Method for inhibiting scale deposits in an aqueous system. The method includes at least one of adding and forming anti-scalant in the aqueous system, wherein the anti-scalant comprises at least one of polyvalent metal silicate and polyvalent metal carbonate, and adding copolymer of maleic anhydride and isobutylene. A composition includes at least one of polyvalent metal silicate and polyvalent metal carbonate, copolymer of maleic anhydride and isobutylene, and wherein a weight ratio of the at least one polyvalent metal silicate and polyvalent metal carbonate to the copolymer is from about 50:1 to 1:1.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to methods and inorganic compositions, such as polyvalent metal silicates and polyvalent metal carbonates, in combination with copolymers of maleic anhydride and isobutylene for inhibiting the formation, deposition, and/or adherence of scale deposits on substrate surfaces in contact with a scale-forming aqueous system. The scale deposits may be alkaline earth metal scale deposits, such as alkaline earth metal carbonate scale deposits, especially calcium carbonate scale deposits, or alkaline earth metal oxalate deposits. The present invention may be advantageously used to prevent scale in a variety of processes such as kraft pulping processes.
2. Discussion of Background
Scale build-up is a serious problem in many industrial water systems, such as cooling towers, heat exchangers, evaporators, pulping digesters, washers, and in the production and processing of crude oil-water mixtures, etc. The build-up of scale deposits reduces the efficiency of heat transfer systems, interferes with fluid flow, facilitates corrosive processes and harbors bacteria. Calcium carbonate, generated in various processes, is one of the most commonly observed scale formers in industrial water systems. This scale is an expensive problem in many industries, which causes delays and shutdowns for cleaning and removal.
In particular, most industrial waters contain metal ions, such as calcium, barium, magnesium, aluminium, strontium, iron, etc. and several anions such as bicarbonate, carbonate, sulfate, oxalate, phosphate, silicate, fluoride, etc. When combinations of these anions and cations are present in concentrations which exceed the solubility of their reaction products, precipitates form until product solubility concentrations are no longer exceeded. For example, when the concentrations of calcium ion and carbonate ion exceed the solubility of the calcium carbonate reaction products, a solid phase of calcium carbonate will form.
Solubility product concentrations are exceeded for various reasons, such as partial evaporation of the water phase, change in pH, temperature or pressure, and the introduction of additional ions which form insoluble compounds with the ions already present in the solution. As these reaction products precipitate on the surfaces of the water carrying system, they form scale or deposits.
For boiler systems and similar heat exchange systems, the mechanism of scale formation is apparently one of crystallization of scale-forming salts from a solution which is locally supersaturated in the region adjacent the heating surface of the system. The thin viscous film of water in this region tends to become more concentrated than the remainder of the solution outside this region. As a result, the solubility of the scale-forming salt reaction product is first exceeded in this thin film, and crystallization of scale results directly on the heating surface. In addition to this, a common source of scale in boiler systems is the breakdown of calcium bicarbonate to form calcium carbonate water and carbon dioxide under the influence of heat.
No For open recirculating cooling water systems, in which a cooling tower, spray pond, evaporative condenser, and the like serve to dissipate heat by evaporation of water, the chief factor which promotes scale formation is concentration of solids dissolved in the water by repeated evaporation of portions of the water phase. Thus, even a water which is not scale forming on a once-through basis usually will become scale forming when concentrated a multiple number of times.
Also as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,518,204 to HANSEN et al., the disclosure of which is herein incorporated by reference in its entirety, water supplies employed as cooling media frequently contain silts such as bentonitic or kaolinitic minerals. During use of such silt containing waters in these systems, the silts react or associate with other impurities which are present in the water such as calcium and magnesium which are commonly referred to as "hardness". As a consequence of such reaction or association, a precipitate is formed and precipitated upon the surfaces of the system containing the water. Such depositions may build up to the extent that flow through the system is reduced or halted, and the system must be shut down for costly cleaning. In addition, when such deposition occurs on heat transfer surfaces, heat exchange is reduced with a corresponding loss in process efficiency.
Scaling in kraft pulping processes occurs by a different mechanism as a result of the presence of organic ligands. Black liquor generated in the kraft pulping digester contains a very high content of organics such as lignin, fatty/rosin soaps, hemicelluloses, etc. Lignin fragments formed during pulping, specifically those containing adjacent hydroxyl groups on an aromatic ring, have a high tendency to interact with calcium (originally from tree) to greatly increase its solubility in black liquor. As the temperature increases (e.g., the temperature found near the tube wall of an evaporator or cooking heater), the pH has a tendency to decrease, especially if the residual active alkali is low. As a consequence, calcium ions can be displaced from the lignin by hydrogen ions, and react with carbonate ions thus producing calcium carbonate scale. In addition to lignin, there are many different organic species that complex calcium in the black liquor. Any of these organic species, whose ability to complex with calcium depends on the pH being in the normal pH range of black liquor, will contribute to calcium carbonate scaling by releasing ionic calcium as the temperature increases. Therefore, as long as some of the aforementioned organic compounds are present and sufficient calcium is available, a liquor will have the capacity to deposit calcium carbonate scale. In addition to calcium and carbonate, black liquor normally contains a number of other ions such as sodium and sulfate which can precipitate and form scale.
In the paper industry, alkalinity from alkali digesting solution and from dissolved solids from the wood chips, results in an increased alkalinity of the black liquor, often reaching pH's of 12-13 and even higher. Under high pH conditions, the precipitation of calcium carbonate is especially difficult to control. Acid is often added to lower the pH to prevent calcium carbonate scaling.
In the papermaking process, calcium oxalate scale often forms on process equipment during the bleaching/delignification of pulp by chlorine, caustic soda, chlorine dioxide, hypochlorite and peroxide. Usual areas of scale build-up are on washer drum face wires; in washer vats; in stock lines and pumps; in filtrate tanks, lines, and pumps; on extraction screens; and in treatment towers. The formation of calcium oxalate scale provides an economic hardship on mills principally because of lost production due to decreased bleaching/delignification efficiency and equipment downtime associated with the removal of scale.
In the oil industry, the formation of insoluble calcium salts is also a problem in the secondary recovery of oil from subterranean formations by processes in which water is introduced into injection wells and forced through the underground formations to cause oil to be produced in a producing well. This type of process is usually referred to as a waterflood system.
In view of the above, scale formation and deposition are generated by the mechanisms of nucleation, crystal growth, and aggregation of scale-forming particles. Various approaches to reducing scale development include inhibition of nuclei/crystal formation, modification of crystal growth, and dispersion of the scale-forming particles.
Chelating or sequestering agents have been commonly used to prevent deposition, precipitation and crystallization of calcium carbonate in water-carrying systems. Other types of chemicals which have been actively explored as calcium carbonate scale inhibiting agents are threshold inhibitors.
Threshold inhibitors include water soluble polymers, phosphonates, and polyphosphates (e.g., U.S. Pat. No. 5,182,028 to BOFFARDI et al., the disclosure of which is herein incorporated by reference in its entirety, discloses sodium hexametaphosphate and monofluorophosphate). Such chemicals are effective as scale inhibitors in amounts considerably less than that stoichiometrically required.
Water soluble polymers, including groups derived from acrylamide, maleic acid, vinyl acetate, vinyl alcohol, and acrylic acid have been used to control calcium carbonate deposition. For instance, such polymers are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,282,976 to YEUNG; U.S. Pat. No. 5,496,914 to WOOD et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 4,008,164 to WATSON et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 3,518,204 to HANSEN et al.; U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,928,196 and 4,936,987 to PERSINSKI et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 3,965,027 to BOFFARDI et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 5,441,602 to HARRIS et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 5,580,462 to GILL; and U.S. Pat. No. 5,409,571 to TOGO et al., the disclosures of which are herein incorporated by reference in their entireties.
Polyallylamines having phosphonic, carboxylic, or sulfonic groups are also used as scale control agents as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,629,385 to KUO and U.S. Pat. No. 5,124,046 to SHERWOOD et al., the disclosures of which are herein incorporated by reference in their entireties.
Additionally, a number of anionic polyelectrolytes, such as polyacrylates, polymaleic anhydrides, copolymers of acrylates and sulfonates, and polymers of sulfonate styrenes, have been employed. Examples of polyelectrolytes are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,640,793 to PERSINSKI et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 4,650,591 to BOOTHE et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 4,457,847 to LORENC et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 5,407,583 to GILL et al.; and U.S. Pat. No. 4,671,888 to YORKE, the disclosures of which are herein incorporated by reference in their entireties.
Polyepoxysuccinic acid for inhibiting the formation and deposition of scale in aqueous systems is disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,062,962 and 5,147,555 to BROWN et al., the disclosures of which are herein incorporated by reference in their entireties.
Phosphonate based compounds are extensively used as calcium carbonate scale control agents. Examples include ether diphosphonate (U.S. Pat. No. 5,772,893 to REED et al., and U.S. Pat. No.5,647,995 to KNELLER et al., the disclosures of which are herein incorporated by reference in their entireties), hydroxyethylidene-1,1-diphosphonic acid, amino tri(methylene phosphonic acid), aminomethylene phosphonates (U.S. Pat. No. 4,931,189 to DHAWAN et al., the disclosure of which is herein incorporated by reference in its entirety), N,N-bis(phosphonomethyl)-2-amino-1-propanol (U.S. Pat. No. 5,259,974 to CHEN et al., the disclosure of which is herein incorporated by reference in its entirety), methylene phosphonates of amino-terminated oxyalkylates (U.S. Pat. No. 4,080,375 to QUINLAN, the disclosure of which is herein incorporated by reference in its entirety), polyether polyamino methylene phosphonates (EP 0 516 382 B1, the disclosure of which is herein incorporated by reference in its entirety), and ethanolamine N,N-dimethylene phosphonic acid (U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,917,528 and 2,964,549 to RAMSEY et al., the disclosures of which are herein incorporated by reference in their entireties).
Additionally, it is known that certain inorganic polyphosphonates would prevent precipitation when added in amounts less than the concentrations needed for sequestering or chelating, as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 2,358,222 to FINK et al. and U.S. Pat. No. 2,539,305 to HATCH, the disclosures of which are herein incorporated by reference in their entireties.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,960,576 to CARTER et al., the disclosure of which is herein incorporated by reference in its entirety, discloses that inorganic-silicate-based compositions also comprised of an organic phosphonate and carboxy methyl cellulose are useful for inhibiting corrosion of metal surfaces.
MANAHAN, Environmental Chemistry, pp. 183-213 (1991), the disclosure of which is herein incorporated by reference in its entirety, with particular attention directed to pp. 193-195, discloses use in environmental chemistry of sodium aluminum silicate minerals or zeolites as water softeners. The softening of water by aluminum silicate minerals and zeolites is based on ion-exchanging properties of the minerals. The divalent cations, which are responsible for water hardness, are replaced by sodium ions contained in the aluminum silicates, and then removed by filtration. An example of a micaceous mineral which has been used commercially in water softening is glauconite, K.sub.2 (MgFe).sub.2 Al.sub.6 (Si.sub.4 O.sub.10).sub.3 OH.sub.12.
Kirk-Othmer Encyclopedia of Chemical Technology, 3rd ed., vol. 24, pp. 367-384 (1984), the disclosure of which is herein incorporated by reference in its entirety, discloses that deposits are usually controlled with dispersants and scale inhibitors in cooling and process water. Among the dispersants mentioned are polymers and copolymers, for example, poly(acrylic acid) and its salts, acrylamideacrylic acid copolymers and poly(maleic acid).
"Deactivation of Calcium Scaling Liquors", The Members of the Paper Institute of Paper Chemistry, Project 3234, Report Three, pp. 88-119 (November 1977), the disclosure of which is herein incorporated by reference in its entirety, discloses adding reagent grade calcium carbonate at 1% loading in most experiments and at 5% and 20% in a few other experiments, to function as a seed in the liquor as a deposition surface for calcium carbonate.
ADAMS, "Low-Cost Evaporator Upgrades Boost Performance, Reduce Scaling", Pulp & Paper, pp. 83-89 (February 1999), discloses a salting method which involves adding sodium sulfate to control scaling.
CA 2,229,973 discloses a method of inhibiting black liquor in evaporators, wherein the liquor is heat-treated to precipitate calcium carbonate. This document discloses that no calcium carbonate needs to be added to the liquor to be heat-treated.
EP 0 916 622 discloses a process for preventing scale formation in a paper-making process, wherein calcium sulfate or calcium oxalate are added as a seed to prevent formation of calcium sulfate scale or calcium oxalate scale, respectively.
Further, it is known to use clays such as talc and bentonite in paper making for fillers, pitch control, and retention and drainage control. In filler applications, talc or bentonite may be added in an amount which is typically relatively high.
In pitch control applications, talc or bentonite may be added before the washer and after the digester. At this position, the temperature of the aqueous system is relatively low. The use of talc and bentonite for pitch control is discussed in BOARDMAN, "The Use of Organophilic Mineral Particulates in the Control of Anionic Trash Like Pitch", TAPPI Proceedings (1996), the disclosure of which is herein incorporated by reference in its entirety. In particular, this article discloses using two pounds per ton of montmorillonite. It is known that pitch deposits may sometimes include calcium carbonate.
In retention and drainage control, it is believed that bentonite and a high molecular weight cationic polymer (e.g., molecular weight of about 1.times.10.sup.6 to 10.times.10.sup.6) may be added just before the headbox. For instance, it is believed that 3-10 lb of bentonite/ton of oven dried fibers may be added near the headbox which would result in about 15-50 ppm of bentonite in the aqueous system for a 1 wt % aqueous paper furnish. It is believed that the aqueous system just before the headbox typically has a pH of about 5 to 8.5 and a temperature of about 40.degree. C. to 60.degree. C. As an example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,753,710 to LANGLEY et al. teaches that the bentonite particle size after swelling is preferably at least 90% below 2 microns.

Methods of preventing scaling involving inorganic compositions in combination with copolymers of maleic anhydride and isobutylene, and compositions therefor


A method of manufacturing a mechanically lined pipe (MLP) having an outer pipe and an inner liner comprising at least the steps of: (a) forming the outer pipe as a single length; (b) forming an inner liner former being wholly or substantially the same length as the outer pipe of step (a); (c) locating the inner liner former of step (b) within the outer pipe; and (d) expanding the inner liner former within the outer pipe to form the MLP.

Corrosion resistance pipelines for the marine or otherwise underwater transportation or conveying of corrosive fluids such as gas or crude oil can be provided by pipes having an internal metallic liner. A double-walled or bi-metallic pipe is generally composed of two metallic layers. The outer layer is for resisting hydrostatic pressure, and/or internal pressure depending on the water depth, whilst the internal layer prevents damage to the outer layer from the chemical composition of the fluid being conveyed. The inner layer is sometimes also termed a "liner". As one of its main purposes is to protect the outer layer from corrosion, commonly a corrosion resistant alloy (CRA) is chosen for the liner.
One form of bi-metallic pipe is a single "clad" pipe having an internal CRA layer metallurgically bonded to the outer layer, which could be formed from a carbon steel base metal.
A second form of bi-metallic pipe can be termed a mechanically lined pipe (MLP) formed from a number of pipe stalks in which a liner is fixed to the outer layer such as carbon steel without metallurgical bonding. An economic method of forming a lined pipe stalk in this way uses hydraulic expansion, where the liner is inserted into the outer layer, and then both parts are expanded. During the expansion, the inner layer undergoes a plastic deformation while the outer layer undergoes either an elastic or a plastic deformation, depending on the manufacturing process. One example of this comprises inserting an alloy 316L clad liner inside a carbon steel host pipe, and expanding the liner radially so that it comes into contact with the host pipe, and then the host pipe outer diameter will also expand together with the liner to a pre-determined strain level such that, following relaxation of the internal pressure, an interference contact stress between the liner and the host pipe remains.
Such bi-metallic pipe stalks are generally manufactured in 12 m or 24 m lengths at a manufacturing location, and then subsequently transported to a base or site next to a river or sea for welding together into conventionally 'standard' 1 km lengths.
However, corrosion can occur on the inner surface of the outer host pipe layers during the transportation and storage of such pipe stalks before use. Various manufacturers and suppliers of such pipe stalks have different ways of overcoming this, although the commonest method involves welding each end of the inner liner to the ends of the outer pipe to seal them. For example, the steel pipe shown in EP0150041A2 has a double construction in which an outer carbon steel pipe member is lined with respect to its whole length with a corrosion resisting material consisting of Ti.
The bi-metallic pipe stalks are conventionally transported and assembled on site at a spool base by the completion of circumferentially butt-welds between the pipe stalks. The material used to perform the welds is generally the same as the material used for the inner liners to ensure continuity of the liner material in the region of the welds. Thus, for example, when a corrosion resistant alloy is selected for the inner liner for an application in the sour service (i.e. in environments containing elemental sulfur), it is important that the property of the liner material is maintained all along the length of the liner. For this reason, all the welds of such 12 m or 24 m bi-metallic pipes are carried out with consumables formed from the corrosion resistant alloy material.
However, such consumables are higher in cost than other types of consumables, such as those formed only from carbon steel. Moreover, during the stalk-welding process, the materials used for the inner liner and the outer host pipe can mix and form an alloy. Thus, the integrity of the inner liner may not be maintained at all the weld locations despite the use of consumables of the same material of the inner liner. Any loss in integrity anywhere along the pipeline is of course catastrophic for the whole pipeline.
EP0150041A2 proposes a method of manufacturing corrosion resisting steel pipes of "limited" lengths after pipe-manufacturing and transportation to a building site, based on using end tubes so that a Ti metal overlaps the outer pipe members prior to welding.
GB2275639A describes welding its bi-metallic tubular members to form a pipe so that the butt welds formed do not contact the outer layers, followed by the addition of circumferentially lap welding sleeves around each weld not contacting the inner layers.
Such welding processes still take time and involve more complicated welding processes and additional materials such as sleeves than is desired in practice in order to avoid one or more of the above problems.

Method of manufacturing a mechanically lined pipe


A recording apparatus may include a recording head including a discharge surface in which liquid discharge openings are arranged in a particular direction. The recording apparatus may include a supplying member which is positioned at a first end portion in the particular direction, and supplies the liquid to the recording head. The recording apparatus may include a liquid supplying device which is connected to the supplying member, and supplies the liquid to the recording head. The recording apparatus may include a position adjusting device including a contact member which contacts the recording head, and adjusts a position of the recording head by moving the contact member. The position adjusting device may be positioned at a second end portion opposite to the first end portion in the particular direction.

1. Field of the Disclosure
The features herein relate to a recording apparatus including a recording head which discharges liquid so as to record an image onto a recording medium.
2. Description of the Related Art
A known recording apparatus includes an adjusting device which is configured to adjust the position of a recording head which discharges liquid. The recording apparatus further includes a liquid supplying device which is positioned near the recording head to supply liquid to the recording head. Depending upon the positional relationship between the adjusting devices and the liquid supplying device, it may be difficult to adjust the position of the recording head.

Recording apparatus and position adjusting method of recording head


Transforming machines for changing a strip of unopened bag precursors into open bag precursors are disclosed that include a drive motor, a separation station, a sensor electrically connected to a controller that is electrically connected to components of the separation station. The separation station includes a first roller, a separation roller driven by the drive motor, and a pressure device having an actuator selectively activating the pressure device to apply pressure to the strip of unopened bag precursors passing over the first roller. In operation, the controller, based on a signal from the sensor, determines when perforations are located in a gap between the pressure device and the separation roller and at that time signals the actuator to activate the pressure device, with the drive motor driving the separation roller, thereby separating the perforations in a first film layer, but not the perforations in a second film layer.

It is well known in the art to supply a roll of pre-opened bags for sealing a product in a bag with a bag filling machine, such as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,742,317.
However, a roll of pre-opened bags has a diameter, which is about twice the size of a roll of sealed film without pre-openings in the bags. Air trapped in the pre-opened bags makes the roll twice the size of a roll of sealed film. The cost of a roll of pre-opened bags compared to a roll of unopened bags is about twice the cost.
The pre-opened bags are created by forming end perforations in the two layers of the film and separating the end perforations in one of the layers in a secondary operation to open the bags and rewinding the open bags on to a core to form a roll with the bags oriented in the proper direction for feeding into a bag filling machine. This additional step of rewinding the open bags requires additional time in the manufacturing process and as such is an added cost.
Moreover, the pre-opened bags are all a standard size per roll, which to change the size of the bag requires changing the roll feeding into the machine. There is a need to be able to change the size of the bag on demand without changing the roll.
Accordingly, there is a clearly felt need in the art for a method and apparatus for making open bags in a manner that reduces the cost of the rolls of material and increases productivity of a bag sealing operation without changing roll to change bag size and without changing the roll as often because more bags are present per same diameter roll.

Method and apparatus for opening bags while maintaining a continuous strip of bag precursors


The present invention relates to fluorescent dyes. The present invention provides a wide range of fluorescent dyes and kits containing the same, which are applicable for labeling a variety of biomolecules, cells and microorganisms. In one aspect, the invention provides a compound having a maximal fluorescence excitation wavelength, wherein the compound has a structure of Formula II:F—Y=Ψ  Formula IIand wherein Z— is a counterion, Y is a bridge unit permitting electron delocalization between F and Ψ, and F is a moiety having the structure:

Fluorescent dyes are widely used in biological research and medical diagnostics. Fluorescent dyes are superior to conventional radioactive materials because fluorescent dyes are typically sufficiently sensitive to be detected, less expensive and less toxic. In particular, a diversity of fluorophores with a distinguishable color range has made it more practical to perform multiplexed assays capable of detecting multiple biological targets in parallel. The ability to visualize multiple targets in parallel is often required for delineating the spatial and temporal relationships amongst different biological targets in vitro and in vivo. In addition, the generation of a wide range of fluorescent dyes has opened a new avenue for conducting high-throughput and automated assays, thus dramatically reducing the unit cost per assay. Moreover, the low toxicity of fluorescent dyes provides ease of handling in vitro, and also renders it safer for imaging biological activities in vivo.
Despite the various advantages of fluorescent dyes, conventional dyes have a number of profound limitations. For example, conventional fluorescent dyes are typically prone to inter-dye quenching, a phenomenon known to diminish the effective brightness of the dyes. It is a common practice to conjugate a given target with multiple dye molecules in order to maximize the brightness of the labeled target, e.g., a biomolecule such as protein or DNA. For many conventional fluorescent dyes, the fluorescence intensity of the labeled target is often not directly proportional to the number of attached dye molecules, but rather less than the predicted intensity due to, e.g., quenching amongst the multiple dyes attached to the target. Such quenching effect can be attributed to, in part, the physical interaction amongst the attached dye molecules, which may lead to formation of nonfluorescent dye dimers. Dimer formation may be driven by hydrophobic interaction. Because many traditional fluorescent dyes, such as various rhodamine dyes and cyanine dyes, are highly hydrophobic aromatic compounds, these commonly used dyes are particularly prone to forming dimers on labeled biomolecules. Adding sulfonate groups to a dye has been shown to reduce dimer formation. See, e.g., U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,268,486 and 6,977,305, 6,130,101 and Panchuk-Voloshina, et al. J. Histochem. Cytochem. 47(9), 1179 (1999). However, while sulfonation may reduce dimer formation, it also introduces negative charges into a biomolecule, and thus may increase the risk of disrupting the biological activity of the labeled biomolecule. Furthermore, dyes substituted with sulfonates alone may exhibit a shorter serum half-life when used in vivo in a subject.
Another limiting factor for conventional fluorescent dyes is the low fluorescence brightness intrinsic to individual fluorescent groups. Such property is generally determined by the fluorescence quantum yield of the fluorescent group. A low fluorescence quantum yield is usually due to energy transfer from the excited electronic state to the vibrational and rotational states of the molecule, a process in which the electronic energy is converted to heat, instead of light. One approach to improve the fluorescence quantum yield of a fluorescent group is to rigidify the dye structure so that the dye has limited vibrational and rotational modes. See, e.g., U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,981,747 and 5,986,093, which describe monomethine cyanine dyes that are rigidified by a two-carbon chain that links the two benzazolium nitrogen atoms. Similarly, in U.S. Pat. No. 6,133,445, trimethine cyanine dyes are rigidified by incorporating the bridge moiety into a three fused ring system. The rigidified cyanine dyes all have significantly improved quantum yields compared to the nonrigidified counterpart dyes. However, the improvements in quantum yield are obtained at the expense of other desirable properties. For example, because of their relatively complex structures, these rigidified dyes typically take several more steps to synthesize than regular cyanine dyes, often with low yields. Highly rigidified dyes may also show a higher tendency to aggregate on proteins. For example, a rigidified cyanine dye has been shown to form dimers even when used at a much lower degree of labeling on proteins than a nonrigidified cyanine (Cooper, et al. Journal of Fluorescence 14, 145 (2004)). Furthermore, rigidified trimethine cyanine dyes have shown significantly reduced photostability, compared to regular non-rigidified trimethine cyanine dyes (see, e.g., U.S. Pat. No. 6,133,445).

Abstract: The present invention also provides various methods of using the fluorescent dyes for research and development, forensic identification, environmental studies, diagnosis, prognosis, and/or treatment of disease conditions.


A method includes loading a first document from a first document domain. The first document includes a first instruction to dynamically create a second document object and a second instruction to write script loading logic into the second document object. The first document is rendered to create a rendition, the rendering including creating, in a memory, the second document object according to the first instruction; and writing, into the second document object, the script loading logic according to the second instruction. The second document object is asynchronously rendered by executing the script loading logic to send a script loading request to a script serving domain and to receive a script from the script serving domain, the script executable to modify the content of the rendition; and executing the script to modify the content of the rendition.

Standard Web technology allows loading of a piece of executable script from multiple domains synchronously. For example, a first document, such as the web page
http://www.abc.com/main.html
is allowed to include a piece of JavaScript from
http://srv.main.abcrtm.com/dynamic
The loaded JavaScript will be executed in the context of the first, in some examples main, HyperText Markup Language (HTML) document and is allowed to freely modify the main.html document. The capability of loading script from multiple domains is generally considered safe.
The loading of the executable script is synchronous. It means, once the loading of JavaScript starts, the rendering of the main.html document is blocked until the "dynamic" script is loaded and executed. After the script is executed, the main document continues to render until finished.
The synchronous behavior of script loading introduces two problems. First, if the script is large, it will block the rendering of the entire (e.g., a composite—the first document augmented with the executable script) document for an extended period of time. This degrades end user experience. Second, the script is considered by a document compositing device, which may be a web browser running on a personal computer or laptop computer, as a part of the document and cannot be loaded on-demand in response to a user action.
In recent years, a technology called AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) emerged. This technology allows loading of dynamically generated content asynchronously and on-demand. For example, a piece of dynamically generated HTML content or XML document can be loaded in response to a user action. This technology, if applied properly, can improve the responsiveness of web applications and enhance the end user experience. However, loading of HTML or XML content across multiple domains is not considered safe. If it is allowed, a malicious web site can easily hijack pages on other web sites.
AJAX technology as a matter of principle blocks the interaction between the main document and dynamically loaded content coming from a different domain. This restriction can be relaxed slightly by downgrading the domain attribute of a document to its second level root domain. For example, a document on www.abc.com can be downgraded to domain abc.com; while a document on svc.main.abcrtm.com can be downgraded to ebayrtm.com. If the main document and the dynamic content (e.g. HTML or XML content) share the same second level root domain after the downgrading, they are allowed to communicate with each other.
However, if the dynamic content is on a different second level root domain, it is strictly not allowed to access the main document. For example, a main.html document can be downgraded to domain abc.com. If the content is coming from another second level root domain such as abcrtm.com, it is not allowed to access (e.g., read/modify) the main.html document at all.
For more detailed description for this restriction, please refer to the Microsoft technical document located at:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/workshop/author/om/xframe_scripting_security.a
However, a single web content provider, such as an Internet company can own multiple domains. For example, eBay owns www.ebay.com, www.paypal.com, www.shopping.com etc. All contents within those domains are considered safe within eBay. There is a need to safely retrieve content from multiple domains and combine or compose them together asynchronously to form the final rendition—which may be the visible depiction of the web page.

Asynchronously loading dynamically generated content across multiple internet domains


A weighing apparatus includes a load cell, a fixing portion to which one end of the load cell is fixed, a hopper configured to store articles, a connecting portion configured to connect the other end of the load cell and the hopper to each other, a first support portion facing a first portion provided to the load cell or the connecting portion via a first gap and configured to support the first portion along a first direction when a first limit load acts on the hopper, and a second support portion facing a second portion provided to the load cell or the connecting portion via a second gap and configured to support the second portion along a second direction intersecting the first direction while the first support portion supports the first portion when a second limit load larger than the first limit load acts on the hopper.

Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2013-250196 describes a weighing apparatus using a load cell and including a fixing member for fixing one end of the load cell, a weighing hopper on which an object to be weighed is placed, a connecting member for connecting the weighing hopper and a free end of the load cell, and an overload protection mechanism for protecting the load cell from overload. In the weighing apparatus described in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2013-250196, the overload protection mechanism operates as follows. That is, when a first limit load acts on the load cell, a first support portion supports a first portion set for either the load cell or the connecting member from below. Further, when a second limit load larger than the first limit load acts on the load cell, at the same time as the first support portion supports the first portion, a second support portion supports a second portion set for either the connecting member or the load cell from above.

Weighing apparatus and combination weighing apparatus


An indoor unit of an air-conditioning apparatus includes vanes, vane shafts and, which are disposed at the ends of the vanes, vane bearings and, which hold the vane shafts and, and motors, each of which is mounted on a corresponding one of the vane shafts and each of which causes a corresponding one of the vanes to rotate. Each of the vane shafts is provided with a rib, and each of the vane bearings, which hold the corresponding vane shafts, is provided with a hook portion. When one of the vane shafts moves by a reference movement amount in a direction toward the corresponding vane shaft, the corresponding rib and the corresponding hook portion engage with each other, so that movement of the vane shaft is restricted.

In the related art, there is a bathroom heater that includes an air outlet unit, which includes a frame member and a motor-accommodating box, the frame member including a bearing portion and having an air outlet formed therein, and the motor-accommodating box being connected to the frame member, a wind-direction-adjusting louver that includes pivot shafts on the left and right sides thereof and that is rotatably supported by the frame member, and a stepping motor for driving the louver that is accommodated in the motor-accommodating box (see, for example, Patent Literature 1). In the bathroom heater described in Patent Literature 1, pivot shafts of a wind-direction-adjusting louver are connected to a drive shaft of a stepping motor.

Indoor unit for air-conditioning apparatus


A fixing element of metal, in particular for fixing facing panels, has a slotted expansible sleeve arranged to be expanded into an undercut of a drilled hole and having an inner bore with a slotted part, and an expander element effecting an expansion of the expansible sleeve and arranged to clamp an article to a facing panel. The expansible sleeve has a plurality of inwardly bent expansible segments having a leading end face and an outer surface and provided with a circumfernetial enlargement arranged on the outer surface of the expansible segment in the region of the leading end face. The expander element is formed as a blind rivet with a rivet shank and a clench head which is drawn with the rivet shank into the slotted part of the inner bore of the expansible sleeve and riveted.

The present invention relates to a fixing element of metal.
More particularly, it relates to a fixing element which has a slotted expansible sleeve arranged to be expanded into an undercut of a drilled hole, and an expander element effecting the expansion and having a head for clamping an article to a facing panel.
The invention relates to a fixing element of metal according to the preamble of claim 1.
To fix facing panels that are relatively thin in thickness, drilled holes of very small depth and with an undercut are made on the rear side of the facing panel. Conventional fixing elements with expansible sleeves are little suited to this application, since the expansible sleeve is driven using hammer blows onto an expander element resting at the bottom of the bore in order to effect anchorage of the fixing elements. The facing panel could be broken or the bore punched through by the hammer blows.
DE 40 11 229 A1 discloses a fixing element in which these disadvantages are avoided. Instead of an expansible sleeve, this fixing element uses a metallic ring bent into a roof shape, the bent ends of which rest on the conical outer surface of an expander cone resting at the bottom of the drilled hole. Using a setting tool the ring can be pressed flat by slight pressure and bent into the undercut of the drilled hole. In order to avoid the bore being punched through thin facing panels, the pressure force applied has to be judged exactly. A device of that kind is therefore expensive and generally set up at a fixed location. The fixing elements are applied to the facing panels at this location and the panels are then transported to wherever they are to be installed. Because the fixing bolts project beyond the rear side of the facing panels, these cannot be stacked for transport. Shifting the panels and relatively long transportation distances therefore adversely affect the operating process.

Fixing element, in particular for fixing facing panels

Fischerwerke, Artur Fischer GmbH & Co. KG


A memory management system for minimizing I/O data transfer latency during the resolution of page faults. A page protection register having a mask with validity bits corresponding to each data line of the page in local memory is implemented in the memory controller. The mask bits are set when the corresponding data line has been input via the memory controller and is ready for access. When a page fault is received by the microprocessor, the desired page is read into the microprocessor's local memory, and the mask bit corresponding to the critical line which caused the page fault is checked. Processing of the process which requested the critical data line proceeds as soon as the mask bit for the critical data line is set, thereby preventing the microprocessor from having to wait for the entire page to be transferred into local memory before processing continues. In addition, the invention provides a mechanism whereby the address of the critical data line is identified and provided to the external memory so that the data lines in the page may be sent out of order. In particular, the critical data line may be sent first so that it is the first data line stored in the local memory during memory I/O. The mask bits corresponding to the critical line are thus set first, thereby allowing the microprocessor to be quickly reactivated so that processing may proceed in parallel with I/O to the microprocessor's local memory. When the present invention is implemented for a page having N data lines, the data transfer latency time may be reduced by as much as a factor of N.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a memory management system for a computer, and more particularly, to a paging system which resolves a page fault as soon as the critical data line which caused the page fault is received, without waiting for the rest of the page to be written into local memory.
2. Description of the Prior Art
As well known to those skilled in the art, microprocessors have local memory which stores the data needed by processes operating on the microprocessor. The local memory may be an on-board cache or the local (main) memory of the microprocessor. The main memory also may be cached to improve performance. Typically, the local memory operates in accordance with a paging system whereby one or more pages of memory are stored locally to the microprocessor for rapid access. In such paging systems, if the data requested by the microprocessor cannot be found in the page or pages currently stored in local memory, a page fault is issued, and the page containing the requested data is written into the local memory from an external, relatively slow secondary memory using known page replacement techniques. During this page writing (I/O transfer), the process requesting the data is stalled by the microprocessor until the entire page containing the requested data is written into local memory. The period during which the process is stalled is generally known as the storage latency.
Access to data in the secondary memory is typically much slower than access to data in local memory since the storage latency includes the I/O data transfer latency as well as the search time for finding the desired data in the secondary memory. Because of the relatively large search time for the secondary memory, the I/O data transfer latency is a relatively small percentage of the storage latency. For example, in a typical memory transfer from a disk, it may take 20 ms to find the requested page on the disk but only 2 ms to transfer the requested page (assuming a 4 kB page at 2 MB/sec) once it has been found. As a result, prior art efforts to reduce storage latency have concentrated on reducing the amount of time needed to find the page in the secondary storage devices. However, as the cost of random access memory (RAM) falls, RAMs are being used more frequently as the secondary storage devices. As known by those skilled in the art, RAMs have a relatively small access time, and as a result, in such systems the I/O data transfer latency has become a larger portion of the storage latency. Accordingly, it is desirable that this I/O data transfer latency be further reduced to minimize the storage latency so as to provide for the most efficient resolution of page faults.
I/O data transfer latency is often addressed by choosing a particular page size. The choice of page size is a complicated one and is based on the expected use of the machine, the expected size of main memory, and various constraints upon the hardware design such as the microprocessor's size and number of connections. In general, a larger page size reduces the size and complexity of the microprocessor and the virtual memory software. If the main memory of the system is large enough, the larger page size can also reduce the number of page faults necessary to load a process from secondary memory by increasing the amount of data retrieved on each fault. However, if main memory is not large enough to hold the entire set of pages needed by the application, larger page sizes can decrease, rather than improve, system performance. This results when the larger page sizes decrease the effective memory available to the process or processes running on the system, and then by increasing the latency of each individual I/O request. For example, for a process which requires one four byte data item on each page, doubling the page size while keeping the size of the memory constant halves the number of data items that the process can keep in memory simultaneously and doubles the amount of time needed to transfer the pages from secondary memory. If the transfer time dominates the amount of time needed to locate the requested page in secondary memory, the decrease in performance due to the page transfer latency may be substantial.
Thus, in paging systems, the tradeoff is often between utilization and seek times. Larger transfers reduce the number of seeks required to pull data into the local memory, and as just noted, granularity (page size) may have a dramatic effect on the storage latency and hence the time necessary to resolve page faults. Although small pages may also be used, they are implemented at the cost of poorer memory utilization and an increased number of page faults.
Systems which can access a portion of a page prior to other portions of a page are not generally known. However, systems such as the IBM RS 6000 are known which can lock portions of a page in a translation table. In addition, a system is not generally known which allows a page fault to be resolved upon partial transfer of data within the page. While similar techniques have been used to address latency issues within a hardware cache hierarchy, the present inventor knows of no such application to external memory devices and virtual memory systems.
Accordingly, it is desired to reduce storage latency so as to minimize the time necessary to resolve a page fault. Preferably, this will be accomplished by enabling the microprocessor to resolve a page fault upon partial transfer of a page. In particular, it is desired to enable the microprocessor to resume processing as soon as the critical data line which caused the page fault is received in local memory, i.e., without waiting for the remainder of the lines in the page to be transferred. It is also desired to further reduce I/O data transfer latency by sending the critical line first, i.e., by transferring the critical data line which caused the page fault before other data lines within the requested page. The present invention has been designed to meet these needs.


The present invention relates to an enhanced method for the manufacture of a plastic component (135), in particular a cushioning element for sports apparel, the method comprising: opening a mold (100) by a predetermined amount into a loading position, wherein the mold comprises at least two mold parts (110, 112) and wherein the amount by which the mold is opened influences an available loading volume of the mold, loading a material comprising expanded particles (130) into the loading volume, closing the mold into a closed position, wherein during closing of the mold the mold parts are moved together over different distances (140) in different areas of the mold, compressing the expanded particles by closing the mold and fusing at least the surfaces of the expanded particles to mold the plastic component.

Nowadays, plastic components play an essential role in many areas of technology and everyday life. As examples, the aviation and aerospace industry as well as the automotive industry are mentioned. In these areas, plastic components may, for example, serve as impact protection elements, e.g. bumpers, or they may be used for the manufacture of panel-elements, seat shells, arm rests, and so forth. Plastic components may also be used in the packing industry, for example for packing up sensitive and easily damaged goods for delivery.
In all of these exemplary areas of application, it is beneficial if the plastic components comprise as small a weight as possible, being, however, at the same time sufficiently resilient. In particular, with regard to plastic components being used for impact protection or for safely wrapping up goods, plastic components should also comprise good cushioning and shock absorption properties with regard to blows or hits. In this context, foamed plastic materials are known from the prior art, like for example expanded polystyrene—e.g. available from the BASF under the trade names of Styropor® or Styrodur®.
The use of expanded plastic materials has also found its way into the manufacture of cushioning elements for sports apparel, for example for the manufacture of shoe soles for sports shoes.
In the art of shoe manufacturing and in particular, in the design of high performance athletic shoes a strong demand exists for improving the material properties of the individual components of a shoe, for example the flexibility, the abrasion resistance, the stiffness, the compressive strength and/or the resilience of the component as well as further physical and chemical material properties.
For instance, it may be desirable to enhance the material properties of the midsole of an athletic shoe, in order to provide a higher performance of the shoe during use, improved wearing comfort and/or increased longevity of the midsole while at the same time improving ease of manufacture.
In particular, the use of particles of expanded thermoplastic polyurethane (eTPU), which are fused together by supplying heat in the form of steam or connected by the use of a binder material as described in DE 10 2012 206 094 A1 and DE 10 2011 108 744 B1, has been considered.
Moreover, prior art document EP 2 649 896B1 provides improved soles and insoles for shoes, in particular sports shoes and manufacturing methods thereof. In one aspect, a sole for a shoe, in particular a sports shoe, with at least a first and a second surface region is provided, wherein the first surface region comprises eTPU.
In addition, the EP 3 114 954 A1 relates to a method for the manufacture of a sole for a shoe, in particular for a sports shoe that comprises: opening a movable part of a mold to a predetermined extent, loading particles of eTPU into the mold, reducing the volume of the mold according to the shape of the sole which is to be manufactured and feeding steam to the eTPU, wherein the mechanical properties of the sole are at least partly determined by the extent to which the mold is opened during loading.
However, various aspects of the manufacturing methods described by the prior art may be further improved.
It is therefore a problem to be addressed by the present invention to further improve manufacturing methods for a plastic component comprising expanded particles such as eTPU or expanded polyether-block-amide (ePEBA) so as to improve the material properties and/or ease of manufacture of the plastic component.
Further, it is desirable to incorporate such enhanced plastic component comprising expanded particles into a midsole of a shoe and/or a shoe.

Method for the manufacture of a plastic component, plastic component, midsole and shoe


A volume scanning three-dimensional floating image display is constructed from a real mirror image forming optical system capable of forming the real mirror image of an object to be projected in a planar symmetric position with respect to a symmetry surface, and a display located under the symmetry surface showing images that serve as the object to be projected, and an actuator means capable of moving the display in a direction with a component perpendicular to the display surface, so by changing the displayed image synchronously with the motion of the display, the real mirror image of that image will be formed in the space on the other side of the symmetry surface as a three-dimensional floating image.

Three-dimensional imaging technology has been developing in recent years. Many of the stereoscopic display devices currently being commercialized use only binocular disparity among the effects of stereoscopy, and because of this, problems arise due to such technical issues as focusing and convergence control, and the fatigue of the eyes when viewing for a long time; thus it is desirable to develop a more easily used technology. For example, in one proposed volume scanning three-dimensional method (see Non-Patent Reference 1), assuming the use convex lenses or concave mirrors as imaging optics, by arranging a two-dimensional high-speed display in a position tilted to the optical axis of the optical system, then moving the two-dimensional image that is tilted to the optical axis of the optical system by a scanner mirror, and in accordance with that, displaying the respective cross-sectional images of the object to be projected on the two-dimensional display, a three-dimensional image will be formed. When using this method, because a three-dimensional real image is formed, no attached objects such as glasses are required, and all the factors of human three-dimensional visual perception are satisfied.
Non-Patent Reference 1:
"Volumetric display system based on three-dimensional scanning of inclined optical image", Daisuke Miyazaki et al, Optic Express, Vol. 14, Issue 26, pp. 12760-12769

Volume scanning three-dimensional floating image display device

National Institute of Information and Communications Technology


A method for determining a velocity of a flowing fluid includes estimating a Reynolds number for the flowing fluid; comparing the estimated Reynolds number with a selected range; and determining the velocity of the flowing fluid based on a flow model selected from a laminar flow model, a turbulent flow model, and a partial laminar flow model. An ultrasonic flow meter includes a plurality pairs of transducers configured to form a plurality of measurement paths in a pipe, wherein the plurality of measurement paths are arranged asymmetrically relative to a centerline of the pipe.

1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates generally to flow rate measurement methods and systems. In particular, embodiments relate to multi-path ultrasonic measurement of partially developed flow profiles.
2. Background Art
In industries where a flow of fluid is involved, accurate measurements of flow rates are often required. For example, in the oil and gas industry, accurate flow rate measurements are needed in custody transfer (the transfer of ownership, for example at a crude oil loading and off-loading station), leak detection, and process control applications. Conventional flow measurement technologies include turbine flow meters and positive displacement flow meters. Recently, multi-channel ultrasonic meters are gaining shares in this market due to their advantages over conventional technologies. These advantages include: excellent long-term repeatability, less sensitivity to fluid properties such as viscosity and pressure, better open-box accuracy, wider range of linearity, and lower cost of maintenance due to the fact that no moving parts are used in these ultrasonic meters.
In a typical operation, an ultrasonic flow meter uses a transducer to transmit an ultrasonic beam into the flow stream, and the ultrasonic energy is received by a second transducer. The flow carrying the ultrasonic wave alters the wave's frequency (Doppler effect) and transit time (velocity superposition), and these two quantities can be measured to determine the flow rate. Based on these principles, two major ultrasonic flow measurement technologies exist: Doppler and transit-time. In some configurations of flow meters, transducers are clamped on the outside wall of a pipe. To achieve better measurement accuracy, transducers may be alternately placed inside the pipe wall, and such transducers are referred to as "wetted" transducers. Some methods to measure flow profiles have been developed, mostly based on Doppler technology (e.g., U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,067,861, 6,378,357). However, Doppler signals rely heavily on particle size and concentration that sometimes may vary and lead to poor repeatability. It is widely accepted in the industry that only multi-path transit-time meters combined with wetted transducers are capable of high accuracy applications mentioned above.
The principles of transit-time ultrasonic measurements are well established. According to the an America Petroleum Institute (API) standard (API H00008, Manual of Petroleum Measurement Standards, Measurement of Liquid Hrdrocarbons by Ultrasonic Flowmeters Using Transit Time), an average velocity along an ultrasonic path can be derived from:
                              V          i                =                              L                          2                                                                                cos                                                                                θ                                *                                                    t                2                            -                              t                1                                                                    t                1                            *                              t                2                                                                        (        1        )            where Vi is a path-average flow velocity (i.e., an average of velocities along a particular ultrasonic path) for the path i, L is the ultrasonic path length, θ is the angle between the ultrasonic path and the fluid velocity vector, and t1 and t2 are the ultrasonic travel times in and against the flow direction, respectively.
It should be noted that the measured path-average velocity Vi is different from the flow-average velocity Vavg, the latter being the velocity averaged over the flow cross section. Vi is directly measured from an ultrasonic transit-time flow meter using Equation (1), while Vavg gives the flow rate that is important in applications such as custody transfer. A ratio Ki between these two velocities can be defined as:
                                          K            i                    =                                    V              avg                                      V              i                                      ,                            (        2        )            and is referred to as the channel factor. In the following description, Vi is referred to as the path velocity, and Vavg is referred to as the average velocity.
Pipe flows mostly run in one of the two modes: the laminar mode and the turbulent mode. Widely accepted mathematical models for these flow modes are:
                                          V                                      (              r              )                                =                                    V              c                        *                          (                              1                -                                                      r                    2                                                        R                    2                                                              )                                      ,                  for                                                              laminar                                                              flow                                    (        3        )                                                      V                                      (              r              )                                =                                    V              c                        *                                          (                                  1                  -                                      r                    R                                                  )                                            1                N                                                    ,                            (        4        )                                for                                                  turbulent                                                  flow                                                  in                                                  smooth                          -                        wall                                                  pipes                                        where V(r) is the velocity at a distance r from the pipe centerline, R is the pipe radius, Vc is the flow velocity along the pipe centerline, and N is a power-law factor.
The power-law factor N is a characteristic value of a turbulent flow. For a fully developed turbulent flow, the power-law factor N can be estimated using an empirical equation described in the literature (e.g., L. Lynnworth, "Ultrasonic Measurement for Process Control", Academic Press, San Diego, 1989):N=1.66*log Re  (5)where Re is the Reynolds number, which is a function of the flow velocity V and the fluid viscosity μ:
                              Re          =                                    DV                                                                                ρ                        μ                          ,                            (        6        )            where D is the pipe diameter, and p is the fluid density.
In real-world applications, the pipe and the fluid conditions often cannot be precisely quantified, and Equations (5) and (6) generally cannot be used to obtain N in high-accuracy measurements. Hence, for a given turbulent flow, at least two measurements at two flow paths are needed in order to solve Equation (4) for the two unknowns, N and Vc. This is why a multi-path ultrasonic technology is often needed to resolve flow profile variations.
Referring to FIG. 1A, a pipe 1 is shown with three pairs of transducers, 11a and 11b, 12a and 12b, 13a and 13b. An arrow 2 shows the flow direction. The lines between transducer pairs show their ultrasonic paths. In this configuration, the ultrasonic path between 11a and 11b crosses the pipe centerline, and is referred to as a diagonal path. The shortest distance from a path to the pipe centerline is referred to as channel level. A diagonal path has a channel level of 0. The path between 12a and 12b and the path between 13a and 13b have the same channel levels h even though the two transducer pairs are at different locations. FIG. 1A also illustrates an exemplary flow profile 3.
The channel factor Ki depends on flow profiles and the position of the ultrasonic path. For a diagonal ultrasonic path the channel factor is:
                              0.75          ,                                    for                                                                                a                                                                                laminar                                                                                flow                        ;            and                                                                                ∫                0                R                                                                                (                                          1                      -                                              r                        R                                                              )                                                        1                    N                                                  *                2                *                r                *                                                                                ⅆ                  r                                                                    R              *                                                ∫                  0                  R                                                                                (                                              1                        -                                                  r                          R                                                                    )                                                              1                      N                                                        *                                                                                ⅆ                    r                                                                                ,                      for                                                                          a                                                                          turbulent                                                                                flow              .                                                          (        7        )
Referring to FIG. 1B, the channel factor K (vertical axis) is shown as a function of Reynolds number Re (horizontal axis) in a case of a diagonal ultrasonic path. For non-diagonal ultrasonic paths, the K values can also be derived in a similar way. The relation between K value and path positions has been well studied for the laminar flow and the turbulent flow profiles, dating back to a 1978 U.S. Pat. No. 4,078,428. Hence, for both laminar flow and turbulent flow profiles, the relations between measured velocities and the actual average velocities are well defined.
A major challenge for ultrasonic meters is to detect a flow profile promptly based on information from a limited number of paths. For a turbulent flow, the randomness of measured path velocities in selected paths can result in instant deviation as high as 10 percent from the average values, and the small number of paths makes it difficult to obtain a satisfactory statistical average flow velocity. Unlike turbine meters that inherently average out the whole cross section of a flow, transit-time ultrasonic flow meters only measure a limited number of selected paths of flow velocity. To average out randomness of the measured velocities, ultrasonic meters need to have either a large damping on the raw data or more paths distributed across a flow profile. Using a large damping will adversely affect the system response time and result in poor repeatability when measuring a small volume. On the other hand, adding more channels to measure more paths may substantially increase the system cost.
A more challenging problem for ultrasonic flow meters is to detect a partially developed flow profile. A fully developed flow profile, by definition, is a flow velocity distribution pattern that does not change along a pipe. Any other flow profiles that have symmetric velocity distributions around the pipe centerline, but with a evolving flow velocity distribution along the pipe, are in this description referred to as partially developed flow profiles. There are two possible causes for partially developed flow profiles. One is a transitional profile between turbulent and laminar flows that can happen in high-viscosity fluids. Another is due to the presence of a flow conditioning device that does not have enough downstream length for the profile to fully develop.
The transition between a turbulent flow and a laminar flow normally takes place when the Reynolds number is around 2300 and has been demonstrated by numerous experiments. However, as illustrated in FIG. 1B, this transition can happen in a wide range of Reynolds numbers and can have memory effects, depending on fluid and pipe conditions. As a result, it is not accurate to use the Reynolds number as a sole indicator of a flow profile mode. A partially developed profile near the transition range may cause an unacceptably poor repeatability in flow measurements, as neither the laminar nor the turbulent model fits the profile well.
As a known fact, a steady profile needs some straight, obstruction-free distance in the pipe to fully develop. Referring to FIG. 2, a plug flow 21, which has a constant velocity throughout the cross section of the pipe 23 having a diameter D, enters the pipe 23 from a much larger pipe 22. The flow initially has a partially developed profile 24. After an entrance length 25, the flow has a fully developed profile 26. Both theories and experiments indicate that the entrance length 25 needs to be as long as 100 times the pipe diameter D for a laminar profile to fully develop, and 80 times the pipe diameter D for a turbulent profile to fully develop (see, R. W. Fox and A. T. McDonald, "Introduction to Fluid Mechanics", 3rd ed., John Wiley and Sons, New York, 1992). In practice, entrance flow rarely has a form of a plug profile, and a straight length of 10 to 15 times the pipe diameter D is commonly recommended by meter manufactures to have a predictable measurement of flow profiles.
For a multi-path custody-transfer flow meter, it is a common practice to have a flow conditioning device installed upstream of the flow meter. The main purpose of the flow conditioning device is to reduce swirls and to reduce asymmetric profile distortion. A shorter flow conditioning installation distance is always beneficial for manufacturers and customers. U.S. Pat. No. 6,647,806 also suggests that a shorter distance between a flow conditioning device and a flow meter can improve the repeatability of measurements.
Referring to FIG. 3, which shows an API recommended flow conditioning device 31, made of a bundle of small tubes having a length B, is installed in the pipe 32 at a distance A from the pipe entrance. The distance C downstream of the flow conditioning device 31, is recommended to be at least 5 times the diameter D of the pipe 32. The device 31 tends to smooth out a flow profile. As a result, the presence of the device 31 will either disturb a laminar profile, or flatten a turbulent profile. In either case, within a limited entrance distance, a typical flow profile (i.e., laminar flow or turbulent flow) may not fully develop. In particular, downstream of the conditioning device, turbulent flow may have a much higher N number than that estimated using equation (5), and turbulent-laminar transition can happen at a Reynolds number much lower than 2300. In either case, the flow profile will be unpredictable based on the Reynolds number. What are still needed are improved systems and methods for monitoring partially developed flow profiles in real time.

Method and system for multi-path ultrasonic flow measurement of partially developed flow profiles


A method for cryopreserving an umbilical cord tissue strip includes the steps of: (a) applying tension to a segment of an umbilical cord to expand spaces between umbilical cord vessels; (b) cutting the segment of the umbilical cord, at the spaces between the umbilical cord vessels in a longitudinal direction that parallels a length of the umbilical cord vessels, to obtain the umbilical cord tissue strip, wherein the umbilical cord tissue strip contains Wharton's jelly from a perivascular region, a intervascular region, and a subamnion region; (c) incubating the umbilical cord tissue strip with a cryogenic composition; and (d) cryopreserving the umbilical cord tissue strip containing the Wharton's jelly and the cryogenic composition.

The potential benefits of preserving a baby's umbilical cord blood are well documented. A similar idea is to preserve a baby's umbilical cord tissue, in which a section of the umbilical cord, together with all the cells contained therein, may be preserved at birth for later use. The cord tissue may be frozen in a cryogenic storage tanks for long-term preservation. When the baby's cells are needed for therapies in the future, the cord tissue may be processed to extract the cells using the best technology available at that time.
For example, U.S. Patent Publication No. 2009/0275127 A1, which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety, discloses a method for extracting viable progenitor cells from frozen umbilical cord tissues. In this disclosure, an umbilical cord tissue is a blood vessel bearing the perivascular Wharton's jelly, and the extracted progenitor cells are human umbilical cord perivascular cells (HUCPVCs). In the disclosed methods, intact cord vessels with associated Wharton's jelly are obtained by gently pulling the vessels from cord that has been opened longitudinally and sectioned transversely to yield vessel segments. This process sheds the bulk of Wharton's jelly within the cord, but leaves Wharton's jelly in the perivascular region associated with the extracted vessels. The ends of the vessels are tied off to prevent the escape of any blood remaining within the vessels. In the alternative, blood within the vessels can be removed by repeating rinsing.
U.S. Pat. Publication No. 8,703,411 B2, issued to inventors of the present invention, discloses a method of preserving an umbilical cord. The disclosure of the '411 patent is incorporated by reference in its entirety. The method disclosed in the '411 patent comprises obtaining a segment of an umbilical cord; mincing the segment of the umbilical cord into cord tissue pieces; admixing the cord tissue pieces with a cryogenic composition comprising a cryoprotectant and a protein to form a mixture; shaking the mixture for a duration of no shorter than 20 minutes and no longer than 40 minutes; and cryopreserving the mixture.
Umbilical cord tissue preservation and subsequent cell culturing are relatively new techniques. While the prior art provides useful methods for preserving useful umbilical cord tissues, there is still a need for efficient methods that can preserve umbilical cord tissues for later use.

Cryopreservation of umbilical cord tissue strips for cord tissue-derived stem cells


A method for suspending an erase operation performed on a group of memory cells in a flash memory circuit is disclosed. One example method includes providing to the memory circuit a command to erase the group of memory cells via a plurality of erase pulses. After applying an erase pulse, if it is determined that another operation has a priority higher than a predetermined threshold, the method suspends the erase operation, performs the other operation, and then resumes the erase operation.

Flash memory bears little resemblance to a magnetic recording system. Commodity flash chips are closed systems with no external access to analog signals, in sharp contrast to the typical Hard Disk Drive (HDD) where analog signals have always been available for study. Even though a HDD is a complex electro-mechanical system and can suffer catastrophic failure, it has been possible to engineer drives to have a life expectancy with little to no degradation in performance, which last beyond their time of technical obsolescence. Flash memory, on the other hand, has a finite life expectancy with gradual degradation in performance through the life cycle. Even so, since flash memory was first conceived as a memory device, the target error rate at the output of the chip has been very low, as opposed to systems where stronger error correction coding (ECC) may be used.
Lower priced solid state drives (SSDs) are typically manufactured using multi-level cell (MLC) flash memory for increased data capacity, but MLC may be less reliable than single-level cell (SLC) flash memory. Consumer SSD manufacturers have mitigated such problems by employing interleaving, special writing algorithms, and/or providing excess capacity in conjunction with wear-leveling algorithms. MLC flash life span (for example, a total number of programming/erase cycles before producing an unacceptable error rate), however, may be sacrificed to meet the requirements of mainstream consumer flash applications, which require flash to have low cost, long retention time, fast programming/erase, and low overall error rate to work with unsophisticated controllers, and, consequently, has not been proven acceptable for many enterprise SSD applications. Even with the increased data capacity of MLC, it may be more expensive to use in enterprise applications because of its disproportionately large reduction in cycle endurance due to increased (wear causing) stresses that are required to read, program, and erase the flash.


This invention relates to a novel gas-liquid contacting apparatus and method utilizing recycle spray contact trays disposed within a substantially vertical vessel. Each contact tray contains one or more housings defined by upstanding vertical wall members, said housings being open to gas flow at top and bottom. Within the housings, liquid spray is continuously generated by means of gas flowing upward past a first array of spaced-apart gas venturi-generating liquid conductors. Liquid flows from the tray floor outside the housing through the liquid conductors, is distributed into the gas, and is entrained upward as spray by the gas venturi action. The major apart of the liquid spray is captured by an array of horizontal open-ended foraminous or perforated tubes, in substantial side-by-side contact with each other. The spray issuing laterally from the tubes impinges on the vessel walls and liquid therefrom drains downward or falls by gravity to the tray floor, where the process is repeated. The method of invention encompasses spray contacting with automatic and continuous recirculation of liquid spray in a controlled manner at rates that are multiples of the liquid throughput rate, and is capable of operation at high gas velocities and low pressure drop.

Countercurrent mass transfer methods, such as distillation or absorption, are normally carried out in apparatus employing liquid gravity downflow or crossflow in contact with an upward flow of gas. Conventionally, such contact is carried out either stagewise, employing a variety of liquid-gas contacting trays, or in so-called differential contacting equipment, such as packed towers.
A large variety of contacting trays are known to the art, mainly comprising bubble cap or sieve trays, wherein liquid flows horizontally across each contact tray in crossflow relation to the gas flowing generally vertically upward through the tray. In such conventional contacting trays, intimate gas-liquid contact is secured by bubbling the gas through the liquid on the tray and generating a bubble froth.
On conventional bubble-cap and sieve trays, liquid droplet spray or entrainment is known to be incidentally generated. Such spray carryover is known in the art as "liquid-in-gas" entrainment. This entrainment is considered to be undesirable in stage wise, countercurrent, liquid-gas contact, because spray carryover of liquid from one tray to the contact tray above short-circuits the desired progression of tray-to-tray liquid/gas concentration gradients. The prior art has attempted to solve this problem in various ways. For example, Kiselev, in U.S. Pat. No. 4,820,456, uses perforated plate froth retainer cells to generate a fine foam in order to blanket the turbulent liquid and inhibit entrainment carryover to the tray above.
In some mass transfer methods, where a significant portion of the total transfer resistance lies in the liquid phase, spray contacting may be desirable. Examples of such processes include the de-aeration of boiler feed water, stripping of volatile organic contaminants from contaminated water and absorption of highly-soluble gases. These, and other similar processes, are characterized by the fact that the overall transfer rate is controlled by liquid-phase or liquid-film diffusion rates, which are intrinsically slower than gas-phase diffusion rates. The minimization of such resistance requires the maximum degree of continuous mixing of the liquid phase. However, spray contactors do not normally provide for optimum or continuous mixing of the liquid phase, and therefore have not been widely used industrially for gas-liquid mass transfer operations.
In a spray contactor, the major fraction of the total mass transfer of a solute from a gas to a liquid, or from the liquid to the gas, occurs during drop formation in the vicinity of the spray nozzles. During drop formation, the liquid is in generally turbulent sheet or jet flow. Once the liquid drops are formed, they mix internally by oscillation for a brief period and subsequently behave more or less like rigid spheres, with no further internal mixing. Within a liquid drop, liquid phase transfer in the absence of internal mixing is a slow diffusion-controlled process which yields very low overall transfer rates. This absence of internal stirring or mixing following drop formation is one of the major disadvantages of conventional single-stage spray contact devices.
One method of achieving liquid mixing following the formation of liquid drops is to collect, or coalesce, the drops into bulk liquid form and then reform the drops. Prior art methods for drop collection and spray regeneration have generally involved some external mechanical device, such as a recycle pump and spray nozzles. Mechanical pumping to secure spray regeneration is energy-intensive and is not economical where a number of contact stages is required.
Such prior art spray contactors that rely on mechanical means of controlled spray liquid capture and recycle include Herrlander, U.S. Pat. No. 4,514,196, which utilizes a contact tray containing a plurality of separate venturi tubes with a spider-arm liquid distributor, with one liquid tube feeding each individual venturi. The gas venturis generate upward liquid spray. The liquid spray is intercepted by a bed of balls where secondary bubble flow contacting is secured. There is no internal recycle of liquid; passage of liquid is essentially once-through. In another example, Ekman, U.S. Pat. No. 3,795,486, teaches the use of a series of spaced-apart cylindrical rods with spray injected either from above or below into vertical gas upflow. The flow of liquid is "downwardly counter-current" to gas flow through the vessel containing the series of spaced-apart rods. The combination of rod spacing and gas velocities used by. Ekman yields downward cascading of liquid through the rod arrays and generally countercurrent liquid/gas flow. Andersen, U.S. Pat. No. 3,447,287, effects once-through passage of smoke and spray through an array of rods in order to obtain particulate collection. In Ekman, U.S. Pat. No. 4,140,501, gas flows horizontally through a single row of spaced-apart vertical or inclined venturi-forming tubes. The tube array is face-sprayed by an upstream spray nozzle cocurrent with gas flow, and the spray which is entrained downstream is removed by a series of progressively finer vane demisters. Demisted liquid is drained from the system, and there is no teaching in Ekman of liquid recycle. In all of these cases of the prior art, liquid spray generation and/or collection is random and uncontrolled other than by gravity. There is no means provided for control of, or internal recycle of, the spray liquid. In neither Ekman or Andersen is there any teaching of a method or means for internal spray collection, directed external flow and automatic regeneration of spray recycle of liquid in a controlled, repeated, manner.
In Lerner, 4,732,585, spaced-apart perforated or foraminous tubes, closed at the ends, are used in a baffle-and-tube array to cause liquid in the tubes to go into bubbling flow. Gas-liquid contacting is by means of bubbling flow, with spray injected above the array, and liquid draining downward from the bubble tubes. Lerner provides no method or means for internally-controlled liquid recycle and spray regeneration.


A device and method for transport of flexible, two dimensional products and performance of associated production processing of those products, by which the flexible, two-dimensional products are serially conveyed to a workstation and are conveyed away from the workstation again by the same gripper transporter, which enables the workstation to be selectively removed from the production process being performed along the transport path of the printed products, and to be selectively re-introduced again the transport path, in a flexible manner.

1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to conveyors and, more particularly, to methods and devices for transferring and for processing of flexible, two-dimensional products, such as printed products.
2. Discussion of Related Art
In the conveyor technology and, in particular, conveyor technology for the conveyance of flexible, two-dimensional objects such as printed products, it is known in the art to convey such flexible, two-dimensional objects, or printed products, with the help of grippers that grasp the objects and serve as transporters. In particular, the products are conveyed from one workstation to the next workstation with the help of such gripper transporters. Each gripper transporter is, as a rule, driven at the same time and is controlled separately. This demands a corresponding number of drive units and controllers, which concomitantly requires a correspondingly high expense invested in capital equipment and in the maintenance of that equipment.
Transport between the workstations is effected along working paths with such gripper transporters, which are not at all flexible in use. If one working step is to be omitted from the manufacturing process, then a new transport path needs to be constructed to pass the associated workstation; moreover, when a workstation is removed from the working path, a transport path with a gripper transporter needs to span the space of the workstation that was removed. Consequently, I have discovered that any change in the work flow process may be both time and cost intensive.
Examples of such inflexible working paths are disclosed in a patent entitled Process And Device For Handling Printed Products by Ernst Luthi, issued as EP 0762950 B1, and in a patent entitled Improvements In Printing Machines by Herbert Fumival, et al., issued as GB 5861 on the 9 Feb. 1910. In GB 5861, the printed product to be cut is carried by the grippers of a gripper transporter to a cutting station, is transferred to the cutting station, and after the cutting, is transported away from the cutting station by way of either the grippers of the same transporter or by the grippers of a second gripper transporter connected downstream. In EP 0762950, the printed products that are conveyed during the cutting process are transferred to tension clips in order to stabilize these products during the cutting process, and are held in a fixed position. The grippers of the gripper transporter remain allocated during the cutting process to the printed products held by the tensioning clips so that the printed products are supplied to the cutting station and are led away from the cutting station again in each case by the same grippers.
In both devices, the cutting stations are a fixed component of the transport device. Such devices however, provide only desultory satisfaction of contemporary demands for a rapid resetting of the production line, e.g. a switch in production from large daily newspapers to weekly magazines, brochures and to different newspapers and magazines of varying size.


Collection command applicators improve the productivity of human knowledge workers by enabling them to automatically process of large numbers of collections of arbitrary computer files. In operation, collection command applicators dynamically recognize interesting collections, calculate an optimal execution dependency visit order, determine an optimal parallel execution order, and apply arbitrary computer commands to the recognized collections in accordance with the calculated execution orderings. Collection command applicators thereby make it possible to process large numbers of collections in automated, scalable ways that were not previously possible.

The general problem addressed by this invention is the low productivity of human knowledge workers who use labor-intensive manual processes to work with collections of computer files. One promising solution strategy for this software productivity problem is to build automated systems to replace manual human effort.
Unfortunately, replacing arbitrary manual processes performed on arbitrary computer files with automated systems is a difficult thing to do. Many challenging subproblems must be solved before competent automated systems can be constructed. As a consequence, the general software productivity problem has not been solved yet, despite large industry investments of time and money over several decades.
The present invention provides one piece of the overall functionality required to implement automated systems for processing collections of computer files. In particular, the current invention has a practical application in the technological arts because it provides both humans and automated systems with a convenient, precise, scalable, and fully automated means for applying computer commands to collections of computer files.
Problems to be Solved
The Collection Command Applicator problem is one important problem that must be solved to enable the construction of automated collection processing systems. It is the problem of how to efficiently apply computer commands to large numbers of selected collections, in accordance with processing interdependencies that may exist among the collections.
Interesting characteristics of the collection command applicator problem include at least these: an arbitrary number of arbitrary collections in arbitrary filesystem locations may be involved; collections can have arbitrary per-instance data, size, content, data type, and internal structure; only a few interesting collections might require selection from a large pool of collections; collection recognition criteria may be based on complex combinations of collection type, collection per-instance data, collection content or external filesystem attributes; arbitrary processing commands can be applied; selected collections must be processed in proper dependency order; and parallel command execution may be required for performance reasons.
Solving the collection command applicator problem is useful because a good solution would deliver a clear N-fold productivity increase for the collection command application problem domain. Specifically, a good solution would enable human workers to issue 1 computer command to process N collections. In contrast, at least N low-level commands, one per collection, are theoretically required, and in current practice more than 2N commands are often required. Typically, current practices also generate additional costs for various adhoc scripts that are manually constructed to manage current command application processes.
The Collection Visit Order Problem is another important problem to solve. It is the problem of how to determine and enforce a valid execution visit ordering when applying commands to collections that have processing interdependencies among themselves.
Some interesting aspects of the collection visit order problem include: arbitrary numbers of arbitrary collections may be involved in an execution visit ordering calculation; numeric visit order rankings are awkward to work with when large numbers of collections are involved; visit order rankings can change frequently; visit order default rankings must sometimes be overridden for particular collection instances; and visit orders can change depending upon the specific commands that are being applied.
The Parallel Collection Command Execution Problem is another important problem to solve. It is the problem of how to optimally harness available parallel processing power during command application, while still maintaining proper execution visit order among collections.
Some interesting aspects of the parallel collection command execution problem include these: there is an inherent limit to the amount of parallelism that can be achieved within each set of collections to be processed; there is a physical limit to the amount of parallel processing power available in each computational environment; and there is a policy limit to the amount of parallelism that can be used by command applicators in each administrative environment. Ideally, the inherent parallelism limit should be less than the physical parallelism limit, and the physical parallelism limit should be less than the administrative parallelism limit.
The Nearby Execution Directory Problem is another important problem to solve. It is the problem of how to execute commands in particular nearby execution directories that are located around collections, both inside and outside of collections.
Some interesting aspects of the nearby execution directory problem include: some commands must be executed inside collections; some commands outside collections; some commands in specific parent or child directories; some commands in all immediate child directories; some commands in all peer directories; and some commands must even be executed in all instances of a particular directory within a subtree, without the benefit of using collections as a starting anchors or reference points for directory calculations.
General Shortcomings of the Prior Art
A professional prior art search for the present invention was performed, but produced no meaningful, relevant works of prior art. Therefore the following discussion is general in nature, and highlights the significant conceptual differences between file-oriented mechanisms in the prior art and the novel collection-oriented mechanisms represented by the present invention.
Prior art approaches lack support for collections. This is the largest limitation of all because it prevents the use of high-level collection abstractions that can significantly improve productivity.
Prior art approaches lack collection recognition means that use collection content, collection data type, and collection per-instance data in collection recognition activities.
Prior art approaches lack execution visit ordering means to control the order in which commands are applied to particular collections within a set of collections, thereby ensuring the orderly processing of interdependencies among processed collections.
Prior art approaches lack parallel execution means for optimally processing collections in parallel, especially when execution visit ordering must be maintained within a parallel execution environment.
Prior art approaches lack indirect command execution means such as script files, thereby preventing the creation and use of persistent, reusable visit orderings and parallel execution orderings for processing collections.
As can be seen from the above description, prior art mechanisms in general have several important disadvantages. Notably, general prior art mechanisms do not support collections, and do not support visit ordering. These are the two most important limitations of all.
In contrast, the present invention has none of these limitations, as the following disclosure will show.