Surface water, such as stormwater, is contained in a pond, or other containment having primary semi-isolated treatment areas constructed, or designated therein, which are suitable for establishing ecological communities for treatment of water within the containment. Water for treatment is induced to flow through the semi-isolated areas and the ecological communities therein for treating the water, such as by bio-filtering, breakdown and bioremediation of water-soluble or hydrocarbon-based contaminants and inhibition of the proliferation of waterborne pathogens. The treated water is then discharged from the semi-isolated areas, such as for use downstream. Discharge of the treated water from the primary semi-isolated treatment areas, as well as the use of pump systems, induces the flow of water through the semi-isolated areas and ecological communities therein to effect the treatment. Ecological communities may be established in relatively shallow secondary treatment areas in the containment and the recirculation of water therethrough may further act to treat the water in the containment.

It is well known in the art of water management, prior to the development of water and wastewater treatment plant technologies, that humans relied on the efficacy of natural surface water treatment systems to deliver water that is safe to use and consume. Steady increases in human population required the development of modern wastewater treatment plants and technologies when natural surface water treatment systems were unable to keep up with the increased waste streams arising from human activities. Nevertheless, surface water treatment systems can still provide treatment for streams of lightly contaminated water including, but not limited to urban and industrial stormwater, agricultural runoff, irrigation return flows and runoff from road rights of way.
Without intent to limit the scope of the subject matter taught herein, but for illustration purposes only of the background related to management of surface water, one particular example of surface water, being stormwater, is discussed in greater detail below.
It is well known in the art of surface water management that before stormwater ponds were part of a typical community stormwater management system, stormwater was conveyed directly from a community to a receiving water body such as a lake or a river. Major stormwater conveyance pipes, used to convey the stormwater thereto, were prone to overload in response to moderately large storm events exceeding the capacity of the conveyance pipes and resulting in local flooding within a community.
Stormwater conveyance pipes are typically designed and constructed to support the planned community build-out time horizon, which is typically anywhere from 20 to 40 years. However, at the end of the planned community build-out horizon, the metropolitan area containing each community generally continues to expand. Around the 1980s, new stormwater management thinking was required for new communities in the metropolitan area beyond the boundaries of existing communities. Developers of newly planned communities have had a desire to tie into the existing stormwater conveyance infrastructure, referred to herein as a stormwater trunk, in older communities, as the cost to convey stormwater around the existing communities is much greater. However, existing communities cannot typically receive additional stormwater from newly planned, outlying communities without severely stressing the existing stormwater trunks during a storm event.
As a result, stormwater ponds were constructed in new communities to temporarily store stormwater drainage from the new community prior to discharging to the existing stormwater trunks. Temporary stormwater storage for later release can be referred to as stormwater flow rate attenuation which forms a critical part of modern, stormwater system design. The attenuation function of stormponds is so effective that it can delay stormwater flows by up to three days and reduce peak flows from a community to the stormwater trunk by an order of magnitude (i.e. 90%) or more. Such attenuation works well for new developments tying into existing stormwater trunks, as stormwater trunks, constructed more than 30 years ago, typically convey water from the older communities for which they were designed to service for a duration of less than a day, after which the stormwater trunk flow is negligible. The attenuated stormwater flow from stormwater ponds in new communities is delivered to the existing stormwater trunk when flow therethrough from the older community has already dropped off considerably or has essentially ceased.
Creeks or other natural conveyance systems and water courses that formerly provided drainage to natural landscapes have developed over time to be in a state of dynamic equilibrium with the runoff volumes and intensities generated by their natural catchment areas. The natural catchment areas are comprised of vegetation and absorbent soils that consume water and act to temporarily store, evapotranspire, infiltrate, or otherwise attenuate the peak runoff flow from the landscape. As urban environments expand in area, extensive areas of former natural and vegetated lands are converted to impervious areas that result in considerable increases in both annual runoff volume and runoff flow intensity from the landscape. The increased runoff results in creeks and other natural conveyance systems becoming exposed to much higher peak flow rates and energy states than have historically been experienced, thus causing erosion and flooding that can expose the public to peril and can put adjacent lands and landowners at risk of property damage.
It is well known by those of skill in the art that high peak flows, particularly in small water courses and the associated bank and bed erosion and water turbidity are detrimental to aquatic life. Thus, the reduction of peak flow achieved by the detention of stormwater run-off is highly beneficial to the ecological health of the downstream water courses and the associated aquatic organisms.
Modern stormwater system design for a community typically assumes gravity flow to and from a stormwater pond. A typical assumption is that a stormwater pond will drain fast enough by gravity that essentially all of the primary water storage volume for the stormpond, assumed during the community stormwater system design, will be available by about two or three days after a storm event has occurred. The primary water storage volume is restored by gravity drainage, gravity being the most reliable means of discharging water therefrom. Discharge rates during draining of a stormpond are considerable and are typically measured in hundreds of litres per second or thousands of US gallons per minute or more. Thus, a pump station to handle such flow rates would be relatively large and expensive, and would only be used infrequently in response to storm events. Furthermore, pumped systems are most likely to experience failures due to power outages during storm events making it undesirable to critically rely on pumped, or otherwise actively controlled systems, for restoring the primary water storage volume of the pond.
Modern stormwater pond design may or may not have perimeter features or portions of the overall pond footprint that are wetland, or otherwise vegetated systems, that rely on the normal presence of water in the stormpond. Vegetated systems have aesthetic appeal, but more importantly are also known to provide valuable water treatment functions. Vegetated systems are generally one component of ecological communities which also comprise animals, fungi, microorganisms and the like. If vegetated systems are part of a pond design, outflow control structures for releasing water from the pond are typically designed to support the long-term health of the vegetated system. It is understood that vegetated systems may be composed of aquatic plants, riparian plants, mesic plants, or combinations thereof. Each of these kinds of vegetated systems requires contextual access to water, with varying limits for the duration and depth of exposure to standing water, moving water or ground water, according to their specific needs. Aquatic plants, specifically referred to herein as wetland plants, that require direct and generally continuous access to surface water are discussed below, however it is understood that vegetated systems in ponds are not limited solely to aquatic plants and may include other kinds of vegetated systems, and any associated topographic or bathymetric features, where appropriate.
Different aquatic plants thrive in different depths of water, but typically for vegetated systems, a relatively shallow water depth, such as less than about 0.5 m deep, is commonly found in wetlands associated with emergent aquatic plants. Furthermore, emergent aquatic plants thrive when the depth of water remains within a relatively narrow range for most of the growing season. Flooding within ponds that raises the water level beyond the ideal depth for such wetland plants, typically does not last more than a day for most inflow events and may occur, for example, about a dozen times during a season. Further, flooding for up to three days is unlikely to occur more than one or two times during a season. The relatively infrequent amount and duration of flooding in a pond during a season occurs without negative effect on the plants within the wetland. In fact, occasional flooding to deeper than the ideal depth or occasional drying out of the surface soil can temporarily take place for durations of a week or two or longer, typically without damaging the wetland plant community.
A prior art stormwater pond system that operates entirely by gravity flow has other limitations with respect to water treatment effectiveness. Specifically, such systems utilize a "single pass" treatment, which limits the available treatment contact time that contaminated water may have with a system that uses ecological communities to provide surface water treatment functions. Further, operating only by gravity typically means that in stormpond settings the water level in a permanent water body cannot fall below a design gravity spill elevation.
There continues to be interest in effective and efficient systems for managing runoff water from inflow events, such as storms, and water collected in ponds, for minimizing erosion, flooding and damage to property, such as during times of high water availability, as may be the case during a rainy season.
Further, there is interest in systems for metering out stored water over long periods of time to sustain base flows to sensitive environments during times of low water availability, as may be the case during a drought.
There is also interest in systems that provide a high and consistent quality water outflow from a pond, with low yet consistent life cycle operating and maintenance cost, while maintaining and supporting healthy, diverse and desirable ecological communities in or near a pond.


A method and apparatus for optimizing a startup sequence to improve system boot time is described. In one embodiment, a method for configuring a startup sequence stored in memory, using one or more processors, to improve system boot time including accessing necessity indicia associated with a plurality of startup programs, wherein the necessity indicia comprising at least one of global reputation data or local interaction information, identifying at least one startup program to disable or postpone based on the necessity indicia and modifying at least one startup sequence to disable or delay execution of the at least one identified startup program.

1. Field of the Invention
Embodiments of the present invention generally relate to computer process management systems and, more importantly, to a method and apparatus for automatically optimizing a startup sequence to improve system boot time.
2. Description of the Related Art
In a typical computing environment, an organization may employ a number of technologies to process, store and secure mission critical data. The organization may configure a plurality of computers with various software programs and hardware devices in order to operate effectively. For instance, a computer may utilize an operating system and one or more related components to produce a platform through which several software programs (e.g., word processing software, email software, spreadsheet software and/or the like) cooperate with certain hardware devices, such as hard disk space, memory, network components, storage components and/or the like.
When a computer is powered on, one or more processors execute various programs (e.g., bootloaders) that load data and software code into memory (e.g., Random Access Memory (RAM)). These programs permit access to various hardware devices and software programs. For example, a CPU may execute a system BIOS (Basic Input Output System) in order to initiate a boot sequence from a boot partition (e.g., a disk partition) and run the operating system. After the operating system loads various devices drivers and library files, the operating system generates a graphical user interface on a display. Then, the operating system initiates a sequence of startup programs of which a computer user may operate during a computing session.
A system registry (e.g., MICROSOFT WINDOWS registry) may include information associated with such a startup sequence. As such, the startup sequence may be modified in order to add and/or remove one or more startup programs. The startup sequence may also be modified in order to change an order in which the startup programs are executed during system boot time. Unfortunately, current startup management software are unable to determine an optimal sequence for these startup programs.
Therefore, there is a need in the art for a method and apparatus for automatically optimizing a startup sequence to improve system boot time.

Method and apparatus for automatically optimizing a startup sequence to improve system boot time


An improved water-treatment canister configuration of the chemical-dispensing bypass type, employing a screw-cap for periodic replenishment of an active chemical-feed ingredient; xe2x80x94featuring a special EZ-PURGE(trademark) push-button bleed-valve device, enabling more convenient means by which to quickly and reliably release air otherwise remaining debilitatingly-captive within the canister upon replacement of the screw-cap during routine-maintance. An collar like security/cap-lock device employing a conventional padlock, serves as an antitamper-device, while an xe2x80x9cEmergency Servicexe2x80x9dxe2x80x94label is also included, whereby an inexperienced person can simply deactivate the metering-system. An improved variable-mounting is facilitated via a rigid pipe/screw-threaded stanchion-coupling affixed to the concave underside of the canister; enabling securing to an intermediate pipe-stanchion fixture, which may be a vertical-post extending from the floor, or via an existing vertical-post or wall surface, or existing vertical or horizontal pipeline.

1. Field of Invention
This invention relates to automatic chemical-feeder apparatus for metered treatment of pipeline water, and more specifically it relates to devices for improved ease of maintenance of those types of building-plumbing related equipment.
2. Relevant Prior-Art
Background research discovery has provided a prior patent-art regarded as germane to this disclosure identified as U.S. Pat. No. 3,266,870(Filed: August 1963, assigned to Stiles-Kem Div./Metro-corp.) showing a bypass-type chemical-dissolver unit with a slanted-slotiet agitator internal structure, plus a simple air/bleed-screw arranged atop the filler-cap; xe2x80x94this patent having passed term and now in the public-domain, is nevertheless presently still in popular use, but is today considered rather deficient as to ease of maintenance, xe2x80x94which are issues to be addressed in my instant disclosure hereof.
Therefore, in full consideration of the preceding patent reference, there is determined a need for an improved form of device to which this patent has been largely addressed. The instant inventor hereof believes their newly improved bypass chemical-dispenser apparatus exhibits certain advantages as shall be revealed in the subsequent portion of this instant disclosure.
In view of the foregoing discussion about the earlier invention art, it is therefore important to make it pellucid to others interested in the art that the object of this invention is to provide an improved chemical water-treatment canister apparatus for dispensing existing commercially available product-additives generally characterized as a dry-granulated or solid ingredient (which suspends and inactivates mineral elements found to be deliterous to both commercial and domestic pressurized water-lines and inhibit corrosion of equipment connected thereto); xe2x80x94and must thus be periodically replenished owing to its being blended in a metered manner into the building""s existing pressurized water-pipe system via a so-called bypass plumbing-circuit. The non-toxic chemical-compound forms inert complexes with certain metalic ions in water, such as iron copper nickel manganese silicon and zinc; and acts to form a microscopic-film upon the internal surfaces of both the pressurized cold and hot water-line plumbing.
This known bypass-circuit is connected to the building""s existing pressurized waterline via a 3-way fitting (with a shut-off valve for selective blocking of water-flow to the canister), thus facilitating an influent-line which is arranged in discrete fluid-communication with a probe like influent-tube feeding the water-treatment canister. In similar manner, another 3-way fitting (with a shut-off valve for selective blocking of water-flow from the canister) is arranged a foot or two downstream of the influent-line, and is in discrete fluid-communication to an effluent-line located generally proximal the apex region of the canister (although the effluent-line can optionally be located upon the the optional filler-neck of the canister). Additionally, centered between these two identified 3-way fittings facilitating the bypass-circuit, is necessarily also included some form of constriction such as a venturi or a restriction in the form of a conventional fluid-valve; thereby establishing a pressure-differential means by which incoming water is induced to become partially diverted into the bypass-circuit.
A.) Accordingly, a preferably screw-threaded service-cap is installed upon the filler-neck of an imperforate canister body having an optional contiguous filler-neck provided with preferably female/screw-threads for receiving the service-cap member (if no filler-neck is employed per""se, then my service-cap is arranged at the apex of the water-treatment canister). In order to obviate the heretofore problem of possibly installing the service-cap with air remaining trapped within the canister, a more convenient bleed-valve device is provided, enabling a maintenance-person to secure the service-cap in place; then with water-pressure restored within the canister, momentarily depress a pushbutton poised atop the bleed-valve""s vertically spring-biased plunger-pin, until a solid stream of unaerated-water only is observed to erupt from around the bleed-valve at the top of the service-cap, xe2x80x94indicating that any entrapped-air has been at once thoroughly expelled (thus assuring the fresh unsaturated-water flowing in the canister will become properly saturated with the water borne chemical particulates). Naturally, prior to routine servicing of the canister, both the influent-valve and the effluent-valve are necessarily closed, as to obviate precipitous water-flow disrupting maintenance procedures. Hence, a secondary function of my special bleed-valve equipped service-cap, is to conveniently vent-off prevailing hydraulic-pressure once the two water-line shut-off valves (influent and effluent) have been closed.
In the prior-art methodology, the prevailing hydraulic-pressure within the canister (remaining therein even once the two water-line shut-off valves have been closed) tends to make unscrewing of the service-cap more difficult, plus there is always a residual amount of air remaining within the canister even though the service-technician may take precautions that the canister filler-neck is overflowing with water during restoration of the service-cap. Heretofore, a secondary procedure to overcome this problem was being addressed by provision of a problematical bleed-screw to vent-out any remaining canister entrapped air. Not only was this bleed-screw subject to eventual stripping-out (either of the compression-seal, screw-slot, or screw-threads) after months and years of use, but unfortunately, owing to the usual rush of things, some service-technicians may not take the time (or simply forget) to properly conduct this further procedure (which necessitates taking a screw-driver and backing-out the bleed-screw for a moment, once the water-line""s two shut-off valves have been reopened). Accordingly, if these procedures are not followed properly, the prior-art systems fail to operate effectively, and customer complaints require time consuming follow-up return-trips; xe2x80x94which my improved pushbutton service-cap apparatus and related procedure thus serve to ameliorate.
B.) Another object of this invention disclosure is to set forth an improved water-treatment canister article according to item-A, wherein is also provided an accessory locking-sleeve device arranged coaxially around the canister""s filler-neck and its attendant service-cap member; thereby serving to prevent unwarranted removal of the canister""s service-cap member. Prior-art locking-devices have been known, but largely fail to provide the degree of service-cap security needed, generally owing to the devices not being tamper-proof (as shall be subsequently exhibited in my accompanying illustrations. The upper terminus of the locking-sleeve is thus necessarily sufficiently occluded as to prevent the possibility of extracting the service-cap upward with the locking-sleeve in place, while the lower terminus of the locking-sleeve includes a vertical relief-slot enabling the canister filler-neck""s horizontally effluent-tube to be received upwardly therein. The locking-sleeve includes a radially extending bifurcated-flange (pair of rigid tab like members) arrangement, through each of which are included a transverse-hole where through can be installed the usual U-shaped finger-shackle portion of a conventional padlock, thus creating a rigid transverse abutment preventing tampering until the padlock""s shackle is withdrawn from its position crossing beneath the rigidly connected effluent pipe member.
C.) Another object of this invention disclosure is to set forth an improved water-treatment canister article according to items-AandB, wherein is also provided a concave, or more preferably a convex canister bottom portion to which central vertical-axis is included a permanent coaxial stub fitting made with screw-threads, preferably of female pipe-thread configuration (although machine/screw-threads of male configuration are optional); xe2x80x94thereby readily facilitating the canister being supported upon rigid stanchions of different types according to the particular custom installation conveniences at hand (such as a basement-floor, adjacent existing water/gas-pipe, adjacent-wall, etc.).
D.) Another object of this invention disclosure is to set forth an improved water-treatment canister article according to items-A/B/C, wherein is also preferably provided an instructional-label serving as an aid to the laymen (xe2x80x94herein, a person not having expertise knowledge in maintenance of this water-treatment system) in such event immediate diagnose is desirable to address some problem with the system (such as for example: xe2x80x9cleakagexe2x80x9d). If a water-leak in the dispenser-unit plumbing circuit were discovered, the building-manager/maintenance-person must phone to alert the service-provider; xe2x80x94in the meanwhile, any water leaking from the associated plumbing-circuit can cause water-damage to the surrounding structures. Accordingly, the water-treatment system is always installed with a pair of cooperative isolation/shut-off valves, plus a precautionary label bearing rudimentary shut-off advisory is thus prominently exhibited upon my canister body; thereby enabling expedient remedial leakage-stop procedure to be conducted by anyone.

Bypass water-treatment dispenser bleed-valve w/cap-lock and post-mount


A pair of frame members are secured to the ends of a pair of ducts having a generally circular or arcuate configuration. Each frame member has the same generally circular or arcuate configuration and has an inner vertical wall and an outer vertical wall. The outer vertical wall is connected to a sloped rigidifying portion which extends outwardly from the inner vertical wall. Both the inner and outer vertical walls have horizontally extending flanges which are in abutting relation and their end portions are clampingly engaged. The frame members have a circumferential or peripheral dimension less than the circumferential or peripheral dimension of the duct member so that at least one gap is formed in the circular or arcuately shaped frame member. The frame members are positioned on the duct end portions by inserting the frame member flange portion inside the duct end portions with the top surface of the frame member upper flange abutting the underside of the duct. Fasteners secured to the duct end portion of the flange members are applied to the flange member and duct end portion to urge the frame member flange portion against the undersurface of the circular duct.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a method and apparatus for connecting the ends of a pair of duct sections, and more particularly to a duct joint frame assembly for connecting the ends of circular ducts or ducts that have an arcuate configuration that includes a pair of arcuate frame members each secured to an end portion of the circular or arcuate duct and positioned to provide an airtight seal between the ends of the circular duct as the frame members are urged together and into contact with a gasket positioned between the frame members.
2. Description of the Prior Art
It is well known to connect the ends of adjacent rectangular heating and air-conditioning ducts by a joint assembly secured to the ends of the adjacent duct members.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,415,543 discloses a hollow coupling frame for connecting a pair of rectangular duct sections. The frame includes a pair of reversely folded legs on one side thereof which define oppositely disposed channels for receipt of the sections to be joined. The legs end in angularly related laterally disposed locking lips, which extend back toward the legs to engage and lock the sections within the channels.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,630,549 discloses a duct joint connector for rectangular ducts which includes a rectangular inner frame positioned between adjacent rectangular ducts so that the duct ends abut the frame. The rectangular ducts are secured to the frame by means of external cleats. The corners of the rectangular frame are enclosed by end caps, and mastic may be pumped into the frame to seal air gaps between the ducts and the frame.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,046,409 discloses an arrangement for joining rectangular ventilation ducts. A first and second member are connected with a first duct end and a second duct end, respectively. The second member is provided with an upright stiffening leg and a horizontal leg terminated by a hook-shaped member, which can be snapped over a raised edge of the first member. The first member comprises a horizontal lip which is received by the second member.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,410,206 discloses a flange connection for rectangular air-conditioning ducts. The flange connection includes eight pieces of open-sided box girder, four of which are slipped onto and fixed to each of two rectangular ducts to form frames thereon. The two frames are then bolted together. Angle pieces are inserted into the frames at the corners and bolted to the frames to produce the desired sealing force between the frames.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,508,376 discloses a flange type duct joint assembly that includes a pair of frame members secured to the ends of adjacent rectangular ducts. The frame members have flange portions secured to each other by angular corner pieces having rearwardly curved or displaced flange portions operable to facilitate an airtight seal between the ends of the duct sections and the frame members.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,509,778 discloses a duct joint assembly for sealingly connecting the ends of a pair of rectangular sheet metal duct sections that includes clamps for both connecting adjacent corner pieces which are part of the joint assembly and exerting sealing forces upon the corner pieces.
Assemblies for use in connecting the ends of rectangular ducts are also disclosed in the U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,542,923 and 4,558,892. The duct assemblies disclosed in these patents each include a plurality of individual frame members secured to the ends of adjacent rectangular ducts. Angular corner pieces are inserted into the ends of adjacent frame members, and the adjacent frame members on opposing duct ends are secured together by means of a clamp.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,566,724 discloses a duct joint frame for connecting rectangular duct sections that includes a plurality of flange members positioned oppositely of one another on the ends of the pair of generally rectangular ducts. Each flange member includes a stop arranged to engage a plurality of protuberances on the inner surface of the duct adjacent the duct end portion to prevent retraction of the duct end portion from the flange member. Angular corner pieces extend into the ends of the flange members to connect adjacent flange members and form a frame around the respective duct end portions.
Assemblies for connecting the ends of rectangular duct sections are also disclosed in West German Patent Nos. 2,434,160 and 2,758,295. The assemblies disclosed in these patents each include a plurality of frame members which are slipped onto the ends of the opposing duct sections, and corner pieces which are inserted into the adjacent frame members on each duct. The corner pieces are bolted together to connect the adjacent duct sections.
Although the above listed patents each disclose apparatus for connecting generally rectangular duct sections, it is also known to provide apparatus for connecting the ends of generally circular duct sections.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,512,805 discloses a flexible strip for connecting the ends of generally circular ducts. The flexible strip includes a pair of longitudinal grooves adapted to receive the ends of the circular ducts therein. Protuberances on the outside surfaces of the circular ducts engage the longitudinal grooves to prevent retraction of the circular ducts from the strip after assembly.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,791,681 discloses a device for establishing a sealing connection between the ends of tubular members. The ends of the tubular members are bent outwardly, and a sealing member is positioned between the outwardly bent ends of the adjacent tubular members. A connecting strip having a substantially U-shaped cross section is forced over the outwardly bent ends of the tubular members to clamp the tubular member ends against the sealing member.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,418,948 discloses an elastic coupling for joining two pipes or tubes carrying a pressurized fluid. The coupling includes a plurality of elastic ring segments each having an annular cross section and a clamping collar. The pipes or tubes to be connected each include an outwardly extending rim or flange around the circumference of the edge of the pipe. The pipe flanges are arranged to receive the elastic ring segments. After the elastic ring segments are placed in surrounding relationship with the pipe flanges, the clamping collar is clamped down into contact with the ring segments causing the cross section of the ring segments to contract. As the ring segments contract, the pipe flanges are moved towards one another to compress a seal disposed intermediate the two flanges.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,516,797 discloses a flanged ring for connecting sheet metal tube sections. Each flanged ring includes a securing flange which protrudes radially outwardly from the tube section, an arm projecting from the inner end of the securing flange and a ring land bent obliquely outward from the arm toward the securing flange. The outer diameter of the ring land is selected such that when it is driven into the end of the tube, it is prestressed and thus produces a joint between the flanged ring and the tube. To connect a pair of sheet metal tube sections, a pair of flanged rings are secured to the ends of adjacent circular ducts, and the securing flanges of the adjacent flanged rings are fixed firmly to one another by means of a screw connection, clamp or the like. A German publication identified as "Metu System 61" illustrates a flange ring for connecting the ends of circular metal duct and is similar to the disclosure of U.S. Pat. No. 4,516,797. There is also a Canadian publication by Titan Steel Corporation which illustrates a similar product.
While it has been suggested by the prior art devices to connect a pair of adjacent rectangular duct sections or circular duct sections by means of a pair of frame members or the like, there is a need for an improved duct connector for connecting the ends of a pair of adjacent circular or arcuately shaped ducts in which the adjacent frame members are sealingly connected to the duct end portions and the vertical walls of adjacent frame members are urged together and into contact with a gasket member positioned between the adjacent frame members to provide an airtight seal between the connected duct sections.


A field groundwater filtering sampling and moving-water flow index measuring device comprises a precipitation tank, an electrode measuring column of moving-water flow, a suction filter unit and a control unit; also provided is a measuring method by adopting the index measuring device. Sample filtering and electrode measuring work in the field groundwater sampling process can be integrally solved, sampling time point selection after well washing is scientifically and automatically achieved, and the sample filtering and collecting efficiency is remarkably improved; and meanwhile, the accuracy of testing various in-situ indexes such as pH value, oxidation reduction potential and the like in groundwater is remarkably improved in the design of moving-water flow electrode measurement. The method has good application prospect and value for carrying out groundwater monitoring and evaluation, remediation and governance, and the like.

The collection of groundwater samples is the premise of groundwater monitoring and evaluation, remediation and governance, and environmental management. How to ensure the representativeness of the collected samples and the accuracy of the measurement of various changeable physical and chemical indexes in extracted groundwater is a problem that must be solved in the field sample collection work. In the prior art, the confirmation of the collection time of the groundwater samples after well washing is usually carried out by empirical judgment, or the collection groundwater is subjected to static electrode determination for the confirmation, easily causing the unscientific and inaccurate judgment of sampling time; a manual needle tube filtering mode is usually adopted for in-situ filtering, with low sampling efficiency; in-situ pH and oxidation reduction potential (ORP) determinations are often carried out using static water, which is easily affected by surface temperature, air, light and so on, and it is difficult to ensure the accuracy of the determination.

Field groundwater filtering and sampling and moving-water flow index measuring device and method

CHINESE RESEARCH ACADEMY OF ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES


A control system for an engine includes a spark module and a fuel module. The spark module advances spark timing of a cylinder R degrees past a spark limit for N consecutive cylinder firing events, and retards spark timing of the cylinder past the spark limit for M consecutive cylinder firing events after the N consecutive cylinder firing events. The fuel module supplies a rich fuel-air charge to the cylinder for the M consecutive cylinder firing events. According to the system, R is a real number greater than zero, N and M are integers greater than zero, and the spark limit is a control value used to limit an amount of spark advance to prevent spark-knock. A method for controlling an engine is also provided.

The background description provided herein is for the purpose of generally presenting the context of the disclosure. Work of the presently named inventors, to the extent it is described in this background section, as well as aspects of the description that may not otherwise qualify as prior art at the time of filing, are neither expressly nor impliedly admitted as prior art against the present disclosure.
Vehicles include a powertrain that generates drive torque used to propel the vehicle. Typically, the powertrain includes an internal combustion engine. Reciprocating-type engines produce torque by combusting an air and fuel (A/F) mixture or fuel-air charge in cylinders to drive pistons between a top-dead-center (TDC) position and a bottom-dead-center (BDC) position. Reciprocation of the pistons between the TDC and BDC positions drives rotation of a crankshaft, which produces the drive torque. At the TDC position, a volume of the combustion chamber is at its smallest volume. At the BDC position, the volume of the combustion chamber is at its largest volume.
Combustion occurs in combustion chambers defined by the cylinders and the pistons. In spark-ignition (SI) engines, combustion is initiated by an electrical discharge or spark that supplies energy to the fuel-air charge. Once initiated, combustion continues along a flame front for a period during which the piston is driven towards the BDC position. Generally, combustion timing is controlled and the flame front grows in a predictable and controlled manner and consumes nearly all of the fuel in the fuel-air charge. Combustion timing may be controlled by controlling spark timing, which may be specified relative to the TDC position. Spark advance generally refers to spark timing that occurs before the TDC position. Spark retard generally refers to spark timing that occurs after the TDC position.
Abnormal combustion is a term that is generally used to refer to a combustion process in which a flame front may be started by hot combustion chamber surfaces either prior to or after spark ignition, or a process in which a portion or all of the fuel-air charge may be consumed at abnormally high rates. Abnormal combustion phenomena include partial burning, misfire, knock, and pre-ignition. Knock is a term that is used to generally refer to an abnormal combustion process during which a portion of an end gas outside of the propagating flame front spontaneously ignites. Spontaneous ignition of the end gas, which includes the fuel, air, and residual gas mixture ahead of the propagating flame front, causes a rapid increase in local pressures and propagation of pressure waves of substantial amplitude across the combustion chamber. Knock is also used to refer to an audible noise that is generated by the pressure waves.
Pre-ignition is a term that generally refers to an abnormal combustion process in which the fuel-air charge is ignited by a source other than the electrical discharge provided by a spark plug. If the ignition occurs after the spark ignition, it is generally referred to as post-ignition. Following ignition, a turbulent flame develops at each ignition location and propagates in a manner similar to that occurring after spark ignition.
One type of pre-ignition is referred to as surface ignition, which generally refers to an abnormal combustion process in which a hot spot on the combustion chamber walls ignites the fuel-air charge prior to the arrival of the normal flame front. Hot spots may be created by an overheated valve or spark plug, combustion chamber deposit, or other energy source other than the spark. Surface ignition is often associated with what may be referred to as a "run away" phenomenon in which the pre-ignition occurs progressively earlier during successive engine cycles.
Another type of pre-ignition is referred to as stochastic pre-ignition. Stochastic pre-ignition may also be referred to as low-speed pre-ignition, since it generally occurs at relatively low engine speeds. Stochastic pre-ignition is generally associated with boosted engines such as turbocharged or supercharged engines. Stochastic pre-ignition typically occurs more randomly than other abnormal combustion processes and does not exhibit the typical run-away phenomenon characteristic of surface ignition.
Control systems have been developed to control combustion in an engine. In some conventional combustion control systems, spark timing is maintained below a spark limit or threshold to prevent an occurrence of knock and/or is retarded during corrective action to end or reduce an intensity of an occurrence of knock. However, these combustion control systems may not prevent or reduce an occurrence of pre-ignition.

Control system and method for preventing stochastic pre-ignition in an engine


In a method for forming a light absorber layer (4) of a thin film solar cell, the absorber layer is formed from a plurality of sub-layers each of which is formed by preparing a plurality of mixtures containing Cu, Se, In and Ga in a liquid medium, a composition ratio of In to Ga being progressively increased from one mixture to another, the mixtures optionally including a mixture containing no In or Ga; applying a layer of one of the mixtures onto a back electrode layer (3) formed on a substrate (2); drying the applied layer of the mixture; and rapidly baking the dried layer of the mixture. By forming the absorber layer with a plurality of thin absorber sub-layers each having a controlled band gap, a solar cell having a large surface area can be fabricated at low cost and the efficiency of the solar cell can be improved by forming a favorable band gap gradient structure. As these sub-layers can be applied simply by any known processes, the method of the present invention is highly suited to be used for mass producing solar cells.

The chalcopyrite thin film solar cell can be manufactured by a variety of manufacturing processes from a wide range of materials, and is therefore susceptible of low cost manufacture and improvement in performance. For this reason, solar cells of this type have been the subject of intensified research and development efforts by a number of research institutions and manufacturing corporations. In recent years, commercialization of chalcopyrite thin film solar cells are being accelerated because of the ease in fabricating large area devices and the low energy consumption in the fabrication process. The chalcopyrite materials preferred for such commercialization include Cu(In, Ga)Se2 and Cu(In, Ga)(SeS)2.
A typical chalcopyrite thin film solar cell has a layered structure, and includes a substrate, a back electrode layer, an absorber layer (a light absorber layer), a buffer layer and a transparent electrode layer that are stacked one above another in that order from the bottom layer or the substrate. The absorber layer has the function to absorb light energy and convert it into electric power, and is therefore considered to be crucial in maximizing the generation and capture of carries in the absorber layer, and improving the performance of the solar cell. It was proposed to progressively increase the band gap of the semiconductor material of the absorber layer from the side of the buffer layer to the side of the back electrode layer. See PCT pamphlet WO2004/090995 (patent document 1). This patent document also discloses a method for forming an absorber layer which includes the steps of forming a Ga layer on a back electrode layer by sputtering or CVS, depositing a Cu(In, Ga)Se2 layer on the Ga layer and thermally diffusing Ga atoms into the Cu(In, Ga)Se2 layer. Changing the ratio of In to Ga causes the band gap to change in a corresponding manner.
Patent document 1 discloses a method for forming an absorber layer in which the band gap is varied by changing the ratio of the composition elements along the direction of the thickness of the film (band gap gradient structure). As this method controls the band gap gradient structure by a thermal diffusion of Ga in an intermediate step, the gradient is dictated by the diffusion constant of Ga, and cannot be controlled at will. When a molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) film forming process, which may be considered as a vapor deposition process, is known to allow the distribution of the ratio of the composition elements to be varied in a progressive manner or the band gap gradient structure along the thickness of the film to be controlled in a relatively precise manner. However, the MBE process is considered to be unsuitable for mass producing solar cells as it is required to be performed in a high vacuum environment, and is not only expensive and time consuming to perform but also unsuitable for processing large surface area devices. There may be other vapor deposition processes and sputtering processes that may be considered as being suitable for mass production, but they do not allow a precise control of composition because of various reasons such as the limitations in the composition of the sputter targets. Therefore, these processes are unsuitable for providing a desired band gap gradient structure.

Method for forming an absorber layer of a thin film solar cell


Melt blended HDPE for pipe and fitting material having a density in the range of 0.945 to 0.955 grams per cubic centimeter, values of melt flow index according to ASTM D1238 less than 0.4 with enhanced physical properties and process characteristics and blend methods are described in which virgin, reprocessed, wide specification, flake or regrind HMW homopolymer and copolymer HDPE (5 to  less than 50%) are included as a minor component and HMW HDPE ( greater than 50 to 95%) is the major component. The method of selecting and blending the HMW HDPE copolymer, LMW HDPE homopolymer and LMW HDPE copolymer provides the corrugated HDPE pipe manufacturer with enhanced HDPE compositions and the means to independently design physical properties and enhance processability while exceeding AASHTO""s standard for ESCR.

The present invention addresses the compositional needs of corrugated high-density polyethylene (HDPE) pipe utilized for drainage, irrigation, storm and sanitary sewer applications. Poor environmental stress crack resistance (ESCR) of corrugated high-density polyethylene has been an impediment in competing against Polyvinylchloride (PVC), concrete and corrugated metal pipe. The corrugated plastic pipe fabricated from high-density polyethylene often cracks before, during or shortly after being installed in a trench and back filled due to insufficient ESCR. This problem has caused the American Association of State Highway Transportation Officials (AASHTO) to include a required minimum ESCR. This invention discloses HDPE compositions and methods for formulating HDPE compositions that are melt blends of virgin, preprocessed, regrind and recycled HDPE and comply with the standards of AASHTO for corrugated polyethylene pipe. These standards include specifications for density, melt flow index (MI), flexural modulus, tensile strength and environmental stress crack resistance of the pipe compounds and are incorporated herein by reference.
The AASHTO standards for corrugated polyethylene pipe utilized for drainage, irrigation, storm and sanitary sewer applications typically require the pipe be fabricated from HDPE. Current AASHTO standards require the polyethylene compositions comply with cell classification of 335400C according to ASTM D-3350. The cell classification of 335400C requires a maximum Melt Flow Index (MI) at 190 degrees Centigrade as per ASTM D1238 of 0.4 grams per ten minutes, a density of 0.945 to 0.955 grams per cubic inch as per ASTM D1505, minimum flexural modulus of 110,000 pounds per square inch according to ASTM D790 and minimum tensile strength of 3,000 pounds per square inch according to ASTM D638 and a minimum environmental stress crack resistance of 24 hours determined by a notched constant tensile load (NCTL) of 15% of the yield stress of the polyethylene tested as per ASTM D5397. These polyethylene compositions have an additional AASHTO requirement requiring the addition of at least 2 percent by weight of carbon black particles for ultra-violet resistance.
Typically, corrugated polyethylene pipe manufacturers utilize specialty blow-molding grades of high-density polyethylene having a bimodal or multi-modal molecular weight distributions. Debras et al. in U.S. Pat. No. 6,218,472 disclosed such a polyethylene composition satisfies the current AASHTO standards by means of a multi stage polymerization. The disadvantage of this approach is that the pipe manufacturer typically pays a premium for as polymerized virgin corrugated pipe grade high-density polyethylene and can not easily modify the physical properties of the polyethylene composition to enhance the physical properties or processability in relation to the pipe size and profile shape. Ideally, the corrugated pipe manufacturers would prefer to purchase lower cost off specification, wide specification, reprocessed and recycled polyethylene components that they blend to meet the appropriate AASHTO standards. The prior art includes blending approaches. For example, Michie, Jr., U.S. Pat. No. 4,374,227, whereby medium density polyethylene pipe blends with improved low temperature brittleness properties and gloss are composed of HDPE, LLDPE and a carbon black concentrate. Michie, Jr. discloses a thermoplastic Medium Density Polyethylene (MDPE) composition having a nominal density of 0.926 to 0.940 grams per cubic centimeter. Unfortunately, this approach has the disadvantage of too low a density to meet the cell classification of 335400C according to ASTM D-3350 for corrugated and profile HDPE pipe. Similarly Boehm et al. in their U.S. Pat. No. 5,338,589 and Morimoto et al. in their U.S. Pat. No. 5,189,106 disclose MDPE having density ranges of 0.930 to 0.940 grams per cubic centimeter. Boehm et al. and Morimoto et al. both utilize specific and different two-stage polymerization processes to produce blending components for the resulting medium density polyethylenes. The disadvantage of this approach is that it is limited to medium density polyethylene and excludes the high-density polyethylene density range of 0.945 to 0.955 grams per cubic centimeter required for corrugated and profile polyethylene pipe. Su in U.S. Pat. No. 4,824,912 discloses terblends of a major portion of LLDPE and minor amounts of HDPE of low molecular weight and of HDPE having high molecular weight. This approach also has the same disadvantage of being limited to low and medium density polyethylene compositions.
The object of this invention is to disclose blends of commodity HDPE components that provide corrugated HDPE pipe compositions having a density range of 0.945 to 0.955 grams per cubic centimeter and a MI of less than 0.4 with enhanced stress crack resistance and processing characteristics. Generally, commercially available HDPE copolymers polymerized to produce blow-molding grades of HDPE are often utilized for corrugated pipe. Several commercially available HDPE copolymer blow molding grades similar to Chevron Phillips 5202 HDPE grade comply with AASHTO standards for density, MI, flexural modulus and tensile strength but fail the environmental stress crack resistance requirements for notched constant tensile load (NCTL) ASTM D5397. The low ESCR is due to their characteristic broad molecular weight distribution (MWD) that includes low molecular weight fractions.
A further object of this invention is to disclose blend compositions of virgin, off specification, wide specification, reprocessed and regrind polyethylenes that enhance stress crack resistance of polyethylene pipe blends by increasing the number of tie molecules and thereby decreasing the number of loose ends. The number of molecular loose ends is decreased by reducing number of shorter polyethylene molecules by melt blending HDPE with sufficiently high molecular weight to provide exceedingly high ESCR with low molecular weight HDPE components having narrow molecular weight distributions to provide improve processability. It is an additional object of this invention to disclose the specific physical properties required to select both the high molecular weight and the low molecular weight HDPE components so that the number of loose ends associated with the short molecules are minimized and the physical properties of the blend composition meets the desired performance standards.
It is a further object of this invention to disclose a lower cost and more flexible method of providing HDPE compositions for corrugated plastic pipe than as polymerized multimode polyethylenes. In this regard, the invention discloses a method of varying the composition of high density polyethylene components having sufficiently different values of density and melt index such that the density and melt index of the blended composition can be varied independently to attain enhanced physical properties and processability respectively while maintaining an enhanced environmental stress crack resistance.
It is an additional object of this invention to provide HDPE pipe material with:
Enhanced ESCR and long-term stress crack resistance by utilizing high molecular weight (HMW) HDPE component as the major component wherein the low molecular weight fraction is diminished with increased molecular weight.
Enhanced physical properties by utilizing low molecular weight HDPE homopolymer as a minor component having a characteristic narrow molecular weight distribution with higher density, flexural modulus and tensile strength.
Enhanced processability by utilizing low molecular weight HDPE copolymer as a minor component having a characteristic narrow molecular weight distribution devoid of short molecules and sufficiently high melt index to improve processability without dramatically greatly decreasing the ESCR.
It is the further objective of this invention is to provide the corrugated HDPE pipe and fittings manufacturers, the opportunity to vary the blend ratios of virgin, recycled, off specification, wide specification, reprocessed and regrind HMW and low molecular weight HDPE""s to obtain the required combination of physical and process properties of pipe and fittings. For example the pipe manufacturer may vary blend ratios to enhance 24-hour impact behavior of the pipe, ESCR and flexural stiffness by specific pipe diameter and corrugation design.
This invention provides the benefit of blending recycled, reprocessed, wide and off specification and virgin HDPE""s to provide corrugated HDPE pipe and fittings material compositions having enhanced physical properties and processing characteristics capable of meeting and exceeding AASHTO standards.

Melt blended high-density polyethylene compositions with enhanced properties and method for producing the same


A biaxially oriented polyester film is provided, in particular, a biaxially oriented polyester film for molded part capable of being used suitably as a metallic molded part processed after metal deposition on a film surface and a surface protection film in forming a decorative sheet. Provided is a biaxially oriented polyester film for molded part, which is a polyester film that at least two layers of A layer composed of polyester A and B layer composed of polyester B are laminated, wherein                interlayer adhesion between A layer and B layer is 5 (N/15 mm) or more, and        stress at 100% elongation (F100 value, unit: MPa) at 200° C. and 150° C. in the longitudinal direction and transverse direction of a film is 1 to 50.

Recently, in building materials, automobile components, cellular phones and electric products, a lot of parts with a metallic appearance by plating an injection-molding article of resin, and highly decorative parts by coating are being used. Being accompanied by increasing concerns about environment problems, plating liquids in a chemical bath in plating a resin, solvents discharged in a painting process, and influences that carbon dioxide affects environment are seen as a problem. In particular, attempts to prevent leak of plating liquids are necessary, farther, movements to regulate plating liquid itself have been coming out.
In such situations, as a metallic molded part replacing plating, there is proposed a laminate that metal deposition is done on a polyester film, and laminated on other material (Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2000-43212). However, since this proposal uses an ordinary biaxially stretched polyester film, it is not possible to produce a molded part with a complicated shape like plating an injection-molding article. Disclosed is an excellently decorative part that a metallic printing layer is formed on a polyester film, which in turn is thermally transferred to a molded article (Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2005-119043). However, since this proposal discards a polyester film after transferring the metallic printing layer, it is not economical and has a problem that environmental loads become large. Further, a proposal of a metallic decorative sheet that a metal thin film layer is formed on a formable film, and processed after lamination (Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication Nos. 2004-1243 and 2005-262447). However, these proposals do not satisfy the requirement of appearance after forming when a polyester film is used, and when an acryl type film is used emphasizing appearance, adhesion to the metal layer is not sufficient and a primer layer needs to be formed, and no satisfactory level is achieved.
On the other hand, several proposals of polyester film usable in such metallic formable film are done. First, a polyester film consisting of polyethylene terephthalate as a main constitutional component and containing other composition is disclosed (Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2000-94575). However, this proposal is far from demand characteristics on formability and appearance after forming as well. Next, a polyester film with excellent formability having a specific melting point and tensile elongation at break is also proposed (Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2001-72841). However, since a film of this proposal has too high strain stress in processing, it is difficult to carry out thermoforming precisely. Further, a film that polyethylene terephthalate and polybutylene terephthalate are mixed by 1:1 to provide formability is disclosed (Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2002-321277). However, it is difficult to obtain a beautiful metallic film by this film. Further, a polyester film for molded part having a specific melting point and adopting a specific film making condition is also disclosed (Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2003-211606). However, in a film of this proposal, metallic brightness after forming is lowered as expected, and appearance point of view is not sufficient.
In order to satisfy formability, decorative effect and smoothness, in a laminated film of three layers of A layer, B layer and C layer, a polyester film having formability by the B layer being an intermediate layer is proposed (Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2006-51747). However, this polyester film is inferior in interlayer adhesion between the B layer being an intermediate layer and the A layer, C layer being a surface layer, so that delamination occurs easily after processing.
Movements that a decorative sheet is used for a molded article as an alternative for coating are active. By using a decorative sheet, a method carrying out vacuum forming, vacuum pressure forming, plug assist forming or the like is used. In this case, however, in severe forming processes such as heating, pushing a metal mold and vacuuming, there are problems that surface is scared and surface gloss is lowered. Therefore, there is a proposal that a thermoformable masking film is laminated (Japanese Translation of PCT Publication No. 2001-514984).
However, since a masking film of this proposal is a non-oriented urethane film directly casting on a decorative sheet, hardness of film is too low, peel property after forming and surface conditions of a decorative sheet after forming are insufficient.
As a metallic easily formable decorative sheet, to prevent scar in forming, a formable laminate that a masking layer is laminated is proposed (U.S. Pat. No. 6,565,955). As a masking layer, a high elongation film such as polyester, nylon and polyurethane is proposed. However, in this proposal, since stress in forming is not sufficiently low, in forming a formable laminate, forming compliance is insufficient, and peel property after forming is bad, thus, there has been a problem that fragment of a protection film remains on the surface of a metallic easily formable decorative sheet.
It could therefore be helpful to provide a biaxially oriented polyester film preferably used as a metallic molded part because of having heat resistance and dimensional stability capable of forming a metal thin film, thermofomability and an excellent metallic appearance after forming, and no delamination between layers in a film after thermoforming. It could also be helpful to provide a biaxially oriented polyester film preferably used as a surface protection film of decorative sheets such as paint film because appearance of a molded article can be maintained beautifully when used as a surface protection film in forming a formable decorative sheet.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Biaxially oriented polyester film for molded part


A reading apparatus includes a wireless tag reader including an antenna and an antenna surface facing a first direction and through which the antenna emits a radio wave to read tag information from a wireless tag, and a code reader including an imaging unit and an imaging window facing the first direction and through which the imaging unit acquires an image to read a code. The code reader further includes a grip detachably connected to the wireless tag reader.

In recent years, with the spread of RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) tags (also referred to as wireless tags), the number of stores adopting POS (Point Of Sales) terminals using wireless tag readers has increased. This type of POS terminal includes a stationary wireless tag reader and an optical code reader such as a handheld barcode reader.
When a commodity to which a wireless tag has been attached is placed in a reading area for the wireless tag reader, the POS terminal reads tag information from the wireless tag and registers the commodity. When no wireless tag is attached to a commodity or the wireless tag is defective, an operator uses the optical code reader to read code information indicated by a code symbol such as a barcode attached to the commodity so that the POS terminal can register the commodity. Then, the POS terminal performs a checkout or settlement process on the registered commodity.
Additionally, stores regularly perform inventory work. For example, the inventory work is performed when the store is closed, and the store investigates the number of commodities in stock. The inspection of the number of commodities in stock is performed by collecting tag information from a wireless tag attached to each commodity displayed on the store's commodity shelves by using a wireless tag reader, for example. In order to read tag information from wireless tags attached to commodities on all the various commodity shelves, a handheld wireless tag reader is generally used. In addition, in order to collect information about commodities with no wireless tag attached or commodities with a damaged wireless tag, a handheld optical code reader may also be used together with the handheld wireless tag reader during the inventory work.
Conventionally, the wireless tag reader and the optical code reader used for the inventory work are separate from those used for the commodity registration process (checkout processing).

Reading apparatus, wireless tag reader, and code reader


There is provided herein a demulsifying composition comprising at least one polyorganosiloxane compound having the general formula (I):M1aM2bD1cD2dT1eT2fQg  (I)wherein: M1=R1R2R3SiO1/2, M2=R4R5RLSiO1/2, D1=R6R7SiO2/2, D2=R8RLSiO2/2, T1=R9SiO3/2, T2=RLSiO3/2, Q=SiO4/2, where R1, R2, R3, R4, R5, R6, R7, R8 and R9 are each independently chosen from monovalent alkyl, aryl or aralkyl hydrocarbon radicals, or chosen from RP; RP is a monovalent polyether radical independently of the general formula (II):—(CnH2n)—O—(C2H4O)o—(C3H6O)p—(C4H8O)q—R10  (II)RL is a monovalent radical independently chosen from the general formula (III):—X—O—(C2H4O)r—(C3H6O)s—(C4H8O)t—{C(O)CuH2uO}v—R11  (III)

Any publications or references discussed herein are presented to describe the background of the invention and to provide additional detail regarding its practice. Nothing herein is to be construed as an admission that the inventors are not entitled to antedate such disclosure by virtue of prior invention.
Demulsifiers are used as process aids in crude oil production to separate the emulsified water from produced oil. Conventional demulsifiers are typically polymeric and interfacially-active. Many of these materials are non-biodegradable and some of them can be environmentally undesirable. Due to increased eco-toxicological constraints, current industry focus has been to use more biodegradable and less toxic materials for these applications.
Some silicones are also increasingly being used in the oil and gas industry for various applications, such as for antifoam applications and for the dewatering of crude oil. But there still exists a demand for silicones which can provide high performance demulsification while also providing enhanced biodegradability.

Biodegradable polyorganosiloxane demulsifier composition and method for making the same

Abstract: There is also provided herein a method for separating emulsions comprising combining the components of the demulsification composition into a mixture; allowing the mixture to separate into at least two phases and separating said at least two phases from each other.


An inkjet ink includes an aqueous liquid vehicle, at least 1% by weight dye, and an ozone stability enhancing quantity of gluconate ions.

Ink jet images printed on the newer "instant dry" porous media generally suffer from fade or image loss caused by exposure to air pollutants. It has been shown in scientific literature that ozone exposure is the single most important factor of image loss. Images that are displayed unprotected, e.g., not framed, can show noticeable degradation in weeks or months. Current methods available to slow this degradation include protecting the image by framing it behind glass or placing it in a photo album. An alternate approach includes printing with colorants that are intrinsically stable toward ozone exposure.
Unfortunately ozone degradation is not the only source of fade or image loss. Light exposure may also contribute to image loss or fade to an inkjet image. Furthermore dyes that are both ozone stable and stable toward light exposure are difficult to manufacture and not easily available for purchase. For example azo dyes based on H-acid tend to be ozone stable, but very light unstable. On the other hand, azo dyes based on gamma-acid tend to be light stable, but very unstable to the effects of ozone. Additionally, Phthalocyanine dyes tend to be unstable toward ozone but light stable.
Various methods have been tried to improve ozone stability, such as adding sacrificial materials that remove ozone by chemical reaction. This solution is merely temporary, because once the sacrificial material is fully consumed by the chemical reaction the dyes will start to fade. Alternately, a few dyes have been found to have improved both light and ozone stability, but are still not as stable as would be desired. In some 3-color (e.g. cyan, magenta and yellow inks) printing systems one or more of the dyes used might have more ozone stability than the other(s) dyes. This can lead to color imbalance during image degradation which may result in the image being unacceptable before the dyes themselves had faded to an unacceptable level.

Additive to improve ozone stability of dyes on porous media

Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P.


Down-sizing of a pump for sucking two types of different fluids is realized. The pump is provided with a cylinder pump having a cylinder main body having a reciprocally movable piston, a first cylinder chamber partitioned at one side of the piston for being introduced with a first fluid, and a second cylinder chamber partitioned at the other side of the piston for being introduced with a second fluid, and piston driving means for reciprocally moving the piston of the cylinder pump.

This application is based on Japanese Patent Application Nos. 2000-277226 filed Sep. 12, 2000 and 2001-081642 filed Mar. 21, 2001, the content of which is incorporated hereinto by reference.
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a cylinder pump suitable for sucking two different types of liquid and an ink jet printing system using the cylinder pump, specifically to an improvement for down-sizing of the cylinder pump. The present invention further relates to a photograph assembly having an ink jet printing system provided with the down-sized cylinder pump.
2. Description of the Prior Art
As an ink jet printing system, there has heretofore been a so-called serial scan type equipped replaceably with a recording head as recording means and an ink tank as an ink vessel on a carriage movable in a main scanning direction. This printing method successively prints an image on a printing medium by repeating main scanning of a carriage equipped with the recording head and an ink tank and sub-scanning of the printing medium.
When considering realization of an ultra-compact printer suitable for use in PDA (Personal Digital Assistants) or cameras, it is necessary to reduce the size of the carriage itself. Therefore, the ink volume of the ink tank equipped thereon must be extremely small.
When the ink tank volume on the carriage is extremely small as described above, there is a possibility of generating a problem in that replacement frequency of the ink tank becomes high or the ink tank must be replaced in the course of printing operation.
Then, in order to solve such a problem, there is proposed an ink supply method in which ink is supplied from a separately provided main tank to a sub-tank on the carriage at an appropriate timing every time the carriage is positioned at a predetermined stand-by position, hereinafter for convenience called a pit-in ink supply method.
In this pit-in ink supply method, for example, every time a sheet of printing medium is printed, the carriage is positioned at a predetermined stand-by position, the sub-tank on the carriage and the main tank are connected at an appropriate timing, so that with this connection state, ink is supplied from the main tank to the sub-tank. By this operation, the above-described problem with the ink volume of the sub-tank on the carriage is solved.
In the above-described pit-in ink supply method, an ink absorber such as a sponge is provided inside the sub-tank, ink supply is performed by a negative pressure introduced from an air suction opening to the inside, so that ink is introduced from the main tank into the sub-tank through the ink intake.
Further, in the ink jet printing method, when air influxes into the nozzle of the recording head, or when ink increases in viscosity by drying or the like, the nozzle becomes ink ejection impossible, and ink droplets cannot be ejected from such a nozzle. Therefore, a capping member for covering a face of the recording head and suction means for sucking ink from the nozzle of the recording head through the capping member are provided so that ink which does not contribute to image printing is sucked and removed from the tip of the nozzle at an appropriate time.
As described above, in ink jet printing using the pit-in ink supply method, a suction pump is required for sucking air for ink supply and for sucking ink from the recording head.
As the suction pump, there has heretofore been a tube pump for generating a negative pressure in the cap utilizing the restoration force of a tube squeezed by a roller or a piston pump utilizing a movement of a piston, or the like.
In the case of the tube pump, since a rotary mechanism for rotating the roller for squeezing the tube is required, the mechanism itself becomes large in size. Therefore, it is not suited as a suction pump for the above-described ultra-compact printer.
In the case of the piston pump, since it is a reciprocal type, it is suited as a suction pump for ultra-compact printer. However, also in the case of the piston pump, there are problems of requiring a suction pump which is large in construction such that,
(1) separate pumps are used for ink suction and air suction,
(2) when a common pump is used for ink suction and air suction, a suction switching construction is necessary for switching the ink suction passage and the air suction passage for connecting to the input port of the pump.
As described above, for realizing an ultra-compact ink jet printer suitable for PDA or camera, construction of the suction pump part suitable for ultra-compact structure has been in demand.
Under such circumstances, it is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a cylinder pump which can be constructed small in structure and is suitable for sucking two different types of liquid and an ink jet printing system using the cylinder pump.
In an aspect of the present invention, a cylinder pump unit comprises a cylinder pump and a piston driving means. The cylinder pump includes a reciprocally movable piston and a cylinder main body having a first cylinder chamber partitioned at one side of the piston and introduced with a first fluid and a second cylinder chamber partitioned at the other side of the piston and introduced with a second fluid.
The piston driving means reciprocally moves the piston of the cylinder pump.
In another aspect of the present invention, the first fluid is air, the second fluid is ink and a piston shaft of the piston is extended to outside the cylinder main body through the second cylinder chamber and connected to the piston drive means.
In another aspect of the present invention, the second cylinder chamber has an input port for sucking ink and an output port for discharging ink. A cylinder pump unit further comprises port switching means for performing switching of opening and closing of the input port and output port in association with movement of the piston. Therefore, when the second cylinder chamber is pressure reduced by movement of the piston, the output port is closed and the input port is opened, and when the second cylinder chamber is pressurized by movement of the piston, the input port is closed and the output port is opened. The port switching means is incorporated preferably in the second cylinder chamber.
In another aspect of the present invention, the second cylinder chamber may have an input port for sucking ink, the piston shaft has a hollow cylindrical form, and the hollow part may be an output port for discharging ink. The cylinder pump unit further comprises port switching means for performing switching of opening and closing of the input port and output port in association with movement of the piston. Therefore, when the second cylinder chamber is pressure reduced by movement of the piston, the output port is closed and the input port is opened, when the second cylinder chamber is pressurized by movement of the piston, the input port is closed and the output port is opened.
In another aspect of the present invention, the port switching means is a check valve provided in a passage communicating with the input port and a check valve provided between the piston and the piston shaft.
In another aspect of the present invention, the piston driving means comprises a screw rod engaging with the piston shaft in the piston shaft and rod driving means for rotatively driving the screw rod.
In another aspect of the present invention, the piston driving means may comprise a pump driving arm for connecting through the piston shaft, a lead screw engaging with the pump driving arm for reciprocally driving the pump driving arm and screw driving means for rotatively driving the lead screw.
In another aspect of the present invention, the first cylinder chamber may be connected with an air suction part provided with a porous film in an ink tank. The air suction part introduces a negative pressure that supplies ink from intake into the ink tank. The piston shaft is a hollow cylindrical body and provided with a relief valve at a tip of the piston shaft for maintaining suction pressure of the first cylinder chamber at less than a predetermined pressure. A setting relief pressure of the relief valve is preferably set smaller than a pressure capable of maintaining performance of the porous film.
In another aspect of the present invention, cross sectional form of the cylinder pump may be elliptical.
In another aspect of the present invention, an ink jet printing apparatus comprises an ink tank, a cap, a cylinder pump and piston driving means. The ink tank has an air suction part provided with a porous film, the air suction part introduces a negative pressure that supplies ink from an intake into the ink tank. The cap caps an ink ejection opening of a recording head capable of ejecting ink supplied from the ink tank. The cylinder pump includes a reciprocally movable piston, a cylinder main body having a first cylinder chamber partitioned at one side of the piston and connected with the air suction part, and a second cylinder chamber partitioned at the other side of the piston and connected with the cap. The piston driving means reciprocally moves the piston of the cylinder pump. Air in the ink tank is sucked through the air suction part of the ink tank by the first cylinder chamber of the cylinder pump, and ink is sucked from the cap by the second cylinder chamber of the cylinder pump.
The above and other objects, effects, features and advantages of the present invention will become more apparent from the following description of embodiments thereof taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.

Cylinder pump, an ink jet printing system using the cylinder pump and a photograph assembly having the printing system


The present invention provides a method for efficiently removing noise of an image sensor. To this end, the present invention enables: an area to be divided into an edge area, a sensitivity difference generation area, and a pattern area relative to an input image of a Bayer pattern; and different noise removing methods to be applied according to each of the divided areas. By doing this, noise can be removed efficiently since the noise is adaptively removed in each area. Further, sensitivity differences between Gr and Gb are considered in such a manner that resolution can be improved.

In image apparatuses such as cameras, camcorders, webcams, etc., an image sensor is mounted and the image sensor generally adopts a Bayer pattern configuration. The Bayer pattern refers to a pattern in which a pattern of two colors of Red (R) and Green (Gr) on a row and a pattern of two colors of Green (Gb) and Blue (B) on another row are repetitively arranged, as shown in FIGS. 1A, 1B, 1C, and 1D. As shown in FIGS. 1A, 1B, 1C, and 1D, by using a Bayer color filter, data is obtained in which only one value among Red, Green, and Blue exists in each pixel. Since Green next to Red and Green next to Blue have different sensitivities, the Bayer pattern may be divided as shown in FIGS. 1A, 1B, 1C, and 1D according to four types of center pixels, R, Gr, Gb, and B.
The size of an image sensor does not increase in spite of increase in the number of pixels of the image sensor, such that an area of each pixel relatively decreases. Such decrease in the pixel area reduces a capacity of a photodiode, degrading the sensitivity of the image sensor. To prevent this phenomenon, a recent Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor (CMOS) image sensor uses a share structure for increasing the capacity of the photodiode and improving the sensitivity of the image sensor. If a transistor and a drive region are shared, the form and structure of share pixels are asymmetric, causing a signal difference between the share pixels. Such a difference is expressed as noise, which is so-called a "maze effect", after color interpolation.
To cancel the noise, noise cancellation algorithms have been studied. One of them is the most common noise cancellation method which uses a weighted mean filter. This noise cancellation method cancels noise by being applied to pixels of the same type as the center pixel. Assuming channels of Gr and Gb are the same channel, noise and errors related to channel sensitivity are removed at the same time.

Apparatus and method for removing noise generated from image sensor


The method controls a charge pump generator having at least an output tank capacitor on which a regulated output voltage of the generator is produced, and a pump capacitor that is connected to a supply node and to ground during charge phases and is coupled in an anti-parallel configuration to the output tank capacitor during charge transfer phases, alternated to the charge phases. The method limits the current absorbed from the supply because the transfer capacitor is charged during at least an initial charge phase with a constant charge current of a pre-established value.

Charge pump voltage generators are largely used in many integrated circuits for generating a regulated voltage often of opposite sign to the supply voltage and that is maintained substantially constant as the current absorbed by the load circuit varies. An example of a common charge pump voltage generator is shown in FIG. 1. The circuit of FIG. 1 has operating phases in which the pump capacitor CP is charged at a certain supply voltage VDD, alternated with operating phases in which the pump capacitor CP is coupled in anti-parallel to the charge tank capacitor CT, that supplies the electronic circuit with a voltage VNEG of opposite sign in respect to the charge voltage VDD. As long as the voltage VNEG is smaller than the voltage VREF, the pump capacitor CP remains coupled to the supply voltage VDD. When the voltage VNEG exceeds the reference voltage VREF, the capacitor CP charges the tank capacitor CT when the clock signal CK assumes a logic active value, and is charged again at the supply VDD voltage when the clock signal CK becomes a logic null value.
In practice, this loop controls the duty cycle at a constant frequency when the charge current is above a certain threshold that depends on the supply voltage, on the on-resistances RON of the switches SW1 and SW2, on the pump capacitance CP and on the delay of the feedback line formed by the comparator and by the logic gates. The start-up phase of this charge pump generator is critical because the power supply must deliver currents of large peak value. Indeed, at the start-up, the capacitor CP is completely discharged and the current that flows in the supply lines has a peak value IPEAK given by the following equation:
      I    PEAK    =            V      DD              2      ·              R        ON            The on-resistance RON of the switches is generally smaller than 1Ω, thus the current peak IPEAK may typically be larger than above 2A.
When the generator starts up, the tank capacitor CT may also be almost fully discharged, thus the pump capacitor CP will be discharged almost completely during initial charge transfer phases. As a consequence, when a charge phase starts, large current peaks are absorbed from the supply. Only when steady-state conditions are reached, that is when the voltage VNEG approximately equals the voltage VREF, these current peaks will become of normal or acceptable magnitude.

Method of controlling a charge pump generator and a related charge pump generator


Systems, methods, computer programs, and user interfaces are provided to obtain a number of transit route features, perform a spatial comparison of a first transit route feature of the transit route features with a road spatial data layer, modify a transit location of the first transit route feature to intersect a road feature of the road spatial data layer based on the spatial comparison, obtain a road layer style for the road spatial data layer, determine a transit layer style for the first transit route feature based on the road layer style, and generate, based on the transit layer style, a transit map such that a transit label for the first transit route feature is contained by the road feature.

Modern smart phones and navigation devices are typically equipped with mapping capabilities. For example, a user of these devices may use the mapping capabilities to locate a point of interest or to plan for a trip. In addition, smart phone and navigation devices may be equipped with global positioning system (GPS) capabilities. In this case, GPS may be used on these devices to obtain maps of the geographic area at the device's location. Once located, the device may be used to navigate (by driving, using public transportation, walking, etc.) to a destination specified by the user. Specifically, the device may provide turn-by-turn directions and track the progress of the user in real-time on a map by showing a current location of the user.
In the case of public transportation, mapping and navigation services typically rely on transit data supplied by the transit providers. Portions of the transit data may not be consistent with road features. Further, the transit data may be incomplete or lack interactive features useful for navigation.

Method, system, and computer program product for dynamically rendering transit maps


The present invention provides techniques by which updates may be incorporated in database indexes without causing deadlocks of user transactions. In deferred-incorporate update, the updates are propagated to the index only at transaction commit time. A method of handling transactions including updates in a database management system comprises the steps of receiving an update to a database maintained by the database management system, the update operable to cause an index of the database to be modified, recording the update in a log, and receiving an indication that the transaction is to be committed and in response, incorporating the update from the log into an index of the database. The update may comprise an insert operation and/or a delete operation.

Over the past decade, traditional database techniques were found inadequate to completely address the needs of domain-specific applications. To this end, domain-specific extensions like spatial, text, XML, or genetic databases have been designed to cater to the specific needs of the industry and have been proven quite successful. Most research in databases has consequently been focused on addressing the idiosyncrasies of these domain applications by using, and extending existing database technology or inventing novel database techniques. Indexing of domain data to cater to domain specific queries is one such area that has received much attention. Spatial researchers proposed many efficient indexes for storage and retrieval of spatial data in databases. The text community has devised new and efficient indexes for text data. XML researchers have proposed new structures for searching on the tree structure semantics of XML documents.
Efficient update algorithms for domain indexes have also been proposed. These include insertion, deletion in bulk, sub tree merging, buffering-based updates, etc. Most of these proposals consider the operations in isolation. Other proposals study and propose new concurrency models for domain indexes.
The problem of incorporating transactional updates in hierarchical spatial indexes like R-trees has also received much attention in research. R-trees have a hierarchical tree structure. Each node of the tree is stored as a row in an index table. The leaf-level of the R-tree stores pointers to rows of a user table that is indexed by the R-tree. A problem arises if updates to user table are incorporated as part of the user transaction, since the updates may conflict at the R-tree node level even if the underlying updates from two different transactions do not conflict. This could lead to deadlocks even when the transactions do not conflict if the index were not to be there.
A need arises for a technique by which updates may be incorporated in Spatial R-tree indexes without causing deadlocks of user transactions.

Deferred incorporation of updates for spatial indexes


Even when a local area is varied, degradation in recognition accuracy and detection accuracy is suppressed. To that end, a pattern processing apparatus includes a reference local area setting portion 1802 for setting a reference local area based on the detection result of a feature point by a face organ feature point detecting portion 101, a varied local area generating portion 1803 for generating a plurality of varied local area patterns by referring to an image area near the reference local area, a similarity calculating portion 106 for calculating similarities in the reference local areas and in the varied local area patterns between the input pattern and the registered pattern, a representative similarity calculating portion 107 for calculating representative similarity from among the similarities, and a classifying portion 109 for determining a class to which the input pattern belongs.

Recently, various devices with the function of detecting and recognizing a predetermined object in an image have been proposed. Regarding those devices, there is a demand for development of a technique capable of detecting and recognizing a target (such as a human face or a mechanical part) in an input image at a higher speed with higher accuracy.
In general, a process for recognizing a face in an image includes a detection process of detecting the face in the taken image, and a recognition process of specifying a person in a detected face area.
Many techniques for detecting a target, e.g., a human face in an input image, have been proposed in the past. For example, NPL 1 proposes a technique for detecting a face as an object at a high speed. This technique employs a plurality of weak classifiers, which are connected in a cascaded way, to determine whether a predetermined area cut out from the input image represents the face.
Many recognition techniques are also proposed. For example, PTL 1 discloses a technique of generating, from a large number of face images, eigenvectors representing faces in advance, projecting a registered face image and an input face image onto the eigenvectors, and measuring a distance between respective obtained projection vectors, thereby specifying personal ID. The disclosed technique is called "Eigenface". With respect to the Eigenface, it is said that accuracy is reduced due to variations caused by a face orientation, illumination, etc. NPL 2 discloses a technique, called "Local Feature Analysis (LFA)", of generating an eigenvector for each local area of a face, and performing face recognition by using respective projection vectors of a registered image and an input image for each local area. Further, PTL 3 discloses a recognition technique using a brightness value distribution that is obtained by adding and projecting brightness values in a predetermined direction for each of local areas. In addition, PTL 4 discloses a technique of separately obtaining a face orientation, occlusion, etc. and assigning a weight to each local area based on the obtained values.
NPL 3 performs face recognition by using a classifier that receives, as an input, a differential image between a registered face image and an input face image, and that classifies a face into an intra-person class when both the images represent the same person, and into an extra-person class when both the images represent different persons. Further, PTL 2 discloses a classification technique using support vector machines (SVM) on the basis of the technique disclosed in NPL 3. In the PTL 2, a similarity vector is generated from a feature value, which is obtained by a Gabor filter, at each of plural points in the registered face image and the input face image, and classification into the intra-person class and the extra-person class is made by using the SVM.
In the face recognition on the basis of the local area, feature points of face organs, such as the outer corner of the eye, the inner corner of the eye, and the end points of the mouth, are used to set the local areas. Many techniques for detecting those feature points are also proposed. For example, NPL 4 discloses a technique of utilizing a circle separation filter and a partial space.
Further, NPL 5 discloses various techniques for determining a face orientation attribute in an input face image.
NPL 6 discloses a technique for realizing an improvement of an identification rate by deforming the local area in accordance with the face orientation attribute such that similarity to the same person is increased.

Pattern processing apparatus and method, and program


A flow measuring apparatus having a flow tube with an asymmetrical blunt y rigidly mounted on at least one end in a stream of flowing fluid contained within the flow tube so as to form vortices downstream of said asymmetrical blunt body at low Reynolds numbers. A laminar proportional amplifier is used for amplifying the pressure variations caused by the vortices, either a microphone or a pressure transducer is used for converting the amplified pressure variations to an electrical output signal, and a signal conditioner and read out is used for converting the output signal into a rate of flow of the stream of flowing fluid.

The present invention relates to flowmetering equipment and, in particular, to a flowmeter utilizing an asymmetric center body and a laminar proportional amplifier.
Numerous arrangements have been proposed by those skilled in the art which exploit the phenomenon of the Karman vortex street in order to measure fluid flowrates. More than a decade ago W. G. Bird devised an arrangement in which a pivoted vane-like element was positioned downstream of a vortex shedding body. Flowrate was measured by detecting the frequency of pivotal oscillation of the element. Later, A. E. Rodely recognized that a suitable dimensioned bluff body, having a base surface facing fluid flow and downstream surfaces to control oscillatory flow, would produce vortex shedding free of intermittency. In this arrangement, a temperature sensitive sensor situated outside the wake generated by the bluff body detects vortex shedding and produces electrical pulses proportional to the flow rate. The sensor is mounted separately in the pipeline wall and the probe-like sensor is positioned in the low turbulence flow zone outside of the wake.
Improved versions of the Rodely bluff body flowmeter generally detect vortex shedding in the high turbulence flow zone immediately downstream of the base surface of the bluff body. While these arrangements represent significant contributions to the state of the art, none has generally been suitable for measuring the flowrate of fluids at very low and very high Reynolds numbers. The frequency with which vortices are shed in a Karman vortex street behind a blunt body is dependent on the flow velocity, which is, in turn, a function of the Reynolds number R of the fluid, which is given by the equation: EQU R=.rho.VD/.mu.
where D=the cross-sectional width of the blunt body, V=the velocity of the fluid, .rho.=the density of the fluid and .mu.=the viscosity of the fluid.
The best type of flowmeter would be one that would measure flow rates from very low to very high Reynolds numbers. In the past, this has been difficult to achieve. It has been observed that a regular Karman vortex street can be generated behind a blunt body only when the Reynolds number of the fluid is in the range of about 60 to 5,000. At Reynolds numbers below 60, the flow around the body is laminar and no vortices are formed; at Reynolds numbers above 5,000, there is complete turbulent mixing which completely covers the Karman street. Most flowmeters are therefore designed to operate at Reynolds numbers between 500 and 5,000.

Vortex flowmeter having an asymmetric center body

The United States of America as represented by the Secretary of the Army


Techniques process, in a user device, pointer input from an input device. Such techniques involve providing the input from the input device to a remote desktop session which is hosted on equipment that is remote from the user device. Such techniques further involve detecting an event on the user device, the event being indicative of deactivation of the remote desktop session. Such techniques further involve, in response to detecting the event, providing the input from the input device to at least one local application executable on the user device to enable continued processing of the input from the input device with use of the at least one local application instead of the remote desktop session.

A conventional electronic tablet includes a touchscreen to receive finger gestures from a user while simultaneously displaying content to the user. Example finger gestures include a single finger tap, a double finger tap, a single finger swipe, a two finger swipe, a pinch-in gesture (two fingers moving towards each other), and a pinch-out gesture (two fingers moving away from each other).
Such a conventional electronic tablet may further include a wireless interface to receive mouse input from a wireless computer mouse. Example mouse input includes mouse coordinates, button presses, button releases, scrolling input, and so on.

Dynamically switching between pointer modes