In the manufacture of integrated circuits with an embedded non-volatile memory, it is known to first provide the greater part of the memory and subsequently provide the CMOS logic in a second series of steps of a standard CMOS process. By virtue of this separation of process steps, it is possible to optimize the non-volatile memory substantially without degrading the logic. According to the invention, this process is further optimized in that, particularly for the periphery of the memory, and simultaneously with the memory transistors (21, 24, 27), transistors are manufactured which can cope with a higher voltage than the transistors of the logic. In the case of an EEPROM, each cell of the memory is provided with such a high-voltage transistor as a selection transistor (22, 24). Apart from the n-well implantation (5), high-voltage transistors of the p-channel are largely manufactured by means of the same process steps as the p-channel transistors in the logic, so that the number of process steps remains limited. By adding a single mask, the circuit may also be provided with a Flash or an OTP (One Time Programmable) memory.

The invention relates to a method of manufacturing a semiconductor device, in which a semiconductor body is provided at a surface with a low-voltage field effect transistor and with a non-volatile memory cell in the form of a field effect transistor with a floating gate, in which method the surface is provided with a dielectric layer on which a first polycrystalline or amorphous silicon layer (further referred to as poly) is deposited which is patterned at the location of the memory cell to be formed, whereafter a first doping step is performed for forming source and drain zones of the memory cell, while, during said doping step, the region where the low-voltage transistor is formed is masked against doping by the poly layer, and in a subsequent series of steps the poly layer is patterned at the area of the low-voltage transistor, and source and drain zones of the low-voltage transistor are formed by means of a second doping step. Such a method is known from, inter alia U.S. Pat. No. 5,395,778.
For special uses, for example for microcontrollers or for chip cards, integrated circuits are nowadays required in which logic intended for the conventional data processing is combined with non-volatile memory space for the purpose of data storage. For the logic, use is preferably made of a standard CMOS process with which transistors having optimum properties can be obtained. Generally, these transistors are designed for operation at a relatively low voltage, i.e. at a voltage of less than, for example 5 V. The memory consists of memory cells each comprising a transistor with a floating gate. Usually, a control gate, which is electrically separated from the floating gate by means of an intermediate insulating layer, is arranged above this floating gate. Written information is represented by the charge state of the floating gate which determines the threshold voltage of the transistor. The information can be read by determining the conduction of current through the transistor at a given voltage across the control gate.
Said U.S. Pat. No. 5,395,778 describes a method in which, with a minimal number of extra process steps, a CMOS circuit made in a standard CMOS process is combined with a non-volatile memory in a common silicon body. Since the manufacture of such a non-volatile memory is not compatible with a standard CMOS process, said U.S. Pat. No. 5,395,778 proposes a method in which first a series of essential steps is performed for manufacturing the memory, such as the definition of the floating gate from a polycrystalline silicon layer (poly silicon), a doping step for the source/drain and an oxidation step for oxidizing the side walls of the floating gate. During these steps, the active regions of the semiconductor body where the logic is provided are entirely masked by the poly layer. When the essential steps of providing the memory have been performed, the process can be continued with the standard CMOS process for the logic.
In certain types of non-volatile memories, it is desirable to use voltages which are higher than 5 V, for example a voltage of 9-20 V. This situation occurs, for example in memories of the EEPROM type in which use is made of the Fowler-Nordheim tunnel mechanism during writing and/or erasing. To supply such relatively high voltages, the peripheral electronics of the memory require transistors which can cope with these high voltages and must therefore have a breakdown voltage of approximately 14 V. In addition to these transistors, here referred to as high-voltage transistors, each cell in an EEPROM is usually provided with an access transistor which isolates the memory cell electrically from other memory cells and connects the floating gate transistor to a bit line, and which should also be able to cope with said high voltage. This transistor is usually of the same conductivity type as the memory transistor.

Method of manufacturing a semiconductor device


Provided is a search system and a search method to find a document among documents of a search result. This search system includes a division unit that divides a document to be searched into a plurality of blocks in accordance with designated division information, a calculation unit that calculates a hash value of each block by applying a hash function to a character string included in each block, a storage unit that stores the calculated hash value together with positional information on the block in the document, and a document grouping unit that fetches, for each document obtained by searching based on the search word, a corresponding hash value from the storage unit in accordance with positional information on a block including the search word to group documents having the same hash value into one group and output the grouped documents as the search result.

A search engine is available as a system to search documents stored in a database connected with a network such as the Internet. Some of the search engines have a full-text search function to search a specific character string from a plurality of documents.
Such a full-text search engine equipped with the full-text search function is classified into a sequential search type and an index type, where the sequential search type search engine scans the contents of a plurality of documents one by one to search character strings. Whereas, when enormous number of documents have to be searched, thus taking a long time for the sequential search to make a search, the index type search engine creates beforehand an index with a table structure made up of a character string, a location of the document, an update time, an occurrence frequency and the like, and accesses the index at the time of the search, thus enabling a fast search.
The index used for the index type search engine has various formats, typically including an inverted index with a variable-length record made up of words and a document file ID including the words.
Referring now to FIGS. 1 and 2, three documents, an inverted index corresponding thereto, and a data structure to keep collected documents are exemplified in the following. The documents illustrated in FIGS. 1A to 1C have document file IDs of 1 to 3, respectively, which are all e-mail documents. FIG. 2A illustrates an inverted index made up of a word serving as a key and an ID including the word, where documents including the words of "PHP", "" ("Suzuki" in English), and "" ("code" in English) are associated therewith. FIG. 2B illustrates an entry example of a data structure to store the documents collected, where a word serving as a key and the contents of a document corresponding to the word are associated with each other. In FIG. 2B, the words are listed in the left column, and the document contents corresponding to the selected words are shown in the right column.
The full-text search engine returns, as a search result, a group of documents where a word matching with a search word appears. Such techniques of judging a similarity between documents as a whole are described in Patent Documents 1 to 3, for example.
These techniques do not consider what character string includes the word matching with the search word in the document. Therefore, when the search result includes a large number of documents, it is difficult to find out a document required truly without imposing a burden. For instance, when the search word exists in a template for document, all of the documents using the template will be returned, thus imposing a burden to find out a document as a true target including the search word in its main body from the search result. Herein, the template refers to a header or a footer of a document, a menu at a Web site, a signature of e-mail, or the like.
In the case of e-mail, reply mail or forwarded mail often includes a copy of their original mail at the end thereof. If the copy part includes a search word, then the returned search result will include the mail even when a main body of the mail does not include the search word. Such a case causes noise when a search has to be conducted for mail including the search word in its main body.
Therefore, if the documents including the search word in the same character string in their main bodies can be collected into one group, the number of the documents to be evaluated is reduced, thus making it easy to find out a document required truly.
For instance, a technique of detecting documents having overlapped contents with consideration given to occurrence positions of a search word has been proposed (see Patent Document 4), which extracts and compares character strings including the search keyword for each of the documents included in a search result detected.
FIG. 3 illustrates the configuration of a search engine described in Patent Document 4. The search engine 10 is connected with a data source 20 keeping documents to be searched, and is further connected with a client device 30 that outputs an inquiry (query) input by a user to acquire a search result.
The search engine 10 is provided with a database 11 that registers documents therein, and a crawler 12 that acquires documents on the data source 20 at regular intervals to create an index. The crawler 12 repeats an operation of requesting a copy of a document used for index creation, tracing a link included in the document, and collecting another document. When the crawler 12 finds a new document, the crawler 12 registers the new document in the database 11. When the crawler 12 finds that a document is no longer available, then crawler 12 deletes the document from the database 11.
The search engine 10 is provided with a parser 13 that extracts text from the document acquired by the crawler 12 and registered in the database 11, and extracts format information such as paragraph. The parser 13 performs syntactic analysis, and inputs the text and the format information extracted as a result of the syntax analysis to a data structure called a store 14 that stores collected documents.
The search engine 10 is provided with an indexer 15 that creates an index based on the text and the format information extracted by the parser 13. The indexer 15 associates a word serving as a key with an ID of a document including the word as described above, and stores the same in an index 16.
The search engine 10 is further provided with a search run time 17 serving as a search server that searches for a document including a search word as a key in response to a query including the search word received from the client device 30, a query-related information creation device 18 that receives a search result from the search run time 17, acquires a document including the search word from the store 14, and generates a character string including the search word, and a query-related information comparison device 19 that compares the generated character string with the documents in the search result.
The search engine 10 makes the query-related information creation device 18 generate character strings including the search word for each search and for each search result, and makes the query-related information comparison device 19 compare the character strings, thus detecting documents matching with each other as a whole, and documents including several sampled portions matching with each other as related documents.    [Patent Document 1] U.S. Pat. No. 6,230,155    [Patent Document 2] U.S. Pat. No. 6,658,423    [Patent Document 3] U.S. Pat. No. 6,978,419    [Patent Document 3] U.S. Pat. No. 6,615,209
The conventional search engines handle different documents having the same contents as individual search results, thus making it possible to exclude such documents having the same contents or similar contents beforehand at the time of the document collection or the index creation. However, the conventional search engines can only judge that documents or several portions thereof have the same contents or similar contents, but cannot judge that documents have the same contents or similar contents based on partial identity.
When a search word appears in a menu at a Web site, the conventional search engines return all pages including the menu. Although the returned pages can be limited by designating words and character strings that do not appear to be characteristics of a document beforehand, such words and character strings have to be known prior to the designation.
Further, the conventional search engines return a search result without consideration given to a relation between the documents. Therefore, a user is required to make a judgment as to whether all of the documents included in the returned search result are truly required documents or not one by one.

Search system, search method, and program

International Business Machines Corporation


Method and apparatus for compensation of switched resistance active filters o maintain a relatively constant Q and voltage gain by switching additional resistors in and out of the filter circuit. Solid state circuitry provides signals for activating switches to switch the compensating resistances as the operating frequency of the filter is altered. Compensation depends essentially on the number of open switches in the frequency selecting resistance array rather than on frequency of operation. An approximate approach reduces the number of resistances and switches needed for compensation, yet provides minimal error.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to active filters, and more particularly to the compensation of active filters utilizing switched resistances for frequency variation in order to maintain relatively constant the Q and voltage gain of the circuit with variations in operating frequency.
2. Prior Art
The use of active filters in order to provide precision tuning of operating circuits is known in the prior art. In such filters tuning is typically accomplished by the control of voltage-variable impedances, by duty cycle switching of resistances, or by switching of parallel or series connections of resistance combinations.
Tuning by control of voltage-variable impedances, however, is susceptible to errors caused by extreme variations in tuning elements between units, as well as by variations in element characteristics with temperature and other environmental parameters. Tuning by variation of the repetition rate of filter elements inserted and withdrawn from the circuit is impractical for operation at high frequency.
For parallel resistance switching, large errors in Q and voltage gain occur for higher frequency filter designs, for which capacitance must be reduced.

Parasitic capacitance compensation in CMOS-switched active filter

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


A lead propelling mechanism for a mechanical pencil includes a lead chuck, a ring fitted loosely about the chuck for tightening its head, a sleeve having a front end contacting the ring, and an elastic member having a front end bearing on the front end of the sleeve and a rear end held by a shoulder formed on the outer surface of the chuck adjacent to its rear end. The mechanism is very easy to assemble and join to a lead holding tube in the pencil. The rear end of the elastic member bears against an adjacent end of the tube to urge the ring to tighten the head of the chuck, when the chuck is inserted into the tube.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a lead propelling mechanism for a mechanical pencil. More particularly, it relates to a lead propelling mechanism including a lead chuck having means for engaging an elastic member for tightening the chuck, and which is, therefore, easy to assemble.
2. Description of the Prior Art
A known mechanical pencil is shown by way of example in FIG. 1. It includes a lead holding tube 1 and a lead propelling mechanism 7 attached to the front end of the tube 1. The mechanism 7 comprises a lead chuck 2, a ring 3 for tightening the chuck 2, a sleeve 4, a spring 5 for absorbing any excessive writing pressure, and a spring 6 for tightening the chuck 2. When the lead propelling mechanism 7 is joined to the lead holding tube 1, the ring 3, the sleeve 4 and the spring 6 are first inserted over the chuck 2 past its rear end and the chuck 2 is, then, fitted into the front end of the tube 1. It is, however, often difficult to fit the chuck 2 in the tube 1 quickly, since the spring 6 abuts on the front end of the tube 1 and urges it back. It is necessary to hold the spring 6 by a finger or some mechanical device so that it may not push the tube 1 back. Thus, the assembly of the lead propelling mechanism with the lead holding tube has hitherto been a considerably inefficient job.

Lead propelling mechanism for a mechanical pencil


A modular transmission housing uses a common front case with a series of rear cases and intermediate bearing support plates. Use of a intermediate bearing support plate permits dividing the main shaft and countershaft into two approximately equal length shafts for a popular seven speed transmission where the rear portion and the front portion of the front and rear shaft portions are supported by bearings in the intermediate bearing support plate. Various transmission sizes such as a five speed, seven speed and ten speed transmission utilizes the common front case for each housing.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to transmission housing, and, more particularly, this invention relates to a modular housing design and means for providing shafts of equal length in a front housing portion and a rear housing portion to reduce shaft deflections and decrease bearing loads.
2. State of the Art
Typically, in large non-range transmissions for heavy duty trucks have two piece main shafts and countershafts because shaft deflections and bearing loads would become unmanageable with single shafts due to overall shaft length and bearing span. A past practice has been to use a separate front and a separate rear transmission case, splitting the shafts between the two cases and mounting bearings at the rear wall of the front transmission case. Unfortunately since the cases are not of equal length, the shaft sections are not equal, again resulting in excess shaft deflection and bearing loads, requiring the use of larger diameter shafts in the larger span and higher capacity bearings. This adds cost and weight to the transmission.
Where a line of transmissions are offered, even with common spacing between main shaft and countershaft but with different torque ratings and speed versions, each transmission must be built with a different single case or different front and rear cases. For example, a five speed and a seven speed without range gearing and a nine or ten speed version using a two speed range gear set all must be separately built.


A heat exchanger for use with two media, one of which is to be heated up and the other of which is to be cooled down. The heat exchanger has an inlet and an outlet for the medium which is to be cooled down, as well as a plurality of parallel conduits which are connected between the inlet and outlet so that the medium flows through the conduits as it passes through the heat exchanger. The conduits are connected to each other such that the medium changes its direction of flow by 180.degree. at least once between the point where it enters the heat exchanger through the inlet and the point where it leaves the heat exchanger through the outlet.

The present invention relates to heat exchangers.
More particularly, the present invention relates to a heat exchanger which is suitable for use in the heating system of a motor vehicle and which has a housing through which flows a first medium which is to be heated up, the housing having a plurality of parallel conduits for a second medium which is to be cooled down, this second medium being constituted, for example, by the exhaust gases of an internal combustion engine, normally the engine of the vehicle in which the heating system is installed.
One example of such a heat exchanger is shown in German Pat. No. 532,606, in which there are a plurality of parallel conduits or tubes which are arranged within a cylindrical housing. The exhaust gas of the internal combustion engine is made to flow through all of these conduits in the same direction, and the remainder of the housing is traversed by the fluid medium which is to be heated up.
A heat exchanger of the above type has the advantage that the conduits for the medium to be cooled down are properly positioned so as to be subjected to the first medium, i.e., the medium which is to be heated up and which itself is therefore at low temperature. Splitting up the flow path for the second medium, i.e., the medium which is to be cooled down--this, in the case of an installation where this medium is used in the heating system of a motor vehicle, will be the exhaust gas coming from the engine--by providing a plurality of conduits, results in a large surface being exposed to the first medium, while providing an overall compact construction requiring little space. The more conduits for the second medium, the greater the efficiency of the heat exchanger. But even if the heat exchanger is provided with a large number of conduits for the second medium, the second medium will still be relatively hot when it exits the heat exchanger. If, then it becomes impractical to add still further conduits, the only way to increase the efficiency of the heat exchanger to the point where the temperature of the second medium exiting the heat exchanger will remain within practical limits, would be to lengthen the heat exchanger. However, there are limits beyond which the heat exchanger cannot be lengthened, lest it become so long that it would no longer be practical to use it as part of the heating system of a motor vehicle. In other words, the overall length of the heat exchanger can, in practice, not exceed a certain maximum, and it has been found that so long as the number of conduits for the second medium as well as the length of the heat exchanger must be kept within certain limits, the exhaust gases leaving the heat exchanger will still be excessively hot.
It is, therefore, the primary object of the present invention to provide a heat exchanger of the type which overcomes the mentioned drawbacks, namely, to provide a heat exchanger which, without significantly increasing the overall dimensions as compared to conventional heat exchangers, affords a greater heat transfer between the two media, and thus operates at higher efficiency than heretofore known heat exchangers of this type.
It is another object of the present invention to provide an improved heat exchanger of the above type in which condensate formed in the heat exchanger is removed so as to avoid the condensate from building up within the heat exchanger and so as to prevent the condensate from damaging any equipment connected to the outlet of the exchanger.


Systems, devices, and methods for a safety system including: selecting an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) command on a controller, the controller comprising a first processor with addressable memory; presenting a first activator and a second activator on a display of the controller for the selected UAV command, wherein the second activator is a slider; and sending the UAV command to a UAV if the first activator and the second activator are selected, the UAV comprising a second processor with addressable memory.

One specific danger that may occur during operation of the UAV systems is the unintentional, inadvertent, or accidental start and/or termination of flight of the UAV. An accidental initiation of flight can easily result in injury to persons in the immediate area around the UAV, especially since certain close-up tasks may need to be performed before flight, e.g., payload placement, propeller inspection, propeller replacement, storage media loading, storage media retrieval, battery placement, and battery charging. Likewise, such unintended operation can damage the UAV or surrounding property. In a similar manner, an undesired termination of flight could result in loss or damage to the UAV or a delayed and inefficient operation. Having a controller with a single button to control such operations tends to lend itself to accidental commands occurring.

Safety system for operation of an unmanned aerial vehicle


An apparatus for electroplating conductive surfaces, in particular rotatable surfaces. A hand held anode includes a porous surface material such as polypropylene wool, backed by an inert anode mounted on a handle and connected to a source of direct current. A delivery tube through the anode handle allows liquid to be delivered to the surface material. A manually actuatable valve system on the anode handle permits liquids from a selected one of plural supply tubes to be connected to the delivery tube. In operation, the anode is connected to a positive polarity direct current sources, a plating liquid is directed from a supply to the valve system, then to the anode surface material through the delivery tube. Depending on the direct current polarity selected and the liquid selected for delivery to the anode material, the workpiece surface may be cleaned, treated or plated. A series of movable trays are positioned below the workpiece to catch liquid that may drip from the anode surface material. This system permits the rapid and convenient electroplating of selected areas on a workpiece without contamination between different process liquids.

This invention relates in general to electroplating metals on a conductive substrate and, more particularly, to an apparatus for brush plating of workpieces.
Forming metal layers on conductive substrates has long been accomplished by electroplating. In conventional electroplating, the object to be plated (the cathode) and an anode are suspended in an electrolyte that contains salts of the metal to be deposited and often other chemicals to assist in the electrochemical action. The anode is connected to the positive pole of a direct current source, such as a battery, and the object or cathode is connected to the negative pole. The anode may be formed from the metal being plated or from an inert conductor, such as platinum. Metal from the electrolyte is deposited in a uniform coating on the object being plated. If the anode is inert, the electrolyte must be regularly replenished with the metal being deposited.
Electroplating is used for many purposes, such as the plating protective, hard, metal surfaces on softer metal substrates, the production of jewelry by plating precious metals on base metal substrates and the repair of worn metal objects, such as bearings and the like, by deposition additional metal in worn areas.
In some cases it is necessary to plate portions of objects that are too large to be conveniently placed entirely in a plating bath, or where only a small portion of the object is to be plated. Typically, a bearing on a long rotating shaft, bearing journals on electric motor shafts and the like require repair when worn to the point where excessive play and vibration occurs between the shaft and bearing. Often the diameter of the shaft has worn to the point that it is 0.0005 to 0.002 inch undersize, so that electroplating of a uniform thin, adherent layer of the shaft metal around the shaft is necessary.
Brush plating was developed to permit such localized plating. In its simplest form, brush plating can be accomplished with an ordinary paint brush, with a small piece of metal adjacent to one side of the bristles to act as the anode. The brush anode and the object to be plated are connected to a direct current source, the brush is dipped in the electrolyte and the brush is moved across the surface to be plated. With repeated dipping and brushing, an electroplated layer will be built up on the object surface.
While effective with small areas and limited thickness plating, this prior art system of brush plating has a number of problems. Cleaning of the object to be plated must be done separately. Electrocleaning, where a reverse current and an electrolyte is used to remove a small amount of metal from the object surface, is difficult to accomplish and will often contaminate the brush. Plating is very slow, with the need to constantly dip the brush in the electrolyte. In some cases, a squirt bottle can be used to replenish the brush electrolyte. The brush and squirt bottle, if used, will tend to drip or splatter electrolyte, especially where a slowly rotating shaft surface is to be plated. Some of the plating solutions are quite costly, so wasted solution can be a considerable expense. Where cleaning solutions and various activator etchant solutions are used to obtain improved plating, the process must stop between steps to allow the object to be rinsed with water to remove the previous solution and prevent contamination. Either different brushes must be used for the different solutions or a single brush must be cleaned carefully between solutions.
While brush plating has applications in some small, light plating, applications, these problems prevent brush plating from being effectively used in the repair of structural objects where high quality plating to uniform thicknesses without contamination on a rapid, production line basis is required.
Thus, there is a continuing need for improved brush plating systems allowing rapid plating to relatively thick layers on a rapid basis while avoiding contamination between different solutions used in the plating operation.

Apparatus for single anode brush electroplating


A portable electronic card system and a verifying method thereof are provided. The portable electronic card system includes: a portable personal electronic device, a rewritable card, and a writing device. The portable personal electronic device is used for obtaining a certificated code and a personal information from a remote controller. When a bidirectional verifying communication is performed between the remote controller and the portable electronic device to download the personal information, security code stored in the rewritable card be compared with security code stored in the portable electronic device for verifying and writing the personal information into the rewritable card, and another security code is generated to update or replace the original security code stored in the portable electronic device and the rewritable card.

Field of the Invention
The present disclosure relates to a portable electronic card system and a verifying method thereof.
Description of Related Art
A credit card is a payment card issued to users as a system of payment. It allows the cardholder to pay for goods and services based on the holder's promise to pay for them. The issuer of the card creates a revolving account and grants a line of credit to the cardholder, thus the cardholder can borrow money for payment to a merchant or as a cash advance to the user. The bank manufactures the credit card according to the application of people. People usually have several credit cards issued from various banks. It is not convenient to carry lots of credit cards in the wallet.

Portable electronic card system and verifying method thereof


A physical fitness training apparatus which may be readily installed in a door frame. The apparatus includes an extendable screw threaded support bar assembly (22) having rubber feet (28) at either end which may engage the sides of a door frame in an elevated position. Mounted on the support bar assembly are two radially outwardly extending eyes (52). A first pulley block (14) may be secured to one of the eyes (52) by a quick connector (60). A second pulley block (16) is provided and intermediate portions (74, 76) of a primary line (18) engage the sheaves (58) of each of the pulley blocks. The ends of the line are formed into eyes and one end (80) may be connected to the other radially outwardly extending eye (52) by means of another quick connector (60). A weight holder (12) is connected to an eye (56) on the second pulley block (16) by means of another quick connector (60). An engagement device is connected to the eye (78) on the other end of the line by another quick connector (60). The engagement device may be a baseball (88) with an extension length of line (86) or a baseball rotatably mounted within a yoke. Alternatively, it may be a cross bar (110) or ankle band (122).. The apparatus may be used for physical therapy and rehabilitation after injury or surgery, and also for physical training, such as for example in instructing a baseball player in the proper throwing technique.

In the past, resistance apparatus of varying types have been developed. Thus, apparatus has been developed to facilitate training in various sports, such as in tennis, or hitting a baseball, and one such device is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 2,134,451. This device includes first and second pulley blocks, the first pulley block being mounted on a wall, a rope, cable or the like (herein after referred to as a line), the line having an intermediate portion which passes over the sheave in the first pulley block and which has one end secured to the first block, another intermediate portion of the line engaging the sheave on the second pulley block, which second pulley block carries a weight. A baseball bat or tennis racket may be secured to the free end of the line, and the swinging of the bat or racket is resisted by the weight carried by the second pulley block. This device has the disadvantages in that it must be more or less permanently secured to the wall, and it only has limited applications.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,109,907 disclosed a home exercise device which includes clip means for removable engagement over the upper edge of a door, which clip means supports pulley blocks to which weights and resistive training devices may be secured. While this device may be useful for its intended purposes, it lacks versatility and requires that a door be utilized.
It has been suggested that a resistance weight training device may be secured within a door frame and this is shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,243,219 and 4,344,618. Neither one of these patents discloses a device which may be readily carried from one location to another. U.S. Pat. No. 4,619,453 also discloses a door frame resistance training device, but this device is unduly complicated.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,290,598 discloses a resistance or tension exerciser which may be supported from the joists of a ceiling.
Other apparatus has been developed for use in rehabilitation of injuries and for physical therapy. However, most rehabilitative apparatus is either very specialized, expensive, or both.

Physical fitness training apparatus and method of using


An electronic musical instrument having its keyboard divided into plural key ranges with musical tones being generated with tone colors which are different one key range from another. For achieving this object, the instrument comprises channel processors, tone generators, additional tone generators for the lowest (or highest) key in each key range, a common key coder for obtaining key data of depressed keys and a control circuit for supplying key codes delivered out of the key coder to only a channel processor of a corresponding key range. The key coder delivers out key data of depressed keys sequentially one key data at one time slot. According to the invention, the lowest (or highest) tone in a predetermined key range is generated with a tone color corresponding to the key range and also with a different tone color. The time slot allotted to the lowest (or highest) key is divided into two halves and a key code of the lowest (or highest) key is applied to a corresponding channel processor during the first half and is applied to a tone generator for the lowest (or highest) key after being once stored in a register. A lowest key detection circuit generates a pulse defining the second half of the time slot.

This invention relates to an improvement of an electronic musical instrument of a time division multiplexed type, in which the keyboard of a single keyboard type electronic musical instrument is divided into a plurality of key ranges, different tone colors are employed for different key ranges, and the lowest (or highest) tone in a predetermined key range is generated with a different tone color.
There is a prior art electronic musical instrument in which single keyboard is divided into plural key ranges, and the lowest (or highest) tone in the predetermined key range is generated with a different tone color. This prior art electronic musical instrument is so designed that analog tone signals corresponding to individual key switches are selected by means of the switches, and a particular preference circuit is provided to select the lowest (or highest) tone. Accordingly, it is necessary to additionally provide key switches in correspondence to the preference circuit, beside the normally used key switches. Thus, the prior art electronic musical instrument is disadvantageous in that the number of key switches is increased, and, accordingly, the wiring between the key switches and the relevant electrical circuits becomes necessarily intricate. In addition, in the prior art electronic musical instrument, the analog tone signals are directly selected by the key switches, as was described above. Therefore, the technical concept of the prior art electronic musical instrument cannot be applied directly to a digital process type electronic musical instrument.
Accordingly, an object of this invention is to eliminate all of the above-described difficulties accompanying the prior art electronic musical instrument.
More specifically, an object of the invention is to provide an electronic musical instrument, in which, unlike the prior art electronic musical instrument, there are provided key switches for preferentially selecting the lowest tone (or highest tone) and ordinary key switches thereby including two key switch arrays, but instead merely by using one key switch array it is possible not only to ordinarily generate musical tones according to key operations but also to generate the lowest (or highest) tone with a different tone color.
It is another object of the invention to provide an electronic musical instrument in which no special key switch array is required for detecting the lowest or highest note, whereby key switch wirings can be saved and an integral circuit design can readily be introduced.
This invention can be effectively applied to an electronic musical instrument of a type in which key depression is detected in a key switch array to provide key depression data (which is representative of a key depressed), and according to the key depression data musical tone signals are produced. A process for key range division is carried out by using digital key depression data obtained from a key depression detection circuit called "a key coder" or "a key code data generating unit". The purpose of the "key range division" is that, as was described before, a single keyboard is divided into a plurality of key ranges, and tones in different key ranges are produced with different tone colors, as if an electronic musical instrument having a plurality of keyboards were played. The key ranges have tone generators, respectively, and the tone generators of the key ranges can carry out their own tone color formation. Therefore, it is possible to provide different tone colors for different key ranges. In the process for key range division, a key range to which a key concerning key depression data belongs is discriminated, so that the key depression data is effectively used in the tone generator of the key range.
In this invention, with respect to a predetermined key range tones of the depressed keys, in the key range are generated with a common tone color by the tone generator of that key range, and the lowest (or highest) key depression tone is generated with a tone color different from the common tone color. The merit of this is that, besides the effect of the key range division, an effect obtainable from provision of an additional keyboard for monophonic performance is produced. It can be readily understood that the key depression data of the lowest (or highest) tone in the key range is utilized in both the tone generator of the key range and the tone generator for the monophonic performance. For this purpose, in the prior art electronic musical instrument, two key switch arrays, i.e., the ordinary key switch array and the key switch array for preferencially selecting the lowest (or highest) tone are provided. This point is improved according to the invention. That is, one of the specific features of the invention resides in that, among time slots allotted for key depression data delivered out in succession according to the detection scanning of one key switch array, a time slot for the key depression data of the lowest (or highest) tone in the predetermined key range is divided into two portions, i.e. a first half and a second half, and during the first (or second) half of the time slot, the key depression data is processed for forming a musical tones with a common tone color in the key range, whereas during the second (or first) half the key depression data is processed for forming a musical tone with a tone color different from the common tone color.
It is considerably effective for the detection of the lowest (or highest) tone to carry out the scanning of the key switch array in the order of increasing (or decreasing) tone pitches. If this method is employed, key depression data delivered out first in one scanning cycle can be regarded automatically as that of the lowest (or highest) tone. Therefore, it is unnecessary to provide an intricate circuit such as the lowest (or highest) tone detection circuit; that is, the lowest (or highest) tone can be detected by using a simple circuit (such as a circuit for detecting the rise of a digital signal).

Electronic musical instrument of time division multiplexed type


A vehicle power module assembly including a stacked array of module frames, a manifold, and a pair of endplates is provided. The stacked array of module frames may each define a passthrough in registration with other of the passthroughs to define a manifold cavity, a power stage cavity, and a plurality of outlets open to the respective passthroughs and oriented relative to the power stage cavities to deliver coolant therebetween. The manifold may be disposed within the manifold cavity and defines a manifold inlet open to an inlet chamber and manifold ports for alignment with the plurality of outlets. One of the endplates may define an inlet open to the manifold inlet and another one of the endplates may define an outlet open to a manifold outlet. The inlets, outlets, and ports are arranged with one another to provide a coolant path between the endplate inlet and endplate outlet.

Electrified vehicles such as battery-electric vehicles (BEVs), plug-in hybrid-electric vehicles (PHEVs), mild hybrid-electric vehicles (MHEVs), or full hybrid-electric vehicles (FHEVs) contain an energy storage device, such as a high voltage (HV) battery system, to act as a propulsion source for the vehicle. The HV battery system may include components that assist in managing vehicle performance and operations.


A developing unit has a voltage-applicator (80) to apply a developing bias voltage to a developing roller (72). The voltage-applicator (80) applies the developing bias voltage for a first duration to apply an AC voltage having a rectangular waveform, and a second duration to stop applying the AC voltage. The AC voltage has a duty ratio of 50% or more in a direction for causing toner to develop an electrostatic latent image. The number of cycles of the AC voltage in the first duration is two or more, and the AC voltage has a voltage in a direction for pulling the toner back to the developing roller, just before transition to the second duration. The developing unit suppresses occurrence of image unevenness due to a fluctuation in developing gap. Thus, an image forming apparatus equipped with the developing unit forms a high-quality image while suppressing image unevenness.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a developing unit for use in an image forming apparatus utilizing an electrophotographic system, such a copier, a printer, a facsimile machine and a complex machine thereof, and an image forming apparatus equipped with the developing unit.
2. Description of the Related Art
A development unit for use in an image forming apparatus utilizing an electrophotographic system is designed to allow toner carried by a developing roller to fly toward a surface of a photoconductive drum which is an image support member having thereon an electrostatic latent image formed thereon in conformity to image data, so as to form a toner image. In the image forming apparatus equipped with such a developing unit, the toner image formed on the photoconductive drum is transferred onto a recording medium, such as a sheet. Then, the transferred toner image is heated and fixed on the recording medium by a fixing unit. In this manner, the image forming apparatus can form an image conforming to the image data, on the recording medium.
Among various types of the above image forming apparatuses, a tandem-type image forming apparatus is known as one having excellent high-speed performance, wherein a plurality of image forming units corresponding to respective colors of toner to be used are arranged in a line, in such a manner as to perform a color superimposition process on an intermediate transfer belt while forming each color image in synchronization with a feed rate of the intermediate transfer belt. Although the tandem-type image forming apparatus surely has excellent high-speed performance, it has a problem about an increase in size due to the need for the in-line arrangement of the plurality of image forming units for respective colors. As one of the measures against this problem, there has been proposed a small-sized tandem-type image forming apparatus designed to narrow a distance between adjacent ones of a plurality of photoconductive drums and correspondingly arrange a plurality of downsized image forming units. In the small-sized tandem-type image forming apparatus, a fluctuation in movement of a developing roller and a fluctuation in movement of a photoconductive drum become larger due to the downsizing. Generally, the downsizing also causes an increase in a fluctuation in movement of a pulley which is disposed on an outward side relative to a longitudinal end of the developing roller and adapted to be rotationally driven by the photoconductive drum while being kept in contact therewith, so as to define a gap (developing gap) between the photoconductive drum and the developing roller. Moreover, vibration or shaking of the developing roller becomes larger due to an increase in rotational speed thereof to accelerate the fluctuation in movement of the pulley. Consequently, in the small-sized tandem-type image forming apparatus, the developing gap is liable to be largely fluctuated.
The above developing unit includes one type designed such that a bias voltage is applied to a developing roller to cause toner to fly toward a photoconductive drum, based on a developing electric field formed between the developing roller and the photoconductive drum, i.e., by means of so-called "jumping phenomenon". In this type of developing unit, if a developing gap is fluctuated, the developing electric field will be changed to lead to a change in a toner amount on development, which causes image unevenness.
In view of meeting a recent demand for higher image quality, it is necessary to reduce a fluctuation in image density and image unevenness due to the fluctuation in the developing gap. Particularly, in the small-sized tandem-type image forming apparatus which has a relatively large fluctuation in the developing gap as described above, there is a strong need for reducing image unevenness due to the developing gap fluctuation.
In the above type of developing unit, image unevenness due to the developing gap fluctuation occurs in both a solid image and a low-gradation image (halftone dot image). The reason would be that an image density of an obtained image is influenced by the developing gap.
FIG. 11 is a graph showing an influence of a developing gap on respective image densities of a solid image and a halftone dot image, wherein the vertical axis represents a reflection image density of an obtained image, and the horizontal axis represents a developing gap (μm). This graph shows a result of a test where an image was formed using a developing bias voltage set as follows: a duty ratio of an AC voltage to be applied to a developing roller in a direction for causing toner to develop an electrostatic latent image=30%; a voltage (maximum voltage) in a direction for causing toner to develop an electrostatic latent image=1000 V; a voltage (minimum voltage) in a direction for pulling toner back to the developing roller=−500 V; and a frequency=2.5 kHz.
As seen in FIG. 11, respective image densities of the solid image and the halftone dot image are lowered in both cases where the developing gap is excessively narrow and excessively wide. Therefore, if the developing gap is fluctuated, the image density will be fluctuated to cause image unevenness. FIG. 11 also shows that the tendency of lowering in the image density is slightly different between the solid image and the halftone dot image.
As above, while both the solid image and the halftone dot image are influenced by the developing gap, a pattern of the influence is different therebetween. Thus, it has been proposed to generally increase a toner amount on development in order to reduce image unevenness due to the developing gap fluctuation. However, if the toner amount on development is increased up to a given value or more, toner scattering during a transfer process, or an adverse effect on a fixing performance is likely to occur.
As a development technique of controlling a transfer bias voltage in the jumping phenomenon, there has been known a technique of applying a blank pulse bias where a ratio of a first duration to form an alternate electric field between a developing roller and a photoconductive drum to a second duration to stop forming the alternate electric field is set in the range of 1:0.5 to 1:10 (see the following Patent Publications 1 and 2). In connection with the above technique of applying the blank pulse bias in the jumping phenomenon, it is also disclosed that a last-stage component of the alternate electric field in the first duration is formed as an electric field component in a direction for pulling toner back to the developing roller (see the following Patent Publication 3). There has also been known an image forming apparatus using a two-component developing system, designed to apply a developing bias including an oscillation period and a pause period, to a developing roller supporting a two-component developing agent containing a toner and a carrier, wherein the developing bias, wherein a first oscillating bias just before transition from the oscillation period to the pause period is set in a direction for causing the toner to fly toward an image support member, and a second oscillation bias just before the first oscillation bias is set in a direction for pulling the toner back to the developing roller (see the following Patent Publication 4).
[Patent Publication 1] JP 02-014704B
[Patent Publication 2] JP 02-014705B
[Patent Publication 3] JP 02-014706B
[Patent Publication 4] JP 2001-194876A
In the conventional developing unit, respective image densities of a solid image and a halftone dot image are lowered in both cases where a developing gap is excessively narrow and excessively wide, as described above. This would be based on the following factors.
In cases where the developing gap is excessively narrow, even if toner is attached to an electrostatic latent image, an electric field formed by an AC voltage in a direction for pulling the toner back to a developing roller becomes excessively strong, and thereby the toner attached to the electrostatic latent image is pulled away from the electrostatic latent image to cause lowering of a toner amount on development.
In cases where the developing gap is excessively wide, an electric field formed by an AC voltage in a direction for causing toner to develop an electrostatic latent image becomes excessively weak, and thereby a toner amount reaching the electrostatic latent image is reduced to cause lowering of the toner amount on development.
The difference in the tendency of lowering in image density between the solid image and the halftone dot image would be based on the following factors.
In the halftone dot image, an electric field to be formed by a difference between respective potentials in a latent image region (i.e., a portion of a photoconductive drum on which an electrostatic latent image is formed) and a non-latent image region (i.e., the remaining portion of the photoconductive drum on which no electrostatic latent image is formed), so-called "cross-talk electric field" arising from the potential in the non-latent image region", is relatively strong. Thus, the latent image region has a relatively strong toner retaining force. In the solid image, while an edge region has a relatively strong toner retaining force as with the halftone dot image, an inward region other than the edge region has a lower toner retaining force than that in the edge region. Therefore, when the developing gap becomes narrower, the solid image has a tendency to allow toner to be easily pulled away by the AC voltage as compared with the halftone dot image.
Further, as the cross-talk electric field arising from the potential in the non-latent image region becomes weaker, a developing electric field between the developing roller and the photoconductive drum becomes stronger. Thus, the halftone dot image or the edge region of the solid image has a weaker development electric field, and the inward region of the solid image has a stronger development electric field. Therefore, when the developing gap becomes wider, the solid image has a tendency to have a larger amount of toner reaching to the photoconductive drum as compared with the halftone dot image.
The Patent Publication 1 includes a description about an advantage of being able to suppress density unevenness due to non-uniformity in a development magnetic field. The Patent Publication 2 includes a description about an advantage of being able to suppress a negative characteristic that a solid image has a lower density than that of a halftone dot image. The Patent Publication 3 includes a description to the effect that the last-stage component of the alternate electric field in the first duration can be formed as an electric field component in a direction for pulling toner back to the developing roller, so as to suppress a fog phenomenon.
A development methods disclosed in each of the Patent Publications 1 to 3 is intended to reduce the number of times of a reciprocating movement of magnetic toner between the developing roller and the photoconductive drum without reducing a frequency of the AC voltage, in order to suppress the occurrence of density unevenness, positive characteristic or fog phenomenon due to a non-uniform developing magnetic field. That is, the development method is not designed to apply a developing bias voltage in such a manner as to suppress the occurrence of image unevenness due to the developing gap fluctuation, and thereby unable to solve the problem about image unevenness due to the developing gap fluctuation.
The Patent Publication 4 includes a description about an advantage of being able to suppress an image defect due to an abnormal electrical discharge which is likely to occur under a condition allowing an image to be obtained with high evenness and sufficient density, in an image forming apparatus using a two-component developing system.
This image forming apparatus is not designed to control a developing bias voltage in such a manner as to eliminate image unevenness due to the developing gap fluctuation, and thereby unable to solve the problem about image unevenness due to the developing gap fluctuation, as in the Patent Publications 1 to 3. Moreover, the image forming apparatus is based on a two-component developing system, and therefore adapted to apply a developing bias voltage to a developing roller around which a large amount of carrier exists. Therefore, even if such a developing bias voltage is applied to a developing roller around which only a few amount of carrier exists, a high-quality image cannot be obtained.

Developing unit and image forming apparatus


A method of manufacturing a heat resistant plastic vessel including: injection molding a preform; primary stretch blow molding the preform to obtain a primary blow-mold object; heat-shrinking the primary blow-mold object; and secondary stretch blow molding the heat-shrunk object to obtain a secondary blow-mold object as a heat-resistant plastic vessel. In the primary stretch blow molding process, a concavity is formed on a body of the primary blow-mold object. The concavity has a thickness larger than the other body portion. In the heat-shrunk object, the large thickness portion has a lower heat retaining capacity than the other body portion. The heat-shrunk object then undergoes the secondary stretch blow molding process, thereby obtaining the secondary blow-mold object, which has a large thickness portion corresponding to the concavity of the primary blow-mold object to assure high mechanical strength such as buckling strength of the final product.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a method of manufacturing a heat-resistant plastic vessel through processes of making a preform, a primary blow-mold object and a secondary blow-mold object, and to a primary blow-mold object made by this method.
2. Description of the Related Art
One method of fabricating a heat-resistant plastic vessel is known in U. S. Pat. No. 4,836,971. With this method, firstly an injection-molded preform is subject to the biaxial stretch blow molding process to obtain a primary blow-mold object, which is vertically longer than a heat-resistant hollow plastic object as a final product. Then, this primary blow-mold object is heat-shrunk, being subject to the biaxial stretch blow molding process to obtain the heat-resistant hollow object as the final product.
The secondary blow-mold object, i.e. a heat-resistant vessel such as a bottle, has to meet a variety of requirements. One of them is that the heat-resistant hollow object should have a buckling strength enough to prevent its deformation and breakage caused by an axial compressive force.
To increase the buckling strength, the hollow object usually has a ring-shaped concave or convex reinforcing rib on its body. Such reinforcing rib can be easily formed by making a concave or convex portion on the inner surface of secondary blow cavity molds.
According to studies of researchers including the present inventors, it has been confirmed that a large thickness portion around the body of the hollow object is very effective to assure the buckling strength. Such large thickness portion may be positioned either at the reinforcing rib or at any position on the body regardless of the reinforcing rib.
It is however very difficult to form a large thickness portion around the body of the primary blow-mold object. It is theoretically feasible to heat the primary blow-mold object by applying different temperatures thereto so that the portions of the object may be differently heated, and that the hot portion is stretched to be thinner than the cold portion which is less stretched. The present inventors performed experiments, finding that the large thickness portion is formed according to the foregoing theory, but that it is much more difficult to control a region to be thickened to obtain a large thickness portion in the final product. In other words, a very large region was thickened even if temperatures applied to heat the primary blow-mold object were controlled very carefully. Specifically, the large thickness portion is formed not only at the target area but also at areas around the target area, or the desired thickness could not be attained. In such a case, more resin material will be required to make a preform, which will become undesirably heavy.

Method of molding heat-resistant vessel having thick portion on body


A new composition of matter is provided having novel, valuable attributes in the zonal immobilization of proteins of biochemical origin which expands man's capacity to separate, isolate, detect, and sequentially sorb and desorb, concentrate, and quantify and qualify picomole size samples or specimens of complex proteins of biochemical origin into fundamentally interesting fractions for studies to expand the understanding of, illustratively, the complex proteins in lesions of atherosclerosis, antigens, antibodies, enzyme immobilization in studies of enzymatic actions in body tissues and functions, immunoglobulins, genetic aberrations, molecular size separations of complex proteins, and extends the sensitivity of detection of such isolates beyond that achievable by prior art radio immunoassay techniques.

The concept of immobilizing protein fragments and complexes including as illustrative antigens, antibodies, enzymes, etc., on gel structures has been described in the art. Gels are also widely used as support matrices for separating proteins by electrophoresis. However, no single gel developed heretofore could be used for both separating and immobilizing proteins. Ability to do either or both on one gel would provide options heretofore unavailable for design of new analytical methods. The gel substrates heretofore available and known have been too unstable, too reactive or of insufficient binding quality to be used for both separating and immobilizing proteins. Further, gels to be useful for electrophoretic separations in the studies within the scope of the field of use here of interest should be repeatably meltable, in the first instance to permit casting into slabs or sheets of a configuration useful for the specific electrophoretic separation contemplated, for example cross electrophoresis. Several known modifications of agarose commonly used for preparing affinity absorbents, were reproduced and their quality explored in an attempt to find one gel suitable for the contemplated electrophoretic procedures. All protein immobilizing gels tested were found to lose their activity and become resistant to melting due to cross-linking and consequent decomposition at melting temperatures. By exception, Parikh et al., Methods in Enzymology 34: 77-102 (1974) prepared for protein immobilization an aldehyde derivative of agarose by direct oxidation of agarose with periodate, which by our test was found to withstand melting. However, the binding capacity was objectionably low because of the small number of vicinal hydroxyl groups subject to partial oxidation.
The aldehyde rich glyoxal agarose of the present invention has excellent binding capacity and can be melted into sheets or slabs for multiple electrophoresis separations without complication. The aldehyde groups are essentially inert towards protein at neutral or acidic pH, but rapidly react with protein amino groups to form Schiff-base linkages. The inertness enables it to be used as a gel support for separating protein without binding at neutral pH, and high reactivity enables it to bind and immobilize the separated proteins simply through change to alkaline pH. The strong binding at alkaline pH can be reversed by neutralization, or it can be made irreversible by adding either by electrophoresing into the gel or immersing the cyanoborobydride gel in buffer with it. At pH near 10 the binding capacity is quite high--of the order of 2 to 3 mg of protein per mg of glyoxal agarose, as measured with both fibrinogen and cytochrome C, two proteins of widely differing molecular weight.
Thus it can be seen that the novel glyoxal agarose of this invention will have many and varied applications in immunochemical, enzymological and biochemical analysis and research to provide means for carrying out critical separations and analyses of complex biological specimens by solid phase methods. Mixtures of closely related substances may be separated on the gel, may be eluted or concentrated, or they may be permanently attached to the gel matrix to thereby facilitate identification of the substances and their possible relationships to other identified substances in the mixture upon analysis.
A principal purpose of the invention is to provide a gel complex which is of such nature as to controllably bind specific proteins either reversibly, irreversibly, or not at all as may be selected by an investigator.
A first function is to selectively bind a desired protein to concentrate the selected protein from a dilute aqueous medium. This can be accomplished reversibly. That is, the protein may be recovered from the gel after its selective sorption, or it may be irreversibly bound to the gel, or it may so processed that a given protein is not bound at all to the novel gel of this invention. It is considered that the gel has the capacity to bind proteins through formation of Schiff base linkages--which base linkages are non-dissociable at alkaline pH of greater than about 9.5, but which bases are readily dissociated at neutral and acid pH. The inertness of the gel at neutral or acidic pH makes possible separation of protein from complex mixtures of them in positions and according to molecular weight range by either electrophoresis or by gel filtration. Once separated, the protein can be attached to the gel by making the solution alkaline, and the attachment made permanent by treating with cyanoborohydride. By controlled means it becomes feasible to sequentially sorb, desorb, mobilize and demobilize protein within a relatively narrow molecular weight range--repeated experiments providing reproducible profiles of their molecular weights and electrophoretic mobility, even when working with picomole size samples, 1.times.10.sup.-12.
Once having separated the specific proteins of interest (illustratively) antigens and antibodies) detection, identification and assay of the isolate can be carried forward by known techniques.
The invention disclosed herein has been reduced to practice in detecting fibrinogen related antigens which have been heretofor non-specifically precipitated and most often denatured by the variable prior art means employed for their recovery. The sensitivity of the method of zonal immobilization of proteins permits detection and measurement of specific antigenic determinants in a 0.02 mg tissue specimen (microtome section 1 cm.sup.2 .times.2 micron), where the specific antigenic determinant is that portion of the antigen molecule that determines the specificity of the antigen-antibody reaction.
Complex separations are potential through electrophoresis to produce a separated protein-gel fraction. This fraction may be immobilized (temporary) by a pH shift to a pH 10 with carbonates, or permanently by a second electrophoresis which provides intimate contact of the protein-gel fraction with a small amount of a reducing agent, preferably a cyanoborohydride ion. The Schiff base linkages are converted to stable alkyl amino linkages. The technique permits detection and assay of specific protein antigens thus separated.
The novel gel of this invention makes possible capture and separation by, if desired, repeated sequential sorption, desorbtion, mobilizing and immobilizing biologically germane protein bodies within very narrow ranges of molecular weight and to do so repetitively with reproducible results employing specimen samples of quantities in the picomole levels. The following examples are illustrative:


A quantitative host cell reactivation assay method comprising providing a recombinant DNA plasmid containing a bacterial gene which is transiently expressed in cells to be tested for cell repair proficiency and whose respective product assay is amenable to screening; inactivating the gene so that the gene is damaged within its coding region, the inactivation being carried out directly or indirectly by a genotoxic agent, e.g. ultra-violet light, against which cell repair proficiency is to be determined; transfecting the cells to be tested with the thus inactivated gene; allowing the transfected cells to stand for a predetermined repair period; and then determining the repair efficiency of said cells by comparing the percent gene expression with the gene expression obtained when the same plasmid DNA, without inactivation is transfected into the cells. The method may be used to test repair potential in fresh human lymphocytes or in amniotic cells.

There is a growing awareness that many human cancers result from the combined effects of environmental exposure and inherent susceptibility states. Humans display a considerable range of clinical sensitivities to environmental agents such as radiation and chemical carcinogens. This variability in host response is believed to be due, at least in part, to inherent differences between individuals to repair damaged sites induced in their genetic material by many of these environmental agents. See, for example, Individual Susceptibility to Genotoxic Agents In The Human Population, F. J. de Serres and R. W. Pero (eds), Plenum Press, New York, pp. 321-329, 1984; Genetic Variability in Responses to Chemical Exposure, Banbury Report 16, G. S. Omenn and H. V. Gelboin (eds), Cold Spring Harbour Laboratory, pp. 145-154, 1984; and Epidemiology and Quantitation of Environmental Risk in Humans from Radiation and Other Agents, A. Castellani (ed), Plenum Press, New York, pp. 205-212, 1984.
A lowered DNA repair capability may, through an accumulation of persistence in levels of genetic damage, promote the malignant transformation of target cells within the exposed individual, and ultimately increase the likelihood that frank neoplasia occurs. In direct support of this is the marked predisposition towards sunlight-associated skin cancer seen in xeroderma pigmentosum (XP), a rare, heterogenous recessive disorder (Clinics Derm. 3(1):33-369, 1985). The principal biochemical abnormality expressed by XP patients is a severely reduced cellular capacity to remove DNA photo-products induced by ultraviolet radiation (UV), the primary etiologic agent in skin cancer. Variation in residual UV repair between classic XP patients (2%-60% of normal) apparently is due to a systemic genetic defect within at least eight genes or alleles controlling the initial incision step of nucleotide excision repair. See The Inherited Basis Of Metabolic Disease, J. B. Stanbury, J. B. Wyngaarden, D. S. Frederickson, J. L. Goldstein, and M. S. Brown (eds), McGraw-Hill Book Company, New York, pp. 1227-1248, 1983. This deficiency in the repair mechanism in XP cells also appears to be applicable to genetic damage by a variety of genotoxic drugs and chemical carcinogens and a recent report of an excess incidence of internal non-UV associated neoplasms in XP patients under age 40 (see, Carcinogenesis, 5(4):511-514, 1984) seems to extend the mediating effects of DNA repair to include both UV and chemically-induced forms of neoplasia.
Excision appears to be the most prevalent form of DNA repair in human cells. This comprises a series of coordinated enzymatic steps through which damaged sites are excised from DNA along with neighboring single strand regions, and the resulting gap resynthesized using the intact opposite strand as a template. Thus, through the concerted action of various cellular repair enzymes, potentially oncogenic lesions are removed from DNA and native biologic structure and function subsequently restored. As noted, this repair capability appears to be lacking in varying degrees in XP patients.
Since the initial incision of DNA near the site of damage is considered a crucial, rate-limiting step in the overall repair process, measuring the rate or extent to which a given cell population is able to incise damaged DNA, or perform any subsequent step, is generally considered indicative of repair proficiency. Although many procedures are capable of providing such measures, most require technical capabilities which preclude their use on a routine large-scale basis. Thus, existing methodology for population-based assessment of cellular repair essentially is limited to examining the extent to which UV-exposed lymphocytes incorporate the radiolabeled nucleoside, .sup.3 H-thymidine, into UV-damaged cellular DNA during the resynthesis step. Commonly referred to as unscheduled DNA synthesis (UDS), the assay achieves a quantitative measure through scintillation counting of intact cells or cell extracts following a post-irradiation repair incubation period. Although capable of detecting large differences (e.g., XP patient vs non-XP control), a number of confounding biochemical artifacts exist in UDS which significantly reduce the specificity with which relatively smaller differences in incorporated radioactivity (as would be expected in the general population) may reflect true differences in repair proficiency. See, Individual Susceptibility To Genotoxic Agents in the Human Population, de Serres et al, Plenum Press, N.Y., pages 321-329, 1984.
Furthermore, since entire cells are being irradiated, the introduction of uniform amounts of cellular DNA damage between large numbers of replicate and independent cell cultures cannot be easily controlled, thus effectively lowering both assay precision and accuracy.
For purposes of analytical epidemiologic research, a laboratory procedure for screening cellular repair proficiency optimally should be highly sensitive and specific for DNA repair; quantitative; precise; routine; and relatively inexpensive. Since UDS is deficient in several of these characteristics, with fundamental components of the assay being involved, modification of this procedure to render it appropriate for epidemiologic study is not considered feasible.
Recent advances in recombinant technology allowing for large scale molecular cloning, transfer, and expression of biologically active DNA in cultured human cells have opened up the possibility of designing procedures for measuring cell repair potential. Such techniques have been employed recently in the development of high resolution procedures for studying basic mechanisms of human DNA repair. See Br. J. Cancer, 49 (Suppl. VI):67-72, 1984 and Mol. Gen. Genet., 195:175-179, 1984.
It has also been noted that exogenously damaged DNA, when introduced into cultured human cells, is acted upon by cellular repair enzymes. This phenomena, termed host cell reactivation (HCR), is based on findings that human "host" cells, after infection with radiation or chemically damaged (i.e., inactivated) viral particles, were capable of reactivating the inactivated virus to a biologically competent state as measured by plaque formation, viral antigen formation, cell transformation, etc. See Adv. Rad. Biol., 10:1-37, 1983. The reactivation of biologic competence is taken as an indirect measure of cell ability to restore functionality to damaged regions of the viral genome, a direct consequence of DNA repair. That relative measures of viral HCR correlate reasonably well with conventional biochemical measures of repair in XP cells at varying levels of repair proficiency (see Short-Term Tests for Chemical Carcinogens, Stich et al, Springer-Verlag, N.Y. pages 20-35, 1981), provides strong evidence that HCR processes validly reflect the inherent host cell capacity to repair cellular DNA.

Assay for measuring DNA cell repair potential


A pipeline with threaded pipes and a sleeve connecting the pipes which is hung in a drill hole for transporting a liquid and/or gaseous medium. An electrically driven pump or compressor is arranged at the start of the pipeline in the region of the base of the drill hole and the electric motor is supplied with electric power via a cable hung in the drill hole. In order to allow for large cable cross sections for the electric drive of a turbopump or a turbocompressor and to prevent impermissible loading of the cable, each sleeve of the pipeline has at least one groove extending in the longitudinal direction at its outer casing, the cable being guided in this groove.

1. Field of the Invention
The invention is directed to a pipeline with threaded pipes and a sleeve connecting the same, which is hung in a drill hole for transporting a liquid and/or a gaseous medium. An electrically driven pump or compressor is arranged at the front of the pipeline near the base of the drill hole and electricity is supplied to the motor of the pump/compressor by a cable hung in the drill hole.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In transporting crude oil or natural gas or mixtures of the two, it is conventional and known to arrange a turbopump or a turbocompressor at the start of a transporting pipeline in the region of the drilling base when the bearing pressure is too weak or for the purpose of increasing the transported quantity (EP 0480501). This turbopump or turbocompressor can be driven hydraulically by means of supplied liquid or electrically. When an electric motor is used as the drive means, the electric power must be fed to the electric motor via a cable. The clear cross section of the transporting pipe offers an obvious possibility for hanging the cable, especially since the axis of the turbodevice is aligned with the axis of the transporting pipeline. Nevertheless, because of the anticipated abrasion, for example, the cable is hung for technical reasons relating to safety and flow properties in such a way that it is situated in the annular space between the concentrically arranged transporting pipeline and the pipeline casing or liner. This annular space, which is already narrow in modern slim-hole drill holes which are becoming increasingly common, is extremely constricted in the region of the connecting sleeves, so that it is not possible to realize the desired large cable cross section and low power losses. Moreover, there is naturally a much higher risk in the narrow region of the connections that the cable will be damaged by contacting or knocking against the inner wall of the pipe liner. Since the drill holes have a depth of at least several hundred meters, generally more than 2000 m, there is a risk of fouling, and thus highly loading, the cable when installing the pipeline. In unfavorable cases the cable can even tear or the insulation can be damaged.

Pipeline with threaded pipes and a sleeve connecting the same


A new and distinct variety of Geranium plant, "Midnight Coral" characterized by its cascading growth habit; its medium-sized, dark green foliage with zoning, its abundant flowers and, its unique, double, bright coral colored flowers and its heat tolerance.

The present invention, hereinafter referred to by the cultivar name "Midnight Coral" relates to a new and distinct Geranium plant. "Midnight Coral" is a new and improved plant resulting from a planned breeding program as performed by me in my greenhouse at 821 Walnut Street, Batavia, Ill. My breeding program began in Mar. 1977, and has been ongoing since that time. This seedling was initially identified by my records as 80.times.100P, and was the result of a cross between 78-018F and an unnamed, unreleased seeding which resulted from a selfing of a Friesdorf plant (from a class of unpatented fancy leaf Geraniums) as the seed parent, crossed with "Splash", an unpatented cascade Geranium as the pollen parent.
Being a cross between two market class zonal Geranium plants, it is believed that the botanical classification Pelargonium.times.hortorum would be appropriate for this plant.
Upon recognition of the outstanding characteristics of this plant, it was selected from the progeny of the stated cross, and was set aside for further observation, testing, and was subsequently named "Midnight Coral." Asexual reproduction of "Midnight Coral" has been repeatedly accomplished by the rooting of vegetative cuttings in my greenhouse in Batavia, Ill. Examination of the plants so propagated through a series of propagations has demonstrated that the combination of characteristics herein disclosed for "Midnight Coral" are firmly fixed and retained through succesive generations through asexual reproduction.


Alkanolamines can be converted to a cyclic or a cyclic alkylamines and aziridines and/or other cyclic or acyclic alkanolamines by contacting the alkanolamines with a molecular sieve selected from the group consisting of (a) non-zeolitic molecular sieves; and (b) zeolites having a silicon:aluminum ratio of at least about 6, the contacting of the alkanolamine starting material with the molecular sieve being effected under conditions effective to convert the alkanolamine starting material into at least one of the specified products.

Ethylenimine is a potential chemical intermediate for the production of linear ethyleneamine polymers and for the production of various other amines. However, because of the toxicity and carcinogenicity of ethylenimine, this material poses severe handling difficulties, which make it highly undesirable to store or transport the ethylenimine, so that desirably a process for the production of ethylenimine should begin from inexpensive starting materials, and should provide the ethylenimine in a form which permits its direct feed to the ethyleneamine production unit without intervening isolation or storage of the ethylenimine.
Various processes for the production of ethylenimine are known. For example, ethylenimine may be produced by the reaction of ethylene dichloride with anhydrous ammonia. However, this method suffers from the disadvantages of involving halide use and producing a salt by-product.
One commercially attractive process for the production of ethylenimine is the catalytic dehydration/deamination of monoethanolamine. Monoethanolamine is known to convert to a mixture of various alkanolamines, alkylamines and aziridines when contacted with various heterogeneous catalysts. Similar mixtures are obtained from other alkanolamines using the same catalysts. However, typically such reactions produce a complex mixture of products.
Most of the known catalysts for these dehydration/deamination reactions of alkanolamines are oxides of tungsten, tantalum or niobium, in some cases promoted with transition metals such as iron or chromium, the metal oxides usually being disposed upon a support, for example silica or alumina.
For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,289,656, issued Sept. 15, 1981, and U.S. Pat. No. 4,358,405, both to Hayes et al., describe a dehydration catalyst and process for making an alkylenaziridine (such as ethylenimine) from an alkanolamine (such as monoethanolamine); the catalyst contains oxides of either tantalum or niobium together with the oxides of iron and chromium, in which the ratios of the metals are: EQU M.sub.10 Fe.sub.0.5-2.9 Cr.sub.0.3-1.7
wherein M is tantalum or niobium.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,301,036, issued Nov. 17, 1981 to Childress et al., describes a dehydration catalyst for the dehydration of alkanolamines to alkylenaziridines. This dehydration catalyst is prepared by applying a solution of a tungsten salt on to a low surface area support (usually silicon carbide), calcining the salt to tungsten oxide, and thereafter applying silica to the tungsten-coated support so as to form a coating of silica over the tungsten.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,337,175, issued June 29, 1982 to Ramirez, describes a dehydration catalyst for the dehydration of alkanolamines to alkylenaziridines. This dehydration catalyst consists essentially of an oxide of tantalum or niobium with an alkaline earth metal oxide as a promoter on an inert support, for example a low surface area, high purity alumina.
Other catalysts have been used for the production and conversion of monoalkanolamines. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,524,143, issued June 18, 1985 to Vanderpool, describes a process for the production of linear polyethylenepolyamines from ethylenediamine and monoethano amine using thermally activated pelleted catalyst compositions comprising zirconium silicate having phosphorus deposited thereon.
The relatively complex mixtures produced by these prior art processes pose obvious problems of separation. In addition, the relative proportions in which the various products are produced are rarely optimal with regard to the commercial demand for, and selling prices of, the various products, and thus it would be highly advantageous to be able to vary the product distribution to increase the proportions of the more valuable products produced.
Because of their microporous structure, with pores of uniform size, molecular sieves offer the possibility of modifying the product distribution obtained in the aforementioned dehydration/deamination reactions of alkanolamines. However, the present inventors are aware of only one patent (U.S. Pat. No. 3,956,329) describing the use of molecular sieves in these reactions, and in this patent the molecular sieves used are conventional zeolite aluminosilicates produced by direct synthesis and having silicon:aluminum ratios less then 6.
It has now been discovered that the product distribution obtained in the aforementioned dehydration/deamination reactions of alkanolamines can be improved by using as the catalyst in such reactions certain selected molecular sieves.

Process for the production of amines, hydroxyamines and aziridines

Union Carbide Chemicals and Plastics Company, Inc.


A rack-pinion steering mechanism for a vehicle, comprises a housing, a pinion shaft having housed within the housing a pinion and first and second supporting portions respectively disposed to opposite sides of the pinion, and a rack shaft having a rack meshed with the pinion within the housing, the rack shaft being shiftable in an axial direction thereof by rotation of the pinion to shift a tie rod axially. The second supporting portion of the pinion shaft is supported within the housing by a corresponding bearing, and the first supporting portion is supported within the housing by a pair of angular rolling bearings having respective inner races fixed to the first supporting portion and respective outer races abutted with one another. The outer races are held with a predetermined pre-load in abutment between a stepped portion of the housing and a nut threaded to the housing and pressing against the outer races but not pressing against the inner races.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a supporting apparatus for supporting a pinion shaft in a rack-pinion power transmitting system. Such supporting apparatus is disposed between a steering wheel shaft and an input shaft of a steering gear which are not arranged on the same straight line (i.e., arranged in an inclined or helix relation) and serves to support a pinion shaft of the steering gear which transmits the rotational force received from the steering wheel shaft to a pinion gear.
2. Related Background Art
In the past, a steering system of a motor vehicle has been designed as shown in FIG. 3.
An end of a steering wheel shaft 102 rotated around its own axis by manipulating a steering wheel 100, and an input shaft 108 of a steering gear 106 for shifting a tie-rod 104 a an axial direction are interconnected via a connecting shaft 110. The ends of the connecting shaft 110 are respectively connected to one end of the steering wheel shaft 102 and to one end of the input shaft 108 via universal joints 112, 114 such as cross joints. Thus, the rotational force from the steering wheel shaft 102 is transmitted to the input shaft 108 of the steering gear 106 through one of the joints 112, connecting shaft 110 and the other of the joints 114.
The details of the steering gear are shown in FIG. 4. The steering gear 106 comprises a rack shaft 122 having a rack 121 and axially slidably (in a direction perpendicular to the plane of FIG. 4) inserted into a housing 120, a pinion shaft 124 rotatably inserted into the housing 120, a pinion 136 fixedly mounted on an intermediate portion of the pinion shaft 124 and meshed with the rack 121, and a pair of ball bearings 126 disposed between an inner surface of the housing 120 and an outer surface of the pinion shaft 124 on both sides of the pinion 136 to support supporting portions 125, 127.
Both ends of the rack shaft 122 and one end (right end in FIG. 4) of the pinion shaft 124 which is not meshed with the rack 121 are protruded from the housing 120, respectively, so that, by rotating the protruded end of the pinion shaft 124 (corresponding to the aforementioned input shaft 108), the protruded ends of the rack shaft 122 can be displaced in the axial direction. In this way, the rotational movement is converted into linear movement.
In such a construction as just described, the rigidity of the pinion shaft 124 to the load acting in the axial direction (left-and-right direction in FIG. 4) greatly influences the response characteristic of the power transmission between the pinion shaft 124 and the rack shaft 122. Thus, in the past, ball bearings of angular type or tapered roller bearings have been used as the pair of bearings 126, and the both bearings 126 were appropriately pre-loaded in assembling the pinion shaft 124 into the housing 120. However, this solution makes the assembling of the pinion shaft 124 into the housing 120 difficult and also makes the rack-pinion power transmitting system such as the steering gear 106 expensive.
In order to improve the assemblage of the pinion shaft 124 into the housing 120, conventionally, as shown in FIG. 5, it has been known to support the pinion shaft 124 at its inner end by a roller bearing such as a needle bearing 128 and at its intermediate portion by a deep groove ball bearing 130. However, with this arrangement, the rigidity of the pinion shaft 124 to the load acting in the axial direction is weaker than that of the arrangement of FIG. 4, thus not always providing a sufficient response characteristic of the power transmission between the pinion shaft 124 and the rack shaft 122.

Supporting apparatus for supporting pinion shaft in rack-pinion power transmitting system


A mounting tray (106) for securing an electronic device includes a planar surface (112) having upstanding side supports (112) and a rear cantilevered member (140). The mounting tray (106) further includes front raised portions (116) having protruding tabs (118) for engaging the electronic device and securing the front of the electronic device. The mounting tray (106) also includes a latching member having at least one aperture (110 and 124) and an upturned latching bracket (108) which are used to engage with the electronic device.

Mounting trays for electronic devices such as mobile radios are well known in the art. Mounting trays are essentially brackets which are mounted to a vehicle (or other location) for removably receiving a mobile radio or other electronic device. In many applications the tray provides one of the outer walls of the device housing. Mounting trays allow mobile radios, which tend to be large and heavy, to be mounted in motor vehicles such as cars, boats, and other locations where a mobile radio may be required to be mounted. Mounting trays allow mobile radios to be secured in a fixed location in order to protect the radios from moving around especially when mounted to a motor vehicle moving over rough terrain. Prior art mounting trays have unfortunately not been able to secure high power (i.e. heavy) mobile radios in all degrees of freedom in order to prevent vibration, rattle, hum, and noise caused by loose fitting mounting trays. Prolonged vibration and rattle caused by mounting trays which do not securely hold a radio in all three degrees of freedom can cause damage to the sensitive electronic components inside a radio over long periods of time. A need exists for a mounting tray for use with mobile radio communications equipment which can restrain all degrees of freedom in order to avoid the vibration, hum, and noise caused by previous mounting schemes. The mounting tray must also be able to be quickly disconnected from the radio in order to be able to remove the radio whenever the need arises with the minimal of difficulty.

Electronic device mounting tray and radio assembly


A method is provided for the formation of ultra-shallow boron doped regions in a semiconductor device. In one embodiment of the invention an N-type semiconductor substrate (15) is provided having a first P-type region formed therein. A dielectric layer (16) is formed on the substrate surface and a material layer (17) doped with fluorinated boron is formed on the dielectric layer (16). A second P-type region (22), characterized by a high dopant concentration at the substrate surface and a uniform junction profile, is formed in the substrate adjacent to the first P-type region by diffusing boron atoms from the material layer (17) through the dielectric layer (16) and into the substrate (15). The second P-type region (22) has a very shallow junction depth which is closer to the substrate surface than the first P-type region.

The semiconductor industry is characterized by a trend toward fabricating larger and more complex circuits on a given semiconductor chip. The larger and more complex circuits are achieved by reducing the size of individual devices within the circuits and spacing the devices closer together. As the dimensions of the individual components within a device such as an MOS or bipolar transistor are reduced and the device components brought closer together, improved electrical performance can be obtained. However, attention must be given to the formation of doped regions in the substrate to insure that deleterious electrical field conditions do not arise.
As the size of device components such as the transistor gate in an MOS device and the emitter region in a bipolar device, are reduced, the junction depth of doped regions formed in the semiconductor substrate must also be reduced. The formation of shallow junctions having a uniform doping profile and a high surface concentration has proven to be very difficult. A commonly used technique is to implant dopant atoms into the substrate with an ion implantation apparatus. Using ion implantation, the high energy dopant atoms bombard the surface of the substrate at high velocity and are driven into the substrate. While this method has proven effective for the formation of doped regions having moderately deep junctions, the formation of ultra-shallow junctions using ion implantation is extremely difficult. Both the path of the energized dopant atoms within the substrate and the implant uniformity are difficult to control at the low energies necessary to form shallow implanted junctions. The implantation of energized dopant atoms damages the crystal lattice in the substrate which is difficult to repair. Dislocations resulting from the lattice damage can easily spike across a shallow junction giving rise to current leakage across the junction. Moreover, the implantation of P-type dopants such as boron, which diffuse rapidly in silicon, results in excessive dispersion of dopant atoms after they are introduced into the substrate. It then becomes difficult to form a highly confined concentration of P-type dopant atoms in a specified area in the substrate and especially at the surface of the substrate.
A similar problem is encountered when a dopant such as boron is diffused from an overlying polysilicon layer directly into a silicon substrate. The boron rapidly diffuses through the polysilicon and into the substrate. The rapid introduction of boron atoms into the substrate, coupled with the high diffusivity of boron in silicon, results in excessive lateral diffusion.
The most serious consequence of the excessive dopant diffusivity is termed "lateral diffusion" wherein a diffused region extending laterally parallel with the surface of the substrate is formed. If the lateral diffusion becomes too great, the device performance will be severely degraded and in the worst case, total functional failure occurs. In P-channel MOS transistors and NPN vertical bipolar transistors, the active components which substantially determine performance factors such as current gain and switching speed are fabricated by forming shallow boron doped regions in the substrate. For example, the boron doped LDD portion of the MOS P-channel transistor must offset the drain electric field from the channel region to prevent hot carrier injection while simultaneously carrying a large quantity of charge to maintain a high current gain. In the vertical NPN bipolar transistor, the boron doped base region must have a high dopant concentration to maintain high current gain but not excessively overlap the emitter region. Excessive lateral diffusion of the base regions can result in a low emitter-base breakdown voltage and hot carrier injection along the periphery of the emitter.
In VLSI device fabrication, as dimensions become smaller, lateral dopant diffusion, especially P-type dopant diffusion, must be minimized in order to fully realize enhanced device performance. This is necessary to prevent the associated electric fields of the doped regions from overlapping and forming unwanted parasitic capacitors within the device.

Method for fabricating a semiconductor device having a shallow doped region