A method for syndesmosis fixation including at least one suture anchor configured to be implanted into bone and at least one suture assembly configured to extend from the suture anchor and about at least a portion of a fibula when the suture anchor is implanted in a tibia on either side of a fibular notch of the tibia. The suture assembly is selectively adjustable from a non-tensioned condition to a tensioned condition to stabilize and reduce the fibula relative to the tibia.

The distal tibiofibular syndesmosis is usually described as being comprised of four ligaments. These ligaments are the anterior inferior tibiofibular ligament (AITFL), the posterior inferior tibiofibular ligament (PITFL), the transverse ligament (TL), and the interosseous ligament (IL). The primary role of these ligaments is to act as tensile members that stabilize the fibula within the distal tibiofibular joint. Injury to these ligaments, either isolated or concomitant with fractures of one or both the tibia and fibula, results in diastasis of the ankle joint which manifests as ankle instability.
Due to diagnostic and surgical limitations, direct repair of the ligaments is normally not performed, except in the case of the AITFL which is easily appreciated during the normal surgical dissection used to place a fracture plate on the fibula. Stabilization is the more common surgical intervention method, and several implants have been developed through the years.
The most common implant used to stabilize the distal tibiofibular joint is the cortical screw. One or two screws ranging in diameter from 3.5 mm to 4.5 mm are typically used. The screws are placed through the fibula, most often engaging both cortices, and then placed into the tibia either engaging one or two of the cortices. While the screws provide excellent stabilization, they cannot withstand the increasing displacement demands of the healing joint. This results in the screws commonly failing or restricting motion of the joint; leading to the need to perform a second surgery for hardware removal.
Many of the other implants developed for treating this pathology utilize the rigid method employed by the screw to stabilize the joint. However, a more recent entry on the market utilizes a flexible member to provide stability without the rigidity. This implant, known as the TightRope® from Arthrex®, utilizes two buttons connected by a flexible central member made from suture. One button is placed on the medial cortex of the tibia and the other button is placed on the lateral cortex of the fibula (or on top of a fracture plate on the fibula). The suture member runs through the tibia and fibula connecting the two plates. This transition from rigid to flexible seems to maintain enough stability not to influence clinical outcomes and reduces the incidences of broken hardware and stiff joints.
While an apparent improvement upon the rigid implants, the TightRope® implant is not without its shortcomings. Due to its fixation members being placed on the bones, there have been reports of tissue irritation. Also, in some cases a single TightRope® implant does not offer enough stability, and it is recommended that two be used. This could be due to strength concerns, but also due to the single point of fixation the construct offers. While like a ligament in that it is a tensile stability member, it is unlike them in that it is a singular member trying to replace multiple members. As tensile members only function in tension, more than one is needed if multiple degrees of freedom need to be controlled.
With flexible, and even modified rigid constructs, providing a possible avenue to reduce certain post-operative complications, attention to the reduction of the distal tibiofibular joint has increased due to its seemingly greater influence on clinical outcomes regardless of the stabilization method employed. Neither screws nor the TightRope® implant directly address this need. Reduction is currently carried out as a separate preceding step to implant delivery, and the implants reinforce good reductions, as well as poor. Cortical screws offer no correction. The TightRope® implant, as communicated by surgeons, does allow for some self-correction due to its flexibility, but this ability has limitations.

Apparatus and method for syndesmosis fixation


A fuel oil composition of the present disclosure may comprise (i) a solid hydrocarbonaceous and/or solid carbonaceous material, wherein the material is in particulate form, and wherein at least about 90% by volume (% v) of the particles are no greater than about 20 microns in diameter; and (ii) a liquid fuel oil; wherein the solid hydrocarbonaceous and/or solid carbonaceous material is present in an amount of at most about 30 by mass (% m) based on the total mass of the fuel oil composition. The present disclosure further relates a process for the preparation of this fuel oil composition, a method of changing a grade of a liquid fuel oil, and a method for adjusting the flash point of a liquid fuel oil.

The invention is in the field of combination products derived from solid hydrocarbonaceous and/or solid carbonaceous material with liquid hydrocarbons, particularly the combination of coal with fuel oil, in order to create a combined product that may be used as a fuel. In particular, the invention is in the field of introduction of solid hydrocarbonaceous material, such as coal, into fuel oil in order to upgrade the solid hydrocarbonaceous material and replace a proportion of the fuel oil.
Coal fines and ultrafines, including microfines are small particles of coal generated from larger lumps of coal during the mining and preparation process. While coal fines retain the same energy potential of coal they are generally considered a waste product as the particulate nature of the product renders it difficult to market and transport. Coal fines are therefore generally discarded as spoil close to the colliery forming large waste heaps that require careful future management in order to avoid environmental contamination or even the threat to human life as demonstrated in the 1966 Aberfan disaster in South Wales, UK.
Nevertheless, coal fines do offer a cheap and plentiful supply of hydrocarbons particularly rich in carbon. It is known to add slurries of coal fines in water to fuel oils in order to upgrade the coal fine product and reduce the cost per unit volume of the blended fuel oil (see for example U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,096,461, 5,902,359 and 4,239,426). However, in its natural state, coal fines typically contain significant levels of ash-forming components that would render it unsuitable for blending directly with fuel oil. Furthermore, the amount of water present in coal fines (ca. 35% by mass or % m) is also undesirable for use in fuel oil. Selecting coal fines with low mineral matter content is one possibility for ameliorating these problems. Suitable coal fines can be manufactured by crushing and grinding seam coal with inherently low mineral matter content (e.g. <5% m), however, this limits quite substantially the types of coal that can be utilised. This approach can be expensive, and fails to address the issue of water content in the fines produced.
Water is present within seam coal in situ, held within an internal pore structure that ranges in diameter from less than two nanometres to tens of microns. The total porosity of coals varies considerably, based on the type of coal and the quantity of pore-held water. For example, water content increases from approximately 1-2% m for low-volatile and medium-volatile bituminous coals, to 3-10% m in high volatile bituminous coals, and 10-20% m in sub-bituminous coals; on to 20-50% m for brown coals (lignites). Although thermal drying can remove pore-held water, this is a temporary solution, as water is readily re-adsorbed to it natural level from the atmosphere.
Once the coal has been mined, it can be separated from extraneous mineral matter by various coal density and froth flotation techniques, which typically depend on excess water being added to the mined coal to produce a coal slurry. Furthermore, modern methods that grind minerals economically to microfine particle sizes<20 microns (20 μm), also require water to be added, resulting in a slurry. Such coal slurries typically contain 40-80% m of water, most of which is surface water attached to the outer surfaces of particles and water held loosely in the interstices between particles. The interstitial water can be removed by mechanical filter presses, or reduced by drainage during transportation or storage, prior to utilisation.
However, surface water continues to be attached to particles. As coal particles are reduced in size the area of external surfaces increases markedly, and the quantity of surface water increases similarly. After mechanical dewatering a microfine coal sample can look and feel dry to the touch, but still contain 25% m to 50% m water. Most of this water is surface water, the remainder being pore-held.
Thus, reducing water content in coals economically to levels of the order of 2% m is a significant and challenging target for microfine coal, especially from coals with high pore-held moistures.
There has been previous research into methods of converting coal into liquid hydrocarbon products: these mainly involve solvent extraction of coal at temperatures above 400° C. under pressure in the presence of hydrogen or a hydrogen donor solvent, e.g. tetralin (1,2,3,4-tetrahydronaphthalene). This has led to several pilot scale developments and at least one full-scale operating plant using the Shenhua process at Ejin Horo Banner, Ordos, Inner Mongolia, China. Exploitation of this process involves, however, a very large capital investment and high associated running costs.
Fuel oil is a higher distillate product derived from crude oil. The term "fuel oil" covers a range of petroleum grades having a boiling point higher than that of gasoline products. Typical fuel oils are residual fuel oils (RFOs) and marine fuel oils (MFOs).
Fuel oil is classed as a fossil fuel and is a non-renewable energy source. Furthermore, while crude oil prices are quite volatile the refined products that are obtained therefrom are always relatively expensive. A way in which fuel oil could be blended with a lower cost hydrocarbon source such as coal, to extend the finite reserves of crude oil, and the resultant refined distillate products, would be highly desirable.
These and other uses, features and advantages of the invention should be apparent to those skilled in the art from the teachings provided herein.
U.S. Pat. No. 2,590,733 and DE3130662 refer to use of RFO-coal dispersions for burners/boilers designed for the use of RFO. U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,265,637, 4,251,229, 4,511,364, JPS5636589, JPS6348396, DE3130662, U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,503,646, 4,900,429 and JPS2000290673, U.S. Pat. No. 2,590,733 and DE3130662 utilise coarse particle sizes in the pulverised coal range (<200 μm) or even larger which would not be suitable for passing through fuel filters.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,417,901 and 4,239,426 focus on high coal loadings: 30-70% m.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,096,461, 5,902,359, 4,511,364 and JPS2000290673 relate specifically to coal-oil-water dispersions.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,389,219, 4,396,397, 4,251,229, JPS54129008 and JPS5636589 include or specify stabilising additives which may move the properties of the resultant fuel oil-coal blend out of specification.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,090,853A and CA 1096620 A1, plus Clayfield, E. et al., Colloil manufacture and application (Fuel, 1981, 60, 865) relate specifically to coarser particles (<500 μm) suspended in fuel oil and water.
U.S. Pat. No. 8,177,867 B2 and Nunez, G. A. et al., Colloidal coal in water suspensions (Energy and Environmental Science, 2010 3(5), 629) relate specifically to colloidal coal-in-water slurries with 20-80% particles<1 μm size.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,319,980 and 4,425,135 describe respectively the manufacture and use in automotive fuels of a material prepared by amine extraction at elevated temperatures of an undefined coal. This amine extraction process splits coal into two materials with different molecular structure, i.e. coal extract chemically different from seam coal and undissolved organic material derived from coal.
U.S. Pat. No. 1,329,423 refers to the use of froth flotation to separate coal from mineral matter for particles ground to below 300 μm size. This patent does not extend the technique to particles below 20 μm in diameter.
US 2011/0239973 A1 refers to a fuel mixture comprising a suspension of a combustible solid powder in a liquid fuel, where the combustible solid is restricted to lignin or biomass nitrification products, which are not chemically quite different to coal and do not require similar preparation techniques.
The present invention addresses the problems that exist in the prior art, not least reducing reliance on fuel oil and upgrading coal fines that would otherwise be treated as a waste product, and provides environmental benefits accordingly.

Fuel oil / particulate material slurry compositions and processes


An electromechanical valve actuator with an armature stem guidance system that ensures that the armature stem stays aligned with the valve stem during operation. The stem guidance system may also allow for adjustment of the lash gap during assembly.

The present invention relates to electromechanical valve actuators and more particularly to electromechanical valve actuators that are easy to assemble and include armature stem self-aligning features to ensure that the armature stem stays centered above the valve stem during operation.
As engine technology advances and manufacturers strive to increase engine power, improve fuel economy, decrease emissions, and provide more control over engines, manufacturers are developing electromechanical valve actuators (also known as electromagnetic valve actuators or EMVA) to replace camshafts for opening and closing engine valves. Electromechanical valve actuators allow selective opening and closing of the valves in response to various engine conditions.
Electromechanical valve actuators generally include two electromagnets formed from a lamination stack and an embedded power coil. A spring loaded lever armature located between the electromagnets is movable between the electromagnets as the power coils are selectively energized to create a magnetic force to attract the armature to the energized electromagnet. The surface of the electromagnets to which the armature is attracted when the power coil of an electromagnet is energized is generally referred to as a pole face. The armature is operationally coupled to the valve so that as the armature moves between pole faces in pole-face-to-pole-face operation, the valve is opened and closed.
Electromechanical valve actuators have typically been made as linear electromechanical valve actuators (not shown). Linear electromechanical valve actuators generally draw a substantial amount of power from the alternator and require significant space over the cylinder. In view of the drawbacks associated with linear electromechanical valve actuators, many manufacturers have recently been turning to lever electromechanical valve actuators, which due to their mechanical properties have substantial power savings and are more space efficient. One problem with lever electromechanical valve actuators is that, unlike linear electromechanical valve actuators, due to the mechanical properties of the pivoting lever armature plate, the armature stem also pivots. Pivoting of the armature stem may cause problems during operation, such as, keeping the armature stem, specifically end of the armature stem, aligned with the valve stem. Any misalignment of the armature stem with the valve stem may cause an operational fault, inefficient operation, or excessive wear. Therefore, there is a need for a lever electromechanical valve actuator with self-aligning features to ensure that the armature end of the armature stem stays aligned with the valve stem.


Disclosed is a holographic display including a spatial light modulator (SLM) with pixels, the SLM pixels being on a substrate, the SLM including circuitry which is on the same substrate as the SLM pixels, the circuitry operable to perform calculations which provide an encoding of the SLM.

1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a holographic display, especially to a holographic display on which computer-generated video holograms (CGHs) are encoded on a spatial light modulator. The holographic display may generate three dimensional holographic reconstructions.
2. Technical Background
Computer-generated video holograms (CGHs) are encoded in one or more spatial light modulators (SLMs); the SLMs may include electrically or optically controllable cells. The cells modulate the amplitude and/or phase of light by encoding hologram values corresponding to a video-hologram. The CGH may be calculated e.g. by coherent ray tracing, by simulating the interference between light reflected by the scene and a reference wave, or by Fourier or Fresnel transforms. An ideal SLM would be capable of representing arbitrary complex-valued numbers, i.e. of separately controlling the amplitude and the phase of an incoming light wave. However, a typical SLM controls only one property, either amplitude or phase, with the undesirable side effect of also affecting the other property. There are different ways to modulate the light in amplitude or phase, e.g. electrically addressed liquid crystal SLM, optically addressed liquid crystal SLM, magneto optical SLM, micro mirror devices or acousto-optic modulators. The modulation of the light may be spatially continuous or composed of individually addressable cells, one-dimensionally or two-dimensionally arranged, binary, multi-level or continuous.
In the present document, the term "encoding" denotes the way in which regions of a spatial light modulator are supplied with control values to encode a hologram so that a 3D-scene can be reconstructed from the SLM.
In contrast to purely auto-stereoscopic displays, with video holograms an observer sees an optical reconstruction of a light wave front of a three-dimensional scene. The 3D-scene is reconstructed in a space that stretches between the eyes of an observer and the spatial light modulator (SLM). The SLM can also be encoded with video holograms such that the observer sees objects of a reconstructed three-dimensional scene in front of the SLM and other objects on or behind the SLM.
The cells of the spatial light modulator are preferably transmissive cells which are passed through by light, the rays of which are capable of generating interference at least at a defined position and over a coherence length of a few millimeters or more. This allows holographic reconstruction with an adequate resolution in at least one dimension. This kind of light will be referred to as 'sufficiently coherent light'.
In order to ensure sufficient temporal coherence, the spectrum of the light emitted by the light source must be limited to an adequately narrow wavelength range, i.e. it must be near-monochromatic. The spectral bandwidth of high-brightness light emitting diodes (LEDs) is sufficiently narrow to ensure temporal coherence for holographic reconstruction. The diffraction angle at the SLM is proportional to the wavelength, which means that only a monochromatic source will lead to a sharp reconstruction of object points. A broadened spectrum will lead to broadened object points and smeared object reconstructions. The spectrum of a laser source can be regarded as monochromatic. The spectral line width of a LED is sufficiently narrow to facilitate good reconstructions.
Spatial coherence relates to the lateral extent of the light source. Conventional light sources, like LEDs or Cold Cathode Fluorescent Lamps (CCFLs), can also meet these requirements if they radiate light through an adequately narrow aperture. Light from a laser source can be regarded as emanating from a point source within diffraction limits and, depending on the modal purity, leads to a sharp reconstruction of the object, i.e. each object point is reconstructed as a point within diffraction limits.
Light from a spatially incoherent source is laterally extended and causes a smearing of the reconstructed object. The amount of smearing is given by the broadened size of an object point reconstructed at a given position. In order to use a spatially incoherent source for hologram reconstruction, a trade-off has to be found between brightness and limiting the lateral extent of the source with an aperture. The smaller the light source, the better is its spatial coherence.
A line light source can be considered to be a point light source if seen from a right angle to its longitudinal extension. Light waves can thus propagate coherently in that direction, but incoherently in all other directions.
In general, a hologram reconstructs a scene holographically by coherent superposition of waves in the horizontal and the vertical directions. Such a video hologram is called a full-parallax hologram. The reconstructed object can be viewed with motion parallax in the horizontal and the vertical directions, like a real object. However, a large viewing angle requires high resolution in both the horizontal and the vertical direction of the SLM.
Often, the requirements on the SLM are lessened by restriction to a horizontal-parallax-only (HPO) hologram. The holographic reconstruction takes place only in the horizontal direction, whereas there is no holographic reconstruction in the vertical direction. This results in a reconstructed object with horizontal motion parallax. The perspective view does not change upon vertical motion. A HPO hologram requires less resolution of the SLM in the vertical direction than a full-parallax hologram. A vertical-parallax-only (VPO) hologram is also possible but uncommon. The holographic reconstruction occurs only in the vertical direction and results in a reconstructed object with vertical motion parallax. There is no motion parallax in the horizontal direction. The different perspective views for the left eye and right eye have to be created separately.
Real-time calculation of holograms requires great computational performance, which can be realised presently for example with the help of expensive, specially made hardware with Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs), full custom ICs, or Application Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs), or by using multiple central processing units (CPUs) which are capable of parallel processing.
In thin film transistor (TFT) displays, the pixel pitch in orthogonal directions determines the area per pixel. This area is divided into the transparent electrode for liquid crystal (LC) control, the TFT together with the capacitor and the column and row wires. The required frequency on the column wires and the display dimensions define the required profile and thus the width of the row and column wires.
Ideal holographic displays require a much higher resolution than commercially available TFT-based monitor devices provide today. The higher the resolution, the smaller is the pixel pitch, while the frequency on the row and column wires increases due to the higher number of rows. This in turn causes the proportion of the area covered by row and column wires of the entire pixel area to grow superproportionately compared with the increase in resolution. Consequently, there is much less space available for the transparent electrode, so that the transmittance of the display will drop significantly. This means that ideal high-resolution holographic displays with a high refresh rate can only be produced with severe restrictions. Due to the extreme demands made on the computational performance, the hardware which can be used today for real-time calculation of holograms is very expensive, irrespective of which particular type of hardware is used. Because of the great amount of data involved, the transfer of image data from the computing unit to the display is also very difficult.
A common construction of an active matrix liquid crystal display device will be briefly explained, with reference to prior art FIG. 10 taken from U.S. Pat. No. 6,153,893; U.S. Pat. No. 6,153,893 is incorporated herein in its entirety by reference. As shown in FIG. 10, this active matrix display device has a flat panel structure comprising a main substrate 101, an opposed substrate 102 and a space 103 affixing the main substrate to the opposed substrate, and liquid crystal material is held between the two substrates. On the surface of the main substrate are formed a display part 106 consisting of pixel electrodes 104 and switching devices 105 for driving the pixel electrodes 104 arranged in a matrix, and peripheral driving parts 107 connected to the display part 106. The switching devices 105 consist of thin film transistors. Thin film transistors are also formed in the peripheral parts 107 as circuit elements.
Document WO 2006/066906 filed by the applicant, which is incorporated by reference, describes a method for computing computer-generated video holograms. According to that method, objects with complex amplitude values of a three-dimensional scene are assigned to matrix dots of parallel virtual section layers such that for each section layer an individual object data set is defined with discrete amplitude values in matrix dots, and a holographic encoding for a spatial light modulator of a hologram display is computed from the image data sets.
According to publication WO 2008/025839 of the applicant, which is incorporated by reference, the following steps are carried out aided by a computer:                A diffraction image is computed in the form of a separate two-dimensional distribution of wave fields for an observer plane, which is situated at a finite distance and parallel to the section layers, from each object data set of each tomographic scene section, where the wave fields of all sections are computed for at least one common virtual observer window which is situated in the observer plane near the eyes of an observer, the area of said observer window being reduced compared with the video hologram;        The computed distributions of all section layers are added to define an aggregated wave field for the observer window in a data set which is referenced in relation to the observer plane;        The reference data set is transformed into a hologram plane, which is situated at a finite distance and parallel to the reference plane, so as to create a hologram data set for an aggregated computer-generated hologram of the scene, where the spatial light modulator is disposed in the hologram plane, and where the scene is reconstructed in the space in front of the observer eyes with the help of said spatial light modulator after encoding.
The methods and displays mentioned above are based on the idea not to reconstruct the object of the scene itself, but to reconstruct in one or multiple virtual observer windows the wave front which would be emitted by the object.
The observer can watch the scene through the virtual observer windows. The virtual observer windows cover the pupils of the observer eyes and can be tracked to the actual observer position with the help of known position detection and tracking systems. A virtual, frustum-shaped reconstruction space stretches between the spatial light modulator of the hologram display and the observer windows, where the SLM represents the base and the observer window the top of the frustum. If the observer windows are very small, the frustum can be approximated as a pyramid. The observer looks though the virtual observer windows towards the display and receives in the observer window the wave front which represents the scene. Due to the large number of necessary transformations, the holographic encoding process causes great computational load. Real-time encoding would require costly high-performance computing units.
Filing WO 2008/025839 of the applicant discloses a method which allows one to generate video holograms from three-dimensional image data with depth information in real time. This makes it possible to generate these holograms using relatively simple and inexpensive computing units.
Filing WO 2008/025839 of the applicant discloses a method for generating computer-generated video holograms in real time. Hologram values for the representation of a three-dimensional scene which is structured through object points on a spatial light modulator SLM are encoded based on image data with depth information. In analogy with the prior art solution mentioned above, the method disclosed in WO 2008/025839 is based on the idea not to reconstruct the object of the scene itself, but to reconstruct in one or multiple virtual observer windows the wave front which would be emitted by the object. A modulated wave field is generated from sufficiently coherent light by a spatial light modulator SLM, which is controlled by hologram values, and the desired real or virtual three-dimensional scene is reconstructed through interference in space. Virtual observer windows are generated in frustum-shaped reconstruction spaces with the SLM as a base. The windows are situated near the observer eyes and can be tracked to the actual observer position with the help of known position detection and tracking systems. The method disclosed in WO 2008/025839 is based on the fact that the region in which an observer sees a scene is defined by a frustum-shaped reconstruction space which stretches from the SLM to the observer window. The frustum can be approximated by a pyramid, because the observer window is much smaller than the SLM. Further, the method is based on the principle that the reconstruction of a single object point only requires a sub-hologram as a subset of the SLM. The information about each scene point is thus not distributed across the entire hologram, but is only contained in certain limited regions, the so-called sub-holograms. Following this concept, an individual object point of the scene is only reconstructed by a limited pixel region on the SLM, the so-called sub-hologram. The disclosure of WO 2008/025839 is based on the idea that for each object point the contributions of the sub-holograms to the entire reconstruction of the scene can be retrieved from look-up tables, and that these sub-holograms are accumulated so as to form a total hologram for the reconstruction of the entire scene.
According to a particularly preferred example of the method disclosed in WO 2008/025839, a view of the scene is defined by the position of each observer and their viewing direction. Each observer is assigned with at least one virtual observer window which lies near the observer eyes in an observer plane. In a preparatory process step the scene is discretised three-dimensionally into visible object points. These data may already be taken from an interface. The steps of the process disclosed in WO 2008/025839 are:
Step 1:
Finding the position of the sub-hologram for each object point: the position and extent of the corresponding sub-hologram are derived from the position of an object point, i.e. its lateral x, y coordinates and its depth distance.
Step 2:
Retrieval of the contributions of the corresponding sub-hologram from look-up tables.
Step 3:
Repetition of these two steps for all object points, where the sub-holograms are accumulated so as to form a total hologram for the reconstruction of the entire scene.
According to a simple example disclosed in WO 2008/025839, the size of a sub-hologram which is assigned to an object point is found based on the theorem of intersecting lines. The observer window or a part thereof which covers the pupils is projected through the object point into the hologram plane, i.e. on to the SLM. The indices of the pixels of the sub-hologram which are required to reconstruct this scene point are thus determined.
According to a further aspect of the disclosure of WO 2008/025839, additional corrective functions are applied to the sub-holograms or the total hologram, e.g. in order to compensate SLM tolerances which are caused by its position or shape, or to improve the reconstruction quality. The corrective values are for example added to the data values of the sub-holograms and/or of the total hologram. In addition, because every sub-hologram is defined by the actual position of the observer window, special look-up tables can be generated for more unusual observer windows, for example if the observer looks on the display at a large angle from a side position.
The principle of using look-up tables can preferably be extended, as described in WO 2008/025839. For example, parameter data for colour and brightness information can be stored in separate look-up tables. In addition, data values of the sub-holograms and/or the total hologram can be modulated with brightness and/or colour values from look-up tables. A colour representation is therein based on the idea that the primary colours can be retrieved from respective look-up tables.
The look-up tables on which the method disclosed in WO 2008/025839 is based are preferably generated in accordance with WO 2006/066906 or WO 2006/066919, which are filed by the applicant and are incorporated by reference. The look-up tables are then stored in suitable data carriers and storage media.
FIG. 26A illustrates the general idea of the disclosure of WO 2008/025839 with the example of a single observer. A view of a scene (S) is defined by the position and viewing direction of an observer (O). The observer is assigned with at least one virtual observer window (VOW) which lies near the observer eyes in a reference plane. A modulated wave field is generated from sufficiently coherent light by a spatial light modulator (SLM), which is controlled through hologram values. The method and the display derived from that method are based on the idea not to reconstruct the object of the scene itself, but to reconstruct in one or multiple virtual observer windows (VOW) the wave front which would be emitted by the object. In FIG. 26A, the object is represented by a single object point (PP). The observer (O) can watch the scene (S) through the virtual observer windows (VOW). The virtual observer windows (VOW) cover the eye pupils of the observer (O) and can be tracked to the actual observer position with the help of known position detection and tracking systems. Controlling the spatial light modulator (SLM) with the hologram values of the video holograms thereby causes the wave field, which is modulated in pixels and emitted from the display screen, to reconstruct the three-dimensional scene as desired by generating interference in the reconstruction space. As can be seen from FIG. 26A, according to the general principle of this implementation, a single object point (PP) of the scene (S) is only reconstructed by a limited pixel region on the spatial light modulator (SLM), the so-called sub-hologram (SH). As can be seen in FIG. 26A, according to a most simple solution, the size of a sub-hologram (SH) are defined based on the theorem of intersecting lines, whereby then the indices of the pixels required for the reconstruction of this object point (OP) are found. The position and extent of the sub-hologram (SH) are derived from the position of an object point (PP), i.e. its lateral x, y coordinates and its depth distance or z distance. Then, the hologram values required to reconstruct this point (PP) are now retrieved from the look-up table LUT.
The sub-hologram (SH) is modulated with a brightness and/or colour value and then accumulated into the hologram plane at the respective position so as to form a so-called total hologram. The data contained in the above-mentioned look-up tables are generated in advance. The data are preferably generated using the method described in WO 2006/066906, as cited in the prior art section above, and stored in suitable data carriers and storage media. With the help of the position and properties of the object points, the corresponding sub-holograms are computed in advance and the look-up tables of the sub-holograms, colour and brightness values and the corrective parameters are thus generated.
FIG. 26B illustrates this principle in more detail and shows the sub-holograms (SH1, SH2), which are assigned to the object points (P1, P2), respectively. It can be seen in FIG. 26B that these sub-holograms are limited and form a small and contiguous subset of the total hologram, i.e. the entire spatial light modulator (SLM). In addition to the position and extent of the sub-holograms which are determined based on the theorem of intersecting lines, as can be seen in FIG. 26, further functional relations are possible.
3. Discussion of Related Art
WO 2004/044659 (US2006/0055994) and U.S. Pat. No. 7,315,408B2, filed by the applicant, and incorporated herein in their entirety by reference, describe a device for reconstructing three-dimensional scenes by way of diffraction of sufficiently coherent light; the device includes a point light source or line light source, a lens for focusing the light and a spatial light modulator. In contrast to conventional holographic displays, the SLM in transmission mode reconstructs a 3D-scene in at least one 'virtual observer window' (see Appendix I and II for a discussion of this term and the related technology). Each virtual observer window is situated near the observer's eyes and is restricted in size so that the virtual observer windows are situated in a single diffraction order, so that each eye sees the complete reconstruction of the three-dimensional scene in a frustum-shaped reconstruction space, which stretches between the SLM surface and the virtual observer window. To allow a holographic reconstruction free of disturbance, the virtual observer window size must not exceed the periodicity interval of one diffraction order of the reconstruction. However, it must be at least large enough to enable a viewer to see the entire reconstruction of the 3D-scene through the window(s). The other eye can see through the same virtual observer window, or is assigned a second virtual observer window, which is accordingly created by a second light source. Here, a visibility region, which would typically be rather large, is limited to the locally positioned virtual observer windows. The known solution reconstructs in a diminutive fashion the large area resulting from a high resolution of a conventional SLM surface, reducing it to the size of the virtual observer windows. This leads to the effect that the diffraction angles, which are small due to geometrical reasons, and the resolution of current generation SLMs are sufficient to achieve a high-quality real-time holographic reconstruction using reasonable, consumer level computing equipment.
A mobile phone which generates a three dimensional image is disclosed in US2004/0223049, which is incorporated herein in its entirety by reference. However, the three dimensional image disclosed therein is generated using autostereoscopy. One problem with autostereoscopically generated three dimensional images is that typically the viewer perceives the image to be inside the display, whereas the viewer's eyes tend to focus on the surface of the display. This disparity between where the viewer's eyes focus and the perceived position of the three dimensional image leads to viewer discomfort after some time in many cases. This problem does not occur, or is significantly reduced, in the case of three dimensional images generated by holography.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.


The present invention relates to a parallel data transferring and processing circuit which minimizes the number of necessary channels and mate the remote data transfer easy by reconstruction of parallel data after serial transfer of parallel data through a single channel. The parallel data are converted to the serial data by a serial conversion part and subsequently transferred through a single channel. An oscillation and control part controls the serial data and provide a synchronous signal to the serial data to be transferred. Next, the serial data transferred is again converted to the parallel data by a parallel conversion part. An oscillation and impulse generation part synchronizes the parallel conversion part with the serial conversion part. Finally, the parallel data is reconstructed to the original signal by a sample-and-hold circuit. Therefore, the present invention transfers and processes both analog and digital signal through a single channel.

The present invention relates to a parallel data transferring and processing circuit and more particularly to a circuit which minimizes the number of necessary channels and makes the remote data transfer feasible by reconstruction of parallel data after serial transfer of parallel data through a single channel.
In the past a custom integrated circuit (IC) MN6124 produced by MATSUSHITA corporation has been used for digital serial data processing between a video camera and a remote controller. This IC has an advantage that a single channel is used, but only digital data processing is possible. Thus, analog data processing is impossible and so additional peripheral circuits for analog data processing become, complex.
On the other hand, custom IC's such as M46015 and TP4508 used widely in the recent years can process both digital data and analog data, but have a problem that two channels must be prepared to process separately data and control signals. Thus, it is difficult to achieve analog and digital signal processing and single channel transfer simultaneously.

Parallel data transferring and processing circuit


The present disclosure is directed to systems and methods for actively controlling the steam-to-carbon ratio in hydrogen-producing fuel processing systems that include a feedstock delivery system. The feedstock delivery system supplies a combined feedstock stream including steam and carbon-containing feedstock to a hydrogen-producing region, which produces a mixed gas stream including hydrogen gas as a majority component therefrom. The systems and methods may include measuring a thermodynamic property of a steam stream, a carbon-containing feedstock stream, and/or the combined feedstock stream and controlling the flow rate and/or pressure of a water stream, the steam stream, and/or the carbon-containing feedstock stream based on a desired steam-to-carbon ratio in the combined feedstock stream and/or a desired flow rate of the mixed gas stream and may include feedforward and/or feedback control strategies.

Hydrogen-producing fuel-processing systems include a hydrogen-producing region that is adapted to convert one or more feedstocks into a product stream containing hydrogen gas as a majority component. This may be accomplished through a variety of mechanisms, such as steam reforming, autothermal reforming, partial oxidation, and pyrolysis. In all of these examples, a fuel, which may be a carbon-containing feedstock such as a hydrocarbon or an alcohol, is combined with an oxygen-containing substance, which may be an oxygen source such as air, oxygen-enriched air, bottled oxygen, water, and/or steam to produce hydrogen gas.
In particular, hydrogen-generating regions that produce hydrogen gas with a steam reforming reaction combine a carbon-containing feedstock (such as methanol or natural gas) and water (in the form of steam) to produce hydrogen gas as a majority component, together with carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide as minority components. Other minority components also may be present in both the feed and product streams. In steam reforming reactors, it is important to control the steam-to-carbon (S/C) ratio of reactants entering the reactor, as a high S/C ratio may cause water to condense in downstream processes, limit system efficiency, and/or impact the overall water balance of the hydrogen-producing fuel processing system. In contrast, low S/C ratios may result in deactivation of the reforming catalyst due to the formation of carbon within the reactor and/or corrosion of the reactor vessel due to metal dusting.
Tight control of the S/C ratio may be accomplished through the use of high-quality feed streams of known composition and purity, together with accurate pumps and/or mass flow control devices that enable precise metering of both the steam stream and the carbon-containing feedstock stream as they enter the steam reformer. In practice, such purity and precision may be difficult and/or costly to achieve and the cost may not always be justifiable. Thus, there exists a need for efficient and cost-effective alternatives that consistently maintain the desired S/C ratio.

Systems and methods for actively controlling steam-to-carbon ratio in hydrogen-producing fuel processing systems


A circuit breaker includes a breaker enclosure, a plurality of conductor connections, and a temperature sensor. The breaker enclosure contains internal components that include a trip unit. The plurality of conductor connections electrically couple the trip unit to a plurality of power conductors. The temperature sensor is located to sense heat radiated by the conductor connections and is positioned inside the enclosure.

Circuit breakers are well known in the art, and are designed to trip in response to an electrical interruption event caused by an overload, short circuit, or thermal runaway condition, thereby opening the circuit to which the circuit breaker is connected and reducing the possibility of damage to the conductor wires or the loads connected to the circuit breaker. A circuit breaker can be reset (either manually or automatically) to resume power flow to the loads.
Typically, power conductors are connected to a circuit breaker through mechanical pressure via, e.g., screw-type or compression lugs. Although the circuit breakers themselves normally provide reliable protection for many years, the mechanical connections holding the power conductors can loosen, resulting in higher circuit impedance, higher temperatures, and possibly damage to insulation or even fire hazards. Preventive maintenance techniques include manual inspection testing with infrared sensing equipment for diagnosing loose connections and/or defective bus joints before problems occur in electrical distribution equipment (e.g., switchgear, panelboards, motor control centers, etc.). Such testing involves the expense of the service itself and, additionally, has the disadvantage that, due to its periodic nature, some potential problems may not be detected in a timely fashion.
What is needed, therefore, is a circuit breaker having a device for sensing the temperature of the circuit breaker's power conductors.

Circuit breaker integral temperature monitoring for advance detection of defective power conductor connections


A method and device in the reeling of a web, wherein the web is reeled a first roll onto a second roll. When the second roll has reached the desired diameter size, a new reeling is started from this second roll of desired size onto an additional roll. After the second roll has reached the desired diameter size, a tip part is cut into the web by a water jet. The tip part is blown into contact with the additional roll, whereupon the web is cut off by the water jet.

The invention relates to a method in the reeling of a web, wherein the web is reeled by means of a first roll onto a second roll. When the second roll has reached the desired diameter size, a new reeling is started from the first roll onto a new second roll.
The invention also relates to a device for reeling a web from a first roll onto a second roll. When the second roll has reached a desired diameter size, the second roll is replaced by a new second roll onto which the web will be wound.
In the reel-up of a continuously operating paper machine, coating machine, or equivalent, when the reeled jumbo roll becomes full or reaches the desired size, the web will change from winding onto the full roll to winding onto an empty roll at full running speed of the paper machine, coating machine or equivalent. In such a case, reliability of operation is required in order that the operation of the machine is not interrupted from the cutting-off of the web and to its change onto the new roll.
A prior art method for the change of the web in a continuous reel-up is illustrated in FIGS. A1 and A2. As is shown in FIG. A1, a web P is reeled over a roll 111 onto a second roll 112. FIG. A1 is a schematic illustration of a situation in which the roll 112 has become full or reached the desired size. By means of a pin 115, a cut is made into the web P, and the web P starts to tear forming a wedge-shaped leading edge. Air is blown against the reeling cylinder by means of an air blow member 114 towards the web P after the nip formed by the new roll 110 and the reeling cylinder 111. At the cut made by the pin 115, the wedge-shaped leading edge, which is situated at the side of the arriving web P, is wound around the empty roll 110. The blow member 114 operates so that it also directs auxiliary blowings towards the sides of the web. These blowings cause the wedge-shaped leading edge to spread towards both edges of the web so that the web is torn.
However, in this prior art method, problems arise from the fact that the web is not always torn in the same way. The operation of the method is uncertain and may result in web breaks which require stopping the operation of the machine. It is a further limitation of this prior art method that it is only suitable for use with paper qualities of a weight lower than a certain grammage.
FIGS. B1 to B3 illustrate a second prior art method for changing the winding of a web in a continuous reel-up. In this prior art method, after the roll 112 has become full or reached the desired diameter, blowing is applied through the gap between the rolls by means of a blow member 116 from underneath the rolls 111 and 112. The web P starts forming a bag upwards. After the bag has become sufficiently large, it starts winding around a new empty roll 110. Finally, the web is broken and starts winding onto the new roll 110.
In this prior art method, the cutting-off of the web is uncontrolled. At the same time, owing to the slowness of the change process, the topmost layers on the full roll may become slack, which leads to a deterioration in the quality of the roll. Also, this prior art method is very noisy because of the high blow capacity that is required and, moreover, uncontrolled cutting-off of the web may cause standstills in the operation of the machine.
FIG. C illustrates a third prior art method in which to cut off the web and change it from a full roll 112, or from a roll of desired diameter, onto a new, empty roll 110, blowing is applied to the ends of the rolls. This blowing produces a tearing of the web P from the lateral direction and starts a winding of the web onto the empty roll 110. In this prior art method, controlled tearing of the web is unreliable, and may cause disturbance or standstills in the operation of the machine.


A rotatable locking mechanism used with ring systems that open similarly to the rings of a binder. A ring system has rings each having two ring halves and hinged leaves connected to each other and attached to each ring half respectively. The locking mechanism on the ring system presses against the leaves to prevent the ring halves from opening. A lock for the rings can comprise an Allen screw or a similar rotatable device located at the cover over the hinged leaves of a binder or a flip chart holder. Ideally, the device has a lip or similar raised area so it is not removable from an aperture in the cover of a binder or a lockable flip chart holder. Locking the rings provides security so users cannot take pages out of a binder or a flip chart holder.

The present disclosure relates to a rotatable locking mechanism. More specifically, the disclosure is directed toward locking devices that rotate within but are not removable from an aperture in the cover over a ring system of a binder or a lockable flip chart holder.
Merchandising and informational needs have evolved in the increasingly competitive marketplace. Point-of-purchase signage is important because many purchasing decisions are made while viewing the products on display. Sign holders with signage, such as flip charts, provide the consumer with educational or advertising information where it is quite useful. Flip charts are used to provide a variety of information. Flip charts are useful to provide more and better categorized information than single panel displays. Additionally, flip charts can often be tabbed so that desired information may be readily selected and reviewed.
Educational or promotional flip charts frequently need to be updated. With spiral bound flip chart pages, the entire flip chart would have to be removed. Such removal of an entire set of chart pages is not economical when only selected information needs to be updated.
Further, readily removable pages or sets of pages have both benefits and drawbacks. They are easier to use, but they are also easier to tamper with. Mischievous customers or others who are unauthorized can remove the pages or sets of pages that are not secured.
Also, for use with a three-ring binder, the locking device can provide security by preventing the unauthorized removal of binder pages. It can be used in numerous markets with enhanced benefits. For corporations, the device can preserve product or service training pages. For educators, it can protect educational pages. For government, it can provide security against removal of confidential information. For the service industry, it can secure service and part informational pages.
Accordingly, it would be desirable to have a system that can easily be updated while maintaining the security of the pages.

Rotatable locking mechanism for ring systems


Block copolymer-based mask structures for the growth of patterned polymer brushes via surface-initiated atom transfer radical polymerization (SI-ATRP) are provided. Also provided are methods of making the mask structures and methods of using the mask structures to grow patterned polymer brushes. The mask structures comprise a substrate having a surface, a neutral layer comprising a crosslinked copolymer film disposed on the surface of the substrate and a domain-forming block copolymer film disposed on the crosslinked copolymer film. The crosslinked copolymer film comprises crosslinked random copolymer chains having pendant alkyl halide functional groups that are capable of acting as ATRP initiating sites.

Polymer brushes are a broad class of materials comprised of polymer chains that are tethered by one chain end to a surface. These brushes have a variety of applications due to their ability to tune and modify surface properties such as bioadhesion, wettability, and surface activity.
Two main methods for the preparation of polymer brushes have emerged, namely grafting "to" and grafting "from". The grafting "to" methodology involves the reaction of an end-functionalized polymer chain with an appropriate surface to anchor the polymer. Although grafting "to" allows for full characterization of the polymer before grafting, it is only applicable to a limited number of substrates and requires terminal functionality on the polymer chain-end. In addition, the grafting efficiency decreases with increasing molecular weight of the polymer.
Grafting "from" overcomes some of these limitations and has been used with a variety of polymerization techniques. By anchoring a suitable initiator to the substrate, polymer chains can be grown directly by the use of these various polymerization techniques. The majority of surface-anchored initiators comprise a self-assembled monolayer (SAM) on an appropriate substrate. However, SAMs have limited stability to various reagents and are not substrate-independent.
Surface-initiated atom transfer radical polymerization (SI-ATRP) has become a workhorse in the grafting "from" literature due to the ease in polymerizing a wide variety of monomers containing an array of functional groups with a high degree of control. Control in ATRP comes from the reversible redox activation of a dormant polymer chain-end (halide functionalized) by a halogen transfer to a transition metal complex. Many parameters are involved which can be tuned for better control, which provides an impressive window in which well-controlled polymers of numerous different monomers can be synthesized.
While the most common method for anchoring ATRP initiators to a substrate involves the formation of a SAM, some alternative methods have been presented in the literature. von Werne et al. describe the inclusion of 10˜20% ATRP inimer in a mixture of curable monomers suitable for photopolymerization. (See, von Werne, T. A.; Germack, D. S.; Hagberg, E. C.; Sheares, V. V.; Hawker, C. J.; Carter, K. R., A Versatile Method for Tuning the Chemistry and Size of Nanoscopic Features by Living Free Radical Polymerization. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2003, 125, 3831-3838.) This work was further extended by the use of an acid-cleavable ATRP inimer, allowing for direct measurement of surface grown brushes and their comparison with polymer grown from sacrificial initiator in solution. (See, Koylu, D.; Carter, K. R., Stimuli-Responsive Surfaces Utilizing Cleavable Polymer Brush Layers. Macromolecules 2009, 42, 8655-8660.) An alternate method for creating an inimer layer is to form an adhesive coating which contains moieties for initiator incorporation. For example, layers of poly(allylamine) (deposited by pulsed plasma polymerization) or catechol-amine (deposited by solution incubation) on various substrates were used for functionalizing a surface with ATRP initiators. (See, Yameen, B.; Khan, H. U.; Knoll, W.; Förch, R.; Jonas, U., Surface Initiated Polymerization on Pulsed Plasma Deposited Polyallylamine: A Polymer Substrate-Independent Strategy to Soft Surfaces with Polymer Brushes. Macromol. Rapid Commun. 2011, 32, 1735-1740, Coad, B. R.; Lua, Y.; Meagher, L., A Substrate-Independent Method for Surface Grafting Polymer Layers by Atom Transfer Radical Polymerization: Reduction of Protein Adsorption. Acta Biomaterialia 2012, 8, 608-618, Fan, X.; Lin, L.; Dalsin, J. L.; Messersmith, P. B., Biomimetic Anchor for Surface-Initiated Polymerization from Metal Substrates. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2005, 127, 15843-15847.) More recently, a catechol-functionalized methacrylamide and a methacrylate ATRP inimer were copolymerized by free radical polymerization followed by deposition on Ti substrates for polymer brush growth. (See, Wang, X.; Ye, Q.; Gao, T.; Liu, J.; Zhou, F., Self-Assembly of Catecholic Macroinitiator on Various Substrates and Surface-Initiated Polymerization. Langmuir 2012, 28, 2574-2581.)
Polymer brushes patterned with nanoscale features have been generated by patterning a polymer brush growth-initiating substrate using various techniques, followed by polymer brush growth from the patterned substrate. For example, microcontact printing has been used to form a pattern in a substrate, followed by backfilling portions of the patterned substrate with a polymer brush growth-initiating material. Nanoimprint lithograph has also been used to form a pattern in a polymer-brush growth-initiating substrate. Alternatively, ultraviolet (UV) or electron beam lithography has been used to form a pattern in a polymer brush growth-initiating substrate.

Block copolymer-based mask structures for the growth of nanopatterned polymer brushes


The invention concerns polymer systems comprising at least one polymer with a plurality of pores where the polymer is initially functionalized on substantially all surfaces followed by a stepwise surface specific functionalization such that a different functional group resides on the external or internal pore surface of the bead. The invention also concerns use of such polymer systems in blood, blood product, or physiologic fluid purification.

Techniques of blood purification via extracorporeal therapy or transfusion related products are reliant on the hemocompatibility of materials used. CytoSorbents has been developing porous polymers for the removal of drugs and proteins for about 11 years. The development of biocompatible, highly porous polymer beads that can remove substances from blood and physiologic fluids is the core technology. Its flagship product is CytoSorb™, a highly efficient porous bead-based cytokine filter currently in human clinical trials to treat cytokine storm in patients with sepsis and severe lung injury. Blood is pumped out of the body, directly through a CytoSorb hemoperfusion cartridge where the beads remove cytokines broadly, and the purified blood is then pumped back into the body. CytoSorb has been used safely in more than 600 human blood treatments. The polymer beads have passed strict ISO 10993 biocompatibility and hemocompatibility testing, which also includes genotoxicity, acute sensitivity, cytotoxicity and others.
Most commercial porous resins are synthesized either by macroreticular synthesis (Meitzner, et al., U.S. Pat. No. 4,224,415; 1980), such as Amberlite XAD-4® and Amberlite XAD-16® by Rohm and Haas Company or by hypercrosslinking synthesis [Davankov, et al. J. Polymer Science, Symposium No. 47, 95-101 (1974)], used to make the Hpersol-Macronet® resins by Purolite Corp. Many conventional polymeric sorbents have a large pore surface and sorbtion capacity but are not hemocompatible and therefore are not suitable for sorbtion of proteins directly from body fluids.
The porous polymeric sorbents specified in the present invention demonstrate compositions and methods useful in selectively modifying the internal and external surfaces of porous polymer beads used in blood, blood product, or physiologic fluid purification. This methodology is useful in preserving or imparting hemocompatibility while allowing enhanced binding (or destruction) of protein toxins and pathogens.

Compositions and methods useful in selectively modifying the internal and external surfaces of porous polymer beads


A method for deciphering control words for mechanically and electronically independent terminals includes causing first and second terminals to transmit a first and second cryptograms to a control-word server, causing that server to decipher them to obtain first and second control words for enabling descrambling of first and second multimedia content broadcast simultaneously on respective first and second channels, causing the server to transmit the control word to the respective terminals, the second control word obtained by deciphering the second cryptogram before the first terminal executes a channel change, and in response to the channel change, causing the first terminal to search to determine whether the second control word has already been transmitted in advance by the server before the channel change, and if the control word has been transmitted in advance, causing the first terminal to immediately start descrambling the second multimedia content with the second control word.

There are methods for deciphering control words for a first terminal and at least one second terminal that are mechanically and electronically independent of one another, wherein:                the first and second terminals respectively transmit cryptograms CW*1,t and CW*2,t to a same control-word server,        in response the control-word server deciphers the cryptograms CW*1,t and CW*2,t to obtain respectively control words CW1,t and CW2,t, the control words CW1,t and CW2,t enabling the descrambling, respectively, of first and second multimedia contents broadcast simultaneously on first and second channels respectively, and then,        the control-word server transmits the control words CW1,t and CW2,t, respectively to the first and second terminals.
The term "multimedia content" designates an audio and/or visual content designed to be rendered in a form directly perceptible and comprehensible to a human being. Typically, a multimedia content corresponds to a succession of images forming a film, a television show or advertising material. A multimedia content can also be an interactive content such as a game.
There are known ways of broadcasting several multimedia contents at the same time. To this end, each item of multimedia content is broadcast on its own channel. The channel used to transmit a multimedia content is also known as a "station". A channel typically corresponds to a television station. This enables the user to choose simply the multimedia content that he wishes to view in changing channels.
To secure and subject the viewing of multimedia contents to certain conditions, such as the payment of a subscription for example, the multimedia contents are broadcast in scrambled form and not in plain or unencrypted form. More specifically, each multimedia content is divided into a sequence of cryptoperiods. Throughout the duration of a cryptoperiod, the conditions of access to the scrambled multimedia content remain unchanged. In particular, throughout the duration of a cryptoperiod, the multimedia content is scrambled with the same control word. Generally, the control word varies from one cryptoperiod to another. Furthermore, the control ward is generally specific to a multimedia content. Thus if, at a given instant, N multimedia contents are broadcast simultaneously on N channels, then there are N different control words each used to scramble one of these multimedia contents.
Here, the terms "scramble" and "encipher" are considered to be synonyms.
The plain or unencrypted multimedia content corresponds to the multimedia content before it is scrambled. This content can be made directly comprehensible to a human being without recourse to descrambling operations and without placing conditions on the viewing of this content.
The control words needed to descramble the multimedia contents are transmitted synchronizedly with the multimedia contents. For example, the control words needed to descramble the (t+1)th cryptoperiod are received by each terminal during the tth cryptoperiod. To this end, for example, the control words are multiplexed with the scrambled multimedia content.
To secure the transmission of the control words, these words are transmitted to the terminals in the form of cryptograms. The term "cryptogram" herein designates a piece of information that is not sufficient by itself to retrieve the control word in plain form. Thus, if the transmission of the control word is intercepted, knowledge of the control word cryptogram alone does not make it possible to retrieve the control word by which the multimedia content can be descrambled. To retrieve the plain control word, i.e. the control word used to directly descramble the multimedia content, it must be combined with a piece of secret information. For example, the cryptogram of the control word is obtained by enciphering the plain control word with a cryptographic key. In this case, the secret information is the cryptographic key used to decipher this cryptogram. The cryptogram of the control word can also be a reference to a control word stored in a table containing a multitude of possible control words. In this case, the secret information is the table associating a plain control word with each reference.
The secret information should be kept in a secure place. To this end, it has already been proposed to store the secret information:                either in security processors such as hip cards directly connected to each of the terminals,        or more recently in control-word servers common to several terminals.
In the latter case, the terminals are devoid of chip cards. These terminals are then called cardless terminals.
The control-word server is connected to each of the terminals by a long-distance information-transmission network such as the Internet. When a control-word server is used, the cryptograms of the control words are first of all transmitted to the different terminals and then forwarded by these terminals to the control-word server. This procedure has several advantages. In particular, the information-transmission network used to broadcast the multimedia contents and the cryptograms of the control words can be different from the one used to connect the terminals to the control-word server. For example, the network for broadcasting multimedia content and cryptograms of the control words is a one-way network with a large bandwidth, for example a satellite network. Conversely, the network connecting the terminals to the control-word server is a two-way network with a bandwidth that may be smaller.
Then, this simplifies the time synchronization between the broadcasting of the multimedia contents and the broadcasting of the cryptograms of the corresponding control words.
The control-word server has the function of deciphering the cryptograms of the control words transmitted by the terminals and then sending the deciphered control word back to each of these terminals. Thus, in a way, the control-word server plays the role of a chip card common to several terminals that are mechanically and electrically independent of one another. Terminals that are electronically independent of one another are terminals that can work autonomously and have no electronic part common to them,
When a terminal needs a control word to descramble a multimedia content, it sends the control-word server a request containing the cryptogram of the control word. In response, the control-word server deciphers this cryptogram and then sends the deciphered control word to the terminal which can then descramble the desired multimedia content.
The multimedia contents broadcast over the different channels are temporally coordinated with one another. For example, the multimedia content broadcasting times are set so as to comply with the broadcasting times indicated in a pre-established program schedule. Each terminal on a given channel therefore receives appreciably the same multimedia content at the same time.
Thus, it often happens that users change channels (or stations) at the same time. For example, a simultaneous change of channel of this kind can be prompted by the broadcasting of an advertising sequence on the channel being currently viewed. The user is then said to have "zapped channels".
In response to this change of channel, each terminal immediately transmits a request to the control-word server and, in response, receives the control word needed to descramble of the multimedia content currently being broadcast on the new channel being viewed. Thus, a massive and simultaneous change from one channel to another will cause a peak in the workload of the control-word server.
The computation power of the control-word server depends on this load peak. Thus, the greater the load peak, i.e. the greater the maximum number of requests to be processed in a predetermined time span, the greater is the computation power needed by the control-word server.
These workload peaks should be reduced as far as possible in order to limit the computation power needed by the control-word server while at the same limiting modifications made to the scrambled multimedia content transmission system.

Control-word deciphering, transmission and reception methods, recording medium and server for these methods


The present disclosure relates to a speckles detection system for detecting one or more speckles on a surface of an optical element of an image capturing device. The system comprises: one or more light sources configured to emit a light beam towards the optical element, the optical element being configured to reflect light from the light sources when speckles are located on the surface of the optical element. The system further comprises one or more light receivers configured to receive the light beam reflected by the optical elements such that speckles on the surface of the optical elements are detected. Methods for detecting one or more speckles on a surface of an optical element of an image capturing device are also provided.

Passenger vehicles are increasingly equipped with camera-based assistance systems. These systems capture the surrounding environment of the vehicle, and provide a variety of functions for improving driving safety and comfort. The functionality of these systems is based on the analysis of the recorded image data. Therefore, the quality of the camera-based assistance systems may be directly related to the quality of the image data.
A dirt-free or speckless optical element is necessary for achieving optimal image quality. The presence of dirt or speckles on an optical element, e.g., an "external" lens or a lens cover of a camera acts as an impediment to light passing through the optical element into the camera, and thus, an image captured by the camera with dirt on the optical element may not represent a true image within the field of view of the camera which should have been captured by the camera. The optical element may become dirty as a result of, e.g., dust accumulation, mud splashes, malicious paintings, etc. Other impediments to light passing through the lens of a camera are water droplets, frost, snow and the like.
In vehicle mounted cameras, the presence of such impediments to light passing through an optical element into a camera leads to inaccurate images being displayed on a visual display screen, for example, a dashboard mounted visual display screen which is provided for presenting images captured by such a vehicle mounted camera to the driver. Such images, depending on where the camera is mounted on the vehicle, may be plan view images of an area adjacent one or both sides of the vehicle or a plan view image to the rear or front of the vehicle, which in general, are provided for assisting the driver to maneuver the motor vehicle in a confined space.
An on-board camera may also be used as a rear-view mirror. In this case, captured images are showed on a display that may be viewed by the driver when the driver is in driving position. A car may have at least two rear-view mirrors of this type (with corresponding camera). It is important also in these rear-view mirror systems that images captured by the camera are reasonably clean or speckless.
In this respect, if such images are obscured or partly obscured, or distorted by the presence of dirt, water droplets or the like on an optical element, the driver may be presented with a false image of the area adjacent the car, which can have catastrophic results, for example, driving the vehicle into an object, or more seriously, striking a pedestrian.
Arrangements for the detection of dirt particles located on the outside of a lens forming part of a vehicle headlight system have been presented in the past. However, in these arrangements, the purpose is to detect obstructions for the light originating from the headlight system. The incident light from the environment or from the sun is not an issue. In fact, the purpose of the headlight systems is to illuminate, e.g., a road in nighttime conditions i.e., when no sunlight is present. Thus, dirt particles during daytime are not affecting the performance of such headlight systems. As a result, such solutions are not suitable for applications that require lenses, e.g., camera lenses of image capturing devices, unobstructed during any time of day.
In examples of the present disclosure, at least some of the aforementioned problems are at least partially resolved.

Speckle detection systems, image capturing devices and methods


Lateral motion devices are used in conjunction with shear assemblies to further dissipate shear forces on buildings. In one embodiment, the lateral motion device is interposed between the shear assembly and the upper portion of the wall to permit relative motion therebetween and to absorb and dissipate a portion of the shear forces through expansion and/or compression of spring members. In another embodiment, the lateral motion device is interposed between the foundation and the bottom of the shear assembly and in yet another embodiment, the lateral motion device is embedded in the foundation so as to be interposed between the anchor bolt and the foundation. The shear assembly can be either a panel assembly or an A-frame assembly.

1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to the construction industry and, in particular, concerns a method of providing lateral strengthening of wall structures using factory manufactured, field installed A-frame shear assembly with ductile attachment members.
2. Description of the Related Art
Low-rise, commercial, institutional and residential (single and multi-family) buildings comprise the majority of buildings in the United States. Within this group of buildings, by far the most prevalent type of structure is the light framed structure, specifically wood or cold-formed/light-gauge steel framing. In the typical light framed building structure, as in any other building structure, the basic structural design goals is to ensure the safe performance of the building under anticipated loading conditions. Safe performance may include, but is not limited to, one or more of the following performance objectives: operational/immediate occupancy performance, life safety performance and collapse prevention performance (FEMA-273 xe2x80x9cNEHRP Guidelines for the Seismic Rehabilitation of Buildings,xe2x80x9d 1997).
The loads to be considered in design vary in the degree by which they can be reasonably (in a probabilistic sense) defined. Fundamentally though, there are two types of load to consider in design: gravity and lateral loads. Gravity loads, as the name implies, act vertically and they have one characteristic that makes them more deterministic than lateral loads-they can be controlled to some extent. Lateral loads (for example those induced by earthquakes and hurricane/tornado winds) are unpredictable in both occurrence and magnitude. In design for lateral load, the conventional philosophy has been to provide a lateral load resisting structural system that is strong enough to resist the maximum expected design event. In earthquake resistant design, this philosophy is further augmented by the additional requirement for inelastic deformation capability (ductility) of the lateral load resisting system. Inherent in this ductility requirement is the understanding that under the maximum design event, a building will undergo some amount of damage associated with the design performance objectives stated above.
In conventional light framed building construction, gravity and lateral load resistance is achieved essentially by a stick frame (studs, joists, rafter and trusses) for the gravity loads and sheathing attached to the stick frame for lateral loads. Loads are typically generated at different levels within the building and must be carried to the foundation via the combined action of the stick frame and the attached sheathing. This combined action implies that some elements of the gravity and lateral load systems will be common. As a result, failure of any one of these common elements under one loading condition (say lateral) can compromise the integrity of the entire system under the other condition.
Sheathed stick-framed walls that are designed to resist lateral loads are commonly referred to in the literature as shear walls or vertical diaphragms. The details of how a shear wall resists lateral load are quite complex. Generally though, the basic mechanism of resistance is achieved by a transfer of load from the point where they are generated into the frame, from the frame into the sheathing, from the sheathing back into the frame and from the frame into the foundation. Because of this load path, each component in the load path needs to have capacity of transferring the full load for a shear wall to work as expected. In other words, the performance of the shear wall is controlled by its weakest link. In earthquake resistant design, performance is attained by having the capacity to transfer loads at the foundation be higher than the capacity of the sheathing to frame attachment.
The sheathing materials commonly used in light frame shear wall construction typically include plywood, oriented strand board, fiberboard, gypsum wallboard/sheathing board, siding and sheet steel. The sheathing is typically attached to the frame with nails, staples or screws. In some cases, as may be the case with light gauge steel framing, sheet steel may be attached to the frame by clinching, welding or an adhesive. Additionally, in cold-formed steel construction lateral resistance may also be accomplished with flat-strap x-bracing. These generic systems, which are typically included in building codes, are not the only means of providing lateral resistance. In fact, other prefabricated systems are available for use as braced wall components. The primary benefits of these systems are improved performance due to the quality control associated with fabrication of the component and ease of installation in the field.
The aforementioned prefabricated systems, though more advanced than shear and x-braced walls, provide a response similar to that of the conventional field-built shear wall. That is, to develop a certain level of lateral resistance under the design event, these systems must undergo significant inelastic deformation (damage) which in turn results in damage to the contents and other non-structural components of the building. Furthermore, conventional shear walls and other prefabricated panel systems used in light framed buildings, may have to be comparatively large or strong to withstand the magnitude of lateral loads and/or deformations that are generated in design events or as limited by building codes. For example, most building codes limit the inelastic story drift or lateral displacement to between 2 inches and 2.5 inches for an 8-foot wall height in all types of buildings. To meet this limitation, the braced wall (shear wall, x-bracing or prefabricated system) must generally be ductile (ability to deform), strong and stiff. As the stiffness and strength of bracing components increase, the demands placed on other components of the structure also increases, thereby requiring larger members. It can be appreciated that multi-story buildings will be more susceptible to larger lateral forces/deformations often necessitating even larger lateral bracing structures. Increased spatial requirements for the lateral bracing system exacerbates the problem of a limited amount of space in walls of smaller lengths.
Hence, there is a need for a lateral bracing system that is easy to install, is comparatively small in size so that it can be readily installed in walls having short lengths, has the ability to dissipate energy without significant damage to the structures (and its components), has the ability to reduce the magnitude of deformations and forces induced in the building, improves life-safety of occupants and protects building functionality. To this end, there is a need for a prefabricated internal shear assembly with a mechanical lateral motion dampening device.
The aforementioned needs are satisfied by the A-frame shear assembly of the present invention which, in one aspect is comprised of a shear assembly for reducing shear and uplift forces between an upper portion of a wall and a foundation of a building, the assembly comprising an anchor assembly having a first and a second lateral end adapted to anchor the shear assembly to the foundation of the building; an attachment assembly adapted to be attached to the upper portion of the wall; a first elongate member having an upper and a lower end interconnecting the anchor assembly and the attachment assembly wherein the upper end of the first elongate member is attached to a first lateral position on the attachment assembly and wherein the lower end of the first elongate member is attached to a first lateral position on the anchor assembly; and a second elongate member having an upper and a lower end interconnecting the anchor assembly and the attachment assembly wherein the upper end of the second elongate member is attached to a third lateral position on the attachment assembly and wherein the lower end of the second elongate member is attached to a fourth lateral position on the anchor assembly and wherein the first and third lateral positions on the attachment assembly are located inward of the second and fourth lateral positions on the anchor assembly such that when a lateral shear force is exerted on the upper portion of the wall, one of the first and second elongate members is in compression and the other one of the first and second elongate members is in tension.
In another aspect of the invention the A-frame shear assembly is comprised of a shear assembly for reducing the effects of shear forces on a building structure that includes a wall attached to a foundation, the shear assembly comprising a head assembly that attaches to an upper portion of the wall; an anchor assembly that attaches to the foundation; an interconnecting structure that interconnects the head assembly to the anchor assembly so as to transfer forces between the upper portion of the wall and the foundation, the interconnecting structure comprising a first leg with first and second ends, and a second leg with first and second ends, wherein the first end of the first leg and the first end of the second leg are connected to the head assembly so as to be separated by a first distance, and the second end of the first leg and the second end of the second leg are connected to the anchor assembly so as to be separated by a second distance, wherein the first distance is less than the second distance such that the interconnecting structure resists relative movement between the head assembly and the anchor assembly by combinations of compression and tension of the first and second legs, wherein a lateral shear force applied at the upper portion of the wall is transferred to the foundation through the head assembly and through the interconnecting structure such that one of the legs is in compression while the other leg is simultaneously in tension.
A third aspect of the invention is comprised of a shear assembly for reducing the effects of lateral and vertical shear forces on a building structure that includes a wall having a plurality of vertical framing members and at least one upper horizontal plate interconnecting the plurality of vertical framing members wherein the wall is attached to a foundation, the assembly comprising a head assembly that attaches to the horizontal plate of the wall; an anchor assembly that attaches to the foundation; an interconnecting structure positioned between at least two of the vertical framing members of the wall wherein the interconnecting structure has a first end that is mechanically coupled to the head assembly and a second end that is mechanically coupled to the anchor assembly, wherein the interconnecting structure transfers forces between the first and second end; and a lateral motion damping device that is mechanically coupled to the shear assembly so as to be interposed between the building structure and the shear assembly so as to permit limited relative movement between the shear assembly and the building structure such that at least a portion of the lateral shear forces exerted on the upper portion of the wall are dissipated by lateral damping device.
A fourth aspect of the invention is comprised of a method of reinforcing a building structure comprised of a wall mounted on a foundation having a plurality of vertical framing members and at least one upper horizontal plate interconnecting at least two of the plurality of vertical framing members, the method comprising: mechanically coupling a shear assembly to the upper horizontal plate of the wall; mechanically coupling the shear assembly to the foundation such that the shear assembly transmits lateral shear forces on the upper horizontal plate of the wall to the foundation so as to reduce the tendency of the upper portions of the vertical framing members to move laterally when exposed to shear forces; and mechanically interposing a motion damper device between the shear assembly and the building structure such that a portion of the shear forces on the upper horizontal plate of the wall are dissipated by the motion damper device.
Yet another aspect of the invention is comprised of a shear assembly for reducing the effects of shear forces on a building structure that includes a wall attached to a foundation, the shear assembly comprising an interconnecting structure with a first end and a second end, wherein the interconnecting structure transfers forces between the first end and the second end; a head assembly that mechanically couples an upper portion of the wall to the first end of the interconnecting structure; and at least one spring member that is mechanically interposed between the first end of the interconnecting structure and the upper portion of the wall that permits limited relative movement between the upper portion of the wall and the first end of the interconnecting structure such that at least a portion of lateral shear forces exerted on the head assembly are dissipated by mechanical extension and retraction of the spring member; and an anchor assembly that mechanically couples the second end of the interconnecting structure to the foundation.
Another aspect of the invention is comprised of a shear assembly for reducing the effects of shear forces on a building structure that includes a wall attached to a foundation, the shear assembly comprising an interconnecting structure with a first end and a second end, wherein the interconnecting structure transfers forces between the first end and the second end; a head assembly that mechanically couples an upper portion of the wall to the first end of the interconnecting structure; and an anchor assembly that mechanically couples the second end of the interconnecting structure to the foundation, wherein the anchor assembly comprises at least one motion damping device that permits limited relative movement between the foundation and the second end of the interconnecting structure such that at least a portion of uplifting and downward compression forces exerted on the anchor assembly are dissipated by the spring member.
Another aspect of the invention is comprised of a shear assembly for reducing shear and uplift forces between an upper portion of a wall and a foundation of a building, the assembly comprising a head assembly that is attached to the upper portion of the wall; an interconnecting member that is mechanically coupled to the head assembly; an anchor assembly that is coupled to the interconnecting member, wherein the anchor assembly includes at least one anchor bolt that is mounted in the foundation so as to be embedded therein; and a motion damping device mechanically coupled to the embedded portion of the anchor bolt of the anchor assembly wherein forces exerted on the upper portion of the wall are transmitted to the foundation via the anchor assembly such that the motion damping device dissipates at least a portion of the forces transmitted to the foundation.


The embodiments of the invention provide a method for selecting antennas for date transmission in a wireless communication network including user equipment (UE). The network is assigned a band of frequencies, wherein the band is partitioned into at least one set of subbands of the band according to a sounding reference signal (SRS) bandwidth configuration in a form of a codetree having a plurality levels and each level is associated with a partition coefficient. The UE is configured to transmit frequency-hopped SRS on the set of subbands using subsets of the set of antennas. First, the method determines if a number of subbands in the set of the subbands is odd or even based on the SRS bandwidth configuration, and selects a particular subset of the antennas according to whether the number is odd or even. Then, the SRS is transmitted from the particular subset of the antennas.

OFDMA and SC-FDMA
In a wireless communication network, such as the 3rd generation (3G) wireless cellular communication standard and the 3GPP long term evolution (LTE) standard, it is desired to concurrently support multiple services and multiple data rates for multiple users in a channel with a fixed bandwidth. The network bandwidth can vary, for example, from 125 MHz to 20 MHz. The network bandwidth is partitioned into a number of subbands, e.g., 1024 subbands for a 10 MHz bandwidth.
One scheme adaptively modulates and encodes symbols, before transmission, based on estimates of a channel. Another option available in LTE, which uses orthogonal frequency division multiplexed access (OFDMA), is to use multi-user frequency diversity by assigning different subbands or groups of subbands to different users or UEs (user equipment, mobile station (MS).
In the single band frequency division multiple access (SC-FDMA) uplink of the LTE, in each UE, the symbols are spread by means of a discrete Fourier transform (DFT) matrix. Then, the symbols are assigned to different subbands.
The following standards are applicable: 36.211, 3rd Generation Partnership Project; Technical Specification Group Radio Access Network: Physical Channels and Modulation (Release 8), v 1.0.0 (2007-March); RI-01057, "Adaptive antenna switching for radio resource allocation in the EUTRA uplink," Mitsubishi Electric/Nortel/NTT DoCoMO, 3GPP RAN1#48,; R1-071119, "A new DM-RS transmission scheme for antenna selection in E-UTRA uplink," LGE, 3GPP RAN1#48,; and "Comparison of closed-loop antenna selection with open-loop transmit diversity (antenna switching within a transmit time interval (TTI))," Mitsubishi Electric, 3GPP RAN1#47bis, Sorrento, Italy. According to the 3GPP standard, the base station (BS) is enhanced, and is called the "Evolved NodeB" (eNodeB). The terms BS and eNodeB are used interchangeably.
Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO)
To further increase the capacity of the wireless communication network in fading channel environments, multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) antenna technology can be used without an increase in bandwidth. Because the channels for different antennas are different, MIMO decreases fading, and also enables multiple data streams to be transmitted concurrently.
However, processing the signals received in spatial multiplexing schemes, or with space-time trellis codes requires transceivers where the complexity can increase exponentially as a function of the number of antenna.
Antenna Selection
Antennas are relatively simple and cheap, while RF chains are considerably more complex and expensive. Antenna selection reduces some of the complexity drawbacks associated with MIMO networks. Antenna selection reduces the hardware complexity of transmitters and receivers in the transceivers by using fewer RF chains than the number of antennas.
During antenna selection, a subset of the set of available antennas is adaptively selected by a switch, and only signals for the selected subset of antennas are connected to the available RF chains for signal processing, which can be either transmitting or receiving. The selected subset can include one or more of the available antennas.
Pilot Tones or Reference Signals
To select the optimal subset of antennas, channels corresponding to available subsets of antennas need to be estimated, even though only a selected optimal subset of the antennas is eventually used for transmission.
This can be achieved by transmitting antenna selection signals, e.g., pilot tones, also called sounding reference signals (SRS), from different antenna subsets. The different antenna subsets can transmit either the same pilot: tones, or use different pilot tones. Let Nt denote the number of transmit antennas, Nr the number of receive antennas, and let Rt=Nt/Lt and Rr=Nr/Lr be integers. Then, the available transmit (receive) antennas can be partitioned into Rt (Rr ) disjoint subsets.
The pilot repetition approach repeats, for Rt×Rr times, a training sequence that is suitable for an Lt×Lr MIMO network. During each repetition of the training sequence, the transmit RF chains are connected to different subsets of the antennas. Thus, at the end of the Rt×Rr repetitions, the receiver has a complete estimate of all the channels from the various transmit antennas to the various receive antennas.
In case of transmit antenna selection in frequency division duplex (FDD) networks, in which the forward and reverse channels are not identical, the transceiver feeds back the optimal subset of antennas to the transmitter. In reciprocal time division duplex (TDD) networks, the transmitter can perform the selection independently.
For an indoor local area network (LAN) with slowly varying channels, antenna selection can be performed using a media access (MAC) layer protocol, see IEEE 802.11n wireless LAN draft specification, I. P802.11n/D1.0, "Draft amendment to Wireless LAN media access control (MAC) and physical layer (PHY) specifications: Enhancements for higher throughput," Tech. Rep., March 2006.
Instead of extending the physical (PHY) layer preamble to include the extra training fields (repetitions) for the additional antennas, antenna selection training is done at the MAC layer by issuing commands to the physical layer to transmit and receive packets by different antenna subsets. The training information, which is a single conventional training sequence for an Lt×Lr MIMO network, is embedded in the MAC header field.
SC-FDMA Structure in LTE
The basic uplink transmission scheme is described in 3GPP TR 25.814, v1.2.2 "Physical Layer Aspects for Evolved UTRA." The scheme is a single-band transmission (SC-FDMA) with cyclic prefix (CP) to achieve uplink inter-user orthogonality and to enable efficient frequency-domain equalization at the receiver.
Broadband Sounding Reference Signals (SRS)
The broadband SRS helps the eNodeB to estimate the entire frequency domain response of the uplink channel from the UE to the eNodeB. This helps frequency-domain scheduling, in which a subband is assigned to the UE with the best gain on the uplink channel for that subband. Therefore, the broadband SRS can use the entire bandwidth, e.g., 5 MHz or 10 MHz, or a portion thereof as determined by the eNodeB. In the latter case, the broadband SRS is frequency hopped over multiple transmissions to cover the entire network bandwidth.

Antenna selection with frequency-hopped sounding reference signals

Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories, Inc.