A removable collar of flexible, absorbent material fits over the neck of a bottle. The collar absorbs liquids that drip from the bottle. The material is initially shaped as an isosceles trapezoid. The collar is formed into a truncated, generally conical shape by overlapping two opposing vertices at each end of the shorter parallel edge of the trapezoid to form a point at a lower end of the collar to produce the appearance of a “cravat.” A vertex at the longer edge of the trapezoid overlaps a portion of the shorter edge of the trapezoid and is secured to the overlapped portion at a single point. The generally conical collar has an upper opening that expands to allow the collar to pass around the enlarged flange near the top of the bottle. The upper opening snaps back to an original size to fit against the neck of the bottle.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is in the field of protective collars for bottles, and, more particularly, is in the field of decorative drip-stop collars that may be branded and may also serve as gift cards to accompany a bottle.
2. Description of the Related Art
Wine and other beverages are often purchased in bottles to be presented as gifts. Because of the shapes of the bottles, it is difficult to wrap the bottles and to attach gift cards. The wines or other beverages in wine bottles often have propensities to stain tablecloths and clothing because of residual amounts of liquids remaining at the tops of the bottles after the beverages are poured into glasses when served.
Various attempts have been made to avoid or at least reduce the propensity for dripping. For example, servers at restaurants and at parties often carry a napkin or small towel to wipe excess liquid from the tops of the bottles after each serving. To avoid this inconvenience, products have been proposed to attach to the bottles. For example, strips of absorbent material have been wrapped around necks of bottles and held in place using string, wire, or adhesive. Tubular sleeves produced from elastic fabric have been placed around the necks of bottles. One proposed solution uses an encapsulated band of absorbent material adhered directly to the necks of bottles.
The previously proposed solutions have issues that substantially reduce their effectiveness in the mass retail market. For example, many of the previously proposed solutions cannot be produced at a cost-effective price so that the products can be used as a disposable point of sale (POS) piece by retailers. In particular, retailers are not interested in using items that result in an increase of the retail price of a bottle of wine or liquor.
Generally, the devices in accordance with previously proposed solutions are not "pre-assembled" because the devices are not designed to fit over the many different sizes and styles of flanges that are found at the tops of the many varieties of bottles used by the wine and liquor industries. The delivery of the devices to the retailers in an unassembled condition presents problems for retailers. For example, a person in the retail store must assemble and/or affix the device to the bottle at or prior to the point of sale. This assembly time may reduce the sales volume or may result in the devices not being used when the sales person is in a hurry. Furthermore, the devices may be assembled incorrectly and/or inconsistently from bottle-to-bottle, which would result in a non-uniform presentation to the consumer.
Many of the devices in accordance with previously proposed solutions are not effective in the mass-retail market because the devices are generally attached or affixed to bottles in a manner such that the devices cannot be easily removed without being damaged and therefore the devices cannot be re-used. One potential problem for retailers is that if a device were printed or marked to indicate a certain brand or type of wine or liquor and was then affixed to the wrong bottle, the device could not be easily removed to place the device on the correct bottle and to place the correct device on the improperly marked bottle. The value of a device that cannot be transferred from one bottle to another is less than for a device that can be used on multiple bottles.


A clutch assembly for a driveline of a motor vehicle comprises a friction plate clutch having an inner plate carrier, to which inner plates are connected in a rotationally fixed and axially movable way, and having an outer plate carrier to which outer plates are connected in a rotationally fixed and axially movable way, and wherein the inner plates and the outer plates jointly form a plate package, wherein the inner plate carrier comprises at least one bore in an axial overlapping region with the plate package through which bore oil can flow to the plate package, a supporting plate against which the plate package is axially supported, an axially movable pressure plate for axially loading the plate package, an operating device for operating the friction plate clutch by axially moving the pressure plate, a flow controller for controlling an oil volume flow rate through the at least one bore of the inner plate carrier, wherein the flow controller comprises a setting member which is operable by the operating device for the friction plate clutch, wherein the setting member comprises a cover portion for covering a mouth region of the at least one bore.

Generally, a sufficient supply of oil is essential for friction plate clutches to sufficiently lubricate components that rotate relative to one another, and to discharge friction-generating heat. On the other hand, a high oil volume flow leads to drag moments and thus to undesirable losses.
From U.S. Pat. No. 8,388,486 B2 a driveline of a motor vehicle is known with a disconnectable propeller shaft, wherein a first clutch is arranged in the performance path in front of the propeller shaft and a second clutch behind the propeller shaft. The second clutch is provided in the form of a friction clutch running under wet conditions, which clutch can be operated by a ball ramp assembly. A valve is provided for reducing the oil flow to the friction plate clutch when the propeller shaft is disconnected. The valve cooperates with a lubrication pipe which is fixed in the housing and which supplies the friction clutch with oil.
DE 101 50 704 A1 proposes a plate clutch for motor bicycles, which clutch comprises a hollow-cylindrical clutch shaft and a regulator for controlling the oil flowing in the clutch shaft. The regulator comprises a valve with a tappet and an aperture, which valve is arranged inside the clutch shaft. The tappet is connected to an axially movable disengagement element of the plate clutch. In the coupled condition of the plate clutch, the tappet in a position approaching the aperture, which corresponds to a low oil volume flow and in the uncoupled condition it is in a position where it is moved away from the aperture, which corresponds to a greater oil volume flow.
From DE 697 25 150 T2 a disc clutch assembly is known with an inner plate carrier and an outer plate carrier. The outer plate carrier comprises a toothed structure in which the outer plates are held in a rotationally fixed and axially movable way. In the region of the tooth gaps of the toothed structure, radial through-openings are provided over the circumference through which lubricating oil can flow radially outwardly to de-oil the clutch.
From DE 10 2011 086 376 B4 an oil supply device is known for a plate brake in a transmission module. For cooling purposes with the plate brake being in slip condition, an oil injection is provided which is controlled by a valve regulator. The supply of oil only takes place in operational slip phases of the plate brake. The valve regulator can be coupled to the signal of the piston control means of the multi-plate brake.
WO 2015 150 407 A1 proposes a drive assembly for a motor vehicle having an electric motor, a multi-stage transmission and a differential gearing. The multi-stage transmission comprises two transmission stages for driving the differential gearing under different transmission ratios. The transmission stages can be switched by a controllable switching unit which is arranged coaxially relative to the driveshaft. The driveshaft comprise a bearing bore as well as a plurality of transverse bores for supplying the seat portions of the gears arranged on the driveshaft and the switching unit.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.


Various embodiments are directed to methods and systems for presenting an interface to a user. For example, a computer may receive a request for content originating from a browser application executing on a client machine in electronic communication with the at least one server. The request may identify a first commodity and a first event associated with the commodity and may comprise a Universal Resource Locator (URL) identifying the first commodity. The computer may parse a commodity descriptor file to identify a first service associated with the first commodity and the first event. The commodity descriptor file may comprise definitions of a plurality of commodities and wherein the plurality of commodities comprises the first commodity. In addition, the computer may generate a service call requesting the first service, and execute the at least one service associated with the first commodity and the first event. The at least one service may query the data source to retrieve data describing the commodity and construct a model of the commodity according to the data.

Modern web applications may be built using a number of different techniques. For example, many web applications are based on a "page concept" in which a web server renders one web page at a time for viewing via a client browser window. A more flexible approach for presenting content utilizes portals. A portal is a web application that aggregates content from different portlet applications within a single web page. A portlet application, or portlet, is a pluggable user interface software component that produces fragments of markup code and is visibly contained within a portlet window of the portal application. Examples of content provided by portlets include, for example, e-mail, weather reports, discussion forums and news. In addition to content aggregation, portals typically provide a greater degree of personalization and a single sign-on for accessing all of the portal content of a web page.
Portal development and deployment may entail increased complexity and cost, however. In many cases, for example, it is necessary to add one or more separate portal servers to the underlying server infrastructure. Additionally, the need to comply with specialized standards and protocols (e.g., the JSR 168 or JSR 286 Java Portlet Specifications, Web Services for Remote Portlets (WSRP)) generally requires a greater level of development and maintenance expertise and longer development times. The use of specialized standards and protocols may also limit the types of applications able to consume portlet content and the flexibility to present the content in a number of formats. Although browser-based alternatives for providing portal-like features are known (e.g., meshing), such solutions are typically unrefined and may not provide sufficient granularity.


A damascene process incorporating a GCIB step is provided. The GCIB step can replace one or more CMP steps in the traditional damascene process. The GCIB step allows for selectable removal of unwanted material and thus, reduces unwanted erosion of certain nearby structures during damascene process. A GCIB step may also be incorporated in the damascene process as a final polish step to clean up surfaces that have been planarized using a CMP step.

1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to damascene processing in a semiconductor device, and more particularly, to reducing wire erosion during damascene processing.
2. Background Description
Interconnects of a semiconductor device are formed by various methods, including a damascene process. It should also be noted that the damascene process can be incorporated into the fabrication of many types of semiconductor devices such as MOSFET or bipolar junction transistors (BJT), etc., and various structures such as resistors, wires, and vias, etc. The damascene process typically includes first forming a trench in a substrate. The trench in the substrate is formed having a width which substantially corresponds to the desired final width of the interconnect. Additionally, the trench traditionally will have a depth which is slightly deeper than the desired final height or thickness of the interconnect. It should be noted that the damascene process can be used to form a variety of structures in addition to a trench, such as vias, however, all such structure will be referred to simply as trenches for simplicity.
Once the trench has been formed, the trench and adjacent surface areas of the substrate are coated with conducting material. In some damascene processes, the trench may receive a liner material which includes a thin layer of a material which is conformably deposited to the bottom and sides of the trench and the surrounding substrate surface. Additionally, some damascene processes include a metal seeding process, where a seed of trench-fill material is deposited within the trench and on the substrate surfaces to aid in bulk material deposition. For example, where the trench-fill material will be copper, a copper seed is deposited in the trench. It should be noted that the trench may be filled with a conductor or a dielectric; however, since the trench-fill in a damascene process is typically a conductor, the terms "trench-fill" and "bulk conductor" will be used synonymously herein, even though the trench-fill may also be a dielectric.
One of the potential problems of forming an interconnect or via with the damascene process is the form action at unwanted voids or inclusions in the bulk conductor as it is deposited within the trench. Accordingly, the seed deposition may help to reduce void or inclusion formation by aiding in the uniform deposition of trench-fill material. Additionally, a trench having a high aspect ratio, i.e., one that is much taller than wider will have a greater tendency to have voids or inclusions formed in the material deposited therein. Where the trench forms a wire or interconnect, voids or inclusions in the conductor of the wire or interconnect will increase the resistance of the wire or interconnect and negatively impact device performance.
After the trench-fill material has been deposited, the upper portions of the bulk conductor are removed, typically by a chemical, mechanical polishing (CMP) process. The upper portions of the bulk conductor are typically removed so that the only bulk conductor remaining lies within the trench. Thus, all or substantially all of the bulk conductor is removed from the surfaces surround the trench.
Where a liner is deposited on the substrate, the bulk conductor typically is removed from the substrate surface but substantially not from inside the trench to expose substantially all of the liner in a first polishing step. After the bulk conductor has been removed from surfaces of the substrate, any exposed portions of a liner are removed in a second polishing step. The exposed portions of the liner are usually removed by a CMP process. In certain damascene processes, the liner is a conductor, and thus it important for all of the liner material to be removed from the surfaces of the substrate surrounding the trench to prevent shorts between wires and interconnects.
Also, the surfaces of substrate underlying the liner may have topographic imperfections, such as bumps, scratches or depressions, which the liner has filled in. Accordingly, portions of the substrate which protrude above the lowest portion of the lower surface of the liner will be removed first during liner removal. Thus, for all of the liner material to be removed from any low spots on the substrate surface, a significant portion of the substrate itself may have to be removed. Additionally, the CMP process may not be uniform across the surface of the substrate, and thus, some regions of the substrate will be exposed before all of the liner has been removed, thus also necessitating removal of significant portions of the substrate in certain regions of wafer.
Because the bulk conductor has had the upper portions removed down to the top edge of the trench, any removal of the substrate will necessarily also remove portions of the bulk conductor residing in the trench. Accordingly, such unwanted removal of the bulk conductor will increase the resistivity of the interconnect. Because interconnects having higher resistivities are undesirable, the typical damascene process starts with forming a trench which is deeper than the final desired interconnect thickness. Such extra interconnect thickness remaining after the removal of the upper portions of bulk conductor allows for interconnect erosion during the final stages of liner removal. However, as noted above, because trenches with higher aspect ratios have a greater chance of void or inclusions being formed within the interconnect, increasing the depth of a trench to accommodate interconnect erosion is undesirable. Accordingly, a method for removing materials during a damascene process which avoids interconnect erosion is desirable.
As such, damascene processes typically utilize a two step metallization process in which the trenches and/or vias are filled with a thin liner follower by a thicker layer of bulk conductor. For example, for copper wiring, the liners are typically tantalum (Ta) or tantalum based material. After damascene trench formation, the process continues with a Ta liner deposition and copper deposition. The copper deposition step typically includes a plasma vapor deposition (PVD) copper seed followed by an electroplated copper layer. An anneal process may be optionally included after the bulk copper deposition.
After the bulk copper has been deposited, an upper portion of the bulk copper is removed with a copper CMP process to the exposed portions of the liner. Next, a tantalum CMP process is used to remove all of the liner on the wafer surface adjacent to the interconnects. Accordingly, where the liner has filled in scratches, recesses and other topological imperfections on the wafer, the liner material must be removed at the expense of removing the surrounding wafer material. As such, a considerable amount of intermetal dielectric (IMD), which is coplanar with the damascene interconnect or via surface, is removed while removing all the liner material from the lowest portions of the topological imperfections.
Typical IMD removals range from 50-100 nm for thin (about 100-300 nm height) single damascene wire level to 100-250 nm for a super thick (about 3 um height) wire. Accordingly, the IMD erosion during the CMP process requires the wires or vias to be fabricated with pre-metallization heights greater than the final metallization heights, which increases the chance of unwanted voids or inclusions being formed in the wire or via.
Wire height and aspect ratio for interconnects formed during a damascene process using a post reactive ion etch (RIE) and a post CMP material removal process are shown in Table A. Each row in Table A corresponds to a particular type of device upon which the damascene interconnect formation process was used. As can be seen from Table A, a damascene process for a 90 nm generation M1 has a wire height of 280 nm with an aspect ratio of 2.50 after the RIE etch, and a wire height of 180 nm with an aspect ratio of 1.61 after the CMP step. Accordingly, about 100 nm of material has been eroded from the interconnect structure during the CMP step. For a relatively large wire such as 130 nm generation 6X wire, the post RIE wire height is 3.3 um with an aspect ratio of 2.8, and the post CMP wire height is 3.0 um with an aspect ratio of 2.5.
TABLE APost RIEAspectPost CMPAspectWire HeightsRatioWire HeightsRatio90 nm280nm2.50180 nm1.61generation M190 nm380 nm2.71250nm1.79generation M390 nm550nm1.96400nm1.43generation 2XWire130 nm3.3um2.8 3.0um2.5 generation 6XWire
Accordingly, as the trend shown in Table A indicates, the amount of material eroded during the CMP step remains relatively constant regardless of the size of the wire being formed by the damascene process. Consequently, as wire size shrinks, a larger proportion of wire will be eroded during the CMP step, thus requiring ever increasing aspect ratios and a corresponding increase in the chance of a void or inclusion formation during the damascene process. As such, wire erosion during the damascene process will have an increasingly negative impact on fabrication yield for smaller and smaller interconnects and devices. Although the damascene process typically uses a conductor as trench-fill material, a non-conductor may also be used as trench-fill material.

Reducing wire erosion during damascene processing

International Business Machines Corporation


A hinge bar connector assembly to connect spaced apart and separate ramps to a flat bed trailer of the type commonly known as a "hot shot" trailer of a semi-truck and trailer combination. Such trailers have spaced apart sockets or receiving channels around the peripheral edges of the trailer, including along both sides as well as along the front edge and the rear edge. The connector assembly in accordance with this invention has a first connecting member with two spaced apart legs to seat in a pair of adjacent receiving channels or sockets which support a pair of laterally spaced apart hinges and a removable hinge rod on which one end of a ramp having a connectable hinge member is pivotally connected. It also has a second identical connecting member seated in a pair of adjacent receiving channels or sockets which are spaced apart from the first connecting member to which a second ramp having a connectable hinge member is pivotally connected. The ramp members and their respective connecting members are spaced apart whatever distance desired for the items to be rolled up or down on said pair of ramp member for loading or unloading the trailer.

This invention relates to connecting assemblies for connecting ramps to trailers for loading and unloading. In particular it relates to those having already provided sockets at spaced apart intervals around the edges of the trailer, primarily for the purpose of receiving the insert portions of vertically extending stakes or posts of removable side walls.
Trailers of this type are commonly known in the trucking trade as "hot shot" trailers. In addition to spaced apart sockets in which to seat the insert portions of removable side walls, such trailers usually have other items of equipment such as winches, or support bars or brackets, and other obstructing elements secured to the side edge of the trailer between some of the pairs of receiving sockets. Thus, except for the removable side walls, it is difficult and in some cases impossible to seat other items of equipment, such as a ramp assembly, in adjacent pairs of such receiving sockets. The hinge bar connector assembly in accordance with this invention solves such problems by providing a pair of separate connecting assemblies each carrying an elongated removable hinge bar to which separate ramp members can be connected, and seated in respective spaced apart pairs of adjacent sockets along the edge of the trailer. The elongated removable hinge bar of each connector assembly has a lateral dimension greater than the distance the adjacent pair of sockets are spaced apart in which each respective connector assembly is seated. The ramp member pivotally connected to such elongated hinge bar can be moved laterally on such elongated hinge bar to laterally adjust the distance each of the separate ramp members are spaced apart for precise alignment with the spaced apart wheels of a vehicle or other item to be loaded or unloaded on the trailer.
Examples of prior art ramp connectors for loading and unloading of vehicles or other items having wheels include those disclosed in the following United States patents:
U.S. Pat. No. 4,721,426 discloses a bridge plate for moving automobile between railroad cars in which the bridge plate includes an intermediate upright truss and two bracing trusses joined thereto of inverted trapezoidal cross section.
U.S. Pat, No. 4,657,233 discloses a spring loaded permanently connected ramp assembly for ease in pivoting the ramps between their raised and lowered positions.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,043,468 discloses another permanently connected ramp, this one being retractable.
U.S. Pat. No. 307,719 discloses still another permanently connected ramp, this one being a floating ramp which can be moved on top of the trailer when not in position for loading something on to the trailer.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,147,869 discloses a freight handling assembly which includes a ramp and rollers for loading freight items on to a railroad car in which the rollers are retractable after the freight item has been loaded.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,095,989 discloses permanently mounted side ramps on a truck for loading and unloading shipping containers carried on a platform having rollers or wheels.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,058,603 discloses another type of support and carrying frame for freight containers on which ramps are pivotally and permanently mounted.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,021,970 discloses a trailer having upright load retaining stakes which are pivotally and permanently mounted to also serve as ramps when pivoted downwardly to a diagonal ramp position.
U.S. Pat. No 2,559,712 discloses a permanently mounted pivotable bracket having a receiving portion capable of receiving and holding skids of various types for rolling or sliding items of freight on and off of a trailer or wagon.
U.S. Pat. No. 2,355,867 discloses another freight carrying device in which permanently mounted pivotable arms are pivotable from an upright position to a horizontal or diagonal position to serve as a skid or ramp for loading and unloading freight.

Hinge bar connector assembly to connect ramps to a flat bed trailer


A system in one embodiment includes a voltage controlled oscillator; at least two varactors coupled to a tank node, each of the varactors being of a different physical size, the tank node being coupled to the voltage controlled oscillator; and switches for selectively turning the varactors on and off, wherein switching a first of the varactors from off to on and a second of the varactors from on to off creates a capacitance step of less than about 10 fF thereby tuning the voltage controlled oscillator from a first state to a second state.

The present invention generally relates to low density varactors.
On-chip variable capacitors (varactors) are widely used in integrated circuits for clocking and I/O applications, e.g. inductor-varactor voltage-controlled oscillators (LC VCOs) to provide a stable desired frequency, or impedance-matching circuits to reduce signal loss at chip inputs or outputs. Tuning is achieved by varying a control voltage input to the varactor, to change the capacitance value between a low and a high value. These varactors typically have high capacitance density (capacitance per unit area) to allow implementation of large capacitance values in a small chip area. Tuning such high-density varactors between the low-capacitance and high-capacitance states results in a large capacitance step, thus causing a large frequency step in an LC VCO, for example. Some circuit applications require a small frequency step, e.g. a digital PLL with separate proportional and integral feedback paths. Here the proportional path gain should be very small (kHz steps) compared to the integral path gain (MHz steps). The integral path is typically implemented using the high-density varactors. However, the proportional path needs a device that allows a small frequency step. Prior art solutions to achieve these small frequency steps include using an array of the smallest size high-density varactor allowed by the semiconductor process technology. However, such a solution requires a large chip area and adds large wiring parasitics to the varactor which reduces the VCO tuning range.
An example of prior art to achieve a small frequency step is shown in FIG. 1. A high-density varactor 100 having the smallest size allowed by the technology is connected to the tuned circuit node (e.g. the resonant tank node of LC VCO), and a digital control (CAP_HI) is set to 1 to provide the maximum capacitance on the tank node, or 0 to provide the minimum capacitance. An array of these varactors is connected in parallel to provide the desired total capacitance. The disadvantages of this method are the large chip area required for the array and the large wiring parasitics of the array. This wiring parasitic is a fixed-value capacitance that reduces the tuning range of the VCO.

Varactor system having real or apparent low capacitance density


The present invention discloses an intermediate file processing method, client, server, and system, including: receiving, from a first client, a message of writing an intermediate file to a first server; requesting a second server to create cluster information of the intermediate file; after the cluster information is created, receiving the cluster information returned by the second server, wherein the cluster information includes a priority level; and sending the cluster information to the first client and a second client, wherein the intermediate file is uploaded to the first server by the first client, so that the intermediate file is written by the first server according to a local disk load and the priority level of the cluster information, and the intermediate file is read from the first server by the second client according to the cluster information. It is ensures that tasks of jobs of higher priority levels can be processed promptly, jobs of higher priority levels are prevented from being delayed, and disk load balance is maintained.

In distributed data computing (for example, MapReduce, Spark), each data processing job contains multiple tasks, and each task performs a conversion operation on data. The conversion operation is generally implemented through concurrently processing different data slices by multiple task worker threads. A large amount of intermediate result data generally is exchanged among the task worker threads, and the intermediate result data can be accessed in the form of an intermediate file. Efficiently processing the intermediate file is a key technology of distributed data processing.
Conventionally, each task worker thread directly accesses a local file system of a server, stores an output intermediate file, and reports file location information to a job management node (e.g., a node responsible for managing task execution in a job). The job management node informs an intermediate file storage address to a next task of reading the intermediate file, and a next task worker thread remotely reads demanded intermediate file data through HTTP access. After execution of the job is completed, the job management node notifies an agent on each machine to delete the intermediate file of the job.
The local file system of each server can be directly accessed for the intermediate files. Some intermediate files may be large, or some servers/disks may have loaded a large number of intermediate files, which can result in an unbalanced load. The read/write schedules of the intermediate files cannot be dynamically adjusted according to the load of each server and disk. Although impacts caused by the long tail of the running time of some task worker threads can be reduced through backup instances, the fine-grained optimization cannot be achieved.

Intermediate file processing method, client, server, and system


A power converter includes a first transistor operable to source current to a load when switched on, a second transistor operable to freewheel inductor current or sink current from the load when switched on, and a driver circuit. The driver circuit is operable to switch the first transistor on and the second transistor off during a first period, switch the first transistor off and the second transistor on during a third period after the first period, and connect a gate of the first transistor to a gate of the second transistor during a second period between the first and third periods when the gates of both transistors are floating.

Switching power converters are widely used for high power applications because of their high efficiency and small size. Converter efficiency is increasingly important at low and medium power levels. For example, buck converters are particularly well suited for providing high current at low voltages required by state of the art high performance integrated circuits such as microprocessors, graphics processors, and network processors. In general, buck converters are typically implemented with active components such as a pulse width modulation controller (PWM), driver, power MOSFETs (metal oxide semiconductor field effect transistors), and passive components such as inductors, transformers or coupled inductors, capacitors, and resistors.
Most conventional buck converters use direct drive for switching on the MOSFETs of the power stage. The energy used for the gate drive process is then typically dissipated. Some conventional approaches attempt to recover part of the gate drive energy by storing the energy in external capacitors, which increases the complexity of the driver because an additional pin and external components are required. The storage capacitance instead can be integrated within the driver, but doing so increases the size and cost of the driver circuit.

Charge recovery in power converter driver stages


A liquid applicator includes a liquid pressing mechanism (liquid pressing means) for pressurizing an application liquid inside a main body so as to supply application liquid to an applying member by the pressing of the liquid pressing mechanism. The applying member is made of an elastic material and is formed with a communication path of a passage hole for communication between the inside and outside of main body, and an applying portion of the applying member is formed projected further forward from an ejection opening of communication path. The liquid applicator that can simply apply an application liquid, even it is high in viscosity, over a wide area.

Conventionally, there have been liquid applicators having a liquid pressing mechanism or liquid pressing means for pressurizing the application liquid inside the main body in order to supply the applying part with the application liquid in a timely manner.
For example, there is a proposal (see Patent document 1) of a liquid applicator that includes: an applying member attached at the front end of its barrel cylinder; a tank arranged inside the barrel cylinder for reserving a liquid in the rear of the applying member; a conduit hole portion for leading the liquid ejected from the tank to the applying member; and a liquid pushing means (liquid pressing mechanism) for pushing out the liquid inside the aforementioned tank to the applying member through the conduit hole portion by advancing a piston that is fitted in the tank so as to be slidable in its axial direction.
Also there is a proposal (see Patent document 2) for a liquid container including a main body having a tank portion holding a liquid therein; a feed mechanism having a front-end feeder joined at the front end of the main body for feeding the liquid; and an actuating mechanism for pushing the liquid inside the tank portion toward the feed mechanism.
Since in the liquid applicators as above, their brush-like applying member after usage holds a considerable amount of application liquid therein and is exposed to the outside air, there is the problem that the application liquid contained in the applying member degrades with time and is liable to be spoilt.
There is also a known configuration of a liquid applicator or liquid container having a mechanism for preventing against degradation of the application liquid with the passage of time or entrance of the outside air by using an elastic body for its applying part.
For example, there is a proposal of an application container which includes: an application container body for storing an application liquid therein; and an applying member disposed at the front end of the application container body, for applying the application liquid over an applied object and is used to apply the application liquid to the soft applied object by bringing the front end of the applying member into contact with the applied object, wherein the applying member is made of an approximately tubular elastic body with its front and rear ends open all the time and leads the application liquid in the application container body and ejects it from the front-end opening (e.g., see Patent document 3).
However, these liquid applicators are suitable for dribbling the application liquid but have the problem that it is difficult to apply the application liquid over a wide area in a simple manner. Also, there is another problem that they present difficulties when used in combination with a high viscosity application liquid because of structural reasons of their containers.
As described above, conventionally there have been liquid applicators for applying application liquids such as cosmetics, medial fluid and the like, which store an application liquid inside the main body and includes a liquid pressurizing mechanism or liquid pressing means provided with a piston and its advancing mechanism for pressurizing the application liquid inside the liquid storing chamber provided inside the main body in order to timely feed the application liquid to the applying member (applying part) arranged at the front end (see Japanese Patent No. 3081834: patent document 4, Japanese Utility Model Registration No. 2603088: patent document 5, and the like).
With such liquid applicators, drawing back the liquid that has been ejected to the applying part was previously considered to be problematic because the liquid that has come into contact with unwanted bacteria attached to skin and the like may be returned into the container.
Recently, however, owing to improvement in liquid's antibacterial power, this problem has become less important while there has been an increased demand for a liquid-restoring function to deal with the cases where the liquid has been excessively delivered, such as when the liquid happened to be ejected after a time lag when it was ejected by the piston, when the liquid expanded due to change in temperature, when the user made a pushing action more than needed and other cases.
Also, with a configuration where a fixed amount of liquid is ejected by pushing a piston while feeling a clicking sensation as in the cases of patent document 4 and patent document 5, no problem occurs when the advancing mechanism is operated in the direction of ejection. However, when the piston is retracted, there is a fear that unexpected deformation, breakdown and other damage of the mechanism occur as a result of application of a load more than required to a piston or shaft-shaped member.
FIG. 1 shows a piston body a that moves forwards and rearwards inside a conventional main body (inside a liquid storing chamber) and a front end part b1 of a shaft-shaped member b that engages boss a1 of the piston body, as is shown in patent document 4.
As sectionally shown in FIG. 1(a), cylindrical boss a1 having a space a2 opening rearwards, is extended at the rear side of piston body a. Formed in the inner wall of boss a1 that defines this space a2 is an annular rib c that is formed around the circumference and projected towards the center of the axis.
On the other hand, shaft-shaped member b is formed of a main body formed with a threaded portion b2 having a helical groove on its surface and a front end part b1 having an extended approximately cylindrical shape with no helical groove with a large-diametric flange portion d formed at its front end.
As shown in FIG. 1(b), front end part b1 of shaft-shaped member b is inserted into space a2 of the aforementioned boss a1 and further press-fitted thereinto, so as to make flange portion d climb over the aforementioned annular rib c, whereby front end part b1 of shaft-shaped member b is tightly fitted into space a2.
Conventionally, when piston body a is advanced, boss a1 in the rear part of piston body a is pushed forward by shaft-shaped member b, so that front end part b1 of shaft-shaped member b will not come off boss a1 of piston body a.
On the other hand, when piston body a is drawn back, the piston is pulled rearward by the engaging force of boss a1 in the rear part of piston body a with front end part b1 of shaft-shaped member b. This engaging force is brought about by flange portion d in the front end part b1 of shaft-shaped member b hooking annular rib c of boss a1, and mainly depends on the deformation-resisting force of boss a1.
When the application liquid is a high-viscosity fluid or a fluid whose viscosity has changed to be high due to environmental conditions such as temperature etc., there occurs a situation in which a strong force beyond the aforementioned engaging force needs to be applied to draw the piston body a.
In such a case, boss a1 becomes enlarged or deformed in any other way, so that annular rib c of boss a1 climbs over flange portion d of shaft-shaped member b, and shaft-shaped member b comes off boss a1, hence piston body a does not move, causing malfunction or unusability.
In contrast, if, in order to enhance the engaging force, the outside diameter of the aforementioned flange portion and the inside diameter of the annular rib are made greater so as to make the height of the step therebetween greater, not only the engaging force of the shaft-shaped member with the boss but also, the press-fitting force when front end part b1 of shaft-shaped member b is inserted and squeezed into space a2 of boss a1, naturally becomes greater. This increases the work load during manufacturing and also causes the problem of increasing the manufacturing time and manufacturing cost.
Further, there is a fear that with the piston body of a resin molding, the boss and the front end of the threaded portion deform more than required at the time of press-fitting, causing breakdown and cracks, inviting degradation of yield.
Patent document 1:
    Japanese Patent Application Laid-open Hei 9-322819Patent document 2:    Japanese Patent Application Laid-open 2004-89592Patent document 3:    Japanese Patent Application Laid-open Hei 9-192581Patent document 4:    Japanese Patent No. 3081834Patent document 5:    Japanese Utility Model Registration No. 2603088


Disclosed herein is a pixel circuit including: a light emitting element; a storage capacitor; a writing transistor for writing a driving voltage corresponding to a video signal to the storage capacitor; and a driving transistor for driving the light emitting element on a basis of the driving voltage written to the storage capacitor, wherein a characteristic of the writing transistor is controllable in such a manner as to be operatively associated with a process of writing the driving voltage corresponding to the video signal to the storage capacitor.

The technology disclosed in the present specification relates to a pixel circuit, a display device, an electronic device, and a pixel circuit driving method.
Today, display devices having a pixel circuit (referred to also as a pixel) including a display element (referred to also as an electrooptic element) and electronic devices including a display device are widely used. There are display devices that use an electrooptic element changing in luminance according to a voltage applied to the electrooptic element or a current flowing through the electrooptic element as a display element of a pixel. For example, a liquid crystal display element is a typical example of an electrooptic element that changes in luminance according to a voltage applied to the electrooptic element, and an organic electroluminescence (hereinafter described as organic EL) element (organic light emitting diode (OLED)) is a typical example of an electrooptic element that changes in luminance according to a current flowing through the electrooptic element. An organic EL display device using the latter organic EL element is a so-called emissive display device using a self-luminous electrooptic element as a display element of a pixel.
Display devices using a display element can adopt a simple (passive) matrix system and an active matrix system as a driving system of the display devices. However, while having a simple structure, a simple matrix type display device presents a problem of difficulty in realizing a large and high-definition display device, for example.
Thus, an active matrix system that controls a pixel signal supplied to a display element within a pixel by using an active element similarly provided within the pixel, which active element is for example a transistor such as an insulated gate field effect transistor (typically a thin film transistor (TFT)) or the like as a switching transistor, has recently been actively developed (see for example Japanese Patent No. 4240059 and Japanese Patent No. 4240068).

Pixel circuit, display device, electronic device, and pixel circuit driving method


An electric noise absorber comprises an axially divided magnetic body having abutment surfaces, a first joint on which the divided magnetic body can swing, and a second joint having a resilient member. The end of a second joint is attached to one part of the divided magnetic body, and the other end of the second joint can be attached to or detached from the other part of the divided magnetic body. Since the second joint can be unlocked, the electric noise absorber can be easily attached around a desired position on the electric wire without disconnecting the electric wire. When the other end of the second joint is pulled and attached to the magnetic body using the contraction force of the resilient member, the abutment surfaces of the divided magnetic body are held closely adjacent to the electric wire, making a magnetic circuit about the electric wire. The electric noise absorber can thus absorb electric noise with a minimum required structure.

The present invention relates to an electric noise absorber attached to a wire of an electronic device for absorbing electric noise which is generated within the device or which enters from the outside into the device through the wire.
As a method for attenuating such noise, it is well-known that magnetic ferrite is attached around a wire to reduce electric noise flowing through the wire.
In a known method, two parts of half ring-shaped ferrite are attached to the wire using an adhesive tape. Since the ferrite is separated into two pieces, the ferrite can be attached to the wire without disconnecting the wire. The ferrite can attenuate electric noise generated in the wire after the electronic device is assembled with the wire. The attenuating effect of the ferrite can be checked on the spot. However, the attachment of the electric noise absorber is a time-consuming work. Once two parts of half ring-shaped ferrite are attached to the wire by placing the adhesive tape around the ferrite, the adhesive tape must be detached from the ferrite to relocate the ferrite, and after relocation new tape must be wound around the wire.
Japan Published Unexamined Utility Model Application No. 63-39997 discloses two parts of half ring-shaped ferrite housed in a retaining case which surrounds the wire in place. The retaining case housing the separated ferrite can be easily attached to the wire, but the retaining case and the ferrite must be configured to engage each other. The retaining case should have resilient members for closely engaging two parts of the ferrite through abutment surfaces of the parts. In addition to the portion for reducing electric noise, the ferrite requires the portions for superimposing the abutment surfaces and for engaging the retaining case. The reduction in size of those portions is a problem with the related-art electric noise absorber.


A three-way electromagnetic valve provided with a valve body, a movable member slidably disposed in the valve body, an actuator for driving the movable member, an opening-closing mechanism provided in an internal passage formed in the movable member. A clearance reducing portion is formed to reduce a gap created by a pressurized fluid entering the slide section or by the force of fastening and fixing the valve body, thereby limiting the leakage of the pressurized fluid.

This invention relates to a three-way electromagnetic valve suitable for use in a system for controlling a high pressure fluid, for example, a diesel fuel injection system.
In a diesel engine fuel injection system such as the one disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 59-165858, a three-way electromagnetic valve is used to control the injection timing and the injection rate. This three-way electromagnetic valve operates in such a manner that a fuel supplied at a high pressure from a pressure fuel feed pump is led from a fuel passage to a supply port and is supplied to a chamber formed in a moving piston and to a control port via an annular recess and a plurality of fuel passages formed in the moving piston and communicating with the recess.
A high pressure is applied to the valve body at the annular recess outward in the radial direction by the effect of the high pressure fuel led to the recess, thereby increasing the clearance of the slide section formed between the slide bore and the moving piston. The high pressure fuel therefore leaks and enters the increased clearance and presses not only the recess 8 but also the whole of the bore wall, and further increases the clearances of upper and lower slide sections defined above and below the annular recess, resulting in an increase in the leakage of the high pressure fuel.
A solenoid, the valve body and a control chamber are integrally fixed by fastening to construct the three-way valve while maintaining the desired pressure at which contact surfaces of the valve body and the control chamber are pressed against each other. Since in this construction a spacer in the form of a ring is interposed between the solenoid and the valve body, the fastening force acts toward the outer periphery of the valve body at the upper surface thereof and causes the bore edge of the slide bore to be deformed outward. The clearances of the slide sections between the slide bore and the moving piston are thereby increased toward the bore edge, resulting in a further increase in the leakage of the high pressure fuel.
As described above, if the clearances of the slide sections are increased, the leakage of the high pressure liquid through these clearances becomes large. This three-way electromagnetic valve therefore entails the problem of loss of the driving torque of the pressure fuel feed pump, the problem of a reduction in the fuel injection pressure, and so on.


The disclosure of the present invention includes light fixtures having variable LED array sizes to form different beam angles. These light fixtures are particularly suitable for sports/venue lights and are characterized by highly concentrated high power small LED light sources including small light sources of different size LED arrays which may include additional diffusion. The present disclosure also includes a lens which substantially dissipates light to reduce if not eliminate glare. The lens may be pressed, chemically etched (pickled), or sandblasted to become a micro-lens. The lens may, alternately, be a plastic material. A further aspect of the present disclosure is the incorporation of a segmented reflector to greatly reduce glare. A single reflector may be segmented in its circumference or may be formed of multiple individual segments.

With all of their inherent advantages, including immediate strike ability, efficiency, dimmability and many others, LED fixtures have become very common in many applications. LED Light fixtures for use in sports venue/stadium lighting generally have an LED array which is adapted to project light onto the sports venue. These LED fixtures differ from some high bay lighting that might have a roughly similar appearance in that the sports lighting fixtures have a beam angle less than 70 degrees and sometimes as little as 10 degrees. These fixtures are more powerful than other types of fixtures because they are designed to cover large areas with a high light level. These sports light fixtures have support mechanism that allows for very fine control of the aiming as well as compatibility with standard sports lighting poles, cross arms, and platforms. These fixtures differ from fixtures employed in other industries/applications because they must have a very long maintenance-free life because they are commonly very inaccessible when mounted to the top of a 125′ tall light pole. Maintenance at this height becomes very expensive.
The sporting community, however, has been much slower to adopt LED technology. Many sports lighting fixtures can look acceptable when you are standing behind it. However, when you're the athlete searching the night sky for a pop fly or a fan looking across the pitch, it has been found to be different. A major factor in this is the problem of glare. Most new LED sports lighting fixtures are bright enough, but the light quality eliminates them from serious consideration due to the hotspots and glare which has been found to obscure the vision of the spectator and/or competitor. LED Technology's inherent energy savings has been recognized for years. As the technology has matured, those savings have only increased along with the lumen output per watt. At the same time, however, there is a growing concern that the glare caused by the drive for increasing efficiency is making these lights less suitable for sporting venues.
A need exists to reduce or eliminate glare. Glare is excessive and uncontrolled brightness. It is caused by the luminous intensity per unit area of light travelling in a given direction. This can cause visual discomfort and reduced visibility. Fans and players have become very familiar with the uncomfortable sensation. Glare is occurring with greater frequency, especially in sports venues, as manufacturers are doing everything they can to push as much light as possible out of a fixture. They accomplish this by utilizing higher efficiency LEDs and forcing light from those LEDs through small, individual TIR lenses and reflectors. The lenses concentrate the light for better delivery, but inevitably create unacceptable levels of glare. Intense light is forced through hundreds of plastic lenses. Without a significant physical distance between the LED and lens and no reflector shaping, unacceptable levels of glare are inevitable.
Evaluating glare in quantifiable terms can be difficult, but not impossible. It's not simply a measure of lux or foot-candles alone. Instead, one must measure light density over a given area, referred to luminance (how bright it appears to the human eye), which typically is measured in candelas per square meter (cd/m2) or nits. With sports lighting, lumen density per square inch can also be used to show relative glare factor. A common mistake in measuring LED Luminaire luminance is measuring the entire fixture. Luminance must be measured at the luminous opening, in other words at the smallest point (without any breaks) that emits light out of the fixture. If one were to measure the entire LED luminaire, it would not account for the "shards" of light emitted from each individual LED. The light emitted from individual LED luminaire designs is mare akin to a series of laser beams in contrast to the homogenous output of a traditional luminaire.
Many conventional LED sports lights utilize numerous small, plastic TIR lenses which condense and collimate light emitted by LEDs. In practice, such LEDs can produce over 1000 lumens each and can average a lumen density of 1275+ Lumens/sq. in. (with substantially higher peak lumen densities). Such concentrated, ultra-bright points inherently produce very noticeable glare.

Venue light including variable LED array size etched lens and segmented reflector


A device for use in imaging a liquid sample comprises an inlet for accepting the sample, a connection conduit and a detection chamber for detection of the sample, preferably optical detection of the sample. The connection conduit connects the inlet to the detection chamber and contains one or more dry reagents for reaction with the sample as the sample passes through the connection conduit. Specific embodiments include devices arranged for treating a blood sample, in particular lysing and staining the sample. The liquid flow may be driven by capillary effect. The device may further include liquid handling structures arranged for centrifugally driven liquid flow, for example to meter a volume of sample and separate the sample into phases by centrifugation.

Devices which test blood are commonly known. Conventional systems are often expensive and therefore diagnostic testing often occurs at sites remote from the patient at centralised labs. This often results in significant delay in obtaining the results of a blood test.
To address this problem, devices and methods have been developed that offer point-of-care diagnostic testing. However, often these systems are expensive and the results obtained are often unreliable.
One such example of a device is described by Berkel C, et al, in "Integrated Systems for rapid point of care (PoC)". Although Berkel discloses that a Point of Care system is desired which provides test accuracy, quality control and cost-effectiveness, the disclosed system still suffers from numerous drawbacks. The system is only effective if timing and blood flow is closely monitored and concentrations are controlled precisely. Further, the system requires extensive training and specialised personnel to operate.
Therefore, here is a need for an enhanced device and method capable of providing fast, precise and affordable blood analysis taken at the point of case.


In addition to a cationic dye and at least one substance which functions as a quenching agent, the inventive recording medium contains a stabiliser in order to increase the stability of the optical data storage device, which has a recording layer consisting of such a recording medium. The stabiliser is a phenol with one or more hydroxy groups, which is advantageously present in the recording medium in the form of a phenolate ion and which forms part of the anions for the dye cations. In addition, the recording medium can also contain an anionic, metallo-organic thiolene complex, which replaces a usual quencher and forms another part of the anions for the dye cations.

The invention is situated in the field of optical data storage devices, in particular optical data storage devices, which can be written to and read from by means of lasers. The invention relates to a recording medium for the recording layer of such a data storage device, to a method for the production of the recording medium and to an optical data storage device with a recording layer consisting of the recording medium, each in accordance with the generic term of the corresponding independent claim.
Optical data storage devices, which can be written to and read from by means of lasers (e.g., CD-R, DVD-R, DVD-RAM, DVD-RW or HD) usually comprise a disc-shaped, transparent carrier usually consisting of polycarbonate and on one side comprising a usually spiral-shaped recording groove and on this side usually being coated with three layers. These three layers are a recording layer, a reflective layer and a protective varnish layer. The recording layer is located directly on the carrier material on the side of the carrier structured by the groove and consists of a recording medium. This medium contains a dye or a mixture of dyes, the optical characteristics of which are changeable by a laser beam (writing beam). The reflecting layer is located on the recording layer and usually consists of a metal (e.g., silver, gold or aluminium). The protective varnish layer is located on the reflective layer and usually consists of a resin varnish, which is hardenable with ultraviolet light.
For writing, the data storage device is moved relative to a laser beam (writing beam) in the direction of the groove (rotated) and is written to by the laser, whereby the laser is directed onto the reflective layer through the carrier and the recording layer. In this, the wavelength range and the energy of the writing beam are designed in such a manner, that the absorption of the laser light in the recording layer leads to a local heating-up, through which between the carrier material and recording layer a bubble-shaped pit is produced and through which the chemical reaction in the recording layer leads to local change of the optical characteristics (e.g., de-colouring/bleaching) of the dye contained in this layer. The recording on the optical data storage device essentially consists of a sequence of points changed by the writing beam with a pit and chemically changed dye or dye mixture and unchanged points.
For reading, the data storage device is again moved relative to a laser beam in the direction of the groove, whereby the laser beam has a lower intensity than the writing beam and once again is directed onto the reflective layer through the carrier and the recording layer. Variations in the reflection of the laser beam (stronger and weaker reflection) at changed or unchanged points are evaluated as reading signals.
A production process for such data storage devices, for example, evolves in the following process steps:
Manufacturing of the polycarbonate carrier by injection moulding,
coating of the rotating carrier with a solution, in which the components of the recording medium are contained dissolved or as a colloid in an organic solvent or solvent mixture, wherein the solution is distributed over the carrier by means of centrifugal force and superfluous solution is centrifugally thrown off,
removal of the solvent or solvent mixture by volatilising,
application of the reflective layer by xe2x80x9csputteringxe2x80x9d,
application and hardening of a protective varnish.
The steps mentioned above are usually carried out in a continuous process, into which advantageously also checking steps are integrated. Such checking steps serve for mostly optical checks of intermediate products and for elimination of defective products.
Continually increasing demands are made of the data storage devices described above, which demands above all relate to speed of writing and reading, to quality of writing and reading, to durability and last but not least, to the price. Writing and reading characteristics as well as durability and price of the data storage devices are to a great degree dependent on the characteristics of the recording layer, so that the demands of this layer are many and diverse. In particular, this layer is to make possible a suitable chemical reaction for the writing process, which for rapid writing is to require as little energy as possible, and simultaneously it should be chemically as stable as possible for a high durability. The chemical stability of the recording layer is also important, because it determines to a great extent, whether for the reflective layer a very noble and expensive metal has to be utilised or whether a less noble metal is sufficient. Furthermore, the solution of the recording medium, which is used for the production of the recording layer, has to have precisely defined rheological characteristics for the application by means of centrifugal force in such a manner, that the resulting layer has an accurately defined and as uniform as possible thickness, and it also has to be able to be dried rapidly and without any problems.
The dyes usually utilised in the recording layers of data storage devices and being changeable in their optical characteristics by a writing beam are, for example, cationic methine or poly-methine dyes (cyanin dyes, phthalo-cyanin dyes, azo dyes or metallized formazanes), which are commercially available, for example, as chlorides, bromides, fluorides, perchlorates, tetrafluoro borates or with anions of sulphone or carbonic acids. In order for the optical characteristics of the dyes to be easily changed by the writing beam, the recording medium in addition to the dye also contains a so-called quencher.
Dyes, which are suitable for utilisation in recording layers of data storage devices are described, for example, in the publications: EP-0403797, WO-93/22142, WO-98/14612, WO-99/37717, WO-99/05221, WO-98/34988, U.S. Pat. No. 5,900,348 (methine and poly-methine or cyanin dyes), JP-52047824, JP-58069255, JP-07314897 (phthalo-cyanin dyes), U.S. Pat. No. 5,731,054, U.S. Pat. No. 5,922,504 (metallised formazane dyes). It is also suggested to utilise mixtures of dyes, which contain two or three of the dyes mentioned.
Quenchers are also available on the market, for example under the trade name IRG 23 or IRG 003 by Nippon Kayako Co. Ltd.
It now becomes manifest that solutions, which contain the above mentioned known dyes and quenchers, are not very stable, because the quenchers are decomposable. For this reason, the solutions for the production of the recording layers cannot be made up in larger quantities and put into storage and in particular they cannot be unrestrictedly recycled. It also becomes manifest, that data storage devices with recording layers, which only contain the mentioned dyes and quenchers, can only be written to with limited speeds. Furthermore, such recording layers have a corrosive effect on the reflective layer in such a manner, that the latter has to be manufactured out of silver or gold to assure a sufficient durability of the data storage device.
The publication U.S. Pat. No. 5,436,113 describes an optical data storage device having a recording layer containing a phenol for stabilization.
It is the object of the invention to create a recording medium for recording layers of data storage devices, which recording medium comprises a significantly increased stability in comparison with known recording media, this both in the recording layer as well as in the solution utilised for the production of the recording layer.
This object is achieved by the recording medium for recording layers of optical data storage devices, by the process for the manufacture of the recording medium and by the data storage device, as they are defined in the corresponding independent claims.
The invention is based on the idea of stabilising the recording medium by the addition of a stabiliser in the form of a phenol with one or several hydroxy groups, which phenol is advantageously substituted. The phenol is present in the recording medium as a phenolate ion and is a substitute for a part of the usual counter-ions of the cationic dye (e.g., perchlorate ions). The recording medium can be stabilised even further by the substitution of a further part of the counter-ions of the cationic dye by metallo-organic thiolene complex anions, which can also take over the quencher function in such a manner, that in such a case no conventional quencher has to be added to the recording medium. Suitable for this purpose are in particular anionic thiolene complexes with a central metal atom, which has at least two valences.
A recording medium and a solution of this medium, which contain a cationic dye (or a mixture of several cationic dyes) with conventional anions and a commercially available quencher, manifest a significantly higher stability, when they in addition contain an advantageously substituted phenol as a stabiliser. This effect is even in-creased by the substitution of part of the conventional anions by the phenol, resp., by corresponding phenolate ions. A further increase of the stability results from the substitution of further anions and from the substitution of the quencher by an anionic, metallo-organic thiolene complex.
The enhanced stability of the recording medium in accordance with the invention leads to the following advantages:
Data storage devices, which contain the recording medium, are more durable both in a written and an unwritten condition.
Because the recording medium is less corrosive, a less noble and therefore correspondingly cheaper metal, for example, aluminium, can be utilised for the reflective layer instead of silver or gold.
The solution utilised for the production of the recording layer can be made use of over a longer period of time and in particular it can in essence be recycled without any limitation, so that no environmentally hazardous waste materials result.
It also becomes manifest, that data storage devices containing the recording medium in accordance with the invention possess further advantages over known data storage devices in addition to the above mentioned advantages which can be directly derived from the enhanced stability of the recording medium. These further advantages regarde the writing and reading quality and they are in particular:
The optical characteristics of the recording layer important for writing and reading are improved.
The pit shapings are more sharp-edged.
The data storage devices can be written to with very good quality at the highest speeds (at least up to 16xc3x97).
Die rheological characteristics of the solution of the recording medium are better, so that it can be applied to the carrier more rapidly and with a better groove filling and uniformity and therefore as a thinner and faster drying layer, as a result of which not only the writing and reading quality is improved, but also the cycle time is shortened and, because less dye has to be utilised, the product becomes cheaper to produce.
The recording medium is easily soluble in all solvents normally utilised in the production of optical data storage devices.
The recording medium for optical data storage devices according to the invention therefore comprises the following components:
a cationic dye (methine or poly-methine dye (cyanin dye), phthalo-cyanin dye, formazane dye or azo dye), the optical characteristics of which are changeable through the action of a writing beam;
a phenol with one or more hydroxy groups, which advantageously is a substituted phenol, as stabiliser, wherein the phenol advantageously is present in the form of phenolate ions and replaces a part of the usual, corrosively acting anions of the dye;
and a quencher or advantageously in place of the quencher an anionic metallo-organic thiolene complex taking over the quencher function and replacing a further part of the usual, corrosively acting anions of the dye and therefore, also contributing to the stability of the recording medium.
The recording medium according to the invention contains phenolate ions in a quantity relative to the quantity of dye in such a manner, the phenolate ions form between 1 and 30% (mol percent) of the anions. Recording media in accordance with the invention, which additionally contain an anionic, metallo-organic thiolene complex, contain it in a quantity relative to the dye quantity in such a manner, that it forms a further 1 to 50% of the anions. Because many stabiliser anions can have a negative influence on the optical characteristics of the recording medium, higher proportions of stabiliser ions are not advantageous. With higher proportions of metallo-organic thiolene complex ions, the solubility of the recording medium becomes insufficient.
Substituted phenols or corresponding phenolates advantageously utilised as stabilisers in the recording medium according to the invention are: 2,6-di-tert.-butyl-phenol, 2,6-di-tert.-butyl-4-methyl-phenol, 2-tert.-butyl-4-methyl-phenol, 6-tert.-butyl-3-methyl-phenol, xcex1-methyl-benzyl-phenols, 2,6-di-tert.-butyl-4-methoxy-phenol, 4-hydroxy-3,5-di-tert.-butyl-benzyl alcohol, 6-tert.-butyl-2-methyl-phenol, esters of the xcex2-(4-hydroxy-3,5-di-tert.-butyl-phenyl)propionic acid, 2,5-di-tert.-butyl-hydroquinone, 2,5-di-tert.-amyl-hydroquinone, 2,2xe2x80x2-methylene-bis(6-tert.-butyl-4-methyl-phenol), 2,2xe2x80x2-methylene-bis(4,6-dimethyl-phenol), 2,2xe2x80x2-isobutylidene-bis(4,6-dimethyl-phenol,), 2,2xe2x80x2-methylidene-bis(4-methyl-6-xcex1-cyclo-hexyl-phenol), 4,4-methylene-bis(2,6-di-tert.-butyl-phenol), 4,4xe2x80x2-butylidene-bis(6-tert.-butyl-3-methyl-phenol), 2,2xe2x80x2-thiobis(6-ter.-butyl-4-methyl-phenol), 2,2xe2x80x2-thiobis(4-methyl-6-xcex1-methyl-benzyl-phenol), 2,2xe2x80x2-thiobis(4,6-di-sec.-amyl-phenol), 4,4xe2x80x2-thiobis(6-tert.-butyl-2-methyl-phenol), 4,4xe2x80x2-thiobis(6-tert.-butyl-3-methyl-phenol), bis(4-hydroxy-3,5-di-tert.-butyl-benzyl)sulphide, 1,1,3-tris(5xe2x80x2-tert.-butyl-4xe2x80x2-hydroxy-2xe2x80x2-methyl-phenyl)butane, 2,4,6-tria(4xe2x80x2-hydroxy-3xe2x80x2,5xe2x80x2-di-tert.-butyl-benzyl)mesitylene, 2,4-dihydroxy-benzophenone, 4-alcoxy-2-hydroxy-benzophenone, 2-hydroxy-4-methoxy-benzophenone or mixtures of two or more than two of the mentioned phenols, resp., phenolates.
An observed change of the optical characteristics of the dyes caused by the stabiliser ions leads one to suspect, that ion complexes are formed, which are not only held together by electro-static forces, but also by coordination forces.
An anionic thiolene metal complex with quencher function, which is suitable for the recording medium according to the invention, is for example a di-thiolene-metal complex with the following formula:
wherein M is=Ni, Co, Fe, Cu, Sn, Zn, Al, Ti, Cr, V, Pt or Pd;
and wherein xe2x80x94R is=xe2x80x94H, xe2x80x94Cl, xe2x80x94Br, xe2x80x94J, xe2x80x94F, xe2x80x94NO2, xe2x80x94CSN, xe2x80x94CN, xe2x80x94OCH3, xe2x80x94OCnH(2n+1) with n=1 to 20 or xe2x80x94COOR with R=OCnH(2n+1).
The ion substitution, which is advantageous for the production of the recording medium according to the invention, is achieved in that the phenol is utilised in the form of a phenolate, for example, as potassium phenolate, in that the dye and the phenolate are dissolved in an organic solvent (e.g., dimethyl-formamide or acetone) and the solution is stirred over a longer time period (e.g., 2 to 12 hours) at an elevated temperature (e.g., 70-120xc2x0). Thereupon follows a step for the separation of the substituted ions forming water-soluble salts, for example, by washing with water. The substance obtained is then dried and when required for the making up of the solution for the production of the recording layer is dissolved in, for example, a mixture of diacetone alcohol and methyloxy-ethanol, of diacetone alcohol and butanol, of diacetone alcohol and isopropanol or in another suitable organic solvent or mixture of solvents.

Recording medium for optical data storage devices, method for producing said recording medium and optical data storage device with a corresponding recording layer


The present disclosure relates to a recombinant microorganism producing 1,3-diaminopropane, and a method for producing 1,3-diaminopropane using the same, and specifically, to a recombinant microorganism producing 1,3-diaminopropane into which genes encoding an enzyme involved in a metabolic pathway of 1,3-diaminopropane, dat and ddc, are introduced, and a method for producing 1,3-diaminopropane using the same.

In recent years, there is growing concern about depletion and environmental problems of limited oil resources due to an increase in unstable oil prices and a rapid change in climate. In order to solve this concern, there is an increase in demand for a variety of alternative techniques for breaking petrochemical-based chemical industry, and researches have been focused on obtaining various value-added compounds from microorganisms. Among the researches, a number of researches into production of diamine that is a nylon precursor and commercialization thereof are in progress.
Putrescine that is a diamine having four carbon lengths (Qian et al., Biotechnol. Bioeng. 104:651-662, 2009; Schneider et al., Appl. Microbiol. Biotechnol. 95:169-178, 2012) and cadaverine that is a diamine having five carbon lengths (Qian et al., Biotechnol. Bioeng. 108:93-103, 2011; Mimitsuka et al., Biosci. Biotech. Bioch. 71:3295-2135, 2007; Kind et al., Metab. Eng. 25:113-123, 2014) were produced by using the microorganism until now. Further, even though it has not been reported to produce 1,6-diaminohexane that is a diamine having 6 carbon lengths, there is a patent in which metabolic pathways capable of producing 1,6-diaminohexane have been designed (US 2013/0303723 A1). As described above, the researches into production of diamines having several carbon lengths using the microorganisms and commercialization thereof are in progress, but it has not been reported to produce 1,3-diaminopropane that is a diamine having 3 carbon lengths in the microorganism until the present.
1,3-diaminopropane (1,3-DAP) is an industrially important chemical, and is widely used as a crosslinking agent for an epoxy resin, and is used as precursors of various pharmaceutical products, agricultural products and organic compounds. In particular, various nylons are able to be produced by polymerizing the 1,3-diaminopropane (1,3-DAP) with dicarboxylic acid (Cui et al., Polymer International 53:1729-1734, 2004; Cui et al., European polymer journal 40:1111-1118, 2004). The 1,3-diaminopropane is produced by a very small number of microorganisms (Tabor et al., Microbiol. Rev. 49:81-99, 1985), and Acinetobacter species bio-synthesizes the 1,3-diaminopropane using 2-ketoglutarate 4-aminotransferase (dat) that is an enzyme converting aspartate-4-semialdehyde (ASA) into 2,4-diaminobutanoate (DAB), and 2,4-diaminobutanoate decarboxylase (ddc) that is an enzyme converting 2,4-diaminobutanoate (DAB) into 1,3-diaminopropane. However, there is no report on detection of 1,3-diaminopropane in a medium outside the microorganism yet.
Therefore, the present inventors made an effort to develop a recombinant microorganism capable of producing 1,3-diaminopropane, and as a result, found that the recombinant microorganism expressing 2-ketoglutarate 4-aminotransferase and 2,4-diaminobutanoate decarboxylase derived from Acinetobacter baumannii could produce the 1,3-diaminopropane, and completed the present disclosure.

Recombinant microorganism producing 1,3-diaminopropane and method for producing 1,3-diaminopropane using the same

Abstract: When the recombinant microorganism producing the 1,3-diaminopropane according to the present disclosure is used, 1,3-diaminopropane may be mass-produced to be industrially useful in various fields such as pharmaceutical products, agricultural products, fibers for clothing, etc.

KOREA ADVANCED INSTITUTE OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY


Autonomic scaling of virtual machines in a cloud computing environment, the cloud computing environment including virtual machines (‘VMs’), the VMs installed upon cloud computers disposed within a data center, also including a cloud operating system and a data center administration server operably coupled to the VMs, including deploying, by the cloud operating system, an instance of a VM, flagging the instance of a VM for autonomic scaling; monitoring, by the cloud operating system, one or more operating characteristics of the instance of the VM; deploying, by the cloud operating system, an additional instance of the VM if a value of an operating characteristic exceeds a first predetermined threshold value, including executing a portion of the data processing workload on the additional instance of the VM; and terminating operation of the additional instance of the VM if a value of an operating characteristic declines below a second predetermined threshold value.

1. Field of the Invention
The field of the invention is data processing, or, more specifically, methods, apparatus, and products for autonomic scaling of virtual machines in a cloud computing environment.
2. Description of Related Art
The development of the EDVAC computer system of 1948 is often cited as the beginning of the computer era. Since that time, computer systems have evolved into extremely complicated devices. Today's computers are much more sophisticated than early systems such as the EDVAC. Computer systems typically include a combination of hardware and software components, application programs, operating systems, processors, buses, memory, input/output devices, and so on. As advances in semiconductor processing and computer architecture push the performance of the computer higher and higher, more sophisticated computer software has evolved to take advantage of the higher performance of the hardware, resulting in computer systems today that are much more powerful than just a few years ago.
One of the areas of technology that has seen recent advancement is cloud computing. Cloud computing is increasingly recognized as a cost effective means of delivering information technology services through a virtual platform rather than hosting and operating the resources locally. Modern clouds with hundred or thousands of blade servers enable system administrators to build highly customized virtual machines to meet a huge variety of end user requirements. Many virtual machines, however, can reside on a single powerful blade server. Cloud computing has enabled customers to build virtualized servers on hardware over which they have absolutely no control. Deploying an application in a cloud computing environment simplifies the overall solution because the hardware becomes abstracted behind the cloud infrastructure. The end user, however, loses all control over the underlying hardware infrastructure including particularly a loss of control over scaling the number of virtual machines running an application. In a cloud environment scaling of an application is currently carried out manually by a system administrator—only when end users report performance degradation. This technique is slow and complex, and it inherently risks a user's experiencing a poor quality of service.


A magnetic recording medium is provided with at least one exchange layer structure, and a magnetic layer formed on the exchange layer structure. The exchange layer structure includes a ferromagnetic layer and a non-magnetic coupling layer provided on the ferromagnetic layer and under the magnetic layer.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to magnetic recording media and magnetic storage apparatuses, and more particularly to a magnetic recording medium and a magnetic storage apparatus which are suited for high-density recording. The present invention also relates to a recording method for magnetically recording information on a magnetic recording medium, and to a method of producing such a magnetic recording medium.
2. Description of the Related Art
The recording density of longitudinal magnetic recording media, such as magnetic disks, has been increased considerably, due to the reduction of medium noise and the development of magnetoresistive and high-sensitivity spin-valve heads. A typical magnetic recording medium is comprised of a substrate, an underlayer, a magnetic layer, and a protection layer which are successively stacked in this order. The underlayer is made of Cr or a Cr-based alloy, and the magnetic layer is made of a Co-based alloy.
Various methods have been proposed to reduce the medium noise. For example, Okamoto et al., xe2x80x9cRigid Disk Medium For 5 Gbit/in2 Recordingxe2x80x9d, AB-3, Intermag ""96 Digest proposes decreasing the grain size and size distribution of the magnetic layer by reducing the magnetic layer thickness by the proper use of an underlayer made of CrMo, and a U.S. Pat. No. 5,693,426 proposes the use of an underlayer made of NiAl. Further, Hosoe et al., xe2x80x9cExperimental Study of Thermal Decay in High-Density Magnetic Recording Mediaxe2x80x9d, IEEE Trans. Magn. Vol.33, 1528 (1997), for example, proposes the use of an underlayer made of CrTiB. The underlayers described above also promote c-axis orientation of the magnetic layer in a plane which increases the remanence magnetization and the thermal stability of written bits. In addition, proposals have been made to reduce the thickness of the magnetic layer, to increase the resolution or to decrease the transition width between written bits. Furthermore, proposals have been made to decrease the exchange coupling between grains by promoting more Cr segregation in the magnetic layer which is made of the CoCr-based alloy.
However, as the grains of the magnetic layer become smaller and more magnetically isolated from each other, the written bits become unstable due to thermal activation and to demagnetizing fields which increase with linear density. Lu et al., xe2x80x9cThermal Instability at 10 Gbit/in2 Magnetic Recordingxe2x80x9d, IEEE Trans. Magn. Vol.30, 4230 (1994) demonstrated, by micromagnetic simulation, that exchange-decoupled grains having a diameter of 10 nm and ratio KuV/kBTxcx9c60 in 400 kfci di-bits are susceptible to significant thermal decay, where Ku denotes the magnetic anisotropy constant, V denotes the average magnetic grain volume, kB denotes the Boltzmann constant, and T denotes the temperature. The ratio KuV/kBT is also referred to as a thermal stability factor.
It has been reported in Abarra et al., xe2x80x9cThermal Stability of Narrow Track Bits in a 5 Gbit/in2 Mediumxe2x80x9d, IEEE Trans. Magn. Vol.33, 2995 (1997) that the presence of intergranular exchange interaction stabilizes written bits, by MFM studies of annealed 200 kfci bits on a 5 Gbit/in2 CoCrPtTa/CrMo medium. However, more grain decoupling is essential for recording densities of 20 Gbit/in2 or greater.
The obvious solution has been to increase the magnetic anisotropy of the magnetic layer. But unfortunately, the increased magnetic anisotropy places a great demand on the head write field which degrades the xe2x80x9coverwritexe2x80x9d performance which is the ability to write over previously written data.
In addition, the coercivity of thermally unstable magnetic recording medium increases rapidly with decreasing switching time, as reported in He et al., xe2x80x9cHigh Speed Switching in Magnetic Recording Mediaxe2x80x9d, J. Magn. Magn. Mater. Vol.155, 6 (1996), for magnetic tape media, and in J. H. Richter, xe2x80x9cDynamic Coervicity Effects in Thin Film Mediaxe2x80x9d, IEEE Trans. Magn. Vol.34, 1540 (1997), for magnetic disk media. Consequently, the adverse effects are introduced in the data rate, that is, how fast data can be written on the magnetic layer and the amount of head field required to reverse the magnetic grains.
On the other hand, another proposed method of improving the thermal stability increases the orientation ratio of the magnetic layer, by appropriately texturing the substrate under the magnetic layer. For example, Akimoto et al., xe2x80x9cRelationship Between Magnetic Circumferential Orientation and Magnetic Thermal Stabilityxe2x80x9d, J. Magn. Magn. Mater. vol.193, pp.240-242(1999), report through micromagnetic simulation, that the effective ratio KuV/kBT is enhanced by a slight increase in the orientation ratio. This further results in a weaker time dependence for the coercivity which improves the overwrite performance of the magnetic recording medium, as reported in Abarra et al., xe2x80x9cThe Effect of Orientation Ratio on the Dynamic Coercivity of Media for  greater than 15 Gbit/in2 Recordingxe2x80x9d, IEEE Trans. Magn. vol.35, pp.2709-2711, 1999.
Furthermore, keepered magnetic recording media have been proposed for thermal stability improvement. The keeper layer is made up of a magnetically soft layer parallel to the magnetic layer. This soft layer can be disposed above or below the magnetic layer. Oftentimes, a Cr isolation layer is interposed between the soft layer and the magnetic layer. The soft layer reduces the demagnetizing fields in written bits on the magnetic layer. However, coupling the magnetic layer to a continuously-exchanged coupled soft layer defeats the purpose of decoupling the grains of the magnetic layer. As a result, the medium noise increases.
Various methods have been proposed to improve the thermal stability and to reduce the medium noise. However, there was a problem in that the proposed methods do not provide a considerable improvement of the thermal stability of written bits, thereby making it difficult to greatly reduce the medium noise. In addition, there was another problem in that some of the proposed methods introduce adverse effects on the performance of the magnetic recording medium due to the measures taken to reduce the medium noise.
More particularly, in order to obtain a thermally stable performance of the magnetic recording medium, it is conceivable to (i) increase the magnetic anisotropy constant Ku, (ii) decrease the temperature T or, (iii) increase the grain volume V of the magnetic layer. However, measure (i) increases the coercivity, thereby making it more difficult to write information on the magnetic layer. In addition, measure (ii) is impractical since in magnetic disk drives, for example, the operating temperature may become greater than 60xc2x0 C. Furthermore, measure (iii) increases the medium noise as described above. As an alternative for measure (iii), it is conceivable to increase the thickness of the magnetic layer, but this would lead to deterioration of the resolution.
Accordingly, it is a general object of the present invention to provide a novel and useful magnetic recording medium, magnetic storage apparatus, recording method and method of producing magnetic recording medium, in which the problems described above are eliminated.
Another and more specific object of the present invention is to provide a magnetic recording medium, a magnetic storage apparatus, a recording method and a method of producing a magnetic recording medium, which can improve the thermal stability of written bits without increasing the medium noise, so as to enable reliable high-density recording without introducing adverse effects on the performance of the magnetic recording medium, that is, unnecessarily increasing the magnetic anisotropy.
Still another object of the present invention is to provide a magnetic recording medium comprising at least one exchange layer structure, and a magnetic layer formed on said exchange layer structure, where said exchange layer structure comprises a ferromagnetic layer, and a non-magnetic coupling layer provided on said ferromagnetic layer and under said magnetic layer. According to the magnetic recording medium of the present invention, it is possible to provide a magnetic recording medium which can improve the thermal stability of written bits, so as to enable reliable high-density recording without degrading the overwrite performance.
A further object of the present invention is to provide a magnetic recording medium comprising a substrate, an underlayer disposed above said substrate, and a magnetic layer structure including at least a bottom ferromagnetic layer provided on the underlayer and having a remanent magnetization and thickness product Mrixcex4i, and a top ferromagnetic layer disposed above the bottom ferromagnetic layer and having a remanent magnetization and thickness product Mrjxcex4j, wherein a relationship Mrxcex4≈xcexa3(Mrixcex4ixe2x88x92Mrjxcex4j) is satisfied, where Mrxcex4 denotes a total remanent magnetization and thickness product of the magnetic layer structure, such that magnetization directions of adjacent ferromagnetic layers in the magnetic layer structure are closely antiparallel.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a magnetic storage apparatus comprising at least one magnetic recording medium described above. According to the magnetic storage apparatus of the present invention, it is possible to provide a magnetic storage apparatus which can improve the thermal stability of written bits, so as to enable a reliable high-density recording without introducing adverse effects on the performance of the magnetic recording medium.
Still another object of the present invention is to provide a method of magnetically recording information on a magnetic recording medium, comprising a step of switching magnetization direction of at least one of ferromagnetic layers which form a magnetic layer structure of the magnetic recording medium and have antiparallel magnetization directions.
A further object of the present invention is to provide a method of producing a magnetic recording medium having a substrate, an underlayer and a magnetic layer structure, comprising the steps of (a) forming the magnetic layer structure to include at least a bottom ferromagnetic layer provided on the underlayer and having a remanent magnetization and thickness product Mrixcex4i, and a top ferromagnetic layer disposed above the bottom ferromagnetic layer and having a remanent magnetization and thickness product Mrjxcex4j, wherein a relationship Mrxcex4≈xcexa3(Mrixcex4ixe2x88x92Mrjxcex4j) is satisfied, where Mrxcex4 denotes a total remanent magnetization and thickness product of the magnetic layer structure, such that magnetization directions of adjacent ferromagnetic layers in the magnetic layer structure are closely antiparallel, and (b) forming the underlayer and the magnetic structure by sequential (or continuous) sputtering.

Magnetic recording medium, magnetic storage apparatus, recording method and method of producing magnetic recording medium


An alternating pressure melt impregnation device and a melt impregnation method, including having a resin melt squirted from each resin melt runner on an upper die and a lower die of a melt injection area, and thus the squirted resin melt is enable to be squirted directly on an upper surface and a lower surface of a continuous fiber bundle which is entering into an impregnation chamber. Impregnation and infiltration for both surfaces of the continuous fiber bundle are primarily completed by a squirted pressure. The resin melt inside the impregnation chamber flows to a decompression chambers at both sides of the impregnation chamber. When the resin melt flows to a throttle plate, a re-impregnation for the continuous fiber bundle is realized. Then the pressure is decreased and a section of the resin melt is enlarged and a radial flow is generated due to the Barus effect.

Continuous fiber-reinforced thermoplastic resin composite material is a composite material using an impregnation device to impregnate and reinforce a continuous fiber with a molten resin. Compared with a short fiber-reinforced thermoplastic resin composite material, the continuous fiber-reinforced thermoplastic resin composite material has advantages such as a high strength, a good impact resistance and a stable dimension, and thus has extensive application in fields such as automobile, aerospace electronics and electrical appliances, mechanical equipment, weaponry industry, construction equipment, furniture, gymnastic apparatus and the like.
In a process of melt impregnation, a flow of a resin melt in a fiber bundle takes place both in an axial direction and a radial direction of the fiber, similarly regarding as a fluid flowing in a porous medium, according to the Darcy law:
  μ  =            dx      dt        =                  kΔ                                                  P                    η                                                  Δ                                                  x
wherein, μ is an permeation rate, k is an permeation coefficient, ΔP is a pressure drop that the fluid acts on the porous medium, η is a fluid viscosity, and Δx is a melt flow distance. It can be known that increasing a melt pressure, reducing a thickness of the fiber bundle and decreasing a melt viscosity can increase an impregnation rate.
For example, CN106113317A discloses an apparatus for a continuous carbon fiber melt impregnating a thermoplastic polymer. An interval between an upper die and a lower die of the impregnation mold forms a melt pool. Between the upper die and the lower die, curved surfaces matching with each other are provided, and three sets of powered roller pair are also provided. A tension roller is provided between the roller pair. Squeezing a resin melt by the roller pair provides the resin melt with an impregnating pressure. Also CN105058817A discloses an apparatus for a continuous long fiber reinforcing a thermoplastic resin sheet material. Gear sets meshing with each other are provided above and below the fiber bundle, to enhance the flow of the melt on the fiber bundle in each direction. Additionally, CN104827686A discloses an impregnation apparatus for plant fiber and a method thereof. A plurality of compression roller sets of which a tension can be adjusted are used to squeeze the impregnated fiber, in order to provide an impregnating pressure to the impregnation of the resin melt. The three patent applications disclosed above can achieve a relatively ideal impregnating effect in the case of a low drawing speed and a low concentration of the resin melt. However, when the continuous fiber goes through these narrow impregnation channels with a curved shape or a wave shape, since a relatively large flow velocity difference exists inside the resin melt, a velocity gradient of the resin melt would form a shearing field. When the impregnation is performed in a condition of high drawing speed, a broken yarn is caused easily. When a viscosity of the resin melt is high, the broken yarn would further be aggravated enormously. Besides, since a relatively large number of rotating rollers or gears present inside the impregnation area, a complicated structure of equipment and difficult cleaning and maintenance are caused. In the case of the broken yarn in the fiber bundle, the fiber bundle is easy to enwind the rotating rollers or gears, aggravating the broken yarn.

Alternating pressure melt impregnation device and melt impregnation method using the same