A tapping assembly comprising a main valve for selectively opening and closing a valve passageway, a support for holding the main valve adjacent a unit to be tapped, a drill for piercing a wall of that unit with the drill including a housing and a cutting element. A coupler is provided with left-hand threads and right-hand threads for easily connecting and disconnecting the drill housing from the main valve, thereby allowing easy replacement of a drill bit. Vents are provided both upstream and downstream of the main valve for permitting controlled removal of the contents of the unit with the main valve closed and for permitting controlled removal of any contents of the unit from the coupler with the main valve closed.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an apparatus for removing the contents of pressure vessels with inoperative or damaged valves.
2. Background Information
Pressure vessels are commonly used to store volatile hazardous materials. Should access through valves become impractical, the contents cannot be accessed through ordinary means.
Conventionally, such access has been obtained by supporting a new main valve adjacent the vessel wall or adjacent an existing product line to the vessel. A drilling mechanism is attached to the main valve and a drill bit is accessible through the opened main valve to pierce the walls of the container and/or product line. The drill bit may then be removed from the main valve, the main valve closed, and an eductor tube connected to the main valve in place of the drilling mechanism. The main valve may then be reopened to permit discharge of the contents of the vessel through the eductor tubing.
In known prior art tapping assemblies, should the drill bit become damaged and require replacement, the drilling mechanism must be removed from the main valve. This removal process may prove difficult and time consuming. In addition, with known tapping assemblies, some of the contents of the vessel being tapped may be captured between the main valve and the drilling mechanism and released to the atmosphere upon removal of the drilling mechanism to replace a damaged drill bit.
In addition, with known tapping assemblies it may be difficult or impossible to remove some or all of the content of the vessel being tapped without first removing the drilling mechanism from the main valve. Accordingly, with such prior art tapping assemblies, it is not feasible to readily sample the contents of the tapped vessel after piercing and prior to removal of the drilling assembly.
It is, accordingly, an object of the present invention to provide an improved tapping assembly which permits easy and safe replacement of drill bits.
Another object of the present invention is to readily allow sampling of the contents of a vessel being tapped prior to removal of the drilling assembly.
Additional objects and advantages of the invention will be set forth in part in the description which follows, and in part will be obvious from the description or may be learned by practice of the invention.


A disc drive device includes a base plate, a voice coil motor operably attached to the base plate, a top cover attached to the base plate with at least two perimeter fasteners and at least one interior fastener, wherein the two perimeter fasteners and the interior fastener form a triangular portion of the top cover therebetween, a pressure seal sealing the top cover and the base plate, and an acoustic damper contacting the voice coil motor and the triangular portion of the top cover for damping vibrations occurring in the voice coil motor and the top cover. The acoustic damper is made of the same material as the pressure seal. In this manner, vibrationally induced acoustical emissions from the disc drive device are reduced.

The invention is generally directed to the field of disc drives and more particularly to controlling acoustic noise emissions emanating from a disc drive voice coil motor assembly while maintaining a sealed environment for the internal components of a disc drive.
Modern disc drives comprise one or more discs that are coated with a magnetizable medium and mounted on the hub of a spindle motor for rotation at a constant high speed. Information is stored on the discs in a plurality of concentric circular tracks. Data is typically written to, and read from, the tracks via transducers (xe2x80x9cheadsxe2x80x9d) typically mounted to a radial actuator assembly, which positions the heads relative to the discs. Various disc drive components, including the spindle motor and the actuator assembly, are fastened to a base plate. A top cover is attached to the base plate and sealed with a pressure seal to enclose and create a sealed environment for the disc drive components. This sealed environment reduces the chance that outside contaminants, such as dust, will interfere with read/write operations of the actuator assembly, among other things.
Radial actuator assemblies employ a voice coil motor (VCM) to position the heads with respect to the disc surfaces. The heads are mounted via flexures at the ends of a plurality of actuator arms, which project radially outward from a substantially cylindrical actuator body. The actuator body pivots about a shaft mounted to the disc drive housing at a position closely adjacent the outer extreme of the discs. The pivot shaft is parallel with the axis of rotation of the spindle motor and the discs, so that the heads move in a plane parallel with the surfaces of the discs.
Normally, the VCM includes a coil mounted on the side of the actuator body opposite the actuator arms between an array of permanent magnets which are positioned above and/or below the coil on top and/or bottom magnet plates or poles, respectively. When controlled current is passed through the coil, an electromagnetic field is generated. The generated electromagnetic field interacts with the magnetic field of the permanent magnets thus causing the coil to move relative to the magnets in accordance with the well-known Lorentz relationship. As the coil moves, the actuator body pivots about the pivot shaft and the heads are moved across the disc surfaces.
Typically, the heads are supported on the actuator arms in a position over the discs by actuator slider assemblies, which include air-bearing surfaces designed to interact with a thin layer of moving air generated by the rotation of the discs, so that the heads xe2x80x9cflyxe2x80x9d over the disc surfaces. Generally, the heads write data to a selected data track on the disc surface by selectively magnetizing portions of the data track through the application of a time-varying write current to the head. In order to subsequently read back the data stored on the data track, the head detects flux transitions in the magnetic fields on the data track and converts these flux transitions to a signal which is decoded by read channel circuitry of the disc drive.
A closed-loop servo system is typically used to control the position of the heads with respect to the disc surfaces. More particularly, during a track following mode in which a head is caused to follow a selected data track, servo information is read which provides a position error signal indicative of the position of the head relative to a center line of the track. The position error signal is used, when necessary, to generate a correction signal that in turn is provided to a power amplifier. The power amplifier then passes current through the actuator coil to adjust the position of the head relative to the track.
During a seek operation, the servo system receives the address of the destination track and generates control signals that cause the heads to initially accelerate and then subsequently decelerate as the head nears the destination track. At some point towards the end of the deceleration of the head, the servo system will transition to a settle mode during which the head is settled onto the destination track and, thereafter, the servo system causes the head to follow the destination track in a track following mode.
A general trend in the disc drive industry is to reduce the level of acoustic emissions or noise generated by disc drives, preferably reducing the noise to a level that is below the human hearing threshold. There are two primary sources of acoustic emissions or noise in disc drives: idle noise and seek noise. Idle noise results from the operation of the spindle motor and its associated rotating discs. Significant improvements in reducing idle noise have been achieved by replacing ball bearing assemblies with hydraulic bearings in the spindle motor. In contrast, seek noise results from vibrations in the permanent magnets and/or poles of the VCM caused when current is passed through the VCM coil. The vibrations occurring in the poles of the voice coil motor may be transmitted to the top cover and/or the disc drive base plate either as sympathetic vibrations or as direct transmissions.
Another trend in the disc drive industry is to reduce the weight of the disc drives for use in the lap top computers and other equipment that requires portability. Thus the designers of disk drives are faced with the task of reducing their weight while not sacrificing their robustness. One way to reduce the weight is by reducing the thickness of various components. Such reduction in thickness invariably reduces the stiffness of the parts. The decrease in weight of disc drives may cause problems with the integrity of the pressure seal between the top cover and the base plate because thinner top covers are more easily deformed.
One approach to reducing the seek noise from the disc drive has been to slow down the seek operation. A slowed down seek operational setting, called a quite seek, is often provided in disc drives as an optional setting. The alternative operational setting in disc drives having a quite seek setting is an operational setting commonly referred to as the performance seek, where the seek to the track occurs quickly relative to the quite seek. However, while the quite seek reduces the acoustical emissions from the disc drive, it also necessarily reduces disc drive performance. Disc drives including such quite seek operational settings are often employed in areas, such as government and private offices, that are subject to strict environmental noise limitations.
Another approach to reducing the acoustical emissions from the disc drive is to add a damping material between the upper magnetic plate or top pole and the top cover of the disc drive. For this approach to be effective, the top cover must be sufficiently rigid to provide deflection of the damping material. However, the stiffness required for this approach to be useful may add unacceptable weight and manufacturing costs to the disc drive. Further, if the cover is not sufficiently stiff, the addition of damping material between the cover and the top pole may cause the top cover to deform and breach the pressure seal between the cover and the base plate. Breach of this pressure seal allows contaminants into the disc drive and thus, may prevent the disc drive from operating effectively.
In addition to adversely affecting the integrity of the pressure seal, adding a damper between the top pole and the top cover may add significant costs to the manufacturing of the disc drive.
Accordingly there is a need for a damping system and/or method which effectively reduces VCM vibrations in a disc drive and, thereby, reduces acoustical emissions while at the same time does not adversely affect the integrity of the disc drive pressure seal or add significant costs to the manufacture of the disc drive.
Against this backdrop various embodiments of the present invention have been developed. In general, the various embodiments of the present invention relate to systems and methods of minimizing vibrationally induced noise in a disc drive servo system. Additionally, embodiments of the present invention relate to reducing vibrationally induced acoustical emissions from a disc drive device.
A disc drive has a base plate, a voice coil motor operably attached to the base plate, and a top cover attached to the base plate with two perimeter fasteners and one interior fastener through corresponding apertures in the top cover. The two perimeter fasteners/apertures and the interior fastener/aperture form a triangular portion of the top cover that has increased stiffness and rigidity due to the proximity of the fasteners to each other. A pressure seal is positioned between the top cover and the base plate to seal the disc drive to form an internal sealed environment for the various disc drive components. An acoustic damper is positioned between and contacts the voice coil motor and the triangular portion of the top cover to dampen vibrations occurring in the voice coil motor and the top cover. The acoustic damper is made of the same material as the pressure seal.
In another embodiment, a second acoustic damper is positioned between the base plate and the voice coil motor such that it does not contact the top cover. The second acoustic damper need not to be positioned within the triangle formed by the two perimeter fasteners and the interior fastener.
The voice coil motor includes a bottom pole attached to the base plate, a top pole operably connected to the bottom pole in a manner such that the top pole is maintained in a spaced relationship to the bottom pole, and a single magnet pair positioned between the top pole and the bottom pole. The first acoustic damper is preferably positioned between the top pole and the top cover and the second acoustic damper is preferably positioned between the bottom pole and the bottom cover.
In yet another embodiment of the present invention, a stiffening ridge is added to the top cover to create an isolated portion of the top cover over the top pole of the voice coil motor; the isolated portion is stiffer and more rigid than the remainder of the top cover. The isolated portion may be outside of the triangular portion, may partially overlap the triangular portion, or may be contained entirely within the triangular portion. The acoustic damper may be positioned between the isolated portion and the voice coil motor to dampen acoustic noise without adversely affecting the integrity of the pressure seal.
The disc drive is manufactured by operably attaching the voice coil motor to the base plate and then attaching the top cover to the base plate using at least the two perimeter fasteners and the interior fastener. A pressure seal is positioned between and contacts the top cover and the base plate and an acoustic damper is positioned between and contacts the voice coil motor and the triangular portion of the top cover. The pressure seal and acoustic damper may be applied to the top cover prior to attaching the cover to the base plate or applied to the base plate and the voice coil motor, respectively prior to attaching the cover to the base plate. The same process is preferably used to apply the acoustic damper as to position the pressure seal which adds little or no additional cost to the manufacture of the disc drive.
These and various other features as well as advantages which characterize the various embodiments of the present invention will be apparent from a reading of the following detailed description, a review of the associated drawings, and the appended claims.


The invention relates to a casting machine for producing a product intended for human consumption from a castable material, in particular a fat material such as chocolate, for example, having a heatable material container for receiving the castable material; at least one nozzle which is in fluid connection with the material container interior, and a pressure source for generating an overpressure in the material container interior. According to the invention, the nozzle has a nozzle orifice or a nozzle constriction, the open cross section or flow cross section of which is flexible. A process according to the invention for producing a product intended for human consumption from a castable material has the following steps: providing a heated castable material in a material container; generating an overpressure in the material container interior; forcing the material through a nozzle in fluid connection with the material container with simultaneous changing of the flow and/or open cross section of the nozzle.

The invention relates to a depositor for the manufacture of a food product from a pourable mass, especially a fatty mass such as chocolate. Depositors of this type have a tempered mass container for holding the pourable mass, at least one nozzle, which is in fluid connection with the interior of the mass container, and also a source of pressure to produce an excess pressure in the interior of the mass container.
In current practice the components of such depositors are made of rigid metal parts. The tempered mass container serves to hold the pourable mass. Pipes lead off from its base, each running into one of a number of chambers, which each have a moveable piston inside. Each of these chambers is then connected with a nozzle. A valve function is provided for each chamber/piston/nozzle unit.
During one suction stroke the respective valves open each of the connecting pipes between the mass container and each chamber, while the respective connecting pipes between each chamber and nozzle are blocked. The respective pistons then move within each chamber so as to increase the free chamber volume, and the mass is drawn into each chamber.
During one expulsion stroke the respective valves close off the connecting pipes between the mass container and each chamber, while the respective connecting pipes between each chamber and nozzle are opened. The respective pistons then move within each chamber so as to reduce the free chamber volume, and the mass is pumped out from each chamber to its assigned nozzle.
The mass coming out from the nozzle is then pressed or poured onto a supporting tray or into a hollow mould.
In the case of some special designs of such depositors, the valve function is coupled with the piston function. For this purpose the piston is for example formed as a basically cylindrical lifting/rotary piston, which is able to move in a linear stroke along the axis of the chamber or piston and also in a rotary motion around the axis of the chamber or piston. By a special arrangement of the inlets from the respective connecting pipes in each chamber wall and corresponding cut-outs and/or openings in the respective pistons, a complete pouring cycle (sucking in and ejecting) can be effected by a sequence of linear and rotary motions of the respective pistons first in one direction and then in the other, opposite direction.
Although it is true that in the latter case of the more compactly built depositors it was possible to reduce the number of moving parts to some extent by combining the piston and valve functions, such conventional depositors still have a large number of moving parts.
What is more, when pouring liquids of low viscosity it is often not possible to avoid some continued flow from the nozzle after the end of the ejection stroke. In most applications where chocolate mass is being poured, the pouring is carried out at such high temperatures that at least the crystalline variants of the triglycerides which melt at lower temperatures are melted, resulting in the chocolate mass as a whole being in a very fluid state, and some continued flow from the nozzles does take place.
Because as a rule only small quantities are poured per pouring cycle, the pouring process takes place almost entirely in the transient (non-stationary) mode. Apart from the continued flow referred to above, and the deviations from the dosage caused at least in part by this, the mainly transient mode of pouring also leads to structural changes in the mass. This can in turn lead to an impairment of the quality of the poured chocolate masses.
Besides this, it is practically impossible under the set conditions of manufacturing output levels (stroke frequency and dosage per stroke) to influence the variation over time of the flow resistance, which is conditioned by the flow properties (viscosity) of the chocolate mass to be poured and by the geometrical parameters.
The absolute pressure which is acting upstream from the nozzle must be sufficiently large to overcome the flow point of the chocolate mass to be poured, at the start of the pouring. This results in a rapid initial increase in pressure. As soon as the flow starts, a much lower pressure is needed to keep a constant flow going. What is more, due to the laminar shear current, with a parabolic kind of current profile, which is now flowing, there takes place a change in the flow properties (viscosity) of the chocolate mass, leading to a reduction in viscosity. Thus the shearing action has a thinning effect here. As a result, the pressure initially required to overcome the flow point of the chocolate mass is much larger than the pressure required to maintain the flow after the flow has started. Now this means that the design of the pressure sources and the robustness of many of the machine parts has to be worked out using this maximum pressure requirement as a basis.

Process and device for casting products intended for human consumption


An electrical plug-in connector with a casing, with a lever rotatably mounted on the casing. The lever has a guideway provided for guiding a guide element of a second casing, with the guide element being guided in the guideway upon rotation of the lever and the second casing being pulled from a pre-assembly position with regard to the casing into an end position. The casing has a flexible blocking element, an insertion space for introducing the guide element into the guideway being provided, the blocking element having an actuating surface, the actuating surface in a rest position of the blocking element projecting into the insertion space. The lever has a blocking surface, the blocking element having a second blocking surface, with, in a rest position of the lever and in a rest position of the blocking element, the second blocking surface of the blocking element being associated with the blocking surface of the lever and blocking a movement of the lever from the rest position into an end position.

Various embodiments of electrical plug-in connectors are known from the prior art. Electrical plug-in connectors have for example a first and a second contact casing with contacts, the two contact casings being able to be pulled by means of a pivotable stirrup part from a pre-assembly position into an end position. In such case, the stirrup part is rotatably mounted on the first casing, and the second casing has a blocking element which releases pivoting of the stirrup part from the pre-assembly position into the end position only once the two casings are in the pre-assembly position, as described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,540,532 B1.

Electrical connector having a lever mating assist with blocking system


A gate scanning unit circuit is applied in a display panel including a number of gate lines and a driver configured to output clock signals. The gate scanning unit circuit is configured to scan the number of gate lines. The gate scanning unit circuit includes a flip-flop and at least two output units. The flip-flop is configured to output a trigger signal. Each output unit is connected to the flip-flop and the driver. Each of the at least two output units is connected to the number of gate lines one-to-one. The output unit is configured to output a gate scan signal to the corresponding connected gate line according to the trigger signal and the clock signals.

Generally, a display device includes a plurality of gate lines, a plurality of signal lines disposed perpendicularly to the plurality of gate lines, and a gate line scanning circuit disposed on opposite sides of a display area for scanning the plurality of gate lines. A scanning method is that the gate line scanning circuit on one side scans the odd-numbered gate lines, and the gate line scanning circuit on the other side scans the even-numbered gate lines.
In shaped display panels in which a portion of the display panel is cut out, due to the above-described gate line scanning method, the gate lines corresponding to the cut out portion are separated into two sections, and the two sections are connected to establish an electrical connection. However, this may limit reduction of a frame width of the display panel.

Display panel, gate scanning circuit, and gate scanning unit circuit


A proportional valve (100) is provided that includes a movable armature (104) within a body (102), with the armature (104) including a poppet (107) and with the body (102) including one or more inflow ports (135) and an outflow bore (123), a valve seat (120) located on a projecting valve seat structure (119), with the valve seat (120) including a valve orifice (130) in fluid communication with the one or more inflow ports (135) and the outflow bore (123), and a flow flange (116) extending from the poppet (107) and including a flow flange wall (117) that surrounds the valve seat (120), forming a flange inflow channel (129) of a predetermined cross-sectional inflow area between the flow flange wall (117) and the valve seat structure (119), wherein the poppet (107) moves between closed and opened positions without changing the predetermined cross-sectional inflow area provided by the inflow channel (129).

1. Field of the Invention
The invention is related to the field of valves, and more particularly, to proportional valves.
2. Description of the Prior Art
A proportional valve is a variable flow valve that may output a continuous range of flow rates. In the proportional valve, the valve opening amount may be proportional to a solenoid current in an associated valve actuation solenoid. As a result, the proportional valve can provide a regulated fluid flow ranging from a zero flow to a valve maximum flow.
FIG. 1 shows prior art proportional valve. In the prior art proportional valve, a poppet portion of a movable solenoid armature contacts and blocks a valve seat. The poppet may be moved away from the valve seat in order to open the valve and permit flow. The poppet may be moved away from the valve seat by any distance up to a maximum opening displacement.
The proportional valve may comprise a solenoid valve that generates magnetic force in order to open the valve armature. The magnetic force operates in opposition to a biasing force generated by a spring, with the biasing force holding the valve armature in a normally closed position in the proportional valve embodiment shown in the figure. The magnet force must overcome the spring force in order to move the valve armature/poppet in an opening direction.
However, when the fluid is flowing, such as when the valve armature is open even a small amount, then fluid static and/or dynamic pressures may also act on the valve armature. For small Mach numbers, Bernoulli's equation for compressible flow may be used to determine the static pressure of the fluid in the prior art valve. Bernoulli's equation comprises:ν2/2+ψ+p/ρ=constant
The static fluid pressure is defined as (P) and the fluid velocity is (ν). The (ρ) term is the density of the fluid. Here, it is assumed that (ρ) is constant. The (ψ) term is the force potential at a point considered on a streamline, e.g., is the force potential due to the Earth's gravity where (g) is an acceleration due to gravity and z is an elevation value above a reference plane, wherein w is defined as ψ=gz. The dynamic fluid pressure is defined as (ρ/2*ν2).
The Coanda effect comprises the tendency of a moving jet of fluid to be attracted to a nearby surface, or a surface to be pulled toward the jet of fluid. The Coanda effect influences the movement of the prior art valve armature/poppet. When the fluid is not flowing through the valve, then there is only static fluid pressure present in the valve. When the fluid is flowing, the static pressure decreases and the dynamic fluid pressure increases. The valve armature, which is at the region where the dynamic pressure occurs, will experience a static pressure force in the direction of the valve seat, and consequently will have a tendency to stick. This Coanda effect is only active or effective at comparatively small opening displacements of the valve armature.
As the armature moves in an opening direction and opens the orifice A2, the effective orifice area A2′ decreases, which means that the opening force F=((A1−A2′)*P1) grows larger and pushes the armature toward the fully open position. As a result, a stable force balance is only possible at small valve armature/poppet openings, when the flow force (i.e., the Coanda effect) helps to stabilize the valve armature.
Additionally, when the flow is high, there is a pressure drop from P2 to P2′. However, the pressure P2′ will increase when the fluid flow becomes higher. The straight and regular outflow bore of the prior art proportional valve therefore creates an additional opening force (A2′*P2′). This additional opening force is the root cause of the sticking effect on the valve armature when the valve armature is in the fully opened position.
The prior art proportional valve has drawbacks. The amount of actuation distance between the poppet and the valve seat can affect the flow in the prior art proportional valve. When the prior art poppet is moved upward by the energization of a solenoid coil, then an effective pressure area is increased and causes an increased opening force to act on the poppet surface area and create an upward force in the figure. The flow can change a dynamic pressure underneath the prior art poppet member, and the dynamic pressure can affect the poppet opening force and the poppet opening displacement.
The resulting force makes precise control of the prior art proportional poppet valve difficult, wherein the prior art proportional poppet valve may not maintain accurate proportional flow, as the increased dynamic pressure underneath the valve poppet may open the poppet by an additional, unwanted amount. The pressure can therefore affect the flow rate of fluid through the prior art proportional valve, making the prior art proportional valve less accurate and less reliable.
The prior art proportional valve may experience a condition where the poppet is not capable of being controlled past a certain opening distance, and instead the poppet may go from a partial actuation to a fully open actuation, where the solenoid opening force is aided by the increased dynamic pressure. As a result, the solenoid loses the ability to make further small changes in poppet displacement. In addition, the dynamic pressure force may operate to stick the poppet in the fully open position under some conditions.
What is needed, therefore, is an improved proportional valve wherein fluid flow does not significantly affect the position or displacement of the poppet.


An optical module including: a plurality of light emitting elements disposed on a same plane; a plurality of mirrors that reflect each light emitted from each of the plurality of light emitting elements; and a condenser lens into which each of the lights reflected by the plurality of mirrors enters. The plurality of mirrors reflects each of the lights emitted from each of the plurality of light emitting elements in a direction inclined with respect to a plane and aligns the light in a fast axis direction. Each of the lights emitted from the plurality of light emitting elements is reflected by the plurality of mirrors away from one another in the fast axis direction and is condensed at one point to reduce an aberration of light compared to a case where each of the lights enters into the condenser lens while propagating parallel to one another.

There is known one of optical modules that emit light from laser diodes through an optical fiber. In this optical module, the optical fiber is led out from inside to outside a housing. In the housing, optical components such as the laser diodes, mirrors, a lens, and the optical fiber are arranged. The light emitted from each the laser diodes is condensed and entered into the optical fiber, and is emitted from the optical fiber to the outside of the housing.
For example, Patent Literature 1 below discloses an optical module that includes: a plurality of laser diodes arranged on a stepped mount; mirrors provided corresponding to each of the laser diodes; and a condenser lens that condenses light reflected by each of the mirrors and enters the light into the optical fiber.
Patent Literature 2 below discloses an optical module that includes: a plurality of laser diodes arranged on the same plane; a collimator that collimates light emitted from each of the laser diodes; and diffraction gratings that change the direction of the collimated light; and a condenser lens that condenses the light redirected by each of the diffraction gratings and enters the light into the optical fiber. The laser diodes included in such an optical module are formed by laminating semiconductor layers in a direction perpendicular to the plane on which the laser diodes are arranged. Accordingly, the light emitted from the laser diodes has a slow axis direction parallel to the plane on which the plurality of laser diodes is arranged. In addition, in the optical module described in Patent Literature 2 below, light propagates from each of the laser diodes to the condenser lens in a plane parallel to the plane on which the plurality of laser diodes is arranged. Therefore, in this optical module, the light emitted from the plurality of laser diodes is incident on the condenser lens in parallel to the slow axis direction.    [Patent Literature 1] U.S. Pat. No. 6,124,973    [Patent Literature 2] JP 2015-72956 A
In the optical module as described above, the heat emitted by the laser diodes is transferred to a heat sink via the mount. When a plurality of laser diodes is arranged on a stepped mount as in the optical module described in Patent Literature 1, there occurs a difference in the length of a heat radiation path among the laser diodes. Therefore, the junction temperature is likely to be different among the laser diodes. If there is a difference in the junction temperature among the laser diodes, the laser diodes vary in lifespan, and thus the reliability designing of the optical module may become complicated.
Further, in the optical module described in Patent Literature 2, the light emitted from the plurality of laser diodes is aligned in the slow axis direction as described above. However, the light emitted from the laser diodes is less likely to be collimated in the slow axis direction than in a fast axis. Therefore, in the optical module described in Patent Literature 2, the light emitted from the plurality of laser diodes is hard to condense in a narrow area, which makes it difficult to achieve high output power.


A wellbore system for simultaneously drilling a wellbore into an earth formation and producing hydrocarbon fluid from the wellbore, is provided. The system comprises a production tubing extending into the wellbore and having a hydrocarbon fluid inlet arranged in a first part of the wellbore in fluid communication with a hydrocarbon fluid bearing zone of the earth formation, and a drilling riser extending through the production tubing and having a drilling fluid inlet in fluid communication with a second part of the wellbore, said second wellbore part being scaled from said first wellbore part. A drill string extends through the drilling riser and into said second wellbore part so as to allow further drilling of the wellbore.

Wellbore system have been devised for multi-lateral wellbores which include a main wellbore extending from surface into the earth formation and one or more branch boreholes extending laterally from the main borehole. Such multi-lateral wells have great potential for increased productivity and reservoir access per well as the number of wells in an oil/gas field development is significantly reduced. However drilling time on a multi-lateral well can be considerably increased compared to a conventional well, thus potentially significantly delaying first oil/gas production.
It is an object of the invention to provide an improved wellbore system which overcomes the afore-mentioned problem, and which enables to reduce the time until first oil/gas production.

Wellbore system for simultaneous drilling and production


A diagnostic result explanation report generating apparatus is equipped with: a diagnostic information storing section, a comment information storing section, a template storing section for storing explanation templates having insertion regions, into which at least portions of the diagnostic information and the comment information are insertable, prepared for each of the various diagnostic results; an input section, for inputting patient specifying information; a diagnostic information obtaining section, for obtaining diagnostic information for a patient, based on the input patient specifying information; a template obtaining section, for obtaining an explanation template which is prepared for a diagnostic result, based on a diagnostic result included in the obtained diagnostic information; a comment information obtaining section, for obtaining comment information from the comment information storing section; and a diagnostic result explanation generating section, for inserting necessary diagnostic information and comment information into the obtained explanation template, to generate a diagnostic result explanation report.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is related to a method, an apparatus, and a program for generating diagnostic result explanation reports that explain patients' diagnostic results by adding simple explanations.
2. Description of the Related Art
In the medical field, diagnostic results are explained to patients after necessary examinations are performed. At this time, physicians explain the diagnostic results while referring to diagnostic images, image observation results generated by observing the diagnostic images, and other test results.
There are cases in which patients who lack sufficient basic medical knowledge cannot fully understand the explanations regarding their diagnostic results that include technical jargon and the like. Further, the amounts of time that physicians spend on such explanations are limited. For this reason, techniques for assisting explanations of diagnostic results that ease patient understanding have become focused on.
For example, U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 20040138922 discloses a technique in which reports generated by physicians for medical facilities are referred to and explanatory information for patients are generated. The text, terms, etc. in the explanatory information for patients are changed to simpler or more technical text, terms, etc. according to the comprehension level of patients.
In the technique disclosed in U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 20040138922, the expressions within the reports for medical facilities are changed. However, the contents described in the reports themselves are not changed. Therefore, additional information which is not described within the reports cannot be obtained. For example, there are cases in which contents that physicians are assumed to know as medical professionals, such as general knowledge regarding diseases and differences between symptoms among healthy states and diseased states, are not described in the reports. In such cases, patients cannot sufficiently understand their diagnostic results by referring only to the explanatory information generated based on the reports.

Method, apparatus, and program for generating diagnostic result explanation reports


Disclosed are a crystalline form of anthracycline antibiotic having specific characteristic 2xcex8 values as measured by the X-ray diffraction method, and a process for producing the crystalline form. This process comprises the step of crystallization involving the combined use of a specific poor solvent for the antibiotic and a good solvent thereof. This crystalline form has excellent chemical and physical properties.

This invention relates to novel crystalline forms of an anthracycline antibiotic, particularly daunomycin (also known as daunorubicin), and a process for producing the same.
Daunomycin (also known as daunorubicin; hereinafter abbreviated as DM), which is an anthracycline antibiotic represented by the following formula (I)
is known to be obtained from a culture medium of an actinomycete, and has a wide anticancer spectrum against experimental animal tumors. As a matter of fact, DM is being widely used as a chemo-therapeutic agent for cancer in clinical applications.
However, the currently available bulk form of DM (DM hydrochloride) is an amorphous powder or a solid which is tentatively classified as crystalline but has high hygroscopicity and poor stability. From the viewpoint of the preparation of DM into medicines, the physical and chemical properties of not only its final bulk powder but also its intermediate products have a great significance. For example, poor chemical stability requires great caution in storage, and high hygroscopicity makes its handling difficult. Moreover, with consideration for its use as a drug, any residual solvent may constitute a fatal shortcoming.
Accordingly, an object of the present invention is to provide a solid product of DM hydrochloride having excellent chemical stability and, preferably, further having low hygroscopicity and an allowable residual solvent content.
The present inventors made repeated investigations with a view to solving the above-described problems and have now found that the crystallization of DM hydrochloride by using a certain solvent system yields a specific crystalline form of DM hydrochloride having excellent chemical stability and, in some instances, this crystalline form also has low hygroscopicity and can solve the problem with residual solvent.
Thus, according to the present invention, there is provided a crystalline form of DM hydrochloride having at least characteristic 2xcex8 values (in degrees) of 6.18, 7.88, 9.82, 11.60, 13.30, 15.80, 20.88 and 23.12 as measured by the X-ray powder diffraction method.
According to the present invention, there is also provided a process for producing the aforesaid crystalline form of DM hydro-chloride from a solution containing DM hydrochloride, the process comprising the steps of preparing the aforesaid solution by using a solvent system composed of a poor solvent for the antibiotic and a good solvent which is miscible with the poor solvent and capable of dissolving the antibiotic; and subjecting the solution so prepared to a crystallization treatment.

Crystalline anthracycline antibiotic and process for producing the same


A three-dimensionally structured warp knitted fabric has a higher compressibility and resiliency than its conventionally available counterpart, as well as enhanced abrasion resistance to prevent fuzzing. The three-dimensionally structured warp knitted fabric includes a top substructure and a bottom substructure, either of which is a net texture, the other being a plain texture. Substructure connecting yarns connect the two substructures. A plurality of connecting yarn controlling yarns are present between the two substructures and between the substructure connecting yarns. The connecting yarn controlling yarns control the substructure connecting yarns by handling, separating and holding them. The connecting yarn controlling yarns include portions which are stitched into the plain texture side of the top or bottom substructure and portions which are floating between the top and bottom substructures.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to three-dimensionally structured warp knitted fabric for use in the clothing and non-clothing fields as cushioning and filling materials, and more particularly to three-dimensionally structured warp knitted fabric suitable for use as automotive sheet materials. Most particularly, the present invention relates to a three-dimensionally structured warp knitted fabric consisting of top and bottom substructures and yarns connecting these two substructures, which is produced on a double needle bed warp knitting machine so that the top substructure is a net texture with pores and the bottom substructure is a plain texture with no pores to provide it with optimal compressibility, air permeability and resiliency for its application in the above-mentioned fields.
2. Description of the Related Art
Various certain techniques have already been proposed as prior art for producing three-dimensionally structured warp knitted fabric consisting of top and bottom substructures and yarns connecting the two substructures. Such prior art three-dimensionally structured warp knitted fabric is mainly produced on double needle bed warp knitting machines so that the top and bottom substructures are interknitted with the yarns connecting the two substructures at either almost right or oblique angles, or at both angles to provide the fabric with a truss structure. Specifically, the three-dimensionally structured warp knitted fabric produced according to the prior art has focused its design on how to form a truss structure between its top and bottom substructures in order to enhance its compressibility, including how to cause the yarn connecting the two substructures to be intersected with them in order to prevent them from being shifted laterally from each other and what fiber material to use as the substructure connecting yarn.
As described above, the three-dimensionally structured warp knitted fabric conventionally available as prior art is designed focusing on its compressibility with its enhanced resiliency and recovery from compression strongly dependent upon formation of a truss structure between its top and bottom substructures, the use of fiber material of high elasticity as the yarn connecting the two substructures and other factors, especially the use of the substructure connecting yarn with a high density. Due to its above-mentioned structural design, the conventional three-dimensionally structured warp knitted fabric presents such a problem that when subjected to compression, it suffers bending of the high-density substructure connecting yarns, which causes them to be entangled with one another, resulting in extreme deterioration in its resiliency and recovery from the compression.
In addition, the three-dimensionally structured warp knitted fabric according to the prior art, if knitted with a net texture for either or both of its top and bottom substructures, causes a problem of the substructure connecting yarn protruding from the pores in the net texture and thus being subject to external abrasion, which results in trouble such as fuzzing of the yarn. As a result of such trouble, the fabric presents discomfort in use, deterioration in appearance and other problems.
The present invention was worked out in order to solve the above mentioned problems involved in the prior art. Specifically, it is an object of the present invention to provide a three-dimensionally structured warp knitted fabric which has higher compressibility and resiliency than its conventionally available counterpart, as well as enhanced abrasion resistance to prevent its fuzzing.
To solve the above-mentioned problems associated with the prior art, the inventors of the present invention have discovered that the conventional three-dimensionally structured warp knitted fabric principally consisting of three membersxe2x80x94top and bottom substructures and yarns connecting the two substructuresxe2x80x94can be modified by having these three members combined with a new additional member xe2x80x9cyarns controlling the substructure connecting yarns by handling, separating and holding themxe2x80x9d to minimize their bending and consequent entanglement that may otherwise occur when the fabric is subjected to compression, resulting in deterioration in its resiliency and recovery from the compression. The discovery of such substructure connecting yarn controlling yarns has led to the accomplishment of the present invention.
Therefore, the first aspect of the present invention provides a three-dimensionally structured warp knitted fabric consisting of a top substructure and a bottom substructure, either of which is a net texture, the other being a plain texture, and yarns connecting said two substructures with a plurality of yarns present between said two substructures and between said substructure connecting yarns adjacent to each other to control the substructure connecting yarns by handling, separating and holding them, said connecting yarn controlling yarns comprising points at which they are stitched into said plain texture side of the top or bottom substructure and portions where they are floating between the top and bottom substructures.
The second aspect of the present invention provides a three-dimensionally structured warp knitted fabric as specified in the first aspect of the present invention, wherein said substructure connecting yarn controlling yarns are arranged linearly, stitched into the plain substructure at given intervals in the wale direction.
The third aspect of the present invention provides a three-dimensionally structured warp knitted fabric as specified in the first aspect of the present invention, wherein said substructure connecting yarn controlling yarns are arranged in rectangular wave form, stitched into the plain substructure at given intervals in the wale direction.
The fourth aspect of the present invention provides a three-dimensionally structured warp knitted fabric as specified in the first aspect of the present invention, wherein said substructure connecting yarn controlling yarns are arranged in zigzags, stitched into the plain substructure at given intervals with the yarn stitching points as the turn-back of the yarn zigzag arrangement.
The fifth aspect of the present invention provides a three-dimensionally structured warp knitted fabric consisting of top and bottom substructures, either of which is a net texture, the other being a plain texture, with a course-wise cross-section wherein yarns connecting the two substructures have X-shaped intersections with yarns controlling the substructure connecting yarns arranged to hold down the intersections downward.
The sixth aspect of the present invention provides a three-dimensionally structured warp knitted fabric consisting of top and bottom substructures, either of which is a net texture, the other being a plain texture, and yarns connecting the two substructures at right angels to both substructures with yarns arranged floating and winding between the substructure connecting yarns, being stitched into the plain substructure at proper intervals, to control these yarns. The configuration of the three-dimensionally structured warp knitted fabric according to the present invention as described above serves to minimize the bending of the yarns connecting the top and bottom substructures caused when the fabric is subjected to compression, thus preventing deterioration in its resiliency and recovery from the compression due to the entanglement of the substructure connecting yarns resulting from their such bending.

Three-dimensionally structured warp knitted fabric


A connection protector kit for use with an electrical stub connection includes a flexible cap having first and second opposed ends and an interior wall defining a cavity. The first end is closed and an opening is formed in the second end and communicates with the cavity. A gel is disposed in the cavity. The cavity and the gel are adapted to receive the stub connection. Retaining means may be provided to retain the cap on the connection.

The present invention relates to electrical connectors and, more particularly, to means for protecting electrical connections.
xe2x80x9cVxe2x80x9d-type electrical connections or splices (also referred to as xe2x80x9cstubxe2x80x9d or xe2x80x9cpigtailxe2x80x9d-type connections) are often employed for motor connections. Such electrical connections may be exposed to dust, moisture and/or other corrosives. The electrical connections may also be subjected to mechanical impacts and/or vibration. It is, therefore, desirable to protect the connection from the surrounding environment.
One method of protecting an electrical motor connection includes applying a gummy adhesive tape around the connection. Another method includes placing a plastic cap over the connection and securing the cap in place by wrapping an adhesive tape around the cap and connection cables. Yet another method includes placing a plastic cap over the connection and securing the cap in place by inserting a pin through the cap (which may be provided with preformed holes) and between the cables. In each of the latter two methods, a relatively thin layer of grease may be used to facilitate pushing the cap over the connection. It is also known to apply mastic to a connection and wrap or heat shrink a cover over the connection and mastic.
While the foregoing methods provide some protection for V-type electrical connections, improved and more convenient protection is needed.
According to embodiments of the present invention, a connection protector kit for use with an electrical stub connection includes a flexible cap having first and second opposed ends and an interior wall defining a cavity. The first end is closed and an opening is formed in the second end and in communication with the cavity. A gel is disposed in the cavity. The cavity and the gel are adapted to receive the stub connection.
The kit may include means for retaining the cap on the connection. More particularly, the retaining means may be operative to maintain the cap in a compressed position. The cap may include a plurality of expandable corrugations.
The means for retaining may include a pin and a pair of opposed holes may be formed in the cap and adapted to receive the pin therethrough. The cap may be formed of a frangible thermoplastic elastomer. The pin may be connected to the cap by an integrally molded bridge member.
The means for retaining may include a clamp. Preferably, the clamp includes at least one inwardly extending locating projection. Preferably, the cap includes an inwardly extending channel adapted to receive the inwardly extending locating projection.
Preferably, the cap is formed of a material having a flexural modulus of between about 5,000 and 100,000 psi and a durometer of between about 40 Shore A and 90 Shore D. Preferably, the gel has a Voland hardness of between about 5 and 30 grams force, an elongation of at least 100%, a stress relaxation of no more than 50%, and a tack of greater than about 6 grams.
According to further embodiments of the present invention, a protected electrical connection assembly includes a flexible cap defining an opening and having an interior wall defining a cavity. The cavity communicates with the opening. A stub connection of the assembly includes a pair of elongated, electrically conductive elements joined at respective terminal ends thereof. The conductive elements define a crotch therebetween and extend through the opening. The terminal ends, and at least a portion of each of the conductive elements, are disposed in the cavity of the cap. A gel is disposed in the cavity and is interposed between the stub connection and the interior wall of the cap. Retaining means are operative to retain the cap on the connection.
Preferably, the gel is elongated and elastically deformed and applies an outward force against the connection and the interior wall. Preferably, at least a portion of the gel is elongated at least 50%. Preferably, the cap is compressed. The cap may be maintained in compression by the retaining means.
According to further embodiments of the present invention, a connection protector kit for use with an electrical stub connection includes a flexible cap having first and second opposed ends and an interior wall defining a cavity. The first end is closed and an opening is formed in the second end and in communication with the cavity. A clamp is provided to retain the cap on the connection. The cavity is adapted to receive the stub connection.
According to further embodiments of the present invention, a method for protecting an electrical stub connection includes placing a cap and a gel over the stub connection such that the stub connection is received in a cavity of the cap and the gel is interposed between the stub connection and an interior wall of the cap. The gel is deformed and elongated about the stub connection. The gel is maintained in the elongated state such that the gel exerts an outward force on the stub connection and the interior wall of the cap.
The step of deforming and elongating the gel may include placing the gel in the cavity and thereafter inserting the stub connection into the gel such that the gel is displaced by the stub connection and thereby elongated. The step of deforming and elongating the gel may include placing the gel in the cavity and thereafter compressing the cap such that the gel is displaced and thereby elongated. Preferably, the step of deforming and elongating the gel includes elongating at least a portion of the gel by at least 50%.
The method may include inserting a pin through the cap and a crotch of the stub connection. The method may include securing a clamp about the cap. The cap may be expanded to accommodate the stub connection. More particularly, the cap may be expanded by expanding corrugations in the cap.
According to embodiments of the present invention, a method for protecting an electrical stub connection includes providing a cap having a cavity and a gel disposed in the cavity. The stub connection is inserted into the cavity and the gel such that the stub connection displaces and thereby deforms and elongates the gel. The cap is compressed to further displace and thereby deform and elongate the gel. A pin is inserted through the cap and a crotch of the stub connection to retain the cap on the stub connection and to maintain the gel in the elongated state such that the gel exerts an outward force on the stub connection and the interior wall of the cap.
According to method embodiments of the present invention, a method for protecting an electrical stub connection includes providing a cap having a cavity and a gel disposed in the cavity; inserting the stub connection into the cavity and the gel such that the stub connection displaces and thereby deforms and elongates the gel; compressing the cap to further displace and thereby deform and elongate the gel; and securing a clamp about the cap to retain the cap on the stub connection and to maintain the gel in the elongated state such that the gel exerts and outward force on each of the stub connection and the interior wall of the cap. Preferably, the step of securing a clamp includes inserting a locating projection of the clamp into a crotch of the stub connection.

Electrical connection protector kit and method for using the same


A fluid dispenser is described that includes a dispenser, a cap, and an insert. The dispenser is flexible and includes a body portion and a cylindrical mouth portion extending from the body portion. The mouth portion has an opening defining a lip. The cap is operable to engage the mouth portion of the dispenser, said cap has an aperture therethrough operable to dispense a fluid stored within the dispenser. The insert is sized for placement within the opening, between the mouth portion and the cap and includes a substantially solid plug having a first and a second axial hole therethrough, a first reed valve operably attached to the plug to close the first axial hole from an outside of the dispenser, and a second reed valve operably attached to the plug to close the second axial hole from an inside of the dispenser.

The field of the disclosure relates generally to caps for fluid dispensers, and more specifically to self-sealing caps for chemical dispensers.
Some known fluid storage dispensers include a flexible body that may discharge a liquid contained therein through an opening in the dispenser when a squeezing pressure, for example from an operator's hand is applied. Some known dispensers may include a sealing means that provides a subsequent sealing action after the pressure is removed, but such dispensers require a two-handed arrangement with these dispensers wherein the closing action must be done by the operator's second hand. Some other known dispensers simply require that each hand manipulate one of two parts to facilitate closing the fluid dispenser.
A known housing for a control valve used on a squeeze type fluid dispensing container includes a first check valve fixedly coupled inside a housing. When the first check valve is opened, fluid flow is permitted through an opening and out of a tube in the housing. A second such check valve is fixedly coupled inside the first check valve, and when opened, facilitates channeling the fluid flow from the tube into the housing, then through an opening in the housing and back into the dispenser.
Some other known fluid dispensers provide a dual-valve system. Such dual valve assemblies respond to differences in pressure, and cooperate to dispense the fluid from the dispenser, or seal the openings thereof during non-use. The cap may include a valve positioned within the dispenser outlet which is cleaned of material at the end of the dispensing period by the action of the dispenser mechanism herein. However, such dual valve assemblies are not directly exposed to the atmosphere, and fail to allow ambient air into the dispenser to normalize the squeezable dispenser, while maintaining the liquid, and any gaseous product associated with the liquid, within the dispenser during periods of non-use.

Self-sealing dispenser insert and method for assembling the same


An image forming method begins with a first image transfer step for thermally transferring a first toner image from a first image carrier to a second image carrier contacting it. Subsequently, in a second image transfer step, the first toner image carried on the second image carrier and a second toner image newly formed on the first image carrier are thermally transferred to opposite sides of a recording medium substantially at the same time. Higher image transfer temperature is assigned to the second image transfer step than to the first image transfer step. An impurity collecting device is associated with a pair of registration rollers which stop the recording medium for a moment to thereby synchronize the recording medium to the toner image.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electrophotographic image forming apparatus and more particularly to an electrophotographic image forming apparatus of the type capable of forming color images on both sides of a single recording medium substantially at the same time without turning it over.
2. Description of the Background Art
An image forming apparatus of the type described is disclosed in, e.g., Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 2000-250272. The apparatus taught in this document includes tandem image forming stations each being assigned to a particular color. A first belt or first intermediate image transfer body is held in contact with four photoconductive elements arranged side by side at the consecutive image forming stations. A second belt or second intermediate image transfer body is movable into and out of contact with the first belt. Toner images of different colors are formed on the photoconductive elements in accordance with image data representative of the first side of a document and then transferred to the first belt one above the other, completing a color toner image. The color toner image is then thermally transferred from the first belt to the second belt by heating means associated with the first belt. Subsequently, toner images of different colors are again formed on the photoconductive elements in accordance with image data representative of the second side of the same document and then transferred to the first belt one above the other, forming another color toner image. When a sheet or recording medium is conveyed to a nip between the first and second belts, the color toner images carried on the first and second belts are thermally transferred to and fixed on opposite sides of the sheet at the same time by the heating means.
The conventional image forming apparatus described above is undesirable from the energy saving standpoint because it includes, in addition to the heating means, cooling means for cooling the toner image on the first or the second belt or the toner images on the sheet to temperature below the softening point of toner and protecting the image forming stations from thermal damage. Moreover, the first belt is not cleaned after the image transfer to the sheet. It is therefore likely that color tone is degraded during the next image forming cycle when, e.g., image transfer efficiency is lowered due to the variation of environmental conditions or similar cause.

Image forming apparatus and an impurity collecting device associated with registration rollers


A laser processing apparatus including a detecting unit. The detecting unit includes a white light source for emitting white light, a focusing lens for focusing the white light to the workpiece, a first optical fiber for guiding the white light emitted from the white light source to the focusing lens, a detector for detecting the intensity of reflected light from the workpiece, and a second optical fiber for guiding the reflected light to the detector. Accordingly, the white light to be focused to the workpiece can be easily handled and only a wavelength component focused on the workpiece can be stably propagated.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a laser processing apparatus for processing a workpiece such as a semiconductor workpiece by applying a processing laser beam.
2. Description of the Related Art
In a semiconductor device fabrication process, the front side of a substantially disk-shaped semiconductor workpiece is formed with a plurality of crossing streets (division lines) to thereby define a plurality of partitioned regions arranged like a matrix, and a plurality of circuits such as ICs and LSIs are formed in these partitioned regions. The semiconductor workpiece is cut along these streets to divide the partitioned regions where the plural circuits are respectively formed, thus fabricating a plurality of individual semiconductor chips. Cutting of the semiconductor workpiece along the streets is usually performed by using a cutting apparatus called a dicer. Another cutting method using a laser beam is also known.
For example, as a method of dividing a workpiece such as an optical device wafer along the streets, a method of forming a laser processed groove is known. In this method, a pulsed laser beam having an absorption wavelength to the workpiece is applied to the workpiece along each street to thereby form a laser processed groove along each street. The workpiece is next broken along each laser processed groove by applying an external force (see Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. Hei 10-305420, for example). Also known is another laser processing method using a pulsed laser beam having a transmission wavelength to a workpiece, wherein the pulsed laser beam is applied to the workpiece so as to be focused inside of the workpiece. In a workpiece dividing method using this laser processing method, the pulsed laser beam having a transmission wavelength to the workpiece is applied to the workpiece from one side thereof so as to be focused inside of the workpiece along each street, thereby continuously forming a modified layer inside the workpiece along each street. By forming the modified layer inside the workpiece along each street, the strength of the workpiece is lowered along each street. Accordingly, by applying an external force to the workpiece along each street, the workpiece is divided along each street (see Japanese Patent No. 3408805, for example).
However, a platelike workpiece such as a wafer has undulations, causing variations in surface height of the workpiece. Accordingly, in order to divide the workpiece into chips with good quality by applying an external force in each of the laser processing methods mentioned above, it is necessary to uniformly form the laser processed groove or the modified layer by detecting the surface height of the workpiece and correcting the focal position of the laser beam according to the result of detection in performing laser processing. For example, there has been proposed a detecting apparatus for detecting the surface height of a workpiece by using white light (see Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2008-170366, for example). This detecting apparatus utilizes the fact that the white light passed through a chromatic aberration lens has different focal lengths according to the wavelengths of the white light. Accordingly, by determining the wavelength of reflected light passed through a pinhole, the focal length of the reflected light is obtained to thereby measure the surface height of the workpiece.


Methods and apparatus for efficient communication of backlog information, e.g., backlog information indicating amounts of uplink traffic waiting to transmitted by a wireless terminal are described. Delta backlog reports are used in addition to absolute backlog reports, thus reducing control signaling overhead, at least some information communicated in a delta backlog report being referenced with respect to a previously transmitted backlog report. A base station uses received backlog information from wireless terminals in determining scheduling of uplink traffic channel segments In some embodiments, the absolute backlog report uses a first fixed size report format, while the delta backlog report using a second fixed size report format, said second size being different from said first fixed size.

Wireless terminals in a wireless communications system supporting uplink traffic, e.g., uplink user data, from the wireless terminals to the base stations need to use uplink air link resources to both communicate control information and user data. In multiple access wireless communications systems, typically, multiple wireless terminals using a base station attachment point are competing for valuable uplink air link resources, e.g., uplink traffic channel air link resources. One approach to partitioning uplink traffic channel resources is for the wireless terminals to send resource requests to their current base station attachment point, and for the base station to consider the competing requests and allocate the resources, e.g., uplink traffic channel segments, in accordance with its scheduling rules.
In one approach of request reporting, a wireless terminal reports its absolute backlog during each subsequent request reporting opportunity. This approach although simple to implement is not highly efficient. A wireless terminal, from one request opportunity to another, may not have significantly changed with respect to the amount of uplink traffic backlog that it has queued waiting to be transmitted. For example, the base station may have decided not to allocate the wireless terminal any uplink resources for traffic between the requests due to other wireless terminals needs having higher priority. As another example, the base station may have allocated the wireless only a small fraction of the total amount of resources required to empty its transmission queue backlog.
It should be appreciated that an efficient request reporting implementation reduces the overhead signaling thus leaving move air link resources available for uplink traffic. Based on the above discussion, it should be appreciated that there is a need for methods and apparatus for reporting control information in an efficient manner. It would be desirable if at least some efficient reporting methods could be devised which utilize previously communicated backlog information in at least some reports.

Methods and apparatus for communicating backlog related information


A system and method of stabilizing and strengthening wall structures constructed with hollow core cementitious blocks that have not been filled with concrete. Relatively small ports are drilled at the grout line every 4-6 courses along the vertical plain of one hollow core and this and every second core is then filled with a high density expanding resin thus filling the core there by providing sufficient strength and rigidity, yet flexibility to the wall structure to withstand significant seismic activity.

This patent document relates to a system to reinforce cindercrete, clay or other cementitious hollow core building blocks used in the construction of walls, building and other enclosures or enclosed spaces.
Many wall structures, typically no more than three stories in height are constructed of cementitious hollow core blocks. Wall structures for schools, industrial and commercial buildings, warehouses and other structures are commonly constructed from such building material. The hollow cores are filled with concrete, insulation or are left hollow.
Concern has arisen to the stability of structures constructed with hollow core blocks located in earth quake prone zones. Since the hollow core blocks are held together with only a cementitious mortar and this mortar is typically applied only along the top exterior perimeter of the block and the two vertical faces making the "hand-hold", there is concern that seismic activity and the tremors such activity can create will collapse such rigid cementitious structures.
The inventor has proposed a solution to this problem in United States publication no. US 2009-0025333 published Jan. 29, 2009. According to this proposal, there is provided a method of stabilizing a building constructed with a wall made of stacked rows of hollow core blocks, the hollow core blocks having cores, by inserting reinforcing rods through the rows of hollow core blocks; and injecting expanding polymer resin into the hollow core blocks to fill the cores of the hollow core blocks.


Disclosed are a phase change memory cell and a method of forming the memory cell. The memory cell comprises a main body of phase change material connected directly to a bottom contact and via a narrow channel of phase change material to a top contact. The channel is tapered from the top contact towards the main body. A minimum width of the channel has a less than minimum lithographic dimension and is narrower than a width of the main body. Therefore, the channel provides a confined region for the switching current path and restricts phase changing to within the channel. In addition an embodiment of the memory cell isolates the main body of phase change material by providing a space between the phase change material and the cell walls. The space allows the phase change material to expand and contract and also limits heat dissipation.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a structure for a phase change memory cell and a method of manufacturing the phase change memory cell. More particularly, the present invention relates to a phase change memory cell structure, having a switching current path that is confined to a region smaller than the potentially switchable volume of the phase change material.
2. Description of the Related Art
Resistance switching materials (i.e., phase change materials), including but not limited to chalcogenides and alloys thereof, and perovskites or perovskite-like materials (e.g., colossal magnetoresistance (CMR) materials and high temperature superconductivity (HTSC) materials), can switch between an amorphous state, semi-amorphous or semi-crystalline states, and a crystalline state, depending upon the voltage of current passed through them. In their amorphous states, these phase change materials exhibit a higher resistance. In their crystalline states, resistance switching materials exhibit a lower resistance because electrons are able to move fast through the material. Electrical impulses applied to theses materials can "tune" or "program" them, such that they exhibit the desired resistive property. The following U.S. Patents and U.S. Patent Applications (incorporated herein by reference) discuss phase-change materials and methods for switching the resistances of such materials: U.S. Pat. No. 6,673,691 issued to Zhuang et al. on Jan. 6, 2004; U.S. Pat. No. 6,204,139 issued to Liu et al. on Mar. 20, 2001; and, U.S. Patent Application Pub. No. US 2004/0252544, Lowery et al., Dec. 16, 2004. Recently, the availability of binary chalcogenide alloys such as doped SbTe and ternary chalcogenide alloys such as those composed of Germanium, Antimony and Tellurium (e.g., Ge2Sb2Te5 (GST)), as well as progress in lithographic and deposition techniques have provided new momentum towards the realization of practical phase change memory (PCM) cells for memory or storage applications, for example, as illustrated in the following documents (incorporated herein by reference): U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/766,936, Sun et al., filed Jan. 30, 2004; "Electronic Switching in Phase-Change Memories", Pirovano et. al, IEEE Transactions on Electron Devices, Vol. 5, No. 3, pgs. 452-459, March 2004, "Amorphous non-volatile memory: the past and the future", Neale, Electronic Engineering, April 2001; "A GeSbTe Phase-Change Memory Cell Featuring a Tungsten Heater Electrode for Low Power, Highly Stable, and Short-Read-Cycle Operations", Takaura et al., 0-7803-7873-3/03© 2003 IEEE; U.S. Patent Application Pub. No. US 2004/0036065 A1, Doan et al., Feb. 26, 2004; and U.S. Patent Application Pub. No. US 2003/0219924 A1, Bez et al., Nov. 27, 2003. However, creating a phase change memory cell with power demands that are compatible with the current state-of-the-art integrated circuit design rules can be difficult.

Structure for confining the switching current in phase memory (PCM) cells

International Business Machines Corporation


Method for modeling the performance of an Information Technology system are disclosed. The method includes the steps of receiving performance data of the system; receiving data of transaction flows and system topology; and inferring service demand parameters based on the received data. If closed form expressions are available to characterize the system, an optimization algorithm based on minimum distance between predicted and measured response times and may be used to obtain the performance parameters. Alternatively, a discrete event simulator together with a set of meta-heuristic search methods may be applied to obtain the optimized performance parameters.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to the performance modeling of information technology ("IT") systems. More specifically, the present invention relates to the integration of queuing network modeling and inference techniques to model the performance of IT systems.
2. Description of the Related Art
With the rapid advances in Internet technology, electronic commerce ("e-commerce") is becoming a mature business strategy. The concept of Quality of Service ("QoS") is working its way to the front-line of e-business commitments and requirements, as it plays an important role in Internet applications, services, and price negotiations. In the growing competitive marketplace, IT administrators and planners are under constant pressure to have definitive answers for the following questions: How many users can the IT system support with the current infrastructure? What level of service quality is being delivered for each service? How fast can the site architecture be scaled up or down? What components should be upgraded? Is there enough capacity available to support the expected business opportunities and future growth? To solve these problems, e-businesses urgently need a formal process for planning and budgeting, for performance prediction, and for service-level agreement provisioning. Such a process would require a fundamental understanding of key issues such as capacity, scalability, availability, and reliability of an e-business infrastructure.
The characterization of an e-business infrastructure is quite complex, given the variety of system architectures, numerous emerging applications with different functions, and the vast diversity in user behaviors. Therefore, it is a challenging task to assess the e-business' capability of delivering end-to-end performance assurance across the entire IT environment, inclusive of all IT infrastructure components and applications. A commonly used approach to assess e-business performance is to directly measure the performance of the IT environment, either in the production system, i.e., the work environment, using real workloads, or on a test system using synthetic workloads. Measuring performance directly on the production system is risky since it requires exposing users to poor performance, which could drive away customers. On the other hand, having a testing site is a very expensive practice. The efforts would be enormous to simply duplicate the production system and certify the proper functioning of all the interconnected software and hardware components. In addition, since the workload space is continuous, it would be an insurmountably difficult task to test across all different load combinations.
An alternative approach to assess the performance of an IT system is through performance modeling. Performance modeling has become increasingly important in the design, engineering and optimization of IT infrastructures and applications. A modeling approach is particularly efficient in providing architects and engineers with qualitative and quantitative insights about the IT system under consideration. Despite its advantages, the modeling work is time consuming and requires good knowledge not only of the system, but also of modeling techniques.
One of the most popular paradigm of performance modeling is queuing networks, which resolves the problems discussed above. The primary advantage of a queuing model is that it captures the fundamental relationship between performance and capacity. The idea of using queuing networks to model computer systems in general, and Web systems in particular has been suggested (See L. Kleinrock; Queueing Systems Volume II. Computer Applications; John Wiley and Sons, 1976; and D. Menasce and V. Almeida; Capacity Planning for Web Performance; Prentice hall, 1998). That idea is based on building analytical models by representing each device in the IT system as a queue. Nevertheless, such approach requires knowledge of the service demands of each type of request for each device in the IT system. In real systems, such service demands can be very difficult to measure since they do not include the queuing delay that might occur. This not only requires knowledge of all the devices, but it also involves the collection of a massive amount of data to determine the service demands of each type of request at each device, given the large number of devices and diversity of request types. Practically one cannot afford to build such a detailed low-level queuing network model.
In light of the foregoing, there is a need in the art for systems and methods aimed at automating the process of performance modeling and optimization of IT infrastructure and applications so as to reduce both the equipment and labor costs, and shorten the turn-around time in performance assessment, prediction and capacity planning. Those systems and methods should enable IT managers to quantify, control and plan, efficiently and proactively, the utilization of the available capacity in e-business infrastructures.

Method and apparatus for automatic modeling building using inference for IT systems


A heat transferring device for a workpiece such as a pen barrel includes a pneumatic mechanism, a roller mechanism, a heating mechanism, and a rolling mechanism. The pneumatic mechanism is connected with the roller mechanism. The rolling mechanism rotates the pen barrel, and the roller mechanism includes an elastic force applying mechanism that applies an elastic force on the pen barrel during rotation. As the rolling mechanism rotates the pen barrel, the elastic force applying mechanism applies an elastic force to the pen barrel that keeps a roller wheel in contact with respective faces of the pen barrel during rotation. Thus, the force that the elastic force applying mechanism applies to the pen barrel is uniform and the respective faces of the pen barrel receive a uniform force. Therefore, the device can heat transfer designs on pen barrels having non-circular as well as circular shapes.

A traditional pen barrel generally has a circular shape. In order to improve the aesthetic appearance of the pen, a pattern is often heat transferred onto the surface of the pen barrel. A conventional heat transferring device generally includes a pneumatic mechanism, a roller mechanism for heat transferring on the pen barrel, and a heating mechanism for heating the roller mechanism. When heat transferring on a pen barrel, the pneumatic mechanism pushes the roller mechanism downwards to contact the pen barrel and rotates the pen barrel in order to heat transfer a pattern from a pattern paper onto the outer surface of the pen barrel.
When a pen barrel has a circular shape, the roller mechanism stays in contact with the pen barrel during heat transferring, so a uniform force is applied along the length of the pen barrel. Since each face of the pen barrel receives a uniform force, the pen barrel rolls at an even speed.
As pen manufacturing technology improves, the aesthetic appearance of the pen also improves, and various shapes of pen barrels have appeared, such as triangle, quadrangle, or other irregular shapes. When heat transferring on pen barrels of triangle, quadrangle, or other irregular shapes, the roller mechanism cannot keep in contact with each face of the pen barrel as the conventional roller wheel is made of a very hard material. The result is that the roller mechanism cannot apply a uniform force on different faces of the pen barrel. Because each face of the pen barrel receives a nonuniform force, the roller mechanism cannot smoothly roll the pen barrel. Therefore, it is difficult to complete heat transferring and printing.


The invention disclosed here is a moving headboard for use in connection with a reciprocating floor slat system. It is particularly well-suited for use in connection with load-hauling trailers that have built-in reciprocating floor slat conveyors for unloading the trailer. Trailers of this kind are used in lieu of hydraulic lifts and involve inching the load off the trailer. The moving headboard sweeps the trailer floor clean during the unloading process.

Reciprocating floor slat conveyors typically involve a set of load-supporting slats that all move together in one direction, and then return, one-third at a time, in the other direction. Because the dynamic frictional surface contact area between slat surfaces and load is less during slat return, the load is inched along by the conveyor apparatus as the slats move back and forth. Floor slat reciprocation is usually always driven by hydraulics, with some variation in unloading speed, depending on different variables.
Reciprocating floor slat systems are often built into truck trailers that haul bulk materials like gravel, as an example. This type of design is used as an alternative to a dump truck (having a conventional hoist lift).
When reciprocating floor systems are used in a trailer, it is desirable that the trailer and reciprocating floor be left clean after an unloading operation. For this reason, several "cleanout" designs have been developed in the past. One cleanout design is described in U.S. Pat. No. 7,510,071, which describes a "plow" style cleanout apparatus. A more common type of cleanout apparatus is the flexible tarp system described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,974,296, issued to Simrin.
All of these cleanout systems involve a floor tarp portion, or something similar, that rides along the floor with the load. Usually, some of the load's material rests directly on the tarp, thus increasing the frictional forces between the tarp and the reciprocating floor slats underneath, so that the tarp sweeps the floor relatively clean by pulling a vertical barrier or headboard behind it as the trailer is unloaded. Either a portion of the tarp or other structure built aft of the tarp creates the cleanout surface that functions like a moving wall for preventing material from leaking forward as the cleanout apparatus moves aft during the unloading operation.
At the end of the unloading procedure, the tarp mostly exits and hangs over the end of the trailer before it is reeled back to the forward end of the trailer. One of the problems with this design is that the end of the tarp is sometimes buried in the pile of unloaded material sitting on the ground. The weight of the unloaded material sitting on the buried tarp stresses the tarp material and/or the tarp return mechanism when it is operated to pull the tarp free. Sometimes truck drivers will roll the truck forward to simply pull the tarp out of the load—which creates the same kind of problem.
A different problem associated with prior art systems is that they have a tendency to allow a certain amount of material to pass (or leak past) their lateral edges during the unloading process. Poor cleanout along the lateral edges of the cleanout system is more of a problem for loads like gravel or sand, as examples, because left-over material from one load may contaminate the next load involving a different kind of material. It is undesirable to have sand from one load mixed with asphalt in the next, as an illustrative example.
For the above reasons, there is a need to improve upon existing cleanout systems that are tailored for reciprocating floor assemblies.

Moving cleanout for reciprocating conveyor system


The present invention is directed towards a removable heat exchanger for a fabric treating machine. The machine generally includes a perforated spin tub and an imperforate outer shell. In one embodiment the heat exchangers, which are removably mounted to an inner surface of the outer shell, are guided during installation and removal by guide clips. Spacers maintain the heat exchangers a predetermined distance from the inner surface of the outer shell. Retainer clips are provided to releasably retain the heat exchanger in position relative to the spin tub during operation of the machine. In a second embodiment the heat exchangers, which are mounted within side pockets provided by the outer shell. In both the first and second embodiments, the heat exchangers are held in place by jacking bolts. The removable heat exchanger of the present invention improves upon welded-in-place internal heat exchangers and external heat exchangers.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to textile treating machines and, more particularly, to heat exchangers for industrial or institutional fabric treating machines.
2. Description of the Related Art
In industrial or institutional fabric treating machines, and continuous batch laundry systems (tunnels), a large volume of liquid is required to treat the fabrics. Since such a large quantity of liquid is used, preliminary heating of the treating liquid prior to its introduction into the machine, which is conventional in smaller household machines, is neither economically nor operationally practical.
Therefore, in conventional fabric treating machines, treating liquid is introduced into the imperforate outer tub or shell and thereafter heated to the desired temperature. The process for heating the treating liquid bath, and for subsequently maintaining the bath at a desired temperature, has generally been accomplished by one of two known methods.
The first known method of heating uses a series of pipes to carry the treating liquid to an external heater where it is heated and thereafter returned to the fabric treating machine. The treating liquid is maintained at the required temperature for treating the fabrics by continuous recirculation and heating.
In heating methods of this type, an extra ten to twenty percent of treating liquid is required to maintain the bath volume and temperature within the desired operating range. However, due to the small amount of treating liquid heated at one time, there is a tendency for undesirable temperature spikes or gradients to develope within the treating liquid bath.
Heating methods of this type suffer from the further disadvantage that they are generally inefficient, losing a certain amount of the heat acquired from the external heater while returning to the fabric treating machine. Insulation is required to minimize conduction losses. Also, the continuous circulation of treating liquid requires auxiliary equipment such as pumps, hoses, valves and fittings, increasing the product cost and further decreasing efficiency.
The second known method of heating uses a heat exchanger attached to the inside of the fabric treating machine. Heat exchangers of this type generally include a series of conduits to carry a heat exchanging fluid through the fabric treating machine. The known heat exchangers used in this method of heating are permanently welded to the inside surface of the imperforate outer shell intermediate the outer tub and the perforate spin tub.
Welded-in-place heat exchangers are susceptible to cracking and corrosion which requires costly and time-consuming repair or replacement. Furthermore, during repair, maintenance, or cleaning, the spin tub must be removed to gain access to the heat exchanger, a very costly and labor intensive procedure which takes the machine out of service for an extended period of time. Thus, heat exchangers of this type suffer from the disadvantage that they are not easily accessible when maintenance is required and that the machine is inoperable during repair of the heat exchangers.
Therefore, there exists a need in the art for an efficient heat exchanger which is easily accessible to allow quick repair and replacement thereof.

Removable heat exchanger for industrial laundry machines


A control system for a plant e.g. as a non-linear system, which is capable of properly suppressing interaction occurring between a plurality of control inputs and a plurality of controlled variables, thereby making it possible to properly control the controlled variables and easily design the control system. In the control system, each of a plurality of interaction suppression parameters for correcting the control inputs, respectively, such that the interaction is suppressed is calculated using a neural network constructed by using, out of the plurality of control inputs, a control input other than a control input corrected by a calculated interaction suppression parameter, as an input, and the interaction suppression parameter as an output.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a control system for a plant in which a plurality of controlled variables are controlled by a plurality of control inputs, respectively, and interaction occurs between the control inputs and the controlled variables.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, as a control system of this kind, one disclosed in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication (Kokai) No. 2006-132429 is known. An internal combustion engine to which is applied this control system is configured such that the lift of intake valves can be changed. Further, in the conventional control system, a pressure within an intake passage (hereinafter referred to as the "intake pressure") is controlled by controlling the degree of opening of a throttle valve disposed in the intake passage to a target opening thereof, and the amount of intake air drawn into the engine (hereinafter referred to as the "intake air amount") is controlled by controlling the lift of the intake valves to a target lift thereof. In this case, not only the intake pressure but also the intake air amount is changed by controlling the degree of opening of the throttle valve, and further not only the intake air amount but also the intake pressure is changed by controlling the lift of the intake valves. As is apparent from this, interaction occurs between the target opening and the target lift as control inputs, and between the intake pressure and the intake air amount as controlled variables.
To avoid this inconvenience, the conventional control system includes a non-interacting controller for suppressing the above-mentioned interaction. Further, in the conventional control system, based on a non-interacting control law (cross-controller), a system formed by combining the non-interacting controller and the engine is modeled as a linear imaginary plant with no interaction. Furthermore, based on a model equation obtained thereby, the target opening of the throttle valve and the target lift of the intake valves are calculated as non-interacting inputs capable of suppressing the interaction.
As described above, in the conventional control system, the system formed by combining the non-interacting controller and the engine is modeled as the linear imaginary plant with no interaction based on the non-interacting control law, but since the engine is a non-linear system, it is difficult to model the engine by the above-mentioned method. Further, in a case where the conventional control system is applied to a plant with stronger non-linearity than that of the engine, the plant cannot be modeled, which causes a fear that the interaction cannot be suppressed. Further, if control inputs and controlled variables are different, the manners and degrees of interaction are also different, and hence modeling equations as well are different. Therefore, it is necessary to set modeling equations for a plurality of control inputs and a plurality of controlled variables which are different from each other in the manner of interaction and the like, from the beginning, based on the non-interacting control law. This makes the design of the control system very complicated. In view of the above-mentioned point, there is room for improvement of the conventional control system.