting the most appropriate corn drying curves / drying rates . corn drying curves demonstrate that pulsed emf does achieve similar results to conventional ( electrical ) oven drying at 95 f , but in a shorter time , and with potential energy savings of about 50 to about 85 % in comparison with conventional , electrical oven drying , as well as natural gas - based drying . fig1 illustrates exemplary drying curves for corn drying by pulsed emf . the invention is further illustrated by fig2 and 3 . in fig2 , a treatment system is depicted , for example for treating a plant product . fig2 specifically illustrates application to corn drying . the system includes a computer operatively connected to a pulsed electromagnetic field generator . a first power source is operatively connected to the computer , and a second power source is operatively connected to the pemf generator . the first and second power source can be the same source or different sources . the generator is connected to an output means for distributing the pulsed emf energy . the output means can treat the product while the product is transported by a conveyor belt . a conventional fan is connected to the corn storage area for facilitating movement of ambient air to assist in removal of moist air and evaporation from the product surface . the computer controls treatment conditions , for example the pulse length and delay , the frequency selection , and can facilitate drying while optimizing energy usage and achieving desired corn quality . a power source 30 is connected to a computer / pulse controller 10 which is further connected to a pemf generator source 20 . a waveguide 24 is used to deliver waves directed to a sample chamber 40 . a low power fan 50 is mounted to the chamber 40 . a conveyer 70 is used to transport a sample 60 for exposure to the waves . the treated sample 80 is conveyed to a receptacle 90 or support surface . the receptacle 90 is operatively connected to a fan 100 . the corn to be treated or wet corn is represented by the open circles , and the treated corn or dried corn is represented by the filled circles . the receptacle 90 can be a storage bin or conventional corn drying bin or system for further processing . fig3 illustrates another system for drying agricultural products , particularly applicable for drying corn or other grains . the system includes a computer operatively connected to a pulsed electromagnetic field generator . the generator is connected to an output means for distributing the pemf energy . the output means can be variably placed along a vertical axis that is perpendicular to the product container bottom . upon distribution of a sample material in a layer within the container , the treatment can occur while the output means is located vertically so as to maximize irradiation of the sample layer . irradiation is applied until a desired level of drying is achieved for the layer . upon further distribution of a second layer , the output means may be moved so as to maximize irradiation for the second layer . additional layers are further contemplated with analogous treatment . a conventional fan is optionally connected to the corn storage area for facilitating movement of ambient air to assist in removal of moist air and evaporation from the product surface . the computer controls treatment conditions , for example the pulse length and delay , the frequency selection , and can facilitate drying while optimizing energy usage and achieving desired corn quality . a power source 30 is connected to a computer / pulse controller 10 which is further connected to a pemf generator source 20 . a waveguide 24 is used to deliver waves directed to a sample chamber 94 . the waveguide 24 is mounted to 94 in an adjustable , such as vertically adjustable manner . optionally it can be horizontally adjustable or rotatably adjustable around the perimeter of the chamber . a transporting or delivery means 74 is used to provide a sample 60 for exposure to the waves . the treated sample 80 is retained in a storage chamber 94 or support surface . the chamber 94 is operatively connected to a fan 100 . the corn to be treated or wet corn is represented by the open circles , and the treated corn or dried corn is represented by the filled circles . as the corn is deposited in the chamber , layers are formed . in a specific embodiment , the waveguide is positioned initially towards a bottom layer and after time is moved up to be adjacent to an upper layer . soybeans obtained in the united states were treated with a method and apparatus of the invention . results are shown in table 4 . soybeans are sensitive to harsh drying conditions in that certain valuable oils can be reduced or degraded . therefore , the application of pemf is useful in enhancing the optimal retention of such compounds . fig4 and fig5 illustrate processes in embodiments of the invention . fig4 illustrates a process system that has a feedback feature . the feedback is accomplished using an nir monitor . an nir monitor can monitor spectra for water but can also be used to monitor the whole corn composition including extractable starch and protein content . fig5 illustrates a process system without a feedback feature . an example of a potential advantage of a system with feedback ( as illustrated in fig5 ) is the optimization of results such as corn quality and drying efficiency . in contrast , a system without feedback is likely to produce dried corn of suboptimal , or inferior , quality . in a feedback system , the nir monitor can be used to signal / control further treatment depending on the drying state as measured on a continuous , regular , or intermittent basis . if a desired moisture content for corn is 12 % and the nir monitor reflects a determination corresponding to 18 %, then further treatment cycles can be signaled . if the nir monitor reflects an observed drying curve that deviates from a desired standard drying curve , a signal can alter the pulse profile . for example , if the observed drying data indicates too rapid drying that could degrade corn quality , a signal can delay or alter further treatment , such as by temporally spacing pulses further apart or reducing the number of pulses . on the other hand , observed drying data that correlates with a drying process that is proceeding too slowly can lead to a signal that increases the number of pulses or decreases pulse delay times . the nir monitor thus accomplishes the optimization of a drying curve resulting in advantages such as one or more of energy efficiency , time efficiency , and quality control . fig6 illustrates a computer program in flow chart form . the diagram depicts logical steps of the computer program that was employed for controlling the emf source with dc square pulses . the program is implemented in the basic language ( ibm co ., usa ) and was also tested under microsoft windows (™) 1998 , 2000 , and xp . the program is also performed as known in the art , for example in visual basic or higher level languages ( e . g . c - language ), as well as older programming languages such as fortran and algol . the program in basic is preferred because of the simpler hardware and lower operation costs for the dc pulse generating board / source . fig7 illustrates an apparatus embodiment . the apparatus employs an emf generator and demonstrates applicable connections among a sample load , applicator , dummy load , tuner , and terminator or short - circuit . here , a tuner matches impedance between an emf source and a sample load ( a bin at least partially filled with corn , for example ), so that power transmission is optimal when the impedance at source and at sample load are equal . the circulator next to the tuner assists in protecting the emf source from reflected power in an open circuit situation ( in this case the impedance matching is occurring either through the dummy load or the power out is short - circuited by the shown terminator at the end of the waveguide or ‘ horn ’). the applicator is also useful for proper handling of emf power to the sample . the equipment has an electrical circuit that can be adjusted to obtain maximum emf output for the same power type employed , for example either direct current ( dc ) or more typically , alternating current ( ac ) power . this circuit can therefore be specified as a matching network . in some instances for emf systems , such an adjustment is carried out by a manufacturer either under “ no load ” conditions , with no sample in the emf enclosure of selected design but with a ‘ dummy ’ load instead , or with an average load for the expected most frequent samples to be treated . further energy savings and increased effectiveness of energy use are however achieved by matching the impedance of a sample , for example , wet corn , with that of the matching network in the emf source . achievement of such matching impedance thus allows for maximum transfer of energy from the emf source to the sample to be treated , or dried , such as wet corn . the matching impedance can be established at the beginning of the drying process . optionally , the matching impedance can be established subsequently on an intermittent or continuous basis during the drying process . the establishment of matching networks and matching impedance can result in efficient tuning and operation over a wide range of emf frequencies and with pulsed emf power . a suggested computer component is a personal computer ( pc ) with windows or dos operating system and basica (™) or visualbasic (™) installed . a pulse controller component can be a pc , dc - pulse board , either 8 - bit , 12 - or 16 - bit . a near infrared monitoring system can be an nir spectrometer system obtained from ocean optics ( dunedin , fla ., usa ), a nir spectrometer system such as model no . zx - 50 from zeltex , inc . ( hagerstown , md .) or other equivalent as known in the art . other components for apparatus that are suggested include a high power , continuously controllable emf source , such as those manufactured by boonton electronics ( parsippany , n . j . ), ca , varian , bruker ( usa ) or ge ( schenectady , n . y .) models , 1 kw emf power , either cw ( continuous wave ) or pulsed power ( pw ), the latter being preferred . further appropriate options for emf power source include an industrial cw magnetron capable of 896 mhz and 915 mhz transmission such as model cwm - 50l by california tube laboratory , inc . ( watsonville , calif . ); and a 1 to 6 kw emf power magnetron model such as those manufactured by varian , inc . ( palo alto , calif .). a suggested power source component for a particular application can have specifications dependent on the particular application and variables such as bin size . for a corn drying application , the emf power range is specified as a 1 kw to 50 kw emf source , for example from varian , inc . or ge . preferred ranges are about 1 kw to about 10 kw and about 1 kw to about 20 kw . the emf can be either pulsed or continuous . in a preferred example , the emf is capable of pulsed operation with an external trigger . all references throughout this application , for example publications , patents , and patent documents , are hereby incorporated by reference herein in their entireties , as though individually incorporated by reference , to the extent each reference is at least partially not inconsistent with the disclosure in this application ( for example , a reference that is partially inconsistent is incorporated by reference except for the partially inconsistent portion of the reference ). the invention has been described with reference to various specific and preferred embodiments and techniques . however , it should be understood that many variations and modifications may be made while remaining within the spirit and scope of the invention . it will be apparent to one of ordinary skill in the art that methods , devices , device elements , materials , procedures and techniques other than those specifically described herein can be applied to the practice of the invention as broadly disclosed herein without resort to undue experimentation . all art - known functional equivalents of methods , devices , device elements , materials , procedures and techniques described herein are intended to be encompassed by this invention . whenever a range is disclosed , all subranges and individual values are intended to be encompassed . this invention is not to be limited by the embodiments disclosed , including any shown in the drawings or exemplified in the specification , which are given by way of example and not of limitation . lioutas , t ., baianu , i . c . & amp ; m . p . steinberg . 1986 . arch . biochem . biophys . 23 : 236 - 247 . baianu , i . c . & amp ; kumosinski , t . 1994 . ; “ nmr principles and applications to the structure and hydration of food systems with emphasis on proteins ,” ch . 9 in ‘ physical chemistry of food processes : advanced techniques , structures and applications ’. vol . 2 . , i . c . baianu , h . pessen & amp ; t . kumosinski , t ., eds ., new york : van nostrand reinhold -. intl . thompson pubis ., pp . 338 - 420 . baianu , i . c ., k . a . rubinson and j . patterson . 1979 . ferromagnetic resonance and spin wave excitations in metallic glasses . j . phys . chem . solids , 40 : 940 - 951 . baianu , i . c ., j . patterson and k . a . rubinson . 1979 . ferromagnetic resonance observations of surface effects , magnetic ordering and inhomogeneous anisotropy in a metallic glass , material sci . and engineering , 40 : 273 - 284 . baianu , i . c ., k . a . rubinson and j . patterson . 1979 . the observation of structural relaxation in a fenipb glass by x - ray scattering and ferromagnetic resonance ., physica status solidi ( a ), 53 : k133 - 135 . scott , t . c ., klungness , j ., lentz , m , horn , e . and akhtar , m . 2002 . microwaving logs for energy savings and improved paper properties for mechanical pulps . in : proceed . 2002 tappi technical conf . trade fair , san diego , calif ., tappi press : atlanta , ga ., 10 pp . emam o a , farag s a , aziz n h , z lebensm unters forsch . 1995 , dec . 201 ( 6 ): 557 - 61 , comparative effects of gamma and microwave irradiation on the quality of black pepper . | 0 |
it is to be understood that the invention is not limited in its application to the details of construction and the arrangement of components set forth in the following description or illustrated in the drawings . the invention is capable of other embodiments and of being practiced or of being carried out in various ways . also , it is to be understood that the phraseology and terminology used herein is for the purpose of description and should not be regarded as limiting . the use of “ including ,” “ comprising ,” or “ having ” and variations thereof herein is meant to encompass the items listed thereafter and equivalents thereof as well as additional items . unless limited otherwise , the terms “ connected ,” “ coupled ,” and “ mounted ,” and variations thereof herein are used broadly and encompass direct and indirect connections , couplings , and mountings . in addition , the terms “ connected ” and “ coupled ” and variations thereof are not restricted to physical or mechanical connections or couplings . turning to the drawings , and initially to fig1 and 2 thereof , there is depicted an image forming apparatus 10 . the image forming apparatus 10 may be an electrophotographic device , scanner , copier , fax , all - in - one device , or multi - functional device . the image forming apparatus 10 scans a document 12 placed on a scanner glass 14 and generates a digital representation of an image of the document 12 . the illustrated embodiment employs a contact image scanner ( cis ), wherein a light source 16 , a rod lens array 18 , and an array of pixel sensors 20 are disposed on a frame 22 and comprise a scan bar 24 . the array of pixel sensors 20 may be photovoltaic sensors . a color matrix filter 26 is disposed on top of the array of pixel sensors 20 . the light source 16 , in a preferred embodiment of the present invention , may be a white light source such as white led &# 39 ; s , a cold cathode fluorescent lamp ( ccfl ), xenon lamps , or an rgb led source in which all three color led &# 39 ; s are used in the on condition . the light source 16 , the rod lens array 18 , and the array of pixel sensors 20 move from the top of the document 12 to the bottom thereof by means of a gear train and stepper motor ( not shown ). the array of pixel sensors 20 are arranged in a single array that spans the width of the document 12 to be scanned . the array of rod lenses 18 are positioned above the array of pixel sensors 20 and focus an image of the object on the glass 14 ( i . e ., the document 12 positioned in the glass plane image ), onto the array of pixel sensors 20 . the light source 16 projects light onto the document 12 . the array of rod lenses 18 focuses light reflected from the document 12 onto the array of pixel sensors 20 . the array of pixel sensors 20 generates a signal in the form of a voltage level corresponding to the amount of light to which the array of pixel sensors 20 is exposed . as noted hereinbefore , the array of pixel sensors 20 is covered , masked or filtered with a color matrix filter 26 over a collector surface thereof . the color matrix filter 26 comprises red , green , and blue color filters in a predetermined sequence . in one embodiment , as illustrated in fig3 a , the sequence is r , g , b , r , g , b , etc . in one preferred embodiment , it may be that of a bayer color matrix filter such as the one depicted in fig3 b , and have the sequence b , g , r , g , b , g , r , g , etc . the bayer color matrix filter pattern is 50 % green , 25 % red , and 25 % blue , and is commonly used in digital camera sensors . other sequences will be suggested to those of skill in the art . when a white light source 16 is used to expose the document 12 , the pixel sensors of the array 20 , as covered by the color matrix filter 26 , are exposed at the same moment in time and “ see ”, or receive a signal of , the same pixel of the document 12 being scanned . once the array of pixel sensors 20 is exposed to the light from the light source 16 , the analog voltage level for each of the sensors in the array of pixel sensors is clocked out from the scan bar 24 . the pixel sensors in the array 20 generate analog signals representing scanned pixels from each line of the document 12 . the color matrix filter 26 is applied to each pixel in sequential order . for example , when the color matrix filter 26 is an rgb filter , the pixels are , sequentially , red , green , blue , red , green , blue , etc . fig4 a schematically depicts the misregistration that occurs as a document 12 is scanned by a prior art scanner . each line of the document 12 is scanned sequentially three ( 3 ) times by red , green or blue colored light , respectively , as represented by the lines 1 r , 1 g , 1 b , 2 r , 2 g , 2 b . . . and detected by pixel sensors . the overlapping red , blue and green rectangles , representing red , green and blue pixels 28 , 30 , 32 of a scanned line are superimposed as indicated in the overlapping rectangular area 34 . the superimposition of the pixels 28 , 30 , 32 generates the misregistration or fringing exhibited in an image of the letter “ o ” 36 , and this occurs because the red , green and blue pixels 28 , 30 , 32 overlap in both the vertical and horizontal dimensions . it will be appreciated from fig4 a that the image of the letter “ o ” 36 has an upper color fringe 36 a of a red color , a lower color fringe 36 b of a blue color , and a black area 36 c where the scans overlap . as noted hereinbefore , the upper and lower color fringes 36 b , 36 a are artifacts or fringes left by the scanning process . fig4 b schematically depicts the misregistration that occurs as a document 12 is scanned by the image forming apparatus 10 of the present invention . each line 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , . . . of the document 12 is scanned one ( 1 ) time by white light and detected by an array of pixel sensors 20 . the overlapping red , blue and green rectangles , representing red , green and blue pixels 38 , 40 , 42 of a scanned line 1 , 2 , 3 , . . . , are superimposed as indicated in the overlapping rectangular area 44 . it will be appreciated that the pixels 38 , 40 , 42 overlap in only the horizontal direction , and not the vertical direction , because each line 1 , 2 , 3 , . . . is scanned only one time . the superimposition of the pixels 38 , 40 , 42 generates the misregistration or fringing exhibited in an image of the letter “ o ” 46 . it will be appreciated from fig4 b that the image of the letter “ o ” 46 has a left color fringe 46 a of a red color , a right color fringe 46 b of a blue color , and a black area 46 c where the scans overlap . it will be appreciated that the color fringe areas 46 a , 46 b are much smaller than the prior art color fringe areas 36 a , 36 b , and that the color fringe areas 46 a , 46 b are positioned horizontally with respect to the image of the letter “ o ”, and not vertically as in the prior art scan . turning now to fig5 , an application specific integrated circuit ( asic ) 100 is disclosed wherein an analog signal s , representing the analog pixels b 0 , g 0 , r 0 , b 1 , g 1 , r 1 , . . . b n , g n , r n , from the array of pixel sensors 20 , is clocked as an input signal to an analog to digital converter and analog front end 102 . the analog to digital converter 102 applies a digital offset ( or gain ) to each pixel value b 0 , g 0 , r 0 , b 1 , g 1 , r 1 , . . . b n , g n , r n , and then converts the analog signal s to a 16 bit digital signal d , ( b 0 0 , . . . b 0 15 , b 1 0 , . . . b 1 15 , . . . bn 0 , . . . bn 15 , g 0 0 , . . . g 0 15 , g 1 0 , . . . g 1 15 , . . . gn 0 , . . . gn 15 , r 0 0 , . . . r 0 15 , r 1 0 , . . . r 1 15 , . . . rn 0 , . . . rn 15 .) the digital signal d is then clocked into a digital multiplexing circuit 104 . the digital multiplexing circuit 104 may be another application specific integrated circuit ( asic ) with data sorting capabilities , or alternatively , an external multiplexer . the digital multiplexing circuit 104 multiplexes the digital signal d into three ( 3 ) color channels ch 0 , ch 1 , and ch 2 , corresponding to red , green , and blue color planes . the three ( 3 ) color channels ch 0 , ch 1 , and ch 2 ( r 0 1 . . . r 0 15 , g 0 1 . . . g 0 15 , b 0 1 . . . b 0 15 , . . . rn 1 . . . rn 15 ) are stored in a random access memory ( ram ) 106 for further digital processing . fig6 a illustrates an image 200 of the letter “ o ” as scanned by a prior art scanner such as a trilinear scanner . the image 200 on the left represents the scanner operating at a slow speed , while the image 202 on the right represents the scanner operating at a higher speed . it will be appreciated from fig6 a that the color fringing or misregistration of the images 200 , 202 is much greater when the scanner is operated at the higher speed . in particular , the area of misregistration identified by a red area 200 a is much smaller than the area of misregistration identified by a red area 202 a . similarly , the area of misregistration identified by a blue area 200 b is much smaller than the area of misregistration identified by a blue area 202 b . the black areas , where the scans overlap , are indicated by the reference numerals 200 c and 202 c . fig6 b illustrates an image 204 of the letter “ o ” as scanned by an image forming apparatus 10 in accord with the present invention at the same speed as the image 200 of fig6 a . an image 204 on the left represents the image forming apparatus 10 operating at a slow speed , while an image 206 on the right represents the image forming apparatus 10 operating at a higher speed . it will be appreciated from fig6 b that the color fringing or misregistration of the images 204 , 206 is the same as when the image forming apparatus 10 is operated at the higher speed . in particular , the area of misregistration identified by a red area 204 a is the same as the area of misregistration identified by a red area 206 a . similarly , the area of misregistration identified by a blue area 204 b is the same as the area of misregistration identified by a blue area 206 b . it will also be appreciated that the areas of misregistration 204 a , 204 b , 206 a , and 206 b from image forming apparatus 10 of the present invention are much smaller than the areas of misregistration 200 a , 200 b of the prior art scanner . the black areas , where the scans overlap , are indicated by the reference numerals 204 c and 206 c . it will be further appreciated that an image forming apparatus 10 in accord with the present invention presents a superior solution to the color misregistration inherent in contact image scanning . further , a practical embodiment of the present invention is much more cost effective than prior art trilinear devices . still further , a practical embodiment of the present invention permits a document to be scanned at a much higher speed than prior art devices , and yet produces a superior result . in one practical embodiment , a high - resolution scan bar was used that was capable of performing scans of 2400 pixels per inch ( ppi ) to 4800 ppi . the image forming apparatus 10 provided scans , at any speed , that were nearly free of any color misregistration defect at the most desirable scan modes of 300 ppi and 600 ppi . at the present time , scan bar resolutions are much higher than digital camera resolutions . for example , a 10 mega - pixel digital camera , when imaging a4 / letter sized media , has approximate equivalent pixel density of a 300 ppi scan bar . scan bar line sensors are presently available up to 9600 ppi , which would be the equivalent of 8 . 5 giga - pixel digital camera . adding a color filter array to a high - resolution scan bar would result in a high - resolution image that exceeds that of a digital camera . the filter array can be a one dimensional bayer pattern or possibly a simple rgb pattern . several methods may be employed to process the rgb data from the scan bar 24 . the illustrated embodiment uses a simple interpolation method , but a person of ordinary skill in the art will recognize that additional methods employing pixel lumping , averaging , area averaging , down sampling , and combinations thereof may also be used . the methods and algorithm choices depend on content , speed , and quality requirements of a specific application , and will not be detailed herein . it will be appreciated that the disclosed use of the color matrix filter 26 and the array of pixel sensors 20 pose issues with color misregistration that are constant regardless of the speed at which the image of the document 12 is captured . in one practical embodiment , the misregistration was seen to be very small , approximately less than ¼ of a pixel . it will be appreciated that algorithms to improve on the amount of misregistration can also be employed to produce even higher quality images . the invention , in one practical embodiment , provides a high - speed color document scanner using a low cost cis type scanner and other known components . sensor manufacturers have the capability of supplying arrays of pixel sensors 20 with color filters thereon , as such is a common practice on digital camera sensors . in addition , there are numerous third party suppliers who supply arrays of pixel sensors with color matrix filters superimposed thereon . it will be appreciated that prior art contact imaging scanners have color fringing or misregistration on the horizontal lines , that is , in the direction of motion of the scan bar , and that the color fringing or misregistration increases in magnitude as the speed of the scan - bar increases . in an image forming apparatus 10 in accord with the present invention , with a one - dimensional bayer pattern and interpolation , any artifacts are found in the vertical position , and are a function of the selected interpolation algorithm . it will be appreciated that the magnitude and severity of the misregistration or color fringing is constant regardless of the speed at which the scan bar 24 moves across the document 12 , and thus permits the image forming apparatus 10 to scan a document 12 at a much higher speed than a prior art scanner . the foregoing description of embodiments of the invention has been presented for purposes of illustration . it is not intended to be exhaustive or to limit the invention to the precise steps and / or forms disclosed , and obviously many modifications and variations are possible in light of the above teaching . it is intended that the scope of the invention be defined by the claims appended hereto . | 7 |
preferred embodiments of the present invention will be described hereinbelow with reference to the accompanying drawings . in the following description , well - known functions or constructions are not described in detail to avoid obscuring the invention in unnecessary detail . new input devices and methods therefor that exploit the advances in infrared video - based tracking systems are provided . the configuration dependent input devices include intuitively placed retroreflective markers that emulate various button combinations . the video - based tracker system tracks these input devices and interprets a user &# 39 ; s actions converting them into input commands for a computing system . depending on the display device used , the images of the input devices of the present invention can be augmented to simulate menus from which the user can choose actions like “ read my email ” or “ check the news ”. by way of example , an augmented reality ( ar ) system which utilizes infrared video - based tracking is used to describe the interaction / input devices of the present invention . generally , an augmented reality system includes a display device for presenting a user with an image of the real world augmented with virtual objects , i . e ., computer - generated graphics , a tracking system for locating real - world objects , and a processor , e . g ., a computer , for determining the user &# 39 ; s point of view and for projecting the virtual objects onto the display device in proper reference to the user &# 39 ; s point of view . referring to fig1 a , an exemplary augmented reality ( ar ) system 10 to be used in conjunction with the present invention is illustrated . the ar system 10 includes a head - mounted display ( hmd ) 12 , an infrared video - based tracking system 14 and a processor 16 , here shown as a desktop computer , coupled to storage device 17 . for the purposes of this illustration , the ar system 10 will be utilized in a specific workspace 18 which includes an input device 20 of the present invention . here , input device 20 includes a configuration of five retroreflective markers 21 on a planar surface of an object 19 , such as a board . although shown as being utilized in a fixed workspace with a desktop computer , the ar system which employs an input device of the present invention can be configured to be a mobile system wearable by a user . for example , the processor 16 may be a notebook computer , handheld computer , pocket pc or an other known mobile computing device and the input device 20 may be configured on a pliable material which can be carried or worn by the user , for instance , on their hand or forearm . it is to be understood that the input device is a passive device not physically connected to system 10 , for example , by wires , and is portable . referring to fig1 a and 1b , the tracking system 14 used in conjunction with the input device of the present invention will be described . generally , the infrared video - based tracking system 14 includes a camera 22 with an infrared - filter lens 24 and a plurality of infrared illumination light - emitting diodes ( leds ) 26 mounted around the lens 24 ; a video capture board mounted in the processor 16 ; and a set of retroreflective markers , e . g ., a circular disk or square tile . video obtained from the camera 22 through the capture board is processed in the processor 16 to identify the images of the retroreflective markers . because the video captured is filtered , the only visible items will be the ones corresponding to the retroreflective markers , i . e ., items reflecting light in an infrared frequency . in the ar system , the location of the markers are known within a specific workspace and are used to track real - world objects and to determine the pose ( position and orientation ) of a user . in the same manner the ar system identifies the markers placed in a workspace , for location tracking , the ar system can identify a set of markers 21 laid out in a specific configuration ( step s 1 ) to determine that it is an input device 20 , as exemplified in the method of fig2 . as the camera 22 of the tracking system 14 scans a scene , video captured is analyzed to determine if any retroreflective marker 21 has come into view ( step s 2 ). once it has been determined that a marker 21 is in view of the user and / or tracking system ( step s 3 ), the processor 16 compares the configuration of the markers in the scene with configurations stored in the processor 16 or in the storage device 17 coupled to the processor 16 ( step s 4 ). if a match occurs , it is determined an input device is visible to the user and the input device &# 39 ; s functionality is loaded into the system to be available to the user ( step s 5 ). once the input device becomes visible , the ar system 10 can go into a menu / input mode ( step s 6 ) and wait for the user &# 39 ; s actions for some input events . the ar system 10 will determine if a user is interacting by determining if a marker of the input device 22 is visible or not ( step s 7 ), as will be described in detail below . if the marker is not visible , e . g ., by the action of the user covering the marker , the system will determine the marker is activated and perform an associated function ( step s 8 ). it is to be understood the type and functionality of an input device of the present invention is determined by the processor based on the known specific configuration of markers placed in the physical world , e . g ., placed in a specific workspace or on a planar board carried by the user . therefore , any number of input devices can be realized by setting a specific configuration of markers for each input device , associating a function to each configuration and storing the configuration in the processor and / or storage device . referring to fig3 for example , a 4 × 3 matrix of markers 32 can be configured to simulate a numerical keypad input device 30 , like those used on a telephone . the left view of fig3 a shows the configuration of markers visible to the user and the right view illustrates the functionality available to the user . similarly in fig3 b , a cross - like configuration 34 can be assembled to simulate arrow keys where the uppermost and lowermost markers represent up and down arrow keys , etc . when used in conjunction with an ar system , a user &# 39 ; s view will be augmented with graphics and the user will actually see the view shown in view 2 of fig3 a and 3b . furthermore , a combination of one or more input devices may be placed around the workspace at one time each corresponding to a different input mode or , even in a multi - user environment , to different users . an illustration of how a user interacts with a system employing an input device of the present invention will be described below in conjunction with fig4 . [ 0033 ] fig4 illustrates several views of a computer system employing an input device in accordance with the present invention , where column 1 represents real - world views as seen by a user and column 2 represents views as seen from the infrared tracker camera . referring to fig4 the first row shows a computer system entering an input mode . the first view illustrates a real world view of the input device 20 . the user would see a set of retroreflective markers 21 on a planar surface 19 . the second view of the first row illustrates how the infrared video - based tracking system would see the input device . the tracking system will only see the markers that reflect the infrared light . the processor will determine that four markers are visible in an l - shaped configuration and will then search the configurations stored for a match . here , the processor will determine that the configuration is to function as a mouse and , since all four markers are visible , the input device is in an idle state awaiting input actions from the user . the second row of fig4 illustrates a user choosing an action . the first view of the second row shows the user placing a finger over the bottom leftmost marker . the second view shows how the tracking system will view this action . the processor will determine the marker is not visible and perform the function that is associated with the marker , e . g ., a left mouse click . similarly , the third row shows the user covering , or activating , the second marker to perform another action . now , an illustration of how a user interacts with an augmented reality ( ar ) system employing an input device of the present invention will be described below in conjunction with fig5 . [ 0037 ] fig5 illustrates several views of a user interacting with an augmented reality system employing an input device in accordance with the present invention , where column 1 represents real - world views as seen by the user , column 2 represents views as seen from the infrared tracker camera 24 and column 3 represents augmented views of the user . the first row in fig5 shows the ar system entering a menu / input mode . the first view illustrates a real world view of the input device 20 . the second view of the first row is a view of the input device 20 through the infrared - filtered camera 24 , wherein all retroreflective markers 21 are visible . through the use of the tracking system and processor , the ar system is able to determine the four markers 21 of the input device 20 are in the user &# 39 ; s view . once the configuration and functionality of the input device is determined , the ar system will augment the user &# 39 ; s view of the input device as in the third view of the first row . here , the four markers are augmented with computer - generated graphics to simulate buttons or menus , e . g ., the bottom leftmost marker is augmented with label “ l ” for left mouse button and the bottom rightmost marker is labeled “ r ” for right mouse button . the second row of fig5 illustrates the user interacting with the system . in the first view of the second row , the user places their finger on the first marker which corresponds to the “ l ” or left mouse button . once the ar system determines the user has covered the marker or simulated a click of the left mouse button , the ar system will augment the user &# 39 ; s view by inserting a graphic menu 50 with several options , as shown in the third view of the second row . in addition , up and down arrows 52 may be placed above the second and third markers of the bottom row during this mode to assist the user in selecting the option desired . it is to be understood that the up and down arrows are only augmented in the user &# 39 ; s view during this mode . it is also to be understood that whenever a single marker is activated the remaining markers can be augmented to reveal other options of the activated marker . new input devices and methods to be used with infrared video - based tracking systems have been described . the interaction / input devices and methods of the present invention provide intuitive , easy - to - use means of interacting with the system . in particular for an augmented reality system , the system gives the user visual feedback in forms of augmentation , e . g ., menus , to facilitate the interaction . the input devices of the present invention do not put any additional burden on the running or processing of the computing system since the system is already determining locations of markers for tracking purposes . the tracking system intelligently can decide if the user is in the input / interaction mode by determining if the user is looking at the various markers in a scene . while the invention has been shown and described with reference to certain preferred embodiments thereof , it will be understood by those skilled in the art that various changes in form and detail may be made therein without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention as defined by the appended claims . for example , the input device can be employed in various types of ar systems , such as optical see - through or video see - through systems . additionally , the input device of the present invention can be used in conjunction with different types of display devices , e . g ., a computer monitor , video - capable mobile phone , personal digital assistant ( pda ), etc . | 7 |
the locking device shown in the drawing serves the purpose of mutually locking a cordless power tool 2 , such as a handheld drill hammer , and a battery pack 4 required for supplying current to the power tool 2 . as best shown in fig1 , the power tool 2 , in a known manner , has a protruding guide rail 8 on the free lower end of its handle 6 , which guide rail can be inserted in the direction of the arrow a into a guide groove 10 , recessed out of the upper end of the battery pack 4 , that has a cross section complementary to the cross section of the guide rail 8 . the insertion motion of the guide rail 8 into the guide groove 10 is limited by cooperating stops ( not shown ), which contact one another when the battery pack 4 is properly locked to the power tool 2 and an electrical connection is made between connection contacts of a current - storing means of the battery pack 4 and a current circuit of a consumer of the power tool 2 . the locking device 12 serving to lock the battery pack 4 to the power tool 2 here includes a total of four locking bars 14 , which are located in pairs , one behind the other , in the insertion direction of the battery pack 4 in associated locking bar guides 16 in the interior of the guide rail 8 . two each of the locking bars 14 have aligned longitudinal axes and are forced apart to opposite sides transversely to the insertion direction ( arrow a ), each by a respective helical compression spring 18 , so that their outward - pointing free face ends 20 , 22 protrude past adjacent lateral guide faces 24 , 26 of the guide rail 8 . once the battery pack 4 is locked to the power tool 2 , the face ends 20 , 22 of one pair of locking bars engages diametrically opposed detent recesses 28 , 30 ( fig2 ) located in the interior of the guide groove 10 of the battery pack 4 . the locking device 12 is designed for so - called two - stage locking , in which in a first stage assures the snapping of the locking bars 14 , of the front pair of locking bars in the insertion direction , into the detent recesses 28 , 30 such that the battery pack 4 is secured against unintentional release relative to the handle 6 of the power tool 2 , for instance for shipping , but no electrical connection is yet made between the connection contacts of the current - storing means of the battery pack 4 and the current circuit of the consumer of the power tool 2 . this connection is not made until the battery pack 4 , in the second stage , is inserted farther until it reaches the terminal position shown in fig2 , in which the locking bars 14 of the rear pair of locking bars , in the insertion direction , snap into the detent recesses 28 , 30 and assure a final locking of the battery pack 4 relative to the power tool 2 while simultaneously making an electrical connection ( not shown ) between them . the free face ends 20 , 22 of the locking bars 14 have run - up chamfers 34 , which point in the insertion direction and assure that all the locking bars 14 , when the battery pack 4 is slipped onto the guide rail 8 of the power tool 2 and the front locking bars 14 , on passing the detent recesses 28 , 30 , are automatically displaced inward in their guides 16 , counter to the force of the spring 18 , until their tips 36 are aligned with the guide faces 24 , 26 . these guide faces extend parallel to diametrically opposed side faces 38 , 40 of the guide groove 10 and have a slight spacing from them . the locking bars 14 are provided in the interior with a cylindrical hollow chamber 42 for the associated helical compression spring 18 , which is braced by its outward - pointing face end against the bottom of the hollow chamber 42 and by its inward - pointing face end against a stationary abutment 44 in the interior of the guide rail 8 . the spacings between the inward - pointing face ends of the locking bars 14 and the adjacent , outward - pointing face ends of the abutments 44 are dimensioned such that the locking bars 14 strike the abutments 44 when their tips 36 are aligned with the guide faces 24 , 26 ( see fig3 ). on their rear face ends , the locking bars 14 have laterally protruding lugs 46 , which cooperate with the locking bar guide 16 and limit the outward path of motion of the locking bars 14 , to prevent the locking bars 14 from falling out when the battery pack 4 is removed . the two detent recesses 28 , 30 , located diametrically opposite one another in the interior of the guide groove 10 , extend as far as the adjacent outside of a housing 56 of the battery pack 4 and open in the interior into the two diametrically opposed side faces 38 , 40 of the guide groove 10 . each of the detent recesses 28 , 30 accommodates an unlocking button 50 , 52 , which is accessible or actuatable from the outside of the housing 56 and is displaceable inside the detent recess 28 , 30 transversely to the insertion direction , so that the locking bars 14 , of each pair of locking bars , engaging the detent recesses 28 , 30 can be manually disengaged from the two recesses 28 , 30 by means of a finger or thumb pressure exerted simultaneously on both buttons 50 , 52 , in order first to unlock the battery pack 4 and then release it from the power tool 2 . each of the two unlocking buttons 50 , 52 is joined in dustproof fashion to the surrounding edge of the detent recess 28 , 30 , on the outside of the housing 56 , by a soft film 54 that is square in outline and is made of an elastomer material , such as a thermoplastic elastomer ( tpe ). the soft film 54 is glued or welded in its middle to the outside of the button 50 , 52 , while its peripheral edge is glued or welded to the edge of the housing 56 surrounding the detent recess 28 , 30 . in the undeformed state ( fig2 ), the film 54 has an inward - protruding bead 58 , which protrudes into an indentation that extends around the buttons 50 , 52 and is defined by diametrically opposed shoulders of the button 50 , 52 and of the housing 56 . in the region of the bead 58 , the film 54 is reversibly elastically deformable , so that the unlocking buttons 50 , 52 , with deformation of the bead 56 , can be pressed inward into the detent recesses 28 , 30 and , because of the elastic restoring forces of the deformed film 54 , can automatically return to their outset position shown in fig2 , even if no locking bar 14 is pressing from the inside against the respective button 50 , 52 . on their inside , the unlocking buttons 50 , 52 have a flat contact - pressure face 60 , which is diametrically opposite the free face end 20 , 22 of the locking bar 14 . upon an actuation of the unlocking buttons 50 , 52 , the contact - pressure face 60 is pressed against the tip 36 of the adjacent locking bar 14 and , for disengaging its face end 20 , 22 from the detent recess 28 , 30 , displaces the locking bar inward in the locking bar guide 16 , counter to the force of the spring 18 , until the locking bar 14 strikes the abutment 44 , as shown in fig3 . in this position , the contact - pressure faces 60 are aligned with the adjacent side faces 38 , 40 of the guide groove 10 , and the tip 36 of the locking bar 14 is aligned with the guide faces 24 , 26 of the guide rail 8 , so that the battery pack 4 can be pulled off the power tool 2 in the direction of the arrow b . besides the detent recesses 28 , 30 , the side faces 38 , 40 each have one further recess 62 , which is located behind the detent recesses 28 , 30 in terms of the insertion direction and which is engaged by the locking bars 14 of the front pair of locking bars , for relieving their compression springs 18 without locking , once the battery pack 4 , in the second stage , is locked in final fashion to the power tool 2 . the term “ battery pack ” 4 as used within the scope of this application is meant to refer primarily to a pack of rechargeable current - storing means ( accumulators ), but also to a pack of disposable current - storing means ( batteries ). moreover , instead of the geometry shown in the drawing for the connection between the battery pack 4 and the power tool 2 , some other geometry may be employed , such as a shaft in the power tool 2 , into which the battery pack 4 is thrust partway . moreover , the described locking device 12 is suitable not only for locking battery packs 4 to power tools 2 but also for locking them to arbitrary other cordless electrical devices . it will be understood that each of the elements described above , or two or more together , may also find a useful application in other types of constructions differing from the types described above . while the invention has been illustrated and described as embodied in a device for locking a power tool to a battery pack , and battery pack , it is not intended to be limited to the details shown , since various modifications and structural changes may be made without departing in any way from the spirit of the present invention . without further analysis , the foregoing will so fully reveal the gist of reveal present invention that others can , by applying current knowledge , readily adapt it for various applications without omitting features that , from the standpoint of prior art , fairly constitute essential characteristics of the generic or specific aspects of the invention . | 7 |
first , a barrel for a prefilled syringe of the present invention is described . as shown in fig1 ( a ), a preferably adopted shape of the barrel 10 of a prefilled syringe of the present invention is a cylindrical shape having a male “ luer - taper ” luer tip 11 at the tip , where an injection needle can be connected in a fluid - tight manner , a shoulder portion 13 formed from a proximal end 11 a of the luer tip 11 to a cylindrical wall 12 , and a finger - hooking flange 14 at an opened proximal end 10 a . the luer tip 11 is sealed in a fluid - tight manner by a cap 20 . further , a gasket 30 is inserted in the barrel 10 in a fluid - tight manner while being freely slidable . the gasket 30 can be connected with a plunger 40 at a proximal end 30 a . the space from the gasket 30 , inserted inside the barrel 10 , to the luer tip 11 can contain a medication 50 . a position for providing the luer tip 11 does not have to be at the center of the shoulder portion 13 . as shown in fig2 , a luer tip 61 may be provided in a position eccentric from the center of a shoulder portion 63 . as shown in fig1 ( a ) and ( b ), the barrel 10 has at least a three - layer structure of an innermost layer 15 , an outermost layer 16 , and an intermediate layer 17 between the innermost layer 15 and the outermost layer 16 . the innermost layer 15 and the outermost layer 16 are preferably formed from the same material , and examples of preferable materials include polyethylene , polypropylene , a mixture of polyethylene and polypropylene , and a polyolefin resin such as cyclic polyolefin . however , any resin known for use as a medical material such as polycarbonate , a methacrylate resin , and poly ( 4 - methyl - 1 - pentene ), which does not interact with the medication 50 contained inside the barrel 10 , and having no risk of elution or the like can be preferably adopted . further , the material for the intermediate layer 17 is selected from a resin excelling in a gas barrier property , a resin excelling in a water vapor barrier property , and a resin excelling in thermal resistance . examples of resins excelling in a gas barrier property and a water vapor barrier property include an ethylene vinyl alcohol copolymer , polyacrylonitrile , vinylidene chloride , polyvinyl alcohol , nylon , polyester , or the like . examples of a resin excelling in thermal resistance include polypropylene , poly - 4 - methylpentene - 1 , polyester , polycarbonate , polyether imide , polyacrylate , or the like . the intermediate layer 17 is not required to be a single layer and may be a multilayer structure with two or more layers . as described , by sandwiching a resin excelling in barrier property or thermal resistance with a resin having a low risk of interacting with a medication or eluting thereinto , a barrel for a prefilled syringe , which has a low risk of interacting with a medication or eluting thereinto , excels in barrier property , and is highly safe , can be provided . when only resins having low thermal resistance are adopted for the innermost layer and the outermost layer because of limitations concerning interaction with a medication , deformation of the barrel can be avoided even when conducting a high pressure steam sterilization such as at 105 ° c . for 30 minutes , at 121 ° c . for 20 minutes , or the like by forming an intermediate layer using a thermal resistant resin . as shown in fig1 ( a ), securing of the barrier property of the barrel 10 is further ensured by forming the intermediate layer 17 up to the vicinity of the luer tip surface 11 b . however , the intermediate layer 17 must not be exposed at the luer tip surface 11 b . the reason is that if a gap exists between the luer tip surface 11 b and a cap 20 , the medication 50 and the luer tip surface 11 b are at a high risk of coming into contact with each other . also as shown in fig3 , in a case of connecting an injection needle 70 to the luer tip 11 during use , the medication 50 and the luer tip surface 11 b have a high chance of coming into contact with each other , so there is a risk of elution from the intermediate layer 17 into the medication 50 . further as shown in fig4 , a tip 97 a of an intermediate layer 97 of a cylindrical wall portion 82 of a barrel 80 can be formed up to a rim portion 83 a of a shoulder portion 83 . however , in this case , the shoulder portion 83 must be provided with a barrier property by molding a thick portion of the polyolefin resin . the cylindrical wall portion 82 of the barrel 80 , for visually observing a time course of medication contained therein and insoluble contaminants , must be provided with high transparency and , thus , cannot be thickly molded . therefore , providing a barrier property by the intermediate layer 97 is indispensable . further as shown in fig1 ( a ), the intermediate layer 17 does not have to be formed in the direction of the proximal end 10 a from the proximal end 30 a of an expected ( initial ) insertion position of the gasket 30 to be inserted inside the barrel 10 . in the space from the proximal end 30 a of the gasket 30 to the proximal end 10 a of the barrel 10 , a medication does not exist . therefore , there is no need to provide a barrier property . the gasket 30 is formed of a butyl rubber , a thermoplastic elastomer , or the like . the proximal end thereof is provided with a securing means such as a female screw 31 with which the plunger 40 provided with a male screw 41 at the tip thereof can be secured . the cap 20 is formed of a butyl rubber , a thermoplastic elastomer , or the like . as shown in fig4 , when the intermediate layer is not formed up to the vicinity of a luer tip surface 81 b , the cap must have a thickness which ensures a sufficient gas barrier property and water vapor barrier property . the medication 50 may be any of a solid preparation and a liquid solution . however , a solution that causes problems of an increase in concentration and a decrease in volume by water vapor evaporation is preferable . among them , a solution , the quality of which degrades from the effect of oxygen , is most preferable . next , a production method for a barrel used for a prefilled syringe according to the present invention is described . as shown in fig5 ( a ), first , a polyolefin resin 120 is injected from a gate 100 , provided at a position corresponding to the luer tip surface of the barrel portion of a cavity 90 , into the cavity 90 using a first injection unit 110 . then , as shown in fig5 ( b ), after injecting a specific amount of the polyolefin resin 120 , a resin excelling in a barrier property 140 is injected into the cavity 90 using a second injection unit 130 . the polyolefin resin 120 which is injected first is cooled on wall surfaces of cavity mold 150 and core mold 160 to form a skin layer . the resin excelling in barrier property 140 becomes a core layer having fluidity , moving through a gap of the skin layer toward an end portion 90 a of the cavity 90 . the amount of the polyolefin resin 120 injected first is preferably adjusted so that the proximal end 10 a of the barrel 10 to the proximal end 30 a of the gasket 30 is eventually filled , as shown in fig1 ( a ). the reason is that the intermediate layer 17 does not necessarily have to be formed in the direction of the proximal end 10 a of the barrel 10 from the proximal end 30 a of the gasket 30 . after injecting a specific amount of the resin excelling in barrier property 120 , the polyolefin resin 120 is injected again as shown in fig5 ( c ). by pushing off an inner nozzle 131 of the second injection unit 130 toward the direction of the gate 100 as shown in fig6 ( a ), the injection unit 170 and the luer tip surface 11 b are separated as shown in fig6 ( b ), thereby producing a barrel for a prefilled syringe used in the present invention . the polyolefin resin injection of a specific amount in advance may be stopped after injecting the specific amount , or the injection of the resin excelling in barrier property may be started without stopping the injection as described , for example , in u . s . pat . no . 4 , 535 , 901 which is incorporated herein by reference . a tip 131 a of the inner nozzle 131 is preferably pushed off to come closely into contact with the luer tip surface 11 b . the reason is that by doing so , an unnecessary runner does not remain in the luer tip surface 11 b , so that adjustment of dimensional accuracy of the luer tip surface 11 b is not required after injection molding . further , as shown in fig7 , a valve pin 181 provided inside a valve gate 180 may be pushed off toward the direction of the luer tip surface 11 b instead of pushing off the inner nozzle 131 . the pushing off step of the inner nozzle 131 or the valve pin 181 is preferably conducted after the luer tip surface 11 b is coated with the polyolefin resin 120 as shown in fig5 ( c ). the reason is that , as described before , the intermediate layer 17 composed of a resin excelling in barrier property 140 must not be exposed at the luer tip surface 11 b . when pushing off of the inner nozzle 131 or the valve pin 181 is not conducted , a runner is formed at the luer tip surface 11 b . the runner may be cut off after taking the barrel out from the mold . next , another production method of a barrel for a prefilled syringe of the present invention is described . as shown in fig8 ( a ), the polyolefin resin 120 is first injected from a gate 190 , provided at a position corresponding to the center of the luer tip surface of the barrel , into a cavity 210 using a first injection unit 200 . then , as shown in fig8 ( b ), after injecting a specific amount of the polyolefin resin 120 , the resin excelling in barrier property 140 is injected into the cavity 210 using a second injection unit 220 . the polyolefin resin 120 which is injected first is cooled at the wall surfaces of cavity mold 230 and core mold 240 to form a skin layer . the resin excelling in barrier property 140 becomes a core layer having fluidity and moves through the space toward the direction of an end 210 a of the cavity 210 to eventually reach the state shown in fig8 ( c ). the resin excelling in barrier property 140 does not have to fill the portion inside the luer tip 61 . the reason is that the luer tip 61 is sealed with the cap 20 or the like , so the cap 20 or the like provides a barrier property to the luer tip portion 61 . the amount of the polyolefin injected first is preferably adjusted so that the proximal end 10 a of the barrel to the distal end 30 a which is the expected insertion position of the gasket 30 is filled as described with reference to fig1 . after injecting a specific amount of the resin excelling in barrier property 140 , the injection of the resin 140 is stopped . after taking out the molded product from the mold , an unnecessary runner is removed , thereby producing the prefilled syringe barrel of the present invention . the injection of the polyolefin resin in a specific amount in advance may be stopped after injecting the specific amount , or the injection of the resin excelling in barrier property may be started without stopping the injection . further , if it is not desired to leave an unnecessary runner at the gate , a method using the inner nozzle or the valve gate and the valve pin , as shown in fig6 or fig7 , can be used . the gate can be provided at an arbitrary position of the barrel tip surface . however , when providing the gate in a position eccentric from the center of the tip surface , a weld line appears on the cylindrical wall of the barrel located symmetric to the central axis of the gate and the barrel . this creates a risk that the intermediate layer is not formed because the second resin does not pervade through the weld line . therefore , it is preferable to provide the gate at the center of the tip surface of the barrel by decentering the position of the luer tip when not providing a gate at the luer tip surface . further , to produce a multilayer structure having two or more layers of an intermediate layer of the barrel for a prefilled syringe of the present invention , the number of injection units may be increased to inject the successive resin after stopping the injection of the prior resin as the first resin , second resin , third resin , and so on . alternatively , timing of the start of the injection inside the cavity may be sequentially adjusted . as described above , according to the present invention , a gas barrier property and a water vapor barrier property can be imparted to a barrel for a prefilled syringe solely through a step of injecting a resin into a single mold . in other words , a gas barrier property , a water vapor barrier property , and a thermal resistance property can be easily imparted with about the same effort and time as a general production method for a syringe . in addition , an adhesive or a bonding layer does not have to be provided , and a portion in contact with a medication is totally coated with the polyolefin resin . therefore , a risk of interaction of the medication with the barrel or elution of resin used for the barrel during sterilization or storage is low , and safety is extremely high . further , a container itself has a barrier property , so external packaging material becomes unnecessary , contributing to a savings in resources as well as a savings in storage space , and thereby being convenient for carrying . | 1 |
the basic constitution of the decomposition - treatment apparatus of the present invention is explained by reference to fig2 . fig2 illustrates decomposition - treatment apparatus 1 for decomposing a pollutant in soil such as organic chlorine compounds like trichloroethylene . the apparatus comprises main decomposition - treatment unit 1 a , secondary decomposition - treatment unit 1 b , and pollutant - feeding means 1 c . pollutant - feeding means 1 c comprises a pipeline and a sucking device for sucking the pollutant from the polluted soil 5 through sucking well 6 placed in the soil and feeding the pollutant to main decomposition - treatment unit 1 a . numeral 2 indicates schematically a pollutant gathered by suction by sucking well 6 . main decomposition - treatment unit 1 a conducts primary decomposition treatment step involving a primary decomposition reaction as a basic decomposition reaction of the pollutant to form a decomposition product . ( hereinafter the decomposition product produced by the primary decomposition - treatment step is referred to as “ primary decomposition product ”.) an example of the primary decomposition reaction is decomposition of pollutant gas by irradiation of light in a chlorine atmosphere . for example , to main decomposition - treatment unit 1 a comprised of a reaction vessel provided with a light - irradiating means , chlorine is fed from a chlorine cylinder to generate chlorine gas - containing air . the light irradiating means in this example may be a black - light fluorescence lamp not containing light with wavelength of 300 nm or shorter . in the case where light with wavelength of 254 nm is employed for the decomposition , the device for producing the chlorine gas - containing air may be omitted . an example of the primary decomposition product is a halogenated acetic acid produced by decomposition of trichloroethylene or the like , such as chloroacetic acid , dichloroacetic acid , and trichloroacetic acid . the primary decomposition product is discharged to secondary decomposition - treatment unit 1 b which is comprised of an absorbing means for an absorption step to trap the primary decomposition product and a decomposing means for decomposing the primary decomposition product . secondary decomposition - treatment unit 1 b conducts a secondary decomposition - treatment step comprising an absorption step and a secondary decomposition reaction to decompose the primary decomposition product . ( hereinafter the decomposition product produced by the second decomposition - treatment step is referred to as a “ secondary decomposition product ”.) the mode of the secondary decomposition - treatment step is not specially limited . in the second decomposition - treatment step , in most cases , the primary decomposition product is derived in a state of a gas or a mist of a gas - liquid dispersion . ( hereinafter , the gas or the . dispersion containing the primary decomposition product derived from main decomposition - treatment unit 1 a is referred to as a “ primary decomposition product - containing gas ”.) therefore , the absorbing means has usually constitution to absorb the gas by contact of the gas with a liquid . fig2 shows , as an example of the absorbing means , gas - liquid contact tower 4 ( hereinafter referred to as a “ scrubber ”) having packed bed 14 . the bottom of the scrubber constitutes a reservoir serving as the decomposing means . the liquid phase after contact with the primary decomposition product is accumulated in the reservoir , and the primary decomposition product absorbed is decomposed there . the second decomposition - treatment step is explained below taking the scrubber as an example of the absorbing - decomposing means . the primary decomposition product - containing gas in a state of a gas or mist which contains the primary decomposition product from main decomposition - treatment unit 1 a is introduced to scrubber 4 . the liquid phase in the scrubber is circulated by pump 9 , and is allowed to flow down from the upper part of the scrubber . the primary decomposition product - containing gas introduced into the scrubber is brought into contact with the down - flowing liquid phase mainly on the surface of the packing of packed bed 14 , whereby the primary decomposition product is transferred to the liquid phase . the liquid containing the absorbed primary decomposition product ( hereinafter referred to as a “ treatment liquid ”) flows down by gravity and is stored in the reservoir 10 at the bottom of scrubber 4 as shown by the symbol l in fig2 . the liquid phase is pumped up to the upper part of scrubber 4 by pump 9 , and allowed to flow down again through the packed bed to contact with the primary decomposition product - containing gas . with such circulation of the treatment liquid , the concentration of the primary decomposition product increases in the treatment liquid . in the case where chlorine is contained in the primary decomposition product - containing gas after the primary decomposition treatment of the pollutant , most portion of the chlorine is discharged from discharge outlet 3 at the top of scrubber 4 to a separate treatment process ( not shown in the drawing ) without remaining in the treatment liquid , after contact of the chlorine - containing phase with the treatment liquid in packed bed 14 , since the treatment liquid is also acidic . the separate treatment process includes absorption of the chlorine with an alkaline solution , and adsorption by active carbon . the primary decomposition product trapped by the absorbing means is subjected to a secondary decomposition reaction by a decomposition means . for effective processing in the secondary decomposition - treatment step , the secondary decomposition reaction is preferably conducted at a high concentration of the primary decomposition product in secondary decomposition - treatment unit 1 b . at the higher concentration , the decomposition reaction will proceed at a higher probability in a shorter time . for example , in conducting the secondary decomposition reaction by electrolysis , decomposing electrodes 7 a , 7 b are used for the reaction . in this case , the amount of the decomposition in a unit time at a constant electric current quantity depends on the concentration of the solution . that is , the higher the concentration of the treatment liquid , the larger is the decomposition rate of the primary decomposition product in a unit time . for increasing the concentration of the primary decomposition product in secondary decomposition - treatment unit 1 b , the treatment liquid is circulated to repeat the absorption step , as mentioned above . further , for conducting the secondary decomposition - treatment step steadily as a whole , the absorption step and the secondary decomposition reaction are controlled to keep the concentration of the primary decomposition product in secondary decomposition - treatment unit 1 b by adjusting the amount of absorption of the primary decomposition product in the secondary decomposition - treatment unit 1 b to be nearly equal to the amount of decomposition of the primary decomposition product decomposed in decomposition - treatment unit 1 b . this control is explained below by taking a secondary decomposition reaction in the secondary decomposition - treatment step by electrolysis in the scrubber . as described above , the amount of the primary decomposition product decomposable in a unit time is larger at the higher concentration of the primary decomposition product in the treatment liquid if the electric current quantity is constant . with increase of the primary decomposition product in the treatment liquid , whereby the amount of the decomposition increases , the concentration of the primary decomposition product in the treatment liquid decreases . thereby , the amount of the decomposition by electrolysis also decreases . however , an untreated primary decomposition product is newly fed , whereby the concentration of the primary decomposition product in the treatment liquid is increased , not being kept at a lower level . as the result , the amount of decomposition in a unit time is increased to decrease again the concentration of the primary decomposition product in the treatment liquid . the concentration of the primary decomposition product in the treatment liquid reaches a certain amount and keeps the certain amount , increasing and decreasing repeatedly as above described . in such a manner , the primary decomposition product is decomposed by the decomposing means in the amount equal to the primary decomposition product fed to scrubber 4 in a unit time . the certain amount of the concentration is kept higher at a less electric current in comparison with a case of a higher electric current level . thus the apparatus is driven in high efficiency . finally when polluted soil 5 has been decontaminated satisfactorily and the feed of the pollutant has ceased not to produce the primary decomposition product , treatment liquid l which contains an undecomposed primary - decomposition product at a high concentration remains in reservoir 10 of secondary decomposition - treatment unit 1 b . next , a basic constitution of an embodiment of the process and apparatus for decontaminating effectively polluted soils of plural areas of the present invention is explained by reference to fig1 . in fig1 the symbols s i − 1 , s i , and s i + 1 indicate respectively a site having polluted soil 5 , and the bold blank arrows indicate the order of the decontamination operation . naturally the number of the sites may be varied depending on the circumstances . in the respective sites , the decomposition treatment apparatuses 1 i − 1 , 1 i , and 1 i + 1 are installed . the decomposition treatment apparatuses respectively comprise main decomposition - treatment unit 1 a , secondary decomposition - treatment unit 1 b , and pollutant - feeding means 1 c . the same symbols are used as in fig2 . the soil of site s i − 1 is decontaminated in a manner described above by reference to fig2 . then in next site s i , the same treatment is started . for treating the product efficiently in a short time , treatment liquid l i − 1 remaining in the reservoir of secondary decomposition treatment unit 1 b of decomposition treatment apparatus 1 i − 1 is taken out after completion of the decontamination at site s i − 1 . this taking - out operation is explained by taking as an example the scrubber as secondary decomposition treatment unit lb . in one method of the taking - out operation , a valve is provided at the bottom of the scrubber , and the treatment liquid l i − 1 is discharged by opening the valve and is transferred into a plastic tank . in another method , a pipe branching from pump 9 is provided additionally , and the liquid is discharged through this pipe into a plastic tank . the decomposing means of the next decomposition - treatment apparatus may be provided with an openable hatch for introducing the stored liquid transported from the preceding site . in still another method , the decomposing means of the decomposition - treatment apparatus in the preceding site is sealed to be liquid - tight with the stored liquid kept contained therein , demounted from the main apparatus , and transported to the next site . otherwise the entire of the decomposition apparatus may be transported to the next site . the treatment liquid l i − 1 taken out is transported to site s i , and is used in secondary decomposition - treatment unit 1 b of decomposition - treatment apparatus 1 i from the start of the operation . this makes unnecessary , in the preceding site s i − 1 , the secondary decomposition reaction treatment of the primary decomposition product remaining in secondary decomposition treatment unit 1 b of decomposition - treatment unit 1 i − 1 . a large amount of energy and a long time can be saved which will be required if the secondary decomposition reaction treatment is conducted for entire of the remaining primary decomposition product in the preceding site s i − 1 . further , in the second decomposition - treatment step in apparatus 1 i , time and energy can be saved since the second decomposition - treatment step need not be started in the absence of the primary decomposition product in secondary decomposition - treatment unit 1 b . if the operation is started in the complete absence of the primary decomposition product in secondary decomposition - treatment unit 1 b of apparatus 1 i , the decomposition of the primary decomposition product should be started after the concentration of the primary decomposition product such as halogenated acetic acid formed by decomposition of the pollutant like trichloroethylene has reached a prescribed level . this causes waste of time for the waiting . according to the present invention , the primary decomposition product produced by a pollutant decomposition - treatment step and remaining undecomposed in the secondary decomposition step in one site need not be entirely decomposed at that site , whereby time and energy therefore are saved ; and further by using the remaining primary decomposition product in another site , the waiting time in the decomposition of the primary decomposition product is saved . therefore , the decomposition can be conducted effectively in a short time . after completion of the treatment in site s i , the treatment liquid l i containing the primary decomposition product is transported from site s i to next site s i + 1 , similarly as the transport from s i − 1 , to s i , and is introduced into secondary decomposition - treatment unit 1 b of apparatus 1 i + 1 for the treatment . when the treatment in s i + 1 has been completed , the treatment liquid l i + 1 is remaining in the reservoir of apparatus 1 i + 1 . this process is allowed proceed successively as shown in fig1 . in other words , in a preceding site , the operation is conducted at a high concentration for the highest decomposition efficiency and the decomposition product is not entirely treated but partly kept untreated , and the untreated remaining decomposition product is transported to a next site . in the next site , the decomposition product is subjected to decomposition at a high concentration for the highest efficiency from the start of the operation . such a treatment system improves the treatment efficiency as a whole . in such a manner , according to the present invention , the solution containing a primary decomposition product formed at a site is transported to another site to be decomposed further , whereby the additional operation can be omitted at the respective sites and the decomposition treatment can be conducted efficiently in a short time . example of the present invention is described below . in example below , the decomposition of the primary decomposition product is continued until completion of decontamination treatment of soil . however , with progress of the soil decontamination with lapse of time , the amount of the sucked pollutant decreases gradually toward the end of the soil decontamination treatment , and the concentration of the soil - pollutant in the pollutant - containing air decreases , resulting in decrease of the produced amount of the primary decomposition product . therefore , in the final stage of the soil decontamination treatment , the secondary decomposition reaction treatment of the primary decomposition product may be interrupted , and the cycling liquid at a high concentration may be recovered and brought to the next soil remediation site . accordingly , the last stage of the primary decomposition - treatment step and that of the secondary decomposition - treatment step need not be finished simultaneously . the secondary decomposition - treatment step is preferably stopped before the last stage of the primary decomposition - treatment step . thus the secondary decomposition - treatment step is discontinued in the final stage where the primary decomposition product is produced in a very low rate . thereby the concentration of the primary decomposition product in the liquid transported to another treatment site is not decreased unnecessarily , and in the next site , the decomposition of the primary decomposition product at a high concentration can be conducted at a high efficiency after transport to the site . decomposition - treatment apparatus 1 shown in fig2 was installed in site s 1 . from soil polluted by organic chlorine compounds , the pollutants were sucked by means of a vacuum sucking pump , and the pollutant - containing gas was introduced into a reaction vessel at a rate of 1 m 3 / min ( residence time : 30 seconds ) . the pollutant and the concentration thereof in the pollutant - containing gas were : trichloroethylene : 5 to 20 ppmv , and tetrachloroethylene : 5 to 30 ppmv . chlorine was fed from a chlorine cylinder to keep the chlorine concentration in the reaction vessel at 50 ppmv . in this example , the pollutant - containing gas was irradiated from outside the reaction vessel with 16 commercial black - light fluorescent lamps ( toshiba ; fl40s blb ) not emitting light with wavelength of 300 nm or shorter as the light irradiating means . the side wall of the reaction vessel is formed from a fluoro - plastic film , and had been confirmed to transmit the light with wavelength of not less than 300 nm . in scrubber 4 comprised in secondary decomposition - treatment unit 1 b , about 70 liters of city water was stored and was circulated by pump 9 . the primary decomposition product - containing gas was continuously introduced from the reaction vessel to the scrubber . the halogenated acetic acid , the primary decomposition product , was absorbed by the circulating liquid phase in packed bed 14 comprised of a packing . the absorbed halogenated acetic acid was decomposed by electrolysis by application of electric current of 15 a at 3 . 0 v to electrodes provided in reservoir 10 , by adjusting the electric current in comparison with the state of a larger electric current . after start of operation of apparatus 1 , the concentrations of trichloroethylene and tetrachloroethylene in the primary decomposition product - containing gas discharged from the reaction vessel were monitored by sampling periodically with a gas - tight syringe and determining the compounds with a gas chromatography apparatus ( gc - 14b ( with an fid detector ), manufactured by shimadzu corp . ), column : db - 624 , produced by j & amp ; w co .). the both compounds were not detected throughout the operation . after 5 months of the operation , the concentration of the halogenated acetic acid in the stored liquid was maintained at about 0 . 6 %. little amount of the pollutant - containing gas was detected in the gas sucked from the soil . this showed the completion of the soil decontamination . thus the operation in this site was finished . the stored liquid remaining in scrubber 4 was taken out . subsequently , decomposition - treatment apparatus 1 which was the same as that employed in the preceding site s 1 was installed at site s 2 having another polluted soil 5 polluted with organic chlorine compounds . from the polluted soil , the pollutant was sucked by means of a vacuum sucking pump , and the pollutant - containing gas was introduced into a reaction vessel at a rate of 1 m 3 / min ( residence time : 30 seconds ). the pollutant and the concentration thereof in the pollutant - containing gas were : trichloroethylene : 30 to 50 ppmv , and tetrachloroethylene : 20 to 40 ppmv . chlorine was fed from a chlorine cylinder to keep the chlorine concentration in the reaction vessel at 50 ppmv . the pollutant - containing gas was irradiated from outside the reaction vessel with 16 commercial black - light fluorescent lamps ( toshiba ; fl40s blb ). into scrubber 4 , was introduced the stored liquid taken out from apparatus 1 installed at site s 1 containing halogenated acetic acid at a concentration of 0 . 6 %, and city water was filled thereto to the volume of about 70 liters . this solution was circulated in the scrubber by pump 9 . the primary decomposition product - containing gas was continuously introduced from the reaction vessel into the scrubber , and the electrolysis was conducted in the same manner as conducted at site s 1 . the soil was decontaminated without a problem , and the primary decomposition product was steadily decomposed . after start of operation of apparatus 2 , the concentrations of trichloroethylene and tetrachloroethylene in the primary decomposition product - containing gas discharged from the reaction vessel were monitored by sampling periodically with a gas - tight syringe and determining the compounds with a gas chromatography apparatus ( gc - 14b ( with an fid detector ), manufactured by shimadzu corp . ), column : db - 624 , produced by j & amp ; w co .). the both compounds were not detected throughout the operation . after 6 months of the operation , the concentration of the halogenated acetic acid in the storage liquid was found to be maintained at about 0 . 7 %. little amount of the pollutant - containing gas was detected in the gas sucked from the soil , which showed the completion of the soil decontamination . thus the operation in this site was finished . | 2 |
referring now to fig1 a known fluent product dispensing apparatus is illustrated generally at 10 . the apparatus 10 is particularly suitable for the two - handed dispensing of a fluent product , such as an expandable foam that is formed by the reaction between two different reactive components . the fluent products dispensed by the apparatus 10 are typically urethane and other expandable foams . urethane foams in particular , are known for their compatibility with low - cost blowing agents that permit such foams to be applied by way of pressurized containers . the natural adhesive qualities of these foams also allow them to bond excellently to any number of substrates . typically , such urethane foams are the reaction product of two different and individual components , one typically being a foaming agent and the other typically being a resin . when reacted together , these components give the resultant foam various chemical compositions , with each such composition having significant utility in a particular application . these foams , and particularly urethane foams may be specially formulated to provide a final foam which is rigid , flexible , semi - rigid or the like . the foams produced may also be either open cell or closed cell in structure , with the former having particular utility in packaging and non - insulating applications and with the latter having particular utility in building and structural insulation applications . the reactive components for urethane foams typically include a foaming agent and a resin , each such component being separately contained within a respective foam component supply container 12 , 14 . a dispenser is provided to dispense the foam and it is connected to the foam component supply containers by way of tubes or other conduits , such as the hoses 16 illustrated . the hoses 16 serve to convey each from component to dispenser 18 where they are mixed together , preferably in a disposable nozzle body portion 20 of the dispenser 18 , prior to exiting the dispenser 18 under pressure through a nozzle opening 22 . the supply containers 12 , 14 and the other components may be enclosed within a carton 24 that may have a handle 26 or the like formed thereon that facilitates the handling of the overall apparatus 10 . the hoses 16 exit the carton 24 through an opening ( not shown ) and connect to the dispenser 18 . as mentioned above , problems arise with the use of such dispensing apparatus in that the foam components have a range of optimum temperatures for application . although the carton 24 or the containers 12 , 14 themselves may contain directions as to the proper application temperature for the components , many users have no idea when the components are at their proper application temperature . users may grow impatient with a need to acclimatize the components . the present invention provides a solution to this problem , by providing a unique temperature indicating means . such indicating means are shown in fig2 a through 2c . fig2 a illustrates one such indicating means 50 that comprises a flat strip having a front face 51 and an opposing rear face 52 that preferably supports a layer of adhesive ( not shown ). the front face 51 of the indicator 50 has a series of temperature markings in the form of numerals 53 disposed thereon in ascending order , and each such numeral corresponds to a particular temperature . these temperature numerals 53 may be separated , as shown , at a chosen point by a line of demarcation 54 that divides the temperature range into two portions 55 , 56 . the first of these two portions 55 may include temperatures that are equal to or are above the minimum application temperature for the foam components and thus indicate to the user that the foam components may be properly reacted and dispensed as a foam . the second of these two portions 56 may include temperatures that are below the minimum application temperature for the foam components and thus indicate to the user that the foam components , if reacted , shall not dispense a foam with expected quality and yields . it will be understood that at such temperatures , foam application may still occur , but at lower yields and quality . additional markings 57 , 58 may be included as part of the visual indicia that indicate , in the form of text , such as by “ spray zone ” 57 and “ too cold ” 58 , the proper and improper dispensing temperatures . fig2 b illustrates another style of temperature indicator 60 that is also easily affixed , by way of an adhesive backing ( not shown ) to a foam component supply container . in this style indicator 60 , the visual indicia 61 is arranged at the line of demarcation 62 and indicates the temperature range in numerals 63 in both the fahrenheit and celsius temperature scales 64 , 65 . the range of proper foam components dispensing temperatures may be bracketed by markings , shown as bars 66 , of a contrasting color . fig2 c illustrates yet another style of temperature indicator 70 , also with an adhesive backing ( not shown ) that may be fixed to a foam component supply container . this style indicator has only minimum visual indicia , that indicate only the threshold application temperature 71 and line of demarcation 72 on that front face 73 of the indicator 70 . in all of the aforementioned indicators , 50 , 60 , 70 , a layer having a liquid crystal display ( lcd ) is incorporated into the indicator . as is known in the art , this lcd type material is a compound that produces a visible color change in response to a temperature activation . when activated , the temperature sensitive substance emits or reflects visible light radiation to indicate temperature . the color sequence of normal temperature activation may be structured to present tan , red , green , blue and ultraviolet . the colors may be filtered to obtain a desired color sequence . alternatively , a thermochromic strip may also be employed that is tailored to respond by color change along its length in a predetermined fashion in response to temperature changes . the lcd material on the temperature indicator that is in contact with the exterior surface of the supply containers 81 , 82 may possess the ability to change from among many different preselected colors to indicate the temperature of the material in contact with it , i . e ., the contents of the supply containers 81 , 82 . for example , it may adopt a green color where the temperature of the component is exactly the temperature shown by the number on the indicator , and it may also adopt , for example , a tan color where the temperature range of the supply component is above the actual temperature . it will be understood that such temperature indicators of the invention may not utilize the line of demarcation and may only utilize a single temperature marking such as the proper application temperature , a text marking such as “ good ” or the like . referring now to fig3 and 4 , one embodiment of an improved foam dispensing apparatus 80 constructed in accordance with the principles of the present invention is shown . the apparatus 80 is particularly suitable for the two - handed dispensing of multi - component fluent materials , such as polyurethane foams and the like . the apparatus 80 includes a pair of distinct , vertically arranged foam supply canisters 81 , 82 which contain the foam supply components which , when mixed and reacted together form a foam . these separate containers 81 , 81 store the liquid foam components of the foam , preferably in a pressurized state , one of the two components typically being an isocyanate component and the other component typically being a liquid resin solution . in this embodiment , the foam component supply containers 81 , 82 are held by a carrier , in the form of a carton 100 in an inverted orientation , and each supply container 81 , 82 may include a valve 83 , 84 operatively associated therewith for releasing the reactive components out of the supply containers 81 , 82 under pressure . the supply containers 81 , 82 may be interconnected together near their valves 83 , 84 by a yoke 85 that maintains the position of the supply containers 81 , 82 in the carton 100 . two supply hoses , or tubes 86 , 87 attach to the supply container valves 83 , 84 and exit from the carton 80 through an opening ( not shown ) to mate with a dispenser 90 . the dispenser 90 shown takes the form of a gun - style dispenser having a handle 91 with an actuatable trigger 92 that opens two ports to permit the reactive components to pass into a barrel portion 93 that includes a hollow mixing chamber ( not shown ). the dispenser 90 also typically includes either a fixed or replaceable dispensing nozzle 94 with a dispensing tip 95 . the temperature indicators 50 may be adhesively affixed to the exterior surfaces 101 of one or both of the supply containers 81 , 82 . in order to facilitate the reading of the visual indicia of the temperature indicator 50 , the carton 100 may be provided with one or more windows 102 formed in a sidewall 103 thereof . the carton 100 may also include a handle assembly 110 that protrudes through the top of the carton 100 so that carton may be held by a user with one hand , while the dispenser 90 may be held with the other hand . each window 102 is preferably slightly larger in size than the indicator ( s ) 50 so that a user may easily read all of the visual indicia on the temperature indicator 50 . the window may also be of a larger size than shown to permit viewing from the exterior of the carton 100 of the supply containers 81 , 82 , their valves 83 , 84 and other components of the apparatus 80 . whereas the supply containers 81 , 82 of the embodiment illustrated in fig3 and 4 are shown in an inverted orientation , they may also be held in an upright orientation , as illustrated by the second embodiment of an apparatus 200 illustrated in fig5 . in this embodiment , the apparatus 200 includes a carrier 220 that includes a yoke member 201 that holds the two supply containers 202 , 203 together in an upright orientation and a handle assembly 221 that is connected to the yoke member 201 . two supply tubes 204 lead from valves 206 , 207 of the containers to a detachable dispenser 208 , having a replaceable dispensing nozzle 210 and a cam actuator 211 that may be manipulated by a user &# 39 ; s finger . more details on the construction of this type structure may be found in u . s . pat . no . 5 , 344 , 051 , owned by the assignee of the present invention , and the disclosure of which is hereby incorporated herein by reference . one or more of the supply containers 202 , 203 may have a temperature indicator 50 applied to their exterior surface . a third embodiment of a dispensing apparatus 300 constructed in accordance with the present invention is illustrated in fig6 . in this apparatus 300 , the two supply containers 301 , 302 are held in an upright position by means of a carrier 303 having a handle portion 320 , and the dispenser 305 takes the form of a hand - held gun dispenser , similar to that shown in fig3 and 4 . two supply tubes 309 , 310 lead from the supply containers 301 , 302 to the dispenser 305 . the carrier 303 that holds the supply containers 301 , 302 in place may have a shoulder strap 310 that permits a user to sling the dispenser over his shoulder during use . temperature indicators are located on the exterior surface of the supply containers 301 , 302 . although described above in terms of two container assemblies , it will be understood that the present invention also finds application in association with a single reactive foam component supply container , regardless of the size of the container . in this instance , the indicator is also affixed to the exterior of the supply container as shown in any of the figures and will indicate to a user whether or not the foam component , when used , shall meet the user &# 39 ; s expectations . such a single supply container may be incorporated with a carrier assembly for a dispensing apparatus as shown , or the supply container may be one that can be used later with such a dispensing apparatus . while the preferred embodiments of the invention have been shown and described , it will be apparent to those skilled in the art that the embodiments are merely illustrative of some applications of the principles of the present invention and that changes and modifications may be made therein without departing from the spirit of the invention , the scope of which is defined by the appended claims . | 1 |
with reference to fig1 there is illustrated a portion of a thermal printer &# 39 ; s drive system . a roll 106 of receiver 105 is fed through a thermal printer 100 as shown by the receiver advancing past thermal print head 101 , as fed by thermal roller 102 , pinch roller 104 and capstan roller 103 . dye donor web 109 ( partially illustrated ) is applied onto the receiver in predetermined patterns , as is well known in the art . the receiver is iteratively reversed and printed during several color applications of the dye donor web in the predetermined patterns . tension in approximate region 107 relative to approximate region 108 affect an ability of the capstan and pinch rollers to effectively control movement of the receiver therethrough . a preferred embodiment of the present invention comprises a less aggressive capstan roller 103 design , as is illustrated in fig4 a - b wherein a knurled pattern provides a spike free configuration that does not perforate a surface of receiver 105 as would the spiked configuration of the capstan roller shown in fig3 a - b . together with a softer pinch roller 104 , impression marks are not formed in the thermal receiver as it passes between capstan and pinch rollers 103 , 104 . to compensate for the less aggressive grip on the receiver , a tension differential across the capstan in approximate regions 107 and 108 is decreased . by increasing tension in the receiver on the roll side of the capstan 108 during printing , an acceptable color to color image registration is produced . this increase in the tension in approximate area 108 reduces the tension differential across capstan roller 103 . referring to fig2 , control of the tension in approximate region 208 of the receiver can be achieved by providing a properly sized clutch ( torque limiter ) on the output of the drive motor for receiver roll 206 ( not shown ). the clutch control can be used to adjust tension in the receiver in approximate region 208 . an alternative method for controlling the tension in approximate region 208 of the receiver includes adding rollers 210 which would likewise be driven by a motor with a properly sized clutch on its output . this would reduce the length of controlled tension approximate region 208 to that approximate portion indicated by the dashed line bracket 208 a . in a preferred embodiment , roll 206 or rollers 210 would feed receiver 205 faster than the capstan , thus causing the clutch to slip and maintain a constant torque , during a forward feed printing phase of printer 100 and reverse feed the receiver slower than the capstan , again causing the clutch to slip and maintain a constant torque during its rewind phase . both of these adjustments , one each for forward feed and for reverse feed , increase tension in the receiver in approximate region 208 . the capstan 203 uses a straight knurl pattern with ridges running along the length of the roller parallel to its axis of rotation as shown in fig4 a - b . the ridges are disposed at a frequency of 10 to 30 ridges / cm at a depth of at least 10 microns . the pinch roller is composed of a steel shaft covered with an elastomeric material with a shore - a durometer ranging from 20 to 60 , with a 50 micron teflon sleeve covering the elastomer . this preferred embodiment is a softer and thinner version of conventional elastomer roller covers . a softer pinch roller aids in eliminating marks in the receiver but often results in more slippage of the receiver due to lower traction . controlling tension in the receiver on both sides of the capstan roller can reduce or eliminate slippage . the tension of the receiver between the receiver roll and the capstan , approximate region 108 , produced during printing should be more than about 50 % of the tension existing between the capstan and the thermal print head , approximate region 107 . this percentage is higher than the unregulated tension commonly existing in thermal printers . the clutched motor , either used for roll 206 or for rollers 210 , or both , is designed to provide a predesigned load , which controls an amount of tension applied to the receiver at approximate region 108 . manual trial and error clutch adjustment can be fine tuned by monitoring performance of the printer , then manually leaving the clutch set at the desired adjustment point . this procedure can be undertaken during the design phase to establish a factory setting . depending on the design of the printer , characteristics such as thermal head drag and capstan traction might require more or less tension between the receiver roll and the capstan to achieve proper image registration . the receiver roll diameter ranges from about 7 inches diameter when full to about 3 . 5 inches when depleted for the spool diameter , which should be compensated by controlling motor speed and torque during depletion of the receiver media . in an eight inch printer width , a full roll weighs approximately 5 - 6 pounds . if the clutch is driving the paper roll , the rpm of the motor output must be determined based on the smallest possible roll diameter during the printing cycle and on the largest possible diameter during the rewind cycle to insure that the clutch slips and maintains tension properly . if the clutch is driving a second pair of rollers , for example , the alternate rollers 210 , the roll diameter is not a concern . the clutch operates by attaching part of it to the shaft and another concentric part attached to a drive component such as a gear or pulley . these two parts of the clutch are coupled to each other only by friction which produces a limited amount of torque when slippage of one half relative to the other occurs . typically , this friction coupling is adjustable for controlling an amount of mechanically transmitted torque . to determine a value of the torque that the clutch must transmit to the receiver to achieve accurate registration , the torque can be varied in a stepwise fashion until the color to color registration is within specification . some possible ways to vary the torque to determine an acceptable value are to use an adjustable clutch , a series of fixed - value clutches or a pulley and weight system attached to the paper roll . this same technique can be used whether the clutch is driving the paper roll or a second pair of rollers . the precision of the tension control will depend on the gripping capability of the capstan roller . the less the gripping capability , the more tension control is required . other more precise methods of controlling tension include ( 1 ) the use of a three - roll cluster , the middle roller being a “ dancer ” roller which has a wrap angle of approximately 180 ° and exerts a constant force on the web ( receiver ); and ( 2 ) using a closed - loop system in which a tension sensor feeds back a signal to a dc motor which drives either the receiver roll 206 or the second pair of rollers 210 . with reference to fig5 , experimental testing measured in - track registration , i . e . same direction as receiver movement through the printer , with resulting data points as shown in this figure . testing procedures used straight knurl capstan roller 502 , as described above , varying pinch roller hardness modifications 503 , different pinch roller pressure modifications as applied with pinch roller springs 504 , and different print head load pressure modifications 505 , also applied via springs . there is a data point for each of these different print head load pressure modifications 505 shown in the graph , which tests were repeated using the different pinch roller modifications and pinch roller pressure modifications as shown . horizontal baseline 501 line indicates a preferred minimum in - track performance of about − 6 thousandths of an inch . to illustrate the scale of the graph shown relative to this − 6 performance , the data point at head load spring 505 value 3 . 2 , pinch roller spring 504 value 3 . 8 , and pinch roller 503 value 40 shore a durometer , shows an in - track performance of approximately − 18 thousandths of an inch . with reference to fig6 , experimental testing measured cross - track registration , i . e . perpendicular to in - track registration , with resulting data points as shown in this figure . testing procedures used straight knurl capstan roller 602 , as described above , varying pinch roller hardness modifications 603 , different pinch roller pressure modifications as applied with pinch roller springs 604 , and different print head load pressure modifications 605 , also applied via springs . there is a data point for each of these different print head load pressure modifications 605 shown in the graph , most of which tests were repeated using the different pinch roller modifications and pinch roller pressure modifications as shown . horizontal baselines 601 , 606 indicate a preferred performance window between + 6 thousandths of an inch 601 and − 6 thousandths of an inch 606 , with zero cross - track error indicated by dotted line 607 . the two performances closest to zero cross - track error indicated in this figure was achieved with pinch roller hardness of 40 shore a durometer , pinch roller spring tension ( measured in kgf ) of 4 . 9 , and head load spring magnitude ( also measured in kgf ) 2 . 8 and 3 . 2 . with reference to fig7 , experimental testing measured impression marks in the receiver caused by the capstan 702 , with resulting data points as shown in this figure . testing procedures used straight knurl capstan roller 702 , as described above , varying pinch roller hardness modifications 703 , different pinch roller pressure modifications as applied with pinch roller springs 704 , and different print head load pressure modifications 705 , also applied via springs . there is a data point for each of these different print head load pressure modifications 705 shown in the graph , most of which tests were repeated using the different pinch roller modifications and pinch roller pressure modifications as shown . horizontal baselines 701 indicate resulting performance . the lowest line indicates that the impression is invisible to the naked eye and requires a loop to be seen ; the second lowest horizontal line indicates an impression mark that can be seen by the naked eye but is not obvious . the remaining three horizontal lines indicate , in an upward progression , increasingly noticeable impression marks . performance having less noticeable impression marks is preferred . with reference to fig8 a and 8b , experimental testing measured in - track and cross - track registration , respectively , with varying tension applied to the receiver in region 108 , with resulting data points as shown in this figure . testing procedures were undertaken by measurably controlling the torque applied to roll 106 . horizontal baselines 801 , 802 indicate a preferred minimum in - track and cross - track performance of about − 6 thousandths of an inch . as is illustrated in fig8 a , in - track registration with zero error is achieved using approximately 7 newtons of added tension . cross - track registration , shown in 8 b , begins to deviate below the baseline with added tension of this magnitude . | 1 |
for the purposes of promoting an understanding of the principles of the invention , reference will now be made to the embodiments illustrated in the drawings and specific language will be used to describe the same . it will nevertheless be understood that no limitation of the scope of the invention is thereby intended , such alterations and further modifications in the illustrated devices , and such further applications of the principles of the invention as illustrated therein being contemplated as would normally occur to one skilled in the art to which the invention relates . referring now to fig1 , a block diagram for a telephone messaging device 10 according to the present invention is shown . messaging device 10 includes a microprocessor 12 or microcomputer having ram , rom , and i / o ( input / output ) that comprises the controller of device 10 . real time clock 14 provides date / time data to microprocessor 12 . real time clock 14 includes a battery backup feature so that a power loss does not result in loss of the correct date / time . a flash memory device 16 contains sufficient storage space for storing a large quantity of data . flash memory device 16 is contemplated as fully integrated or removable in design such as removable compact flash media cards used in current products such as digital cameras for storage of image files . such memory devices are now very reasonable in cost for as much as 64 megabytes of storage . audio circuitry 18 includes the necessary electronics such as a / d ( analog to digital ) and d / a ( digital to analog ) converters for microprocessor 12 to digitally reproduce audio on speaker 21 and record audio signals in digital form from microphone 23 . alternatively , the audio electronics in circuitry 18 may be comprised of codecs ( coder / decoders ) well known in the art of cellular phone technologies for efficient recording and playback of digitized audio . ( it is contemplated that a reduced cost version of device 10 may be produced without audio messaging capability thereby eliminating the need for audio components 18 , 21 and 23 ). a liquid crystal display ( lcd ) 20 receives signals from microprocessor 12 and responds by displaying graphical images on display 20 . lcd display 20 is a graphical electronic display device similar to those found in pda ( portable digital assistant ) devices . a touch sensitive display overlay 22 input device is positioned directly over display 20 and provides a mechanism for the user to input data to microprocessor 12 . touch sensitive display overlay 22 and related technologies are also found in pda devices such as the palm pilot ® pda . a computer interface 24 provides the mechanism for microprocessor 12 to communicate with external devices such as personal computers or pdas . computer interface 24 is preferably a usb ( universal serial bus ) or firewire ® ( ieee 1394 ) interface developed for use in inter - computer communications to provide a very fast communications link between intelligent devices . telephone caller id electronics 26 includes circuitry for detecting caller id data provided by a telephone company over the local telephone lines . caller id electronics 26 is connected to the telephone system wiring via cable 28 and provides caller id data to microprocessor 12 upon receipt of such information from the telephone company over cable 28 . a data communications interface 30 includes electronics for establishing communications with other telephone messaging devices identical to device 10 via data link 32 . the data communications interface 30 and data link 32 are implemented by use of technologies for sending and receiving data packets over existing power lines , telephone wiring , network cabling , or via radio frequency technologies such as wireless lan ( local area network ) technologies . such technologies are well known and one skilled in the art may readily implement any of the various communications technologies that do not require additional wiring be installed in a facility to establish communications between intelligent devices . it is also contemplated that standard networking protocols such as the tcp / ip suite of networking components are used to transmit and receive data over data link 32 . computer interface 24 is also an alternative mechanism by which alphanumeric data may be entered by the user of messaging device 10 . a computer program driver on a personal computer redirects keyboard input from the computer via interface 24 to messaging device 10 for data entry in the various textbox gui ( graphical user interface ) program objects described below . referring now to fig2 - 4 , a telephone messaging device 10 according to one aspect of the present invention is shown . messaging device 10 is contained within case 34 made from plastic or other suitable material . graphical display 20 is shown in fig2 with one display configuration or screen in accordance with the primary operating mode of device 10 . a touch sensitive overlay 22 ( that is transparent ) is positioned over display 20 and provides input signals to microprocessor 12 when stylus 36 is depressed on top of the overlay 22 . software mapping techniques are implemented to associate regions of the overlay with graphical program objects shown on display 20 . a pda operating system such as windows ce from microsoft corporation is contemplated as one potential gui solution for creation of the software and graphical programming objects discussed in relation to messaging device 10 . referring now to fig3 , a rear elevational view of messaging device 10 is shown . from this perspective , the external connections to device 10 are shown . in particular , a power connector 38 , a microphone jack 40 , a telephone system connector 42 , a usb interface connector 44 , a compact flash media card slot 46 , and a small grill area 48 behind which speaker 21 is positioned are all shown . referring now to fig4 , a front elevational view of the messaging device 10 is shown . this view depicts the slight inclination angle at which the display 20 is positioned so that it is more readily viewed by the user . it is contemplated that the angle of inclination of the display may vary over a wide range . referring back to fig2 , the various visual elements or gui objects displayed on display 20 will now be described . as in a pda , the underlying graphical elements shown are typical components of a gui ( graphical user interface ) well known in the computing industry . a recipient drop - down listbox 50 provides a mechanism for selecting those messaging devices that will receive a message data packet created by messaging device 10 . recipients may include individuals or groups of individuals . defining groups is discussed below . alternatively , listbox 50 is a “ multi - select ” type listbox allowing for selection of multiple entries in listbox 50 thereby enabling the selection of multiple individual recipients and / or multiple groups that will receive a particular message data packet . typically listbox 50 is populated with names of persons corresponding to messaging devices ( during setup a messaging device 10 is assigned a name corresponding to the person who will be using the device ) and group names . textbox 52 is provided for displaying caller id information received by microprocessor 12 via telephone caller id electronics 26 . textbox 54 displays user input information regarding the name of the telephone caller &# 39 ; s name . textbox 56 displays company name of the caller entered by the user . textbox 58 is a date / time text box that is automatically populated with date / time data when a telephone call is received ( microprocessor 12 becomes aware of a new telephone call when caller id electronics 26 provides caller id data to microprocessor 12 ). alternatively , textbox 58 displays the date / time of a current message being displayed by device 10 . upon detection of a telephone call microprocessor 12 obtains the current date / time from real time clock 14 and enters that data into textbox 58 . textbox 60 receives user input data regarding the caller &# 39 ; s telephone number if that number is different from that shown in textbox 52 . a plurality of checkboxes with corresponding descriptions are provided that enable the user with a single tap of stylus 36 on the checkbox or the text adjacent the checkbox to enable or disable the mark within the checkbox ( typically an “ x ”) in the corresponding checkbox . these checkboxes include a fax checkbox 62 , a mobile checkbox 64 , and checkboxes corresponding to a plurality of predefined messages including phoned checkbox 66 , returned your call checkbox 68 , please call checkbox 70 , will call again checkbox 72 , came to see you checkbox 74 and wants to see you checkbox 76 . a message area 78 provides region of the display 20 wherein a custom handwritten message may be entered by the user regarding the telephone call . information entered into the message area 78 includes additional information useful to the recipient of the message regarding the telephone caller &# 39 ; s purpose or business . message data is entered in message area 78 by printing or writing on the area with stylus 36 or tapping the display keyboard pushbutton 80 . printed or handwritten messages are converted to a digital data format and the data is compressed for efficiency in storing the data to memory device 16 . a variety of compressed digital graphical image formats such as jpeg ( named after the group joint photographic experts group that developed the file format ), gif ( graphs interchange format ) and tiff ( tagged image file format ) are well known and used for compressing and storing graphical images such as the data input from touch sensitive display overlay 22 that defines handwritten messages in the present invention . handwriting recognition software is optionally included to transform the handwritten message into alphanumeric data . handwriting to ascii conversion software is well known in the art . tapping pushbutton 80 causes an alphanumeric data entry screen to appear on display 20 as shown in fig7 . tapping clear pushbutton 83 will clear or erase handwriting or typed data entered into message area 78 . a plurality of graphical pushbuttons ( gui visual program objects ) are provided to activate various functional actions provided by messaging device 10 . up arrow pushbutton 82 and down arrow pushbutton 84 provide message navigation forward and backward in the current message list stored by microprocessor 12 and displayable on display 20 . similarly the home pushbutton 86 and the end pushbutton 88 enable rapid movement to the first or last message available for display , respectively . clr pushbutton 90 instructs microprocessor 12 to clear the display of all data in preparation for entering new data or for protecting the data from view by others . del pushbutton 92 instructs microprocessor 12 to delete the currently displayed message from memory . sched pushbutton 94 , corresponding to the word “ schedule ”, signals microprocessor 12 to display a reminder data input screen where the user enters date / time and message data instructing microprocessor 12 in regard to a future date / time wherein a reminder message is displayed . save pushbutton 96 causes microprocessor 12 to save the message data packet for the currently displayed message into another area of permanent flash memory 16 . audio pushbutton 98 , when tapped by a stylus , instructs microprocessor 12 to display an audio playback / record screen and command buttons as shown in fig9 . secure pushbutton 100 instructs microprocessor 12 to enable a password security feature for the currently displayed message . upon tapping pushbutton 100 , the user is prompted to enter an alphanumeric password for the currently displayed message , and future attempts to redisplay that same message require the user to input the correct password before the message may be viewed . send pushbutton 102 instructs microprocessor 12 to assemble a message data packet including caller id data from textbox 52 , name data from textbox 54 , company name data from textbox 56 , date / time data from textbox 58 , additional telephone number data from textbox 60 , checkbox data settings for predefined messages in checkboxes 62 - 76 , and data entered into message area 78 and send the assembled message data packet to the messaging device identified in the “ for ” dropdown listbox 50 . menu pushbutton 104 instructs microprocessor 12 to display the menu command screen shown in fig6 on display 20 . the receipt of new messages is indicated by new message textbox 65 . data in textbox 65 is altered to indicate the quantity of new messages received . further , an audible brief beep sound is generated by microprocessor 12 via audio circuitry 18 and speaker 21 when a new message data packet is received via datalink 32 . as new message are viewed , the data in textbox 65 is altered by microprocessor 12 to indicate how many messages remain to be viewed . audio messages may be recorded and attached to a message data packet or message record . when audio data is present in a message record , and that message is displayed that has an audio data record component , an audio indicator 81 resembling a speaker icon is shown on display 20 . other audio message attachment indicators such as an audible beep ( a two tone beep serves to distinguish an audio attachment from a single beep corresponding to a new message received ), flashing display indicators or a text message indicating an audio data component for the present message record are also contemplated . it is also contemplated that audio messages are automatically reproduced on speaker 21 when a message data packet or record having an audio data component is displayed by the user of device 10 . operationally speaking , messaging device 10 will be described in accordance with the example message data shown in fig5 . in fig5 , the current message has been designated “ for ” james smith as the recipient in accordance with the user selection thereof in listbox 50 . in reality , this the selection of james smith is a selection of the telephone messaging device used by james smith and the name corresponds to a unit logical identifier or network address used in transmitting data to devices connected to datalink 32 . caller id data is displayed automatically in textbox 52 in response to a telephone call detected by microprocessor 12 receiving data from caller id electronics 26 . the caller &# 39 ; s name is entered by the user in textbox 54 ( if different from the name appearing in the caller id textbox 52 ) and the caller &# 39 ; s company name is entered in textbox 56 if different from the caller id data . current date / time of the call is recorded automatically by microprocessor 12 in textbox 58 . in the event the caller &# 39 ; s telephone number differs from that shown in caller id textbox 52 , another telephone number is entered in textbox 60 . as shown in the current example , checkboxes 66 , 70 and 76 includes an “ x ” therein indicating the user has selected those predefined messages as they relate to the telephone call from joe salesman . a hand printed message is shown in message area 78 . when the message data packet defining all the data shown in the display screen of device 10 is transmitted to another telephone messaging device ( identical to device 10 ) pushbutton 106 with a label of “ activate reply mode ” is displayed or made active on the recipient device . when activated , pushbutton 106 causes microprocessor 12 to split the message area 78 into two distinct areas , with the area designated 78 a identified as the “ reply ” area . a hand printed , handwritten , or alphanumeric reply message is then entered at area 78 a by the recipient ( here james smith , identified in textbox 50 ). tapping clear pushbutton 85 will clear or erase handwriting or typed data entered into message area 78 a . the messaging device 10 in use by the originator of the message ( receptionist ) then receives command data from james smith &# 39 ; s messaging device to enter into a “ real time ” data transfer mode wherein the receptionist &# 39 ; s messaging device displays the reply message shown in fig5 in “ real time ”, that is , as data is entered by james smith at his messaging device in area 78 a . the message in area 78 a will simultaneously be displayed on the originators messaging device and the recipient &# 39 ; s messaging device in either graphical handwriting form or in the format of alphanumeric computer generated characters based on data entered via keyboard data entry . the “ real time ” reply mode provides a convenient mechanism for a person to immediately notify the sender of a message in regard to information that should be conveyed without delay . while the devices are in “ real time ” mode , the sender ( here the “ receptionist ”) may also enter additional data in the message area 78 and such input is immediately transmitted by microprocessor 12 to the second messaging device for immediate display . when the real time reply mode of operation is no longer needed , either party may activate pushbutton 107 to deactivate the reply mode and cease real time data exchange between the messaging devices . the real time data exchange mode is accomplished by microprocessor 12 continuously exchanging data between the two messaging devices via data communications interface electronics 30 and data link 32 . new messages textbox 65 now depicts that a new message has been received . various checkboxes 68 , 72 74 and pushbuttons 82 , 84 , 86 , 88 , 90 92 , 92 , 94 96 , 98 , 100 , 102 and 104 are also shown in fig5 . a person receiving a new message may desire to add further information to a received message on occasion , and the following describes the mechanism provided by device 10 for accomplishing such . upon receiving a message at the recipients messaging device , the user may write or print in the message area 78 or tap pushbutton 80 to display the keyboard data entry screen and append additional message information into message area 78 . microprocessor 12 appends keyboard or character data entered by the user below the existing message in area 78 . additional message information such as “ will send sample products ” or “ new source for product ” are examples of additional text information a user may enter into message area 78 . tapping the save pushbutton after entering additional text in message area 78 instructs microprocessor 12 to save in memory 16 the additional message data in area 78 with the original message data record for the current displayed message . referring now to fig6 , a menu display screen for messaging device 10 that is displayed in response to activation of menu pushbutton 104 is shown . in fig6 an array of pushbuttons corresponding to additional features or functionality provided by messaging device 10 are shown . search for name / number pushbutton 110 instructs microprocessor to display a search screen for previously saved or stored messages containing character strings . the search feature is described in detail below in association with fig8 . pushbutton 112 activates the audio record / playback screen shown in fig9 and described below . pushbutton 114 provides a mechanism for archiving data . activation of pushbutton 114 causes microprocessor 12 to transfer all message data records including message data packets , audio and reminder data packets to a removable compact flash memory card or to a personal computer via computer interface 24 . pushbutton 116 , when activated , instructs microprocessor 12 to display a list of messaging devices that have been detected via device queries transmitted over data link 32 . the user is then provided with a list of known messaging devices from which the user of messaging device 10 may create groups or special lists of messaging devices . the definition of groups enables the user to select a group as the recipient of a particular message and upon activation of the send pushbutton 102 , a message is transmitted to all messaging devices listed in the group definition . tapping pushbutton 118 signals microprocessor 12 to display “ saved ” message data packets . saved messages are distinct from new or recently viewed message data packets ( corresponding to entire messages ) in that they are stored separately for future reference . when displaying saved message data packets or records , messaging device 10 presents the data in a format shown in fig2 . it is contemplated that a variety of alternative formats are conceivable for displaying information to a user of device 10 . navigation pushbuttons 82 , 84 , 86 and 88 are used to navigate through the messages displayed . pushbutton 120 setup device , when activated , instructs microprocessor 12 to enter into a setup mode wherein the user enters a name for the messaging device ( which will be the identifier name that other messaging devices will know the device as ) and the date / time setup . other options available in the setup screen may include activation / deactivation of new message audio beeps . also provided in the menu screen is an exit pushbutton 121 . tapping exit pushbutton 121 causes messaging device 10 to return to a normal mode of operation as shown in fig2 or to mode of displaying message data packet information as in fig5 depending upon the display mode that was active prior to the activation of the menu pushbutton 104 . referring now to fig7 , a plurality of pushbuttons 122 are shown that correspond to a subset of the typical alphanumeric keys of a keyboard . alphanumeric data is entered by the user via this screen configuration . a single tap of the stylus 36 on a character pushbutton causes the corresponding letter / number / symbol to appear in textbox 124 . movement of the insertion point within textbox 124 is accomplished by the user tapping the cursor keys 126 . upon completion of entering the desired data , the user taps pushbutton 128 ( done ) to complete entry of the data . the user may clear all the data in textbox 124 by tapping pushbutton 130 ( clear ). the user may cancel the data entry mode by tapping the cancel pushbutton 132 . in all instances where the user may enter data into a textbox , it is contemplated that a simple stylus double - tap on any textbox discussed herein ( such as textboxes 54 , 56 , 58 and 60 as well as messaging area 78 ) activates the alphanumeric data entry screen of fig7 for data entry . referring now to fig8 , a search screen for messaging device 10 is shown . the search feature is activated when a user taps pushbutton 110 in the menu screen of fig6 . the search screen includes a textbox 134 wherein a search string is entered by the user . after entering the alphanumeric search string data in textbox 134 , the user taps pushbutton 136 ( search ) and microprocessor 12 searches data records for messages containing the search string of textbox 134 . microprocessor 12 searches all message data packets or message records and populates list box 138 with data from those message records . the search feature includes a search of caller id data , caller name data , company data , and telephone number data . wild card characters such as “*” and “?” well known in the computer art are contemplated as recognized by microprocessor 12 . to display the entire saved message for any of those entries shown in listbox 138 , the user taps the desired entry in listbox 138 to “ select ” it and then taps the display msg pushbutton 140 . alternatively , a single or double tap on any of the listed messages in listbox 138 instructs microprocessor 12 to display that particular message in the format of fig5 . when finished with the search feature , the user taps pushbutton 142 to exit the search screen and return to standard display of messaging device 10 ( shown in fig2 or fig5 ). referring now to fig9 , the audio playback / record screen is shown . in this particular display screen , five audio functions are provided . recording of audio messages is activated by tapping pushbutton 144 . audio input via microphone 23 is digitized by audio circuitry 18 and microprocessor 12 and temporarily stored in memory by microprocessor 12 . a visual indicator ( such as flashing on and off the text of the record pushbutton ) aids the user in knowing the record mode is activated . it is contemplated that audio messages will be limited in length in accordance with available unused memory storage in flash memory . tapping the stop pushbutton 146 halts the recording or playback process . tapping the playback audio pushbutton 148 causes an audio message attached to a message data record to be played back via speaker 21 . tapping the delete audio from current message pushbutton 150 causes audio data attached to a message data record to be deleted . save audio with current ; message and exit pushbutton 152 causes the current digitized audio message data just recorded to be saved along with all other data for the currently active message data record . also shown is exit / done pushbutton 154 which instructs microprocessor 12 to exit the playback / record audio mode of operation and return to the modes shown in fig2 or 5 . referring now to fig1 , another embodiment 160 of the present invention is shown . in this embodiment a messaging device 10 is fully integrated into a standard multiline telephone 162 . such a combination of functionality conserves desktop space . referring now to fig1 , the main flowchart for the program executed by messaging device 10 is shown . at step 200 , on power up , the system is initialized . initialization steps include : displaying the formatted display as shown in fig2 ; transmitting or broadcasting a device identification query message via data communications interface 30 to all other similar telephone messaging devices , any messaging devices receiving the device identification query respond by transmitting a data packet including their logical unit or device number and a name corresponding to the user of the device for entry in dropdown listbox 50 ; and initializing computer interface 24 and determining whether an interface with a personal computer is present and whether the keyboard of a local personal computer shall be used for alphanumeric data entry . it is contemplated that the underlying communications protocol used by device 10 periodically ascertains the existence of other devices connected to datalink 32 and updates the information in listbox 50 accordingly , much the same as the windows operating systems implement the network “ browse ” functionality . following step 200 , program execution continues at step 202 . at step 202 , microprocessor 12 checks for new caller id data from caller id electronics 26 . if new caller id data is detected , program execution continues at step 204 . at step 204 a new telephone call is processed , data is entered by the user as required to fully define a new message data packet and the message data packet is sent to the desired recipient messaging device as selected by the user . step 204 is described in more detail in the discussion of the flowchart of fig1 . following step 204 , execution continues at step 206 . if at step 202 no new call has been detected , execution continues at step 206 . at step 206 , if user input has been detected by microprocessor 12 , step 208 is next executed . at step 208 user input is processed in accordance with the flowchart shown in fig1 . following step 208 program execution proceeds to step 210 . if no user input is detected at step 206 then program execution continues at step 210 . at step 210 microprocessor 12 checks schedule data for reminder messages that have come due for display in accordance with reminder data packets previously stored . the details of step 210 are more fully described in relation to the discussion of flowchart of fig1 below . after step 210 , step 212 is executed and if any new message data packets are received from other telephone messaging devices then the message data packet is stored , the new messages counter displayed in textbox 65 is incremented and the message data packet is displayed in accordance with the format of fig5 . optionally , the new message is stored and later displayed in response to activation of one of the message navigation command pushbuttons 82 , 84 , 86 or 88 . following step 214 , execution returns to step 202 . if at step 212 a new message data packet has not been received , program execution returns to step 202 . it should be recognized that in the design of microprocessor based systems , receipt of communications and input data is normally interrupt driven . input processing by messaging device 10 is shown in the fig1 flowchart form for ease of understanding the operation of the device . referring now to fig1 , a flowchart for the “ call detected ” step 204 of fig1 is shown . at step 220 , microprocessor 12 obtains caller id data from caller id electronics 26 including caller telephone number and caller name . next at step 222 , microprocessor 12 initializes display 20 for input of data for a new message data packet as shown in fig2 . caller id data is automatically inserted in textbox 52 , date and time data is obtained from real time clock 14 and the date and time data are automatically inserted into textbox 58 . next at step 224 , the user selects a recipient for the message from listbox 50 , enters additional name data in textbox 54 , enters company name data in text box 56 , additional telephone number information in textbox 60 , selects or checks predefined message checkboxes where appropriate ( checkboxes 62 - 76 ) all described above in relation to fig2 and fig5 , and enters any custom or handwritten message desired in message area 78 . next at step 226 , the user taps the send pushbutton 102 and microprocessor 12 creates a message data packet comprised of data from textboxes 52 , 54 , 56 , 58 , 60 , checkbox data from checkboxes 62 - 76 and any custom message data entered into message area 78 and transmits the message data packet to the messaging device ( or devices in the event of a group definition in listbox 50 ) defined by the user selection in listbox 50 . following step 226 , program execution returns to the calling routine . referring now to fig1 , a flowchart for processing user input corresponding to step 206 is shown in more detail . at step 230 , microprocessor 12 tests whether the input from the user is a navigation command input corresponding to activation of pushbuttons 82 , 84 , 86 or 88 . such navigation pushbuttons instruct microprocessor 12 to display the message data packets for currently received or saved messages . navigation pushbuttons include the next message pushbutton 82 , previous message pushbutton 84 , home pushbutton 86 and end pushbutton 88 . if a navigation input command is detected at step 230 then execution continues at step 232 and microprocessor 12 will display a new message data packet in accordance with the navigation input command . if the user input is not a navigation input at step 230 , then execution continues at step 234 . following step 232 execution continues at step 234 . if at step 234 the user input is activation of the clr pushbutton 90 , then program execution continues at step 236 and the data displayed is cleared on display 20 and a blank input screen such as that shown in fig2 is displayed . after step 236 program execution continues at step 238 . if the clr command is not received at step 234 , program execution continues at step 238 . if a del pushbutton 92 command is detected at step 238 then program execution proceeds with step 240 where the currently displayed message is cleared from the display and the corresponding message data packet for the message is deleted from memory by microprocessor 12 . optionally , a “ delete confirmation ” message may be displayed requiring the user confirm the delete operation . preferably , messaging device 10 would then display the next unviewed message if any message data packets are as yet unviewed by the user . if at step 238 the user input is not a del command , program execution continues at step 242 . after step 240 , execution continues at step 242 . if a sched pushbutton 96 command is detected at step 242 , program execution continues at step 244 . in step 244 , microprocessor 12 displays a scheduling data input screen and prompts the user to enter date / time and additional text message data to be displayed at the future date / time specified . the user enters such data and a reminder data record is created therefrom by microprocessor 12 and stored in flash memory 16 . after step 244 , execution continues at step 246 . if the user input at step 242 is not a sched command , execution continues at step 246 . at step 246 user input is compared with the save command or activation of pushbutton 96 , and if the command is detected , program execution continues at step 248 . at step 248 , the currently displayed message data packet on screen is permanently saved to flash memory as a “ saved ” message data packet ( as opposed to temporarily stored message data packets received from any messaging devices ). alternatively , if the user has appended keyboard entered data or handwritten text in message area 78 , tapping the save pushbutton 96 instructs microprocessor 12 to save the user modified data shown in message area 78 into memory 16 for the message currently displayed on display 20 , whether the message is a permanently saved or temporarily stored message data packet . following step 248 execution continues at step 250 . if at step 246 the user input is not a save command , execution continues at step 250 . at step 250 , if the user input is a secure command ( pushbutton 100 ) then execution continues at step 252 and microprocessor 12 displays a password entry screen on display 20 wherein the user enters an alphanumeric password that is coupled with the message data packet for the currently displayed message , securing the current message from view by others . subsequent attempts to display or delete a password protected message data record will require entry of the correct password before hand . after step 252 , execution continues at step 254 . if the user input is not a secure command at step 250 , execution continues at step 254 . if at step 254 the user input command is identified as a send command corresponding to the user tapping pushbutton 102 , execution proceeds to step 256 . at step 256 , microprocessor 12 creates a message data packet comprised of all data input by the user in the various textboxes and checkboxes , message data from the message area 78 , caller id data , and date / time data and transmits the message data packet to the messaging device identified by the recipient identifier data in listbox 50 . again , the recipient identifier may be a group of messaging devices . after step 256 , execution continues at step 258 . if at step 254 the user input is not a send command , execution continues at step 258 . if at step 258 the user input command is a menu command ( pushbutton 104 ) then execution continues at step 260 . if the menu command is not detected at step 258 execution continues at step 262 . at step 260 , microprocessor 12 displays the menu of additional commands and features shown in fig6 . following step 260 execution continues at step 262 . at step 262 if the user input indicates that the user has tapped one of the checkboxes ( 62 - 76 ) then the display is updated to toggle or invert the state of the checkbox and corresponding data is updated in memory . following step 264 execution continues at step 266 . if the user input at step 262 is not a “ checkbox ticked ” command then execution continues at step 266 . if a reply mode command is detected at step 266 then execution continues at step 268 wherein the current reply mode state of operation is inverted , either entering or exiting reply mode of operation discussed above . for example , if the reply mode is currently active then the reply mode is deactivated , and vice versa . following step 268 execution continues at step 270 . at step 270 if the user is inputting data into a textbox or message area 78 or 78 a , then program execution continues at step 272 and microprocessor 12 updates the display 20 accordingly . for example , user input data via the alphanumeric data entry screen of fig7 is processed here for entry of data into the textboxes of fig2 . further , if the reply mode is active , user input data entered in message area 78 or 78 a is transmitted to a messaging device currently engaged in reply mode operation with messaging device 10 . if a user is viewing a previously received message and desires to add further comments or notes to the message in area 78 , additional message information input is received by microprocessor 12 via touch sensitive overlay 22 and is appended into area 78 at step 272 . following step 272 execution returns to the calling routine . if at step 270 the user input is not textbox or message area data , then execution returns to the calling routine . referring now to fig1 , a flowchart for step 210 of fig1 is shown . at step 280 microprocessor 12 obtains the current date / time from real time clock 14 . next at step 282 microprocessor 12 compares the current date / time with the date / time data in previously stored reminder data packets or records to ascertain whether any of the reminders have come due . next at step 284 , those reminder data packets that are due for display are displayed on display 20 ( in serial fashion if more than one reminder is detected as due ). next at step 286 the user is prompted via a displayed message to cancel or reschedule the reminder . if the user wishes to reschedule the reminder , execution continues at step 288 and microprocessor 12 inputs new reminder date / time data from the user for the reminder data record currently of interest . if at step 286 the user response is to not reschedule the reminder message , then the reminder data record is deleted at step 290 . following both step 290 and step 288 , execution returns . referring now to fig1 , a flowchart is shown for step 260 of fig1 wherein the system menu is displayed in response to the user tapping or activating pushbutton 104 . the display 20 appears as is shown in fig6 at this time . all user inputs discussed in regard to fig1 are with respect to functions available in the menu screen . if the input from the user at step 300 is an activation of pushbutton 110 the “ search for name / number ” command , then execution continues at step 302 . the search screen shown in fig9 is displayed at step 302 and provides a mechanism for the user to enter alphanumeric search strings and find all stored message data packets containing the search string of interest . the operation of the search feature is also described above in regard to the discussion of fig8 . after step 302 , program execution continues at step 304 . if the user input command is activation of the record audio pushbutton 112 , execution continues at step 306 and microprocessor 12 changes display 20 so that the playback / record audio screen of fig9 is shown . the commands available in the playback / record audio screen are discussed above and enable the user to record , playback or delete an existing audio message . after step 306 , execution continues at step 308 . if the user input command is not pushbutton 112 at step 304 , execution continues at step 308 thereafter . if at step 308 the user command is activation of pushbutton 114 , then execution continues at step 310 where the user is prompted to activate the process of transferring saved message data packets to a removable compact flash memory device inserted into slot 46 of device 10 ( see fig3 ) or activating a transfer of stored message data packets to a personal computer via computer interface 24 for archiving data . optionally , data archived on a removable compact flash memory card or on a personal computer may be restored or recovered to the flash memory of messaging device 10 in accordance with user input commands to restore data . following step 310 execution continues at step 312 . if at step 308 the user input was not an archive data command , execution continues thereafter at step 312 . at step 312 if the user input is pushbutton 116 ( create recipient group command ) execution continues at step 314 . at step 314 , microprocessor 12 displays a listbox containing entries for all messaging devices detected since power up of messaging device 10 . the user inputs an alphanumeric name of a new group and adds one or more detected messaging devices from the listbox to the newly created group . for example , those persons using a messaging device in marketing may be added to a new group named “ marketing ” so that any messages data packets sent to “ marketing ” are delivered to a group of recipients . new group definitions are stored in flash memory 16 and appear in listbox 50 as a potential message recipient . after step 314 , execution continues at step 316 . if at step 312 the user input is not a pushbutton 116 command input , then execution continues at step 316 . if at step 316 the user input is pushbutton 118 , the view saved messages option , then execution continues at step 318 and microprocessor 12 causes display 20 to display permanently saved message records saved via activation of the save pushbutton 96 . saved messages are distinct from recently received or viewed messages as such are stored permanently for later recall , whereas new messages are not stored in the same area of memory . this scheme creates two groups of stored message data packets , permanently saved message records and new unviewed and / or viewed messages records that have not been “ saved ” via activation of pushbutton 96 . the navigation pushbuttons 82 , 84 , 86 and 88 provide the user with a means to view the various saved message records . it is contemplated that the user activates the clr pushbutton 90 to exit the viewing of saved message data packets mode and return messaging device 10 to the menu screen of fig6 . after step 318 , execution continues at step 320 . if at step 316 the user input is not pushbutton 118 , execution continues at step 320 . at step 320 if the user has activated the setup device pushbutton 120 , then execution continues at step 322 and the user is prompted by microprocessor 12 via display 20 to enter setup information including the device name ( for example “ john doe ”) corresponding to the users name , and inputting current date / time data for use in initializing real time clock 14 to the current date / time . if the user changes the device name , messaging device 10 broadcasts this information via datalink 32 to all other messaging devices to update their logical unit and corresponding unit name data records . after step 322 , execution continues at step 324 . if the exit menu pushbutton 121 is activated by the user at step 324 then execution returns to the calling routine , otherwise execution continues at step 300 . upon return from the menu mode of fig6 , messaging device returns to the mode of displaying the last displayed message prior to entering the menu mode of operation . while the invention has been illustrated and described in detail in the drawings and foregoing description of the preferred embodiment , the same is to be considered as illustrative and not restrictive in character , it being understood that only the preferred embodiment has been shown and described and that all changes and modifications that come within the spirit of the invention are desired to be protected . | 7 |
fig1 is block diagram illustrating a gaming environment employing couponing in accordance with an exemplary embodiment of the present invention . a player 100 uses a cashless enabled gaming machine 102 to play a gambling game or game of skill . as the player plays the game , a master promotional controller 104 coupled to one or more cashless enabled gaming machines through a communications network 106 triggers the generation of promotional coupons 108 for use by the player . the promotional coupons are generated by a promotional gaming printer 109 included in a cashless enabled gaming machine . the master promotional controller can either be a controller network connected to one or more promotional printers , a controller within a cashless enabled gaming machine or promotional printer , or an intelligent routing and management device for one or more promotional printers . in one embodiment of a master promotional controller , the master promotional controller directs the promotional activity of the promotional printers via direct promotional coupon requests . in another embodiment of a master promotional controller , the master promotional controller uses a cashless enabled gaming machine &# 39 ; s promotional printer to store promotional coupon databases and triggers . once a promotional coupon has been issued by a promotional printer , the promotional coupon may be redeemed with a human operator or cashier 110 , or redeemed automatically through a another redemption device , such as a bill acceptor in another cashless enabled gaming machine 112 , or redeemed at a kiosk 114 which is not a game but provides some other form of automatic interface for a promotional coupon holder . in one embodiment of a master promotional controller , the master promotional controller is coupled to the redemption devices . in another embodiment of an master promotional controller , a non - game kiosk or casino personnel may or may not interface back to the master promotional controller when redeeming a promotional coupon . information relative to couponing activity is exchanged with the master promotional controller , the net result being the promotional printers fitting into the system as distributed intelligent sub - units , significantly off - loading the master promotional controller &# 39 ; s real time servicing requirements and avoiding network bandwidth issues associated with live streaming of promotional coupons during a relatively short cash - out time window . in one gaming environment employing couponing in accordance with an exemplary embodiment of the present invention , each promotional printer in the gaming environment has a unique address or identifier so that a population of promotional printers on the network can be addressed in whole or individually for promotional purposes . fig2 is a deployment diagram of a couponing system in accordance with an exemplary embodiment of the present invention . in a couponing system , a master promotional controller 104 is coupled to one or more cashless enabled gaming or vending machines , as illustrated by cashless enabled gaming machine 102 , through a communications network 106 by coupling to a promotional printer 109 included in the cashless enabled gaming machine . the master promotional controller is programmable and includes master promotional controller programming instructions 201 controlling the master promotional controllers operations including communications with the promotional printer . in one promotional printer in accordance with an exemplary embodiment of the present invention , a stand alone promotional printer includes all of the necessary processing capabilities , memory , and promotional printer programming instructions 209 needed to perform promotional couponing operations for the cashless enabled gaming or vending machine . in other embodiments of promotional printers , a promotional printer is created by coupling a promotional module 210 to a conventional gaming printer , enabling the gaming printer to function as a promotional printer . a standalone gaming or vending promotional printer or a promotional printer created from a conventional gaming or vending printer coupled to a promotional module are hereinafter termed either a “ promotional printer ” or a “ promotional module .” the master promotional controller may be coupled to a vending or gaming machine controller 204 included in the cashless enabled gaming machine . by coupling to a machine controller , the master promotional controller may receive information from the machine controller about the gaming operations of the cashless enabled gaming or vending machine separately from the promotional printer printing operations . the cashless enabled gaming or vending machine may also include a bill acceptor 206 coupled to the machine controller . a cashless enabled gaming or vending machine uses a bill acceptor for redemption of promotional coupons and acceptance of vouchers or cash . in operation , the master promotional controller transmits packets of variable data or coupon data describing a promotional database to the promotional printer . the contents of the promotional database include descriptions of a plurality of promotional coupons , cash vouchers , advertisements or other enticements which are hereinafter collectively referred to as “ coupons ”. the promotional printer receives the promotional database and stores the promotional database in the promotional printer &# 39 ; s local memory . the promotional printer also stores specifications of how to print the coupons in its local memory . the specifications of the coupons are stored as templates written in a template based printer language . this allows the coupons to be pre - defined , formatted , and stored in the promotional printer completely or partially for later recall . upon reception of a trigger data signal from either the master promotional controller or the machine controller , the promotional printer references and parses the promotional database and coupon templates to generate and issue promotional coupons or tickets printed on paper media . the paper media may be used specifically for the purpose of generating promotional coupons , or the paper media may be used for the purpose of printing pay out vouchers associated with cashless gaming . fig1 a is a block diagram of a gaming or vending machine incorporating a multidrop communications network in accordance with an exemplary embodiment of the present invention . a gaming or vending machine may employ a multidrop communications network 1002 to route communications between a machine controller 204 and various devices in the gaming or vending machine . in this embodiment of a gaming or vending machine , the machine controller communicates with a bill acceptor 206 , a promotional printer 109 , a promotional module 210 , and other gaming or vending machine devices 1000 over the multidrop network . in such a network , each specific device or controller has a unique address . the specific device or controller listens to all the messages sent through the network by the various controllers and devices on the network but may only respond to messages that are addressed to that specific device . as such , the promotional module may passively “ listen in ” on gaming or vending machine operational signals , such as messages meant for the other devices , by receiving messages intended for the other devices and not responding to any message not intended for the promotional module . in this way , the promotional module can determine the state of the gaming or vending machine as the gaming or vending machine operates by examining communications between the disparate devices . fig1 b is a block diagram of a gaming or vending machine incorporating a point - to - point communications system in accordance with an exemplary embodiment of the present invention . in this embodiment of a gaming or vending machine , a machine controller 204 is coupled to the various devices , such as bill acceptor 206 , promotional printer 109 , and other such gaming or vending machine devices 1000 , incorporated into the gaming or vending machine by one or more point - to - point communications links 1004 . as each device has it &# 39 ; s own communications link with the machine controller , a gaming promotional controller has no opportunity to listen in on a network communications . instead , a promotional module 210 listens in on communications between the disparate devices by receiving one or more communications signals 1006 gleaned from one or more listening taps 1008 installed on the devices . the taps may be passive devices that merely duplicate the signals being transmitted between the devices or controller . if the taps are passive devices , the promotional module discerns which communications are being sent by which devices . to do so , the promotional module may parse a message and determine from the contents of the message which device sent the message . the promotional module may also incorporate one or more communications ports with each port assigned to a specific device . the promotional module may then identify the specific device transmitting a message by simply knowing which communications port received the message . the taps may also be active devices . in this case , a tap may add a header to any messages transmitted to or from a device to which the tap is coupled , thereby associating each message with a device identifier . fig3 is an illustration of a coupon including logical fields described in a template based printer language in accordance with an exemplary embodiment of the present invention . in this example , a coupon may 300 include four types of data fields : text fields , such as text field 302 ; barcode fields , such as barcode field 304 ; graphic fields , such as graphic field 306 ; and line / box draw fields , such as line / box draw field 308 . the fields of a coupon are described using coupon description data included in an electronic template that may be stored by a promotional printer . a template may include a plurality of fields in combination , resulting in a paste - up style printed coupon . a plurality of templates describing different types of coupons may be stored in a promotional printer supporting a rich couponing environment . the actual value or data for each of the fields described in a coupon template may or may not be included in the template itself . for example , a template may include a barcode field for printing a barcode 310 . however , the actual value of the barcode is transmitted to a promotional printer at the time a coupon is generated using the coupon template . in this way , a coupon may have fields that include static data , such as graphic 312 in a graphic field , or dynamic data , such as the name of a particular patron 314 in a text field . in this way , customized coupons may be printed by a promotional printer without transferring large amounts of data through a communications network coupling a promotional printer to a master promotional controller . in addition , data that is used to track usage of coupons may be included in a coupon . for example , a barcode field or a text field may be used to print a barcode value or text string uniquely identifying a coupon . in this way , a gaming provisional printer creates an image of a barcode or barcodes , characters or marks that may be read by a cashless enabled gaming or vending machine bill acceptor on the same or another cashless enabled gaming or vending machine , allowing automatic acceptance of coupons into a cashless enabled gaming system in a casino or another related casino property . a coupon template includes a plurality of command strings . each command string conforms to the following syntax : delimiter = a delimiter character & lt ; cmd_ltr & gt ;= command identifier letter & lt ; data_fields1 − x & gt ;= fields which include information relative to the command |= pipe character . this serves as the delimiter between data fields in a command . ;= semi - colon . this is a comment field designator . & lt ; t_id & gt ;= template i . d . & lt ; targ_mem & gt ;= target memory storage . & lt ; t_dim_da & gt ;= template dimension on a dotline axis in dots . & lt ; t_dim_pa & gt ;= template dimension in dots in the paper axis . & lt ; pr # 1 & gt ; . . . & lt ; pr # n & gt ;= list of coupon database resident print regions id &# 39 ; s used in the format of this coupon . these fields are the method by which print regions used on a coupon are linked together and to the coupon template . a print region is a print field used in a template to format print data . the print region command is used to define the basic types of print regions such as text , barcode , graphics , and a line / box draw . a define print region command defines the particular font , barcode , graphic , or line style which is to be used , and provides special formatting information on how it is to be used . multiple print regions may be defined and memorized in a promotional printer &# 39 ; s coupon database . & lt ; r_id & gt ;= print region identifier . & lt ; targ_mem & gt ;= target memory storage . & lt ; da_start & gt ;= dot axis start position in dots . & lt ; pa_start & gt ;= paper axis start position in dots . & lt ; da_len & gt ;= dot axis length of print region in dots . & lt ; pa_len & gt ;= paper axis length of print region in dots . & lt ; rot & gt ;= rotation of strings or data within print region . & lt ; just & gt ;= justification of data within print region . & lt ; obj_id & gt ;= print object identifier . range 1 byte . this is the print object ( barcode , font , line / box or graphic ) used to format print the data from a print command . & lt ; mul — 1 & gt ;= print object multiplier 1 . for text , it is a font width multiplier . for barcodes , it indicates narrow bar width or modulo bar width . for a line , this represents thickness of the line in dots . & lt ; mul — 2 & gt ;= print object multiplier 2 . for text , this represents a font height multiplier . for a barcode , it indicates a wide bar width . & lt ; obj_att & gt ;= object printing attributes . this contains special instructions on how to treat the print objects within a print region & lt ; pr_att & gt ;= print region attributes . this contains special instructions on handling of the print region . a ‘ 0 ’ indicates text will be sent in a print batch command . a ‘ 1 ’ indicates use text which follows in pr_data field for a print region . a ‘ 2 ’ indicates a print region will auto increment with each coupon in a batch . the base value is stored in a pr_data field . a ‘ 3 ’ indicates an auto - decrement print region which will auto - decrement with each coupon in a batch . the base value is stored in a pr_data field . & lt ; pr_data & gt ;= permanently stored data which always appears in this print region . this field contains stored text if requested by entering a ‘ 2 ’ in & lt ; pr_att & gt ; field . a library command is used to manage defined graphics . a library command adheres to the following syntax : & lt ; lib_funct & gt ;= operation to perform : ‘ a ’— add object , enter download mode , ‘ d ’— delete object . & lt ; mem & gt ;= target memory in which to place the object being downloaded . & lt ; obj_id & gt ;= object identification . this is the object i . d . byte . & lt ; mem_req & gt ;= memory usage specifier . for loading a graphic : size of a graphic file . the library command header is terminated after this field and obj_data is expected immediately following . for deleting graphics : ‘ g ’ is used in this field . & lt ; ld_file_size & gt ;= file size indicator . obj_data = object data ( font or graphic ) in appropriate format if & lt ; lib_funct & gt ;=‘ a ’. format for graphics : pcx . fig4 is a block diagram of coupon template field element stored partially resident in a promotional gaming printer and partially supplied by a master promotional controller at the time of print and issue in accordance with an exemplary embodiment of the present invention . fig4 illustrates how a master promotional controller selects a type of coupon and transmits particulars , such as variable data to be placed in fields in the coupon , for each print and issuance event . values for the fields that make up a coupon 300 may be divided into two groups or sets . a resident variable data set 400 may be stored locally in a promotional printer . the resident set of variable data may include variable data such as : variable data for a text field containing an identifier of a casino 402 ; variable data for a barcode field identifying a type of promotion 404 ; a template description used to generate a graphic such as box variable data 406 or line variable data 408 ; or an identifier or actual variable data for a graphic 410 . a dynamic variable data set include variable data for fields having variable data that are stored in the promotional printer and are saved in a template definition for a particular coupon . examples of variable data in a dynamic variable data set include : text variable data for a player identifier 414 ; text variable data describing a promotion item 416 ; and barcode variable data 418 for quantifying a value of a promotion for printing on the coupon . both variable data sets may be transmitted from a master promotional controller 104 to a promotional printer in the form of communication packets . when a promotional printer receives a variable data set , the promotional printer stores the variable data set for future use . a resident variable data set includes variable data that may be reused for generating many coupons ; therefore , a resident variable data set may be stored in the promotional printer for an extended period of time . in contrast , a dynamic variable data set may be used for a short period of time , perhaps for even a single generation of a single coupon . as such , the dynamic variable data set and static variable data set associated in a coupon may be transmitted to a promotional printer at different times . to retain association between the variable data sets , part of the communication packet issued by the master promotional controller may include a reference 420 to a template definition so that the dynamic data in the communication packet can be combined 422 with the static field data stored in a promotional printer to generate a complete coupon 200 . since it is possible to store all fields used in a coupon within the promotional printer &# 39 ; s memory , a master promotional controller may issue a complete coupon by simply sending a reference to a coupon so defined to generate a coupon in its entirety . it is also possible for a master promotional controller to offload the entire live communication burden by sending a complete coupon database including triggers during off - peak times . in one embodiment of a promotional printer , a promotional printer is triggered to print coupons from the promotional printer &# 39 ; s internal database under direct control of a master promotional controller that triggers the issuance of a coupon and conveys any pertinent variable information associated with the coupon such as promotion type , face value of the coupon , date of expiration and the like . fig5 is a block diagram of an exemplary coupon stack and logical trigger matrix resident in a promotional printer in accordance with an exemplary embodiment of the present invention . as previously noted , a promotional printer may print a coupon in response to either internal or external event signals or trigger data . to respond to a trigger , a promotional printer includes a coupon selector logic module 500 that analyzes trigger data 502 as trigger data becomes available and determines which coupons should be printed in response to the trigger data . coupons , such as coupons 504 , 506 , and 508 , are stored in a coupon database 510 as a stack . the stack of coupons are a plurality of predefined coupons that can generate a coupon 511 anytime a set of trigger conditions to which a coupon is associated is satisfied . these trigger conditions can operate independently or in logical combination . exemplary logical trigger data utilized in a promotional printer for initiating generation of coupons includes : date 512 , time of day 514 , frequency of issuance of a particular coupon 516 , time of play 524 , and game issued parameters 526 to the printer such as player identification , amount of money in place , duration of the current session of play and the like . by utilizing the illustrated trigger matrix , it is possible for a promotional printer to issue coupons without any information provided by an master promotional controller at the time of a cash - out or cash - in by a player . in one promotional printer in accordance with an exemplary embodiment of the invention , the promotional printer receives from a master promotional controller a coupon trigger database thereby enabling the promotional printer to self - manage its couponing activity . the coupon trigger database may include different types of trigger control parameters including : triggering a coupon generation anytime a cash out voucher is printed ; generating a coupon whenever a voucher for greater than , equal to , or less than a specified amount of money is issued ; generating a coupon based on an identity of a player ; generating a coupon based on a category or classification of a player related to frequency of play or money volume ; generating a coupon based on the duration of play of the gaming machine by a player ; and generating a coupon anytime a player adds money or credits to a game in an amount greater than , equal to , or less than a specified amount . in another aspect of the invention , a component of the promotional printer &# 39 ; s internal database includes a set of control parameters that instruct the promotional printer to select the type , quantity , and frequency of coupons to create and issue related to any of the triggers listed above . these control parameters may operate separately or in combination with each coupon in the database . parameters that may be used include : a total quantity of a coupon being issued before the coupon is retired from the coupon database ; a frequency 518 of issuance of a coupon based on the number of occurrences of specified trigger events ; a frequency of issuance of a coupon based on random odds 520 , such as one in one hundred trigger events ; a backup coupon or coupons should a particular coupon fail to print for lack of satisfying its specified set of qualifiers ; whether or not the coupon is issued based on the time the trigger occurred ; and whether the coupon is issued based on the date the trigger occurred . in one embodiment of promotional printer , a real time clock electronic device is included within the promotional printer for the purposes of supporting time dependent promotional activity as described above . fig6 is a process flow diagram of a trigger matrix process in accordance with an exemplary embodiment of the present invention . a trigger matrix process 622 is used by a promotional printer to determine if a coupon should be generated and issued to a player . the trigger matrix process receives ( 624 ) variable data from a master promotional controller . the trigger matrix process determines ( 628 ) if the variable data includes a coupon trigger instructing the promotional printer to issue a coupon . if so , the trigger matrix process selects ( 630 ) an appropriate coupon to issue from a coupon database 510 . the trigger matrix process then generates ( 632 ) a coupon 511 using the selected coupon template . in addition , the trigger matrix process may use a portion of the variable data received from the master promotional controller to customize the coupon when the coupon is generated . the trigger matrix process may then store ( 633 ) coupon issuance statistical data ( 634 ) for later retrieval by the master promotional controller . a trigger matrix process may also initiate issuance of a coupon even if the master promotional controller does not transmit a trigger to the promotional printer . to do so , the matrix trigger process gets ( 635 ) trigger control parameters stored in the promotional coupon database 510 that correspond to stored coupon templates in the promotional coupon database . the trigger matrix process then gets ( 638 ) gaming or vending machine and other internal data 636 and determines ( 640 ) if a coupon should be issued using the data and trigger control parameters . if the trigger matrix process determines ( 642 ) that a coupon should be generated , the trigger matrix process issues a coupon as previously described , this time selecting a coupon template using the trigger control parameters . the promotional printer is a real - time device meaning that it continuously processes incoming trigger data and triggers . as such , the trigger matrix process may be configured as an endless loop as indicated by the start loop 644 and stop loop 646 symbols . fig7 is a sequence diagram of a coupon generating process in accordance with an exemplary embodiment of the present invention . a master promotional controller 104 transmits coupon or variable data 600 to a promotional printer 109 . the promotional printer stores ( 602 ) the coupon data for later use by the promotional printer in printing a coupon . as previously described , the coupon data may include coupon templates , sets of dynamic and static variable data , trigger control parameters , and entire promotional coupon databases . a promotional printer may receive various triggers that initiate generation of a coupon for a player 100 . the master promotional controller may transmit a promotional trigger ( 604 ) to the promotional printer . in response to the promotional trigger , the promotional printer generates a coupon 606 for use by the player . the promotional printer then stores ( 608 ) statistical data about the just generated coupon . the promotional printer may also receive a gaming or vending machine trigger 610 from a machine controller 204 in a cashless enabled gaming or vending machine . in response to the gaming or vending machine trigger , the promotional printer generates a coupon 610 for use by the player . the promotional printer then stores ( 612 ) statistical data about the just generated coupon . the promotional printer may also generate ( 614 ) an internal trigger on its own such that the promotional printer generates a coupon 616 for use by the player . the promotional printer then stores ( 618 ) statistical data about the just generated coupon . periodically , or at the request of the master promotional controller , the promotional printer may transmit the saved coupon statistical data to the master promotional controller for analysis and other types of processing . the coupon tracking or statistical data may include details such as quantities of specific types of triggers received , quantities of each type of coupon issued , and the times and dates when triggers were received and coupons were issued . in a promotional printer in accordance with an exemplary embodiment of the present invention , the promotional printer accepts promotional database loads and transfers statistical data with the master promotional controller either through a main communication port used for normally signaling pay out vouchers in the game , or through an auxiliary port allowing the promotional printer &# 39 ; s promotional activities to be conducted in series or in parallel with the promotional printer &# 39 ; s cash - out voucher printing functions within the cashless enabled gaming machine . fig1 is a sequence diagram of a promotional module using passive listening to generate coupon triggers . in this embodiment , a promotional module 210 , either as a standalone device or incorporated into promotional printer , listens in on communications between a machine controller 204 and a other devices , such as bill acceptor 206 and promotional printer 109 . the promotional module listens in on the communications and generates coupon triggers based on various attributes of the messages , such as frequency of the messages , content of the messages , originator of the messages , receiver of the messages , etc . once the trigger is generated , it is used as previously described by the gaming or vending machine to generate a coupon . in a specific example of such a process , the bill acceptor receives a voucher , currency , or other value bearing token from a player and transmits a cash - in amount 1100 to the machine controller . the promotional module listens in on the communication between the bill acceptor and the machine controller and receives an identical cash in amount 1102 message or signal . in response to the cash - in amount , the machine controller allows the player to play ( 1103 ) the gaming machine . eventually , the player will stop playing the game and request a cash - out . in response , the machine controller transmits a cash - out amount 1104 to the promotional printer . the promotional module receives a copy of the cash - out signal or message 1106 . the promotional module may then generate ( 1108 ) a trigger based on the cash - in and cash - out messages that the promotional module listened in on but did not respond to . fig8 is an architecture diagram of an exemplary promotional module or printer in accordance with an exemplary embodiment of the present invention . a promotional printer 109 includes a processor 701 operatively coupled via a system bus 702 to a main memory 704 . the processor is also coupled to a storage device 708 via a storage controller 706 and the bus . the storage device includes stored program instructions 724 and data 726 such as coupon variable data , coupon templates , and coupon trigger control parameters . in operation , the program instructions implementing a promotional printer are stored on the storage device until the processor retrieves the program instructions and stores them in the main memory . the processor then executes the computer program instructions stored in the main memory and operates on the data stored in the storage device to implement the features of a promotional printer as described above . the processor is further coupled to a printer mechanism 718 through a printer controller 702 via the bus . in operation , the processor executes the program instructions to generate printer mechanism control signals and transmits these signals to the printer mechanism via the bus and printer controller . in response to the printer mechanism control signals , the printer mechanism prints coupons for use by a player . the processor is further coupled to external input devices 722 by an input device controller 720 via the bus . example input devices include sensors that the promotional printer uses to detect proper printing of a coupon by the printer mechanism , coupon printer paper detectors , and real time clocks . the processor receives input device signals from the input devices via the input device controller and the bus and uses the input device signals to detect the state of the promotional printer &# 39 ; s environment . the processor is further coupled to a network device 714 via a network device controller 712 and the bus . the process uses the network device to communicate with other processing systems , such as a master promotional controller or a gaming or vending machine controller as previously described . fig9 is an architecture diagram of an exemplary master promotional controller in accordance with an exemplary embodiment of the present invention . a master promotional controller includes a processor 901 operatively coupled via a system bus 702 to a main memory 904 . the processor is also coupled to a storage device 908 via a storage controller 906 and the bus . in operation , program instructions 924 implementing a master promotional controller are stored on the storage device until the processor retrieves the program instructions and stores them in the main memory . the processor then executes the computer program instructions stored in the main memory to implement the features of a master promotional controller as described above . the processor is further coupled to a network device 914 via a network device controller 912 and the bus . the process uses the network device to communicate with other processing systems , such as a promotional printer or a gaming or vending machine controller as previously described . although this invention has been described in certain specific embodiments , many additional modifications and variations would be apparent to those skilled in the art . it is therefore to be understood that this invention may be practiced otherwise than as specifically described . thus , the present embodiments of the invention should be considered in all respects as illustrative and not restrictive , the scope of the invention to be determined by any claims supported by this application and the claims &# 39 ; equivalents rather than the foregoing description . | 6 |
example 1 . the device for precision movement ( fig1 ) contains a bottom 1 , to which a group of plates made of a piezoelectric material 2 is attached , said plates being separated by electrodes 3 and forming a base module 10 each . a reading or protecting area or plane 4 can be applied to the upper fixed , non - elastic electrode 3 . 1 of the upper plate . the lowermost plate 2 is also fixed to the bottom 1 via a fixed , non - elastic electrode 3 . 2 . a piezoelectric material can be any material , also a polycrystalline one . however , the use of monocrystals having a low degree of hysteresis and creep strain is most useful . it is thus possible to use monocrystals of lithium niobate , strontium - barium - niobate , barium - sodium - niobate and other crystals having a piezo effect . elastic electrodes 3 having a thickness below 0 . 5 μm are applied to two opposite sides of the plate 2 by known methods . it is most suitable to use cr , cu or in as an electrode material . a reading or protecting layer or plane 4 made of sapphire or of a diamond - like material is applied to the surface of the upper one of the electrodes . at first , the dependence of the change in the dimensions of the device for precision movement on the voltage which is applied to the electrodes , is polarized identically and has the same value is measured , i . e . a scaling diagram is produced . a scaling diagram is produced by applying a determination voltage to the electrodes of the device and by measuring the corresponding displacement of the reading or protecting layer or plane 4 of the group of piezoelectric plates in the form of the base module . the displacement is measured according to known methods by means of the region 3 d of a laser - assisted interferometric system for measuring nano movements ( on the basis of an atomic force microscope and three laser interferometers ). in order to measure a displacement of the rectangular area relative to the electrodes , the device must be arranged in the system for measuring nano movements . the microscopic probes have to be approached to the face of the device at a distance at which the stabilization system operates . it is necessary to apply a voltage to the device and measure the distance by which the plane 4 of the device has been displaced when the voltage is applied . then , the value of the applied voltage has to be changed and the value of the displacement of the surface of the device has to be measured again . as a result of several measurements of the displacement , which are made with various voltage values , a results table showing the experimental measurements is to be drafted on the basis of which a scaling diagram is drafted that shows the dependency of the value regarding the displacement of the area of the device in the direction of the rectangular area of the electrodes on the value of the applied voltage . different measuring apparatuses can be scaled by means of the device according to the invention . for scaling any groups ( e . g . of a probe microscope ) along the normal relative to the investigated area , the recommended device for precision measurement is placed therein . for example , if a scanning probe microscope shall be scaled , the device has to be arranged on a corresponding table of a scanning probe microscope , and it is required to plot the marking of the probes on the face of the device to the distance of the distance ( at the order of 0 . 5 nm ) between the upper probe and the face , where the stabilization system operates . the stabilization of the probe can be determined by stabilizing the tunneling current ( when operating under tunneling microscope conditions ) or by stabilizing the value of the force which acts on the probes ( when operating under atomic force microscope conditions ). the stabilization of the distance is determined by means of an electron control system which produces the congruence of the signals of the measuring instruments with the predetermined values and the control signals . when the tested measuring instrument is scaled in the vertical , a fixed voltage is applied to the electrodes of the device for precision movement , which ensures the displacement in the vertical . here , the area of the device is displaced by a value which is determined according to the scaling table . the stabilization system of the distance ensures a corresponding displacement of the probe to the distance to which the area of the pattern is displaced . the value of the probe displacement is measured by the measuring instrument of the probe microscope . in this way , the value of the display of the measuring instruments of the probe microscope , which measure the distance and on which the probe is displaced , is compared with the corresponding value of the distance , which is taken from the scaling curve to which the area of the device is displaced . then , the voltage which is applied to the device is changed and the measuring operation is repeated . as a result of measurements made several times with different voltage values , a table is drafted and reflects the ratio of the displacement value of the device and the device display of the probe microscope which measured the probe movement . example 2 . the device for precision movement ( fig3 ) contains a bottom 1 , to which a plate 2 made of a piezoelectric material is connected . according to the invention , also only non - elastic fixed electrodes 3 , 3 . 2 are applied to the plate thereby forming the base module ( 10 ). the plate 2 is connected to the bottom 1 by means of the console 6 . the fixed , non - elastic electrode 3 . 2 is connected to the vertical area thereof . the second electrode 3 of the plate is attached to the second console 5 ( t - shaped in the drawing ) to which the reading area 4 is attached . any known material , also polycrystalline one , can be used as a piezoelectric material . however , it is most useful to use monocrystals having a low degree of hysteresis and creep strain . thus , it is possible to use monocrystals of lithium niobate , tantalum - lithium , strontium - barium - niobate , barium - sodium - niobate and others which show the piezo effect . electrodes 3 made of cr , cu or in are applied to two opposite plates 2 according to known methods . the device operates as follows : when a voltage from a source is applied to electrodes 3 ( not shown in the drawings ), the plate 2 made of a piezoelectric material is deformed as shown in fig2 . as a result , the t - shaped console 5 is moved up or down in relation to the bottom 1 , depending on the applied voltage . example 3 . the device for precision movement ( fig4 ) contains a bottom 1 to which two identical plates 2 made of a piezoelectric material are connected . according to the invention , also only non - elastic fixed electrodes 3 , 3 . 2 are applied to the plates . the connection of the plates 2 to the bottom 1 is determined by means of identical consoles 6 . each of these plates is connected to the vertical areas of the consoles via one of its fixed electrodes 3 . 2 . the plates are connected to the second console 5 ( t - shaped in the drawing ) via the second electrodes 3 which are disposed between the plates . the reading area 4 is attached to the consoles . the device operates as follows : when a voltage from a source is applied to the electrodes 3 ( not shown in the drawings ), the plates 2 made of a piezoelectric material are deformed as shown in fig2 . as a result , the t - shaped console 5 is moved up or down in relation to the bottom 1 , depending on the polarity of the applied voltage . example 4 . the device for precision movement ( fig5 ) contains a bottom 1 to which two or more identical plates 2 made of a piezoelectric material are connected . according to the invention , also only fixed non - elastic electrodes are applied to the plates thereby forming one base module 10 each . the connection of the plates 2 to the bottom 1 is defined by means of an l - shaped console 6 . the first ( lower ) plate 2 is attached to the upper electrode on the lower horizontal area 6 . 1 of the first console . the lower electrode is connected to the upper horizontal area 7 . 2 of the lower head piece or the lower first u - shaped leg of the u - shaped console 7 . here , the lower electrode of a second ( upper ) plate 2 ( further base module 10 ) made of a piezoelectric material is provided at the upper area 7 . 3 of the upper head piece or the upper second u - shaped leg of the second console 7 , said base module 10 being identical to the first one and the reading area 4 being disposed on the upper electrode thereof . the piezoelectric material in the plates must be oriented in such a way that the lower and upper plates must be displaced in one and the same direction , namely in the direction of the area of the electrodes , when a voltage is applied to the electrodes thereof the device operates as follows : when a voltage from a source is applied to the electrodes 3 ( not shown in the drawings ), the plates 2 made of a piezoelectric material are deformed , and this is why the reading area 4 is displaced to the side . the device is used as described in example 1 . example 5 . the device for precision movement ( fig6 ) contains a bottom 1 to which a group of piezoelectric plates 2 spaced from one another via an intermediate space 11 is connected . according to the invention , each plate is also only equipped with non - elastic fixed electrodes thereby forming a base module 10 . an intermediate layer 8 is disposed above the plates and is made of a material having a temperature coefficient of expansion that corresponds to the temperature coefficient of expansion of the material of the bottom 1 . the device operates as follows : when a voltage from a source is applied to the electrodes ( not shown in the drawings ), the plates 2 made of a piezoelectric material are deformed and the reading area 4 is displaced upwards , downwards or horizontally , depending on the material and orientation of the axes of the crystal lattice , and depending on the polarity of the applied voltage . the device is used as described in example 1 . example 6 . the device for precision movement ( fig7 ) contains a bottom 1 , to which a group of piezoelectric plates 2 spaced from one another via an intermediate space 11 is connected . according to the invention , each of the plates is also only equipped with fixed non - elastic electrodes thereby forming a base module 10 . the intermediate layer 8 is disposed above the plates which are separated through a gap 12 and which accommodate the reading areas 4 . the intermediate layer consists of a material having a temperature coefficient which is identical to the temperature coefficient of expansion of the material of bottom 1 . when a voltage from a source is applied to the electrodes of the plates 2 , the reading areas 4 are displaced in different directions in relation to the bottom 1 . the piezo plates are displaced parallel to one another within each base module . different directions of displacement of the reading areas 4 among one another are possible : the reading areas of the second group are displaced towards the bottom 1 at right angles in opposite directions ; or they are displaced parallel to the bottom in opposite directions . the reading areas 4 of the groups can also be displaced in directions at right angles to one another ( one parallel to the bottom and the second at right angles ). the device is used as described in example 1 . the foregoing disclosure has been set forth merely to illustrate the invention and is not intended to be limiting . since modifications of the disclosed embodiments incorporating the spirit and substance of the invention may occur to persons skilled in the art , the invention should be construed to include everything within the scope of the appended claims and equivalents thereof . | 7 |
gas turbine engine systems involving hydrostatic face seals with integrated back - up seals are provided , several exemplary embodiments of which will be described in detail . in this regard , hydrostatic face seals can be used at various locations of a gas turbine engine , such as in association with a low - pressure turbine . notably , a hydrostatic seal is a seal that uses balanced opening and closing forces to maintain a desired separation between a seal face and a corresponding seal runner . unanticipated pressure fluctuations and / or vibrations could cause undesired contact between the seal face and the corresponding seal runner that can cause damage to the seal , e . g ., carbon fracture . to mitigate the potential consequence of a damaged hydrostatic face seal , a back - up seal can be provided that is integrated with one or more components forming the hydrostatic seal . an exemplary embodiment of a hydrostatic face seal with an integrated back - up seal ( collectively referred to herein as a “ seal assembly ”) is depicted schematically in fig1 . as shown in fig1 , seal assembly 10 incorporates a hydrostatic face seal 12 and a back - up seal 14 that are provided by a stationary stator assembly 16 and a rotating rotor assembly 18 . in general , the stator assembly incorporates the seal face of the associated hydrostatic face seal , as well as one or more of the primary components of the back - up seal . in contrast , the rotor assembly incorporates the seal runner of the hydrostatic face seal and others of the primary components of the back - up seal . notably , when the back - up seal is a labyrinth seal , the stator assembly carries either the honeycomb lands or the knife edges , whereas the rotor carries the corresponding feature of the seal . in the embodiment of fig1 , the stator assembly incorporates the honeycomb lands and the rotor assembly incorporates the knife edges as will be described in detail . with respect to the stator assembly , stator assembly 16 includes an arm 17 that extends from a mounting bracket 19 . mounting bracket 19 facilitates attachment , removal and / or position adjustment of the stator assembly . notably , other embodiments may not incorporate mounting brackets for ease of installation and / or removal . stator assembly 16 incorporates a carrier 20 that carries face seal 22 , which is annular in shape . face seal 22 includes a seal face 24 , which is one of the seal - forming surfaces of the hydrostatic seal . carrier 20 is axially translatable so that seal face 24 can move , with the carrier , away from or toward ( e . g ., into contact with ) a seal runner 26 ( which is the other of the seal - forming components of the hydrostatic seal ) of rotor assembly 18 . in this embodiment , an anti - rotation lock 28 is provided to prevent circumferential displacement and to assist in aligning the seal carrier to facilitate axial translation . a biasing member 30 , which is provided as a spring in this embodiment , biases the seal face against the seal runner until overcome by gas pressure . in this regard , the biasing force of the biasing member can be selected to maintain a desired pressure differential between a high - pressure side ( p high ) and a low - pressure side ( p low ) of the seal . multiple biasing members may be spaced about the stator and carrier . notably , a piston ring 32 is captured between opposing surfaces 34 , 36 of the stator assembly and carrier , respectively , to control gas leakage between the arm of the stator assembly and the carrier . surface 40 of the carrier mounts lands 42 , 44 of the labyrinth - type back - up seal 14 . the lands may be comprised of an abradable structure such as honeycomb . corresponding knife edges 52 , 54 of the labyrinth - type back - up seal are carried by the rotor assembly . with respect to the rotor assembly , rotor assembly 18 supports the seal runner 26 , which is annular in shape . specifically , the rotor assembly includes an arm 56 that extends from a mounting bracket 58 . mounting bracket 58 facilitates attachment , removal and / or position adjustment of the rotor assembly . the knife edges 52 , 54 of the labyrinth - type back - up seal are supported by an annular extension 60 that extends from the arm of the rotor assembly . thus , extension 60 assists in defining an intermediate - pressure cavity 62 that is located between the hydrostatic seal and the back - up seal . note also that extension 60 can assist in preventing debris ( e . g ., debris that may by attributable to unintended damage of the hydrostatic seal ) from passing beyond the back - up seal . in a normal mode of operation ( i . e ., when the hydrostatic face seal is properly seated ), the desired pressure differential is maintained , at least primarily , across the hydrostatic face seal 12 . however , in a failure mode of operation ( i . e ., when the hydrostatic face seal fails due to unintended circumstances ), a corresponding pressure differential is maintained , at least primarily , across the back - up seal 14 . thus , in the failure mode of operation , intermediate - pressure cavity 62 typically exhibits p high . fig2 is a schematic diagram depicting an exemplary embodiment of a gas turbine engine , in which an embodiment of a hydrostatic face seal with integrated back - up seal can be used . as shown in fig2 , engine 100 is configured as a turbofan that incorporates a fan 102 , a compressor section 104 , a combustion section 106 and a turbine section 108 . although the embodiment of fig2 is configured as a turbofan , there is no intention to limit the concepts described herein to use with turbofans , as various other configurations of gas turbine engines can be used . engine 100 is a dual spool engine that includes a high - pressure turbine 110 interconnected with a high - pressure compressor 112 via a shaft 114 , and a low - pressure turbine 120 interconnected with a low - pressure compressor 122 via a shaft 124 . it should also be noted that although various embodiments are described as incorporating hydrostatic face seals in low - pressure turbines , such seals are not limited to use with low - pressure turbines . as shown in fig3 , low - pressure turbine 120 defines a primary gas flow path 130 along which multiple rotating blades ( e . g ., blade 132 ) and stationary vanes ( e . g ., vane 134 ) are located . in this embodiment , the blades are mounted to turbine disks , the respective webs and bores of which extend into a high - pressure cavity 140 . for instance , disk 142 includes a web 144 and a bore 146 , each of which extends into cavity 140 . a relatively lower - pressure cavity 148 is oriented between high - pressure cavity 140 and turbine hub 150 , with a seal assembly 10 ( described in detail before with respect to fig1 ) being provided to maintain a pressure differential between the high - pressure cavity and the lower - pressure cavity . seal assembly 10 incorporates a hydrostatic face seal 12 and a back - up seal 14 that are provided by a stator assembly 16 and a rotor assembly 18 . notably , the stator assembly is mounted to a non - rotating structure of the turbine , whereas the rotor assembly is mounted to a rotating structure . in the implementation of fig3 , the rotor assembly is mounted to the low - pressure turbine hub 150 . additionally , an intermediate - pressure cavity 151 is defined between hydrostatic face seal 12 and back - up seal 14 . it should be noted that seal assembly 10 is provided as a removable assembly , the location of which can be adjusted axially and radially . as such , thrust balance trimming of engine 100 can be at least partially accommodated by altering the position of the seal assembly to adjust the volume of cavities 140 and 148 in operation , the seal face intermittently contacts the seal runner . by way of example , contact between the seal face and the seal runner can occur during sub - idle conditions and / or during transient conditions . that is , contact between the seal face and the seal runner is maintained until gas pressure in the high - pressure cavity is adequate to overcome the biasing force , thereby separating the seal face from the seal runner . during normal operating conditions , however , the seal face and the seal runner should not contact each other . since the embodiments described herein are configured as lift - off seals ( i . e ., at least intermittent contact is expected ), materials forming the surfaces that will contact each other are selected , at least in part , for their durability . in this regard , a material containing carbon can be used as a seal face material . it should be noted , however , that carbon can fracture or otherwise be damaged due to unintended contact ( e . g ., excessively forceful contact ) between the seal face and the seal runner as may be caused by severe pressure fluctuations and / or vibrations , for example . it should also be noted that carbon may be susceptible to deterioration at higher temperatures . therefore , carbon should be used in locations where predicted temperatures are not excessive such as in the low - pressure turbine . by way of example , use of such a material may not be appropriate , in some embodiments , in a high - pressure turbine . in a normal mode of operation ( i . e ., when the hydrostatic seal is properly functioning ), a nominal pressure differential exists between intermediate - pressure cavity 151 and lower - pressure cavity 148 . that is , the pressure differential between the high - pressure cavity and the lower - pressure cavity is maintained , at least primarily , across the hydrostatic face seal 12 . however , in a failure mode of operation ( i . e ., the hydrostatic seal fails ), the pressure of the high - pressure cavity 140 is depleted to a level lower than during the normal mode of operation but higher than that of intermediate cavity 151 during normal operation . the increase in pressure differential across the back - up seal 14 is due to the increased flow rate imposed on the back - up seal during failure of the primary seal . thus , in the failure mode of operation , pressure in intermediate cavity 151 increases and a corresponding pressure differential is maintained , at least primarily , across the back - up seal 14 . it should be emphasized that the above - described embodiments are merely possible examples of implementations set forth for a clear understanding of the principles of this disclosure . many variations and modifications may be made to the above - described embodiments without departing substantially from the spirit and principles of the disclosure . by way of example , although the embodiments described herein are configured as lift - off seals , other types of seals can be used . all such modifications and variations are intended to be included herein within the scope of this disclosure and protected by the accompanying claims . | 5 |
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