A hollow building panel is provided having a first member, a second member spaced apart from the first member, and at least one support member disposed between and interconnecting the first and second member. At least one groove is formed in the first member exposed surface and the support member is attached to the first member at a vertex formed by the groove. The panel includes a locking assembly whereby two adjacent panels may be joined together.

I. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to building panels and methods of making building panels. More specifically, the present invention relates to hollow building panels having internal supporting structures and locking assemblies formed therein.
II. Background of the Invention
The use of interlocking wooden planks or panels to fashion ceilings, walls, wainscoting and flooring is well known in the building industry. Tongue-and-groove wooden paneling systems are widely used in all types of living spaces, such as porches, sunrooms, decks and kitchens. A typical wooden tongue-and-groove wood panel system, as shown in FIG. 1, includes panels having projecting tabs or xe2x80x9ctongues,xe2x80x9d which are received by corresponding xe2x80x9cgroovesxe2x80x9d on adjacent panels. The interlocking of a tongue of one panel with the groove of an adjacent panel provides the means by which an entire panel system may be joined and installed. Once joined, the planks may exhibit a V-shaped groove at the junction of the panels.
As indicated, typical wood paneling systems are composed of individual panels, wherein each individual panel is visible in the installed finished product. It is desirable to provide a paneling system having larger panels that, when installed, appear as smaller wooden panels. Providing larger panels would thereby reduce the number of panels required to be installed in a given space, as well as the time and cost of installation. In typical wood paneling systems, the visual width of the panel is the same as the physical width of the panel. For instance, if a ceiling or wall paneling is desired that has grooves at 2-inch intervals, the planks or panels used will be 2 inches wide. The narrower the plank is, the more planks required to cover a given width of wall or ceiling. The use of narrow planks tends to increase the installation cost of covering a given area. Therefore, a way is needed to reduce the installation costs by utilizing fewer discrete panels, while still realizing a visual effect that suggests narrow planks.
Wood products dominate the paneling market, since consumers tend to favor the aesthetic qualities of wood over current alternatives. However, synthetic alternatives to wood typically provide other advantages, such as moisture resistance, reduced weight, enhanced fire resistance and lower cost. Nevertheless, synthetic polymeric paneling products must meet consumer""s aesthetic expectations in order to compete with wood. Thus, there is a need to provide a synthetic polymer panel with a high quality fit and finish comparable to wood.
With the increase in building of outdoor living spaces comes a need to provide paneling suitable for withstanding the accompanying climate conditions. Ranges of temperature, humidity and light tend to be broader outdoors than indoors. There exists a need for ceiling, flooring and wall materials that target such demanding environments. Currently, most commercially available ceiling products are not intended for outdoor or high-humidity applications. Although, increases in the construction of outdoor living spaces such as sunrooms, porches and decks, are evident.
Such demanding environments require that consideration in designing and installing a paneling system take into account the impact of varying temperature and humidity on the choice of construction materials. In a given installation, panels will expand and contract significantly along their length as the ambient temperature varies. If the panels are simply nailed to a surface, then warping or sagging can develop. Thus, a system is needed that will provide for thermal expansion and contraction of the panels.
Although plastic panels are known to be less susceptible to these environmental conditions, known means of fastening such panels to the surface of a building are not much advanced over those known for typical wooden systems. In fact, plastic panels are typically attached by nailing or stapling. Typically, a flange is provided along an edge of the panel for the purpose of attaching the panel to a surface. Unfortunately, when attaching the panels, for instance, with a nail, the head of the nail must be hidden and sufficiently fastened such that the height of the nail head does not hinder attachment of the next panel to be installed. Thus, there is a need for a feature that hides the attachment member and provides sufficient clearance to prevent the appearance of bumps in the surface of the panel.
Replacing a typical wooden paneling system with, for instance, a solid plastic panel may prove to be expensive and difficult. The use of significantly more material could significantly increase the weight and material costs of the product, and could also create challenges in manufacturing, such as attempting to provide uniform cooling of the material to prevent warping. Conversely, providing hollow panel replacements raises another set of challenges including, but not limited to, avoiding potential warping and/or buckling, overcoming manufacturing difficulties, and providing sufficient strength and rigidity in a panel. A panel should exhibit the strength and rigidity necessary for handling, installation, and crush resistance. Also, a panel should display a smooth and consistent finish in order to meet consumer expectations. Typically, hollow panels with reinforcing ribs tend to show evidence on the panel surface of the presence of these ribs. Such evidence is usually considered a surface defect and tends to be objected to by the consumer.
Thus, there remains a need for a hollow panel that is easy to make, and that provides strength, rigidity, and an aesthetically pleasing appearance.
The present invention is directed, in part, to a hollow panel having at least one support member connecting a base member of the panel to a face member thereof. The face member is spaced apart from the base member and includes at least one groove formed therein. The support member is attached to the face member adjacent the groove, so that no seam or other surface defect, arising from the attachment of the support member to the face member, is visible on the exposed surface of the face member. The support member(s) may be angled relative to the face member in order to provide efficient and effective support for the face member.
The present invention also encompasses, in part, panels including locking assemblies formed therein. A panel may have both a first flange extending along a first edge of a base member and a second flange, spaced apart from the first flange, also extending along the first edge of the base member. The panel also may include at least one spring tab extending from a second edge of the base member. Adjacent to this second edge is a recessed portion formed in the base member. With these aspects of the locking assembly included in the base members of a paneling system, one panel may be installed and a second panel installed adjacent the first panel, with a first edge of the first panel abutting the second edge of the second panel. The first panel may be installed by fastening the first flange to the mounting surface. The second panel may then be locked to the first panel by engaging the spring tab(s) of the second panel with the second flange of the first panel. Consequently, the present invention also is directed, in part, to installing interlocking panels. The resulting interlocking panel system may have grooves, or similar formations, formed by the cooperation of a shoulder of one panel and a shoulder of an adjoining panel, wherein these formations are similar to those formed in the face member of the panel.
These and other aspects of the present invention are set forth in the brief description of the drawings and the detailed description of the invention set forth below.

Hollow building panel having an angled support member and method of making same


In a tri-level imaging apparatus, a development control arrangement wherein the white discharge level is stabilized at a predetermined voltage and the bias voltages for the developer housings for charged area and discharged area development are independently adjustable for maintaining image background levels within acceptable limits. The white discharge level can be shifted to preferentially enhance the copy quality of one or the other of the charged area or discharged area images.

This invention relates generally to tri-level, highlight color imaging and more particularly to an adaptive bias control arrangement which compensates for developer and photoreceptor aging.
In the practice of conventional xerography, it is the general procedure to form electrosatic latent images on a charge retentive surface such as photoconductive member by first uniformly charging the charge retentive surface. The charged area is selectively dissipated in accordance with a pattern of activating radiation corresponding to original images. The selective dissipation of the charge leaves a latent charge pattern on the imaging surface corresponding to the areas not exposed by radiation.
THis charge pattern is made visible by developing it with toner by passing the photoreceptor past a single developer housing. The toner is generally a colored powder which adheres to the charge pattern by electrostatic attraction. The developed image is then fixed to the imaging surface or is transferred to a receiving substrate such as plain paper to which it is fixed by suitable fusing techniques.
In tri-level, highlight color imaging, unlike conventional xerography, not only are the charged (i.e., unexposed) areas developed with toner but the discharged (i.e., fully exposed) images are also developed. Thus, the charge retentive surface contains three voltage levels which correspond to two image areas and to a background voltage area. One of the image areas corresponds to non-exposed (i.e. charged) areas of the photoreceptor, as in the case of conventional xerography, while the other image areas correspond to fully exposed (i.e., discharged) areas of the photoreceptor.
The concept of tri-level, highlight color xerography is described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,078,929 issued in the name of Gundlach. The patent to Gundlach teaches the use of tri-level xerography as a means to achieve single-pass highlight color imaging. As disclosed therein the charge pattern is developed with toner particles of first and second colors. The toner particles of one of the colors are positively charged and the toner particles of the other color are negatively charged. In one embodiment, the toner particles are supplied by a developer which comprises a mixture of triboelectrically relatively positive and relatively negative carrier beads. The carrier beads support, respectively, the relatively negative and relatively positive toner particles. Such a developer is generally supplied to the charge pattern by cascading it across the imaging surface supporting the charge pattern. In another embodiment, the toner particles are presented to the charge pattern by a pair of magnetic brushes. Each brush supplies a toner of one color and one charge. In yet another embodiment, the development systems are biased to about the background voltage. Such biasing results in a developed image of improved color sharpness.
In highlight color xerography as taught by Gundlach, the xerographic contrast on the charge retentive surface or photoreceptor is divided three, rather than two, ways as is the case in conventional xerography. The photoreceptor is charged, typically to 900 v. It is exposed imagewise, such that one image corresponding to charged image areas (which are subsequently developed by charged-area development, i.e. (CAD) remains at or near the fully charged photoreceptor potential represented by V.sub.cad or V.sub.ddp as shown in FIG. 1a. The other images are formed by discharging the photoreceptor to its residual potential, i.e. V.sub.dad or V.sub.c (typically 100 v) which corresponds to discharged area images that are subsequently developed by discharged-area development (DAD). The background areas are formed by discharging the photoreceptor to reduce its potential to halfway between the V.sub.cad and V.sub.dad potentials, (typically 500 v) and is referred to as V.sub.white or V.sub.w. The CAD developer is typically biased about 100 v (V.sub.bb, shown in FIG. 1b) closer to V.sub.cad than V.sub.white is to V.sub.cad, resulting in a V.sub.bb of about 600 volts, and the DAD developer system is biased about 100 V (V.sub.cb, shown in FIG. 1b) closer to V.sub.dad than V.sub.white is to V.sub.dad resulting in a V.sub.cb of about 400 volts.
As developed, the composite tri-level image initially consists of both positive and negative toners. To enable conventional corona transfer, it is necessary to first convert the entire image to the same polarity. This must be done without overcharging the toner that already has the correct polarity for transfer. If the amount of charge on the toner becomes excessive, normal transfer will be impaired and the coulomb forces may cause toner disturbances in the developed image. On the other hand, if the toner whose polarity is being reversed is not charged sufficiently its transfer efficiency will be poor and the transferred image will be unsatisfactory.

Adaptive bias control for tri-level xerography


A structure having limited supportable portions has been difficult to isolate from vibration in the direction in which a load is applied. A base isolation apparatus includes a Z-axis base isolation unit, an X-axis base isolation unit, and a Y-axis base isolation unit. The base isolation unit includes a vibration-source connector, an isolated-object connector, a lock device disposed between the isolated-object connector and the vibration-source connector for switching between a state of fixing the isolated-object connector and a state of making it movable, a distance recovery device for generating a force to cause an amount of change in distance to approach zero, depending on the amount of change, and a vibration damper for generating a force in an orientation of hindering the change, depending on the rate of change in distance.

A base isolation apparatus is installed between an object to be isolated from vibration, and a foundation of the object. The base isolation apparatus is installed for decoupling respective behaviors of the object and the foundation from each other to prevent seismic vibration from being transmitted to the object, or to reduce a seismic acceleration applied to the object. A known base isolation technology for rack-and-pinion type elevators often employed for construction-site elevators provides a horizontal base isolation apparatus installed only on an elevator's foundation on the ground (see Patent Document 1).
It is known to provide a rolling support and a damper for suppressing vibration in a horizontal plane, lock the rolling support and the damper so that they do not work while no earthquake occurs, and release the locked rolling support and damper upon occurrence of an earthquake so as to cause the rolling support and the damper to work (see Patent Document 2). It is known to utilize a ball screw mechanism for restricting, in the up-and-down direction, the direction in which an additional mass moves, in order to suppress up-and-down vibration. For small vibration, the additional mass is driven to implement active vibration control. For large vibration, the additional mass is not driven. In order to accomplish this, a clutch is mounted on one end of a screw rod of the ball screw mechanism. When the additional mass is driven actively to implement vibration control, the clutch prevents the screw rod from rotating. For large vibration, the clutch allows the screw rod to rotate freely to thereby allow the additional mass to move up and down freely (see Patent Document 3).

Base isolation apparatus, lifting apparatus, and base isolation unit


A mat includes a first main face and a second main face opposite to the first main face. At least two layers include a first layer occupying a first area from the first main face along a thickness direction of the mat. The first layer includes a first long fibrous substance which includes an inorganic fibrous substance. A second layer is adjacent to the first layer. The second layer includes a short fibrous substance which includes an inorganic fibrous substance and which has an average fiber length shorter than an average fiber length of the first long fibrous substance. An intertwined portion extends from the first main face to the second main face. The intertwined portion includes the first long fibrous substance and the short fibrous substance being more closely intertwined with each other than the inorganic fibrous substances in a portion except the intertwined portion.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a mat, a method for producing the mat, and an exhaust gas purifying apparatus.
2. Discussion of the Background
Conventionally known mats include nonwoven fabric-like mats made from compressed inorganic fibrous materials such as fibrous silica or fibrous alumina. These mats are excellent in characteristics such as heat resistance and elasticity (repulsive force), and thus they are used for various applications.
For example, such a mat is used as a component of an exhaust gas purifying apparatus.
Specifically, a typical exhaust gas purifying apparatus includes a cylindrical exhaust gas treating body, a cylindrical casing which accommodates the exhaust gas treating body, and a mat-shaped holding sealing material disposed between the exhaust gas treating body and the casing, and the mat is used as a material for this holding sealing material. The holding sealing material is produced through steps such as a step of cutting a mat into a predetermined shape.
The holding sealing material which includes a nonwoven fabric-like mat having repulsive force has a predetermined holding force. Thus, in the exhaust gas purifying apparatus, the holding sealing material securely holds the exhaust gas treating body at a predetermined position inside the casing. Further, since the holding sealing material is disposed between the exhaust gas treating body and the casing, the exhaust gas treating body is less likely to be in contact with the casing even if vibration or the like is applied, and exhaust gas is less likely to leak from between the exhaust gas treating body and the casing.
The exhaust gas purifying apparatus including a holding sealing material may be produced by stuffing an exhaust gas treating body wrapped with a holding sealing material into a casing.
Specifically, a holding sealing material is wrapped around the periphery of a cylindrical exhaust gas treating body to prepare a wrapped member, and the wrapped member is slide-stuffed into a cylindrical casing whose inner diameter is smaller than the outer diameter of the wrapped member while the holding sealing material is compressed.
In this production method, therefore, the holding sealing material wrapped around the exhaust gas treating body is required to have an appropriately low volume so that the wrapped member is easily stuffed.
Further, a high shearing force is applied to the holding sealing material when the holding sealing material is stuffed into the casing. Thus, the holding sealing material is required to have a certain degree of strength (hereinafter, also referred to simply as shear strength) so as not to be torn due to the shearing force.
Furthermore, the holding sealing material is required to have a certain degree of flexibility so as not to suffer crackings when wrapped around the exhaust gas treating body.
JP-A 62-56348 discloses a conventional mat including fibrous alumina as a mat for such a holding sealing material.
This conventional mat is produced as follows: a fibrous alumina precursor, which is to be converted into an inorganic fibrous substance by firing, is compressed to prepare a sheet; multiple needles with barbs are inserted into/extracted from the sheet along the thickness direction of the sheet to prepare a needled sheet with intertwined portions formed therein; and the needled sheet is fired.
The produced mat is cut into a predetermined shape, and thereby a holding sealing material is produced.
JP-A 59-519 discloses a conventional mat produced by preparing a sheet-formed sheet including an inorganic fibrous substance, stacking a polyester-fiber nonwoven fabric on the upper face of the sheet, and needling the sheet in a manner as mentioned above.
The produced mat is cut into a predetermined shape, and thereby a holding sealing material is produced.
The contents of JP-A 62-56348 and JP-A 59-519 are incorporated herein by reference in their entirety.

Mat, method for producing the mat, and exhaust gas purifying apparatus


The invention consists of a combination safety guide and measuring tool providing a safe, reliable means for advancing wood over or through table mounted wood working equipment, and in addition, providing a measuring tool for many important wood working problems. Among the unique features provided by this device are a conventional push tool, a means for measuring the distance of the cutting tool from the wood piece, and a means for accurately measuring the height of the cutting instrument. Because of the unique design of this invention, the worker can perform many measuring functions without the necessity of several measuring tools and, in addition, have a safe, reliable pushstick for moving the wood piece through the wood working equipment.

1. Field of Invention
This invention relates to wood working equipment. In particular, this invention relates to a combination handguide and measuring tool which can be used with table mounted wood working equipment such as table saws, jointers, planars, routers, etc.
2. Prior Art
In wood working operations such as the ripping, routing or jointing of wood, the operator of the machine uses a saw guard, push stick and other safety type equipment to prevent accidental injuries to fingers, hands and arms when the work piece is being operated on by the machine. In addition, when accurate control of the work piece is deficient, problems may arise, not the least of which can be a diminution in the maintenance of prescribed dimensional tolerances in the work piece. To accomplish both of these desired goals, the traditional push stick, a notched stick which is placed on the work piece, is used to push the work piece through the wood working operation.
Conventional push sticks are well known as shown in, for example, Fine Wood Working, p. 53 (Spring 1977) and Fine Wood Working, p. 12 (January/February 1979).
A common "push stick" is also disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,001,903. The '903 patent discloses a wood working device comprised of a handle having a triangular and eccentrically notched working end provided with a right angle to push wood through the wood working equipment. While this push stick is better than no push stick, it has several inherent deficiencies. For example, the shaft does little to hold the wood securely in place, thus permitting the wood to buck off the flat surface during the wood working operation. In addition, there is no control of the left to right movement of the wood as it passes through the wood working equipment. Further, there is insufficient engagement with the top surface of the wood resulting in the wood "bucking" if hard spots exist in the wood. Finally, there is always the possibility that the push stick will slip, causing the hands of the operator to move toward the cutting edge of the wood working equipment.
Better designed push sticks have a handle and a guidebody for pushing the wood through the wood working equipment. Some of these devices have a replaceable bottom part when the device comes into contact with the wood working equipment. See for example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,348,925. Others have openings in the bottom of the push stick through which a saw blade can pass as the push stick is being used. See for example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,370,909.
Others employ different methods for pushing the wood through the wood working equipment. See, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 2,839,100 which uses a number of rigid stud-type devices which grab the wood and push it through the wood working equipment.
Another type of wood working device fits over the rip fence or rip rail of a table saw and contains an extended notch for pushing wood through a table saw. See U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,603,612, 4,485,711 and 2,410,467.
Thus, there are numerous devices for the pushing of wood through wood working equipment, especially table saws.
In addition, there are many conventional measuring tools for determining distances, degrees and angles, all of which come into use when wood is being altered by wood working equipment. However, none of the devices previously disclosed provide a combination handguide for pushing wood through the wood working equipment and a ,tool for performing a multitude of measuring operations such as: setting the height of the blade of a table saw, setting the angle of the blade of a table saw for a 221/2 degree, 30 degree, 60 degree or 90 degree miter cut, measuring the length or height of the woodpiece determining the center of a shaped woodpiece and the many other measuring operations performed on a daily basis by people in wood working.
Therefore, it is an object of this invention to provide a combination handguide and measuring tool for use with wood working equipment.
It is another object of this invention to provide a combination handguide and measuring tool which will safely and securely push wood through a wood working operation.
It is a still further object of this invention to provide a combination handguide and measuring tool for determining the height of a saw blade and for performing many other measuring operations in wood working.
These and other objects and features of the present invention will become apparent to those skilled in the art from a consideration of the following detailed description, drawings and claims. The description along with the accompanying drawings provide a selected example of construction of the device to illustrate the invention.

Combination handguide and measuring tool for use with table mounted wood working equipment


A processor implemented nerve stimulation system for regional anesthesia administration varies pulse width as a programmed function of applied current or varies applied current as a function of adjusted pulse width. The system also provides a waveform of repeating cycles of different pulse width components separated within the waveform frequency and which may be simultaneously attenuated as a function of applied current within an attenuation range. Among possible functional relationships between pulse width and applied current within an attenuation range is the exponential reduction of pulse width as a function of applied current.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to nerve stimulation for regional anesthesia administration and more particularly to a processor implemented nerve stimulation system which varies pulse charge over an attenuation range by varying pulse duration as a function of applied current or applied current as a function of pulse duration.
2. Antecedents of the Invention
The field of regional anesthesia relates to the practice of administering anesthesia to a specific body region during surgery, for the relief of postoperative pain, and for extended relief of trauma or chronic pain. Often, regional anesthesia has been found to be preferable to general anesthesia because of increased safety, the availability of postoperative pain control and decreased anesthetic costs.
Regional anesthesia delivery techniques strove to optimize administration of a local anesthetic in close proximity to a target or nerve plexus so as to establish a neural blockade. Successful administration of regional anesthesia was dependent upon the accurate placement of the anesthetic in relation to the target nerve or nerves.
Various techniques have been employed to assist in placement of an administration needle in close proximity to the target nerve, which was not externally visible. One of the traditional methods of needle placement involved eliciting paresthesia. Among the disadvantages of this technique was the lack of accurate patient responses amongst patients who were disoriented and/or sedated.
A prevalent technique employed the use of nerve stimulators electrically coupled to a nerve stimulator needle. Such method was premised upon the phenomenon that an electrical pulse is capable of stimulating a motor nerve fiber to contract an innervated muscle or cause paraesthesia, in the case of sensory nerve stimulation.
The nerve stimulator needle was placed within the tissue of the patient's body in the vicinity of the nerve to be blocked and then advanced until stimulation of the target nerve was achieved as determined by visually detecting muscle contractions or by eliciting a report that the patient felt the stimulus in response to the current flow through the stimulator needle.
The current supplied by the nerve stimulator was reduced as the nerve stimulator needle was further advanced, until stimulation of the target nerve was achieved using a reduced current level associated with a prescribed distance between the needle tip and the target nerve.
Conventional electrical nerve stimulation techniques have utilized a weak direct current electrical current supplied to a nerve stimulator needle by an oscillating (square-wave) current generator. The current was pulsed, typically at a frequency of 1 Hz or 2 Hz. Current amplitude was adjusted, for example, by a potentiometer with the frequency and pulse duration remaining constant. When appropriate motor contractions, which corresponded to the muscular innervation of the targeted nerve or plexus, occurred at the set frequency, the current was slowly decreased in amperage while the needle was advanced to search for the nerve. Motor contractions that occurred at a very low amperage (usually 0.2-0.5 mAmp) indicated close proximity or contact between the needle tip and the nerve. Thereafter, a portion of the anesthetic dose was administered through the needle to terminate the response to the nerve stimulation current. If the response was terminated by the initial administration, the needle was deemed to be properly positioned in proximity to the target nerve and the remaining dose of anesthetic was administered.
Pulse duration, i.e. pulse width, is the duration in milliseconds of the periodic pulse square wave used to stimulate the nerve or nerve plexus. Increasing the pulse duration or the current amplitude increased the total flow of electrons i.e. pulse charge, in a manner proportional to the area under the square waveform. Increasing pulse duration therefore resulted in increased ability to stimulate the nerve at a greater distance which was a function of the pulse width, if other parameters, including current amplitude, are maintained constant. Greater pulse width (e.g. 0.3 msec compared to 0.1 msec) resulted in higher sensitivity to stimulate the designated nerve or plexus at a greater distance. By contrast, lower pulse width (e.g. 0.1 msec or 0.05 msec) maximized specificity for ultimate final location of the nerve relative to the needle tip. This assured optimal positioning of the needle.
The majority of nerve stimulators used have a preset single pulse duration (e.g. 0.1 msec or 0.2 msec). Some recent nerve stimulators permitted pulse duration to be set at a selected pulse width, e.g. 0.1 msec, 0.3 msec, 0.5 msec, or 1.0 msec.
A nerve stimulator that generated alternating sequential electrical pulses of high and low pulse widths was disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,853,373. The high duration pulses were said to stimulate the target nerve at one-second intervals after skin penetration at a distance where the low duration pulses did not generate observable stimulation. When the target nerve was approached, both high and low duration pulses were said to generate observable stimulation (motor contractions) at one-half second intervals (twice the frequency initially observed), without a reduction in current amplitude.

Nerve stimulation system with programmed pulse charge attenuation


An apparatus for filling tubular casings includes a filling tube having a locking device, the locking device including at least one locking element, and a calibrating ring that is lockable on the filling tube. A method for filling a tubular casing includes the steps of mounting a gathered casing stick on a filling tube, sliding a calibrating ring onto the filling tube, locking the calibrating ring on the filling tube, drawing the start of the gathered casing stick over the calibrating ring, introducing the filling material into an extruder, and pressing the filling material through the filling tube and into the tubular casing.

The invention relates to an apparatus and method for filling tubular casings with pasty filling material, especially for the filling of synthetic sausage casings with sausage mass.
The overall appliance for filling tubular casings with pasty filling material includes an extruder which presses the filling material through a filling tube into the tubular casing. The casing to be filled is arranged in gathered form as a so-called concertina on the filling tube and is ungathered by the pressed-in filling material and drawn off from the filling tube. To fill the casing with the filling material tautly and in a crease-free manner, it is necessary to delay the draw-off of the casing from the filling tube by means of a brake. The brake is located in the vicinity of the filling-tube orifice and presses the ungathered tubular casing against the outer face of the filling tube with adjustable force.
It has been shown to be especially expedient if the gathered casing is located on a hollow-cylindrical core. This hollow-cylindrical core can, together with the gathered casing located on it, be pushed onto the filling tube and, after the casing has been removed completely, also easily removed. Conventionally, these casings gathered on a core have a so-called calibrating ring, over which the casing is drawn before the filling and which serves for expanding the casing to a constant diameter. See, for example, the following documents: U.S. Pat. No. 4,202,075; U.S. Pat. No. 4,292,711; DE-A-3,242,147; EP-A-0,105,446; EP-A-0,126,474; EP-A-0,133,573; GB-A-1,565,355; GB-A-2,100,571. The calibrating ring is either an integral component of the core or is attached to the core.
One disadvantage of these known appliances is that problems arise during the elimination of waste. The casings are gathered on the core directly from the manufacturer and the core together with the casing is put on the market. The customer (sausage manufacturer) pushes the composite core/concertina structure onto the filling tube of the filling machine and fills the casing which is ungathered continuously and is drawn off from the core. Finally, only the core still remains on the filling tube, and this is removed and replaced by another cartridge (composite core/concertina structure). The core, usually made of plastic, remains as waste.

Apparatus and method for filling tubular castings


Numerous embodiments of interactive control systems, methods of making the same, and devices incorporating the same are disclosed. In one embodiment, a system includes a light-resistant material; light-transmissive holes penetrating in a light-transmissive pattern through the light resistant material; and a lens disposed adjacent to the light-transmissive pattern.

In the world of consumer devices, and particularly consumer electronics, there is an ever-present demand for improved appearance, improved functionality and improved aesthetics. Industrial design has become a highly skilled profession that focuses on fulfilling this need for enhanced consumer product appearance, functionality, and aesthetics.
One area that continually receives great attention for improvement is that of user interfaces, which generally govern how a user interacts with a device to, for example, initiate, adjust or otherwise control a function supported by the device. Various types of user interfaces include touchscreens (e.g., with image-based interface features visually presented to the user by a display such a liquid crystal display), voice-based interfaces, and tangible interfaces (e.g., with interface features such as buttons, knobs, sliders, switches, keyboards, etc.), gesture interfaces (e.g., with interface features such as a computer mouse or stylus), etc. Many consumer electronics devices such as "smart phones" incorporate touchscreens that obviate the need for are designed to be portable and easy to use, and as such they often do not include keyboards to minimize device size. However as consumer products continually become smaller yet capable of supporting more functions, it becomes increasingly difficult to provide a user interface that not only allows a user to interact with the device intuitively and easily, but that is also uncluttered in form and appearance and that does not undesirably damage the aesthetic appeal of the device.
Much of the aesthetic appeal of a consumer electronic device can quickly be compromised if there are too many tangible interface features, if too much of a display area is occupied by image-based interface features, or if certain interface features are not accessible without navigating through a series of instructions or screens. Tangible interface features typically remain visible to the user at all times, regardless of how often or how little they are used. This is not only displeasing from an aesthetic standpoint, but it can be an annoying distraction that interferes with handling and manipulation of the device. Over time, some tangible interface features can undesirably break, crack, get jammed, or even fall off of the device. Lastly, tangible interface features sometimes are not perfectly mated with the body of the device. Such an imperfect mating can enable liquids, dirt, and other debris to undesirably enter into the body of the device to potentially damage the device or at least degrade the aesthetic appearance of the device.

Interactive control system, methods of making the same, and devices incorporating the same


A device for preventing dilution of engine oil includes an oil pan in which oil for lubrication of the engine is recovered with fuel. An exhaust purifier is provided on a rear end of the engine and purifying exhaust gas. A gas passage can guide flow of exhaust gas passing through the exhaust purifier to the oil pan. A gas valve can control flow rate of the exhaust gas flowing in the gas passage. A controller controls an opening ratio of the gas valve depending on a temperature of oil inside the oil pan to maintain the temperature of the oil equal to or higher than a temperature at which the fuel in the oil pan is vaporized.

Generally, oil dilution means that fuel component is diluted in oil in an oil pan of an engine, which reduces lubrication performance of the oil. In a case of a diesel engine, fuel is accumulated on an oil pan during a process of warming up for using a lean NOx trap (LNT) and a diesel particulate filter (DPF), and oil dilution occurs.
When the oil dilution in which the fuel is diluted in the oil in the oil pan excessively occurs, engine problems occur due to lubrication performance degradation.
A main reason for the oil dilution with fuel in the oil pan is an after-injection of the fuel for increasing temperature of LNT and DPF. When purifying exhaust using LNT and DPF, the exhaust gas cannot be purified without increasing temperature of LNT and DPF. Therefore, though the after-injection of the fuel is optimally controlled for suppressing the oil dilution, the oil dilution occurs.
The foregoing is intended merely to aid in the understanding of the background of the present invention, and is not intended to mean that the present invention falls within the purview of the related art that is already known to those skilled in the art.

Device for preventing dilution of engine oil


A method for producing a power semiconductor module arrangement includes: arranging a semiconductor substrate in a housing, the housing including a through hole extending through a component of the housing; inserting a pin or bolt into the through hole such that an upper end of the pin/bolt is not inserted into the through hole; arranging a printed circuit board on the housing; arranging the housing on a heat sink having a hole, the housing being arranged on the heat sink such that the through hole is aligned with the hole in the heat sink; and by way of a first pressing tool, exerting a force on a defined contact area of the printed circuit board and pressing the pin/bolt into the hole in the heat sink, wherein the defined contact area is arranged directly above the pin/bolt.

Power semiconductor modules often include a semiconductor substrate arranged in a housing. A semiconductor arrangement including a plurality of controllable semiconductor elements (e.g., two IGBTs in a half-bridge configuration) may be arranged on the substrate. The substrate usually comprises a substrate layer (e.g., a ceramic layer), a first metallization layer deposited on a first side of the substrate layer and a second metallization layer deposited on a second side of the substrate layer. The controllable semiconductor elements are mounted, for example, on the first metallization layer. The second metallization layer may be attached to a heat sink, to a base plate or to a ground surface of the housing. The controllable semiconductor devices are usually mounted to the semiconductor substrate by soldering or sintering techniques. One or more contact elements, which allow for contacting such a semiconductor arrangement from outside the housing, are usually provided. Power semiconductor modules are known, where the contact elements are arranged on the substrate and protrude in a direction that is essentially perpendicular to the main surface of the substrate through a cover of the housing. The section of the contact elements which protrudes out of the housing may be mechanically and electrically coupled to a printed circuit board. Usually, the printed circuit board comprises through holes and the contact elements are inserted through the respective through holes.
In order to attach the housing with the semiconductor substrate arranged therein to a heat sink, the housing (or suitable projections attached to the housing), as well as the heat sink may comprise threaded holes. A screw may be inserted through these threaded holes, thereby fixing the housing with the printed circuit board attached thereto on the heat sink. A through hole in the printed circuit is further necessary to be able to fix the screw in the threaded hole with an appropriate tool (e.g., screwdriver). Providing a through hole in the printed circuit board, however, has the disadvantage that certain areas of the printed circuit board are lost which cannot be used to provide conducting paths. The printed circuit board, therefore, needs to be larger or needs to have more layers of conducting paths which increases the overall costs of the arrangement.
There is a need for a semiconductor module arrangement that may be mounted to a heat sink, wherein a printed circuit board of the arrangement is as small and cheap as possible.

Power semiconductor module and a method for producing a power semiconductor module


A nanoparticulate organic hybrid material comprising inorganic nanoparticles covalently grafted with at least one anion of an organic sodium or lithium salt is provided. In addition, a process for preparing the nanoparticulate organic hybrid material and its use in the preparation of electrolytes suitable for lithium and sodium secondary batteries are provided.

Solid-state batteries are referred in the state of the art as electrochemical cells containing at least an anode, a cathode and a solid electrolyte. These cells offer a number of advantages over electrochemical cells containing a liquid electrolyte, especially improved safety features.
The secondary batteries with the highest energy density used today use lithium, wherein lithium ions are the active charge carrying species. Advanced secondary lithium battery systems require electrolytes with specific properties such as wide electrochemical stability windows, high mechanical strength alone or when imbibing a porous separator, and/or chemical inertness or non-solvency towards the electrode materials at any stage of charge or discharge. It is also desirable that electrolytes are non-flammable, non-volatile, do not leak and are non-toxic, making them safer both in use and after disposal. In pursuit of such materials, several classes of electrolytes have been studied as replacement for conventional liquid electrolytes, either of inorganic or organic nature: polymers, polymer composites, hybrids, gels, ionic liquids and ceramics.
Typical materials used for the manufacture of solid electrolytes can be inorganic matrices, such as β-alumina and Nasicon, sulfide glasses in the SiS2+Li2S+LiI system or simple Lithium halide with enhanced grain boundaries defect induced by nanoparticles oxides, like silicon dioxide. All these are brittle materials where the volume changes inevitable during operation induce stress and possible cracks in the electrolytes. In order to have electrolytes compliant with volumes changes, the use of organic polymeric matrices is preferred. Typical examples include polyethylene oxide, polypropylene oxide or polyethyleneimine and their copolymers. These materials are used in combination with a suitable lithium salt, such as lithium tetrafluoroborate (LiBF4) and lithium bis(triflruoromethane sulfonyl imide [Li(CF3SO2)2N] referred in the following as LiTFSI.
Conductivity levels sufficient for battery operation (10−5-10−3 S·cm−1) are only obtained above room temperature, from 50 to 80° C.
The polymers containing the (CH2CH2O)n repeat unit are the most conductive, and the polymers containing this unit have been most studied. The tendency for segments with n≥15 to crystallize require to function above the melting point, as only the amorphous phase is conducting, whether this sequence is in copolymers of the random type or block, or of comb type. However, at the temperature of operation, the polymers have insufficient mechanical properties to act as an electrolyte and separator in a battery. This is especially true when lower Mw α-ωmethyl-end-capped polyoxyethene unit with 4≤n≤20 (known ad PGDME) are used as additive to plasticize the membrane. Crosslinking is usually necessary to improve the mechanical resistance, which in turn decrease the thermal motion of the chains, hence the conductivity. The cross-linking process is usually slow and diminishes the speed of battery production.
The main disadvantage of all these polymer electrolytes is the ambipolar conductivity. When a current is applied, both the anions and cations are mobile, then ≈⅓ of the current through the electrolyte is transported by the cation and ⅔ by the anion. This aspect is quantified by the transport number t+ defined as t+=σcation/σcation+σanion=Dcation/Dcation+Danion, σ and D being the conductivity and diffusion of each charges species. In most battery electrode systems, only cations react at the electrodes, so eventually the electroneutrality results in an accumulation of salt in the vicinity of the anode and salt depletion close to the cathode. Both over-concentrated and depleted electrolyte have a far lower conductivity, thus the polarization of the cell increases markedly with a reduction in power capability.
Some attempts have been proposed in order to overcome these problems. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,569,560 describes the use of an anion complexing agent comprising polyamines with the strong electron-withdrawing unit CF3SO2 attached to slow-down the anions, thus allowing the lithium cations to carry a larger fraction of the current in an electrochemical cell. The effect on the transport number t+ is however minimal. Recently, solvent-free, hybrid electrolytes based on nanoscale organic/silica hybrid materials (NOHMs) have been prepared with lithium salts [Nugent, J. L. et al., Adv. Mater., 2010, 22, 3677; Lu, Y. et al., J. Mater. Chem., 2012, 22, 4066]. Such electrolytes have uniformly dispersed nanoparticle cores covalently to which polyethylene glycol (PEG) chains are covalently bonded. These electrolytes are self-suspended and provides homogeneous fluids where the PEG oligomers simultaneously serve as the suspending medium for the nanoparticle cores and as ion-conducting network for lithium ion transport.
WO2010/083041 also discloses hybrid electrolytes based on NOHMs comprising a polymeric corona attached to an inorganic nanoparticle core, being the polymeric corona doped with lithium salts.
Schaefer, J. L. et al. (J. Mater. Chem., 2011, 21, 10094) also describes hybrid electrolytes based on SiO2 nanoparticles covalently bonded to a dense brush of oligo-PEG chains, doped with a lithium salt, in particular lithium bis(trifluromethanesulfone imide). This electrolyte is prepared in polyethylene glycol dimethyl ether (PEGDME) which provides an excellent ion conductivity. However, the anion of the lithium salt freely moves through the electrolyte and ⅔ of the current is carried by anions, thus generating a high concentration polarization, and therefore an internal resistance and voltage loss.
In all these three last examples, the fact that the free salt is dissolved in the grafted PEG parts of these nano composites means that the transport number t+ is <<1, having as result the same concentration polarization during battery operation.
On the other hand, recent investigation is focused on the development of sodium-ion secondary batteries in which sodium ion is employed in place of lithium ion. The use of sodium as the electrochemical vector for batteries is becoming increasingly popular, as sodium is much more abundant than lithium, and for large-scale applications, like electrical grid storage, it becomes mandatory. However, sodium insertion electrodes undergo large volume changes during operation, and besides, the non-compliant solid electrolyte interface at the electrolyte/electrode surface is much less favorable for sodium. This suggests again the use of polymer electrolytes which are compliant for volume changes and far more stable than conventional carbonate solvents. However, fewer studies than for Li have been devoted to polymer Na-ion batteries. Sodium batteries electrolytes have the same requirement as for lithium, to have the highest possible transport number t+≈1 to avoid concentration polarization.
In this sense, Kumar, D. (J. Power Sources, 2010, 195, 5101-5108) discloses sodium ion conducting, gel polymer electrolyte nanocomposites based on poly(methyl methacrylate) and dispersed with unfunctionalized silica nanoparticles. However, only a slight enhancement in the sodium ion transport is observed due to the dispersion of silica nanoparticles in the gel system.
Kumar (Solid State Ionics, 2010, 181, 416-423) also describes other sodium ion conducting gel polymer electrolyte which comprises a solution of sodium triflate (NaCF3SO3) in an ionic liquid 1-ethyl-3-methyl imidazolium trifluoro-methane sulfonate, immobilized in poly(vinylidene fluoride-co-hexafluoropropylene). Similarly, the anions needed to compensate the charge of the organic cation and of sodium have a far higher concentration and mobility than that of the latter ion.
In view of that, there is still a need to develop lithium and sodium secondary batteries comprising solid electrolytes with improved mechanical properties and ionic conductivity selective to Li+ or Na+ cations. A t+ of ≈1 is, in addition to avoid concentration polarization, the best strategy to avoid the growth of dendrites for Li or Na metal electrodes, which have intrinsically higher energy densities than Li-ion and Na-ion systems.


A multipurpose drilling jig comprises a jig body and a perpendicular stop. The jig body has a plurality of locating holes and a recessed section which is provided for the fitting of a cover plate pressing against a guide sleeve. The jig body and the perpendicular stop are provided with insertion slot mounts for inserting thereinto a plurality of replaceable locating bodies. The locating bodies are provided with a straddling slot. The jig body is provided in two sides with a threaded hole mount which is in turn provided with a locating rib serving as a support for a side locating plate. The side locating plate has a through hole which is aligned with the threaded hole mount to enable the installation by a mounting screw such that the end surface and the lower lateral length of the side locating plate exceeds the height of the jig body to provide a perpendicular support surface serving as standard criterion of positioning, thereby enabling the locating and guidance operation for drilling a wide range of holes to accommodate various types of dowels.

1) Field of the Invention
The invention herein relates to a multipurpose drilling jig having applications as a woodworking tool that assists in drilling series of perpendicular holes.
2) Description of the Prior Art
When drilling holes in woodworking, the best quality is achieved by utilizing a specialized vise or clamps to assist the operation. This is especially true in the case of most do-it-yourself household furniture. One common example is the perpendicular conjoinment of the two wood planks A and B, as indicated in FIG. 2, FIG. 3, and FIG. 4, wherein a series of holes must be drilled for the perpendicular insertion of the dowels C to accomplish the conjoinment. When drilling holes in woodworking, the best quality is achieved by utilizing a specialized vise or clamps to assist the operation. This is especially true in the case of most do-it-yourself household furniture. One common example is the perpendicular conjoinment of the two wood planks A and B, as indicated in FIG. 2, FIG. 3, and FIG. 4. A series of holes must be drilled for the perpendicular insertion of the dowels C to accomplish the conjoinment. The holes in the two wood planks A and B must be drilled accurately such that they are equidistantly apart from one another. Any discrepancy will preclude serial conjoinment. A drilling jig is therefore used. As shown in FIG. 1, the drilling jig is composed of a jig body 1 and a perpendicular stop 2 at the bottom section of the jig body 1. Three locating holes 3 are bored in the top section 1a of the jig body 1 for the placement of a guide sleeve 4 and two locating pins 6a to guide the drilling of the holes. The provisions for attaching a handle 5 are provided at the rear end 1b, whereas the parallel straddling slots 6 and 7 are formed in the front end 1c and the perpendicular stop 2, so as to provide straddling over the woodworking dowels C. As shown in FIGS. 2-4, the perpendicular stop 2 is supported against the side of the wood planks and the guide sleeve 4 in the top section of the jig body 1, so as to drill the perpendicular holes. Thereafter, the dowels C are inserted into the holes already drilled and then into the front end 1c of the jig body 1 or the parallel straddling slots 6 and 7, which are straddled into position over the outer diameter of the perpendicular woodworking dowels C such that the perpendicular dowels C are in the plank A, and that the straddling slots 6 and 7 serve as a standard criterion for positioning the guide sleeve 4 in the top section of the jig body 1 to guide the drill bit in the boring of the perpendicular holes in other wood plank B, thereby completing the operation of drilling the holes needed to conjoin the two wood planks A and B. The conventional dowel hole drilling jig seems practical; nevertheless it is not confirmed in actuality. A variety of dowel diameters and physical dimensions are available. The width of the front end 1c of the jig body 1 and the width of the straddling slots 6 and 7 in the perpendicular stop 2 are fixed. If the straddling slot width of the drilling jig is not exactly the same as the diameter and the physical dimensions of the working dowels, the drilling jig will be unusable, thereby requiring additional purchase of another unit matching the specifications. In addition, the guide sleeve 4 in the top section of the jig body 1 inserted into the locating hole 3 is freely movable, it is readily dislodged and lost during utilization or carriage, especially at the time when the drill bit is raised and when the guide sleeve 4 falls out after being drawn up. This type of the jig can only be utilized as drilling jig on level surfaces and does not function fully for drilling a vertical woodworking object.
In view of the said shortcomings, the inventor of the invention herein, based on many years of experience in the production and marketing of this category of products, conducted extensive research and testing, which finally culminated in the development of the practical invention herein.


An installation method and tool facilitate the installation of decking members onto an elongated fastening track in an integrated fastening track systems. The installation tool comprises a base having a distal portion and a proximal portion. Imparting a striking force to the rear face of the base distal portion urges the front surface of the base proximal portion laterally into contact with fastening tangs integral with and extending upwardly from the fastening track, thereby engaging the fastening tangs to secure a decking member with longitudinal side edge slots to the fastening track.

The decking industry is increasingly utilizing composite materials as the deck material of choice. Reasons for this trend include durability advantages and an increasingly environmentally conscious consumer base. As a deck material, wood is both limited in its durability and longevity, as well as inconsistent in quality. Composite decking materials are typically manufactured using a mixture of plastic and wood fiber. Many consumers are also choosing such composite building materials as a means of "building green", that is, choosing more environmentally responsible and resource-efficient practices in the design, construction, operation, maintenance, renovation and demolition of homes and related structures. This practice allows consumers to expand and complement the classical building design concerns of economy, utility, durability and comfort.
Unlike conventional wooden lumber-based deck surfaces that are nailed or screwed to a joist or other supporting member, deck boards formed from composite materials are typically secured with hidden fastening systems employing individual clips. The use hidden fastening systems employing individual clips provides a more "finished" appearance because the surfaces of the installed composite deck boards display little or no evidence of having been nailed or screwed down. Despite this cosmetic advantage, however, hidden fastening systems employing individual clips have practical limitations (See, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,416,269 and U.S. Patent Application Publication No. US2007/0289232A1).
Hidden fastening systems employing individual clips have limitations, including: (1) insufficient fastening strength resulting in uneven gaps and loose deck boards, (2) handling of many individual clips resulting in increased time to install deck boards, and (3) repetitive hand motions using drills and screws required for installing individual clip-based systems resulting in increased fatigue on the installers' hands and lower back.
The present installation method and tool facilitate the installation of decking members onto an elongated fastening track in an integrated fastening track system of the type disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 8,146,303. As shown in FIG. 1 (Prior Art) hereto, which is also FIG. 1 of the '303 patent, fastening track 3 connects successive slotted decking members 10 to an underlying joist or other supporting member 2. Fastening track 3 is attached atop laterally adjacent supporting member 2, which is fastened onto ledger boards running perpendicular to supporting member 2. The leading edge of track 3 is aligned on supporting members 2 such that decking members attached to track 3 will remain parallel throughout the deck installation. The top panel of track 3 contains multiple openings 7 allowing for passage of elongated connectors to optionally attach track 3 to supporting member 2 using screws and/or nails.
"Decking member" refers to an elongated board, plank or other longitudinally-extending construction member having generally flat bottom and top surfaces, and manufactured in convenient widths, such as those suitable for use as a deck surface, regardless of materials from which the members are made or their method of manufacture. A decking member can be made from wood, polymer, laminate, composite, and other similarly suitable materials.
FIG. 2 (Prior Art) hereto shows a cross-sectional view of fastening track 3 of the '303 patent connected to its underlying support member 2. As shown, fastening track 3 has three planar surfaces, including a top panel and two side panels arranged such that the panels form a downwardly-facing channel. A series of receiving tangs, one of which is shown in FIG. 2 (Prior Art) hereto as receiving tang 5, are formed integrally with and extend generally upwardly from the top panel of track 3. A series of pairs of fastening tangs, one pair of which is shown as fastening tangs 4, 4a, adjoin receiving tang 5 on each side thereof.
FIG. 2 (Prior Art) hereto also shows lower tangs 11 formed integrally with and extending generally inwardly from fastening track 3 towards the downwardly-facing channel from both side panels. As shown, Point or edge 6 of each lower tang 11 digs into supporting member 2. In circumstances in which fastening track 3 would be adequately secured to supporting member 2 by the natural compression of the side panels against supporting member 2, lower tangs 11 could be omitted.
As shown in FIGS. 3 and 4 (Prior Art) hereto, each decking member 10 to be attached to fastening track 3 has a slot 9 formed along each of its longitudinal side edges. After fastening track 3 is pressed into position atop a supporting member 2, a decking member 10 can be inserted into track 3 by lowering decking member 10 onto receiving tang 5 such that receiving tang 5 slips into the horizontal slot 9 along the opposite longitudinal side edge (not shown in FIGS. 3 and 4 (Prior Art) hereto) of decking member 10. Decking member 10 is then allowed to lay flat, abutting or closely adjacent to fastening tangs 4, 4a on opposite sides of receiving tang 5. Once in this position, fastening tangs 4, 4a align with decking member longitudinal side edge slot 9. Fastening tangs 4, 4a are shown in FIG. 3 (Prior Art) hereto in an "open" position in which each upwardly-extending leg of fastening tangs 4, 4a lies open at an approximate 120-degree angle. Upon alignment with slot 9, fastening tangs 4, 4a are then pressed into the "closed" position into slot 9, as shown in FIG. 4 (Prior Art). When fastening tangs 4, 4a are engaged and in closed position with respect to slot 9, the upwardly-extending legs of tangs 4, 4a stand in an approximate vertical position. When closed, fastening tangs 4, 4a penetrate the lower surface of the longitudinal slot 9. Once fastening tangs 4, 4a are securely engaged in decking member 10, the process of installing the next decking member can continue.

Integrated decking member fastening track system installation method and tool


A lithographic apparatus includes a radiation source configured to provide radiation to an illumination system, the radiation source configured to provide radiation in a first wavelength range and in a second wavelength range, the second wavelength range being different from the first wavelength range. A support is configured to support a patterning device, the patterning device is configured to impart the radiation with a pattern in its cross-section. A substrate table is configured to hold a substrate, and a projection system is configured to project the patterned radiation onto a target portion of a substrate. The first wavelength range is the primary wavelength of the lithographic apparatus. The second wavelength range is used for setup of the lithographic apparatus, the setup including one or more of calibration, qualification, performance test, and alignment. The second wavelength range may also be used for exposure of a further substrate.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a lithographic apparatus and a device manufacturing method.
2. Description of the Related Art
A lithographic apparatus is a machine that applies a desired pattern onto a target portion of a substrate. Lithographic apparatus can be used, for example, in the manufacture of integrated circuits (ICs). In that circumstance, a patterning device, such as a mask, may be used to generate a circuit pattern corresponding to an individual layer of the IC, and this pattern can be imaged onto a target portion (e.g. including part of one, or several, dies) on a substrate (e.g. a silicon wafer) that has a layer of radiation-sensitive material (resist). In general, a single substrate will contain a network of adjacent target portions that are successively exposed. Known lithographic apparatus include so-called steppers, in which each target portion is irradiated by exposing an entire pattern onto the target portion at once, and so-called scanners, in which each target portion is irradiated by scanning the pattern through the beam in a given direction (the "scanning" direction) while synchronously scanning the substrate parallel or anti-parallel to this direction.
A lithographic apparatus may require a controlled environment, such as a vacuum environment, to be able to transmit radiation from the source to the target portion on the wafer. For example in lithographic apparatus using extreme UV (EUV) radiation (such as 13 nm), a controlled environment is needed, in which specific vapor and gas levels are below a predetermined level. The vapors and gasses may either absorb the EUV radiation, or promote contamination of optical surfaces in combination with the radiation. In an EUV lithographic apparatus, the controlled environment requires that the partial pressure of hydrocarbons (CxHy) is below 10−9 Torr, and the partial pressure of water (H2O) is below 10−7 Torr. Each time the lithographic apparatus is opened, e.g. for maintenance purposes, the controlled environment must be (re-) established. This requires a lot of time (in the order of hours), during which the lithographic apparatus can not be used effectively.
Also, for lithographic apparatus using another type of radiation (e.g. 157 nm or 193 nm), a controlled environment is necessary, although the requirements for the controlled environment may be different from those of EUV type lithographic apparatus. This may require less time to (re-) establish the controlled environment, but still impacts on the effective operational use time of the lithographic apparatus. For example, when using radiation in a range around 157 nm, air and water vapor will absorb the 157 nm radiation. To be able to use the radiation effectively, a controlled environment is required, in which air and water vapor are below a predetermined concentration level. This may be accomplished by purging the beam path of the lithographic apparatus with a purge gas, such as nitrogen (N2), helium (He) or a mixture of gasses which are substantially transparent to the radiation of the projection beam at 157 nm. In 193 nm systems, the radiation is absorbed by atmospheric oxygen, and the controlled environment should substantially eliminate the presence of this gas, e.g. by purging the system with dry nitrogen gas.

Lithographic apparatus and device manufacturing method


A golf chipping and putting training device supports a bucket at an angle for a golfer to practice chipping golf balls. The device includes a base support assembly configured to adjustably support the bucket at a selected angle. The device has a frontal face with a lower opening that is designed to simulate a true 4¼ inch green cup hole. A target assembly presents a target in the bucket opening. Depending on the clip mount, the flag is either static mounted or may act as a signal flag that is operable in response to a golf ball striking the target.

The present invention relates to golf training devices and, more particularly, a training device for putting and chipping practice.
The invention solves the problem of being able to practice golf chip shots in a convenient area. Most conventional chip training devices require the use of a net. The problem with chipping nets is that they take time to set up. Also, these nets are not particularly stable. Other chip training devices include chip hoops. The chip hoops lay on the ground as a target and a practitioner chips a ball into it. However, even if the ball lands in the target, it more than likely it will bounce or roll out. In either event, the net or hoops are not collapsible to be stored with the practice balls and target. These devices do not permit putting practice.
As can be seen, there is a need for an improved golf putting and chipping practice device.


A shear panel configured to fit between adjacent studs in a stud wall is described. The shear panel in one embodiment of the present invention includes an elongate I-shaped member, a top shear cap, and a bottom shear cap. The elongate I-shaped member includes a central region and two opposing flanges extending longitudinally along opposing outer edges of the central region. The elongate I-shaped member is configured to fit between adjacent studs with the flanges in face to face contact with the faces of the adjacent studs. Each shear cap includes an elongate flat section, a first elongate leg section, and a second elongate leg section. The first and second leg sections extend perpendicularly from the elongate flat section, and the leg sections are configured so that an end of the central region of the I-shaped member fits between the legs. The first leg section is positioned inward from a first longitudinal edge of the flat section, and the second leg section is positioned inward from a second longitudinal edge of the flat section of the top shear cap. A first ear section of the cap is formed between the first longitudinal edge and the first leg, and a second ear section of the cap is formed between the second longitudinal edge and the second leg. The shear panel is positioned within the plane of the stud wall and does not extend out past the plane defined by the outer edges of the studs.

Wall panels, such as framing wall members or stud walls, generally are used in a wide variety of construction to facilitate erecting walls for a building structure. The wall panels are typically fabricated from wood and include a wall base plate, a wall top plate, and wall studs extending between the top and base plates. To provide the required shear strength of the wall, and to handle lateral loads on the wall, a plywood panel may be nailed to the studs and the top and base plates. The plywood panel is usually nailed to the outer surfaces of the studs at the corners of the structure. In this position, the plywood panel can interfere with the installation of the normal outer sheathing and the final decorative surface of the structure.
Problems may arise if the thicknesses of the sheathing and the plywood panel are not the same. The thickness differential may interfere with subsequent installation of for example the exterior siding of the building. Applying the plywood panel to the surfaces of the studs facing the interior of the structure interferes with the installation of drywall, which is typically used to finish interiors of structures.
It would be desirable to provide a shear panel that will provide the desired shear strength and not interfere with subsequent installation of the exterior sheathing or interior drywall.

Pultruded fiberglass reinforced shear panel


A visual signaling apparatus including an enclosure having an aperture, and defining a cavity, a light source for emitting light in predetermined wavelengths borne by the enclosure and positioned in the cavity; and a semi-transparent dichroic mirror borne by the enclosure and disposed in substantially occluding relation relative to the aperture, the semi-transparent dichroic mirror adapted to selectively reflect ambient light and transmit the predetermined wavelengths of light emitted by the light source.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a visual signaling apparatus which has a wide variety of uses but which has particular utility when mounted on, and electrically coupled with, the controls of an overland vehicle and the like; and more particularly to a combination rearview mirror and visual signaling apparatus which operates as a third brake lamp for overland vehicles such as passenger automobiles, light trucks and the like, or which alternatively may operate as an additional directional signaling lamp and rearview mirror assembly on tractor-trailer combinations and vehicles of similar design.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The beneficial effects of employing auxiliary, or so-called "third" brake lamps has been known for some time. More particularly, federal law mandates that new automobiles include an auxiliary or third brake lamp which is mounted substantially along the longitudinal axis of same and oriented rearwardly of the passenger compartment. In most instances, the third brake lamps are positioned inside the passenger compartment and displayed in the rear windscreen thereof. Occasionally, however, and due to design considerations, a third brake lamp may, alternatively, be mounted in a housing which is fixed to the trunk or the like. Such an arrangement is used in the case of convertibles, for example.
While these third brake lamps generally operate in the manner intended, that is, to provide a visual signal when the brakes are applied, the means by which these third brake lamps have been mounted on overland vehicles, and more particularly passenger automobiles wherein the third brake lamps are mounted in the rear windscreen thereof, have generally been considered to detract from the stylish appearance of the most recently manufactured automobiles. Further, and when the third brake lamp is mounted in a position exterior to the passenger compartment, such third brake lamps and its associated exterior housing detracts from the surrounding design features of the automobile and which normally include smooth substantially continuous lines which tend to give the vehicle an overall aerodynamic appearance. Further, the housing of these assemblies provides an obstruction to the rearward view of the operator, and therefore presents a safety hazard.
In addition to the foregoing, a convenient means for mounting a third brake lamp on light trucks has not been developed. Moreover, and in overland vehicles such as tractor-trailer combinations, a third brake lamp has not been employed with same. However operators of such vehicles have long recognized a need for additional brake lamps which could signal an operator of an adjoining vehicle, which may be following closely or passing, that the tractor-trailer is braking, or otherwise preparing to change lanes. This would be particularly helpful when the adjoining vehicle passing the tractor-trailer is positioned between the rear of the trailer and the towing tractor, respectively, and in an area which could be out of the view of the tractor-trailer operator as he employs his exterior side view mirrors to look rearwardly.
The manufacturers of overland vehicles have approached the problems related to the less than attractive appearance of third brake lamp assemblies by designing brake lamps having lower relative profiles and by making other automobile body design changes wherein the third brake lamp is not as visibly apparent when one views the automobile. However, such design modifications have not been completely satisfactory and with respect to the earlier identified problems related to light trucks, and tractor-trailer combinations, it should be understood that, with respect to light trucks, loads placed in the beds thereof could conceivably obscure such third brake assemblies if they were mounted in a fashion similar to that used for passenger vehicles. Further, and with respect to tractor-trailer combinations, additional directional signaling lamps have recently been mounted on newly designed trailers, the respective directional signaling lamps mounted substantially intermediate the trailer portion, and which operate to provide additional visual signals in the event the tractor-trailer chooses to change lanes.
Therefore, it has long been known that it would be desirable to have an improved visual signaling apparatus for an overland vehicle and which is adapted to be mounted on the vehicle and which does not detract from the stylish appearance thereof, and which further does not inhibit the rearward view of the operator, the apparatus mounted within the line of sight of an operator, and providing a visual signal similar to that provided heretofore by a third brake lamp, and which further may be rendered operable to provide directional signaling information to vehicles following adjacent thereto, and which further acts as a rearview mirror for the same vehicle, the apparatus being readily removable for maintenance or modification after installation, and being both inexpensive to manufacture and sell and characterized by a compact, aesthetically pleasing, appearance.


A maintenance unit includes a wiper for wiping off ink on a recording head and a wiper carriage. A holding metal plate holds the wiper and includes a communication portion which connects together an upper space and a lower space. The communication portion has an ink guide member. The ink guide member has an upper opening and a lower opening. The length of the upper opening in the direction perpendicular to the wiping direction is larger than the length of an ink ejection face. The length of the communication portion is smaller than the length of the ink ejection face.

The present disclosure relates to a maintenance unit for cleaning a recording head which ejects ink on a recording medium such as a sheet. The present disclosure relates to an ink-jet recording apparatus provided with a maintenance unit.
Recording apparatuses include, for example, facsimile machines, copiers, and printers. Ink-jet recording apparatuses, which form images by ejecting ink, can form high-definition images. Ink-jet recording apparatuses are widely used.
In conventional ink-jet recording apparatuses, recovery operation is usually performed. Recovery operation is an operation in which thickened ink in an ink ejection opening of a recording head is forcibly pushed out and the pushed-out ink is wiped off by a wiper. In some known ink-jet recording apparatuses, recovery operation of the recording head is performed using a maintenance unit.
The maintenance unit, for example, includes a wiper, a wiper carriage, and a collection tray. The wiper wipes off ink pushed out forcibly. The wiper carriage, while holding the wiper, moves along the wiping direction. The collection tray is arranged under the wiper and collects ink wiped off by the wiper. Some wiper carriages are provided with a holding plate for holding the wiper.
In a conventional maintenance unit, ink fallen from an ink ejection face can attach to the holding plate. When a large amount of ink is pushed out of the ink ejection face, ink tends to attach to the holding plate. The ink attached to the holding plate can coagulate on the holding plate. The ink attached to the holding plate can flow to an end part of the wiper carriage to affect the reciprocating movement of the wiper carriage. However, if an opening portion (an opening for guiding ink to the collection tray) in the holding plate is made larger for preventing ink from attaching to the holding plate, the strength of the holding plate is degraded.

Maintenance unit and ink-jet recording apparatus therewith


The present invention relates to a chromatographic method of separating biological material comprising, providing chromatographic media comprising inorganic oxide particles having an average diameter of about 2 microns or less and an average pore diameter of 300 Å or more; applying a solvent comprising said biological material to said media, wherein said biological material is reversibly bonded to said media; and eluting said biological material from said media with a solvent in less than about 2 minutes for biological material having a molecular weight of less than about 100,000 Daltons.

The present invention relates to the separation of biological compounds or biomolecules utilizing reverse-phase chromatographic media.
Biological compounds, such as proteins, have become important in a variety of research or analytical applications, as well as commercial applications, such as drug candidates for various therapeutic uses. One of the greatest challenges lies in the development of cost effective and efficient processes for separation of such biological materials. While many methods are now available for separation of such materials, crude products contain not only the desired product but also closely related impurities that are difficult to separate from the desired product. Moreover, biological sources of these products usually include complex mixtures of materials that include various target compounds that are present in small amounts, and may also vary in size and shape.
Generally, biological materials are produced by cell culture, using either mammalian or bacterial strains engineered to produce the materials of the interest by insertion of a recombinant plasmid containing the gene for that protein. Since the strains used are living organisms, they must be fed with a complex growth medium, containing sugars, amino acids and growth factors that are usually supplied from preparations of animal serum. Separation of the desired biomolecule from the mixture of compounds fed to the cells and from the byproducts from the cells themselves to a purity sufficient for use as a human therapeutic poses a formidable challenge. Usually, the separation procedure is multi-step requiring expensive apparatus and chromatographic media.
Procedures for purification of biomolecules from cell debris initially depend on the sight of expression of the biomolecule. Some biomolecules may be secreted directly from the cell into the surrounding growth media, while others are made intra-cellularly. For the latter biomolecules, the first step of a purification process involves lysing or destruction of the cell, which can be done by a variety of methods, including mechanical shear, osmotic shock, or enzymatic treatments. Such destruction releases the entire contents of the cell into the homogenate, and in addition produces sub-cellular fragments that are difficult to remove due to their small size. Usually, these are removed by differential centrifugation or by filtration.
After a clarified solution containing the biomolecule of interest has been obtained, its separation from the other proteins produced by the cell is usually attempted using a combination of different chromatography techniques. These techniques separate mixtures of biomolecules on the basis of their charge, degree of hydrophobicity, or size. Several different chromatography media are available for each of these techniques, allowing accurate tailoring of the purification scheme to the particular biomolecule involved. Affinity chromatography, which exploits a specific interaction between the biomolecules to be purified in a second biomolecule, such as a specific antibody, may also be a separation technique for some biomolecules.
The essence of each of the separation methods is that biomolecules can be caused either to move at different rates through chromatographic media, achieving a physical separation that increases as they pass further through the media, or to adhere selectively to the separation media, being then differentially eluted by different solvents. In some cases, the desired biomolecule is separated from impurities when the impurities specifically adhere to the media, and the biomolecule of interest does not.
The major performance measures of chromatography techniques are productivity and peak resolution. Productivity refers to specific throughput. It is a measure of the mass of solute that can be processed per unit volume of chromatography matrix. Generally, productivity improves with increases in the surface area per unit volume of the matrix, the rate of solute mass transfer to the sorbent surface, the rate of adsorption and desorption, and the fluid flow velocity through the matrix. Resolution is a measure of the degree of purification that a system can achieve. It is specified by the difference in affinity among solutes in the mixture to be separated and by the systems inherent tendency towards dispersion or band spreading. Affinity of the solutes is controlled by the nature in the process liquid and the chemical properties of the chromatography media. Band spreading is controlled primarily by the geometry of the chromatographic media (e.g. the surface area, particle size, etc.) and the mass transfer rates from the solute to the media surface during the chromatographic procedure.
The application of modern liquid chromatographic techniques by high performance liquid chromatographic (HPLC) has led to an improvement of separation, characterization, and purification of biomolecules. Liquid chromatographic using a reverse phase packing has been found to be an effective tool in both qualitative and quantitative analysis for biological substances in blood, serum, or plasma. Typically, the reverse phase packing material is made up of bonding alkyl groups to porous inorganic oxides, e.g., silica, and most typically the packing is a pore silica having octadecylsilane bonded to it. The porous silica particles are available in a variety of forms, with different sizes of particle and pore size within the particle. The size of particle chiefly determines the packing properties of the material, which determine the rate of flow and the backpressure when the material is used as a column. The pore size, however, determines the size of biological material that has access to the interior of the pore. Typically, pore sizes vary from 100 to 500 Angstroms in size. The size of the particle may depend upon the nature of the separation process. A mixture of water and organic solvent are used to elute molecules of interest. Biomolecules are often loaded under highly aqueous conditions to maximize their binding to the reversed-phase material. These molecules will elute at the threshold organic solvent concentration. One means for their elution involves a gradient separation whereby the organic solvent content is increased per unit time.
In analytical chromatography, peak resolution is of paramount importance and efforts have been made to minimize band spreading and maximize peak resolution. Efforts have also been made to increase the speed of separation of biomolecules in order to allow for expedited analysis that is needed to conduct competitive research in proteomics. Higher flow rates have been utilized to achieve higher speed of biomolecule separation, but such processes run at much higher pressures (e.g., above 5,000 psi) that cannot be implemented in standard HPLC equipment.
There have been numerous efforts of utilizing inorganic porous media to separate biological materials using high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). See for example U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,289,690 and 4,959,340. Additionally, U.S. Pat. No. 5,451,660 describes the use of reverse phase high-pressure liquid chromatography for the purification of polypeptides. In such a process, the different components of the mixture introduced into the column possess different respective degrees of solubility in the stationary phase (chromatographic media) and in the mobile phase (the mixture passing through the column). As the mobile phase flows over the stationary phase, there is an equilibrium in which the sample components are partitioned between the stationary phase and the mobile phase. As the mobile phase passes through the column, the equilibrium is constantly shifted in favor of the mobile phase. This occurs because the equilibrium mixture, at any time, is exposed to fresh mobile phase and partitions into the fresh mobile phase. As the mobile phase is carried down the column, the mobile phase is exposed to fresh stationary phase and partitions into the stationary phase. A separation of a mixture of components occurs because the mixture of components has slightly differently affinities for the stationary phase and/or solubilities in the mobile phase, and therefore, has different partition equilibrium values. Thus, the mixture of components passed down the column at different rates.
In U.S. Pat. No. 5,585,236, ion pair reverse-phase high-pressure liquid chromatography is described as a process for separation DNA using a non-poly separation media, wherein the process utilizes a counter-ion agent and an organic solvent to release the DNA from the separation media. More recently, analysis and separation of RNA molecules has been performed using matched ion polynucleotide chromatography. See U.S. Pat. No. 6,475,388 B1.
Profusive chromatography has been utilized to increase the efficiency in chromatographic separations by increasing the surface area of the chromatographic media and the fluid flow velocity through the media in order to increase the liquid through the column. See U.S. Pat. No. 5,833,861. This is accomplished using chromatographic media possessing a first pore set having a great mean diameter than the members of a second pore set.
Heretofore, there has been no HPLC process that provides for efficient separation of biological substances combined with the advantages of high speed of biomolecule separation. Therefore, there is a need for a separation process for such biological materials that allows for high separation speed as well as increased recovery of the target biological material that may be utilized in analytical, preparative and process chromatographic applications.


Various embodiments describe active learning methods for training temporal action localization models used to localize actions in untrimmed videos. A trainable active learning selection function is used to select unlabeled samples that can improve the temporal action localization model the most. The select unlabeled samples are then annotated and used to retrain the temporal action localization model. In some embodiment, the trainable active learning selection function includes a trainable performance prediction model that maps a video sample and a temporal action localization model to a predicted performance improvement for the temporal action localization model.

With the enormous amount of video content generated or shared by people using various electronic devices (e.g., smart phones, digital cameras, and digital camcorders), there has been a pressing need to automatically discover semantic information, such as certain actions, from untrimmed videos for applications, such as video editing, video tagging, video searching, and video surveillance. For example, in many cases, the untrimmed videos may be long videos (e.g., surveillance videos) including multiple actions of interest (which can be relatively short) and background scenes or activities. Manually localizing the actions of interest in the long videos can be time consuming and costly. Temporal action localization techniques have begun to be used to automatically determine whether a video stream includes specific actions (e.g., human activities) and identify the temporal boundaries (e.g., starting time and end time) of each action.
Due to the rapid development in artificial neural network and machine learning in recent years, many temporal action localization techniques use models (e.g., neural networks) generated using machine learning techniques to recognize actions in videos and localize the starting time and end time of each action. However, many machine learning techniques require large amounts of training data to train the models. For example, for some supervised learning systems to perform well, hundreds, thousands, or more of labeled training samples are needed. However, in many circumstances, labeled training samples, in particular, labeled video training samples, are very difficult, time-consuming, and/or expensive to obtain. Without sufficient training data, a model may not be as accurate or robust as desired. As such, models generated for temporal action localization may not perform as well as other models, such as models for object detection from still images (the training data for which is generally sufficient), due to the limited available training samples. It is a challenging task to train a temporal action localization model using limited labeled training video samples.

Active learning method for temporal action localization in untrimmed videos


An apparatus for fitting a carrier element in a body, including a pivoting member for arranging the carrier element, and fitting means for fitting the pivoting member on a wall of the body. The pivoting member includes two rotatable pivot arms and has three pivot axles. When mounted on the body, a first pivot arm is arranged on the body in a rotatable manner by way of a first pivot axle, the two pivot arms are arranged in a rotatable manner on one another via a second pivot axle, and a third pivot axle is provided on a second pivot arm. Near one end of the second pivot arm, the carrier element is rotatably arranged with respect to the second pivot arm by the third pivot axle, and, during a pivoting and/or displacement movement of the pivoting, a carrier element arranged thereon is movable in a single, exclusively horizontal plane.

Apparatuses for fitting a carrier element for articles in a body are already known.
A known apparatus comprises a pivot arm on which a tray, for example, a shelf, is arrangeable, wherein the pivot arm is mounted in a rotatable manner on a pivot axle on the front side of a side wall of a compartment of an oven such that a tray arranged on the pivot arm is able to be rotated out of an interior of the compartment by way of a horizontal rotary movement.
A drawback of this known apparatus is the comparatively large compartment interior area that is necessary for the rotary movement.

Apparatus for fitting a carrier element for articles in a body


An electronic parts mounting apparatus, which on the basis of a recognition result of an attitude of a tipped electronic part held on a removing nozzle obtained by a recognition device, rotates the nozzle to change the attitude of the rotational direction of the electronic part. The apparatus comprises a removing nozzle formed in its upper portion with a groove to be fitted to attract and hold the electronic part recognized by the recognition device, a vertically movable and rotatable nozzle rotating means for changing the attitude of the electronic parts in a rotational direction, a cushion means mounted on the nozzle rotating means or the removing nozzle for pressing the fitting portion against the groove to be fitted, and a sliding means for for fitting the fitting portion into the groove to be fitted while sliding the fitting portion.

(1) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electronic parts mounting apparatus, which on the basis of a recognition result of an attitude of a tipped electronic part held on a removing nozzle obtained by a recognition device, rotates said nozzle to change the attitude of the rotational direction of said part.
(2) Prior Art
U.S. Pat. No. 4,747,198 discloses in its specification and drawings a technique in which a driving rotational member is fitted in an inner peripheral frictional surface of a driven rotational member of an attraction head. Thereafter, an extended member of the driving rotational member is extended into frictional engagement with the inner peripheral frictional surface to rotate an attraction pipe of the attraction head to change the rotational attitude of electronic parts.
However, in the event that rotational centers of the driving rotational member and the driven rotational are not coincided with each other, a radial strain occurs during rotation, and an error in rotational transmission results.
Accordingly, it is necessary to provide an arrangement wherein even if the rotational centers of the driving rotational member and the driven rotational member are not coincided with each other, a radial strain does not occur during rotation, and positive rotational transmission is performed.