A measurement device for measuring an internal quality of a fruit or vegetable with light is intended to be able to obtain the internal quality at higher speed and with accuracy. In the measurement device of the internal quality, transmitted light through the fruit or vegetable is split into a plurality of frequency regions and the measurement device is provided with a plurality of processing circuits for carrying out intensity data calculating operations simultaneously and in parallel for the respective frequency regions.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an apparatus for measuring the quality, such as internal sugariness or the like, of the greengrocery (fruits and vegetables) such as oranges, melons, watermelons, and so on on a non-destructive basis and, more particularly, to a processing circuit for processing initial data obtained by the measurement at higher speed and with higher accuracy.
2. Related Background Art
In general, the internal quality of the fruits or vegetables before shipping has been evaluated heretofore mainly by visual inspection of skilled inspectors. Certain fruits or vegetables, if harvested or shipped in a full ripe state, would undergo deterioration of taste, saccharification of sarcocarp, etc. on the market. Therefore, such fruits or vegetables are harvested in an unripe state and thereafter are made to stand under fixed temperature to effect afterripening into an edible state. It was also conventional practice to judge completion of the afterripening by visual inspection of inspectors as above, but it was difficult to make an accurate judgment, because there were no definite criteria for such evaluation of the internal quality of fruits or vegetables.
On the other hand, based on the fact that when near-infrared light is projected onto the fruits or vegetables, such components as sugars, acids, or the like in the fruits or vegetables absorb light of specific wavelengths, it is possible to know the internal quality, such as the sugariness or the like, of the fruits or vegetables by analyzing the light transmitted by the fruits or vegetables and there are known methods for determining the internal quality of the fruits or vegetables on a non-destructive basis, using the transmitted light of the near-infrared light.
Specifically, FIG. 13 is an example to show a schematic diagram of a measurement device for measuring the internal quality of the fruits or vegetables. In FIG. 13, inspected objects 5, which are the fruits or vegetables, are conveyed on a conveyor system 10, for example, such as a conveyor or the like, and in that state the internal quality of the inspected objects 5 is measured continuously. First, the existence of an inspected object 5 on the conveyor system is checked by a position sensor 11. Then a light source 1 radiates light having a predetermined frequency region (which will be referred to hereinafter simply as light) toward the inspected object 5 at a predetermined position A on the conveyor system. Among the radiated light, light of certain wavelengths is absorbed by sugars or the like existing in the inspected object 5 and thereafter the light is transmitted by the inspected object 5 to the outside. This transmitted light is measured by a light receiving element 2 and the transmitted light obtained by this measurement is analyzed in a signal processing device 12, thereby permitting us to know the internal quality of the inspected object 5.
In the practical evaluation of the internal quality of fruits or vegetables, however, the light used in the spectral analysis of fruits or vegetables has a wide frequency region and, in order to obtain the accurate internal quality by signal processing in practice, it is necessary to split the frequency region into a plurality of frequency regions and carry out the signal processing for each of the split frequency regions. Conceivable methods for the division and signal processing of the frequency region include methods of 1) and 2) described below.
1) Interference filters, each transmitting only light in a predetermined frequency region, are prepared in the number of their frequency regions equal to the number of split measurement frequency regions, the filters are continuously changed one by one at a light receiving portion of the light receiving element, so as to continuously send the transmitted light of the split frequency regions to the signal processing device, and the signal processing device carries out the signal processing therewith. One measurement operation for the measured frequency region is completed after the filters all have passed the light receiving portion.
2) For example, as described in Japanese Laid-open Patent Application No. 7-22984, a diffraction grating for separating measured wavelengths is placed at the light receiving portion, the transmitted light after split is guided to an array having storage-type sensors in the number according to the number of separate regions, and after completion of one measurement, data stored is successively subject to signal processing by a single signal processing circuit (including an amplifier etc.).
Since the permissible time for the evaluation of quality in a grading process of fruits or vegetables is very short, the evaluation of fruits or vegetables under conveyance on the conveyor system has to be carried out continuously for the fruits or vegetables. However, since the internal quality of the fruits or vegetables varies considerably, depending upon measured regions thereof, the evaluation has to be carried out on a basis as continuous and in a range as wide as possible. For the accurate evaluation, sufficient light energy has to be accumulated with reception of the transmitted light.
In the case of the method of 1) described above, however, since the fruit or vegetable moves during switching of the interference filters, the measured regions are also shifted with the switching of the frequency regions and data for one frequency region out of the split frequency regions is discontinuous and partial in the measured region on the fruit or vegetable. Further, since the data obtained for the respective split frequency regions is one at different measured regions for the same reason, it is difficult to obtain the accurate measurement result of internal quality. The measurement time for each split frequency region becomes shorter and shorter as the number of split frequency regions increases. This would pose a problem that it is difficult to obtain the sufficient light energy of the transmitted light or the like.
In the case of the method of 2) described above, though the diffraction grating splits the transmitted light at one time, the data stored has to be sent serially from the array to the signal processing circuit. Therefore, data storage start times and storage end times for the respective split frequency regions are shifted in order according to the data transfer times. Since this temporal deviation in the data storage timing for each split wavelength is as small as ten and several msec, the problem of discontinuous measured regions on the fruit or vegetable or different measurement positions of data obtained for the respective split frequency regions, and the problem of decrease in the light energy stored per unit time are not so serious as compared with the case of the method of 1). This method was, however, inadequate in a sense of obtaining a more accurate measurement result of the internal quality of fruit or vegetable or in a sense of decreasing the permissible time for the measurement of quality. Further, this method needs a step of initialization to erase the data stored in each sensor on the array after completion of one measurement. This posed a problem in decreasing the time necessary for the measurement.
In the method 2) described above, a conceivable means for solving the above problem is an approach for increasing the storage time for each frequency region to several ten msec. In this approach, however, if during a certain period within the storage time abnormal intensity data appeared, for example, due to reception of external light other than the transmitted light on the light receiving element or due to the dust or the like attached to the fruit or vegetable, it was difficult to find out a profile of intensity data in the storage time and there was a possibility that the data including the abnormal value was used as it is.
Actual intensities of the transmitted light vary large depending upon the frequency regions and it is thus necessary to select an appropriate amplification factor on the occasion of the signal processing of stored data, set a base line according to the amplification factor, and then carry out the signal processing for calculating the internal quality. With decreasing the storage time, the number of signal processing operations and the number of initialization operations of each sensor also increased, which would raise the possibilities of increase of measurement errors caused by generation of heat due to increase of loads on the signal processing circuit and increase of the measurement time over the permissible time.
Further, in the practical evaluation of the internal quality of fruit or vegetable, the intensity of light through the inspected object 5 is very weak and it is thus necessary to eliminate influence of the external light except for the transmitted light present around the light receiving element 2. For that reason, the measurement system was placed in an unrepresented shield chamber capable of sufficiently intercepting the light from the outside of the apparatus. Further, a disk 8 having cutouts at a predetermined period on the circumference was located between the light source 1 and the inspected object 5, and the disk 8 was rotated by a motor 9 to change the light to pulsed light having the predetermined period. Then the signal processing was carried out with only the pulsed light, thereby eliminating the influence of external light.
In some cases, when the light radiated toward the inspected object 5 is received by the light receiving element 2, it includes not only the transmitted light passing through the inside of the inspected object 5, but also the other light than the transmitted light, resulting from reflection from other inspected objects conveyed before and after the inspected object 5 of interest or resulting from scattering, reflection, etc. due to the dust floating in the measurement system and particles etc. carried into the measurement system by the inspected objects 5 (such light will be referred to hereinafter as stray light). In order to eliminate this influence, the conventional countermeasures contemplated include a method for accommodating the inspected object 5, for example, in a bored shield basket and receiving the transmitted light through the bore, and the like.
The evaluation, however, has to be carried out with effecting high-speed conveyance in order to raise the efficiency of the evaluation of internal quality of fruits or vegetables, and the time necessary for the evaluation has to be decreased thereby. In this case, where the pulsed light is obtained by the aforementioned method, for example, stable operation of the motor 9 is required, but there is the limit in increasing the number of rotations. Even if the pulsed light is obtained by another method, the energy of the light received by the light receiving element 2 will be decreased because of the conversion to the pulsed light. It is, therefore, necessary to increase the energy of the light received in order to obtain the evaluation result with high accuracy.
Further, there recently also occurred some cases where it was difficult to receive the light in sufficient energy for obtaining the intensity data in order to know characteristics of the object unless non-pulsed light was used, depending upon the measured substance of the internal quality. In order to eliminate the influence of the external light without use of the pulsed light, it is effective to enhance the shield performance of the apparatus from the external light, but it increases the size of the apparatus. Therefore, there is the practical limit. Further, the stray light reaching the light receiving element could also increase if the intensity of the light radiated were increased in order to increase the energy of light.
In the actual measurement the internal quality of fruit or vegetable differs greatly depending upon measured regions, and the evaluation of internal quality thus has to be carried out in an area as large as possible. The size of the fruits or vegetables, however, differs considerably even in a single kind. It is thus preferable in practice to carry out the evaluation of internal quality with changing the measurement area according to each inspected object. The enlargement of the measured portion, however, could also increase the influence of the stray light at the same time.
A method for increasing the light energy is one for, with enhancing the shield state of the apparatus from the external light and increasing the intensity of radiated light, for example, splitting the transmitted light into a plurality of frequency regions by the diffraction grating or the like, receiving the transmitted light thus split, using storage-type line sensors or the like as light receiving elements, and, after a lapse of a predetermined time, obtaining the evaluation result by use of the stored data. This method can also further decrease the influence of the external light which has already been weakened by carrying out the initialization of each sensor every appropriate measurements. This method, however, would raise the possibility that when the light receiving element receives instantaneous stray light due to the particles or the like as described above, data is stored also including the stray light, thus failing to obtain an accurate evaluation result.
Even with use of the bored shield basket, the shape of fruits or vegetables is not fixed and it is thus difficult to completely eliminate the gap between the hole of the shield basket and the fruits or vegetables. This becomes more prominent in the case of high-speed conveyance. Therefore, sufficient removal of the stray light cannot be achieved by this method.
Further, in the actual evaluation of the internal quality of fruit or vegetable, the size or absorbance of the inspected objects 5 differs depending upon the individual inspected objects even in the evaluation of the internal quality of fruits or vegetables of a specific kind. It is, however, common practice to determine the internal quality of a fruit or vegetable with the transmitted light through the fruit or vegetable, based on a rate of absorbance of a specific wavelength according to the internal quality in the transmitted light. It is, therefore, possible to evaluate the quality with only the transmitted light from one inspected object and it is virtually possible to derive the evaluation result even if the sizes or transmittances of the individual objects are different.
However, for example, where the fruits are oranges, the differences in the size of the individual oranges, even of a single kind, would cause intensities of the transmitted light to vary by differences of two or more figures in intensity ratios thereof in practice. In general, it is necessary to raise the S/N ratios (ratios of signal to noise) for the accurate intensity analysis every wavelength. It was, however, difficult always to obtain the accurate measurement result of internal quality of all the oranges, i.e., the fruits or vegetables of the same kind, because the differences in the intensities of the transmitted light were too large among the oranges, as described previously.
Further, with a single fruit or vegetable, intensities are also often considerably different among the wavelengths. If a signal amplification factor was set in the signal processing device so as to obtain an accurate measurement result at a specific wavelength accurate evaluation could not be made at wavelengths different from the specific wavelength in certain cases.
In addition, the above-stated evaluation in the grading process of fruits or vegetables normally has to be carried out in a state in which they are conveyed by a conveying system, for example, such as a belt conveyor. In this case, the inspected objects 5 are positioned at random on the belt conveyor and the permissible analysis time for each inspected object is very short. Under such measurement conditions, continuous projection of the near-infrared light from the light source 1 is effective in reducing the measurement time.
In this case, even with consideration to the aforementioned problems related to the signal processing, there, however, occur states in which the inspected object 5 is absent between the light source 1 and the light receiving element 2 during the conveyance, so that the near-infrared light is received directly by the light receiving element 2. As a consequence, there arose the possibility that the base line (a value as a reference of measurement) varied of measured values of the signal processing device 12 connected to the light receiving element 2 or that the signal processing performance was degraded by increase of the temperature or the like in the internal circuits of the signal processing device 12 because of occurrence of too large voltage.

Measurement device and measurement method for measuring internal quality of fruit or vegetable


A semiconductor device having a large storage capacity per unit area is provided. The semiconductor device includes a memory transistor. The memory transistor includes a conductor including an opening, a first insulator provided in contact with an inner side of the opening, a second insulator provided in contact with an inner side of the first insulator, a third insulator provided in contact with an inner side of the second insulator, a first oxide provided in contact with an inner side of the third insulator, and a second oxide provided in contact with an inner side of the first oxide. An energy gap of the second oxide is narrower than an energy gap of the first oxide.

In recent years, with the increase in the amount of data handled, a semiconductor device having a larger storage capacity has been required. To increase storage capacity per unit area, stacking and forming memory cells is effective (see Patent Document 1 and Patent Document 2). Stacking memory cells can increase storage capacity per unit area depending on the number of stacked memory cells.

Semiconductor device, and method of manufacturing the semiconductor device

Semiconductor Energy Laboratory Co., Ltd.


An integrated circuit with programmable logic is provided. The programmable logic may include multiplexers that are actively used by a custom logic design or unused. To ensure that these multiplexers do not suffer from aging effects when they are not in use, the multiplexers may be provided with aging prevention circuitry. In particular, such a multiplexer may include an input selection stage that is coupled in series with a tristate buffer stage. The input selection stage may include pass transistors or full CMOS transmission gates. The tristate buffer stage may include at least two pairs of output driving transistors, with gates that are selectively shorted when the multiplexer is activated using additional transmission gate circuits. The aging prevention circuitry may include tie-off transistors that are activated to drive the gate-to-source voltages of the output driving transistors to zero volts whenever the multiplexer is not in use.

Modern integrated circuits may suffer from aging effects such as bias temperature instability (BTI) and hot carrier injection (HCl). Such aging effects may cause the behavior of transistors to degrade over time. For example, BTI will cause the threshold voltage of a transistor to change as a result of continued application of a high gate-to-source voltage on that transistor. Although this effect may be mitigated to some extent by reducing the voltage stress, this would reduce the performance of the circuit.
Integrated circuits such as programmable logic devices (PLD) often include performance critical circuits that are particularly vulnerable to aging effects. Programmable integrated circuits can be programmed by a user to implement a desired custom logic function. In particular, programmable integrated circuits include memory elements that are loaded with configuration data. These memory elements supply corresponding static control signals. The programmable integrated circuit includes programmable logic that receives the static control signals for long periods of time (e.g., static control signals having fixed polarities for six months or more).
For example, a PLD may be initially configured in a first state, with some portion of the programmable logic predominantly in one state or unused. Portions of the programmable logic that are biased to one state or are unused are especially prone to aging effects. After some time (e.g., a year or more), that PLD may be reconfigured to use the programmable logic as a clock or other delay-sensitive circuit. In this case, aged and unaged logic circuits may both be used in the same clock structure, thereby causing clock skew.
It is within this context that the embodiments herein arise.

Tristate multiplexers with immunity to aging effects


A power conversion apparatus includes a MOSFET having a channel and a body diode connected in parallel. The channel of the MOSFET becomes conductive according to a control signal, so that a flow path of a regenerative current of an inductor is formed, and the body diode of the MOSFET causes the regenerative current of the inductor to flow in a forward direction. The power conversion apparatus also includes a shunt resistor and a voltage measuring unit which measure an amount of a current flowing into the MOSFET. In addition, the power conversion apparatus includes a threshold designating unit which designates a threshold current amount, and a synchronous rectification prohibiting circuit which prohibits supplying the control signal when the amount of the current measured by the shunt resistor and the voltage measuring unit is greater than the threshold current amount designated by the threshold designating unit.

Widely available are power conversion apparatuses (a converter and an inverter, for example) which obtain a regulated voltage or a regulated current by intermittently supplying power from a power source to an inductor. Such a power conversion apparatus typically employs a free-wheeling diode. A free-wheeling diode rectifies a regenerative current obtained by: a voltage generating coil provided in the power conversion apparatus; and an inductor which is a load coil provided out of the power conversion apparatus.
FIG. 11 is a circuit diagram exemplifying a conventional boost converter.
A boost converter 100 shown in FIG. 11 includes a low-side metal oxide semiconductor field effect transistor (MOSFET) 13, and a high-side MOSFET 12. The MOSFETs 12 and 13 are periodically and exclusively turned on by a gate signal provided from a controller 3.
The MOSFET 12 and the MOSFET 13 respectively include a body diode 12a and a body diode 13a which are parasitic in parallel between a drain and a source.
The MOSFET 13 intermittently supplies power from a power source 14 to an inductor 16 in response to the gate signal provided from the controller 3. This intermittent power supply adds a voltage of the power source 14 to a voltage generated by a counter electromotive force of the inductor 16 to generate an output voltage. The output voltage is supplied to a load 15.
The body diode 12a included in the MOSFET 12 serves as a free-wheeling diode in order to rectify the regenerative current of the inductor 16 (a current supplied to the load 15 in this example).
In general, however, a forward voltage characteristic of a body diode included in a MOSFET is poor. Specifically, an active region having a low current level sees on-resistance of the body diode higher than that of the MOSFET. Thus, as described above, the MOSFET 12 is turned on while the MOSFET 13 is off, and the regenerative current generated by the inductor 16 is supplied to a channel of the MOSFET 12. This technique reduces conduction loss caused at the MOSFET 12. Such a technique, referred to as synchronous rectification, has been widely utilized.
FIG. 12 exemplifies characteristic curves where the gate voltages (Vg) are 0V, +5V, and +10V. Here, each of the characteristic curves represents relationship between a drain current (Id) and a drain-source voltage (Vds) observed at a typical power MOSFET (hereinafter referred to as an Si-MOSFET). The MOSFET is made of silicon (Si) and includes a body diode.
When Vg is 0V, the channel shows no conduction, and a drain current flows into only the body diode. This results in describing a characteristic curve of the body diode. When Vg is +10V or greater, the channel is completely conductive, and the drain current flows into only the channel. This results in describing a characteristic curve of the channel. When Vg is +5V, described is a characteristic curve intermediate between the characteristic curve of the body diode and the characteristic curve of the channel.
Such characteristics of the Si-MOSFET have been commonly known. In the case of a power conversion apparatus handling a practical amount of a drain current (2A to 3A or below in characteristic shown in the graph in FIG. 12, for example) provided under a constraint such as heat release of an element, the power conversion apparatus in general synchronously rectifies the drain current and supplies the drain current to the channel. Compared with the technique of supplying the drain current to the body diode, this technique drops a drain-source voltage, and reduces the conduction loss observed at the Si-MOSFET.
Another technique prohibits the synchronous rectification in the case where the amount of a drain current is so small that drive loss exceeds drain-source conduction loss, the drive loss which represents power used for controlling synchronous rectification including transmission. This technique makes sure to reduce the overall loss of a power conversion apparatus and improves power conversion efficiency (See Patent Reference 1, for example).
Silicon carbide is an excellent semiconductor material applied to a power conversion apparatus. Compared with an Si-MOSFET, an MOSFET made of SiC (referred to as SiC-MOSFET, hereinafter) has preferable characteristics, such as high in rated voltage, quick in response speed, and stable in an operation under a high temperature.
The voltage drop occurring in a pn junction of SiC is approximately 2.5V. This is greater than the voltage drop occurring in that of Si; that is, 0.6V. Hence, when the drain current flows into only the body diode in the SiC-MOSFET, at least a voltage drop of 2.5V occurs between the drain and the source. This conduction loss is greater than a similar case occurred in the Si-MOSFET.
Thus, the synchronous rectification is more important for the power conversion apparatus using the SiC-MOSFET than for the power conversion apparatus using the Si-MOSFET in order to achieve excellent power conversion efficiency.    Patent Reference 1: Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2000-23456.

Power conversion apparatus which performs power conversion with synchronous rectification


A wire-supplying device comprises wire-supplying drums (15) for supplying a plurality of wires (16), a wire-feeding roller (21) for feeding the plurality of wires (16), a weight roller (28) mounted on a sliding member (27) supported on rods (26) for vertical movement therealong, a stopping member (30) on the sliding member (27) for engagement with the rods (26) to stop vertical movement of the sliding member (27), and actuation means for moving and maintaining the stopping member (30) against the rods (26).

Electrical wire harnesses have been practically used as circuit components for a certain type of electrical machines and equipment, such wire harnesses having an electrical connector at one or both ends of a plurality of aligned wires. The wire harnesses are cut by the machine at a desired length of the plurality of aligned wires and assembled by terminating to an electrical connector at one end or electrical connectors at both ends of the wires. In this case, wires are continuously fed from wire supply units coupled to the harness-making machine.
Typically, the wire supply units comprise a plurality of wire-supplying drums, a wire-feeding roller, and a weight roller vertically slidably and supported to apply desired tension to the wires.
In assembling wire harnesses by feeding a plurality of aligned wires to the harness-making machine from the wire supply units, wire discontinuities are encountered due to exhausting all the wires on the wire-supplying drums or breaking of certain wires. When this happens, the wire harness-making machine and the wire supply units are stopped to take necessary measures so that the wires can be fed continuously before restarting their operations.
It is conventional practice to cut the non-broken wires so that the front ends of the non-broken wires are in alignment with the front ends of the broken and subsequent wires, including the wires supplied from the newly-added, fully-wound, wire-supplying drum. The group of wires with aligned front ends are then manually placed at the predetermined location in the wire harness-making machine. However, such conventional practice wastes wire. Alternately, only the broken portion of a broken wire is removed from the subsequent wire and the subsequent wire is carefully measured to be identical in length to the other wires before returning to the predetermined position in the harness-making machine. Moreover, such approach requires complicated steps to carefully pull the wire and is inefficient. The reason of carefully pulling the wire is to pull such wire through the weight roller without moving it so that the tension to the non-broken wires by the weight roller is not released while in turn not disturbing the proper alignment of the wires and consuming more time to correct the problem.

Wire-supplying device for manufacturing wire harnesses invention


An optical fibre, comprising a glass core 10 surrounded by a glass cladding (11) of lower refractive index, is provided with inner and outer relatively high modulus plastics layers (12 and 14) spaced apart by a relatively low modulus layer 13. The low modulus layer is applied from an aqueous dispersion, and is dried but not sintered. This leaves the layer (13) in a form in which it has little adherence to the underlying inner plastics layer (12), thereby enabling the outer layer (14) to be readily peeled by mechanical means.

This invention relates to plastics packaged glass optical fibres. Glass optical fibres, typically those made of fused silica, are normally provided with a plastics protective coating immediately after they are drawn from preform. A primary function of such a coating is to preserve, so far as is practically possible, the initial strength of the freshly drawn fibre by protecting its surface from chemical attack and from mechanical damage resulting from it being allowed to contact any solid surface other than that of the coating itself. Typically the application of the initial plastics protective coating is followed by the application of one or more further coatings of plastics material to produce a complete plastics packaged optical fibre. Not all of these further coatings are necessarily applied on-line with the drawing of fibre from preform. The thicknesses, moduli and expansion coefficients of the individual layers comprising the complete plastics packaging are normally chosen to provide mechanical buffering from the fibre and protection against micro-bending. A typical three-layer structure comprises an acrylate inner layer, a nylon outer layer and, between two layers, an intermediate layer of lower modulus material. Although described as a three-layer package, the acrylate layer may be a composite layer built up from two or more component sub-layers applied in succession, those sub-layers being slightly different acrylate composition, and hence of slightly different modulus.

Plastics packaged optical fibre and method of making same


Gel materials, and surgical devices containing gel materials, having reduced tackiness while retaining low durometer, high tear strength, high elongation, high compliance, and resistance to compression are described.

Surgical devices having a gel component have been previously described. Examples include gel rollers in trocar seal housings, gel-containing caps in hand access devices and various other types of devices used in surgical and/or medical procedures. Examples of such devices are described in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/913,565, filed Aug. 5, 2004, U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/776,387, filed Feb. 10, 2004, and U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/381,220, filed Mar. 20, 2003; see also, U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 60/241,958, filed Oct. 19, 2000, U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 60/492,949, filed Aug. 6, 2003, and U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 60/312,683, filed Aug. 14, 2001, the entire disclosures of which are hereby incorporated by reference as if set full herein.
Typically, the gel material performs a sealing function, conforming around the exterior of medical instruments inserted into a patient's body cavity through the gel (in the case of hand access devices, for example) or between gel rollers (in the case of trocar seals, for example) to prevent escape of insufflation gases or body fluids. Thus, it is important that the gel material be compliant enough to permit passage of medical instruments (or the surgeon's hand, in the case of hand access devices), but also resist compression and tearing.
One example of a gel material, suitable for use in some surgical devices, is a KP-12 copolymer gel, where the copolymer component of the gel comprises an SEBS (styrene ethylene butylene styrene) copolymer. The KP-12 gel material comprises a mixture of a KRATON® SEBS copolymer, PENRECO® DRAKEOL® mineral oil, a colorant, and an antioxidant. Such examples are described in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/776,387, filed Feb. 10, 2004 and U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/913,565, filed Aug. 5, 2004, and U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 60/492,949, filed Aug. 6, 2003 and U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 60/312,683, filed Aug. 14, 2001, the entire disclosures of which are hereby incorporated by reference as if set in full herein.
Ideally, gels used in surgical devices have low durometer, high tear strength, high elongation, high compliance, and a resistance to tearing. While previously described gels, such as KP-12, meet some of these requirements, they also tend to exhibit a high degree a tack. Tackiness is particularly a problem in the case of gel rollers in trocar seals. The gel trocar seal in one aspect uses rotational movement of two opposed gel rollers such that the gel rollers contact each other and freely roll in response to inserted instrumentation. The gel rollers also roll relative to the trocar housing. A high degree of tackiness may inhibit the rotational movement of the rollers.
In hand access devices, high tackiness may inhibit passage of instruments or the surgeon's hand through the device, requiring the use of lubricants such as petrolatum on the gloved hand or instrument. A hand-access device pre-coated with a lubricant such as oil or petrolatum is messy and difficult to handle, and requiring the surgeon to apply a lubricant either onto his or her gloved hand, the access device and/or the medical instruments to be inserted therethrough requires additional time and additional materials in the operating room.
What is needed, therefore, are composite gel materials that exhibit low durometer, high tear strength, high elongation, high compliance, resistance to compression, and a non-tack surface. Alternatively, what is needed are coatings for gel materials that are quickly and easily activated to reduce tack and/or increase lubricity of the gel materials and to reduce frictional forces between mating gel material components and/or between gel material components and/or non-gel material components.

Surgical devices, systems and methods thereof having gel material, gel coatings, or gel lubricants


This invention gives the directions for the design and building of a vehicle which will be supported in water by the installation of a Floatation Material. The design is so that the vehicle, occupants, and cargo will be supported so that the vehicle will come to rest in the upright position and with the water level below the upper torso of the occupants. There are several demonstrations presented on a regular basis which show how to escape from a vehicle that has suddenly become immersed in water: a lake, river, etc. Escaping is portrayed as a fairly simple procedure when performed by someone who is coached through the process, and by an individual who knows the vehicle is supported by a crane. The design presented in this invention provides a vehicle that will float while requiring no effort from the occupants, nor does it depend on the performance of some mechanism, i.e. switches, relays, or some mechanically activated procedure that requires intervention by the occupant. Several options were considered and examined before the design presented in this invention was chosen as the best, and safest. There have been designs using inflatable objects. The inflatable object approach has several shortcomings. The most obvious is that the vehicle may not assume the upright position. The material-supported vehicle design presented in this invention, when implemented, will generate a vehicle that will end up in the top-up position when placed in deep water. If the vehicle goes into the water top first, the vehicle will quickly correct to the top-up position.

This invention lies in the field of how to rescue occupants from a vehicle that has suddenly been immersed in water. There are several deaths caused when passengers are trapped in a submerged vehicle. This invention addresses the problem of surviving in a vehicle that has suddenly been placed in a body of water. Escaping from a vehicle residing in water is becoming more of a concern as evidenced by the frequent presentations given on how to escape from a vehicle that has plunged into water. More recently the public has been made more aware of the difficulty of trying to escape from the vehicle. The emphasis has been placed on how difficult (impossible) one finds it is to open a vehicle door that is being held by the force caused by the pressure generated by just a few inches of water. The information presented in the demonstrations shows how to release the seat belt, use a special device to break a window, position oneself correctly to exit the vehicle.
During the presentations the information given does not emphasize the difficulties one will encounter when trying to go through the required sequence of steps to facilitate the escape. For starters, anyone thrown into the situation will be in the panic state. Another drawback is that of having the necessary tool(s) and knowing how to use the tool. Another issue that is not shown in the demonstrations is that of removing a small child. And still another is how does one cope with the fact that you will be in deep water if and when you exit the vehicle.
In addressing these predicaments, the inventor examined several options, all of which rely on occupant intervention and/or the performance of a mechanical device. One option considered was that of having a very quickly removable roof. Not easy to do and a major design problem. Another is that of using inflatable devices. If the device inflates inside the vehicle, there exists the possibility of injury to the occupants, as well as how to provide enough floatation, and provide lift that will put the vehicle in the top-up position.
Another option considered is that of providing breathing apparatus that one can use while trying to escape from the vehicle. This method has many drawbacks. An apparatus would be needed for each occupant. One must exit the vehicle in a timely manner, and still face the deep water and swim to safety.
Upon consideration of these options and others, a passive floatation material providing the necessary lift to support the vehicle is the best solution. This invention provides a passive system which will put the vehicle in the top-up position, and with the occupants resting with their upper torso above water allowing the occupants to stay in the vehicle until the next step is established and rescue is performed.
This invention describes how a person qualified in the field can easily design a vehicle or modify a design so the resulting vehicle will meet the requirements specified in this invention. When one considers the buoyancy provided by the vehicle, occupants, and cargo, then floatation material can be placed in the spaces under the hood, trunk lid, and below the passenger compartment. The drawings and the explanation of the drawings give the approach to be used in the design. Every void now in presents designs should be examined as places to install the floatation material. Using the existing spaces will lessen the amount of support that must be supplied by the material under the hood, trunk lid, and below the passenger compartment.
FIG. 1 shows a typical vehicle that may be built or how an existing vehicle can be modified to include floatation material (referred to a material throughout the text) to make the vehicle float when immersed in water. The premise presented in this invention is that the drive train of the vehicle can essentially remain the same. The body of the vehicle will be modified to accommodate the addition of the material. Material will be attached to the under surface of the hood and trunk lid of the vehicle, enough material to provide the larger portion of the floatation capability. Another portion of the material will be installed between the under side of the passenger compartment (2) and the floor of the vehicle. The passenger compartment will be raised the same amount as the hood is raised so the driver resides in the same surroundings as that of the unmodified vehicle. The dotted line (1) in FIG. 1 identifies the portion of the body of the vehicle that will be raised to allow for the installation of the material. Material will be attached to the underside of the hood and trunk lid. Additional material will be placed under the passenger compartment. Amounts of material to be installed in these three locations will be determined by design parameters for each particular vehicle. The ratio of the floatation provided above the center of mass and that provided below the center of mass must be adjusted to assure that the combined center of flotation is above the combined center of mass; consisting of the vehicle, passengers, and cargo.
As the final design is concluded, every existing void in the body of the vehicle will be considered as a place to install the material. This will give lift in several places that were not used as candidates when calculations were performed to determine the feasibility of providing enough support to float the vehicle.
A totally new design can be produced using the drive trains presently on the drawing board. The intention of this invention is to show the feasibility of making a vehicle that will float, whether including the floatation capability in a present design or designing a new body that will accommodate the floatation material.
FIG. 2 shows a conceptual design of a vehicle where the body of the vehicle has been modified to accommodate the material. The dotted line (1) in FIG. 2 identifies the portion of the body that has been raised. The dotted line (3) shows the position of the body before being raised. In FIG. 2, (4) identifies the places that are filled with the floatation material. The placement of the material is not dictated by the conceptual configuration shown in FIG. 2, but the vision in FIG. 2 is to convey a suggested profile. As long as the proper amount of lift can be provided, and the material positioned to assure that the vehicle will float in the top-up position, then the intent of the invention is accomplished.
FIG. 1a gives a view at section A looking toward the back of the vehicle. The cut away picture shows the passenger compartment (5), the engine compartment (6), wheels (7), and the hood (8). The dotted line (9) identifies that portion of the vehicle that is to be raised.
FIG. 2a gives the corresponding view showing the profile after the floatation material has been installed. As shown, the material (10) is attached to the hood (8), and material is added in the sections where the body has been extended (11).
FIG. 1b gives a view shown at section B looking forward. This view shows how one may see the vehicle. The sectional view shows the passenger compartment (12), the trunk compartment (13), the wheels, (15), and the trunk lid (14). The dotted line (16) marks the portion of the vehicle that must be raised. The material will be attached to the under side of the trunk lid (14).
FIG. 2b gives the corresponding view as seen at section B after the material (17) is attached to the trunk lid (14). Material (18) is placed in the spaces provided by the extended body.
FIG. 1c is the view of the center of the vehicle as seen looking forward at section C. The tires (22), seats (19), arm rests (20), and mirror (21) are identified as how one may observe the section looking forward. The dotted line (23) identifies the portion of the vehicle that must be raised to accommodate the installation of the floatation material.
FIG. 2c gives the corresponding view at the center of the vehicle after the material (24) has been installed.
The amount of material installed will be dictated by the weight of the vehicle. The amount of material that must be installed under the hood, under the trunk lid, and under the passenger compartment, will be influenced by several factors. Possibilities exist that other parts of the vehicle can be used; existing voids, and seats, as possibilities. The tires will provide lift. The bottom line of the invention is to install enough floatation material to support the weight of the vehicle and to assure that the vehicle will float in the top-up position and assure that, the water line will rest below the upper torso of the occupants. Each vehicle will have to be designed to accommodate the floatation material and accomplish the safety feature as specified in this invention.
The passenger compartment is raised the same amount as the hood of the vehicle is raised to assure that the driver is positioned in the same surroundings in an unmodified or a modified vehicle. The amount of lift must be adjusted to assure the greater lift is provided above the center of mass. The design will be tailored to accommodate each particular vehicle design.
There are several pockets of space that now exist in present designs which can be used to house the material. Using the available spaces will enable adjustments to be made as to how much material must be installed below the hood, trunk lid, and above the floor. Another factor that is that of how much buoyancy is provided by the vehicle, passengers, and cargo. When the buoyancy factor is combined with the use of existing vacant spaces in the present designs, the floatation burden borne by the floatation material installed under the hood, trunk lid, and between the floor and the raised passenger compartment, will be lessened.
The possibility of installing floatation capability in the roof of the vehicle can be investigated. Obviously material installed in the roof will not contribute to the final desired result, but the lift provided by the roof will accelerate the process of rotating a vehicle to the top-up position when the car is placed in the water in the top-down position.
A side benefit provided by the material may be that of providing insulation and noise reduction. These two items are not the main consideration of this invention.

Use of floatation material to support a vehicle in water


A double heat exchanger for a vehicle air conditioner combining a condenser and a radiator has a corrugated condenser fin and a corrugated radiator fin integrally formed and having the same fin pitch. Each of the condenser and radiator fins has plural upper folds, plural lower folds and plural wall portions each of which connects one of the upper folds and one of the lower folds next to each other. An inclination angle of each of the wall portions of the condenser fin is made different from that of each of the wall portions of the radiator fin. As a result, a height of the condenser fin becomes different from that of the radiator fin while maintaining a radius of curvature of each of the upper and lower folds of the condenser fin equal to that of each of the upper and lower folds of the radiator fin.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to heat exchangers, and particularly to a double heat exchanger having plural heat exchange cores. The present invention is suitably applied to a double heat exchanger combining a condenser of a refrigeration cycle for a vehicle air conditioner and a radiator for cooling engine coolant.
2. Related Art
Generally, in a double heat exchanger having plural heat exchange cores, a specification of one of the heat exchange cores does not necessarily conform to a specification of the other. Conventionally, a double heat exchanger has a condenser core and a radiator core in which a corrugated condenser fin and a corrugated radiator fin are integrally formed. In such a heat exchanger, when plural condenser tubes and plural radiator tubes are arranged in a vertical direction at the same pitch and a height of each of the radiator tubes is larger than that of each of the condenser tubes in the vertical direction, a height of the condenser fin disposed between adjacent condenser tubes needs to be larger than that of the radiator fin disposed between adjacent radiator tubes in the vertical direction.
However, since the condenser fin is integrally formed with the radiator fin, a longitudinal length of the condenser fin when flattened to a flat plate is necessarily equal to that of the radiator fin. Therefore, a height of the condenser fin can not be simply increased by increasing only the longitudinal length of the condenser fin.
JP-A-11-148795 discloses a double heat exchanger in which a height of a corrugated radiator fin is made larger than that of a corrugated condenser fin by setting a radius of curvature of each wave of the radiator fin smaller than that of each wave of the condenser fin. However, generally, in a multi-flow type heat exchanger having plural tubes, the tubes and plural fins are alternately layered to be tentatively assembled and then integrally brazed in a furnace. Therefore, when a radius of curvature of each wave of the condenser fin is different from that of the radiator fin, an amount of deformation of the condenser fin caused by a force of constraint applied to the condenser fin during an assembling process of the condenser fin and condenser tubes becomes different from that of the radiator fin, even if the condenser fin and the radiator fin are made of the same material and has the same plate thickness. As a result, a contact pressure between the condenser fin and each of the condenser tubes may be largely different from a contact pressure between the radiator fin and each of radiator tubes, thereby causing a fin-tube brazing failure.
Further, when a radius of curvature of each wave of the fin is decreased, a filler is restricted from being formed at a connection portion between the fin and the tube during brazing. Therefore, an area of heat transfer from the tube to the fin is decreased, thereby declining heat exchange performance of the heat exchanger.

Double heat exchanger for vehicle air conditioner


An optical marking system in which objects are coated with materials for purposes of applying secretly coded marks on the objects. The coating materials are transparent in daylight and have the property of absorbing ultraviolet light. When such materials are applied to a portion of the surface of an object which is a good ultraviolet reflector, only the uncoated portion reflects ultraviolet. Thus, the marked object is therefore seen as having the coated portion blocked-out when viewed through a device which filters out all but ultraviolet wavelengths but appears to be unmarked when observed without the viewing device. Similar coding of objects may be achieved by appropriately selected paints, papers and other materials.

The present invention relates to identification systems and methods, and more particularly to marking systems wherein identification marks are applied on preselected objects in such manner that the marks are not visible when viewed by the unaided eye but may only be observed under controlled conditions.
In the past, certain materials, which are often referred to as "invisible inks", have been used for a variety of purposes, such as the marking of checks, bank notes, bonds and other negotiable instruments so that any fraudulent alterations of the instruments may be detected. Invisible inks have also been used to mark laundry, to identify contents of containers and to authenticate identification badges. Although such marking systems have been satisfactory for most of the uses mentioned, there has developed a need for a secret marking system having a greater degree of security against detection. In all known instances wherein such invisible inks have been used in the past, the inks have been made of a material which has the characteristic of fluorescing when exposed to intense ultraviolet. Since the ultraviolet light that is available in daylight is not of sufficient intensity to cause fluorescence, these materials appear to be transparent and invisible in daylight. However, when exposed to intense ultraviolet radiation, these materials fluoresce and emit radiation in the visible spectrum which then is observable with the unaided eye.
Marking materials which fluoresce are not suitable for clandestine operations because any material which radiates in the visible spectrum when illuminated by ultraviolet could be noticed by the casual observer. Another reason that fluorescent type marking materials are not suitable for most military applications is that the necessarily high illumination intensity requirements make distant illumination and viewing impractical.
There are many instances when it is imperative that the presence of the mark be concealled from everyone except the person or persons who supplied the marks. In military operations, for example, it may be desirable to place registration plaques on all non-military boats, operating in a particular geographic area and then superimpose the invisible marking system of this invention on certain of those plaques to identify only those boats. With the identification system of this invention, all boats would bear registration plaques which appeared to be identical to the plaques on other boats but only the suspect boats would have the invisible secret mark superimposed on the plaque.

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

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An optical/electrical cable for downhole environments includes a plurality of optical fibers disposed within an interior metal tube. An electrically conducting layer surrounds the interior metal tube, an insulation layer surrounds and contacts the electrically conducting layer, and an exterior metal tube surrounds and contacts the insulation layer.

Several types of cables exist for monitoring environmental conditions, sending communications and providing electrical power within a hazardous environment, such as a downhole application in an oil or gas well. One type is a "tube encased conductor" (TEC) cable. A TEC cable characteristically has an electrical conductor disposed within a metal tube for protecting the conductor from the hazardous environment. TEC cables are used for transmitting electrical power to various devices at the distal end of the cable that monitor conditions in the downhole environment, such as temperature and pressure.
Another type of cable for hazardous environments is a "tube encased fiber" (TEF) cable. Similar to TEC cables, TEF cables protect an optical fiber from the environment by disposing the fiber within a small metal tube (referred to as "fiber in metal tube" or "FIMT"). TEF cables may be used in oil and gas wells either as fiber waveguides to transfer data from downhole tools or as sensors for distributed temperature sensing (DTS distributed acoustical sensing (DAS), and other sensing applications.
When the cable contains both electrical conductors and optical fibers encased in one or more tubes, the cable is referred to as a TEC/TEF cable. Commercially available TEC/TEF downhole cables can have a ¼ inch (e.g., 6.35 mm) diameter steel tube as an outer casing. It contains an insulated conductor and another steel tube encasing an optical fiber. TEC/TEF cables of ¼ inch diameter are typically used for permanent installation in an oil well.
As known from, for example, the internet site http://petrowiki.org/Coiled_tubing_drilling, coiled tubing surveys and coiled tubing drilling are also common applications for downhole cables. The term "coiled tubing" refers to a long metal tube, normally 2.5 cm to 8.25 cm in diameter, which is spooled on a large reel. The tube is used for interventions in oil and gas wells and sometimes as production tubing in depleted gas wells. The term "coiled tubing drilling" refers to a combination of coiled tubing and directional drilling (e.g., drilling non-vertical wells) using a mud motor to create a system for drilling reservoirs.
An emerging technique for coiled tubing is to profile an oil well with distributed temperature sensor (DTS) or data acquisition system (DAS) techniques using fiber optic sensors within a TEF cable. Small diameter TEF cables, i.e., cables having an outer diameter of no more than 4 mm, can be injected into the coiled tubing string before the coiled tubing is lowered into the oil or gas well.
To further enhance the well profile, electromechanical pressure sensors may be used when sensing with coiled tubing. Those sensors, however, require electrical current not provided by a TEF cable. The stainless steel tube as part of the FIMT within a TEF cable generally does not have sufficient current carrying capacity because its resistance is too high. Commercially available TEC/TEF cables, which do provide both fiber sensing and electrical current, are too large and heavy for deployment in coiled tubing with their ¼ inch (6.35 mm) diameters. Field experiences with TEF cables for coiled tubing deployments have demonstrated that the largest outer diameter for sensing cables that can be used is 4 mm.
U.S. Pat. No. 8,295,665 (the '665 patent) discloses a downhole hybrid type cable including a center fiber/gel filled stainless steel tube with a copper wire wrapped around the tube and an insulation layer around the copper wire tube. The copper wire is disposed in the helical space formed by the metal tube. The metal tube and the copper element are put into a metallic tube. The metallic tube has a ¼ inch diameter (6.35 mm).
U.S. Pat. No. 5,493,626 (the '626 patent) discloses a downhole electrical/optical instrument cable for use in a well logging system for high-pressure environments. The cable includes a single, hermetically sealed optical fiber for signaling surrounded by layers of protective material and a gel and encapsulated by a protective sheath. The sheath may be a laser-welded metal tube. A layer of electrical conductors between an optional inner insulator and an outer insulator layer surrounds the protective tube and is formed of braided copper rather than a helical "serve" of copper. A plurality of strength member strands surrounds the outer insulator layer. The strength members include an inner layer of stainless steel strands wound helically around the outer insulator layer in one direction, and an outer layer of stainless steel strands wound helically around the inner layer of strength member strands in an opposite serve or winding. The strands and the copper braid layer are conductive and can provide an electrical power supply loop. The total diameter of the cable is approximately 5.77 mm, but it can vary within a range from about 4.76 mm to about 7.94 mm.
U.S. Pat. No. 8,931,549 (the '549 patent) discloses a cable for well logging in marine-submersible and subterranean oil and gas wells. The '549 patent concludes that conventional logging cables with wrapped steel wires and solid copper conductors are not sufficient for deep offshore wells. The disclosed cable includes at least one optical fiber encapsulated in a polymeric material wherein the optical fiber cable is loosely disposed inside a beryllium alloy tube. The beryllium alloy tube, which is conductive, is encapsulated in an amorphous dielectric material, which is further encapsulated on its outer surface by an amorphous polymeric electrically conductive material. This outer layer can be zinc, tin, or other material wrapped, sputtered, or doped the surface to form a shield for both mechanical and electromagnetic effects.
PCT International Publication WO 2009/143461 (the '461 publication) discloses cables for use in a downhole environment, such as in oil or gas wells for conveying well logging tools. In particular, the '461 publication discloses a cable including a cylindrical central core preferably formed of a communication element capable of carrying data signals, such as an optical fiber, which may be encased in a protective metal tube. The cable then includes concentric layers intended to protect a polymer fiber layer in the protective tube. It is preferred that at least one, and possibly both, of inner and outer layers around the polymer fiber layer be formed of a solid electrical conductor, such as a metallic conductor. A layer inner to the polymer fiber layer may be unnecessary if the core is designed to eliminate gas, water, and corrosive migration up and down the core by adding a "water block" agent or fluid. In the event that either of the inner layer and outer layer is not formed of a metallic material, then that layer will preferably be formed of a plastic material such as polyether ethyl ketone (PEEK), or another high density polypropylene. Outer protective sheath will again preferably be formed of PEEK, or another plastic material having exceptional resistance to abrasion, temperature and invasive materials. The '461 publication discloses that cables with an outer diameter of roughly between 0.3 inch and 0.5 inch (about 7-13 mm), will benefit most from this construction.
European Patent Publication EP 0945876 (the '876 publication) discloses a hybrid cable for installation in conduits for fluid media (for example in waste water, fresh water, or gas lines), with at least one optical waveguide arranged in a protective sheath, one or more electrical conductors, and a jacket surrounding the electrical conductor and the protective sheath. In particular, the '876 publication discloses a hybrid cable with two concentric metal tubes, of which at least the external one is corrugated. An insulating layer separates the two metal tubes, and a jacket of polyethylene surrounds the external tube. The inner tube surrounds a plurality of optical fibres. In many cases, conductivity of the inner metal tube can be sufficiently achieved by coating its surface with a metal of high conductivity.
PCT International Publication WO 2015/038150 (the '150 publication) discloses a fiber optic electrical core that may be incorporated into a fiber optic slickline (application that is run over a conveyance line that is substantially below about 0.25 inches, i.e. 6.35 mm, in overall outer diameter). One or more fiber optic threads, each jacketed by a conventional polymeric buffer, may be placed within a welded steel tube in a loose fashion with a sufficiently thick electrically insulating polymer layer thereabout, and surrounded by a conductive member. The electrically conductive member may also be surrounded by an insulating polymer jacket. To complete the fiber optic slickline, the fiber optic electrical core may be surrounded by a synthetic fiber layer. Adherence between a subsequent cladding layer and the fiber synthetic layer may be enhanced by way of the intervening adherent layer. Cladding layer may be a conventional metal-based layer such as a steel jacket.
Applicant has faced the problem of providing a TEC/TEF downhole cable with minimal diameter, particularly with a diameter of no more than 4 mm suitable for coiled tubing drilling applications. Those cables need to be capable of insertion into a coiled tubing string before the coiled tubing is lowered into the oil or gas well. TEC/TEF cables designed for well logging applications are too large, typically having an outer diameter of 6.35 mm, which can be difficult to insert in a coiled tubing and for limited length (not greater than 3 km). While some TEF cables having diameters within 4 mm are known, those small-diameter TEF cables do not have electrical conductors, nor do they have sufficient current carrying capacity due to the high electrical resistance of theft stainless steel tube.


A communications jack includes a housing having a plug aperture, a printed circuit board that is disposed at least partly within the housing, and eight jackwire contacts that are mounted on the printed circuit board and extend into the plug aperture. A first side of the printed circuit board further includes four output contacts and an opposed second side of the printed circuit board further includes another four output contacts. A board edge termination assembly is mounted on an edge of the printed circuit board. The board edge termination assembly includes a body and eight contact members that are disposed at least partly within the body. Each contact member is configured to mate with a respective one of the output contacts.

Computers, fax machines, printers and numerous other electronic devices are routinely connected by communications cables to network equipment and/or to external networks such as the Internet. FIG. 1 illustrates the manner in which a computer 10 may be connected to network equipment 20 using conventional communications plug/jack connections. As shown in FIG. 1, the computer 10 is connected by a patch cord assembly 11 to a communications jack 30 that is mounted in a wall plate 19. The patch cord assembly 11 comprises a cable 12 that contains a plurality of individual conductors and two communications plugs 13, 14. The communications plug 13 is attached to a first end of the cable 12, and the communications plug 14 is attached to the other end of the cable 12. The communications plug 13 is inserted into a communications jack (not pictured in FIG. 1) that is provided in the back of the computer 20, and the communications plug 14 inserts into a plug aperture 32 in the front side of the communications jack 30. The blades of communications plug 14 (which are exposed through the slots 15 on the top surface of communications plug 14) mate with respective contacts 41-48 (see FIG. 2) of the communications jack 30 when the communications plug 14 is inserted into the plug aperture 32. The blades of communications plug 13 similarly mate with respective contacts of the communications jack (not pictured in FIG. 1) that is provided in the back of the computer 10.
The communications jack 30 includes a back-end connection assembly 50 that receives and holds conductors from a cable 60. As shown in FIG. 1, each conductor of cable 60 is individually pressed into a respective one of a plurality of slots provided in the back-end connection assembly 50 to establish mechanical and electrical connection between each conductor of cable 60 and the communications jack 30. The other end of each conductor in cable 60 may be connected to, for example, the network equipment 20. The wall plate 19 is typically mounted on a wall (not shown) of a room or office of, for example, an office building, and the cable 60 typically runs through conduits in the walls and/or ceilings of the building to a computer room in which the network equipment 20 is located. The patch cord assembly 11, the communications jack 30 and the cable 60 provide a plurality of signal transmission paths over which information signals may be communicated between the computer 10 to the network equipment 20.
In most electrical communications systems that are used to interconnect computers, network equipment, fax machines, printers and the like, the information signals are transmitted between devices over a pair of conductors (hereinafter a "differential pair" or simply a "pair") rather than over a single conductor. The signals transmitted on each conductor of the differential pair have equal magnitudes, but opposite phases, and the information signal is embedded as the voltage difference between the signals carried on the two conductors of the pair. When signals are transmitted over a conductor (e.g., an insulated copper wire) in a communications cable, electrical noise from external sources such as lightning, computer equipment, radio stations, etc. may be picked up by the conductor, degrading the quality of the signal carried by the conductor. When the signal is transmitted over a differential pair of conductors, each conductor in the differential pair often picks up approximately the same amount of noise from these external sources. Because approximately an equal amount of noise is added to the signals carried by both conductors of the differential pair, the information signal is typically not disturbed, as the information signal is extracted by taking the difference of the signals carried on the two conductors of the differential pair; thus the noise signal is cancelled out by the subtraction process.
Currently, high speed communications systems that are used to connect computers and/or other processing devices to local area networks and/or to external networks such as the Internet typically include four differential pairs per communications cable. In such systems, the conductors of the multiple differential pairs are usually bundled together within a single, jacketed cable, and thus necessarily extend in the same direction for some distance. Unfortunately, when multiple differential pairs are bunched closely together, another type of noise referred to as "crosstalk" may arise, which refers to signal energy from a conductor of one differential pair that is picked up by a conductor of another differential pair in the communications system. The induced crosstalk may include both near-end crosstalk (NEXT), which is the crosstalk measured at an input location corresponding to a source at the same location, and far-end crosstalk (FEXT), which is the crosstalk measured at the output location corresponding to a source at the input location. Both types of crosstalk comprise an undesirable noise signal that interferes with the information signal.
FIG. 2 is an exploded perspective view of the communications jack 30 of FIG. 1. As shown in FIG. 2, the communications jack 30 includes a three-piece housing 35, 36, 37. Housing piece 35 defines (at least partly) a plug aperture 32 that is configured to receive a mating communications plug. Housing pieces 36, 37 partially cover and protect a printed circuit board 34. A plurality of jackwire contacts 41-48 are mounted on the printed circuit board 34 so as to extend into the plug aperture 32 from the back of the communications jack 30. However, it will be appreciated that, in other embodiments, some or all of the jackwire contacts 41-48 may extend into the plug aperture 32 from a different direction such as, for example, from the front of the communications jack 30. Each of the jackwire contacts 41-48 terminates into the printed circuit board 34.
The jack 30 further includes a plurality of insulation displacement contacts ("IDCs") 51-58 that are mounted on the printed circuit board 34. As is well known to those of skill in the art, an IDC is a type of wire connection terminal that may be used to make mechanical and electrical connection to an insulated wire conductor. In the communications jack 30, a plurality of electrically conductive paths (not shown in FIG. 2) are provided on the printed circuit board 34. Typically, each of these electrical conductive paths will comprises one or more traces that are disposed on one or more layers of the printed circuit board 34. If the traces of one of the electrically conductive paths are disposed on multiple layers of the printed circuit board 34, the traces on different layers may be interconnected by conductive vias. Each of the electrically conductive paths may provide an electrical path between a respective one of the jackwire contacts 41-48 and a corresponding one of the IDCs 51-58. Housing piece 36 includes a plurality of pillars that define slots which receive the IDCs 51-58. Each slot defined by the pillars is configured to receive a conductor of a communications cable so that the conductor may be inserted into a slot in a respective one of the IDCs 51-58.
FIG. 3 is a perspective view of the communications jack 30 of FIGS. 1-2 with the communications cable 60 terminated thereto. As shown in FIG. 3, the communications cable 60 includes either insulated conductors 61-68 which are arranged as four differential pairs 71-74. The individual conductors that comprise each differential pair 71-74 are twisted about each other, and all four differential pairs 71-74 are twisted about each other in what is known in the art as a "core twist" (not visible in FIG. 3). The communications cable 60 may also include a separator 69 that separates at least some of the differential pairs 71-74 from other of the differential pairs 71-74, as well as a jacket 70 that encloses and protects the conductors 61-68.
As is also shown in FIG. 3, each of the conductors 61-68 is terminated onto a respective one of the IDCs 51-58. As illustrated in FIG. 2, each IDC 51-58 includes a pair of opposed upwardly extending arms. As shown in FIG. 3, each conductor 61-68 is inserted into the gap between the opposed arms of its corresponding IDC 51-58. The inner edges of the opposed arms cut the insulation on the conductor such that both a mechanical connection and an electrical connection are established between the each conductor 61-68 and its corresponding IDC 51-58. Typically, a technician terminates each conductor 61-68 of cable 60 into the IDCs 51-58 of communications jack 30 by hand at the time that the communications jack 30 is installed in the faceplate 19.

Board edge termination back-end connection assemblies and communications jacks including such assemblies


A process for producing boron nitride using a boron containing ore as a starting material, by reacting naturally occurring ulexite with ammonia at high temperature, for a boron nitride with high impurity and at a high yield.

Boron nitride ("BN") is a thermally stable, highly refractory material of increasing commercial significance. Typically, boron nitride is produced by processes wherein boric acid is utilized as the boron source of reaction compositions. Suggested processes for producing boron nitride from boric acid are described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,922,699; 3,241,918; and 3,261,667 as well as in British Pat. Nos. 874,166; 874,165; and 1,241,206. U.S. Pat. No. 3,189,412 discloses a process to prepare boron nitride by passing nitrogen or ammonia or other nitrogen providing gas at 1200 to 1600° C. over a mixture comprising boric oxide, boric acid, or another boric oxide providing substance, carbon, and a catalyst, treating the reaction mixture with dilute mineral acid, and separating the boron nitride. JP Patent Publication No. 06-040713 discloses a process for producing boron nitride from colemanite, which is a hydrated calcium borate compound. It is thought that sodium compounds such as sodium borate can promote grain growth for BN particles in addition to the grain growth resulting from calcium borate compounds.
Applicants have discovered a process to use ulexite, a hydrated sodium calcium borate compound, in the direct manufacture of boron nitride instead of or in addition to boric acid as a reactant material. Using ulexite as a reactant in the boron nitride making process inherently enhances the grain growth of boron nitride, since ulexite contains sodium borate, providing an improved and economical process for making boron nitride of high purity and excellent yield.


In the case of a process for the piecing of the starting portion of a new sliver to the end portion of a sliver travelling into a spinning arrangement, it is provided that the starting portion and the end portion of the sliver are overlapped, placed on a transport belt and loaded by means of a skid. A movable servicing device is provided for selectively moving the skid to accommodate the piecing.

This invention relates to a process and an arrangement for the piecing of the starting portion of a new sliver to the end portion of a sliver travelling into a spinning arrangement, the starting portion and the end portion of these slivers being connected with one another in an overlapping and supported manner.
A process of this type is the state of the art on the basis of the German Patent Document DE 38 02 413 A1. Devices are arranged stationarily for the supporting of the entering sliver in the overlapping area. The starting portion and the end portion of the sliver must therefore be connected with one another sufficiently tightly, for example, by pneumatic bombarding, so that the connected sliver, which is pulled over the stationary supporting device by the delivery device of the spinning unit, is not drafted or even torn.
On the basis of the British Patent Document GB-PS 10 15 780, which does not address the connecting of two slivers, it is known, in the case of a ring spinning machine, to transport the slivers fed in cans from the cans to the spinning stations by means of two transport belts. In this case, the slivers are in each case clamped between two transport belts.
It is an object of the invention to avoid the danger of faulty drafts in the case of two slivers that are to be connected with one another, specifically also when the connection is not made to be particularly tight.
This object is achieved according to preferred embodiments of the invention in that the slivers in the overlapping area are placed on a transport belt and are loaded by means of a skid.
As a result of the fact that the starting portion and the end portion of the slivers in the overlapping area are placed on a transport belt, the supporting device is also movable and no speed difference exists between the starting portion and the end portion of the slivers. This excludes faulty drafts. As a result of the fact that furthermore the slivers are loaded by means of a skid, the connecting point of the slivers is ironed out and in the process receives a sufficient adherence so that, also after leaving the transport belts, the connecting point is sufficiently tight.
In an advantageous development of the invention, it is provided that the starting portion and the end portion of the slivers are rendered pointed. This advantageously takes place by the fact that the starting portion and the end portion of the slivers are clamped and drawn, in which case a residual portion is cut off. As a result, thick points can be avoided in the overlapping area while, in addition, the described advantages are maintained.
It is expediently provided that the end portion of the sliver, after having been made pointed, is secured at a given position. This is particularly expedient if the connection of the slivers is carried out by means of automatic devices which find the end portion of the sliver in a predetermined position
In an advantageous development of the invention, the skid can be lifted off the transport belt in the overlapping area. As a result, the starting portion of the new sliver can easily be placed on the end portion of the sliver travelling into the spinning arrangement. After the lowering of the skid, the overlapping point will then be strengthened.
Expediently, a deflecting guide for the transport belt is provided in the overlapping area. This deflecting guide may be a part of a clamp by means of which the sliver is clamped for providing the end portion with a point.
In an advantageous development of the invention, an actuating device of a movable piecing arrangement is provided which is assigned to the overlapping area. By means of this actuating device, the skid for the inserting of the new sliver can be lifted, on the one hand, while, on the other hand, the starting portion and the end portion of the slivers can be overlapped by means of automatic devices.
Other objects, advantages and novel features of the present invention will become apparent from the following detailed description of the invention when considered in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.

Process and an arrangement for the piercing of a sliver


A communications system may include a transmitter node, a receiver node, and an optical communications channel coupling the transmitter node and receiver node. The transmitter node may include a pulse transmitter and a pulse divider downstream therefrom. The receiver node may include a pulse recombiner and a pulse receiver downstream therefrom.

In a quantum communications system, sometimes referred to as a quantum information system, information is exchanged between a transmitter node and a receiver node using encoded single photons. Each photon carries information that is encoded on a property of the photons, such as its polarization, phase, or energy in time. These quantum communications systems generally require sending information from one node to another node, such as a transmitter node, usually referred to as "Alice," and a receiver node, usually referred to as "Bob." The term quantum communications system encompasses multiple applications. For example a quantum key distribution (QKD) system allows the sharing of cryptographic keys between the transmitter node and receiver node, thus allowing a more secure communication between the two parties. A QKD system provides a test whether any part of the key would be known to an unauthorized third party eavesdropper, usually referred to as "Eve."
Individual bits of the bit stream are transmitted using single photons. By using complementary properties to which Heisenberg's uncertainty principle applies, information may be encoded into a photon to prevent the unauthorized third party, e.g., "Eve," from monitoring the photon since it would disturb its state. When a secret key is established between the two parties by this QKD system, the two parties may then encrypt data transmitted over any conventional communications channel.
In the QKD system, the two parties as Alice and Bob at the respective transmitter node and receiver node may use two or more non-orthogonal bases to encode bit values. The laws of quantum mechanics apply to the photons and any measurement of the photons by an eavesdropper, e.g., Eve, without prior knowledge of the encoding basis of each photon, causes an unavoidable change to the state of some of the photons. These changes to the states of the photons may cause errors in the bit values sent between the transmitter node and receiver node, and by comparing a part of the common bit steam, the two parties may determine if the eavesdropper, e.g., Eve, has gained information. Photon polarization is often used to provide the complementary properties for encoding, and is used in the common QKD protocol, BB84, and may be applied to conjugate states, such as the polarization state of the quantum state. Other QKD protocols, such as E91, may be based on entanglement of photon pairs and used in a QKD system.
Other applications of a quantum communications system include quantum random number generator (QRNG) systems that use the inherent indeterminacy of quantum entangled photons to produce random binary digits, and quantum secure direct communication (QSDC) systems that transfer direct information between Alice and Bob without a distribution key. In QSDC systems, the transmitter node as Alice generates quantum photons that carry secure quantum information representative of the data to be communicated. The quantum photons carrying the data are decoded upon receipt at the receiver node as Bob.
QSDC systems are based on quantum mechanics for direct transmission of information without employing a distributed cryptographic key to encrypt the data. QSDC systems may be more efficient than some keyed communication systems because the cryptographic key development and key storage requirements are eliminated. Transmitted photons carrying data within the QSDC system may be more readily maintained in confidence without being erased, manipulated or monitored by unintended third parties, such as Eve. These QSDC systems may provide tamper evident communication links that are compatible with the direct transmission of data at the single photon level. As a result, QSDC systems may become more important as quantum computers increase in sophistication and allow conventional cryptographic keys to be more easily broken, while quantum interconnects are developed that network computers together. Improvements in QSDC systems may also provide quantum signatures and improve the efficiency and impart greater security in a quantum communications channel.
Current cryptographic standards may suffice for ensuring security of most types of data at the current time. It is anticipated that these standards will eventually become obsolete due to advances in quantum computing. Current techniques of QKD that use photons in prepare and measure schemes have high brightness, but have quantum bit error rates (QBER) limits on the order of about 15%. Thus, the errors in the bit rate should not exceed 15% before aborting the QKD protocol. As a result, QKD protocols are difficult to implement in noisy or turbulent communication links, and quantum communication systems that produce a large QBER may require communications equipment to be kept under strict environmental conditions, which limit the applicability of QKD. Other protocols, such as round-robin DPS protocol, have a higher QBER tolerance of about 50%, but the best key rate is about 10 Kbit/s over 50 kilometers of fiber. Other protocols have similar limitations on performance, which degrades with channel conditions. It is desirable to implement low latency, but high security communications not only in a quantum communication system such as a QSDC system, but also into a quantum communication system using QKD protocols. It would also be desirable to apply such improvements into non-quantum optical communications systems.

Communications system using pulse divider and associated methods


A process for continuous phosgene-free preparation of cycloaliphatic diisocyanates.

1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a process for continuous phosgene-free preparation of cycloaliphatic diisocyanates.
2. Background of the Invention
The synthetic access route to isocyanates may be via a series of different routes. The variant for industrial scale preparation of isocyanates which is the oldest and still predominates today is what is known as the phosgene route. This process is based on the reaction of amines with phosgene. A disadvantage of the phosgene process is the use of phosgene which, as a consequence of its toxicity and corrosivity, places particularly high requirements on its handling on the industrial scale.
There are several processes which avoid the use of phosgene for preparing isocyanates on the industrial scale. The term phosgene-free process is frequently used in connection with the conversion of amines to isocyanates using alternative carbonylating agents, for example urea or dialkyl carbonate (EP 0 018 586, EP 0 355 443, U.S. Pat. No. 4,268,683, EP 0 990 644).
The urea route is based on the urea-mediated conversion of diamines to diisocyanates via a two-stage process. In the first step, a diamine is reacted with alcohol in the presence of urea or urea equivalents (for example alkyl carbonates, alkyl carbamates) to give a diurethane which typically passes through an intermediate purification stage and is then thermally cleaved in the second step to diisocyanate and alcohol (EP 0 355 443, U.S. Pat. No. 4,713,476, U.S. Pat. No. 5,386,053). Alternatively, the actual urethane formation may also be preceded by the separate preparation of a diurea by selectively reacting the diamine with urea (EP 0 568 782). Also conceivable is a two-stage sequence consisting of partial reaction of urea with alcohol in the first and subsequent metering in and urethanization of the diamine in the second step (EP 0 657 420).
The thermal cleavage of urethanes to the corresponding isocyanates and alcohols has been known for some time and can be carried out either in the gas phase at high temperatures or at relatively low temperatures in the liquid phase. However, a problem in both procedures is that the thermal stress inevitably also causes undesired side reactions to take place which firstly reduce the yield and secondly lead to the formation of resinifying by-products which considerably disrupt the course of an industrial process as a result of deposits and blockages in reactors and workup apparatus.
There has therefore been no shortage of suggestions of chemical and process technology measures to achieve yield improvements and limit the undesired by-product formation. For instance, a series of documents describes the use of catalysts which accelerate the cleavage reaction of the urethanes (DE 10 22 222, U.S. Pat. No. 3,919,279, DE 26 35 490). Indeed, it is entirely possible in the presence of suitable catalysts, which are a multitude of basic, acidic and also organometallic compounds, to increase the isocyanate yield in comparison to the uncatalyzed variant. However, the formation of undesired by-products can also not be prevented by the presence of a catalyst. The same applies to the additional use of inert solvents, as recommended in U.S. Pat. No. 3,919,279 and DE 26 35 490, in order to ensure uniform distribution of the heat supplied and of the catalyst in the reaction medium. However, the use of solvents boiling under reflux fundamentally has the consequence of a reduction in the space-time yield of isocyanates and is additionally hindered with the disadvantage of additional high energy demands.
Examples which are cited in EP 0 054 817 for thermal catalyzed cleavage of monourethanes describe the partial discharge of the reaction mixture to remove resinifying by-products formed in the course of the urethane cleavage. This procedure serves to prevent deposits and blockages in reactors and workup units. There are no indications which point to a yield-increasing utilization of the partial discharge. EP 0 061 013 describes a similar approach to a solution, in which the thermolysis is in this case carried out in the presence of solvents whose purpose is apparently to better absorb the involatile by-products. Here also, the partial discharge is not utilized for the purposes of yield optimization.
EP 0 355 443 discloses that a yield increase can be achieved when the higher molecular weight by-products which can and cannot be utilized and are formed in the cleavage reactor during the cleavage of diurethanes, to ensure a disruption-free and selective reaction, are discharged substantially continuously out of the reactor and subsequently converted for the most part in the presence of alcohol and then recycled into the diurethane preparation. The procedure described is associated with high energy demands, since nonutilizable by-products are removed from the effluent of the diurethane preparation by distillation, and all of the diurethane has to be evaporated. In contrast to EP 0 355 443, the urethanization effluent in the process of EP 0 566 925 is divided into two substreams of which only one is freed by distillation of its high-boiling, nonutilizable by-products, before the combined diurethane streams are fed to the deblocking reaction in the cleavage reactor. In addition, the continuous cleavage reactor discharge in EP 0 566 925 is recycled directly, i.e. without a reurethanization step, into the diurethane synthesis.
However, it has been found that the processes of EP 0 355 443 and EP 0 566 925, when cycloaliphatic diamines are used, are affected by a distinctly recognizable decrease in selectivity when the continuous process is maintained over a period of several hours.

Multistage continuous preparation of cycloaliphatic diisocyanates


A passive, self-regulating valve includes a static pressure chamber and an elastically collapsible tube supported within the static pressure chamber. The elastically collapsible tube is defined by a geometry that determines an activation pressure of the valve. The passive, self-regulating valve also includes a flow restrictor in fluid communication with the elastically collapsible tube inside the static pressure chamber, as well as piping connecting a source of pressurized liquid both to the flow restrictor and to an opening into the static pressure chamber. The piping enables the flow restrictor to control flow rate of the pressurized liquid through the valve independent of the activation pressure of the valve. In a preferred embodiment, the flow restrictor is a needle valve.

This invention relates to a self-regulating valve allowing independent control of flow rate and activation pressure for use in an irrigation system.
Drip irrigation is a means of reducing the water required to irrigate by up to 60%, and it has been shown to be a successful development strategy enabling poor farmers to rise out of poverty by growing more and higher value crops. The barrier to drip irrigation achieving large-scale dissemination is the cost of the pump and power system. The power consumption is equal to the product of flow rate and pressure. For a given farm, the flow rate is predetermined by the type of the crop; the primary opportunity to reduce the power consumption is to lower pumping pressure.
Pressure compensation is a means of maintaining a constant flow rate from a drip emitter under varying applied pressure—an important feature for a low pressure dripper network where pressure from the pump to the end of the line can vary by a factor of three.

Low-pressure and low-energy self-regulating valve


A refrigerator including a cabinet, a liner defining a compartment within the cabinet, a fan to move cooled air, and an air tower positioned adjacent the liner and provided in fluid communication with the compartment via a plurality of primary exhaust openings. The refrigerator further includes an air filter bracket separate from and located adjacent to the air tower and provided in fluid communication with both the air tower and the compartment. The air filter bracket includes a duct positioned adjacent the flow path of the air tower to be in fluid communication with a secondary exhaust opening of the air tower.

Conventional refrigeration appliances, such as domestic refrigerators, typically have both a fresh food compartment and a freezer compartment or section. The fresh food compartment is where food items such as fruits, vegetables, and beverages are stored and the freezer compartment is where food items that are to be kept in a frozen condition are stored. The refrigerators are provided with a refrigeration system that maintains the fresh food compartment at temperatures above 0° C., such as between 0.25° C. and 4.5° C. and the freezer compartments at temperatures below 0° C., such as between 0° C. and −20° C.
The arrangements of the fresh food and freezer compartments with respect to one another in such refrigerators vary. For example, in some cases, the freezer compartment is located above the fresh food compartment and in other cases the freezer compartment is located below the fresh food compartment. Additionally, many modern refrigerators have their freezer compartments and fresh food compartments arranged in a side-by-side relationship. Whatever arrangement of the freezer compartment and the fresh food compartment is employed, typically, separate access doors are provided for the compartments so that either compartment may be accessed without exposing the other compartment to the ambient air.
Refrigeration appliances are also known to include an air filter within at least the fresh food compartment in order to improve air quality therein. The air filter is positioned within a housing that is generally attached to some structure within the fresh food compartment.
Many modern refrigerators use a passive air filter design. That is, the air filter is positioned within a refrigerator such that said filter is not in direct fluid communication with a cooling air conduit. Rather, the natural airflow of the air cooled by the evaporator within the fresh food compartment will circulate through the filter to improve the air quality.
Other modern refrigerators have an active air filter design. That is, the air filter is positioned in direct fluid communication with a cooling air conduit. As such, the air cooled by the evaporator will forcibly pass through the air filter before entering the fresh food compartment. Placing the air filter housing in a location that facilitates the active design is difficult. It requires reconfiguring cooling air conduits that guide air from the evaporator to the fresh food compartment. Additionally, the placement of the housing can negatively impact the overall aesthetics of the fresh food compartment.