The present invention is directed to a method for cleansing fuel processing effluent containing carbonaceous compounds and inorganic salts, the method comprising contacting the fuel processing effluent with an anode of a microbial fuel ell, the anode containing microbes thereon which oxidatively degrade one or more of the carbonaceous compounds while producing electrical energy from the oxidative degradation, and directing the produced electrical energy to drive an electrosorption mechanism that operates to reduce the concentration of one or more inorganic salts in the fuel processing effluent, wherein the anode is in electrical communication with a cathode of the microbial fuel cell. The invention is also directed to an apparatus for practicing the method.

Oil and natural gas drilling operations use copious amount of water. For example, as much as 25,000 gallons per day can be used for a single well producing natural gas or coalbed methane. In a process for separating bitumen from sand, approximately three cubic meters of water is required to produce one cubic meter of oil. Water is used primarily in water based drilling muds (WBM), which typically include fresh or salt water, a weighting agent (typically, barite or barium sulfate), clay or organic polymers, and various inorganic salts. Effluent water emanating from the drilling operations usually contain significant concentrations of both high-carbon compounds and inorganic (e.g., metal) salts. The total dissolved solids (TDS) in these waters typically range from 1 to 400 g/L. The total oil content can typically range from 40 mg/L to 2,000 mg/L.
The high-carbon compounds are those typically associated with fossil fuels, e.g., aliphatic and aromatic hydrocarbons, such as benzene, toluene, xylenes, polyaromatic hydrocarbons, petroleum fractions, diesel fractions, and organic acids containing four to nine carbon atoms. A significant portion of the high-carbon compounds enter the water stream from the fossil fuel deposit. Even higher concentrations of petroleum products (typically, diesel fuel or mineral oil) can result in the water when petroleum products are incorporated as drilling lubricants.
The metal salts emanate primarily from salts that have been included in the drilling mud or that are leached from subsurface strata. The metal salts include, for example, halides of the alkali and alkaline earth metals (e.g., NaCl, KCl, MgCl2, CaCl2), metal sulfates (particularly BaSO4), metal carbonates (e.g., Na2CO3), metal phosphates, metal nitrates, metal hydroxides, and the like. Additional metals can include arsenic, chromium, cadmium, copper, iron, lead, mercury, nickel, and zinc. In some processes, one or more compounds or materials containing these metals are intentionally added as additives to enhance the drilling process.
Due to the presence of significant levels of petroleum byproducts and metal salts, effluent water resulting from fossil fuel drilling operations is typically unfit for discharge into the environment or for re-use. Currently, no practical technologies exist for cleansing such effluent waters, and therefore, the effluent water is typically accumulated in the vicinity of the rigging operation, or stored in underground wells, or transported to a treatment facility. Storage of effluent waters typically results in the gradual seepage of the contaminants into the environment while also being costly to maintain. Transporting and subsequent treatment of the effluent waters can be prohibitively costly. More recent attempts to cleanse the effluent water on site relies on the intensive use of a non-renewable energy source, e.g., the combustion of a fossil fuel for production of electrical energy to drive a cleaning mechanism, such as reverse osmosis/membrane filtration, electrolysis, freeze-thaw methods, electrodialysis, biofiltration, and formation of hydrates.
Ion exchange is an important technology for the removal of salts and various species of metal ions from produced water. However, membrane fouling has prevented commercial application of this technology. Formation of a layer by suspended solids and colloidal matter on the membrane has been a crucial factor affecting separation of ions. Additionally, coating of the ion exchange membrane by crude oil compounds the problem. Similar problems have been observed with use of reverse osmosis.
Accordingly, there would be a benefit in a method capable of cleansing fuel processing waters of both hydrocarbon byproducts and metal salts. There would be a particular benefit in such a method which is cost efficient, and in particular, where significant cost savings result from use of renewable energy technology. There would be an additional advantage in such a method which does not require transport to a treatment facility, but which can be practiced on site. Such a method would allow fuel processing waters to be safely discharged into the environment or re-used in a cost effective manner.

Microbial fuel cell treatment of fuel process wastewater


An apparatus and method for auto white balance adjusting using an effective area. The auto white balance adjusting apparatus may extract a grey area from an input image, and select an effective area from the grey area according to color temperature and luminance, thereby performing white balance using the effective area. The auto white balance adjusting apparatus may perform white balance of the input image using image information of the effective area which is a more precise grey area, thereby improving the white balance.

1. Field
Example embodiments relate to an image process, and more particularly, to an apparatus adjusting an auto white balance that extracts a grey area from an input image, and performs white balancing using image information of an effective area selected from the grey area based on a color temperature and luminance.
2. Description of the Related Art
In general, when an image of an object is taken by an imaging device, such as a digital camera, a digital video camera, and the like, an appearance of a color of the taken image may differ depending on the condition of a variety of light sources, such as a white lamp, a fluorescent lamp, sunlight, and the like. The imaging device may consider RGB components included in light sources having different color temperatures, and thereby may reproduce white including blue when a color temperature of the light source is high, and reproduce white including red when the color temperature of the light source is low. Here, white is an area having a greatest luminance from a grey area.
Accordingly, when the color temperature is changed by the light source, there is a need to adjust white balance to enable grey to be seen as grey. To precisely adjust the white balance, the grey area that is a standard for the adjustment, is required to be precisely detected.
In this instance, when the white balance is adjusted using all data of the grey area, an error of predicting a light source may occur since the grey area includes data of a real light source and also data of a color area adjacent to the light source. Also, an error in predicting a light source may occur due to a color of a dominant object.
Accordingly, a method of extracting a grey area affected by the real light source to precisely adjust the white balance is required.

Apparatus and method for adjusting auto white balance using effective area


Systems, apparatuses, and methods for dynamic image dithering for a printing device are described herein. Embodiments may include an image processing module to process a source image file to provide a dithered image file with print data for each of a plurality of image locations. Printing substance may be deposited and the image processing module may provide the dithered image file with additional print data based at least in part on the deposited printing substance. Other embodiments may be described and claimed.

Most printing processes cannot directly vary the density of a printing substance, or pigment, that is deposited on a print medium. Instead, they vary the density of the image by restricting the area of the pigment on the print medium. In this way, the native color of the print media and the pigment combine to produce the desired density. To be effective, the scale of this pattern of pigmented and non-pigmented medium must be small enough such that the observer does not see the pattern and instead integrates the pattern into an image that has variable density. This process is called screening or dithering.
Digital printing systems typically use dithering to produce images with variable density. Before the image is printed, a source image is converted to a dithered image. Because the source image has variable density, each pixel of the source image can take on many values, typically represented by a two-dimensional array of eight- or ten-bit values per image component. In the case of a color image, there may be four image components: cyan, magenta, yellow, and black (CMYK).
Dithering reduces the image to pixel values with two values, on or off. To retain the original resolution of the source image a dithered image may distribute the pigment dots over a finer grid than the original resolution of the source image. In the simplest case, if the source image has a range of X density values, then the resolution of the dithered image may be X times the resolution of the source image. Depending on how the pigmentation process interacts with the print medium, this expansion can be less than X times the source image resolution.
Currently, dithering is done with the knowledge that the process of printing will naturally orient the rectilinear print path to the grid of the source image. Furthermore, current dithering operations are based on an expectation that the printing process will cause the dither dots to be selected from the image in a stereotyped pattern that will ensure all the dither dots will be printed in a predictable time.


A method and apparatus provide for setting processing delay assignments in a CDMA receiver using a flat-channel placement or using a dispersive channel placement, in dependence on characterizing the channel as flat or dispersive. For example, a receiver maintains a logical flag reliably indicating the current channel state as flat or dispersive, and assigns or otherwise sets processing delays—e.g., for received signal demodulation—using a flat-channel placement algorithm or a dispersive-channel placement algorithm. The “flat-channel” placement algorithm generally provides better performance in flat-channel environments, and the “dispersive-channel” placement algorithm generally provides better performance in dispersive channel environments. Such processing may be regarded as “activating” a simplified processing delay placement grid that offers better performance if the channel truly is flat, with the underlying advantage of providing a reliable mechanism for detecting flat channel conditions.

A key selling point for any communications system is the peak data rate it can deliver. For wireless communications systems employing channel coding, peak data rates imply little or no effective coding. When channel coding is weak, a wireless receiver relies on equalization to suppress the interference caused by inter-symbol interference (ISI). Equalizers typically suppress interference sufficiently to achieve peak data rates only for flat or very lightly dispersive channels. For a CDMA system, experience has shown that equalizer tap placement is critical for dispersive channels. CDMA equalizers can be either chip level or symbol level. An equalizer tap can therefore correspond to an element of a Finite Impulse Response (FIR) filter (chip level) or a receiver finger (symbol level).
The typical goal of a CDMA receiver is to collect the energy from (multipath) signal echoes and add them coherently. To achieve this goal, the receiver attempts to: (1) estimate the number of (significant) signal echoes and the delay of each echo; (2) despread the signal for each echo delay; (3) compute combining weights for each signal echo; and (4) combine the despread traffic data obtained from the echoes using the combining weights, to demodulate the transmitted data.
The above list is an outline of a receiver architecture referred to as "despread and combine." This type of architecture encompasses both Rake and Generalized Rake (G-Rake) approaches. As noted above, the scenario of interest is the flat (or one path) case. Here the receiver would like to perform despreading at the exact delay of the signal path. However, in typical receivers, samples are only available at certain time values, which may not include the exact path delay. In point-to-point systems with sufficient channel coding, this is not a concern, as sampling close to but not at the true delay incurs only a minor penalty in signal power.
If the main limitation is thermal noise, then the noise power is independent of the delay used. However, when high data rates (with little or no channel coding) are used, such as in High Speed Packet Access (HSPA) in Wideband CDMA (WCDMA), the main limitation is self-interference. Data is sent in parallel using different spreading waveforms. These waveforms are orthogonal if the receiver samples the signal at the true path delay. Otherwise, the orthogonality property is lost. The impact on performance can be dramatic at very high data rates because the channel coding cannot correct errors introduced by self-interference.
Performance therefore can be highly sensitive to which time samples are available at the receiver. In traditional receiver architectures, an arbitrary sampling phase is used to start generating samples. Due to frequency offset errors and the imperfection of the sampling clock, the sampling phase drifts in time. Thus, while it might sample exactly at the true path at one moment in time, it will eventually not sample at the true path delay.
The severity of the problem is directly proportional to the resolution used in delay estimation, for path searching. Typically, delay estimation employs a regularly spaced raster from which it chooses delay values for the echoes of the transmitted signal. For a flat channel, the inherent raster-nature of delay estimation can cause estimation errors.
More broadly, misalignment of actual path(s) with sampling intervals can cause demodulation problems in multiple ways. For example, it is entirely possible that a delay estimator may incorrectly report two (or more) paths due to misalignment. In this case the receiver will assign multiple fingers to incorrect processing delays, and peak data rates will not be achieved.
With these issues in mind, a symbol level equalizer performs the following actions: (1) performs path search; (2) estimates path delays; (3) assigns fingers based on path delays; (4) despreads received signals for assigned fingers; (5) computes combining weights given finger delays; and (6) combines despread values. Here, step (3) is the key to mitigating the effects of frequency error and timing drift. A conventional mitigation approach involves assigning fingers to the delays reported by the delay estimator as well as other delays selected to improve equalization performance—see U.S. Pat. No. 6,922,434 to Wang et al.
This conventional approach may not work well for flat channels with frequency error and timing drift. The use of a delay placement grid may, in at least some instances, improve demodulation. See, for example, U.S. Pub. 2006/0268962 A1 to Cairns et al. However, in some scenarios, the use of delay grid to place a limited number of fingers or filter taps does not work as well. There is the possibility to monitor the delays as reported by a path searcher. For example, if the path searcher indicates a single path (per antenna), the channel is considered to be flat. Otherwise, the channel is considered dispersive. In another approach, the receiver may maintain a metric related to the dispersiveness of a wireless channel, and use it to control the spacing and extent of a grid of fingers. See, for example, U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/408,939 to Cairns, filed Mar. 23, 2009, and entitled "Signal Reception with Adjustable Processing Delay Placement."
However, one problem with using the delay(s) reported by the path searcher is that the delays can be unreliable. Spurious delays can (and are) reported for a flat channel. Alternatively, delays can be missed for dispersive channels. Both types of errors cause unreliable grid activation, which leads to degraded performance. Nor does the use of a dispersiveness metric such as discussed above provide a solution to the problem.

Method and apparatus for setting received signal processing delays as a function of channel dispersiveness


A method, article of manufacture, and apparatus for protecting data. In some embodiments, this includes connecting a new physical machine to a router, detecting the new physical machine, with a virtual appliance, based on the connection adding the new physical machine to a database, and backing up the new physical machine to a deduplicated virtual storage device, wherein the backup is in a virtual format.

Several backup products exist in the market today. The nature of these products may vary, but their general purpose is to protect data. Some products may take snapshots of a volume and store the snapshot in a remote storage device.
Some products use a technique called deduplication. Deduplication typically involves identifying redundant data and removing the redundancy, resulting in potentially large storage savings.
Some products virtualize data, which eases the management of information technology resources. Virtualization typically involves creating a virtual version of computing resources, such as operating systems, storage devices, network resources, and processing resources, among others.
When implemented individually, such products provide much benefit to Information Technology (IT) managers. However, when IT managers desire multiple data protection technologies, such as deduplication and virtualization, such combinations are usually ad hoc and result in diminishing returns of investment. There is a need, therefore, for an improved method, article of manufacture, and apparatus for protecting data.

Discovering new physical machines for physical to virtual conversion


An adhesion promoting composition includes a polymer, such as an acrylic copolymer, having acetoacetoxy functionality and adhesion-promoting functionality and a metal alkoxide, chelate, and/or alkoxide chelate. The composition is applied in a first layer over a metal substrate or a coated substrate, then coated with a desired refinish coating composition.

Automotive vehicle manufacturers provide an original finish to vehicles that is typically one color overall or a two-tone finish. Sometimes, the original finish will have a contrasting wide stripe around the middle of the vehicle instead of having the two-tone finish of a contrasting color for the top half. There is a market, however, for customized, more colorful finishes, particularly as exterior finishes of vehicles with specially customized interiors, such as customized vans or trucks. More elaborate, customized finishes are provided by after-market refinishers.
Automotive refinish topcoats are generally applied in separate layers of basecoat and clearcoat to provide optimum match to the appearance of the original finish. Unlike the original finish coating compositions, which are typically cured at temperatures of 110° C. or higher, automotive refinish coatings must be formulated as either thermoplastic compositions or thermosetting compositions that cure at relatively low temperatures because many components of a finished vehicle cannot withstand high temperature bakes. Thermosetting refinish compositions, preferred as providing more durable and scratch- and mar-resistant coatings, are usually designed to cure at ambient temperatures, including by oxidation or radiation curing, or at low bakes. Although the coating may not develop full cure for hours or days, it is desirable to have the coating become "dry to handle" (that is, not tacky) within a reasonably short time. Shorter dry to handle times also reduce the chance that the coating could become contaminated with airborne particulates. This is particularly true for clearcoat compositions, which are not covered by other coatings layers and for which a smooth, unblemished surface is critical to obtaining the desired appearance.
For a customized finish, a variety of basecoat colors may be applied, usually in layers of diminishing area, to achieve the desired effect. A clearcoat layer is then applied over the entire vehicle. Adhesion of the refinish coatings to the original finish is critical. Typically, the original finish is scuff-sanded before the refinish coating layers are applied. Scuff-sanding is tedious and time-consuming, especially when the whole exterior of a large vehicle must be sanded, as is the case for customizing the finish of a van or truck. Areas may be missed, resulting in adhesion failure. It would be desirable to overcome this problem. Further, it is necessary, particularly in customizing vehicles, to ensure that the refinish clearcoat adheres well to the original finish.

Adhesion promoting composition and method


Example distributed reservation systems and methods are described. In one implementation, multiple storage nodes are configured to store distributed data. Multiple clients are coupled to the multiple storage nodes and access data from the multiple storage nodes. A management server is coupled to the multiple storage nodes and the multiple clients. The management server manages the access of data by the multiple clients and manages reservation of the multiple storage nodes by a particular client.

Data processing systems use various techniques to allow multiple devices to access blocks of data storage at the same time. Many existing systems include a single storage server with multiple storage disks attached to the storage server. In these systems, all clients are connected to a single point (e.g., the storage server) and access data through that single point. However, some systems utilize an architecture that includes multiple storage nodes such that data is distributed across the multiple storage nodes. In these systems, multiple clients access the data from the multiple storage nodes. This architecture needs an improved reservation system that allows the multiple clients to access data on the multiple storage nodes.

Distributed reservation systems and methods


A machine for slicing food products, including a supported table surface with aperture for the passage therethrough of product slices; a power-driven cutting device having a horizontal blade extending above the table surface at a distance substantially corresponding to the slice thickness required; a guided horizontally sliding platform spaced above the cutting device; a power-driven reciprocating lateral thruster attached to the horizontal sliding platform for the purpose of moving the platform both to produce slices of food product and to clear the cutting device in the case it is jammed; and a vertical tube-shaped open-ended hopper rigidly supported by the horizontally sliding platform for containing a stack of food product items, the lowest item in the stack resting on the table surface and being pushed by the hopper into contact with the cutting device to produce a slice.

Bagels are torus-shaped bread products made of relatively dense dough and a smooth, tough, plastic-like outer skin and are frequently topped with poppy or sesame seeds. Bagels are in high demand and special outlets have been established which sell bagels as their primary product.
Bagels may be divided in two by a complete or partial horizontal cut, for toasting or in order to insert therein some other foodstuff such as cheese, vegetables, butter, fish, etc. Because of the tough, plastic-like character of their outer skin injury can easily occur when cutting is done by hand with an unguided knife. Consequently various bagel slicing devices which are much safer have been developed. Most such devices are hand-powered, but electrically powered slicers are also known.
Many U.S. patents describe bagel cutting devices intended primarily for home use, among them U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,249,445; 5,732,610; 5,881,621; 5,903,982 and 5,927,701. An automatic machine for cutting bagels in half is described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,776,252. The devices described in these patents are not slicing machines, however, in the sense that they only cut the bagel into two, or partially cut the bagel to produce a butterfly cut.
Bakeries producing bagels cannot know exactly how many bagels will be required for sale during the course of any given day, and are often faced with a substantial surplus at the end of the working day. Such bagels, even if frozen or refrigerated, cannot be sold as fresh product on the following morning. A solution to this problem is to slice the left-over bagels into multiple thin slices, typically 4 mm thick. The slices are then baked and packaged and sold as a separate product, referred to as "bagel chips." Further, the current trend of preference for low carbohydrate diets also makes the production of bagel chips desirable for bakers of bagels; a 4 mm thick bagel chip has about one tenth the carbohydrates of a 40 mm thick bagel and is therefore more likely to be bought and eaten by persons seeking to limit their consumption of carbohydrates. The relatively high prices customers are willing to pay for bagel chips should make them a significant profit center for the typical bagel bakery. Clearly, it is economically advantageous that the production of bagel slices for bagel chips be done by a machine which, once loaded with product, operates automatically without the need of a human operator.
The machines commonly seen in delicatessens for slicing cheese and meat have been used by bakeries to slice bagels for the preparation of bagel chips. Such machines have a disc-shaped rotary cutting blade and a reciprocating platform for supporting the food items to be sliced. An operator is needed to hold and advance the food into the blade. Production is slow and labor intensive and there is the ever-present danger of operator injury.
Bagel chips without a central hole have been produced by preparing rod-shaped pieces of bagel-type dough which are baked and then sliced by a food processor. A vertical feed tube guides the rod-shaped bread product into a rotating disk equipped with a slicer of the type commonly used for making potato chips. Aside from requiring an operator and failing to provide a solution for utilizing left-over bagels, this method does not provide consumers with the expected, characteristic washer-like bagel shape; the slices produced by this method are disk-shaped, with no hole in the center, and of diameter much smaller than that of a typical bagel.
A machine which produces multiple cuts of bagels has been marketed by ProBake, Inc., 2057 East Aurora Road, Twinsburg, Ohio, U.S.A. This machine has multiple reciprocating blades which preclude changing the thickness of the slices, and the bagels are fed through the machine by a gravity chute. The claimed output is 60 bagels per minute, the equivalent of about 600 slices per minute, and the machine is quite costly.
J. E. Grote Company, Inc. of Blacklick, Ohio markets slicers employing a band blade which it claims are capable of slicing bagels for bagel chips. While being good for slicing long "logs" of food such as cheese and meat, these machines have been criticized for being unable to properly slice the ends of relatively small stacked items such as apples and bagels and are therefore wasteful of product. In any case even the smallest machine of Grote takes considerable floor space and is quite expensive and is therefore hardly suitable for the typical bagel bakery.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,523,505 describes a feed chute apparatus adapted for mounting on a delicatessen-type rotary slicing machine but fails to meet the needs of efficiency and convenience for the typical bagel bakery because it requires an attendant to move the feed chute back and forth and because it cannot accommodate a convenient bin for collecting the bagel slices produced.
A carousel type bagel slicing machine is described by U.S. Pat. No. 6,619,170 B2. With it, a stack of bagels is contained in a vertical feed tube mounted on a vertically mounted rotating carrousel which passes over a rotating disk-shaped knife rising through a hole in a table top to a distance substantially equal to the thickness of the bagel slice desired. In operation the bottom bagel in the feed tube slides over the table surface until cut by the rotating knife and the bagel chip thus produced drops through the hole under the knife into a collection bin below. The chief drawback of this machine is that its revolving knife and revolving carrousel frequently jams and stalls, apparently as a result of downward pressure on the knife's upper surface exerted by the bagel being cut in much the same way that the pad of an automobile disk brake presses on the drum. When stalled, manual action is required to release the jammed knife and restart the operation of this slicer. As a result of its tendency to jam and stall, the carrousel type bagel slicing machine described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,619,170 B2 requires considerable supervision by an operator, thus defeating the aim of a machine to slice bagels automatically, with a human operator needed only to refill the hopper.


A system and process for refining crude oil to produce higher-purity, cleaner-burning designer fuels with reduced emissions. The crude oil may be treated with viscosity-reductant additives, which reduces viscosity by up to 50% and increases API gravity by more than 2 points. The method of spray-cracking and vacuum-flashing of crude oil separates light end chains and heavy end chains inside the reactor. The vapor is condensed into designer fuels like bunker, diesel, jet/kerosene fuel, naphtha and gasoline fuel using multi-stage horizontal reverse condensate-condenser. The GVF centrifuges are configured to separate targeted fuels of desired density value as per their ideal fuel densities, which carry out centrifugal polishing to generate targeted fuel products of desired density and hydrocarbon molecules of desired purity values. These designer fuels are further treated with desulfurization additive.

The properties of hydrocarbons depend on the number and arrangement of the carbon and hydrogen atoms in the molecules. Hydrocarbons containing up to four carbon atoms are usually gases, those with 5 to 19 carbon atoms are usually liquids, and those with 20 or more carbon atoms are solids. Crude oils range in consistency from water to tar-like solids, and in color from clear to black. An "average" crude oil contains about 84% carbon, 14% hydrogen, 1%-3% sulfur, and less than 1% each of nitrogen, oxygen, metals, and salts. Crude oils are generally classified as paraffinic, naphthenic, or aromatic, based on the predominant proportion of similar hydrocarbon molecules. Mixed-base crudes have varying amounts of each type of hydrocarbon. Refinery crude base stocks usually consist of mixtures of two or more different crude oils. The conventional energy-intensive oil refining process uses chemicals, catalysts, heat, and pressure to separate and combine the basic types of hydrocarbon molecules naturally found in crude oil into groups of similar molecules. The refining process rearranges their structures and bonding patterns into different hydrocarbon molecules and compounds.
Throughout the history of refining, various treatment methods have been used to remove non hydrocarbons, impurities, and other constituents that adversely affect the properties of finished products or reduce the efficiency of the conversion processes.
It is generally accepted fact that SOX and NOX emissions from fossil fuel combustion affects human health, especially when combined with atmospheric aerosols that form "acid rain" and more harmful secondary pollutants (including toxic mercury, sulfur oxides, sulfuric acids, nitric acids, hydrogen peroxides) that are absorbed by floating particulate matter and dissolved in rain droplets to exacerbate local air pollution and change the chemistry of local water supplies. Countries today have decades of experience and scientific proof about the effects on agriculture, livestock and humans from burning fossil fuels. No longer are governments tolerating the sun-blocking smog and respiratory harm to their populations caused by unregulated fossil fuel combustion emissions. Scientific studies worldwide estimate that SOX and NOX emissions from fossil fuels are responsible for the deaths of 10s of 1000s of children and the elderly, due to respiratory harm from fossil fuel combustion pollutants. Concern for the environmental effects of burning fossil fuels has recently turned to the global maritime shipping industry, where shipping pollution emissions of particulate matter (PM) smaller than 2.5 microns is estimated in recent studies to be responsible for 60,000 premature cardiopulmonary deaths every year as a consequence of ships burning high-sulfur low-purity bunker fuels. Low-grade ship bunker fuel (or fuel oil) can have more than 2,000-3,000 times the sulphur content of low-sulfur diesel fuels used in US and European automobiles. The International Maritime Organization (IMO) used such data to justify enactment of its IMO-2020 regulations for the shipping industry to burn only low-Sulfur bunker fuels in order to reduce harmful Sox and PM emissions from maritime sources. As the fuel market moves to a low-sulfur world, low-SOX bunker fuels, jet fuels, diesel fuels and gasoline fuels will become the most in-demand fuels in the market. The global move to low-Sulfur fuels is expected to reduce markets and demand for high-sulfur crude oil produced from Middle East based Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) countries. "Sour oil"-producing countries, like Saudi Arabia, Iraq, UAE, Kuwait and Mexico face a changing market place for oil, where their "sour" crude oil supplies may have a lower value because it costs refineries much more money to remove the sulfur, than to buy other countries' low-sulfur crude oil at a higher price in the first place.
Based on rising demand for sweet low-sulfur crude oil feedstocks to meet the low-cost needs of global low-sulfur fuel refineries, oil producers must deliver environmentally-friendlier ways to refine raw crude oil, if they want to increase the number of oil refineries worldwide that would want to buy their crude. Reduced-Emission Micro Oil Refineries can enable local markets to "make their own fuels" and in the process reduce the retail cost of bunker, jet, diesel and gasoline fuels to local consumers by removing the high cost of transporting those heavy fuels from 1,000s of miles away. Instead of importing tankers full of already-refined fuels that come burdened with high added transportation costs, a local Micro Oil Refinery could import just the crude oil, and from that raw material produce higher-value higher-purity fuels that can be sold at a local wholesale price that benefit all parties in a cleaner fuel value-chain. The Micro Oil Refinery (MOR) process is substantially different from the conventional pollution-intensive crude oil refining process that uses high-temperature vertical distillation columns to fractionate oil. The MOR achieves its reduced-emission refining status by not using vertical distillation columns, but instead using a novel reverse horizontal condensing method and recycling, in a closed-loop, all of the heat put into the process. By also removing the crude oil impurities separated out by the process and removing the combustion by-products from burning the separated light-end gases for process-heat, the MOR emits reduced refining emissions because it disposes of these separated impurities and process-heating combustion by-products into the final stage asphalt/residuum product. The advantage of the MOR crude oil processing technology is its reduced-emissions that can allow MOR units to be located anywhere in the world without threatening the local environment with the toxic emissions that are usually associated with oil refineries. Until now, virtually all oil refineries in the world have been portrayed as huge toxic emission-belching behemoths—which no informed human would want to live near or work downwind of. Public protests citing health concerns are why fewer and fewer refineries have been built around the world. But with the Micro Oil Refinery being a reduced-emission facility, consumers desirous of reducing their retail cost of fuels should welcome being served by a local oil refinery near them that produces the fuels they need with no threatening refining emissions and for which local consumers won't have to pay the ever-increasing fuel transportation shipping charges passed on to consumers by local fuel wholesalers, corporate customers and retail gas stations. Being the most environmentally-friendly oil refining technology in the world should enable many cities and island nations to take advantage of their market size and fuel needs to justify cost-effective installation of Micro Oil Refineries in their locales as the best means to reduce the cost of fuel to their local customers, while sustaining a more productive and interconnected network of local jobs serving the local wholesale airport, marine/port, diesel fuel and gasoline station owners.
Over the years, numerous prior arts and research-based advancements have received various methodologies, whose systems and strategies have been revealed with respect of limiting the toxic gases emitted from oil refineries. The catalytic cracking methods of crude oils resulting in the separation of hydrocarbons and also techniques for desulfurization, de-nitrification of crude oil have been previously studied by researchers. In various prior arts, the conventional technologies were based on the hydro-cracking process of low-quality feed oil or crude oil. These processes undergo hydro treatment reaction using several kinds of catalysts. The domestic hydro-cracking technology also received a large-scale industrial application. However, the hydro-cracking of a wide range of crude materials yields fuels of superior quality and other synthetic chemical crude materials. The hydro-cracking process and innovation became increasingly more thoughtful in regard to the world's eminent crude oil owners and industries. Subsequently, many prior arts disclose the hydro-treating catalyst in the presence of hydrogen, kerosene, and gas oil. Some of the prior arts describe processes that involves hydro-refining of any of the oil mixture of kerosene and gas oil and further purification done by hydrogenation using the same hydro-treating catalyst. In the early 1940s, another technique came under the knowledge which incorporated alkylation process by using various catalysts to refine petrochemical feedstock to increase gasoline yields and to improve fuel characteristics.
In one of the closest prior art, US2006/0231462A1 which relates to a method and apparatus for improving crude oil using filtration media and pressure application for forcing the crude oil through the filter where cavitation is created. Specifically, it includes a pneumatic pressure source which transports crude into a separator. As the crude passes through the filtration media, it experiences cavitation effects. The cavitation effects impart mechanical and thermal energy that assists in breaking or cracking the hydrocarbons into more valuable lighter hydrocarbons. The cavitation is produced during a backflow of the crude oil through the filter, further forcing the crude oil through a series of filters. In one aspect, the invention transforms crude oil having an API gravity of 26 into crude oil having an API gravity of 35. The process entails improving crude oil filtration where successively the waste residuum is being ejected from the crude oil. The system for improving crude oil using filtration media exerts the pressure differential between 150 and 300 psi depending on the viscosity of the fluid involved, which must be reduced.
In another prior art, CN107345150A discloses a process for hydro-processing heavy oil high nitrogen inferior. The method works under the hydrogenation reaction conditions, where the heavy oil feedstock is sequentially treated with a protecting agent, a contact de-metallization agent, de-nitrification agent, the protecting agent, metal release agent. Each agent contains de-nitrification catalyst which is supported on the catalyst support active metal components, where the protective agent, the release agent and at least one of the metal catalyst support is modified support de-nitrification agent. The modified support containing an acidic stratification adjuvant in a carrier and is gradually increased from the particle surface to the centre of the modified acidic support. The presence of water in the reactor may cause a significant portion of the de-metallization agent and metal oxides to precipitate from the liquid phases and thereby disrupt the process.
In another prior art, U.S. Pat. No. 7,276,152B2, which relates to a process of removing sulfur-containing compounds and nitrogen-containing compounds from liquid petroleum feedstock that are useful for the oxidative process. The extraction solvent used is ammonia and the extractor unit have a pressure in the range of 100 to 600 psig and a temperature which ensures that the ammonia solvent is in liquid phase. The heavy and viscous sulfones and nitrogen oxides accumulates in the bottom of the solvent recovery Column. The process involves transferring the oxidized hydrocarbon feedstock stream into an evaporator or distillation column for carrying out the separation process and to remove the by-product including acids, acetone and acetaldehyde which makes the entire operation an expensive process.
In conventional oil refineries, sulfur is generally removed after the crude oil has been fractionated. Sulfur removal typically comprises utilization of various desulfurization processes, often requiring extreme operating conditions, and incorporation of expensive equipment, often associated with high maintenance costs. Examples of prior art processes for conventional sulfur removal can be found in U.S. Pat. Nos. 1,942,054; 1,954,116; 2,177,343; 2,321,290; 2,322,554; 2,348,543; 2,361,651; 2,481,300; 2,772,211; 3,294,678; 3,402,998; 3,699,037; and 3,850,745, the disclosure of each of which is hereby incorporated herein in its entirety for all purposes not contrary to this disclosure.
In one of the closest prior art U.S. Pat. No. 4,885,080A, the invention discloses a process for producing a synthetic crude oil of improved properties by desulfurizing, denitrogenating and de-metallizing a heavy crude oil feedstock by separating the crude oil into several fractions which are selectively hydro-treated. The feedstock being a crude oil having an average boiling point at least as high as 500° F., an API gravity less than 20 at 60° F., and containing at least 1 weight percent sulfur. The process entails initially vacuum or atmospheric fractionating a heavy crude charge stock to provide at least three liquid fractions include naphtha, distillate and heavy residuum. The process includes hydro-desulfurization zone which include a very high temperature in the range from about 550° F. to about 850° F. and a hydrogen partial pressure from about 250 psig to about 900 psig. The desulfurized-demetallized residuum is then recombined with the naphtha and/or distillate fractions to produce the synthetic crude oil constituting the end product. Therefore, it is energy exhaustive process as desulfurization zone alone operates at temperatures of 550° F. to 850° F. and pressure from 250 psig to 900 psig.
A prior art, U.S. Pat. No. 5,858,766A discloses a process for the biochemical conversion of a feedstock of heavy crude oils. More specifically, heavy crude oils are treated with modified and adapted biocatalysts including biologically defined and pure strains of bacteria which have been selected through nutritional stress under challenge growth processes to utilize for growth complex hydrocarbon and heteroatom containing compounds found in heavy crude oil. The process for upgrading heavy crude oil wherein saturated hydrocarbons of said heavy crude oil are from about 10.3% to about 19.2% by weight, said resins of said heavy crude oil are from about 25% to about 45% by weight, said asphaltenes of said heavy crude oil are from about 4.4% to about 56.0% by weight. The underlying biochemical process of the invention occurs at a pressure from atmospheric to about 2500 psi and contacting heavy crude oil with a bacterial strain occurs from 24 hours to 50 hours. However, it is heavy process and requires extensive secondary and tertiary recovery technology. The problems which are mainly encountered with these processes include bacterial strain availability, economic value and refinery wastes. Other problems linked to processes with contacting crude oil with bacterial strains include plugging of the reservoir rock by the bacterial mass in undesirable locations and acidification of the crude oil by the bio production of hydrogen sulfide in the reservoir.
In another prior art, JP5346036B2, relates to the process to upgrade heavy crude oil for producing more valuable crude feedstock. To form a modified feed containing nitrogen and metal components, the hot pressurized acoustic critical water is contacted with the feedstock. The asphaltene components are reduced which increases middle distillate yield. The upgrade heavy Crude oil having a 27.4 API gravity combined with feed water in the presence of crude oil having a pour point of 34.3 or higher API gravity and 86° F. (30 ) than, modified oil/water mixture. The process operates at high temperature range of about 705° F. to about 1112° F. (374 -600 ). The modified oil/water mixture is made in the absence of hydrogen and further no catalyst is supplied from the outside. The presence of water in the oxidation reactor also causes a significant portion of the peroxides and organic oxides to precipitate out from the liquid phases. The presence of water in the reactor may sometimes disrupt the operation of the reactor.
In one of the closest prior art, US2019/0040329A1, it encompasses a multi-stage device for the production of a product heavy marine fuel oil from distressed fuel oil materials. The device comprising pre-treating of the distressed fuel oil materials into a feedstock heavy marine fuel oil, means for pre-treating being selected from the group consisting of various types of distillation columns. The process further includes step of mixing a quantity of the pre-treated feedstock heavy marine fuel oil with a quantity of activating gas mixture to give a feedstock mixture and contacting with metal catalysts to form a process mixture. The process where the product heavy marine fuel oil has bulk properties of a kinematic viscosity at 50° C. between the range from 180 mm2/s to 700 mm2/s; a density at 15° C. between the range of 991.0 kg/m3 to 1010.0 kg/m3, the total pressure is between 250 psig and 3000 psig; and the temperature is between 500° F. to 900° F. However, the process operates at a high pressure and a high temperature which is usually higher than the conventional techniques. The problem is that distressed fuel oil and residues contain high-sulfur concentration, nitrogen; asphaltenes shows a tendency to form carbon or coke on the high-cost catalyst, thereby altering its function and wasting money in the process.
In another prior art US2017/0260461A1, a process for separation of the lighter hydrocarbon fractions from the heavier fractions of hydrocarbon oil feedstock which performs sparging and reverse distillation techniques known in the art. Such inventions use costly heaters to separate out asphaltenes and paraffins from the crude oil. Further, prior art use of the sparging technique, performed in the reactor tank for cracking the crude oil, is comparatively inefficient, while the added cost of the sparging gases (like methane, helium, nitrogen, butane, carbon dioxide or any other inert gas introduced into the reactor vessel along with crude feedstock to complete the cracking process) only further increases the cost of the refining processes that use sparging.
In another prior art, US2008/0253426A1, the invention relates to a method of assaying a hydrocarbon-containing feedstock, such as refinery feedstock crudes, synthetic crude-oils, partially refined intermediate fractions such as a residue component or a cracked stock component, bio-components or blends thereof, and petroleum exploration pre-production test well samples. The method generally measures boiling profile and other properties of the hydrocarbon-containing feedstock and transmits the measurements made to a processor capable of reconstructing a determinative assay. The method is capable of measuring the properties selected from the group consisting of density, specific gravity, total acidic number, pour point, viscosity, sulfur content, metal content, nitrogen content, and combinations thereof. Therefore, a micro oil refinery automation system must be capable of calculating the extraction amounts of the left-over heavy oil residuum, left-over asphaltenes, and the left-over liquified Paraffin from the heavy oil Residuum to analyze the residual wastes. Further, automation systems must be able to measure, record and count all the compounds that are first entering and subsequently exiting out of the process.
The aforementioned inventions in the field of crude-oil processing also discuss crude oil-separation processes, apparatus and techniques. In the crude-oil processing methods known in the above prior arts, they possess several limitations and drawbacks which need to be overcome. The prior arts have limited scope to address the problems encountered and they are less efficient in minimizing the SOX and NOX emissions, increasing fuel lubricity and burn-efficiency in engines. Moreover, they are incapable of achieving the so-called targeted low-sulfur and low-nitrogen emission fuels. Most of the crude oil refining process utilizes high pressure and elevated temperature condition for cracking of hydrocarbon. Moreover, most of these prior art processes use costly heaters, requiring costly fuels for high-temperature heat to break the asphaltenes and paraffins from the crude. And these prior art processes are inefficient, because they do not completely recycle, nor use, the exhaust gases and left-over contaminants from their processes into a valuable residuum or asphalt by-product. While such prior art processes and techniques endeavor to solve one problem, they create other problems due to their processes being too energy intensive or cost intensive or uneconomical or inefficient or more pollutive.
In order to overcome the aforementioned problems, there is a strong need and demand for a better approach for designing a crude oil refining process to cost-efficiently extract high-purity and cleaner-burning fuels produced from any kind of heavy or light, sweet or sour crude oil feedstock with reduced or minimal refining emissions and environment impact.

System, method and apparatuses for reduced-emission micro oil refinery


A sewing machine includes an image capturing device capturing a marker on a sewing target object; a layout determination portion determining a relative layout of the next pattern, if a reference pattern is a pattern that is sewn when a holding position of the sewing target object is a first holding position and a next pattern is a pattern that is sewn subsequently to the reference pattern and that is sewn when the holding position is a second holding position; a layout detection portion detecting a layout of the marker; a registration portion registering information as storage information relating to the layout of the marker; an update portion updating the storage information when the layout of the marker is newly detected; and a setting portion setting a layout of the next pattern when the storage information relating to the marker captured in the second holding position.

The present disclosure relates to a sewing machine provided with an image capturing device, and to a computer program product.
Conventionally, a sewing machine is known that is provided with an image capturing device and that can sew a pattern that is larger than a sewable area that is set inside an embroidery frame. For example, when a large pattern is divided into a plurality of pieces to be sewn, the sewing machine divides the pattern that is larger than the sewable area into a plurality of patterns that are smaller than the sewable area. Then, in accordance with divided sewing data, the sewing machine sequentially sews the divided patterns based on conditions in which holding positions of a sewing target object with respect to the embroidery frame are different. The above-described known sewing machine automatically performs positioning between the divided patterns based on the conditions in which the holding positions of the sewing target object are different, based on markers arranged on a surface of the sewing target object.

Sewing machine and computer program product stored on non-transitory computer-readable medium


A system, method, and program product comprise a user profile, a remote storage device and a user computer with a memory. A user copy of the user profile is stored in the memory of the user computer. A user profile synchronization component synchronizes the user copy of the user profile with a backup copy of the user profile at the remote storage device. A user profile download component allows a user to selectively download the backup copy of the user profile from the remote storage device.

The present disclosure relates generally to the field of computer systems. More specifically, the present disclosure relates to the use of user profiles for user computers.
Existing systems provide user profiles for use on user computers. These systems also provide for remote storage of user profiles on remote storage devices. The existing systems allow for download and synchronization of user profiles between user computers and remote storage devices. However, existing systems do not provide seamless interaction between a user computer configured to use user profiles and a user, particularly during synchronization and download of user profiles to the user computer.
Accordingly, there is a need for an improved user profile synchronization system.

Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P.


A thin film magnetic head adapted for recording and/or reproducing signals at a frequency of 1 MHz or higher, in which a soft magnetic film having uniaxial magnetic anisotropy is used as a magnetic pole film material and the direction of the magnetic path of the magnetic circuit of the head is arranged to be substantially orthogonal to the axis of easy magnetization, wherein a magnetic pole film constituting the magnetic path is formed as a lamination of at least two, particularly four soft magnetic films, with an intervening nonmagnetic film between the adjacent soft magnetic films, the length W of the magnetic pole film along the direction of the axis of easy magnetization is 30 .mu.m.ltoreq.W.ltoreq.300 .mu.m, and the uniaxial magnetic anisotropy constant Ku is Ku.ltoreq.300 J/m.sup.3. This provides a relative permeance of at least 1000.

The term "high frequency" used in the present application generally refers to 1 MHz or higher frequencies. The thin film magnetic head is one employed most advantageously with a magnetic disk or a magnetic tape in cases where the magnetic recording density and the working frequency of the magnetic recording medium are extremely high. An induction type thin layer magnetic head, which relies upon electro-magnetic induction, is comprised of a lower magnetic pole film and an upper magnetic pole film making up a magnetic circuit having a magnetic gap, a coil conductor film interlinked with this magnetic circuit, and an insulation film, adapted for electrically and magnetically insulating magnetic coils from one another or from the magnetic poles, these various films being formed by thin film forming and precision processing techniques and laminated one upon the other to form a thin magnetic film.
Such induction type thin film magnetic head usually employs fine-structured magnetic cores (microcores) formed by thin films of soft magnetic metal, and hence is subject to lesser core losses at high frequencies, such as eddy current losses, than the bulk type magnetic head. In addition, the magnetic circuit may be compact in size. Thus, with the use of the induction type thin film magnetic head, recording and reproducing efficiencies may be improved in magnetic recording and reproduction over a broader range of frequencies. The induction type thin film magnetic head is also essentially suitable for use in high frequency high density magnetic recording since it may be formed by a microcore and coil winding (microcoil) and hence may be of lower impedance.
The electro-magnetic conversion characteristics of such thin film magnetic head greatly depend on the magnetic properties of the magnetic pole films. That is, for achieving sufficient recording on a high coercivity magnetic medium which enables recording at shorter wavelengths, the magnetic pole films having a high saturation flux density are required. On the other hand, for achieving faithful and efficient recording and/or reproduction of high frequency signals, high magnetic permeability in the high frequency range is required.
Generally for achieving high magnetic permeability, it is necessary to adopt rotation of magnetization with a high switching speed, rather than the magnetic wall movement, as the magnetization process. To this end, it is necessary for the magnetic pole films to be provided with uniaxial magnetic anisotropy so that the direction of the track width of the thin film magnetic head represents the axis of easy magnetization, and for the axis of difficult magnetization to coincide with the direction of magnetic excitation.

Thin film magnetic head with laminated metal and non magnetic film


One or more techniques and/or systems are disclosed herein for assigning familiar pseudonames to anonymous user members in a shared online environment. Creation of a name pool is provided for using a programmed processor disposed in a computing device. The name pool includes familiar names that may be contextually relevant to a group of user members in the shared online environment. A name from the name pool is provided for assignment to an anonymous user member in the shared online environment, where assignment of the name is, at least in part, based on characteristics of the anonymous user member relative to the shared online environment.

In a computing environment, an online community or virtual community is made up of a group of people that primarily interact using online communication media such as Internet-based news, email, Internet-based social networking sites, chat rooms, forum discussions and instant messaging, for example, rather than in person. Often, the online community is used for entertainment, social, professional, educational and/or other purposes. Online communities can supplement relational communication between people who know each other in real life, and are also often a primary form of communication between those who have never met in person, and may prefer to remain anonymous.
Many type of programs, services and software, separately or in combination, are used for online communications, including games, text-based chat rooms and forums that use voice, video text and/or avatars. Recently, online communities utilize a shared online environment that provides for users to interact with each other, such as a virtual world or online game, and/or collaborate with each other, such as online meetings, presentations, and live forum discussions.


In order to perform optimal character registration and a printing process depending on a language, in an information processing device connected to a printer having a first registration area and a second registration area as font registration areas, registration amounts in the first registration area and the second registration area are determined based on the language which the information processing device uses, and depending on the determined amounts, a first font is registered in the first registration area in the printer and a second font is registered in the second registration area.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an information processing device and the like such as a personal computer connected to a printer, and more particularly to a control method for font registration with the printer.
2. Related Background Art
Commonly, in a system having a printer and an information processing device connected thereto, font registration areas called "fixed area" and "variable area" are provided at the printer. At the information processing device, the font registration is executed for these "fixed area" and "variable area" in a predetermined font registration method.
Generally, in the case of a printer description language for foreign languages, since the printer description language often has been originally adapted to support English or some of European languages (French, German and the like), the printer description language has been constituted mainly for 1-byte output. Thereafter, as a demand for 2-byte output occurs in a market, additional specification has been added as a supplement to the printer description language. However, since there have been many parts which are not well-defined in the specification, support for the 2-byte output depends on each vendor's capacity.
In addition, as to a printer driver for generating a printer control command, there are different methods for supporting it. Some vendors have released only a driver for 1-byte areas, others have replaced all of font download methods with that for 2-byte areas described in the supplement of the printer description language since some point.
However, in view of a situation where the demand in the 2-byte areas including China becomes high lately, the output of a 2-byte font has been regarded as essential as a function of the printer driver. This is natural because it is a requirement for raising sales to develop a new market, and the new market is Asian countries, in addition to China, where the 2-byte font are used.
However, as to the output of the 2-byte font, there are several languages such as Chinese almost consisting of kanji, Korean mainly consisting of hangul with relatively less characters, Japanese mainly consisting of hiragana and katakana, and also Central Europe (CE) such as Greek and Turkish having only a few characters of the 2-byte font therein. There has been a problem that optimal performance is not necessarily obtained when such languages are registered in the same font registration method. In addition, since the font registration for the 2-byte font uses a much more amount of data than that for a 1-byte font, this problem has been an element which has more effects on the performance.
In this regard, it is possible to consider a method for producing a driver for Chinese having allocated "fixed area" and "variable area" therein to be used in the font registration in consideration of the situation of Chinese almost consisting of kanji, a driver for Korean having allocated "fixed area" and "variable area" therein to be used in the font registration in consideration of the situation of Korean mainly consisting of hangul with relatively less characters, and a driver for Japanese having allocated "fixed area" and "variable area" therein to be used in the font registration in consideration of the situation of Japanese almost consisting of hiragana and katakana, so that each of the drivers is released for its target country. However, this method increases development cost and man-hours for maintenance.
In addition, since, for example, a Japanese resident officer resident in China and the like is supposed to often use the printer driver sold in China, that is, the driver for China in consideration of the situation of Chinese, with a Japanese OS, it also causes inconvenience in this case.

Information processing device, information processing system, method for controlling information processing device, storage medium and control program


The invention relates to a polycrystalline silicon production method. The inventive method involves supplying a gas mixture based on a silicon-containing gas to a reduction reactor via a tube system and precipitating silicon on heated surfaces in such a way that an effluent gas mixture is formed. The silicon precipitation process is simultaneously carried out in at least two reactors which are connected in series by the tube system for transporting the gas mixture. Then, the gas mixture used for the operation of all the reactors is supplied at entry into the first reactor and is continuously transmitted through all the connected in series reactors.

WO2006110481 <<Production of polycrystalline silicon>> discloses the method wherein polysilicon is suggested to deposit onto hollow bodies. The hollow bodies replace slim rods in a conventional Siemens-type reactor and may be heated internally by resistance elements. The diameter of hollow bodies is selected to provide the deposition surface area much larger than that of silicon slim rods.
However, the profitability of this method is reduced by use of the additional expensive equipment and complicated electrical systems. Besides, the productivity of this method cannot be considerably increased since the deposition occurs from the gas mixture, which is the same as that leaving the reactor.
A method of polycrystalline silicon production from a gas phase is also known (U.S. Pat. No. 6,544,333, filling date Apr. 24, 2001, publication date Feb. 7, 2002 <<Chemical vapor deposition system for polycrystalline rod production>>), which comprises supply of a silicon-bearing gas through a system of pipes into the reactor, where silicon is deposited on surfaces heated by induction coils with production of output gases.
Such method of rod heating allows increasing the rod surface temperature, final rod diameter, and, thereby, the productivity becomes higher. However, the required apparatus and its electrical system are extremely complicated and expensive.
Both these methods have one common important disadvantage: the input gas is mixed with the products of silicon deposition reactions in the reactor vessel and silicon deposits from depleted mixture as compared with the supplied gas. Silicon grows from the mixture being the product of the process, and, hence, the reactor characteristics such as productivity, energy consumption, and gas-to-silicon conversion become worse.

Method for producing polycrystalline silicon


A field effect transistor (FET) includes first and second channels stacked on a substrate, the first and second channels formed of a transition metal dichalcogenide, a source electrode and a drain electrode contacting both the first channel and the second channel, each of the source electrode and the drain electrode having one end between the first channel and the second channel, and a first gate electrode corresponding to at least one of the first channel and the second channel.

1. Field
Example embodiments relate to a field effect transistor (FET) having double transition metal dichalcogenide channels that contact both surfaces of a source electrode and a drain electrode and a semiconductor device including the same.
2. Description of the Related Art
Characteristics of a field effect transistor (FET) may vary according to a material of a channel layer. A material of a channel layer is an important factor that determines characteristics of a FET. For example, carrier mobility and an on/off ratio of a FET depend on the characteristics of the FET. Instead of a silicon channel, graphene is receiving attention for use as a two-dimensional semiconductor channel. The carrier mobility of graphene is relatively high but the on/off ratio characteristic is undesirable. Accordingly, research has been conducted to improve the on/off characteristics of graphene.
However, if a transition metal dichalcogenide, which is a two-dimensional semiconductor, is used as a channel, the on/off ratio characteristic is desirable but the carrier mobility is relatively low.

Field effect transistor having double transition metal dichalcogenide channels


A sink strainer having a hollow strainer body with an open upper end with an outlet member at the lower end thereof on which is formed an annular valve seat. A basket strainer is operatively mounted in the strainer body and it is movable between an open and closed position. The basket strainer includes a valve stem which is movable relative to the basket strainer and which carries a valve provided with a detachable peripheral elastomeric seal for seating engagement on the valve seat on the outlet member.

1. Field of the Invention
The field of art to which this invention pertains may be generally located in the class of devices relating to sink strainers. Class 4, Subclass 286, Sink Strainers and Stoppers United States Patent Office Classification, appears to be the applicable general area of art to which the subject matter similar to this invention has been classified in the past.
2. Description of the Prior Art
This invention relates to sink strainers, and more particularly to the type of sink strainer used with kitchen sinks or the like. Sink strainers of the type to which this invention is directed generally include a substantially large body in which is seated a basket strainer having a rubber stopper. The basket strainers are adapted to be moved manually between opened and closed positions to permit draining and filling of the sink. Heretofore, basket strainers of this type have relied on the weight of the water in the sink to push the basket strainer's rubber stopper against the strainer body to prevent leakage of water from the sink when it is desired to retain water in the sink. However, it has been found that the weight of water in the sink does not create enough downward force to provide a leakproof seal, and accordingly, there is always some leakage by such prior art basket strainers. Heretofore, attempts have been made to provide a strainer basket or crumb cup which has a valve disc that is adapted to seat and close the drain opening in the strainer upon rotational movement of a valve stem in one direction, and conversely to open the drain upon a rotational movement of the valve stem in the opposite direction. The last mentioned type of sink strainer structure is shown in the prior art U.S. Pat. No. 2,890,463. A disadvantage of the prior art sink strainer is that it is expensive to make because the valve disc must be machined to seat on a machined surface in the sink strainer to provide a metal to metal seating seal which will not leak. A further disadvantage is that most sink strainers are made with a stamped body and the metal valve disc employed in the last mentioned patent is not capable of providing a leakproof metal to metal seating seal with such a stamped sink strainer body.


An OFDM receiver apparatus comprises a receiver to receive an OFDM signal, an estimator to estimate a distortion, a distortion compensator subjecting the sub-carrier to distortion compensation according to a control signal to generate a distortion-compensated sub-carrier, a demodulator to demodulate the distortion-compensated sub-carrier, an estimator to generate first phase distortion information, using the distortion-compensated sub-carrier and the distortion information, a weighting synthesizer to weight the first phase distortion information by weighting factors with time function over symbol intervals and then synthesize the first phase distortion information, to generate second phase distortion information, and a control signal generator to generate the control signal using the distortion information and the second phase distortion information.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an OFDM receiver apparatus that receives an OFDM (Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing) signal and demodulates it. An OFDM system is one of multi-carrier modulation techniques for modulating data to be transmitted by dividing it into a plurality of sub-carriers. The OFDM system improves a multipass fading resistance property because each sub-carrier becomes a narrow-band. On the other hand, in the OFDM system, property degradation due to a phase rotation caused by a carrier frequency error, a clock displacement and a phase noise increases. For this reason, an estimation and compensation of phase distortion are necessary.
2. Description of the Related Art
According to the format of the OFDM signal, a synchronizing preamble to use in a synchronous process and a preamble to use for a channel estimation are arranged sequentially in beginning of a burst-shaped OFDM signal. The preambles are followed by data. The data is formed of one or more symbols. Each symbol comprises a plurality of sub-carriers. Several of the sub-carriers is known signal pilot sub-carriers, and the remaining ones thereof are data sub-carriers including data.
Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2000-286819 (patent document 1) discloses an example of an OFDM receiver which receives and demodulates such an OFDM signal. In this conventional OFDM receiver, the received burst OFDM signal is converted into a digital baseband signal, and subjected to a time synchronization process and a frequency synchronization process. Then, the signal is divided into a plurality of sub-carrier signals by a Fourier transformation. The sub-carrier signals are subjected to distortion compensation with an equalizer, and then sent to a demodulator to be demodulated. Phase error information common to each sub-carrier is generated using channel distortion information generated by the signal subjected to a Fourier transform and phase distortion information generated by the channel distortion information and demodulated data. Further, the phase error information is subjected to a moving average. An equalization control signal used for distortion compensation is generated with an equalizer, using the moving averaged phase error information and channel distortion information.
The equalizer carries out an equalization process including phase distortion compensation and channel distortion compensation. An estimation of the phase distortion that could not be compensated by the equalization process is done by means of a signal generated by the equalization process, to generate the above-mentioned phase distortion information. According to the patent document 1, in an estimation process of phase distortion, the phase distortion information is weighted every sub-carrier according to amplitude level information of each sub-carrier that is calculated based on the channel distortion information. The weighted phase distortion information items are synthesized. This weighted and synthesized phase distortion information is subjected to a moving average over a plurality of symbols.
As described above, in the conventional OFDM receiver, the phase distortion that could not be compensated with an equalizer was estimated using the phase-distortion compensated signal. Then, the phase distortion information is subjected to moving average over a plurality of symbols. As a result, estimation precision of phase distortion is improved. In such an OFDM receiver, when the phase distortion estimation precision deteriorates temporarily, the estimation precision degradation may occur for a long term after the phase distortion estimation by the moving average.
It is an object of the present invention to provide an OFDM receiver apparatus realizing highly precise phase distortion compensation.


A method for determining air borne bacteria which includes successive steps of passing a volume of air by a timed suction pump through a membrane filter at a membrane passing velocity of not more than 15 cm/sec and under a constant transmembrane pressure of not more than 100 mmHg to collect the air borne bacteria on the surface of the membrane filter. The membrane filter has a multiplicity of minute holes and is provided on a medium-absorbing pad housed in a holder. A medium is injected into the medium-absorbing pad housed in said holder. The bacteria thus collected are incubated and the number of the colonies developed on the surface of said membrane filter is measured.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method and apparatus for determining the density of microorganisms such as bacteria and fungi floating in the air (hereinafter referred to as "air borne bacteria").
2. Description of the Prior Art
Determination of the density (number per unit volume) of air borne bacteria is performed as one of the means to control the cleanliness in a room, to determine environmental pollution and like purposes. Falling bacteria method and collision method have been used for determining the density of air borne bacteria.
The former comprises allowing an open schale containing an agar medium to stand on a floor for a designate period to collect and incubate the bacteria falling from the air during the period and then measuring the number of colonies developed on the medium. This method, while having the advantage of ready measurement procedure, has problems of being incapable of conducting quantitative determination of the density of bacteria and of poor reproducibility caused by large variation in the values measured. The latter method comprises sucking a specified volume of air from the top of a measuring apparatus, and collide the sucked air onto an agar medium to collect bacteria, for which various measuring apparatuses are available. Slit-sampler type measuring apparatus is generally used for this purpose. This apparatus has on its top an air suction port comprising a narrow slit, through which air is blown onto a schale placed on a turn table mounted below the slit. The method, while being capable of conducting quantitative determination, has problems of the apparatus being expensive and the bacteria collected being readily affected by drying up because of high air flow rate.
In recent years, what is known as filtration method, utilizing a membrane filter, has been attracting much attention instead of the above falling bacteria and collision methods. This method comprises passing a specified volume of air intermittently through a membrane filter housed in a holder, thereby collecting bacteria on the surface of the membrane filter. The filter is then taken out from the holder and the bacteria collected on the filter surface is washed out into a liquid medium or the filter with the bacteria is laid on an agar medium to incubate the bacteria, followed by measurement of the number of the colonies developed on the surface of the membrane filter.
This filtration method has higher reproducibility and is better than falling bacteria method and collision method. The method however cannot be said to have high accuracy with sufficient reproducibility, since, when for example air borne bacteria in the same room are analyzed, the measurement data tend to vary to a large dispersion because of the bacteria dying out depending on the measuring conditions, e.g. rate and direction of air suction. Furthermore both the above collision and filtration methods require time-consuming sterilization and pasteurization of the apparatus used, preparation of medium and like preparations, and can be conducted only by skilled operators.
The large dispersion of measurement data in the filtration method is attributable firstly to the fact that, when air borne bacteria are collected through a membrane filter, the bacteria damage their cell membrane by collision against the membrane filter or die out due to intermittent application of pressures. It is therefore most important, for the purpose of increasing the reproducibility, to collect bacteria as they are, without killing them.
The large dispersion is secondly attributable to contamination of other bacteria occurring when the bacteria collected on the membrane filter is washed out on a liquid medium for incubation or the membrane filter with the bacteria is placed upon a medium, after the membrane filter with the bacteria has been removed from the holder.

Method and apparatus for determining air borne bacteria


A box packing apparatus has an accumulating mechanism, a detection unit, and a packing mechanism. The accumulating mechanism is configured to accumulate a plurality of articles to create an article group. The detection unit is configured to detect a posture of the article group. The packing mechanism is configured to pack the article group into a packing box based on a detection result of the detection unit.

In the process of manufacturing articles such as bag packed potato chips, a predetermined number of the articles are packed into a packing box by a box packing apparatus such as the one disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2016-13867. The box packing apparatus first accumulates a plurality of the articles to create an article group corresponding to one tier's worth. Next, the box packing apparatus packs the article group into the packing box. The box packing apparatus repeats this operation a number of times equal to the number of tiers of the articles to be put inside one packing box to thereby pack the predetermined number of the articles into the packing box.


Disclosed herein are a patterned substrate for a light emitting diode and a light emitting diode employing the patterned substrate. The substrate has top and bottom surfaces. Protrusion patterns are arranged on the top surface of the substrate. Furthermore, recessed regions surround the protrusion patterns. The recessed regions have irregular bottoms. Thus, the protrusion patterns and the recessed regions can prevent light emitted from a light emitting diode from being lost due to the total reflection to thereby improve light extraction efficiency.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a substrate for a light emitting diode and a light emitting diode employing the same. More specifically, the present invention relates to a patterned substrate for a light emitting diode and a light emitting diode employing the same.
2. Discussion of the Background
GaN-based light emitting diodes (LEDs) have been developed and applied for about 10 years. The GaN-based LEDs have significantly changed LED technologies and currently employed in a variety of applications including full color LED displays, LED traffic lights, white LEDs and the like.
Recently, high-efficiency white LEDs have been expected to replace common fluorescent lamps. Particularly, the efficiency of white LED is approaching that of general fluorescent lamps. However, there is room for further improvement in the efficiency of LEDs, and thus, further efficiency improvement is continuously required.
Two major approaches have been attempted to improve the efficiency of LEDs. The first approach is to enhance the internal quantum efficiency determined by the crystal quality and the epitaxial layer structure, and the second approach is to increase the light extraction efficiency.
Since the internal quantum efficiency currently reaches 70˜80%, there is little room for further improvement of the internal quantum efficiency. However, there is room for improvement in the light extraction efficiency. For the improvement in light extraction efficiency, it is important to eliminate internal loss by employing a heat radiation structure and roughened surfaces.
Meanwhile, roughened surfaces are employed to prevent total reflection due to a difference between refractive indexes of a GaN-based LED and the surrounding thereof, e.g. a substrate and the atmosphere. Since a GaN-based semiconductor material has a high refractive index of about 2.4, a critical angle is relatively large. Light directed toward a surface of an LED at an angle less than a critical angle is totally reflected and then returned again to the interior of the LED. Such light may be again reflected and then radiated to the outside, but a portion of the light is absorbed into the LED or electrodes and then lost in the form of heat. The roughened surfaces prevent light incident on the LED surface from being returned to the interior of the LED due to the total reflection, and thus, allow the light to be radiated to the outside.
Meanwhile, a technology for employing a patterned sapphire substrate to improve light extraction efficiency has been proposed in "InGaN-based near-ultraviolet and blue-light-emitting diodes with high external quantum efficiency using a patterned sapphire substrate and a mesh electrode," Japanese Journal of Applied Physics, Vol. 41, 2002, pp. L1431-L143, Dec. 15, 2002.
According to the technical paper, a sapphire substrate is etched to form convex hexagons thereon such that light loss due to total reflection of light between an LED and a substrate can be reduced to thereby improve light extraction efficiency.
However, the light extraction efficiency of LEDs has not yet reached a satisfactory level, and thus, continuous efforts to improve the light extraction efficiency are required.

Patterned substrate for light emitting diode and light emitting diode employing the same


A computer-implemented method, according to one approach, includes: receiving a request to read a plurality of files from a magnetic tape, and obtaining a tape directory which identifies regions on the magnetic tape in which the files are stored. The tape directory is used to map each of the files to one of the regions on the magnetic tape in which the respective file is stored. A first subset of the files stored in a same first region on the magnetic tape is also sorted into a first order. The computer-implemented method further includes simultaneously: sorting a second subset of the files stored in a same second region on the magnetic tape into a second order, and instructing a tape drive to read each of the files in the first subset according to the first order.

The present invention relates to data storage systems, and more particularly, this invention relates to accessing files stored on magnetic tape using block grouping.
In magnetic storage systems, magnetic transducers read data from and write data onto magnetic recording media. Data is written on the magnetic recording media by moving a magnetic recording transducer to a position over the media where the data is to be stored. The magnetic recording transducer then generates a magnetic field, which encodes the data into the magnetic media. Data is read from the media by similarly positioning the magnetic read transducer and then sensing the magnetic field of the magnetic media. Read and write operations may be independently synchronized with the movement of the media to ensure that the data can be read from and written to the desired location on the media.
An important and continuing goal in the data storage industry is that of increasing the density of data stored on a medium. For tape storage systems, that goal has led to increasing the track and linear bit density on recording tape, and decreasing the thickness of the magnetic tape medium. This has also led to increases in storage capacity for magnetic tapes as a whole. However, the development of small footprint, higher performance tape drive systems has created various challenges ranging from the design of tape head assemblies for use in such systems to actually accessing data stored on a magnetic tape.
For instance, the process of reading multiple files from different locations on a magnetic tape involves repositioning the magnetic head between the various physical locations that the files are stored. Conventional processes have performed these read operations such that the files are accessed in an order which corresponds to how the files themselves relate to each other. For example, File A is accessed first, File B is accessed second, File C is accessed third, etc. However, accessing files in this manner is often inefficient because of the repeated movements that are performed in order to seek the beginning of each file on the tape. Moreover, as the number of files being accessed increases, the amount of head repositioning performed by these conventional processes increases as well.

High speed file copy from tape using block grouping

International Business Machines Corporation


A printing device that performs printing on a medium includes an inkjet head, a main scan driving unit, a sub scan driving unit, and a control unit, where the control unit sets a sub-scanning movement amount based on a basic movement amount, which is a basic movement amount set according to print conditions, and a value indicating a distance for increasing or decreasing the sub-scanning movement amount in the print conditions set at the time of inputting an input correction value. Furthermore, a storage is further provided, which stores a first correction coefficient used when the basic movement amount is within a first range, and a second correction coefficient used when the basic movement amount is within a second range smaller than the first range, and the control unit sets the sub-scanning movement amount based on the basic movement amount and the calculated correction value.

Conventionally, an inkjet printer, which is a printing device that performs printing through an inkjet method, has been widely used. Furthermore, as a configuration of an inkjet printer, a serial type configuration that causes an inkjet head to perform a main scan (scanning operation) is widely used (see e.g., Patent Literature 1).


A motor for a disc drive unit is spatially separated from an enclosure housing the magnetic disks and read-write heads. The disks are mounted on a hub that is fixed to a shaft extending through the hub, having bearings at either end of the shaft. One end of the shaft extends outside of the enclosure, the rotor of the motor is fixed to this end of the shaft and is concentric therewith. The rotor has a rotor housing that is cup-shaped, with an opening facing away from the interior of the enclosure. Inwardly of the rotor housing is a stator mounted on a supporting member. The supporting member is detachably mounted to the enclosure for easy access to the stator. Further, a circuit board having control elements for the motor, including a Hall element mounted thereon, is provided on the supporting member for easy access to the circuit board. Each of the coils of the stator is divided into windings, and the controller for the motor switches the number of windings used so that more of the windings are used for each coil during start-up than during the running condition, when less work is needed.

The present invention relates to the structure of a motor and particularly, to a motor for use in a magnetic disk unit to rotate the magnetic disks at high speed, the mounting structure thereof, and the controlling method thereof.
As disclosed in Japanese Laid-Open Pat. No. 62-212968 or in HITACHI Review Vol. 37 (1988), No. 5 p. 283 -p.290, the conventional magnetic disk unit is so constructed that a motor is directly mounted at an end of the shaft to which a magnetic disk is fixed and is driven to rotate it. This motor is of an outer-rotor type having a cup-shaped rotor, and the rotor is positioned so that its opening faces the side of the chamber (enclosure) where the disk is stored. In the portion covered by the rotor, a stator is installed, and the stator is fixed to the non-rotatable portion of the motor. A board having the hall element to detect the position of the rotor is provided on the non-rotatable portion of the motor.
Furthermore, as described in Japanese Utility Model Publication No.51-49934, a magnetic shielding board is provided between the motor and the magnetic disk in order to protect the magnetic disk from any effect caused by a leakage of the magnetic field from the motor.

Magnetic disk enclosure with detachable stator


A method and apparatus for providing immersive surveillance wherein a remote security guard may monitor a scene using a variety of imagery sources that are rendered upon a model to provide a three-dimensional conceptual view of the scene. Using a view selector, the security guard may dynamically select a camera view to be displayed on his conceptual model, perform a walk through of the scene, identify moving objects and select the best view of those moving objects and so on.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to surveillance systems and, more particularly, relates to a method and apparatus for providing immersive surveillance.
2. Description of the Related Art
The objective of a surveillance or visualization display is typically to allow a user to monitor or observe a scene with full awareness of the situation within the scene. Typical surveillance or visualization systems present video to a user from more than one camera on a single display. Such a display allows the user to observe different parts of the scene, or to observe the same part of the scene from different viewpoints. A typical surveillance display, for example, has 16 videos of a scene shown in a 4 by 4 grid on a monitor. Each video is usually labeled by a fixed textual annotation displayed under the video segment to identify the image. For example, the text "lobby" or "front entrance" may be shown. If an event deserving attention is observed in one particular video, then the label can be used to locate the activity in the scene.
This approach for surveillance and visualization has been used widely for many years. However, there are some fundamental problems with this approach.
First, if an event deserving attention occurs in one particular video, then the user does not know how the activity relates to other locations in the scene without referring to or remembering a map or 3D model of the scene. For example, if activity is observed near "elevator 1" and the user knows that a guard is currently at "stairwell 5", then without a map or 3D model, the user will not know if the guard is very close or very far from the activity in order to intervene. The process of referring to a map or 3D model either on paper or on a computer is typically time-consuming and error-prone since a human is involved in the association of the camera view to the map or model. The process of remembering a map or 3D model is also error-prone, and typically impossible when large numbers of cameras are used or if the site is large.
Second, if an event deserving attention occurs in a video and then the activity moves out of the field of view of the video in one particular direction, then there are only two ways that the user can predict the new location of the activity. First, the user can remember the orientation (pointing direction) of the camera with respect to a fixed coordinate system (for example, the compass directions). Second, the user can recognize landmarks in the video and can use the landmarks to determine the approximate orientation of the camera with respect to a fixed coordinate system by remembering or referring to a map or 3D model of the scene. These two methods of predicting the new location of activity are error-prone, since typically the views from cameras are shown with respect to many different arbitrary coordinate systems that vary widely from camera to camera depending on how each camera was mounted during installation. As more cameras are added to the system, the more difficult it is for the user to remember their orientations or to recognize the landmarks in the scene. In addition, some parts of the scenes may contain no distinguishing landmarks at all.
Third, as more videos are displayed on a screen, then the resolution of each video has to be reduced in order to fit them into a display. This makes it difficult to observe the details of any event deserving attention in the video. The current solution to this problem is either to have an additional display that shows one selected video at high resolution, or to switch a single display between the view showing multiple reduced resolution videos and a view showing a single video at high resolution. However, the problem with this approach is that the user will miss any activity that may be occurring in other videos while they are focusing on the single high-resolution video.
Therefore, there is a need in the art for a method and apparatus for providing an immersive surveillance system that provides a user with a three-dimensional contextual view of a scene.

Method and apparatus for providing immersive surveillance