A memory device is disclosed. A pillar structure comprises a first electrode layer, a dielectric layer overlying the first electrode layer, and a second electrode layer overlying the dielectric layer. A phase change layer covers a surrounding of the pillar structure. A bottom electrode electrically connects the first electrode layer of the pillar structure. A top electrode electrically connects the second electrode layer of the pillar structure.

1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a memory device and fabrication thereof, and in more particularly to a phase change memory device and a fabrication thereof.
2. Description of the Related Art
Phase change memory devices have many advantages, such as high speed, lower power consumption, high capacity, greater endurance, better process integrity and lower cost. Thus, phase change memory devices can serve as independent or embedded memory devices with high integrity. Due to the described advantages, phase change memory devices can substitute for volatile memory devices, such as SRAM or DRAM, and non-volatile memory devices, such as Flash memory devices.
Phase change memory devices write, read or erase according to different resistance of a phase change material between crystal state and non-crystal state. For example, a phase change layer is applied with a relative high current and short pulse, such as 1 mA with 50 ns, to change from a crystal state to a non-crystal state. Because the non-crystal state phase change layer has higher resistance, such as 105 ohm, the phase change memory device presents a smaller current when applied with a voltage to read. When erasing, the phase change layer is applied with a low current, such as 0.2 mA, for a longer duration, such as 100 ns, to change from a non-crystal state to a crystal state. Since the crystal state phase change layer has lower resistance, such as 103-104 ohm, the phase change memory device presents a higher current when applied with a voltage to read. The phase change memory device operates according the mechanism described.
FIG. 1 shows a conventional T shaped phase change memory device. Referring to FIG. 1, a conventional T-shaped phase change memory device sequentially comprises a bottom electrode 102, a heating electrode 104, a phase change layer 106 and a top electrode 108, wherein the columnar heating electrode 104 connects the phase change layer 106. In a standard phase change memory device, current is determined according to a contact area between an electrode and a phase change layer thereof. In the conventional T shaped phase change memory device, the contact area between the heating electrode 104 and the phase change layer 106 is determined by limits of photolithography, rendering reduction of dimension difficult.
FIG. 2 shows another conventional phase change memory device, in which a heating electrode 202 is disposed horizontally. As shown in FIG. 2, a planar heating electrode 202 is formed on a bottom electrode 204 and an inter-layer dielectric layer 206. The planar heating electrode 202 is patterned in a first direction by lithography, and a phase change layer 208 is then formed to contact the patterned planar heating electrode 202. Thereafter, the phase change layer 208 is patterned in a second direction by lithography to define memory cells of the memory device. Next, a top electrode 210 is formed, electrically connecting the phase change layer 208. In the memory device, the heating electrode 202 is disposed horizontally, and the size of the contact area between the heating electrode 202 and the phase change layer 208 is determined by thickness of the heating electrode 202, which is not limited by lithography. Phase change layer 208 of the phase change memory device, however, is formed by gap filling, negatively affecting endurance and uniformity of contact between the phase change layer 208 and the heating electrode 202 of the phase change memory device.

Semiconductor device and fabrications thereof

Industrial Technology Research Institute


Technologies for monitoring data storage location for cloud data include a cloud monitoring server configured to communicate with one or more cloud customer computing devices and cloud service providers. The cloud monitoring server receives monitoring requests from the cloud customer computing devices and retrieves provider information from the cloud service providers. The cloud monitoring server compiles response data based on the monitoring requests and the provider information, and sends response data to the cloud customer computing devices. Cloud customer computing devices may send on-demand monitoring requests and/or continuous, policy-based monitoring requests. For policy-based monitoring, the cloud monitoring server continually monitors the provider information and provides response data when one or more conditions specified in the policy are satisfied. The cloud monitoring server may also make recommendations and provide feedback based on the monitoring requests or the provider information. Other embodiments are described and claimed.

Computer data is increasingly stored "in the cloud"; that is, stored in distributed data sources available over a ubiquitous network such as the Internet. Although often considered amorphous or abstract, data stored "in the cloud" resides in very real, physical storage devices such as computer servers and storage networks. Such physical data storage devices may be, and usually are, scattered across the world. Further, each physical data storage device may store cloud data belonging to numerous cloud data customers. However, the cloud data is usually presented as an abstract, unified data store to each cloud data customer. Thus, the physical data storage location or storage layout of the cloud data is usually invisible to the cloud data customer. Some cloud service providers provide general information on the country or region where cloud data centers are located. Additionally, some cloud service providers allow cloud data customers to purchase a so-called "dedicated cloud" to store data in a known location, at increased cost.
Governmental and other regulatory requirements may restrict a cloud data customer's ability to store data in certain physical locations. For example, the United States government restricts data relating to certain export-controlled technologies from being stored in certain controlled countries.


Verification friendly models for SAT-based formal verification are generated from a given high-level design wherein during construction the following guidelines are enforced: 1) No re-use of functional units and registers; 2) Minimize the use of muxes and sharing; 3) Reduce the number of control steps; 4) Avoid pipelines; 5) Chose functional units from “verification friendly” library; 6) Re-use operations; 7) Perform property-preserving slicing; 8) Support “assume” and “assert” in the language specification; and 8) Use external memory modules instead of register arrays.

As a result of the increasing design complexity and magnitude of contemporary software systems, significant efforts have been expended in design language development, high-level synthesis methodologies and verification methodologies to leverage the power of high-level models to reduce design cycle time and resulting expense. Techniques that facilitate the efficient verification of software systems during development therefore, would represent a significant advance in the art.

Computer implemented method of high-level synthesis for the efficient verification of computer software


Semiconductor equipment is disclosed in this invention. The semiconductor equipment includes a reaction chamber, a wafer susceptor, and a liner device. The reaction chamber includes an opening and a circular inner wall. The wafer susceptor is capable of carrying at least one wafer. The liner device is disposed between the wafer susceptor and the circular inner wall of the reaction chamber. The liner device is capable of moving vertically between a first position and a second position. The liner device includes at least one venting opening, wherein the venting opening is connected with a venting device. Particles which are accumulated within the liner device can be removed by the venting device.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to semiconductor equipment, and more particularly to semiconductor equipment having cleaning function.
2. Description of Related Art
Semiconductor manufacturing equipment are commonly used in the production of semiconductor components. The semiconductor manufacturing equipment typically has a reaction chamber. The reaction gases required by the semiconductor manufacturing process can be provided into the reaction chamber by the showerhead of the reaction chamber. After several times of semiconductor manufacturing processes, particles or contaminants may be accumulated within the reaction chamber. Thus, process results and the process yields are affected by the residues.
Generally speaking, the particles or contaminants accumulated within the reaction chamber can be removed manually when the reaction chamber is opened; however, this usually leads to negative results, such as long maintenance times, unstable process results, and so on.
For the reasons that there are some disadvantages of the prior art mentioned above, there exists a need to propose a semiconductor equipment having cleaning function. The particles or contaminants accumulated within the reaction chamber can be timely removed so as to avoid excessive accumulation.


A system for backing up data from a computer disk volume at very high speed by saving a logical image copy of the volume to a backup medium such as magnetic tape. This logical image copy can later be restored in its entirety to a disk volume with a different physical geometry and flaw map in a disaster recovery mode, significantly reducing the time required for such disaster recovery compared to other backup techniques. In addition, the logical image copy on the backup medium also allows selective file restore with performance comparable to that achievable using traditional file-by-file backup/restore methods. The backup process can thus run considerably faster than conventional approaches without sacrificing the restore flexibility normally associated with those approaches.

Backing up data and program files (often together referred to as "data" here) from computer disks has been a well-known practice for many years. There are two major reasons why data needs to be backed up. The first reason is that the disk hardware may fail, resulting in an inability to access any of the valuable data stored on the disk. This disastrous type of event is often referred to as a catastrophic failure; in this case, assuming that backups have been performed, the computer operator typically "restores" all his files from the most recent backup. Fortunately, new computer disks and controllers have become more reliable over the years, but the possibility of such a disaster still cannot be ignored. The second reason for backup is that users may inadvertently delete or overwrite important data files. This type of problem occurs much more frequently than a catastrophic hardware failure, and the computer operator typically restores only the destroyed files from the backup medium (e.g., tapes or floppy disks) to the original disk.
In general, the backup device is a tape drive, although floppy disk drives and other removable disk drive technologies are also used. Tape has the advantage of having a lower cost per byte of storage and thus is preferred in most applications, particularly those where large amounts of data are involved (e.g., network file servers, such as those running Novell's NetWare software). However, tape also has several inherent limitations which must be addressed in order to make its performance acceptable to a user. First, tape is a sequential access medium, with any attempt at random access requiring times on the order of tens of seconds (if not minutes), as opposed to milliseconds for a disk drive. Second, and somewhat related, the time to stop a tape drive and back up a little is on the order of seconds, which is again very large compared to disk times. The result of all this is that, once the tape drive starts moving the tape, any attempt to stop, back up, or skip forward will result in a very large time penalty. Thus, the most desirable way to use a tape drive is to keep it "streaming"--in other words, to read or write very large sequential blocks of data.
In this context, a third problem can arise, dealing with the transfer rate of the tape. One of the most critical parameters of a backup system is the amount of time (known as the "backup window") required to back up a given disk volume. This is particularly true in multi-user systems or network file servers, where the system may be effectively shut down while the backup is occurring. Normally, the backup time is by far the most important criterion to a user, since restore is by definition a somewhat extraordinary event (although the restore time is nonetheless of some interest). If the tape data rate is too slow, it will be easy to keep the drive supplied with enough data so that the tape can stream, but a backup and/or restore operation will be take too much time. On the other hand, if the data rate is too high, the disk drive will not be able to keep up with the tape, which will then fall out of streaming and backup time will increase unacceptably. While most tape drives include memory buffers to attempt to smooth out any loss of streaming due to instantaneous variations in the rate of data coming from the disk, such buffers only mildly alleviate the problem. In a word, a tape drive should be just fast enough but no faster, or performance will suffer. This balancing act can lead to problems as technology evolves, as discussed below.
Historically, disk drive transfer rates have been much higher than tape transfer rates for mass-market devices. For example, a DAT (digital audio tape) 4 mm tape drive using the DDS-2 format has a native transfer rate of 366K bytes/second, and current Exabyte 8 mm tape drives have a 500 K byte/second transfer rate. By contrast, it is not uncommon for disk drive raw transfer rates to be on the order of 3-5 M bytes/second (although this number does not take into account any seek latency, as discussed below). However, recent advances in tape drive technology are pushing the tape transfer rates higher. For example, current Quantum DLT (digital linear tape) drives achieve transfer rates of 1.25-1.5 M bytes/second, and the next generation of 4 mm and 8 mm tape drives promises to increase transfer rates substantially over current capabilities.
Unfortunately, using conventional backup techniques, such tape technology advances are not always good news. Almost all popular backup programs, such as Cheyenne's ArcServe and Arcada's Backup Exec, work on a file-by-file basis. In other words, during the backup process, the backup program copies one file at a time from the disk to the tape. This approach collects pieces of each file, which may not be contiguous on the disk, into a single sequential block that is stored on the tape, thus simplifying and speeding up a future restore process. One useful consequence of this method is that the data is thus stored on the tape in a format that may allow files to be transported between computers with different operating systems. With current technologies, it is not uncommon in a file-by-file approach on network servers for a full backup (i.e., a backup of all files on the disk) to consume more time than is available overnight. Fortunately, an important benefit of file-by-file backup is that an "incremental" backup can fairly easily be performed, in which only those files which have changed since the last backup are written to tape. Normally, changed files represent only a small fraction of the overall disk contents, in which case an incremental backup can be completed relatively quickly, and most operating systems maintain an "archive" bit that can easily be used to tell whether each file has changed or not. A typical scenario involves performing a full backup once per week (often over the weekend on a network file server), with daily incremental backups to minimize the backup window. Full backups still need to be performed fairly regularly, because recovering the current file contents from an initial full backup and a large set of incrementals can be very time consuming.
As each file is opened and read from the disk in a file-by-file backup, the file system component of the computer's operating system gets involved in each step, which adds overhead time. Even worse, in general the files are not pulled from the disk in an optimal order with respect to their physical location on disk. Thus, the disk seek time required to move the disk head to read the file contents usually significantly degrades the overall data rate from the disk, particularly in the case of smaller files where much more time is spent moving the head to the right location than actually reading data. The net result is that, while the disk has a raw (i.e., sequential) transfer rate of several megabytes per second, once the file system software and disk seek overheads come into play, the average disk read data rate can easily fall below that of the tape drive, which then falls out of streaming, slowing down the backup process substantially. The paradoxical conclusion is that a doubling of the tape data rate may in fact slow down the backup time considerably. Current trends indicate that tape drive transfer rates are increasing faster than the disk seek times are decreasing, making it even harder for file-by-file backup methods to keep future tape drives streaming. For example, using Cheyenne Arcserve on a NetWare server with a Quantum DLT drive, which inherently is capable of storing 90 MB/minute, typically results in throughputs which are only a fraction of the theoretical speed, meaning that the tape drive is constantly stopping and starting instead of streaming.
An alternate backup method that has been used in the past to minimize backup time is to perform the backup on an "image" basis instead of a file-by-file basis. In this approach, the disk image is read sequentially on a sector-by-sector basis, resulting in disk transfer times that match the drive's rated throughput and are thus much faster than current tape drive technology, and this speed advantage appears to be sustainable as technology improves. Without the extra file system software overhead and without extraneous disk head movements, an image backup can thus easily keep a tape drive streaming. However, for several notable reasons, image backup has never become popular.
One major historical problem with image backup is that the only option for restoring has almost always been an image restore, wherein the entire disk image is copied from tape back to disk. While such an approach makes sense in the case of catastrophic failure, it is extremely inconvenient for the most frequent purpose of restore: to retrieve copies of a few lost or corrupted files. In order to perform such a partial restore, the user must either overwrite his entire existing disk (including any files modified since the backup), which is totally unacceptable, or he must have available an extra empty disk to which the image can be restored, which is expensive and often impractical. Clearly, the complete image restore may take considerably longer in general than would a selective file restore in a file-by-file system. Also, the disk to which the image is to be restored must have a flaw map which is identical to (or a subset of) the flaw map of the original disk. While most modern disks perform some level of defect mapping inside the drive, this approach cannot handle all flaws which develop after production test (e.g., during shipment), and such flaw mapping is normally handled by the operating system's file system code. Often, image restore software has required the physical disk geometries of the original backup disk and the restore disk to match, which is also problematic in the case of catastrophic failure, because it may not be possible to purchase an identical disk given the rapid change in the capacity (and thus geometry) of disk drives.
Another problem is that, from a bottom-line perspective, for several reasons the speed of image backup has not even always been faster than that of a file-by-file backup. For example, with typical image backup it is not possible to perform an incremental backup, so that each backup session is a full image backup and thus may be slower than a file-by-file incremental backup. Also, if the disk is only partially full, an image backup may be slower than a file-by-file backup because the former will write a lot of "unused" disk sectors to tape. Most importantly, in the past the tape drive transfer rates have often been low enough that file-by-file backups were able to keep the tape streaming, removing the one major objection to the file-by-file approach.
Some attempts have been made to allow file-by-file restore from an image backup, normally by "mounting" the tape image as a disk drive (often in a read-only mode). A few such products have been commercialized without meeting any significant market acceptance, mainly because the tape seek times incurred in reading the disk control and directory structures are so painfully slow compared to disk drive speeds. These structures are in general not physically contiguous on the disk, which costs milliseconds when looking through the directory structures on the disk, but this same discontiguity costs tens of seconds when performing the same operation on the tape image.
Recently, one software backup product, SnapBack from Columbia Data Systems (see LAN Times, Feb. 13, 1995, p. 89), has attempted to make image backup more acceptable to the user. This product performs image backups of one or more physical disk partitions to tape and allows subsequent image restores to the same (or larger) partitions. SnapBack runs its backups and restores under the MS-DOS operating system, although it also contains a scheduler for NetWare which will shut down the NetWare server code at a user-selected time, exit to MS-DOS to perform the backup, and then reenter NetWare. Each hard disk on personal computer contains a partition table, typically on the first sector of the disk, which identifies the locations, sizes, and types of all the physical partitions on the disk. On an IBM-compatible personal computer, these partition types include MS-DOS FAT partitions, Novell NetWare partitions, OS/2 HPFS partitions, Microsoft Windows NT NTFS partitions, Unix partitions, etc. SnapBack claims to be able to back up these partition types, and it works at the physical level by reading the physical disk sectors and saving this "image" to tape.
For restore, SnapBack includes the typical full image restore mechanism, along with the concomitant flaw map problem, although it does allow the restore target disk to have different physical geometry than the backup source disk (as long as it is no smaller than the source). Snapback includes no way to perform any type of incremental backup, but it does include a feature whereby a Novell NetWare partition image tape can be "mounted" as a read-only drive, allowing the user to access individual files on the tape for restore.
The physical nature of SnapBack's operation allows it to function after a fashion for a wide variety of operating system disk partitions, but its lack of operating system specific knowledge also places some severe limits on functionality. For example, to use SnapBack, the operating system (e.g., NetWare) must be entirely shut down during the backup process, which is totally unacceptable for many users. Further, because SnapBack operates at a physical level instead of a logical level, it is not aware of any logical information contained within the partition. Thus, the backup process will always back up the entire disk image even if the disk is largely empty, slowing performance considerably. Also, the tape image mount mechanism suffers from the same severe performance problem discussed previously. In this case, the slowness is exacerbated by the fact that, during the mount process, NetWare actually reads in the entire set of directory and control structures for the entire disk. Since these structures are not guaranteed to be contiguous on the disk, the mount process from tape can easily take tens of minutes, which is particularly disconcerting if the user only wishes to restore a small handful of files. In fact, this mount time may well be longer than the time required for a full image restore|
An additional limitation caused by the physical nature of the SnapBack image backup is that a NetWare volume which is split into segments on multiple physical disks (a configuration commonly used to increase volume size and performance) cannot easily be restored except to a set of physically identical disks, since there are logical and physical pointers included in the NetWare disk structures which specify where the segments reside, and SnapBack is unaware of such pointers. Similarly, a multi-segment volume cannot be mounted for file-by-file restore in SnapBack. These limitations are quite severe for the NetWare market, which currently has by far the largest number of file server installations and constitutes the dominant market for network backup software. While the SnapBack product contains some significant advances in the image backup, it still leaves some very significant barriers to user acceptance.
Thus, there are two well-known backup strategies: file-by-file, which has well-accepted usability characteristics but whose performance is proving extremely difficult to maintain as technology advances, and image, whose performance can keep up with technology but which has met with almost universal rejection in the market for the reasons discussed above.

System for backing up computer disk volumes with error remapping of flawed memory addresses


A charged particle beam writing method includes determining whether a difference between one of the total area of a pattern and the number of shots in a stripe region with respect to one of adjacent stripe regions of the stripe regions and one of the total area and the number of shots with respect to the other of the adjacent stripe regions exceeds a threshold value, re-dividing, when the difference exceeds the threshold value, a stripe region where the total area or the number of shots is larger than that of the other stripe region in the adjacent stripe regions so that the difference of the total area or the number of shots becomes lower than or equal to the threshold value, and writing a pattern in the stripe regions including a re-divided stripe region, in the writing order of arrangement of the stripe regions.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a charged particle beam writing method and a charged particle beam writing apparatus. More specifically, for example, the present invention relates to a method for increasing the accuracy of the writing position of the electron beam writing apparatus.
2. Description of Related Art
The lithography technique that advances miniaturization of semiconductor devices is extremely important as a unique process whereby patterns are formed in semiconductor manufacturing. In recent years, with high integration of LSI, the line width (critical dimension) required for semiconductor device circuits is decreasing year by year. For forming a desired circuit pattern on such semiconductor devices, a master or "original" pattern (also called a mask or a reticle) of high accuracy is needed. Thus, the electron beam (EB) writing technique, which intrinsically has excellent resolution, is used for producing such a high-precision master pattern.
FIG. 22 is a conceptual diagram explaining operations of a variable shaping type electron beam writing or "drawing" apparatus. The variable shaping electron beam (EB) writing apparatus operates as described below. A first aperture plate 410 has a quadrangular aperture 411 for shaping an electron beam 330. A second aperture plate 420 has a variable shape aperture 421 for shaping the electron beam 330 having passed through the aperture 411 of the first aperture plate 410 into a desired quadrangular shape. The electron beam 330 emitted from a charged particle source 430 and having passed through the aperture 411 is deflected by a deflector to pass through a part of the variable shape aperture 421 of the second aperture plate 420, and thereby to irradiate a target object or "sample" 340 placed on a stage which continuously moves in one predetermined direction (e.g., the x direction) during the writing. In other words, a quadrangular shape that can pass through both the aperture 411 and the variable shape aperture 421 is used for pattern writing in a writing region of the target object 340 on the stage continuously moving in the x direction. This method of forming a given shape by letting beams pass through both the aperture 411 of the first aperture plate 410 and the variable shape aperture 421 of the second aperture plate 420 is referred to as a variable shaped beam (VSB) system.
In electron beam writing, there is a problem in that if a pattern density greatly varies during writing, the position accuracy of a pattern is degraded at the place of varying. As a cause of this problem, for example, charging of an extraneous matter adhered to the deflector is described (refer to, e.g., "Proc. of SPIE Vol. 8441 84410C-2"). Then, as a solution to this problem, it has been attempted to improve the decrease of the position accuracy by setting the stripe width to be small in order to lessen the writing area per stripe. However, if the stripe width is set to be narrow, there occurs a problem in that the throughput is reduced because the number of stripes set in the target object is greatly increased. Therefore, this method is not desirable. Accordingly, conventionally, the problem described above has been coped with by periodically measuring a beam drift amount to correct the beam drift. However, with respect to the place where the pattern density sharply changes, drift correction has difficulty in following the beam position variation. Therefore, required position accuracy has not been obtained. Although it is necessary to set the time interval to measure a beam drift amount to be very short for dealing with even the case of the sharp variation of a pattern density, the writing operation needs to be stopped when measuring the beam drift amount, which poses a problem of throughput decrease. Therefore, this method is not desirable, either.

Charged particle beam writing method and charged particle beam writing apparatus


The present dump block (100) comprises an internal plate (106) attached to an external plate (108) with a rotatably mounted sheave (110) therebetween. The external plate (108) presents a smooth convex surface. Bearings (126) are mounted between the sheave (110) and a centrally located shaft (122). The position of the bearings (126) is maintained by a bearing side plate (116) A side plate bearing cushion (124) is located between the bearing side plate (116) and the bearings (126). The bearing cushion (124) absorbs the force of any impacts experienced by the dump block (100). Likewise, the convex surface of the external plate (108) turns any impact into a glancing blow, thereby extending the life of the dump block (100).

Strip mining is a common method of mining coal or excavating large areas of land. Therefore, strip mining operations involve the use of extremely heavy and rugged digging equipment capable of moving millions of pounds of earth. Typically, drag lines manipulate the position of a "bucket" used to dislodge, hold, and remove the soil from the site. A bucket can be virtually any size. For example, a bucket can be 35 feet long, 20 feet wide and 15 feet in depth, and weigh approximately 100,000 pounds. One end of the bucket is open with a toothed lower lip. The bucket is attached to a boom by a number of wire ropes and chains. These ropes and chains can bear the weight of the load in the bucket as well as control the orientation of the bucket.
One method of strip mining, known as "chopping," tips the bucket vertically with the toothed lip downward. The bucket is lifted several hundred feet above the ground and then allowed to free fall into the ground. The weight of the falling bucket dislodges a large quantity of soil which is then contained within the bucket. The bucket is then lifted and tilted to a horizontal orientation to prevent the soil from falling out of the bucket. The bucket is next moved to another location and tilted vertically. A dump block is an essential component in the dumping procedure. It allows for the smooth transition of forces between the hoist chains and the drag chains. It is imperative that the dump block not fail.
Prior dump block designs provide a housing around the dump block sheave. This housing consists of a pair of opposed internal plates with each attached to an external plate. The sheave is rotatably mounted around a centrally located shaft and within the housing. The external plate is generally circular with a plurality of ribs extending from a central hub to an external band. Each rib has a central portion or web of increased sectional diameter for increased strength. However, the web portion protrudes. The protruding webs often strike the dump ropes damaging the ribs and/or severing the ropes. Moreover, rocks and dirt can enter the housing between the ribs. These contaminants can jam the sheave, preventing it from rotating. The bearings upon which the sheave rests are also susceptible to failure due to the jarring impacts suffered by the dump block in use.
Therefore, a need exists for a new dump block design which minimizes the incidence and severity of impacts during use. Such a dump block should incorporate a housing with an external plate which maintains the same strength of a ribbed external plate but is less likely to impact directly with the dump ropes. In the event of an impact, the new external plate should angle off the force of the blow. Also, the external plate should minimize the likelihood of damaging the dump ropes. An improved dump block should also cushion the sheave bearings to increase their useful life.

Dump block for strip mine rigging apparatus


A method for filtering out particles from a fluid is disclosed, wherein unfiltered fluid is guided into a filter housing of a filter apparatus and filtered fluid is guided from the filter housing, and wherein a rotary filter element, which has a filter structure and is arranged in the filter housing and is rotatable about an axis thereof, is rotated at a speed which is sufficiently high that all particles passing in a fluid flow into the area of the rotary filter element are affected by its structure and are ejected therefrom, whereas the fluid passes the structure of the rotary filter element substantially freed from the particles and flows off from the filter housing.

The invention relates to a method for filtering out particles from a fluid, wherein unfiltered fluid is guided into a filter housing of a filter apparatus and filtered fluid is guided from the filter housing. A filter element is positioned in rotary manner in the filter housing and may be provided with a substantially cylindrical configuration and with a structure, through which the fluid flows from the outside to the inside.
In general, methods for filtering out particles from a fluid and filter apparatus are known, in which a fluid containing contaminants in the form of particles is forced or sucked through the pores of a filter medium. The particles are left behind on the filter medium, whereas the fluid passes through said filter medium. Such a filter medium provided with pores has a certain flow resistance, which increases over a period of time with an increasing degree of contamination of the filter medium. After a certain time the flow resistance becomes so high that the filter medium must be cleaned. This gives rise to considerable manual effort and costs.

Method for filtering out particles from a fluid


A technique for reducing fatigue associated with artificially stimulated contractions of muscle tissue. The stimulation of the muscle tissue is associated with treatment of a particular medical condition, such as obstructive sleep apnea. For this application, the muscles of the upper airway are stimulated to relieve or prevent obstruction to normal respiratory activity during sleep.. Fatigue is reduced by stimulating the subject muscles from multiple rather than a single electrode. This ensures that successive depolarizations are not produced from the same focus, and that different motor units are successively depolarized.. Each electrode is placed at the muscle nerve interface to recruit the assistance of the nerve tissue in conducting the stimulation signals throughout the muscle. The conductors coupling the individual electrodes share a common cable structure to produce ease in the implant procedure. The electronics of the stimulation pulse generator is conveniently demultiplexed to eliminate excess hardware.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is generally related to implantable medical devices, and is more particularly related to implantable medical devices for stimulation of skeletal muscles.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Electrical stimulation of muscle tissue associated with respiration has been known as a technique for treatment of respiratory conditions. "Diaphragm Pacing: Present Status", by William W. L. Glenn, in Pace, Volume 1, pp. 357-370, (July-September 1978) describes a number of early attempts to correct central sleep apnea with electrical stimulation.
Treatment of obstructive sleep apnea using electrical stimulation has also been discussed. "Laryngeal Pacemaker. II Electronic Pacing of Reinnervated Posterior Cricoarytenoid Muscles in the Canine", by Broniatowski et al, in Laryngoscope, Volume 95, pp. 1194-1198 (October 1985); "Assessment of Muscle Action on Upper Airway Stability in Anesthetized Dogs", by Strohl et al., in Journal of Laboratory Clinical Medicine, Volume 110, pp. 221-301, (1987); and U.S. Pat. No. 4,830,008 issued to Meer all discuss electrical stimulation of the upper airway to treat obstructive sleep apnea.
However, little attention within the field of muscle stimulation has been expressly directed to muscle fatigue. James A. Cox in U.S. Pat. No. 4,411,268 describes a technique for conditioning skeletal muscles to prevent fatigue. This process occurs over time and is associated with a conditioning stimulation protocol.


The present disclosure relates to a system and process for manufacturing patient personalized pharmaceutical compositions using superimposed revolution and rotation movements for dispersing, milling, melting, and/or de-aerating, where these superimposed revolution and rotation movements can be carried out in a single device in a pharmacy setting.

Medical facilities, licensed pharmacist or physicians may produce individual pharmaceutical compositions by blending together various ingredients, such as one or more active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) and pharmaceutically acceptable excipients, diluent or solvents, to create a medicine product tailored to the needs of an individual patient. Such activities are commonly referred as pharmaceutical compounding. Practically speaking, in the context of pharmacy compounding, the pharmacist will typically prepare such product tailored to the needs of an individual patient based on a medical prescription.
Pharmaceutical compounding involves blending of the composition ingredients, which is typically performed using manual mixing, for example, using a pestle and mortar. However, manually mixing ingredients can be time-consuming and is often prone to cross-contamination from poorly decontaminated or sterilized equipment used for the mixing. Along with the contamination risk, there is also the problem that performing manual mixing often results in products that face repeatability and/or quality challenges. In other words, it is often difficult to obtain compositions having consistent concentrations of API from one composition to another and/or consistent homogeneous API concentration within one preparation per se. This may result in substantial qualitative differences during manufacture of the same recipe, which at minimum can have an effect on the effectiveness of the recipe.
In this regard, various practical devices have been previously suggested to overcome the above deficiencies of compounding pharmaceutical compositions using manual mixing.
U.S. 2012/0269029 (Konietzko) describes a program-controlled mixer, which includes a control unit, a motor-driven mixing unit with a blade mixing tool, which engages into a mixing vessel, and a lift unit. The lift unit produces an axial relative motion between the blade mixing tool and the mixing vessel, to move the blade mixing tool in the mixing vessel between an upper end position and a lower one, preferably at a constant lifting speed.
A deficiency associated with many mixing devices is that they often involve mixing using blades that contact the mixture causing high shearing forces, which can generate so much heat during mixing so as to degrade thermally labile API.
Additionally or alternatively, many mixing devices often entrain air into the composition being mixed. The entrained air forms air bubbles in the composition modifying thereafter the specific gravity of the pharmaceutical composition. Since the specific gravity is the ratio of the density of the composition to the density of a reference substance; equivalently, it is the ratio of the mass of the composition to the mass of a reference substance for the same given volume. Variations in specific gravity of a composition can be detrimental in that such variations alters the aforementioned ratio and, accordingly, alters the API weight content which is filled in a pharmaceutical container for a given volume of composition filled in. This is particularly critical for pharmaceutical dispensing devices dispensing measured doses which need to dispense consistent amounts of API for a given volume from one device to another one, and from one dispensed volume to the next in the same dispensing device.
In other cases, the entrained air must be removed in order to eliminate the air bubbles from the pharmaceutical composition and thereby improve the appearance of the pharmaceutical composition. For instance, in the production of either translucent or transparent pharmaceutical compositions, it is mandatory to remove the air bubbles since these would otherwise negatively affect the translucency or transparency of the pharmaceutical compositions by imparting opacity zones thereto. However, such de-aeration is time consuming, lowers throughput and generally requires additional vacuum configurations, which can be cumbersome and increase overall manufacturing costs.
Additionally or alternatively, many mixing devices often require mixing in device-specific mixing containers, which thus requires an additional step of decanting the pharmaceutical mixture into a dispensing device container, thereby increasing the risk of material loss during the decanting procedure. Device-specific containers also limit the volume and/or mass of materials that can be mixed to the specifications of such containers, which is not always ideal from a practical perspective. Device-specific containers also require implementing strict cleaning/sterilization procedures to avoid cross-contamination risk when one wishes to reuse the same mixing containers, which can be cumbersome and time-consuming. Otherwise, operation costs and waste are increased when container are used and are discarded after each mixing procedure, i.e., when used as single-use mixing containers.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Pharmaceutical compounding methods and systems


The present invention provides a heat developing method and a heat developing apparatus for stabilizing density and making image quality stable when executing a heat developing process by a rapid process of 10 seconds or less. The heat developing method is a method for heating a film with a heat developing photosensitive material coated on one side of a support base thereof for a heating time of 10 seconds or less and then cooling it, which opens the face side of the film with the heat developing photosensitive material coated, heats it from the support base side, and cools it from the supports base side by opening the side of the film where the heat developing photosensitive material is coated.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a heat developing method and a heat developing apparatus for a rapid process by heating and then cooling a sheet film with a heat developing photosensitive material coated.
2. Description of the Related Art
Patent Document 1 indicated below discloses a heat developing apparatus for sliding and heating a sheet film on the EC (emulsion coated) side between a heating drum (heated) having a flexible layer and a plurality of opposing rollers, thereby developing a film with a latent image formed. Patent Document 2 indicated below discloses a heat developing apparatus of a method of using a fixed heater divided into three parts instead of the heating drum aforementioned and sliding and heating the BC (back coated) side of a film on the heater.
In a conventional heat developing apparatus, the heat developing time is generally 14 seconds or so (a length of 17 inches in the conveying direction), though realization of a faster heat developing process and higher image quality is required. However, in Patent Documents 1 and 2, no measures for a rapid heat developing process are suggested and disclosed.
Patent Document 1: Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Announcement 10-500497
Patent Document 2: Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open 2003-287862

Heat developing method and heat developing apparatus


A computer system and method for enhancing the reliability of a computer system by combining a cache sync-flush engine with a replicated memory module includes placing a xe2x80x9clockxe2x80x9d command on the common bus. The lock protects or controls accesses to a number of memory locations in the memory modules designated by the programmer. At any point in time, one processor can obtain the lock, and hence has access to the number of memory locations protected by the lock. Other processors may attempt to acquire or make a request for the same lock, however, the other processor will fail until the processor that has the lock has released (i.e., xe2x80x9cunlockedxe2x80x9d) the lock. The other processors will keep trying to get the lock. The processor that obtains the lock instructs the system control unit to begin logging or monitoring all subsequent memory addresses that appear on the common bus. After the processor gets the lock, it can start reading from and writing to the number of memory locations that are implemented as a number of replicated memory modules. A data value is then determined based on the data held by a majority of the replicated memory modules. The data value is transmitted to the cache of the processor. After the data is processed, an xe2x80x9cunlockxe2x80x9d command is transmitted from the processor to a system control unit that issues a write back request on the common bus that flushes the data value from the cache to the number of replicated memory modules.

1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates to the field of computer systems. More particularly, this invention relates to a system and method for enhancing the reliability of a computer system by combining a cache sync-flush engine with a replicated memory module. The cache sync-flush engine is the logic that facilitates the flushing operation from a cache to a memory complex.
2. Description of Related Art
A computer system typically includes a memory and a processor. The memory generally includes a main memory and a cache memory for storing data and instructions for the processor. The cache memories store blocks of data and/or instructions that are received from the main memory. Typically, instructions from the main memory that are used by the processor are stored in the instruction cache and the data for that particular instruction is stored in the data cache.
To execute a specific instruction in an application, the processor may issue read and write operations to the memory. During a read operation, the processor first checks its local cache for the address corresponding to the read operation. If the address is found, the processor retrieves the data from its local cache. If the address is not found, the processor searches for the data in the main memory. Once the data has been located, the processor makes a copy of the data from main memory and stores the copied data in its local cache. Since a read operation does not change the content of the data, the copied data in the cache is identical to the data in the main memory. The copying of data from the main memory results in several read-only copies of the same data existing in multiple caches. The cached copies of data are sometimes referred to as clean copies.
During a write operation, the processor first checks its local cache for the address corresponding to the write operation. If the address is found, the processor replaces the data in its local cache. If the address is not found, the processor searches for the data in the main memory. Once the data has been located, the processor retrieves the data from main memory, stores the data in its local cache, and invalidates all other cached copies of the data. The processor that retrieved the data is the owner of the data and has an exclusive and most recent copy of the data. This data may be modified when it is in the processor""s local cache. The main memory now holds an obsolete value of the data.
A problem arises when the processor that owns the data or the cache or main memory that hold the data fails. These failures cause loss of the most recent value of the data and may significantly impact individuals and businesses. Furthermore, businesses can suffer significant monetary losses when processors and memories fail.
In order to avoid these failures, redundant systems have been developed. These systems are designed to have multiple redundancies to prevent or minimize the loss of information should the processor or memory fail. These redundant systems are also referred to as fault tolerance systems. One type of redundant system duplicates the entire hardware system. That is, all the hardware components are mirrored such that the duplicate components perform the same functions as the main system but are transparent to the main system. Duplicating the hardware components is a practice that is used by many designers to further enhance the reliability of computer systems. For example, if the main computer system fails, the redundant computer system having the same hardware components continues to process the data, thus eliminating the loss of data and the disruption in processing the data. The redundant computer systems run directly in parallel and in sync with the main computer system. Hence, there are multiple processors and multiple memories executing the same instructions at the same time. These systems provide additional reliability which minimize the number of computer system failures. The duplication of all of the hardware components, however, significantly increases the costs associated with manufacturing the computer system.
It should therefore be appreciated that there remains a need for a computer system that can have the same or better reliability as prior systems without the cost of replicating entire hardware systems. The present invention fulfills this need.
The present invention is embodied in a computer system, and related method, for enhancing the reliability of a computer system by combining a cache sync-flush engine with a replicated memory module. Architecturally, the computer system includes a number of nodes coupled to a shared memory via an interconnect network. Each node has a number of processors and caches which are connected to a system control unit via a common bus. The shared memory has a number of replicated memory modules for storing identical copies of data.
The related method includes placing or issuing a xe2x80x9clockxe2x80x9d command on the common bus. The lock protects or controls accesses to a number of memory locations in the memory modules designated by the programmer. At any point in time, one processor can obtain the lock, and hence has access to the number of memory locations protected by the lock. Other processors may attempt to acquire or make a request for the same lock, however, the other processor will fail until the processor that has the lock has released (i.e., xe2x80x9cunlockedxe2x80x9d) the lock. The other processors will keep trying to get the lock. The processor that obtains the lock instructs the system control unit to begin logging or monitoring all subsequent memory addresses that appear on the common bus. After the processor gets the lock, it can start reading from and writing to the number of memory locations that implemented as a number of replicated memory modules. A data value is then determined based on the data held by a majority of the replicated memory modules. The data value is transmitted to the cache of the processor. After the data is processed, an xe2x80x9cunlockxe2x80x9d command is transmitted from the processor to a system control unit that issues a write back request on the common bus that flushes the data value from the cache to the number of replicated memory modules.
Other features and advantages of the present invention will be apparent from the detailed description that follows.

System and method for enhancing the reliability of a computer system by combining a cache sync-flush engine with a replicated memory module


A system for generating stereo-channel audio signals with surround information is disclosed. The system includes a surround mapping unit configured to receive signals from a number of audio channels and generate a pair of stereo-channel audio signals based on the audio channels. The pair of stereo-channel audio signals includes binaural and spatial information. The system also includes a stereo-channel encoder configured to receive and encode the pair of stereo-channel audio signals from the surround mapping unit thereby generating a pair of encoded stereo-channel audio signals. The system further includes a stereo-channel decoder configured to receive and decode the pair of encoded stereo-channel audio signals thereby obtaining the pair of stereo-channel audio signals. The pair of stereo-channel audio signals are capable of being used to generate surround effect.

1. Field
The present invention generally relates to digital signal processing and, more specifically, to a method and system for providing stereo-channel based multi-channel audio coding.
2. Background
Multi-channel audio transmission techniques are increasingly used in modern multi-media and communication systems. However, delivering multi-channel audio contents in mobile multi-media systems, such as, handheld devices in an efficient manner remains difficult. This is because multi-channel coding systems require a much higher bit rate and are more complex than stereo-channel or mono-channel systems. To handle this problem, a spatial audio coding method has recently been proposed by ISO/MPEG. This coding method can deliver a low bit presentation of multi-channel signals by transmitting a downmix signal along with some compact surround information, such as, binaural cues and spatial information, which describes the most salient properties of the multi-channel signals. Furthermore, the spatial audio coding method produces signals that are backward compatible with existing transmission systems.
FIG. 1 is a simplified schematic diagram illustrating a spatial surround coding system 10 recently developed by ISO/MPEG. The surround coding system 10 includes an encoder side 12 and a decoder side 14. The encoder side 12 further includes a downmix operation unit 16, a stereo-channel encoder 18 and a side information processing unit 20. The decoder side 14 further includes a stereo-channel decoder 22 and a surround synthesis processing unit 24.
The downmix operation unit 12 accomplishes the linear mapping from N-channel signals to stereo-channel with a 2×N coefficient matrix. After this mapping, the stereo-channel signals can be coded by the stereo-channel encoder 18, such as, an AAC encoder or MP3 encoder. The stereo-channel encoder 18 then generates data that is in stereo-compressed (two-channel) format. The side information processing unit 20 extracts and codes side information including the most important binaural cues and sound spatial information, such as, inter-channel level difference (ICLD), inter-channel time difference (ICTD) and inter-channel coherence (ICC) among these N channels. Side information can be represented and transmitted with a rate of only a few kb/s. As a result, the total data that will be transmitted to the decoder side 14 includes data in stereo-compressed format and the side information.
On the decoder side 14, the stereo-channel decoder 22 first decodes the stereo-compressed data. The decoded or decompressed data is forwarded to the surround synthesis processing unit 24. The surround synthesis processing unit 24 then uses signal synthesis (inverse processing corresponding to the extraction part on the encoder side 12) to combine the side information (such as, ICTD, ICLD and ICC) with the decompressed data to derive the N-channel signals for playback.
For the headphone or the case where there are only two speakers on the playback side, two options are available on the decoder side 14 to handle the stereo-channel signals. One option is that the stereo-channel decoder 22 directly outputs the stereo-channel signals, x^_l(n) and x^ r(n), to the headphone or two speakers. Such direct output, however, will not produce any significant surround effect since binaural and spatial information are not included in these stereo-channel signals. The other option, as shown in FIG. 2, is to use a virtual surround mapping unit 26 to map the synthesized N-channel signals to two channels, s^_l(n) and s^_r(n). This can deliver multi-channel surround effect for the headphone or the listeners in the sweet-spot of two speakers. By using the virtual surround mapping unit 26, however, additional processing resources are needed on the decoder side 14.
The surround synthesis processing unit 24 and the virtual surround mapping unit 26 perform very intensive computations. As a result, it is very difficult and cost inefficient to implement and include these units 24, 26 in portable devices, thereby preventing portable devices from delivering multi-channel surround effect in many mobile multi-media systems.
Hence, it would be desirable to provide a coding system which, amongst other things, allows portable devices with existing stereo-channel decoders to deliver multi-channel contents for headphones without adding any processing resources.

Method and system for providing stereo-channel based multi-channel audio coding

Anyka (Guangzhou) Microelectronics Technology Co., Ltd.


A condenser for a heating, ventilation, air conditioning and refrigeration system includes a condenser shell, a refrigerant inlet located at the condenser shell, and a condenser drain located at the condenser shell. A condenser tube bundle is located in the condenser shell such that a refrigerant flow entering the condenser via the refrigerant inlet passes over the condenser tube bundle before exiting the condenser at the condenser drain. Two or more condenser ballast volumes are located in the condenser shell between the tube bundle and the condenser drain. The two or more condenser ballast volumes are spaced apart to define a channel therebetween. A condenser ballast volume of the two or more condenser ballast volumes has a horizontal top surface.

Exemplary embodiments pertain to the art of heating, ventilation, air conditioning, and refrigeration (HVAC&R) systems. More specifically, the subject matter disclosed herein relates to condensers for HVAC&R systems.
HVAC&R systems, for example, chillers, utilize a refrigerant loop including a condenser, in which a flow of fluid, for example, water is urged through condenser tubes in a condenser shell for thermal energy exchange with a volume of refrigerant (refrigerant charge) in the condenser shell. Refrigerant charge in shell and tube condensers can largely be determined by the depth of refrigerant liquid at the bottom of the condenser shell. In many systems, the refrigerant liquid is driven from the condenser shell to an expansion device primarily by gravity. It is desired to reduce an amount of refrigerant charge necessary at the condenser shell in order to maintain a selected rate of liquid refrigerant drainage from the condenser shell to the expansion device to realize cost and regulatory advantages.


A reading sensor has first and second detection regions. The first detection region has high directivity and detects a thickness of a recording sheet. The second detection region has low directivity and detects a surface roughness of the recording sheet. The material type of the recording sheet is determined based on the detected thickness and surface roughness. Based on the type of recording sheet, conditions for forming images on the recording sheet are determined.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a sheet-type detection device for detecting the thickness and surface roughness of recording sheets made of different types of materials such as paper, nonwoven fabric, and plastic film.
2. Description of the Related Art
Known data recording devices record and output data, such as image data, at high definition. Therefore, only predetermined types of recording sheets, such as sheets of specialized paper suitable for recording data by electrography, could be used for data recording devices.
Since toner, ink, and photoreceptors have been improved, data recording on various types of commercially available multi-purpose paper has become possible.
However, to record data on various types of recording sheets, data processing parameters, data recording conditions, such as conditions for fixing and transferring an image, and mechanical control conditions, such as conditions for sheet delivery, have to be suitable for the type of sheet. In order to set suitable conditions, the various types of recording sheets have to be categorized.
The thickness of a recording sheet is inputted through a user interface of an operating unit or a hard switch. The conditions concerning the data recording process, such as a target temperature for the temperature control of the fixing unit, is determined in accordance with a code defining the thickness of the recording sheet (for example, refer to Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 6-348095).
The above-described data recording device first requires the thickness of the recording sheet to be inputted by operating an external unit or a switch. This operation is too complicated to be carried out by all users.
Furthermore, if a wrong code is inputted by a user, the data recording device records data in accordance with the wrong code and often causes damage to the device. As a result, significant losses, such as an increase in the downtime of the device and repairing cost, arise.
More specifically, if the data recording device is set for recording on a thin recording sheet but a thick recording sheet is used for the actual recording, the thick recording sheet will be delivered to the photoreceptor and fixing unit at a speed faster than normal. As a result, the impact of the recording sheet entering the photoreceptor and fixing unit may damage the data recording device.
Even if a wrong setting does not cause damage to the data recording device, the wrong setting may cause unsuccessful delivery and unsuccessful fixing of the recording sheet. This may cause jamming of the recording sheet that leads to unsuccessful data recording. As a result, the user will be significantly inconvenienced.
Recently, recycled paper has been in heavy use. In addition to recycled paper, various needs of users have led to the introduction of coated paper having coated surfaces and Leathac and embossed paper having surfaces with many irregularities. Such different types of special recording paper are characterized by their thickness and surface roughness.
Conditions and settings of the data recording process, including fixing and transferring processes, and conditions of mechanical control, such as sheet delivery, must be changed in accordance with the surface roughness of the recording sheet. For this reason, it has become even more important to categorize recording sheets according to the type of material the recording sheet is made of.
Inputting data recording conditions through a user interface or a hard switch, as described above, requires complicated operations that can easily lead to incorrect input.

Sheet type detection device that determines thickness and surface roughness of a sheet


An improved process and apparatus for molding expandable polystyrene ("EPS") beads. The process comprises the steps of: (a) introducing the beads into the mold cavity; (b) isolating the mold cavity from the ambient environment; (c) purging the mold cavity of any ambient air and moisture; (d) pulsing steam into the mold cavity among the beads to melt and fuse the beads; (e) pulsing cooling mist into the mold cavity and directly among the melted and fused beads; and (f) removing the melted and fused beads from the mold cavity. The invention also comprises an apparatus for accomplishing this process and a computer program for controlling and directing the apparatus to perform the process.

The process and apparatus of present invention concern the thermal cycles of molding expandable polystyrene (hereinafter "EPS") into useful articles made of what is commonly called "styrofoam".
Known methods for molding EPS begin with the step of filling a mold with EPS beads. The beads are small hollow polystyrene spheres filled with a gas-forming expansion agent, typically pentane. The molds are usually made of cast aluminum and consist of two halves. Each half is mounted onto a platen to form a "mold assembly" and create a steam cavity behind each side of the mold. Generally, one or both of the platens is moveable to allow separation of the two sides of the mold and thereby facilitate removal of the item being produced.
Once the mold is filled with beads, the next step in EPS molding is a heat cycle to heat the mold and beads to expand and fuse the beads to form the product. The steam cavity behind one half of the mold is filled with steam. This steam is drawn through core vents into the bead-filled mold cavity.
As shown below, the energy required to melt and mold the EPS beads is insignificant compared to the energy used to heat the mold and surrounding steam chest (i.e., the mold/chest).
The heat required to melt and mold a one pound shot of EPS beads is 86 ETUs. The melt temperature of EPS beads is 230.degree. F. and the fusion temperature is 240.degree. F. The specific heat of EPS is 0.24 BTUs/lb-.degree.F. and the latent heat of fusion 50 BTUs/lb. The energy required to melt and mold EPS is given by the following formula. EQU Energy=Specific Heat.times..DELTA.Temperature+Latent Heat of Fusion(A)
Therefore, the energy required to melt and fuse EPS is at an ambient temperature of 80.degree. F. is 0.24 BTUs/lb-.degree.F..times.(230.degree. F.-80.degree. F.)+50 BTUs/lb=86 BTUs/lb.
After the EPS beads were melted and fused, the temperature of the mold and surrounding steam chest had to be reduced from 240.degree. F. to 210.degree. F. to allow for the molded EPS article to be removed from the mold. The heat required to raise the temperature of the mold and surrounding steam chest from the demold temperature of 210.degree. F. to the EPS fusion temperature of 240.degree. F. is on the order of 5,190 BTUs. The mold is typically formed from aluminum which has a specific heat of 0.21 BTU/lb-.degree.F. The mold will be assumed to have a mass of 300 lbs. The energy required to raise the temperature of this mold is given by the following formula. EQU Energy=Mass of Material.times.Specific Heat.times..DELTA.Temperature(B)
Therefore, the energy required to raise the temperature of this aluminum mold from 210.degree. F. to 240.degree. F. is 300 lbs.times.0.21 BTU/lb-.degree.F..times.(240.degree. F.-210.degree. F.)=1,890 BTUs. The surrounding steam chest is typically formed from iron which has a specific heat of 0.11 BTU/lb-.degree.F. The surrounding steam chest will be assumed to have a mass of 1,000 lbs. Employing formula (B) above, the energy required to raise the temperature of this surrounding steam chest from 210.degree. F. to 240.degree. F. to 1,000 lbs..times.0.11 BTU/lb-.degree.F..times.(240.degree. F.-210.degree. F.)=3,300 BTUs.
Thus, for each one pound shot of EPS molded by the prior art batch process wherein the mold and the EPS beads were both brought to a temperature of 240.degree. F., the energy required is 5,276 BTUs (i.e., 86+1,890+3,300) per batch.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,801,361 and 4,813,859 to Calvin P. Bullard and F. Paul Szubelick disclose an improved method and apparatus for molding EPS. These patents disclose that reductions in energy requirements and length of the heating and cooling cycle can be achieved by concentrating the heat directly on the EPS beads alone, rather than on the combination of the surrounding steam chest, the mold and the EPS beads.
The inventor, Calvin P. Bullard, has continued to perfect and improve the method and apparatus for molding EPS that was jointly conceived by Calvin P. Bullard and F. Paul Szubelick (now deceased) and disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,801,361 and 4,813,859. It has been observed by the inventor that the maximum potential reduction in energy requirements provided by the Bullard-Szubelick method and apparatus was not being realized as a result of ambient air and residual moisture remaining in the mold cavity from the previous cooling cycle.
Specifically, during testing conducted in connection with his U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,801,361 and 4,813,859, the inventor, Calvin P. Bullard, observed that while the steam temperature in a 3-inch steam supply pipe at a distance of three (3) feet from the mold/chest was 300.degree.-312.degree. F., the steam temperature within the mold/chest was only 210.degree.-215.degree. F. This wasteful reduction in steam temperature was determined to be attributable to two factors. The first being an unintended loss of superheat, or the desuperheat of the steam supply. As the steam flows from the 3-inch supply pipe into the mold/chest, there is a sudden enlargement of area with an attendant drop in the pressure and temperature of the steam. The reduction in temperature is caused by air and residual moisture in the mold/chest. That is, energy is used to heat the ambient air and residual moisture as well as the EPS beads. In this environment, desuperheating of the steam occurs with an immediate loss of energy. This is believed to be an industry-wide problem. The second factor being inadequate velocity/volume of the steam supplied to the mold/chest due to a poorly designed steampipe system.
It has also been observed that molded EPS articles tend to stick to the mold. This sticking of the molded EPS article to the mold is attributable, in part, to "post-expansion" which is the incomplete fusion of EPS beads and the incomplete extraction of the gas expansion agent from the EPS beads which inhibit proper curing of the EPS article prior to removal from the mold.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a novel method and apparatus for molding expandable polystyrene, which is both energy and time efficient, comprising the steps of isolating the mold/chest and applying a vacuum purge to remove air and residual moisture from the mold/chest.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a novel method and apparatus for molding expandable polystyrene which reduces the sticking of the molded article to the mold.
Additional objects and advantages of the invention will be set forth, in part, in the description which follows and in part will be apparent from this description, or may be learned by the practice of the invention. The objects and advantages of the invention are realized and obtained by means of the methods, apparatus and the combinations particularly pointed out in the appended claims.

Method for molding expandable polystyrene foam articles


A sprocket comprising at least one groove for engaging a toothed belt, said groove having a flank, the flank having a groove tip radii (R1) of between approximately 105% and approximately 125% of a belt tooth root radii (R8) when the toothed belt is in rack form, said groove tip radii being joined to a groove arcuate conjugate flank portion (200) by a linear flank portion (202), and said linear flank portion being disposed at an angle (Φ) of between approximately 18° to approximately 24° with respect to a groove centerline (CL) and comprising a length of at least approximately 20% of a sprocket groove depth (h).

Synchronous belt drive systems are used extensively in industry as substitutes for chain drives or gear trains to transmit torque and/or translate motion between shafts.
Belt drives have a pitch line that is displaced from both the belt and the sprocket teeth and is located within the belt tensile member. The displaced pitch line introduces the problem of assuring good entry of a belt tooth into a sprocket groove with a minimum of interference at various belt loads and sprocket diameters.
The belt tooth/sprocket tooth interference problem is further compounded by belt manufacturing and sprocket manufacturing tolerances that result in small pitch differences between the belt teeth and sprocket teeth, tooling tolerances that result in small differences between the sprocket tooth and belt tooth flank profiles, polymer shrinkage during the molding process which results in a less than ideal belt tooth form, rotation and deflection of the belt teeth under load resulting in entry and exit belt tooth/sprocket tooth interference, and a chordal effect caused by differences in the sprocket groove depth/belt tooth height resulting in an apparent pitch difference between the belt teeth and sprocket teeth.
This pitch mismatch between the belt teeth and the sprocket teeth results in the upper portion of the pulley tooth, particularly the zone where the sprocket tip radii intersect with the curvilinear sprocket flanks, scrubbing the upper portion of the belt tooth flanks eventually weakening the belt tooth covering resulting in belt tooth failure.
Representative of the art is U.S. Pat. No. 4,605,389 which discloses a toothed power transmission belt with belt teeth having flank surfaces in the form of a tractrix curve and a belt sprocket with sprocket teeth having flank surfaces in the form of a tractrix curve, together, the belt and sprocket exhibiting smooth running and antiratcheting characteristics.
What is needed is a sprocket having a groove tip radii being joined to a groove arcuate conjugate flank portion by a linear flank portion. The present invention meets this need.


The present invention is a mounting device for individually mounting rotary hoes on the shanks of row crop cultivators. The tractor pulls shanks through the fields to cultivate the soil with rotary hoes connected to the shanks by a mounting device. The mounting device includes a portion which clamps to the shanks and a portion which is pivotally connected to the clamping portion and extends to a rotatably mounted rotary hoe. The hoe may float over irregular surfaces of the ground to penetrate and dig up the soil. The rotary hoes may be biased by a spring to maintain a relatively constant ground depth, and they may include stops to limit their forward movement, backward movement, or both.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to row crop cultivators. More specifically, the field of the invention is that of devices for mounting rotary hoes on the shanks of row crop cultivators.
2. Prior Art
As technology advances, agricultural equipment has become more complicated. Consequentially, such equipment is more specialized, requires more attention during operation, and is more expensive. However, the rotary hoe is relatively inexpensive, is easily operated, and may be adapted to perform many farming tasks. Conventionally, rotary hoes include a spoked wheel with each of the spokes having a blade-like projection extending beyond the circumference of the wheel. The projection has a shape well adapted to penetrate the ground, either to dislodge soil and throw the soil out of the path of the wheel or simply to create a hole. The depth at which the hoe penetrates the ground is determined by the length of the projection and any bias which may be applied, such as a static bias in the form of a weight on the hoe or a dynamic bias in the form of a resilient spring applied to the hoe.
Rotary hoes have flexibility for performing a variety of farming tasks, including weed control, chemical incorporation, crop emergence, soil aeration, and soil mulching. For weed control and chemical incorporation, the rotary hoe may be used to enhance chemical herbicides by mechanical incorporation before respraying, or to avoid such herbicides by flushing out seeds of weed plants. For crop emergence or soil aeration, the rotary hoe may be drawn directly over the ground to penetrate the top layer. For soil mulching, the rotary hoe may be drawn over the soil to both penetrate and dislodge soil. By adjusting the height and the bias applied to the rotary hoe, the same hoe may be used for each of these tasks.
Rotary hoes are used in combination with row crop cultivators to achieve those various tasks. Conventional row crop cultivators include a tractor connected to a tool bar which is connected to soil agitating devices, such as discs, shanks, or rotary hoes. Shanks are conventionally connected directly to the tool bar or to a gang assembly having a plurality of shanks, the gang assemblies being attached to the tool bar. Rotary hoes are conventionally connected to the tool bar by an arm, or alternatively hoes may be attached to the frame of a gang assembly. The supporting arm, and other parts used to mount the rotary hoe, must be structurally strong and securely fastened to the row crop cultivator to withstand the normal use of the hoe. The tractor pulls the tool bar and any attached gang assemblies through the soil, with the hoe wheels rolling over the top of the ground and their projections penetrating and agitating the ground.
Although many benefits are realized using conventional rotary hoe arrangements, some disadvantages exist with such arrangements. One disadvantage involves compensating for varying terrain, wherein irregular surfaces prevent one or more of the rotary hoes from touching the ground or from penetrating to the desired depth. Further, mountings for rotary hoes on tool bars do not allow for closely laterally spacing the hoes. Hoes which are attached to the frame of the gang assembly are often difficult to attach to the frame, and have relatively extensive connections which may interfere with the operation of the row crop cultivator. Also, conventional methods of mounting rotary hoes on tool bars and gang assemblies are relatively expensive, especially considering the relatively low cost of the rotary hoes themselves.
What is needed is a mounting device for individually mounting and removing rotary hoes.
Also needed is a mounting device which is adaptable to any type shank.
A further need is for such a mounting device which provides a spring bias on the hoe.

Rotary hoe mounting unit for row crop cultivator


A force sensed surface scanning system (20) employs a scanning robot (41) and a surface scanning controller (50). The scanning robot (41) includes a surface scanning end-effector (43) for generating force sensing data informative of a contact force applied by the surface scanning end-effector (43) to an anatomical organ. In operation, the surface scanning controller (50) controls a surface scanning of the anatomical organ by the surface scanning end-effector (43) including the surface scanning end-effector (43) generating the force sensing data, and further constructs an intraoperative volume model of the anatomical organ responsive to the force sensing data generated by the surface scanning end-effector (43) indicating a defined surface deformation offset of the anatomical organ.

Minimally invasive surgical operations may be performed through small, single incision ports in the insufflated abdominal wall. Therefore a line-of-sight via an endoscope to surgical instruments and an outer surface of anatomical organ(s) is provided by endoscopic images. Internal structures of the anatomical organ(s) (e.g., vessels, tumors, etc.) are usually visualized with two-dimensional ("2D") laparoscopic ultrasound (LUS). However, LUS is difficult to interpret in a large anatomical context, especially when the image quality is obscured by tissue abnormalities (e.g. cirrhosis, fatty structures, etc.), by presence of previous oncological therapy (e.g. thermal ablation, transarterial embolization, etc.) and/or by improper acoustic coupling of the LUS to the anatomical organ(s). To improve intraoperative information, a high quality three-dimensional ("3D") imaging modality (e.g., a computer-tomography modality (CT), a magnetic resonance imaging modality (MRI), cone-beam CT (CBCT), etc.) may be fused with the laparoscopic images whereby image registration may provide knowledge of tumor location depth, vicinity of critical anatomical structures, predefined resection plans and other additional information useful for the surgical operation.
Several surface based registration techniques are known in art of the present disclosure for fusing the 3D preoperative images with the intraoperative physical space. These techniques estimate an image-to-patient transformation matrix by matching a surface of the anatomy segmented from the 3D preoperative images with a sparse representation of the same surface acquired during the procedure.
Current techniques as known in the art for intraoperative surface scanning of soft tissue anatomical structure(s) during a surgical procedure utilize either a pre-calibrated tool pointer tracked by external position measurement systems (e.g., optical tracking, electromagnetic tracking, etc.), or external laser range scanners, or 3D multi-view reconstruction from endoscopic images. However, such intraoperative surface scanning is challenging due to unknown tissue properties and large tissue deformation.
More particularly, an accurate anatomy scanning using tracked tool pointers is time-consuming and highly user-dependent. The reproducibility of this method is also hindered by tool calibration and tracking system inaccuracies, errors introduced by the operator when maintaining both constant pressure and contact with the organ surface, and unknown deformation of the soft tissue anatomy during the acquisition.
On the other hand, laser scanning methods require external laser range scanners, which are difficult to integrate into minimally invasive surgical suite, and are inaccurate due to the reflective nature of the organ's surface.
Further a multi-view 3D reconstruction from endoscopic images requires a surface that presents either unique features or the texture and a surface that is not covered by blood.

Force sensed surface scanning systems, devices, controllers and method


A high speed computed tomography x-ray scanner using a plurality of x-ray generators. Each x-ray generator is scanned along a source path that is a segment of the scanner's source path such that each point in the source path is scanned by at least one tube. X-ray generators and detectors can be arranged in different scan planes depending on the available hardware so that a complete and near planar scan of a moving object can be assembled and reconstructed into an image of the object.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to computed tomographic (CT) scanners and, more particularly, to CT scanners that use electron rastered x-ray generators or other means of projecting an electron beam to different positions on the anode.
2. Description of the Related Art
For many applications, CT is currently a preferred method for scanning objects using x-rays. CT allows a two- or three-dimensional image of the interior of an object to be constructed without physical intrusion into the object. For example, CT can be used to develop a three-dimensional image of the contents of baggage without physically opening the baggage, as would be useful in airport security screening. CT scanners are also used for medical applications (for example to scan different parts of the body), in industrial applications (for example in rapid prototyping and reverse engineering), and for non-destructive testing (for example to detect defects of turbine blades and ceramics).
The fundamental principles of CT are well known. In one approach, a fan of x-rays is projected from a source point through the object onto a detector array. Each beam within the fan propagates through the object along a different trajectory in a scan plane and the detector element that collects that beam therefore collects information about the object along the trajectory. The information collected from propagation of the x-ray fan shall be referred to as a view. This process is repeated for many different source points (the locus of source points shall be referred to as the source path), generating multiple views of the object. The views are then combined using various reconstruction techniques, such as filtered back projection, to produce a two-dimensional image of the object. Most reconstruction algorithms require that each point to be reconstructed be traversed by x-rays propagating along all different angles. Rays 180 degrees apart are redundant, so in practice a set of x-rays spanning 180 degrees (rather than a full 360 degrees) is sufficient. The set of views that together provide rays of 180 degrees for each point is referred to as a full set of views. The source path of the scanner preferably is sufficient to provide a full set of views (either directly or through interpolation or other techniques).
The basic process for producing two-dimensional images can be extended to produce a three-dimensional image of the object. In a common approach, a full set of views is acquired at different "depths" along the object, each full set of views is used to produce a two-dimensional slice of the object at the corresponding depth, and the slices are then pieced together to form a three-dimensional image. This slice-based approach is generally preferred for industrial CT systems. In another common approach, views are acquired as the object is continuously translated relative to the CT scanner. As a result, rather than acquiring a full set of views at a fixed depth coordinate (as is the case in the slice-based approach), each view is acquired at a slightly different depth coordinate due to the object translation and interpolation can be used to fill in gaps as necessary. This method is often referred to as spiral or helical scanning and is generally preferred for medical applications. Regardless of whether slice or spiral scanning is used, the resulting three-dimensional images can be displayed using a wide range of conventional graphics techniques.
One drawback to conventional CT systems is their slow scanning speed for some applications. The number of views required for a full set and the number of full sets required per object depend on the desired resolution. For even moderate applications, a large number of views may be required to generate satisfactory images of an object. As a result, if views cannot be generated quickly enough, the time required to scan an object will be unacceptably long.
In a common conventional approach, a single x-ray source is used to project an x-ray fan from a source point to a detector array. The x-ray source and the detector array are mounted on a gantry on opposite sides of the object. The entire gantry is mechanically rotated about the object to generate the required views. At a typical rotation speed of two revolutions per second, several seconds may be required to scan a single object. If the objects are luggage being screened, for example, this typically results in a throughput of less than 500 bags per hour.
The inspection time can be reduced in a number of ways. In one conventional approach, the gantry is rotated at a higher frequency. However, the gantry can be large and rotating it at high speeds can introduce its own problems, not the least of which is the increased centrifugal force exerted on the gantry. The rotational frequency can be reduced by acquiring several views simultaneously using multiple detector arrays (e.g., multi-slice detectors). However, this requires multiplying the number of detectors that are used. For example, acquiring two views simultaneously typically requires twice as many detectors. This adds cost and complexity to the system.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,352,021 (Boyd, et al.) suggests another approach for generating views. This approach uses a stationary, semi-circular x-ray target that encompasses the object. An electron beam is scanned across the entire x-ray target. One scan of the electron beam across the entire x-ray target traverses the entire source path and generates a full set of views. The electron beam scanning is faster than mechanical rotation of a gantry so higher throughput can be achieved. However, the semi-circular x-ray target may be several feet in diameter for many common applications. As a result, a large electron beam assembly, accurate devices for deflecting the electron beam, and long propagation paths for the electron beam are typically required. This assembly also makes it difficult to scan objects on a conveyor belt because the tube assembly occupies a large volume on one end of the scanner. The long propagation paths also result in a large overall size for the equipment and increased sensitivity to electromagnetic noise, making it inappropriate for use in industrial environments such as airports. The large assembly, which must be kept under vacuum, is also difficult to make leak proof. In order to maintain vacuum, a vacuum pump system is required. The high scanning speed requires a very high tube power in order to achieve a useful x-ray flux.
The Boyd design also has the drawback that the arc of the x-ray source overlaps the arc of the detectors (i.e., source arc+detector arc is greater than 360 degrees), which means that the detector arc and source arc must be displaced in the depth direction. The angle from source to detector with respect to the plane defined by the source arc is referred to as the cone angle. The cone angle, if uncorrected, leads to inaccurate image reconstruction. U.S. Pat. No. 6,735,271 (Rand, et al.) teaches improvements of the Boyd machine by using an x-ray target and detector that are segments of a helix instead of segments of circles. The detector array and target arc are arranged such that active portions of the source and detector are diametrically opposed to each other. This design also provides multislice scanning of an object that is in constant motion at a critical velocity without having to interpolate spiral data.
In another suggested approach, a number of conventional x-ray tubes are positioned around the object and are then turned on and off in sequence. Turning on one x-ray tube activates one source point, generating one x-ray fan and one view of the object. Turning on the next x-ray tube would generate the next view, and so on. However, for many applications, conventional x-ray tubes cannot be spaced close enough to one another to meet the application's resolution requirements.
Some researchers are conducting research into small x-ray generators (nano-tubes). If these devices can be made sufficiently small, then a large number of them can be positioned around the object with an adequate spacing to obtain a high spatial resolution. However, this technology does not appear to be advanced enough for commercial application at this time at voltages greater than 60 kV, which makes this approach inappropriate for medical, baggage scanning and many industrial applications that may require significantly greater x-ray energies. This approach also requires complex systems to distribute power and cooling to the large number of x-ray tubes.
Thus, there is a need for CT scanners that are fast, can provide good spatial resolution, have the capability to scan a large aperture, are cost effective, and/or are able to withstand industrial environments with a compact footprint.

Computed tomographic scanner using rastered x-ray tubes


A supply roll of durable plastic wrapping material for use with a wrapping mechanism for wrapping cylindrical cotton modules formed in a module-forming chamber of a cotton harvester is made in lengths connected in end-to-end relationship with Velcro® hook and loop connections provided at opposite ends of each length and having sufficient holding strength for the leading length to remain connected to the following length during the wrapping process, but for permitting the leading length to separate from the following length when the supply roll is subjected to a braking force. Other Velcro® hook and loop connections are provided on the lengths of material for securing them about the module with their placement being such to permit modules from 5′ to 7.5′ in diameter to be wrapped using no more than two wraps of material. The lengths of wrapping material may be mechanically stripped from the modules at the gin and cleaned and mechanically reattached in end-to-end relationship and formed into rolls for reuse.

The current method of protecting cotton modules which have been compressed into large blocks, in a conventional manner, and left in the field is to place a protective tarp over the modules. These module tarps are removed and rolled up at the cotton gin where they are picked up by the growers and reused multiple times until the tarps wear out. The problem with this practice is that the tarps cover only the tops and sides of the modules leaving the bottoms of the modules subject to moisture and the like, which results in losses. To overcome this drawback, recent developments of module forming and wrapping devices have been incorporated in cotton harvesters which form cylindrical modules and wrap the entire peripheries of the modules with one-use plastic sheet material before discharging the modules onto the ground. While the entire circumference of the module is covered to protect it from rain, ground moisture and other contaminants, the wrapping material used requires each module to be wrapped with three to four layers of wrapping in order to hold the cotton together in the round module, which is problematic since the cost of this amount of wrapping material is quite expensive (currently about $35-$40), and, in addition, in fields with high yielding cotton it takes too long to wrap the module and the cotton harvester, which has an accumulator for holding cotton until the wrapping process is finished, has to stop or slow down to permit the module to be wrapped and ejected from the module-forming chamber since the accumulator fills up before the wrapping process is finished.
Another problem is that the wrapping material is supplied in rolls including separate Sections of wrapping material, each being of a length sufficient for wrapping a single Module, with the sections being connected end-to-end by folded adhesive joints which are pulled apart at the end of the wrapping process so as to expose adhesive on the tail of a wrapped section of wrapping material which causes the tail to sticks to a previously wrapped layer of the section of wrapping material so as to hold the wrapping material tight on the module. It has been found that the pre-applied adhesive, which must be weak enough to permit the tail to be separated from the wrapping material supply roll at the end of the wrapping process, is not strong enough to hold the tail in place in all conditions; especially When it is hot or there is contamination from leaf trash present U.S. Pat. No. 6,787,209 discloses a wrapping material supplied in rolls including sections of a length for wrapping a single module connected together end-to-end by pre-applied adhesive, in the above-described manner.
While it hat been proposed to apply Velcro® or Velcro®-type fastener strips to opposite ends of sections of plastic wrapping material for the purpose of securing the length of wrapping Material about a bale, it is not contemplated in these designs to use the Velcro® also as a connector for securing the lengths together in end-to-end relationship whereby the lengths can be gathered once used and reconnected together for reuse. Such a proposal is disclosed in UK Patent Application GB 2 221 841A, wherein, after use, the wrapping sections are gathered and connected together for reuse using adhesive strips. Another disclosure of Velcro® type material being used to secure plastic wrapping sections about a cylindrical module is found in Publication No. US 2006/0101624, dated 18 May 2006, wherein Velcro® is applied to discrete wrapping sections of one-use plastic wrapping material including net material, with the Velcro® including hooks or shapes designed for contacting underlying or overlying fiber elements of segments of the wrapping sections so as to fasten the wrapping material tightly around the circumference of the cylindrical item being wrapped.
The problem to be solved then is that of providing a reliable reusable plastic wrapping material suitable for wrapping cylindrical cotton modules.

Reusable wrapping material for a cylindrical cotton module