The present invention relates to a recombinant microorganism with improved butanol production ability which has an acetyl-CoA synthesis pathway and a butyryl-CoA synthesis pathway, wherein a pathway converting acetyl-CoA to acetate is inhibited and a pathway converting acetyl-CoA to butyryl-CoA is promoted. In addition, the present invention relates to a method for producing butanol using the recombinant microorganism.

Butanol is an intermediate compound with a wide range of applications such as cosmetics, perfumes, hormones, sanitary agents, industrial coating agents, additives for paints, fibers, plastic monomers, medicinal products, vitamins, antibiotics, pesticides, and the like, and thus considered to be very useful (Durre, Biotechnol J., 2:1525-1534, 2007).
As a prior method for producing butanol, a method for producing butanol, acetone and ethanol by fermenting sugars using Clostridium strains (Weizmann, U.S. Pat. No. 1,315,585) was utilized until the 1980's. After that, an oxo process of synthesizing butanol from propylene obtained from petroleum has been widely utilized. However, such a petroleum-based method for producing butanol has drawbacks in that the production process is complex due to employment of high pressures and high temperatures, and that a large amount of hazardous waste and carbon dioxide are discharged from the method (Tsuchida et al., Ind. Eng. Chem. Res., 45:8634, 2006). In this regard, recently there has been a growing need for an environmentally friendly method for producing butanol through fermentation of renewable sources using microorganisms.
However, in order to produce butanol at an industrial level using microorganisms, butanol selectivity, yield and productivity (namely, produced amount of butanol per hour) should be good. However, wild type or recombinant microorganisms used in the production of biobutanol have to meet such conditions.
Specifically, wild type Clostridium acetobutylicum ATCC 824 is known to produce acetone, ethanol and butanol in a weight ratio of about 3:1:6 through fermentation, wherein a small amount of acetic acid and butyric acid are also produced. The yield of the wild type strain is about 25%, and the final concentration is about 10 g/L. Microorganisms having an acetyl-CoA biosynthetic pathway and a butyryl-CoA biosynthetic pathway, such as Clostridium acetobutylicum, are generally known to synthesize acetone, butanol and ethanol by a pathway depicted in FIG. 1. With the recent development of metabolic engineering technology, continuous efforts have been focused on more effective production of butanol. In particular, in the case of Clostridium acetobutylicum, studies related to metabolic pathway mechanisms are actively carried out as the full genome thereof has recently been sequenced.
For example, test results in which adhE1 (alcohol/aldehyde dehydrogenase) and ctfAB genes are simultaneously overexpressed in a Clostridium acetobutylicum M5 strain that has lost magaplasmid having butanol production related genes (adc, ctfAB, adhE1 (alcohol/aldehyde dehydrogenase) and adhE2 (alcohol/aldehyde dehydrogenase)) were reported. According to the report, butanol selectivity was found to be enhanced to 0.78 in a weight ratio, but there were some limitations in that productivity and yield were greatly decreased due to the inhibited strain growth and increased acetic acid production (Lee, et al., Biotechnol. J., 4:1432-1440, 2009; Lee, et al., WO 2009/082148).
In the case that a pta gene converting acetyl-CoA to acetate was deleted, and in the case that a pta gene and a buk gene converting butyryl-CoA to butyrate were deleted and then an aad gene (alcohol/aldehyde dehydrogenase) was overexpressed, it was reported that butanol concentration, selectivity and yield were increased. However, both cases still had limitations in view of productivity and stability of strains (LEE et al., WO 2011/037415). Further, in the case that the ctfB gene encoding CoA transferase (CoAT) was additionally deleted from the pta and buk deleted mutant, the productivity was still found to be low (LEE et al., WO 2011/037415).
Besides, there has been an example that reports the production of 18.6 g/l of butanol as the result of fermentation by a randomly mutated mutant Clostridium beijerinckii BA101 strain and using maltodextrin as a carbon source (Ezeji et al., Appl. Microbiol. Biotechnol., 63:653, 2004). However, use of the recombinant strains showed low productivity of the final product, butanol, which makes industrial applicability impossible.
Further, there has been an example that reports decrease in acetone concentration and increase in butanol selectivity by deleting the ctfAB gene encoding CoA transferase or the adc (acetoacetic acid decarboxylase) gene. However, this example has problems in that the final concentration of butanol is less than 10 g/L and the strain is not stable (Jiang et al., Metab. Eng., 11(4-5):284-291, 2009).
Furthermore, in the case of overexpressing adc (acetoacetic acid decarboxylase) and ctfAB (CoA transferase) genes in wild type Clostridium acetobutylicum, acetone, ethanol and butanol productivity are reported to be increased to 95%, 90%, and 37%, respectively, as compared to those of the wild type Clostridium acetobutylicum. However, the example has problems in that butanol selectivity and yield are low (Mermelstein et al., Biotechnol. Bioeng., 42:1053, 1993).
In the course of the present inventors' earnest research to find a microorganism having excellent butanol selectivity, yield and productivity, a recombinant microorganism with inhibited phosphotransacetylase and butyrate kinase activity, increased CoA transferase and aldehyde/alcohol dehydrogenase activity, and increased thiolase or hbd-crt-bcd operon activity among the microorganisms having an acetyl-CoA biosynthetic pathway and a butyryl-CoA biosynthetic pathway has been found to exhibit high butanol selectivity and yield with low ethanol selectivity, thereby allowing continuous production of biobutanol on an industrial scale. Based on this finding, the present invention has been accomplished.

Recombinant microorganism with improved butanol production ability and method for producing butanol by using the same


Electrosurgical forceps that can provide improved hemostatis and tissue-cutting capabilities during surgical procedures. The electrosurgical forceps include opposing jaw members, each including first and second electrode members. The first and second electrodes included in the respective jaw members are disposed directly opposite one another, the first electrode members included in the respective jaw members are disposed diagonally opposite one another, and the second electrode members included in the respective jaw members are disposed diagonally opposite one another. A first high frequency (HF) electric power source is connectable across the first electrode members, and a second HF electric power source is connectable across the second electrode members, electrically isolating the first electrode members from the second electrode members, and allowing current to flow diagonally through the tissue between one or both of the first electrode members and the second electrode members.

Electrosurgical forceps are known that employ mechanical clamping action and electrical energy to cut, cauterize, coagulate, desiccate, and/or reduce bleeding in living tissue during surgical procedures. Conventional electrosurgical forceps typically have a pair of opposing jaw members, each forming an electrode charged to a different electrical potential. The pair of opposing jaw members are configured to grasp the living tissue, and to transfer bipolar energy through the living tissue, allowing a surgeon to effect hemostatis and/or tissue-cutting actions at least in part by controlling the intensity, frequency, and/or duration of the bipolar energy applied between the respective electrodes and through the tissue.
In a typical mode of operation of such conventional electrosurgical forceps, the transfer of bipolar energy through the living tissue initially causes an electrical current to flow through the tissue generally perpendicular to contact surfaces of the opposing jaw members. The flow of electrical current causes the living tissue to coagulate, which, in turn, causes the impedance of the tissue to rise in the region between the contact surfaces of the opposing jaw members. Because uncoagulated tissue in the region generally between the periphery of the respective contact surfaces has a lower impedance compared to the coagulated tissue, the uncoagulated tissue provides a more favorable path for the electrical current to continue flowing through the tissue. As a result, the living tissue between the periphery of the opposing contact surfaces now starts to coagulate, causing what is referred to herein as a "thermal margin" to spread laterally and extend into the tissue beyond the region between the respective jaw members.
The conventional electrosurgical forceps described above have several drawbacks. For example, the thermal margin resulting from use of such conventional electrosurgical forceps can cause the impedance of the tissue near or touching the contact surfaces of the opposing jaw members to increase to a level where the flow of electrical current through the tissue is significantly reduced, possibly preventing further coagulation of the tissue. Moreover, as the thermal margin spreads laterally and extends into the living tissue, tissue structures adjacent the region between the opposing jaw members may potentially become damaged, thereby limiting the overall utility of the conventional electrosurgical forceps.
In addition, because the electrodes formed by the opposing jaw members of such conventional electrosurgical forceps are charged to different electrical potentials, an electrical short circuit can result if the contact surfaces of the opposing jaw members inadvertently touch one another during use. This can sometimes occur if the opposing jaw members grasp very thin tissue, or clamp onto the living tissue with excessive force. Such electrical shorting of the opposing contact surfaces can stop any electrical current from flowing through the living tissue, possibly preventing the conventional electrosurgical forceps from providing hemostatis at a time when it may be most needed.
It would therefore be desirable to have electrosurgical forceps that avoid at least some of the drawbacks of the conventional electrosurgical forceps described above.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.


A solution for training guidance is provided. A method related to the solution includes acquiring, in a training guidance apparatus, cardiovascular data representing cardiovascular measurement on a user carrying out a physical exercise, wherein the acquired cardiovascular data is real-time data measured during the physical exercise. The method further includes determining exercise guidance attributes from the cardiovascular data with respect to at least one training target of the physical exercise, selecting a video clip matching with the guidance attributes, and causing display of the video clip to the user.

Field
The invention relates to the field of physical training systems and, particularly, to an arrangement for guiding a user during a physical exercise.
Description of the Related Art
Physical training may be carried out indoors at home or at a gym. At the gym, there may be provided a professional instructor with whom a personal training program may be designed. At home, such a training instructor is not typically available. Some exercise apparatuses such as treadmills and/or exercise cycles may include preconfigured training programs that control a resistance or exertion during the exercise. Such programs affect the real exertion during the exercise indirectly, and they cannot affect or instruct the user to reach a desired exertion level, as different users may respond differently to the increased resistance.


A vane pump includes a housing defining a pump chamber; a rotor rotatably arranged in the pump chamber; and a motor to rotate the rotor. An imaginary plane is defined to bisect the pump chamber in an axis direction. The housing has a first inlet port and a second inlet port located symmetrical with each other with respect to the imaginary plane, and the housing has a first outlet port and a second outlet port located symmetrical with each other with respect to the imaginary plane.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a vane pump and a vapor leakage check system having the vane pump.
2. Description of Related Art
JP-A-2009-138602 describes a vane pump having a rotor and a motor. When the rotor is rotated by the motor, fluid is compressed, and the compressed fluid is discharged from the vane pump. The vane pump is used for decompressing or compressing an inside of a fuel tank in an vapor leakage check system that checks a leakage of vapor fuel from the fuel tank.
The rotor has an approximately cylindrical column shape, and is arranged in a pump chamber. The pump chamber has an inlet port connected to an orifice and a canister, and an outlet port connected to outside atmospheric air. The inlet port and the outlet port are located on the same end of the pump chamber in an axis direction.
However, a pressure difference is generated between the end of the pump chamber having the inlet port and the outlet port and the other end of the pump chamber in the axis direction. In this case, a pressure gradient is generated in the axis direction, thereby affecting a posture of the rotor. If the pressure gradient causes an unstable rotation of the rotor, a pumping property of the vane pump may become unstable.

Vane pump and vapor leakage check system having the same


A single pass ground driven tiller and seeder apparatus includes a support frame, an elongated drive rotor journaled transversely on the frame, a tillage assembly pivotally connected to the frame and formed by a pair of rearwardly extending bearing plates and having an elongated tillage rotor journaled thereto and extending transversely therebetween, and a firming roller journaled between mounting plates pivotally connected to the bearing plates. The drive rotor is rotated by ground contact as the apparatus is drawn along by a tractor. The drive rotor is drivingly engaged with the tillage rotor so that the tillage rotor rotates at a faster speed than the drive rotor. A seed metering mechanism is supported on the frame and deposits seed in front of the drive rotor. The tillage rotor breaks the soil and incorporates the seed into the soil, after which the firming roller firms the seed bed.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to agricultural equipment and, more particularly, to a single pass, ground driven tiller and seeder apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
The maintenance of athletic fields such as football, baseball, and soccer fields, golf courses, and the like sometimes requires the replanting of grass. Such maintenance is also periodically necessary for lawns, parks, institutional grounds, and pastures. Additionally, the production of hay and sod requires grass planting on a large scale. Where large fields need to be planted or replanted, a mechanized approach is appropriate. Although it is possible to simply spread grass seeds onto existing fields, more effective germination of the seeds results from dethatching any existing vegetation, breaking up the surface of the ground, and incorporating the seeds into the soil. Seeding implements often include a support frame carried or towed by a tractor, a seed storage and metering mechanism mounted on the frame, tillage tools to break up the soil to receive the seeds, and additional tools to close the broken soil over the deposited seeds.

Single pass ground driven tiller and seeder apparatus


A helmet mounted tracking system for target designation includes an airplane azimuth sensor, a helmet mounted azimuth sensor, an airplane pitch sensor, a helmet mounted pitch sensor, and a processor. The airplane azimuth sensor determines an azimuth heading for an airplane. The helmet mounted azimuth sensor determines an azimuth heading for a helmet that is worn by a pilot. The airplane pitch sensor determines a pitch for the airplane. The helmet mounted pitch sensor determines a pitch for the helmet that is worn by the pilot. The processor is in operative communication with the airplane azimuth sensor, the helmet mounted azimuth sensor, the airplane pitch sensor, and the helmet mounted pitch sensor and the processor is processes instructions from each of the sensors to determine a target pitch and a target azimuth.

1. Field
The invention is related to user controlled navigation. More particularly, the invention is related to the tracking of movements using a helmet.
2. Description of Related Art
Three-dimensional head input systems suitable for controlling a computer cursor rely on detection of signals transmitted from a head-mounted unit to a detection in order to position and/or orientation of the head. Generally, the three-dimensional head input systems have relied on detection of relative light beam intensities or arrival times of transmitted signals from a head unit to a receiver in order to calculate by standard triangulation algorithms the relative position coordinates and/or relative angular orientation of the user's head. Such transmitter/receiver detection systems have the limitation that they can be used to compute the head unit's position or its orientation, but not at the same time with accurate results.
To overcome these limitations, a system for three-dimensional navigation that uses complementary (two-way) position/angle detection to determine the coordinate position along the linear axes and angular orientation along rotational axes was developed. The system comprised a movable unit and a stationary unit. The movable unit is placed on the user's body so that user's movements can be used for three-dimensional navigation control. In U.S. Pat. No. 6,434,410, an embodiment is described in which a movable infrared emitter/detector is worn on the user's head and another stationary infrared emitter/detector is mounted on a stationary object such as a display.
Currently the preferred approach to providing helmet mounted control is used in the Joint Helmet Mounted Cueing system (JHMCS). The JHMCS uses a magnetic field head tracker that is mounted on a helmet. This requires magnetic field sensors mounted into the specialized helmet, and a magnetic field generator mounted inside the aircraft cockpit. The JHMCS system tracks the movement of the helmet within the magnetic field generated within the cockpit. The JHMCS is expensive, complex, and difficult to maintain.

Helmet mounted tracking system and method


A method of electronically tracking and locating a very large number of objects such as, but not limited to, personal case files in health care, law, or human services systems is described. Each object to be tracked has an attached miniature radio transmitter called a tag which sends a coded signal to a network of receiver base stations with limited but overlapping reception ranges. Each receiver base station places in its own memory the time at which a record enters its range, remains in range, and the time at which it leaves. The various receiver base stations are interconnected to a host computer. By polling the memories of each receiver base station, the computer is able to determine the current location of any record.

Present day businesses expend great amounts of financial and personal resources in attempting to locate and manage objects, including records, equipment, and people. However, present day recordkeeping systems are ineffective at locating these objects.
Many objects must be located quickly to save loss of life and property. For instance, in the hospital setting, patients who are critically ill can best be treated when their physician has their complete medical record in hand. Oftentimes, their records are not available to the treating physician because they have been lost or misplaced. The cost and time dedicated to finding them becomes expensive and potentially life-threatening.
When conditions are not life-threatening, losses are incurred by the health system as a whole, since extra tests are given, delays in diagnosis occur, and major delays in billing result because, for periods of time, these records are lost and cannot be found.
One attempt at tracking file folders, for example, is given in U.S. Pat. No. 5,287,414 whereby an optical scanner mounted to the file drawer is used to detect files stored in the filing cabinet so that, upon opening or closing the filing cabinet drawer, all the files in that drawer are scanned. The scanned folders are logged as being located in that drawer by a computer system. A major drawback of this system is its inability to account for files unless they are located within a filing cabinet drawer.
Attempts at tracking materials and people have also been made, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 5,363,425, whereby an identification badge containing a radio frequency transmitter is located across a telephone network by receiver units in or near telephone sets. However, this invention teaches the use of random transmissions from the identification badges, which is not applicable to systems containing a number of transmitters because of overlapping or "colliding" of transmission bursts.
An attempt at tracking persons was made by an infrared active badge as described in the December 1993 Byte article "Track People With Active Badges". This reference teaches the use of infrared transmitters because of their ready availability in television and video recorders and because the signals bounce off of walls which compensates for their directivity. However, the infrared technology disclosed is inadequate for applications where the transmitter is covered by a surface which blocks transmission of infrared light. This design also requires more receivers per installation due to the opacity of objects to infrared light.
Therefore, there is a need in the art for an inexpensive tracking system for a collection of objects which is capable of tracking a large number of objects. Such a tracking system must be able to track objects within an entire room or group of rooms and detect objects even if there is no clear optical path between the beacons and the detecting system. There is also a need for a low power, low cost beacon design to control the overall cost of the tracking system. Additionally, there is a need for a system having a minimal number of receivers to control the cost of the system and the invasiveness of the installation, and the receivers should have an effective means for transferring information to a central processor for processing location information.


A method for controlling a terminal screen includes: first displaying, on a screen of a terminal, a first function input unit and at least a portion of a page of content on a screen, the first function input unit being associated with at least a first function for the terminal; recognizing a scroll operation on the screen; and second displaying, in response to the recognizing the scroll operation on the screen, a second function input unit instead of at least a portion of the first function input unit, the second function input unit being associated with a second function for the terminal.

Field
One or more example embodiments relate to display control apparatuses, display control methods, and/or computer-readable storage mediums storing one or more computer programs for executing display control methods on computers or computer devices.
Description of the Related Art
Moving a page displayed on a screen or a panel in a vertical and/or horizontal direction is referred to as scrolling. When scrolling, a portion of information displayed on the screen disappears, and new information corresponding to the portion that has disappeared appears on the opposite side. Since the amount of information displayed on one page is often larger than the amount of information that may be displayed on the screen simultaneously or concurrently, scrolling functions are used frequently. A viewer may read information on the screen while scrolling. Devices such as consoles, word processors, mobile terminals, personal computers (PCs), and the like, have scrolling functions.
When an external device such as a mouse is provided, scrolling may be performed by moving a wheel or dragging a scroll bar. If a touch pad is provided, scrolling may be performed by directly clicking or dragging a page on a screen.

Scrolling display control interface apparatuses, methods and computer-readable storage mediums


An engine starter motor comprising an electric motor, a unidirectional clutch connected to the motor and having an output shaft, the unidirectional clutch exhibiting a drag torque appearing when the unidirectional clutch is being rotated in an idle direction, a speed reduction unit connected to the unidirectional clutch, and a pinion shaft having a pinion gear for engaging and driving an engine ring gear and connected to the speed reduction unit through helical splines. The drag torque T of the unidirectional clutch is determined to be equal to or smaller than a drag torque To, at which a return force F on the pinion shaft with an over-running clutch mounted thereon does not exceed an operating force on the pinion shaft by a solenoid, divided by a speed reduction ratio g between the over-running clutch and the pinion shaft.

This invention relates to an engine starter motor for starting an engine and particularly to an engine starter motor having a speed reduction gear between a unidirectional clutch and a pinion gear.
An engine starter motor is known, in which the rotational speed of an electric motor is reduced by one or two stages, an electric motor unit is reduced in size and weight, and in which an unidirectional (over-running) clutch is mounted to a speed-reduced pinion shaft. In the engine starter motor of this structure, the effect of the inertia moment of the electric motor on the unidirectional clutch increases by the square of the speed reduction ratio as it increases. Therefore, a disadvantageously large capacity unidirectional clutch is required for an engine starter motor having no speed-reduction mechanism, in which the rotation of the armature rotary shaft is directly transmited to the unidirectional clutch.
Therefore, there has been proposed an engine starter motor such as disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 52-73315 in which an over-running clutch is disposed on an armature rotary shaft as well as an engine starter motor such as disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 60-2895 in which an over-running clutch is disposed on an idle shaft in order to eliminate the above-discussed disadvantages of the conventional design.
FIG. 1 illustrates the engine starter motor disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 52-73315, in which reference numeral 1 indicates a d.c. motor, 2 indicates an armature of the d.c. motor 1, and 3 indicates an armature rotary shaft. An over-running (unidirectional) clutch 4 is mounted to the armature rotary shaft 3, and a clutch outer member 5 of the over-running clutch 4 is secured to the armature rotary shaft 3 by splines 6 and a clutch inner member 9 having a pinion gear 8 of a speed reduction gear 7 is mounted on the armature rotary shaft 3 rotatable relative to it. Rollers 10 are interposed between the clutch outer member 5 and the clutch inner member 9, and 11 indicates a cover. Reference numeral 12 indicates a larger gear which is in mesh with the pinion gear 8 and which has a pinion shaft 13 centrally engaged through helical splines 14 on the pinion shaft 13. A front end portion of the pinion shaft 13 has mounted thereon a pinion 16 which is enagageable with an engine ring gear 15, and a rear end portion of the pinion shaft 13 has mounted thereto a stopper 17 for positioning the forward position of the pinion shaft 13 and a return spring 18 disposed between the stopper 17 and the large gear 12. A lever 19 transmits a drive force from a plunger 20 of the solenoid.
In the engine starter motor with the above structure, when the plunger 20 is actuated by an electromagnetic attraction, the lever 19 rotates in the clockwise direction as viewed in the figure, the pinion shaft 13 is driven in the forward direction against the spring action of the return spring 18 to cause the pinion 16 to mesh with the engine ring gear 15. Also, the rotation of the armature rotary shaft 3 is transmitted through the unidirectional clutch 4, the smaller gear 8, the larger gear 12, the splines 14 and the pinion shaft 13 to the engine ring gear 15 to start the engine. The torque applied to the unidirectional clutch 4 is the maximum torque generated by the electric motor 1, and the torque at the pinion gear 16 is equal to the torque generated by the electric motor 1 multiplied by the speed reduction ratio between the small gear 8 and the large gear 12. Also, while the effect of the inertia moment of the rotating armature 2 only directly acts on the uni-directional clutch 4 which is directly connected to the armature 2, it acts on the pinion 16 as increased by a factor of the square of the speed reduction ratio.
After the engine is started and the plunger 20 is released, the action of the return spring 18 causes the shift lever 19, the pinion shaft 13 and the pinion 16 to return to their original positions, whereby the operation of the engine starter motor is stopped.
FIG. 2 illustrates an engine starter motor disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 60-2895. In the FIGURE, an idle shaft 21 is disposed on an axis different from those of an armature rotary shaft 3 and a pinion shaft 13, and the unidirectional clutch 4 is rotatably supported on this idle shaft 21. On the outer circumference of the clutch outer member 5 of the unidirectional clutch 4, a speed reducing gear 5a is formed so that it engages a gear 3a formed in the armature rotary shaft 3. Also, a small gear 8 integral with the clutch inner member 9 is in engagement with a large gear 12 formed on a tube 22, thereby forming a speed-reduction gear 7, and the tube 22 and the pinion shaft 13 are spline-engaged to each other through helical splines 14. Reference numerals 23, 24 indicate a housing and a center bearing support, respectively, for supporting the armature rotary shaft 3, the idle shaft 21 and the pinion shaft 13.
Reference numberal 25 indicates a solenoid switch, 26 indicates a plunger of the solenoid switch 25, 27 indicates a rod constructed to move together with the plunger 26, 28 indicates a movable contact, 29 indicates stationary contacts one of which is connected to a battery (not shown) and the other of which is connnected to a d.c. motor 1. Reference numeral 30 indicates a ball interposed between the rod 27 and the pinion shaft 13. In the figure, the same reference numerals used also in FIG. 1 indicate identical or corresponding components, so that their explanation is omitted.
In the engine starter motor as above constructed, the starting operation is achieved in a manner similar to that of the starter shown in FIG. 1, and the transmission torque of the unidirectional clutch 4 equals to the torque of the d.c. motor 1 multiplied by the speed-reduction ratio between the gear 3a and the speed reducing gear 5a, and further even though the effect of the inertia moment of the d.c. motor 1 acting on the unidirectional clutch 4 is increased by a factor of the square of the speed-reduction ratio, this effect is smaller than that where the unidirectional clutch 4 is mounted on the pinion shaft 13.
In the conventional engine starter motor, it has been attempted to reduce the effect of the speed-reduction ratio of the unidirectional clutch 4 and to use the unidirectional clutch 4 in common with the engine starter having no speed reduction gear.
However, since the pinion shaft 13 of the conventional engine starter is engaged with the speed-reduction gear components by the helical splines, a return force is generated on the pinion shaft 13 when the pinion 16 is driven by the engine immediately after the engine is started or when the engine starter motor cannot quickly follow the change in rotation of the engine. That is, when a drag torque which causes the unidirectional clutch 4 to rotate in the idling direction is considered as to the pinion shaft 13, this drag torque is increased by an amount corresponding to the speed-reduction ratio between the unidirectional clutch 4 and the pinion shaft 13. As shown in FIG. 3, the return force F can be expressed by: EQU F=tan (.theta.-.rho.)T/r.sub.H
where,
T: drag torque PA0 r.sub.H : mean diameter of the helical splines 14 PA0 .theta.: twist angle of the helical splines 14 PA0 N: drag PA0 .tau.: friction angle of the helical splines 14. PA0 .alpha.: angle defined between the frictional surfaces of the clutch outer an inner members PA0 .gamma.: angle of direction of a spring force with respect to a tangent at the point of contact of the roller to a frictional surface of clutch inner member PA0 n: number of rollers PA0 r: outer diameter of the clutch inner member PA0 .mu.: friction coefficient of the roller contacting surfaces.
Accordingly, when a unidirectional clutch similar to that of an engine starter with no speed reduction mechanism is used as in the above conventional engine starter, the drag torque as considered from the pinion shaft 13 is increased by an amount corresponding to the speed-reduction ratio and the return force F is also increased accordingly. Therefore, the return force F exceeds the electromagnetic attractive force on the plunger 20 or 26, causing the pinion 16 to return and disengage from the ring gear 15, and if the engine starter motor is being energized at this time and plunger 20 or 26 is being electromagnetically actuated, the pinion 16 is again driven into mesh with the engine ring gear 15. Even when the pinion 16 did not completely disengage from the engine ring gear 15, the pinion 16 moves fiercely, resulting in large mechanical impacts which may destroy or damage the ring gear 15 and other components and generate noise.

Dray torque relationship of a undirectional clutch in an engine stater motor


A printed-circuit board and a circuit unit incorporating the circuit board. The printed-circuit board capable of achieving a suitable contact area of sealing resin includes a metal circuit pattern formed on a substrate, a plurality of mounting electrodes formed on the substrate for electrically connecting at least one electronic component, a resist layer of electrically insulating material disposed over the surface of the substrate having openings in the regions corresponding to the plurality of mounting electrodes, and plurality of external connecting terminals provided on edge portions of the substrate for connecting external devices. The resist layer is preferably formed only on the area surrounding the plurality of mounting electrodes inside a sealing region, the sealing region being resin sealed over the surface of the substrate. A circuit unit is also disclosed, including an electronic device and the above-mentioned printed-circuit board.

The miniaturization of recent electronic circuitry has rapidly become widespread and this trend is apparent in electronic apparatuses, particularly in portable devices.
Miniaturization has an effect on various aspects of electronic device fabrication such as, for example, the size of rechargeable batteries used in the portable devices and charging control circuitries for the batteries for housing in battery packs.
The charging control circuitry is preferably devised, therefore, to be able to mount chip-type electronic components including a semiconductor device on a printed-circuit board, which can be as small as several millimeters. The printed-circuit board is then provided with prescribed resin sealing to achieve necessary mechanical strength and reliability.
FIGS. 4A and 4B are drawings diagrammatically illustrating a known printed-circuit board, in which FIG. 4A is a plan view of the circuit board, while FIG. 4B is a cross-sectional view taken along line VV of the structure of FIG. 4A.
Referring to FIGS. 4A and 4B, the printed-circuit board is capable of mounting at least one electronic component including a semiconductor device, having external connecting electrodes on a bottom face.
On a circuit board substrate 32, a circuit pattern 36 of copper film is formed. Soldering lands 34 are also formed as electrode portions for making electrical connections to the external connecting electrodes of the mounted electronic component. A solder resist film (or insulating materials layer) 38 is formed over the entire surface of the structure so as to have openings in the regions corresponding to the specific locations of the soldering lands 34.
The solder resist film 38 is formed herein for preventing solder, used for electrically connecting the electronic components, from unduly spreading out onto neighboring soldering lands or circuit patterns 36, possibly causing short circuiting. The solder resist film 38 also serves to protect, and prevent the deterioration of, the circuit pattern 36 previously formed.
In the abovementioned structure, with the printed-circuit board mounted with electronic components and sealed with sealant resin, adhesive strength between solder resist film 38 and the sealing resin is smaller than the strength between the substrate 32 and the resin, and the mechanical strength of solder resist film 38 itself is not satisfactory. This may give rise to the separation or peeling of the sealing resin from solder resist film 38, or to the cracking of the film 38 within.
Peeling of the sealant resin from the substrate of circuit board can give rise to several adverse effects, such as moisture permeating into the interior and deterioration of the reliability of the device.
In order to alleviate such difficulties, a method, in which the solder resist film 38 is provided with a number of circular or hexagonal-shaped openings 40 at least 0.5 millimeter apart from each other, is illustrated in FIGS. 5A and 5B. The sealant resin is brought into direct contact with the substrate to a greater degree and adhesive strength increases between the sealant resin and the substrate (for example, Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No. 9-205164).
In the method of the abovementioned '164 application, however, it is hard for such a small circuit board substrate to accommodate many openings 40 so as to mount a plurality of chip-type electronic components.
Further, it is difficult to provide the openings 40 of the number large enough to achieve satisfactory adhesive strength between the sealant resin and the substrate.
Another method has also been disclosed, in which a sealant resin pattern is formed directly on a circuit board substrate without interposing a solder resist pattern (Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No. 8-111477).
In this method, either no solder resist pattern is formed at all, or a pattern is formed and subsequently removed prior to resin sealing.
In the case of the '477 application, several drawbacks arise, including frequent short-circuiting caused by the formation of solder bridges during the steps of printing cream solder for soldering electronic components. Additionally, an increase in production costs results from appending a process step for removing solder resist following the soldering.
It is therefore desirable to overcome the abovementioned difficulties and achieve satisfactory adhesive strength between the sealant resin and the substrate even with interposing a solder resist layer therebetween.

Printed-circuit board and circuit unit incorporating the circuit board


Systems and methods reduce latency during read-verify and programming operations by biasing a dummy line next to a neighboring bit line with an over-drive voltage during a first period and then biasing the dummy line to a same voltage as that of the neighboring bit line during a second period that contiguously follows the first period. The dummy line may be biased based on a state of the neighboring bit line. For example, a first dummy line is first charged to an over-drive voltage and then charged to the same voltage as that of a first neighboring bit line, and a second dummy line at an opposing edge is first charged to the over-drive voltage and then charged to the same voltage as that of a second neighboring bit line. This biasing scheme using the dummy lines helps reduce capacitive loading for neighboring bit lines during ready-verify and programming operations.

The present description relates generally to data storage devices and methods, including, without limitation, a bias scheme for dummy lines of data storage devices.
Flash memory enjoys a number of advantages over other types of storage devices. Flash memory generally offers faster read access times and better shock resistance than a hard disk drive (HDD). Unlike dynamic random access memory (DRAM), flash memory is non-volatile, meaning that data stored in a flash storage device is not lost when power to the device is removed. These advantages, and others, may explain the increasing popularity of flash memory for storage applications in devices such as memory cards, USB flash drives, mobile phones, digital cameras, mass storage devices, MP3 players and the like.
Flash memory utilizes memory cells (e.g., single-level cells (SLC), multi-level cells (MLC), triple-level cells (TLC) and/or quadruple-level cells (QLC)) to store data as electrical values, such as electrical charges or voltages. As flash memory continues to grow in storage density to meet increasing demand for data storage, flash memory designs have continued to grow in complexity to adapt to the expected reliability and endurance of MLC, TLC, QLC, and even higher density memory cells. The speed of storage operations in flash memory is an important metric for performance of flash memory.

Bias scheme for dummy lines of data storage devices


The instant application relates to a high pressure spiral-type hollow fiber membrane fabric-containing module or contactor, comprising: a high pressure module housing or vessel; a pair of end caps; liquid end ports and at least one gas port; and at least one membrane cartridge, wherein each module or contactor has one or more shims, spacers, protrusions, and/or the like on a cartridge shell exterior, on a module housing interior, on the cartridge shell exterior and on the module housing interior, and/or between the shell and the housing.

A membrane contactor or module may be used for many purposes, including but not limited to, removing entrained gases from liquids, debubbling liquids, filtering liquids, and/or adding a gas to a liquid. Membrane contactors are known to be used in many different applications, for example, a membrane contactor may be used in removing entrained gases from inks used in printing.
Membrane contactors may also provide a means of accomplishing fluid separations, such as gas/gas, gas/liquid, and liquid/liquid (which can encompass liquid/dissolved solid) separations. Membrane contactors typically are used to bring two immiscible fluid phases—for example, a first liquid and a second liquid, or a gas and a liquid—into contact with one another to effect separation and/or transfer of one or more components from one fluid to the other.
A hollow fiber membrane contactor typically includes a bundle of microporous hollow fibers, and a rigid shell or housing enclosing the fiber bundle. The shell may be provided with four fluid ports: an inlet for introducing the first fluid, an outlet for discharging the first fluid, an inlet for introducing the second fluid, and an outlet for discharging the second fluid. The hollow fibers may be potted on both ends, within the housing, to form polymeric tube sheets with the fiber bores opening on each end into common first and second end cap portions of the shell. In a "tube-side" or "lumen-side" contactor, the first end cap may contain the inlet for the first fluid, which is designated the "tube-side" or "lumen-side" fluid because it is the fluid that passes through the internal lumens of the fibers. The second end cap may contain the outlet for discharging the lumen-side fluid. The second fluid, designated the "shell-side" fluid, typically enters and exits the housing through inlet and outlet ports arranged between the tube sheets, whereby the shell-side fluid contacts the external surfaces of the fibers, flows through the interstices between fibers of the fiber bundle, and may be directed to flow parallel or perpendicular to the fiber length. As an example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,352,361 to Prasad, et al., incorporated by reference herein in its entirety, may assist in a background understanding of fluid contact across hollow fiber membranes within a shell.
In a "shell-side" contactor, the contactor may include a central core which passes through the end caps and has a first end serving as the inlet for the first fluid, which is designated the "shell-side" fluid because it is the fluid that passes over the exterior or shell of the hollow fibers. The first end cap may contain the inlet for the second fluid, which is designated the "tube-side" or "lumen-side" fluid because it is the fluid that passes through the internal lumens of the fibers. The second end cap may contain the outlet for discharging the lumen-side fluid. The first fluid, designated the "shell-side" fluid, typically enters and exits the housing through inlet and outlet ports (open ends) of a perforated core, and typically exits and re-enters the perforations in the core between the tube sheets whereby the shell-side fluid contacts the external surfaces of the fibers. The shell-side fluid flows through the interstices between fibers of the fiber bundle, and may be directed to flow parallel or perpendicular to the fiber length.
Because the tube sheets separate the lumen-side fluid from the shell-side fluid, the lumen-side fluid does not mix with the shell-side fluid, and the only transfer between the lumen-side fluid and the shell-side fluid occurs through the walls of the hollow fibers. The fine pores in the fiber wall are normally filled with a stationary layer of one of the two fluids, the other fluid being excluded from the pores due to surface tension and/or pressure differential effects. Mass transfer and separation are usually caused by diffusion, which is driven by the difference in concentration or pressure of the transferring species between the two phases. Typically, no convective or bulk flow occurs across the membrane.
In the case of gas/liquid separations, membrane contactors are typically fabricated with hydrophobic hollow fiber microporous membranes. Since the membranes are hydrophobic and have very small pores, liquid will not easily pass through the pores. The membranes act as an inert support that brings the liquid and gas phases into direct contact, without dispersion. The mass transfer between the two phases is governed by the difference in partial pressure of the gas species being transferred.
For liquid systems, the liquid/liquid interface at each pore is typically immobilized by the appropriate selection of membrane and liquid phase pressures. In this case, the membrane also acts as an inert support to facilitate direct contacting of two immiscible phases without mixing.
Such known membrane contactors can be utilized for a variety of applications, including the separation of a component from a fluid or transferring a component of one fluid to another. For example, a membrane contactor can be used in removal of contaminants from an effluent stream. In many industrial processes, a contaminated effluent stream is generated as a by-product. In view of environmental concerns, and/or efforts to improve process efficiency, it is often desirable to remove one or more contaminants from the effluent stream so that the contaminant does not pollute the environment, does not harm equipment, or so that it may be recycled. Existing industrial processes frequently must be upgraded to reduce environmental emissions and/or increase efficiency. Therefore, a need often arises for a process and system that can be economically retrofit to an existing plant or process to reduce emissions, protect equipment, recycle, and/or improve efficiency.
Several factors may be important in the design of membrane contactors, including separation characteristics, cost, pressure drop, weight, and efficiency. The pressure drop across a contactor should be low to reduce the need for more expensive high pressure equipment. Low pressure drop is of particular importance in retrofit projects where a membrane contactor is to be added at the discharge point of an effluent process stream, as the process pressure at this point is typically at or near atmospheric pressure. High efficiency of mass transfer is desirable for reducing the size of the contactor. Low weight is desirable for decreasing installation and maintenance costs, and is of particular importance in offshore applications. At least certain existing membrane contactors have been found less than fully satisfactory in meeting these goals, for particular applications, for extreme conditions, or the like. For example, the shell portion of typical membrane contactors adds considerably to their weight and expense. Shell-type contactors also typically must operate at elevated pressures.
Baffled membrane contactors capable of separating fluids are known, for example, see U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,264,171; 5,352,361; and 5,938,922, each of which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety. At least certain of such contactors may include a perforated center tube, a plurality of hollow fibers surrounding the tube, tube sheets affixing the ends of the hollow fibers, a baffle located between the tube sheets, and a shell surrounding the tube, fibers, tube sheets, and baffle. Other than as disclosed in the U.S. Pat. No. 5,938,922 patent, the fibers are usually open at the baffle so that there is fluid communication through the hollow fiber lumen from one tube sheet to the other. U.S. Pat. No. 5,938,922 discloses having the fibers closed at the baffle to prevent fluid communication through the hollow fiber lumen near the midpoint of the fibers between the tube sheets.
Such contactors capable of separating fluids, for example, dissolved gas from water, have numerous industrial applications. Those applications include: rust prevention systems for boilers or power plant turbines; rust prevention systems for drinking water, cooling water, or hot water pipe lines; ultra-pure water sources for the electronics industry (e.g., rinsing semiconductor wafers during manufacture); ultrasonic cleaning processes; water sources for food processing; and the like.
Two of the foregoing applications are of particular interest. They are rust prevention in water pipe lines and ultra-pure water sources for the electronics industry. In each application, the removal of dissolved oxygen from water is extremely important. In water pipe lines, the oxygen reacts with dissolved iron or iron from the pipe line to form rust that may precipitate. In potable water, the rust precipitate is unattractive and causes staining; and in pipe lines, it can cause occlusion of the pipe. In the electronics industry, ultra-pure water is used to rinse semiconductor wafers during manufacture. Dissolved oxygen in the rinse water can etch the surface of the wafer and destroy it; it can also coat the wafer surface and prevent effective rinsing. Accordingly, the removal of dissolved gasses from water is extremely important.
Also, current designs of most membrane contactors are effective for some applications, but may have certain issues or limitations related to, for example, the degassing of high flow rate liquids and/or high pressure liquids, such as seawater at about 50 gpm or more and/or about 300 psi or more, high pressure ratings, ASME code ratings, customer familiarity and acceptance, high cost, high weight, use of metal or other corrosive materials, modularity, replaceable self contained cartridges, porting options, module size, module array size, high pressure cartridges, excessively long fibers, liquid flow rates, gas concentration variation, do not allow for commercial production, low cycle life, low pressure rating, cartridge failure, and/or the like.
High flow rate, high pressure membrane contactors have long been the subject of interest to membrane contactor developers. For example, selected gas transfer membrane contactors developed and manufactured by the Liqui-Cel business of Membrana-Charlotte a division of Celgard, LLC of Charlotte, N.C. can handle high flow rate (up to 400 gpm) and high pressure (up to 300 psi) liquids.
With the exception of the recent use of, for example, Liqui-Cel® Extra-Flow™ membrane contactor systems and Liqui-Cel® 8×80-inch high pressure membrane contactor systems, most large scale industrial degasification systems still utilize very large vacuum towers to degasify water, seawater, and the like. For example, power plants and offshore oil rigs typically use large vacuum towers (30 feet tall or more) to degass water, process water, storage tank water, seawater, salt water, or the like. The unique Liqui-Cel® 8×80-inch high pressure membrane contactors were developed and manufactured by the Liqui-Cel business of Membrana-Charlotte a division of Celgard, LLC of Charlotte, N.C. and are described and shown as at least one embodiment in U.S. published patent application 2011/0036240 A1, published Feb. 17, 2011, based on U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/857,199 filed Aug. 16, 2010, to Taylor et al., entitled "High Pressure Liquid Degassing Membrane Contactors and Methods of Manufacturing and Use", which is hereby fully incorporated by reference herein. In at least selected embodiments, the high pressure membrane contactors of U.S. published application 2011/0036240 A1 have a high pressure vessel or housing enclosing at least one membrane cartridge including a perforated core, a plurality of hollow fiber membranes, a tube sheet affixing each end of the hollow fibers, and a shell or casing.
A need still exists for new or improved membrane contactors having improved characteristics over known membrane contactors, for use in particular applications, for use in extreme conditions, or the like. Also, there exists a need to develop new or improved contactors and systems for the degassing of liquids. Further, a need exists for an improved microporous hollow fiber membrane device and/or method having improved characteristics over known membrane contactors, methods, or the like. Yet further, there exists a need for a new or improved liquid degassing membrane contactor that may allow for relatively small, modular, degassing modules to be used in industrial processes, at power plants, on offshore oil rigs or drilling platforms, to replace or augment vacuum towers, to provide the benefits of modularity and replaceable cartridges, and/or the like. Still further, there is a need for a new or improved liquid degassing membrane contactor and methods of manufacture and/or use thereof, a new or improved high pressure liquid degassing membrane contactor and/or methods of manufacture and/or use thereof, a new or improved high pressure liquid degassing system, and/or the like. And even still yet further, there is a need for new or improved membrane contactors, cartridges, components, systems, their methods of manufacture and/or use, and/or means and/or methods of enhancing the robustness, operation pressures, cycle life, and the like of such membrane contactors, cartridges, components, and systems, new or improved high pressure liquid degassing membrane contactors, cartridges, components, systems, and/or their methods of manufacture and/or use, and/or means and/or methods of enhancing the robustness, operation pressures, cycle life, and the like of such membrane contactors, cartridges, components, and systems, new or improved apparatus for and/or methods of degassing a high pressure liquid having entrained or dissolved gases with an improved hollow fiber membrane contactor, cartridge, component, and/or system, and/or new or improved contactors having a high pressure vessel or housing enclosing at least one improved membrane cartridge including a perforated core, a plurality of hollow fiber membranes, a tube sheet affixing each end of the hollow fibers, a shell or casing, and one or more shims, spacers, protrusions, and/or the like on the shell, on the housing, on the shell and on the housing, and/or between the shell and the housing.

Contactors, cartridges, components, systems, and related methods


Cash transaction machine and method for receiving and/or dispensing money by user's manipulation to transact the money includes a bill receptacle, a bill dispense port, a bill storage and a transport unit for transporting the bill between the receptacle and/or the dispense port, a disinfection unit, and the storage. The bills received and/or to be dispensed are disinfected by the disinfection unit arranged in the transport unit by heating the bills by a heated roller, irradiating the bills by an ultraviolet ray from an ultraviolet ray lamp or applying disinfecting liquid to the bills. Alternatively, the bills are disinfected by a disinfection unit arranged in the storage by heating the bills by a heater or irradiating an electromagnetic wave to the bills.

The present invention relates to the cash transaction machine, and a more particularly to cash transaction machine and method for receiving cash (bills and coins) thrown in by a user of an automatic teller machine, an automatic charge paying machine or an automatic vending machine, transacting it by user's manipulation and redispensing cash as required.
In an automatic teller machine shown in JP-A-62-42296, the machine receives cash (bills and coins) thrown in by a user, transacts (receives) it by the user's manipulation and stores it in a bill storage box. It also transacts (pays) cash by the user's manipulation, takes bills out of the bill storage box and dispenses them to the user. In an automatic vending machine or an automatic ticketing machine, it receives cash thrown in by a user, transacts (dispenses commodities or issues a tcket) by th user's manipulation, and dispenses change as required. In those machines, the cash thrown in by the users are discharged as dispensing cash or change. Accordingly, dirty bills or coins may be included in the dispensed cash.
Money is transferred from many sources of people to other people and it is sometimes desired to clear the dirty money for the users or the manager of the machine. JP-A-47-45997, JP-A-49-24194 and JP-A-63-66059 disclose machines which sterilize and disinfect bills, but those are exclusively used for the sterilization and disinfection. Thus, in order to sterilize and disinfect the bills, the manager of the machine must handle the dirty bills and put them into the machine. Accordingly, it is not possible to automatically sterilize and disinfect the money without intervention of the manager in a machine such as the cash transaction machine which receives the cash thrown in by the user, transacts it by the user's manipulation, and redischarges the thrown-in cash as dispensing money or change.

Cash transaction machine and method with money disinfection


A storage structure for a craft is mounted in a recess 1 which is disposed inside the ship 10 and at a safe distance from the water line of the ship 10 so as to store a craft 20. A guide rail 6a of a launching device 6 is installed on a deck 3 which is the ceiling plate of the recess 1 in such a manner that the guide rail is inclined downward toward the port 1a of the recess 1. At the gate 1a, a lower gate 13 and an upper gate 12 are installed. A winch 15 for opening/closing the lower gate 13 is mounted on the deck 3. The upper gate 12 is automatically opened by the movement of the craft 20 by gravity caused by the removal of a stop 6d. A winch 11 is mounted for the launching of the craft. 20.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a storage structure for crafts, such as lifeboats, combined tender/life boats, rescue boats, work boats, life rafts, and pleasure boats, in marine structures, such as ships, barges, offshore platforms.
2. Description of the Related Art
On a passenger ship as shown in FIGS. 8 and 9, lifeboats 20 have so far been stored by being suspended with ropes or cables 8 outside and in front of the windows of cabins 23 or general purpose spaces (as shown at the right in FIG. 8) or suspended with ropes or cables 8 in exposed positions outside the uppermost superstructure 24 (as shown at the right in FIG. 9).
In FIGS. 8 and 9 the launching condition of a lifeboat 20 is shown on their left hand side, and reference numeral 25 denotes a launching device and 26 denotes a hanging arm.
Such a conventional storage apparatus for small boats such as lifeboats has the following problems:
(1) The boats and life rafts and the launching equipment are exposed to weather and external damages.
(2) The lifeboats obstruct an outside view from the cabins 23, leading to a decrease in the value of the cabins and, in turn, income from the cabins.
(3) When the lifeboats are stored at the uppermost level of the superstructure, the distance is large between the water surface 21 and the storage/boarding position, and the lifeboats can possibly be put in danger during launching because of movement of the ship and the crafts in rough weather.

Enclosed shelter for storing boats and life rafts in marine structures


Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on computer storage media, for distributed data management. One of the methods includes converting a standard specification for a software package into a custom specification for a software deployment tool that deploys the software package on one or more distributed computing systems, parsing source files and corresponding configuration files to determine configuration parameters and custom values, writing the determined configuration parameters into a custom template, and updating the custom specification with the determined custom values for the configuration parameters and information associated with the custom template.

This specification relates to cloud computing.
In cloud computing, data can be distributed to a system of multiple computers connected by one or more communications networks. Each computer can host one or more servers, each of which processes a portion of the data. The servers can process the data in parallel. Such a distributed computing system can handle web-oriented and data-intensive applications deployed in a virtualized environment. In some cases, developers deploy their software packages across multiple distributed computing systems. However, different distributed computing systems may have different underlying infrastructures, which can cause complexity for the developers deploying their software packages on the different distributed computing systems.


An inclinable mixer for mixing bulk material is provided herein. The inclined mixer comprises a mixing chamber which comprises a longitudinal trough defined by a first and second side wall oppositely opposed, the trough having a front end opposite a back end, a discharge opening positional substantially in the bottom of the chamber toward the back end, and a front wall spanning the front end of the trough. The mixer also comprises an auger situated longitudinally in the trough for mixing bulk material, and a driving device for rotating the auger when a driving force is applied, wherein the mixing chamber is inclined at least during mixing such that the back end is raised relative the front end.

In the agricultural industry, mixers are often used for mixing bulk materials such as for example feed for animals and compost. Mixing such materials allows for better distribution of the material and results in less variance.
Ideally, mixing of the bulk material imparts minimal compaction of the material and decreased variance among the mixed bulk material.
Current mixing devices impart compaction to the bulk material that can be overly dense or does not allow ideal air within the mixed bulk material. Further, various current mixing devices require overly long mix times and/or high amounts of power consumption to achieve a desired level of variance.
A need therefore exists for a mixing device that allows for a higher quality mix that requires less power consumption and/or less mixing time and that may also achieve a more desirable level of variance and/or a more desired level of compaction in the mixed bulk material.


This invention relates to a low profile collapsible hitch for use in securing a container or a trailer on a transport carrier having a vertical strut assembly having an upper end for supporting a king pin receiving plate and a lower end pivotally secured by a pivot mount assembly secured to a deck of the transport carrier, a diagonally extending strut assembly having an upper end pivotally connected to the upper end of the vertical strut assembly and having a lower end pivotally connected to a locking hook assembly which is slidable along the surface of the deck, an anchor for limiting the movement of the diagonal strut assembly during erection of said apparatus, a pair of lock blocks engageable by the locking hook assembly for locking the vertical strut assembly in erected position, the anchor and the lock blocks defining therebetween a path for reciprocal movement of the lower end of the diagonally extending support strut assembly, and release members associated with each of the lock blocks and cooperatively engageable with the locking hook assembly for collapsing the load supporting apparatus, and a retarding device coupled to the locking hook assembly for retarding the collapse of the apparatus.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a collapsible support for containers, semi-trailers, and the like, and particularly to a collapsible support or hitch having a supporting mounting plate or "fifth wheel" designed to engage a king pin or the like of the containers, such as highway semi-trailers which are loaded upon railway cars for transport, the collapsible support having a low profile when it is in the storage position to accommodate the passage thereover of vehicles having low ground clearance, and to allow the stowage of cargo containers on top of the collapsed hitch.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Although many improvements have been made generally in trailer hitches, the primary concern in the prior art is with hitches provided with collapsible supports which present a low profile on a deck of a carrier vehicle, such as described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,497,169, describing a "LOW-PROFILE HITCH FOR ROAD SEMI-TRAILER". This known hitch requires the use of a box-like rigid base providing a structure for a slide assembly and a cushion assembly.


A new and distinct Forsythia plant named ‘MNICH01’ particularly distinguished by new foliage growth exhibiting solid yellow coloration, unique leaf margin variegation on maturing leaves, leaf margin variegation that extends the showy period of the plant beyond the spring flowering period, and reduced plant size providing more compact plant form when compared to other standard commercial Forsythia cultivars, as disclosed.

The present invention comprises a new and distinct variety of Forsythia plant, botanically known as Forsythia x intermedia, and hereinafter referred to by the variety name 'MNICH01'. This new Forsythia plant was discovered in 1997 by the inventor as a single branch mutation of Forsythia plant 'Lynwood Gold' (unpatented) growing in a cultivated area of a residence located in Dearing, Ga. The branch mutation was selected by the inventor based on its unique variegated leaf pattern. The branch mutation was removed from the original plant in 1997 and planted and rooted in a non-publicly accessible area of a commercial greenhouse located in Dearing, Ga. The single branch mutation was grown and further propagated the following year by vegetative stem cuttings. Plants of the new Forsythia variety were further propagated, grown and evaluated over the next 17 years to determine the stability of the unique variegated leaf pattern. 'MNICH01' has been found to retain its distinctive characteristics and has been found to be stable and reproduce true-to-type through over six generations of asexual reproduction by vegetative stem cuttings.
Plant Breeders Rights for this variety have not been applied for. 'MNICH01' has not been made publicly available or sold anywhere in the world prior to the effective filing date of this application.


A press station for a forming machine for forming articles from paper has a chamber consisting of two halves. The two halves of the chamber are able to be closed together and the chamber can be evacuated through a main vacuum manifold in order to bring the upper die mounted on a first platen into pressing contact with a fragile moulding positioned on a second platen in order to form the required article.

A known forming machine for making such components requires a relatively massive surrounding frame to withstand the pressures applied during a press operation at a press station of the machine. The force required to press the paper pulp or slurry into the required shape at the press station may be in the order of 20 tons or so and is usually provided by hydraulics. Consequently, the frame needs to be extremely strong to continually withstand the very considerable forces involved and the cost of the massive frame tends to add very considerably to the overall costs. The cost of the frame will depend upon the size of the machine itself but, typically, may be in the order of .English Pound.135,000 or so. There may be other disadvantages of the machine related to providing the required pressing force; such disadvantages may relate e.g. to the additional bulk of the machine (i.e. hydraulic ram) and/or to additional noise or inconvenience of operation or even undue inefficiency. Furthermore, the press station is normally pre-set to press the article being formed under a particular pressure to a particular thickness. Thus, it tends to be disadvantageous that, since the machine has been preset to operate at a particular pressure to press a particular article to a certain thickness, there is little control to vary the applied pressure and/or thickness of the article (without resetting press dies) more particularly in a controlled way to vary the quality and/or characteristics of the article in an accurately predictable manner. Additionally, it may be that the temperature required for drying the pressed article is higher than need be the case and/or the drying time may be longer than need be the case. At least in some instances, known press stations may not be able to produce the required shape of an article accurately enough (e.g. a 1.degree. or 2.degree. angle on a product 100 millimeters deep). Furthermore, the actual finish on every surface of the article may not be suitably consistent (e.g. the inside surface of an egg box formed from paper pulp is usually irregular and not as aesthetically pleasing as the exterior).
It is believed that known forming production methods for articles made from paper or fibre may not provide an article which is of a similar quality to that which can be produced from plastics or polystyrene (at least in some respects) and this tends to adversely affect the marketability of articles formed from paper/fibre.


A method for mitigating image distortions induced by optical wave propagation through a random media (e.g., atmospheric turbulence or volume of water) from a stream of video data provided by a single shortexposure image sensor is described. The method is based on the two following sequential steps: (1) enhancement of the raw video stream and (2) fusion of the enhanced stream using the lucky region fusion (LRF) technique. The first step enhances features of the raw image stream the LRF method success is based on and especially mitigates the effect of low light level, aerosol pollution, dust, haze, and other deteriorating factors. The second step, fusion of the enhanced stream, is realized by sequentially merging image regions with highest quality within a temporal buffer into a single image before sliding the temporal window forward. The process is continuously repeated in order to generate a stream of fused images. The resulting fused stream hence has an image quality superior to that of any image within the buffer and demonstrates improved contrast as well as increased detail visualization. In addition, the disclosed invention offers a method for automated extraction of random media (atmospheric turbulence for example) characteristics needed for optimizing the LRF method performance. Based solely on analysis of the enhanced video stream, this has the advantage to eliminate the need for turbulence strength characterization devices (e.g., scintillometer) and it allows the invention to provide an optimal fused stream even when operating within an evolving environment.

Imaging through a random media such as the atmosphere or a volume of water results in images that are deteriorated for two different reasons: (1) optical wave propagation through a turbulent media induces wavefront aberrations that cause images to be distorted randomly and restrain imaging systems from achieving diffraction-limited performance, and (2) imaging conditions such as low light level, haze, dust, aerosol pollution, etc. usually result in images that are noisy, with reduced contrast and visibility. The combination of both deteriorating factors causes severe performance limitations to imaging systems operating in such conditions.
Over time, a number of techniques had been used to compensate for turbulence-induced aberrations. Among electro-mechanical solutions to the problem, the most significant is conventional adaptive optics (AO) [U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,046,824; 5,026,977; 5,684,545], a technique developed originally for astronomical observations. Conventional AO successfully achieves near-diffraction-limited imaging, but suffers from anisoplanatism which restricts the correctable field-of-view (FOV) to small angular extents. Though multiple-guide-star AO and multi-conjugate AO systems [U.S. Pat. No. 6,452,146] attempted to extend the FOV, it angular extent is still limited to value typically in the order of 1/10th degree.
Based on a different approach, a number of digital processing techniques had been developed and demonstrated image quality improvements in the case of weak anisoplanatism conditions (narrow FOV) but generally fail otherwise. Techniques based on block-processing (or mosaic processing) can reconstruct images over anisoplanatic FOV's but usually require the knowledge of the point spread function (PSF) which is unavailable in most applications. Another approach, referred to as "lucky" imaging, consists in selecting best quality frames from a stream of short-exposure images using an image quality metric. The problem with that approach is the low probability of appearance of a good quality image under anisoplanatic conditions.
Techniques referred to as synthetic imaging or lucky-region fusion (LRF) which overcome most shortfalls of techniques previously mentioned and compensates turbulence-induced distortions while succeeding under anisoplanatic conditions had been developed. In fact, the LRF method has essentially no limitation to its effective FOV and performs successfully over angular extents hundreds of times larger than the isoplanatic angle. The techniques consist in fusing best quality regions within a stream of short-exposure images based on their local image quality. It owes its robustness during operation under anisoplanatic conditions to the use of a tool which characterizes locally the quality of an image: an image quality map (IQM).
Though a number of other fusion techniques exist, they do not aim to mitigate random image distortions U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,661,986; 5,140,416; 5,325,449; 5,881,163; 6,201,899; 6,320,979; 6,898,331; 7,176,963. Additionally, they typically require either two or more image sensors either special hardware such as moving lenses or moving sensor for example. On the contrary, the LRF technique successfully mitigates random image distortions and has the advantage to require only one image sensor to collect a stream of randomly-distorted images.
The downfall of most image processing techniques is to operate directly on the raw data stream collected by the image sensor(s) and their performance therefore depends strongly on the imaging conditions such as the light level, aerosol pollution, dust, haze, and other deteriorating factors.
The present invention includes a step prior to applying the LRF algorithm specifically designed for enhancing image quality in the raw data stream that are most critical to a successful fusion. It especially mitigates the effect of low light level, dust, haze, aerosol pollution, and other deteriorating factors.

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


Poly(aryleneethynylene) polymers, poly(ferrocenylaryleneethynylene) polymers and poly(ferrocenylethynylene) polymers having properties particularly useful for solubilizing nanomaterials and for effecting subsequent re-solubilization of a solid polymer-solubilized nanomaterial, and compositions and methods thereto are provided.

Pristine nanotubes are generally insoluble in common solvents and polymers. Such nanotubes are also difficult to chemically functionalize without altering the desirable intrinsic properties of nanotubes. Single-walled nanotubes (SWNTs) have been solubilized in organic solvents and water by polymer wrapping (Dalton et al., (J. Phys. Chem. B (2000) 104, 10012); Star et al. (Angew. Chem., Int. Ed. (2001) 40, 1721), and O'Connell et al. (Chem. Phys. Lett. (2001) 342, 265)), and noncovalently functionalized by adhesion of small molecules for protein immobilization (Chen et al., (J. Am. Chem. Soc. 123:3838 (2001))). The polymer wrapping approach works poorly for dissolution of small diameter SWNTs possibly due to unfavorable polymer conformations.
A process of noncovalent functionalization and solubilization of carbon nanotubes is described by Chen, J. et al. (J. Am. Chem. Soc., 124, 9034 (2002)) which process results in excellent nanotube dispersion using a nonwrapping approach. SWNTs were solubilized in chloroform with poly(phenyleneethynylene)s (PPE) along with vigorous shaking and/or short bath-sonication as described by Chen et al. (ibid) and in U.S. Patent Publication No. U.S. 2004/0034177 published Feb. 19, 2004, and U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/318,730 filed Dec. 13, 2002; the contents of such patent applications are incorporated by reference herein in their entirety. The rigid backbone of a PPE cannot wrap around the SWNT in contrast to the polymer wrapping approach described above. The major interaction between the polymer backbone and the nanotube surface is described as parallel π-stacking. Thin film visible and near-infrared spectroscopy of PPE-solubilized nanomaterial demonstrated that the electronic structures are basically intact after solubilization. One such PPE-solubilized nanomaterial sample was obtained by filtration and redissolved in chloroform to a concentration of about 0.1 to 0.2 mg/mL (Chen et al. (ibid) and in U.S. Patent Publication No. U.S. 2004/0034177 published Feb. 19, 2004, and U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/318,730 filed Dec. 13, 2002).
Further rigid polymers for solubilizing nanomaterials, compositions, and methods therefore are described herein.

Polymers for enhanced solubility of nanomaterials, compositions and methods therefor


Proposed are a highly reliable storage system and its control method capable of accelerating the processing speed of the copy processing seen from the host device.

Conventionally, the copy processing whose copy source and copy destination are specified by addresses is performed by reading data from the copy source address and writing the data to the copy destination address.
One of the methods for shortening the processing time for this type of copy processing is using caches accessible in a short time and performing copy in the caches. By this method, when the relevant copy processing is completed, even before writing the data to the copy destination disk, the data can be accessed from the host device.
As another technology related to the internal copy function, the technology of, when performing the copy processing in units of logical volumes, reporting the completion of the relevant copy processing to the host device before completing the copy processing and then performing the copy processing in the background exists.

Storage system and a control method for accelerating the speed of copy processing

Abstract: With the storage system and its control method which stores a command issued from a host device in a command queue and executes the command stored in the command queue in the order that the command was stored in command queue, a copy queue is set for temporarily retaining a copy command among the commands issued from the host device in the memory, the copy command among the commands is moved from the host device stored in the command queue to the copy queue and an execution completion reply of copy processing according to the command is sent to the host device as a sender of the command, and the copy command that was moved to the copy queue is executed in the background in the order that the copy command was stored in the copy queue.


A circuit protection device is applied to a power supply module. The circuit protection device includes a judgment module and a control module. The judgment module includes a comparing unit, a feedback unit and a reset unit. The comparing unit has an output terminal, a first input terminal and a second input terminal. The feedback unit is electrically connected to the output terminal and the first input terminal. The reset unit is electrically connected to the feedback unit and the first input terminal. The control module is electrically connected to the comparing unit and the reset unit of the judgment module. The comparing unit receives a first reference signal representing the output current of the power supply module and a second reference signal representing the output voltage of the power supply module, and outputs a judgment signal to the control module.

1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates to a circuit protection device and protection method.
2. Related Art
The power supplier, such as the power converter or charger, is used to apply a stable voltage and/or current to a load. In order to provide a safety and qualified operation environment for the user and the electronic apparatus, a circuit protection device is configured in the power supplier. Accordingly, when the short circuit or over current is happened, the circuit protection device can limit the output power of the power supplier, and may further cease the operation of the power supplier. This function can prevent the permanent damage of the power supplier and the load connected with the power supplier.
As shown in FIG. 1A, a conventional circuit protection device 1 directly uses an operational amplifier to detect the current for determining whether the over current or short circuit happens or not. Although the conventional circuit protection device 1 has simple circuit design, it is not suitable for the power supplier with the rated output of a large current. In details, the threshold for enabling the conventional circuit protection device 1 is a constant value, and the circuit protection device 1 will be enabled after the over current excesses the threshold. Accordingly, for the power supplier with the rated output of a large current (e.g. larger than 150 A), the internal components of the power supplier and the load connected to the power supplier have been burdened with a huge stress before the enablement of the circuit protection device 1.
FIG. 1B is a schematic graph showing the waveform while the circuit protection device 1 is enabled, wherein the circuit protection device 1 is configured in a power supplier with the rated output current of 150 A. If the internal components of the power supplier or the load are malfunctioned (e.g. short circuit) before the power supplier starts to operate, the start current CS of the power supplier is an instantaneous large current. Besides, since the circuit protection device 1 is enabled after the start current CS reaches the threshold T, the components and load may be damaged due to the start current CS, which excesses the rated spec. This damage may further cause the danger of the user. In other words, in the power supplier with the conventional circuit protection device 1, the internal components and the load may be impacted by the larger stress, so that they are easily damaged and have shortened lifetime.
In addition, since the conventional circuit protection device 1 usually has simple circuit design, it does not have the latch and reset functions. This design restricts the application of the circuit protection device 1.
Therefore, it is an important subject of the invention to provide a circuit protection device and protection method that can decrease the threshold for enabling the protection function, so that the circuit protection device can fast respond to protect the power supplier, thereby minimizing the damage of the internal components and improving the reliability and utility.

Circuit protection device and protection method