A retrofittable commode attachment device that automatically measures and charts electronically one or more types of health data. The device includes a base platform with a back portion, a left side portion, a right side portion and a front portion, a plurality of load cells on the left side of the base platform and a plurality of load cells on the right side of the base platform, at least one microphone, at least one camera, and at least two commode connector brackets that engage the horizontal support of a commode and the base platform is positioned below the toilet seat of the commode and is not part of the toilet seat.

In a Nursing Home/Skilled Nursing Facility/Health Care Center, residents have three ways in which they can go to the bathroom. A resident who still has quite a bit of mobility will go to the restroom on a normal/standard toilet. A resident who has a problem with mobility (mainly bending at the waist) will have to sit on an elevated toilet seat. This can be done in a few ways. The first way you can do this is by getting a toilet seat riser that drops over the existing toilet seat. The second way is to straddle a commode over the toilet and adjust it to the right height recommended by the doctor. The third way to use the restroom is via a commode by the resident's bed. If the resident is unable to travel very far it is a lot easier to transition the resident from the bed onto a commode which is at the same height as the bed.
A standard commode 10 without any device/system of the present disclosure is generally shown in FIG. 1. An ordinary commode typically has upright support legs 12, a horizontal support cross bar or bars 14, a bucket support frame 16 that holds and suspends a urine and bowel movement collection bucket 20. A chute 18 may be employed too. Existing commodes typically have a toilet seat 22 and toilet lid 24. They further typically contain handles 26 and often rubber slip resistant feet 28.
When a resident goes to the bathroom next to the bed, the stool and urine will be collected in a bucket. Once the resident is finished a CNA (Certified Nursing Assistant) will come collect the bucket and empty it in the toilet.
The current typical way medical professionals chart the bowel and bladder process is through manual observation by the CNA. When a CNA is charting for bowel movements they are normally answering pre-selected yes or no questions. When a new resident of a care facility is added to the care facility a bowel and bladder nurse determines what he/she wants to keep tabs on regarding the new resident. As a result, more often than not, if the right question or questions are not asked signs of health problems often go missed. There is really no current way a CNA today could chart and keep track of the numerous variables measured by the systems and devices of the present disclosure in each visit for every resident. Even in the unlikely event the data is attempted to be captured, normally CNAs or direct care staff members will chart this data when it's more convenient instead of when it would be more accurate to do so—right after a visit. This manual charting process has worked for a while but it's not a scalable solution. Additionally, there are at least two things wrong with this process. First, CNAs are not trained to a national standard and are not very well educated when it comes to understanding what goes on inside the toilet bowl. Second, CNAs do not have enough time to be present at each bathroom event. This lack of time means events go missed and most events are logged over 30 minutes after being observed and/or too quickly/not carefully, which causes inaccuracies.
The individuals who really understand what is going on inside the toilet bowl are the bowel and bladder nurse, the clinicians, the director of nursing, not the typical CNA. The industry understands the bowel and urinary data is important. They train certain people to understand what the data and information means, but they are often relying on individuals who are not trained and/or overworked to attempt to accurately obtain this data and log it in a timely manner. In reality the current process results in getting subjective and/or incomplete data instead of solid data and real analytics. As a result, data is often not used or might be ignored by health professionals who might dismiss it as unreliable. This may even lead to residents of care facilities in particular, but users in general, to have unnecessary emergency room visits and/or be given unnecessary medication or other unnecessary and/or missed medical attention occurs.

Retrofittable and portable commode and systems for detecting, tracking, and alerting health changes


Ultrasound catheter devices and methods provide enhanced disruption of blood vessel obstructions. Generally, ultrasound catheters include an elongate flexible catheter body with one or more lumens, an ultrasound transmission member extending longitudinally through the catheter body lumen and, in some embodiments, a guidewire tube extending through the lumen. A distal head for disrupting occlusions is coupled with the distal end of the ultrasound transmission member and is positioned adjacent the distal end of the catheter body. Some embodiments include improved features such as a bend in the catheter body for enhancing positioning and/or advancement of the catheter.

The present invention pertains to medical equipment, and more particularly, to a therapeutic ultrasound system for ablating obstructions within tubular anatomical structures such as blood vessels. The ultrasound system includes a protective feature that minimizes the introduction of debris into the patient's vasculature if the ultrasound transmission member were to break, fracture or become dislodged during a medical procedure.
The present invention relates generally to medical devices and methods. More specifically, the present invention relates to ultrasound catheter devices, methods for making the devices, and methods for using the devices to disrupt blood vessel occlusions.
Catheters employing various types of ultrasound transmitting members have been successfully used to ablate or otherwise disrupt obstructions in blood vessels. Specifically, ablation of atherosclerotic plaque or thromboembolic obstructions from peripheral blood vessels such as the femoral arteries has been particularly successful. To disrupt occlusions of small blood vessels, such as coronary arteries or peripheral vessels, ultrasound catheters typically have configurations—size, flexibility, shape and the like—which allow for their advancement through the tortuous vasculature of the aortic arch, coronary tree, peripheral vasculature or other similarly narrow vessels.
Typically, an ultrasound catheter transmits energy from an ultrasound transducer through a transducer horn and then a transmission member, such as a wire, to a distal tip or distal head. Ultrasound energy propagates through the transmission member as a sinusoidal wave to cause the distal head to vibrate. Such vibrational energy is typically utilized to ablate or otherwise disrupt vascular obstructions. Various ultrasonic catheter devices have been developed for use in ablating or otherwise removing obstructive material from blood vessels. For example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,267,954 and 5,380,274, issued to the inventor of the present invention and hereby incorporated by reference, describe ultrasound catheter devices for removing occlusions. While many ultrasound catheters have been developed, however, improvements are still being pursued.
To effectively reach various sites for treatment of intravascular occlusions, ultrasound catheters often have lengths of about 150 cm or longer. To reach some sites, such as arterial side-branches, it is often necessary to form a bend in the ultrasound catheter. Such bends are often crudely made in an operating room, vascular suite or other setting by a surgeon, cardiologist, interventional radiologist or other physician manually bending the catheter with pliers, surgical forceps or some other instrument. This technique has several drawbacks. First, it is inaccurate and does not always result in a bend at a desired location along the catheter or in a bend having a desired angle. Second, because the user bends the catheter when the catheter is already assembled, with the transmission member already in place, a strain is placed on the transmission member by the bending process. The transmission member is typically bent to as acute of an angle as the catheter body is bent, and the bending process itself stresses the transmission member. Even slight stresses placed on the transmission member by such a bending procedure may cause the transmission member to break prematurely, leading to a reduced usable life for the ultrasound catheter. This susceptibility for premature breakage is compounded by the fact that currently available ultrasonic transmission wires typically break toward their distal ends, where the cross-sectional areas of the wires become smaller.
Therefore, a need exists for ultrasound catheter devices and methods for making and using such devices that include at least one bend for enhancing positioning and/or advancement of the catheter in a blood vessel. Ideally, such catheter devices would be durable enough to last longer than a conventional ultrasound catheter that is hand-bent by a surgeon or other user immediately before use. Ultrasound catheters may also benefit from additional improvements, such as over-the-wire configurations, improved configurations of a distal head of the catheter, catheters that allow for various modes of operation, catheters with enhanced lubricity and the like. At least some of these objectives will be met by the present invention.

Ultrasound catheter and methods for making and using same


The total internal reflection modulator has an electrode array distributed across an area of the reflecting surface of the electro-optic material. The electrode array has multiple sets of electrodes forming an outer rectangle interdigitated with at least one reference set of electrodes forming a inner diamond. A diamond-shaped area with no electrodes is preferably symmetrically within the inner electrodes of the electrode array on the reflecting surface. The uniform voltage difference between the electrodes and the varying lengths of the electrodes creates a fringe electrical field in the electro-optical material and an optical phase grating to diffract the incident light on the reflecting surface. The zero order nondiffracted light becomes the output beam. The optical phase grating will control the incident beam's optical profile at the modulator (near field) and hence the imaged spot size at a focus at the image plane (far field).. Alternatively, the total internal reflection modulator can have a diamond-shaped interdigitated electrode pattern within a rectangular shaped area with no electrodes. Using Schlieren optics, the non-zero order diffracted beam becomes the output beam with a modulated optical beam profile.

This invention relates to a total internal reflection (TIR) electro-optic modulator, and, more particularly, to a total internal reflection modulator for multiple axis and asymmetrical optical beam profile modulation.
Electro-optical devices have progressed in the art to provide a myriad of structures that operate on an electro-optic effect in a crystalline waveguide medium. Voltages are applied to an electrode array on the surface of the medium. These applied voltages cause the formation of a phase pattern in the medium which deflects and/or focuses the light wave propagating through the medium. This phenomenon occurs because an electric field, established in the medium by the voltages applied to the electrodes, varies the index of refraction of the medium sufficiently to change the relative phase of portions of the light wavefront as it propagates through the medium.
Total internal reflection electro-optic modulating devices have come into prominence and attention. In these devices, a set of interdigitated electrodes are employed on a major surface of the electro-optic medium to induce fringe electric fields into the electro-optic medium. Incident light is totally internally reflected from the major surface achieving interaction with fringe electric fields as the light passes near the surface of the material at close to grazing incidence.
More recently, it has been suggested to individually address alternate sets of electrodes in the total internal reflection electro-optic modulators. Voltages are applied to one set of interdigitated electrodes while the other set of interdigitated electrodes remain at a reference voltage level, such as ground, to produce a phase modulation of the light beam at the location of each addressed electrode. By applying a voltage difference to a pair of electrodes, the local magnitude of the electrical fringe field between them can be controlled and varied to permit deflection of the light to a predetermined point at an image plane.
Total internal reflection electro-optic modulators are used for wavelength separation of the incident light beam (U.S. Pat. No. 4,125,318), to form a diffraction pattern of a incoherent, unpolarized, nonconvergent, incident light beam (U.S. Pat. No. 3,958,862), as an electro-optic scanning device for deflection of a light beam across an image plane (U.S. Pat. No. 4,386,827, this patent being assigned to the assignee herein) or to convert an electronic signal pattern into a corresponding light intensity profile (U.S. Pat. No. 4,281,904).
It is known that changing an aperture size will change the profile of an incident light beam. Thus, tilting an aperture is a mechanical means of modulating a beam profile, and hence spot size of a light beam at an image plane. Typically, a sliding or rotating variable neutral density wedge is used to modulate the optical beam profile.
However, nonmechanical means, preferably electronic means, are needed to modulate an optical beam profile within an electronic optical device. The availability of electronic means to modify an optical beam will greatly increase the speed of response and thus the information bandwidth of the modulation channel. Electronic means of optical beam profile modulation will enable the potential of real time beam profile variation by computer control.
One recent total internal reflection modulator (U.S. Pat. No. 5,153,770) has the interdigitated electrodes of an electrode array extending inward from a rectangular-shaped outer electrode conducting block and outward from a diamond-shaped inner electrode conducting block. A diamond-shaped area with no electrodes is surrounded by the electrode array on the reflecting surface of the modulator. The uniform voltage difference between the electrodes and the varying lengths of the electrodes from the diamond within the rectangle pattern of the array will create a fringe electric field in the electro-optical material and an optical phase grating to diffract the incident light on the reflecting surface. The zero order nondiffracted light from the array and the reflected light from the non-electroded area becomes the modulated output beam. An alternate embodiment of that total internal reflection modulator has a diamond-shaped interdigitated electrode pattern within a rectangular shaped area with no electrodes. Using Schlieren optics, the non-zero order diffracted beam becomes the output beam with a modulated optical beam profile. However, these devices only modulate the optical beam profile along one axis and can only modulate the beam symmetrically.
It is an object of this invention therefore to provide a novel total internal reflection electro-optic modulator to modulate an optical beam profile along more than one axis.
It is another object of this invention to provide a total internal reflection electro-optic modulator to asymmetrically modulate an optical beam profile.
It is yet another object of this invention to provide a total internal reflection electro-optic modulator wherein the electrodes in a multiple electrode array are not individually addressable but the voltage for each set of electrodes is nonetheless varied.

Total internal reflection electro-optic modulator for multiple axis and asymmetric beam profile modulation


Devices and materials containing certain stable, polycyclic aromatic compounds exhibit sensible, second order nonlinear optical effects. In general, useful polycyclic aromatic compounds possess electron-donating and electron-withdrawing chemical functionality but no center of inversion symmetry on either the molecular or crystalline unit cell level.

There has been a growing interest over the last decade in the nonlinear optical properties of conjugated organic and polymeric materials having delocalized .pi.-electron distributions. Nonlinear optical properties are the basis of newly emerging photonics technologies in which light works with, or even replaces, electrons in applications traditionally carried out by microelectronics. Organic materials are advantageous in photonics because organic molecular design and synthesis is flexible, and crystalline and thin-film phases are relatively easy to prepare.
Nonlinear optical responses can, in general, be classified as resonant or non-resonant, depending upon how close the optical frequencies employed are to the natural absorption frequencies of the material. Non-resonant, second-order processes, in which the response is proportional to the square of applied electric fields, arise only in materials that are noncentrosymmetric and posses both a suitably delocalized .pi.-electronic system and a large dipole moment. Second-order processes include second-harmonic generation, in which a material generates light at twice the frequency of the incident light, and the electrooptic effect, wherein an applied electric field changes the refractive index of the material and, therefore, alters the propagation properties of the incident light.
Compounds having nonlinear optical properties typically find use as single crystals or films layered upon a substrate, as main chains or side chains appended to a polymer core, or as "guests" dispersed in "host" polymers such as polyimides. The fabrication of semiconductors and other devices incorporating these structures can subject the nonlinear optical compound to temperatures on the order of -40.degree. C. to about 320.degree. C. These thermal requirements cannot be met by most known nonlinear optical compounds. The molecular units of crystals and films formed from such compounds typically are bound by relatively weak Van der Waals forces. Consequently, these crystals and films lack thermal and mechanical strength, and are highly susceptible to chemical attack and dissociation. For example, crystals of 2-methyl-4-nitroaniline, which are known to exhibit considerable nonlinearity, are so weakly bound that they actually sublime at room temperature.
Accordingly, there exists a need in the art for compounds that exhibit nonlinear optical properties yet can withstand semiconductor processing conditions. In particular, there is a need for compounds that are stable to high temperatures without detriment to their nonlinear optical coefficients.

Polycyclic aromatic compounds having nonlinear optical properties

The Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania


A sensor lighting control system automatically controls lighting on a home automation network without creating unnecessary network traffic. A sensor module uses the light level to determine when a command to turn the light ON should be resent over the network.

Communication among low-cost devices is useful in many applications. For example, in a home environment, room occupancy sensors, light switches, lamp dimmers, and a gateway to the Internet can all work together if they are in communication. A room in a home could be illuminated when people are present, or else an alarm could be sounded, depending on conditions established by a program running on a remote intelligent device.

Sensor lighting control systems and methods


The extrusion head for plastics extruders includes a die head, which is disposed axially in the extrusion direction downstream from a jaw plate. The die head is divided in an at least approximately radial direction into a main part and an orifice part and the cones of the orifice part can be fixed independently of one another at the respectively adjacent cones of the main part and exchanged for other cones in a rapid operation.

The invention relates to an extrusion head for plastics extruders with a die head, which is disposed axially in the extrusion direction downstream from a jaw plate and formed by an outer cone and an inner cone.
If after a product is extruded, the plastics extruder is to be used for the extrusion of a different product, particularly one having different dimensions, it is necessary to change either the entire extrusion head, which is extremely heavy and difficult to handle, or at least the die head of the extrusion head. In both cases, a considerable effort is involved and the extruder generally has to be stopped for several hours. In order to avoid that the plastic material, which is in the extruder and was used for the preceding production, solidifies and clogs the units of the extruder in contact with the plastic material and even makes them inoperable, the extruder, before the actual exchanging process, must be operated with a special plastics composition, which is not flammable, does not degrade and cannot solidify and, in addition, has advantageous heating and thermal conductivity properties.


An improved jacket material for insulated electric cable wherein the jacket contains one or more additives of an ion exchange resin and/or an ionic scavenging compound for neutralizing or capturing ionic impurities.

The present invention relates generally to improved jackets for insulated electric cables, and more particularly to jacket materials containing additives that effectively remove or inhibit the passage of ionic impurities into the insulation of the cable which can weaken the insulative properties.
Electric cables have been used extensively since about 1960 and were originally intended to be serviceable for a period in excess of 40 years. However, there have been premature failures of these cables, the major cause of which has been attributed to the formation of water trees, which are dendritic structures within the insulative layers that considerably weaken the dielectric properties of the cable insulating materials. The points of initiation of the water trees seem to be defects in the insulation such as impurities, aggregated admixtures, voids, gaps, cracks or boundary surfaces. While the mechanism of water tree formation is not fully understood, some studies have demonstrated that ionic impurities contained in groundwater are major promoters of water treeing. Insulated cables typically have an outer jacket which provides protection against physical damage and water diffusion into the insulation when the cable is buried. However, the many commonly used cable jacket materials still apparently do not adequately protect the insulation materials from water treeing.
There have been several attempts to solve this problem. In some cases a thin metal water barrier, typically made of lead or aluminum is placed between the jacket and the insulation shield. While such metal barriers prevent the ingress of water, they add considerably to the manufacturing cost of the cable. Moreover the use of metal barriers generates a set of technical problems, including metal corrosion and/or cracking due to thermal expansion and contraction. The metal barriers also add significant weight to the cable. For these reasons, use of a metal water barrier beneath the jacket has not been widely accepted.
A typical cable comprises a conductor core, surrounded by a conductor shield (usually a thin layer of semiconducting material which is compatible with the conductor), followed by insulating material, a second shield (which is another layer of semiconducting material used to cover and protect the cable insulation), a set of helically applied copper conductors or tapes (used as a ground or neutral conductor), then a jacket, usually extruded over the copper conductors, to impede the ingress of water. As another proposed solution for protecting cables, the conductor strands may be treated with water blocking compounds such as polymeric sealants. However, the long term effectiveness of these compounds for use for that purpose is not known.
The present invention provides an improved jacket which prevents or significantly retards the ingress of harmful ionic impurities from passing through the jacket into the insulation materials, thereby preventing or impeding the growth of water trees.


A toy riding apparatus is disclosed which includes a base, which base includes a plurality of support posts extending upwardly from the base, a rider support device, and a plurality of elastomeric suspension bands. Each of the bands is connected between the rider support device and one of the plurality of support posts such that the rider support device is suspended from the support posts by the bands.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to children's toys and amusement devices. More particularly, the present invention relates to toy riding devices such as rocking horses.
2. Description of the Invention's Background
Many different types of rocking or riding toys have been developed for children. For example, U.S. Pat. No. Des. 290,474 to Tepper discloses an ornamental design for a rocking seahorse safety ring, and U.S. Pat. No. Des. 275,975 to Ciganko discloses an ornamental design for a rocking toy. In both the Tepper and the Ciganko design patents, however, the riding motion which is possible with the disclosed riding apparatuses is defined solely by rigid elements, such that the range of possible riding motion is restricted to one repeating path and the riding apparatuses are not as enjoyable to ride as apparatuses with more freedom of riding movement.
Other rocking or riding toys have been developed which allow a rider more freedom of movement. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 2,937,691 to Horgan discloses a riding toy which includes a frame on which a simulated horse is mounted by means of four coil springs. The frame includes four uprights to which the springs are connected. U.S. Pat. No. 2,756,051 to Shone discloses a hobby horse which includes a base made of hollow tubing and a carriage which is connected to the base by four coil springs. U.S. Pat. No. 3,155,390 to Moore, et al. discloses a hobby horse which includes a frame having four uprights, and a horse which is connected to the frame by means of four coil springs. U.S. Pat. No. 3,093,356 to Buyalos, Jr. discloses a hobby horse base which includes four uprights which support a hobby horse through four laterally protruding pins and four heavy duty coil springs. Suction cups are used to anchor the hobby horse base to the floor. U.S. Pat. No. Des. 165,491 discloses an ornamental design for a hobby horse.
U.S. Pat. No. 2,971,758 to Zimmers discloses a rotatable rocking toy which includes a body of a horse to which are secured transverse support members, a rotatable upper frame having upwardly diverging legs, and coil springs hooked to the support members and the legs. U.S. Pat. No. 2,915,312 to Barthel discloses a hobby horse having a base, end supports, a hollow horse's body mounted on spaced longitudinal bars, and springs secured to the end supports and the longitudinal bars. Also, U.S. Pat. No. 2,882,050 to Deady discloses a resiliently supported rider-actuated apparatus which includes a hobby horse, bolts connected to the hobby horse, and springs which are connected between the bolts and two pairs of standards. U.S. Pat. No. 3,180,640 to Lawrence discloses a revolving rocking horse which includes a molded horse body having a post extending downwardly therefrom to a pair of spring brackets, and springs which interconnect the outer apices of the spring brackets to upturned ends of a frame.
All of these riding or rocking toys utilize coil springs to connect a rocking horse or hobby horse to a base or frame and keep it suspended therefrom, and they thus all allow to at least some extent a greater freedom of riding motion than the rocking toys of the Tepper and Ciganko design patents. However, the addition of coil springs to riding and rocking toys has also added disadvantages to the toys. The coils of a coil spring naturally become spaced apart when the ends of the coil spring are pulled apart, i.e., when the coil spring is tensioned, and then quickly return to positions immediately adjacent one another when the ends thereof move back towards one another, i.e., when tension is released. Accordingly, the use of coil springs in a riding or rocking toy make it easy for a child's fingers or toes to be pinched between adjacent coils of a coil spring. In addition, since the coil springs are made of metal, they tend to squeak after they have been used for a period of time, which can make riding the toy a less desirable experience. The use of coil springs is also disadvantageous because coil springs tend to plastically deform relatively easily when they are subjected to prolonged cyclical stress, which can contribute to a ride which includes too much freedom of movement and thus feels unnatural.
In view of the above, it is an object of the present invention to provide an improved toy riding apparatus which is readily capable of being ridden by a child.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a toy riding apparatus which provides an extended range of riding motion.
A further object of the present invention is to provide a toy riding apparatus which presents a relatively reduced opportunity for a rider to be pinched by the apparatus.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a toy riding apparatus which maintains a relatively quiet ride over time.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a toy riding apparatus which maintains a ride having a relatively natural feel over time.


A method and apparatus for personalizing information content for delivery to a requesting user is provided. With the method and apparatus, a set of actions needed to retrieve and organize requested content for a particular content request are selected and executed based on the concept of classifying the current situation, e.g., the requesting user attributes and the current system setting, along any number of predefined dimensions. The definition of what dimensions of classification there are and what distinctions are drawn during the process of classification is defined by the business application administrator. Once a classification definition is in place, it may be used and reused, along with other classifications, to be associated with actions that select the appropriate content. In order to describe what actions to take under a variety of business conditions, an administrator chooses a classifier to be used to assess the business situation, selects the relevant classifications and associates one or more actions with each classification to be invoked by a selector.

1. Technical Field
The present invention relates generally to an improved data processing system and in particular to an improved method and apparatus for managing a business system using classifications. Still more particularly, the present invention relates to an apparatus and method for specifying the dynamic content to be associated with a user of an application, based on characteristics of the user.
2. Description of Related Art
As businesses increasingly migrate to the Internet, the ability to provide users with an interactive experience that is interesting and easily interfaced with has become more important. Some business Web sites, for example, fail to even attract the casual visitor while others may attract the casual visitor but fail to retain them as the Web site may be too cumbersome for the casual visitor to use. These failures to attract and keep the casual visitor result in lost business opportunities.
One way in which businesses attempt to combat this problem is to make their Web sites and Internet applications more personalized to the particular user using information that is known or gathered and retained about the user and his encounter with the business application. The conventional way in which this personalization is performed is using a decision engine that takes user information and generates personalized content and/or function. The decision engine is frequently a rules engine that makes use of a plurality of nested if-then-do decision rules to determine what content/functions should be provided to the particular user.
When a personalization task is to be performed using this conventional decision engine, all of the rules in the decision engine must be executed. The ones whose if part evaluates to true, result in the do part being executed. Those that evaluate to false are ignored. The do part of the final rule in the chain frequently selects, orders or filters content, or performs some function, usually asynchronously, such as sending an acknowledgement electronic mail, or the like. In some implementations, the do parts may change the conditions tested in the if parts, causing the set of rules to be iteratively recalculated.
With the above approach, it is never very clear which of the actions are going to be taken at any given time, given a set of non-overlapping circumstances. While some of the ambiguity could be resolved by combining sets of conditions into compound if parts, this frequently yields an explosion in the number of rules. For example, Rule 1 specifies what to do when parts a, b, c are all true; Rule 2 specifies what to do when parts a and b are true, but part c is false; Rule 3 specifies what to do when part a and c are true, but part b is false, and so on.
Because it is not very clear which of the actions are going to be taken at any given time, if business conditions change and a change to the decision engine is required, it becomes very difficult to determine which decisions need to be changed. If further becomes difficult to determine how the change in one decision will affect other decisions in the decision engine. Thus, an analyst is required to trace all of the possible decisions to determine if the decision engine will work properly under all possible conditions.
Furthermore, with the conventional decision engine, all of the rules in a rule set are at least partially executed (their if parts), as described above, even when many of the conditions do not remotely apply. This results in a performance degradation because rules that will result in a false determination will be executed and computing cycles will be wasted.
Thus, it would be beneficial to have a method and apparatus for performing personalization based on classification in which changes in decision rules may be performed relatively effortlessly and in which only the decisions necessary for a particular classification are executed.

Method and apparatus for performing personalization based on classification

International Business Machines Corporation


A method for verifying an integrated circuit comprising components connected by connections, the integrated circuit being defined by “physical” and “schematic” representations, comprising the steps of: establishing an annotated physical description of the circuit which enables associating with each connection of the schematic representation several polygons of the physical representation forming a track; defining at least one type of electric signal capable of propagating on the connections; defining, for each signal type, rules to be verified by each track on which the considered type of signal can propagate, specific geometric features of a given track and/or features relative to the positioning of a given track with respect to other tracks having to be verified for each rule; determining, for each connection, whether the tracks associated with the studied connections verify the rules corresponding to the signal types capable of propagating on each connection.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to methods for verifying an integrated circuit prior to its manufacturing.
2. Discussion of the Related Art
The manufacturing of an integrated circuit is performed based on a set of masks. Each mask generally comprises a set of polygons which enable defining semiconductor areas, insulating areas, transistor gates, conductive tracks, and other elements of the integrated circuit. The set of masks corresponding to an integrated circuit is formed from a "physical" representation of the circuit on which are defined a set of polygons of various types from which it is possible to manufacture all the masks.
The polygons defined on a physical representation of an integrated circuit correspond to an assembly of interconnected components connected to input/output pads by electric connections. The components and the connections are generally explicitly defined in a "schematic" representation of the integrated circuit. Each component and each connection of the schematic representation corresponds to a set of polygons defined on the physical representation. Each set of polygons associated with a connection will be called a track hereafter.
FIG. 1 is an example of a schematic representation of an integrated circuit, and more specifically of a SRAM point corresponding to a basic element of a SRAM. The SRAM point comprises two looped inverters I1 and I2, the output of one inverter being connected to the input of the other one. The SRAM point further comprises two NMOS access transistors Ta1 and Ta2 controlled by a word line WL. Transistor Ta1 is placed between the output of inverter I1 and a bit line BL. Transistor Ta2 is placed between the output of inverter 12 and a bit line BLN.
FIG. 2 is a schematic representation of an inverter such as inverters I1 and I2. An inverter comprises a PMOS transistor P1 and an NMOS transistor N1 in series between a power supply Vdd and a ground GND. The gates of transistors P1 and N1 are connected to an input pad A. The drains of transistors P1 and N1 are connected to an output pad Z.
FIG. 3 is an example of a physical representation of a SRAM point corresponding to the above-described electric representation. This physical representation substantially corresponds to a top view of the integrated circuit masks such as it could be seen on a display screen and thus, what is at the top of the drawing is above what is at the bottom of the drawing. Similarly, what is described as being horizontal or vertical refers to an on-screen representation. Such considerations will be valid for all the physical representations described hereafter. Each transistor is represented by an active area and a gate area intersecting perpendicularly. Metal areas enable interconnecting active areas and/or gate areas.
Two rectangular active areas 1 and 2 are placed horizontally, area 1 being at the top and area 2 at the bottom of FIG. 3. Two rectangular active areas 3 and 4 are placed horizontally on each side of active area 2. Two gate areas 5 and 6 substantially having the shape of vertical tracks cut active areas 1 and 2 perpendicularly, areas 5 and 6 being respectively placed to the left and to the right. Two gate areas 7 and 8 substantially having the shape of short vertical tracks cut active areas 3 and 4. Active area 1 is P-type doped and active areas 2, 3, and 4 are N-type doped.
The portion of active area 1 located between gate areas 5 and 6 forms the source of the PMOS transistors of each of inverters I1 and I2. The portions of active area 1 located on either side of gate areas 5 and 6 form the drains of the PMOS transistors of inverters I1 and I2. Similarly, the portion of active area 2 located between gate areas 5 and 6 forms the source of the NMOS transistors of each of inverters I1 and I2. The portions of active area 2 located on either side of gate areas 5 and 6 form the drains of the NMOS transistors of inverters I1 and I2. The portions of active areas 3 and 4 located on either side of gate areas 7 and 8 form source/drain areas of access transistors Ta1 and Ta2.
Two rail-shaped horizontal metal areas 10 and 11 are respectively placed above and under active areas 1, 2, 3 and gate areas 5, 6, 7, and 8. Areas 10 and 11 are intended to be respectively connected to power supply Vdd and to ground GND. A metal area 12 connects track 10 (Vdd) to the portion of active area 1 forming the source of the PMOS transistors. A metal area 13 connects track 11 (GND) to the portion of active area 2 forming the source of the NMOS transistors. A metal area 14 connects the left-hand portions of active areas 1 and 2 corresponding to drain areas. Similarly, a metal area 15 connects the right-hand portions of active areas 1 and 2 corresponding to drain areas. Two metal areas 16 and 17 connect metal areas 14 and 15 respectively to gate areas 6 and 5. A metal area 18 connects the portions of active source/drain areas 2 and 3 located next to each other. Similarly, a metal area 19 connects the portions of active source/drain areas 2 and 4 located next to each other. The lateral portions of active areas 3 and 4 are respectively connected to two metal areas 20 and 21 corresponding to bit lines BL and BLN. Gate areas 7 and 8 are respectively connected to two metal areas 22 and 23 corresponding to word lines WL and WLN. Each connection between a metal area and an active area or a gate area is ensured by a conductive via represented by a cross placed in a square.
The existing methods for verifying an integrated circuit defined by a physical representation and a schematic representation such as described hereabove generally comprise the next three steps.
A first step consists of verifying the circuit functionality, this being generally performed by means of an electric simulation performed based on the schematic representation of the circuit. In an electric simulation, a series of states corresponding to a series of stimuli applied on the circuit inputs is defined based on an initial electric state of the circuit. For each state of the circuit, the electric voltage, or the logic level "0" or "1", of each of the circuit connections, is defined. If necessary, especially in the case of so-called "analog" circuits, the value of the input or output currents of each of the circuit components is also determined. The analysis of the series of circuit states obtained after simulation enables verifying the circuit functionality.
A second step consists of verifying that the circuit such as defined by the physical representation fulfils all manufacturing constraints. This second step gathers several verifications known as DRC, DFM, and ERC (Design Rule Check, Design For Manufacturing, and Electrical Rule Check) and mainly consists of verifying the geometric features of each polygon (width, surface area, . . . ) and the intervals between the various polygons of the physical representation of the circuit.
A third step, known as the LVS step (Layout Versus Schematic), consists of verifying that all the polygons of the physical representation actually correspond to the components and connections of the schematic representation. For this purpose, a first list of components and of connections is "extracted" from the physical representation by performing a recognition of polygon groups, each corresponding either to a known component type, or to a connection. As an example, the association of a perpendicularly-intersecting active area and of gate area is recognized as defining a transistor. In parallel, a second list of components and of connections is established based on the schematic representation. It is then verified that the two lists do comprise the same components and identical connections between the various components.
Such existing integrated circuit verification methods do not enable detecting certain weaknesses of a circuit manufactured according to the most recent methods. The possibly weaknesses of a "modern" circuit are of various natures and each type of weakness generates a malfunction of the circuit in specific circuit use conditions. When the circuit is used in conditions likely to "reveal" certain weaknesses of the circuit, the most current phenomena that can occur at the circuit level are the following.
A known phenomenon is the electromigration of one or several metal areas which generally results in a cutting of the metal tracks. The potential track electromigration risks are all the greater as the size and the complexity of the circuits is greater. No circuit verification method enables detecting areas at risk. Only the designer's vigilance can avoid this type of problem.
Another known phenomenon is the modification of the voltage, in other words, a state switching, of a metal track due to a stray capacitive coupling between two metal tracks.
Another known phenomenon is the local supply voltage decrease, in portions of a circuit where many components simultaneously conduct strong electric currents, the voltage decrease being proportional to the total requested current and to the resistance of the supply tracks. This phenomenon is generally observed in so-called synchronous circuits for which the latch registers all switch at the same moment. A local decrease in the power supply results in a poor operation of the under-supplied cells.
Certain weak areas likely to cause the occurrence of the last two above-mentioned phenomena can be partially detected by performing an electric simulation of the circuit based on a "improved" schematic representation comprising parasitic components (resistors, capacitors, coils) determined from the physical representation of the circuit and especially from all the conductive areas corresponding to the various connections defined in the schematic representation. However, current methods for extracting all these parasitic components do not enable determining with a sufficient accuracy the resistive, capacitive, and inductive values of the parasitic components, and this, all the more as the circuit size is large and as the physical representation is organized in several hierarchical levels. Further, the size of the "improved" schematic representation obtained after extraction of the parasitic components is generally from two to three times as high as the schematic base representation and its electric simulation may be very long and require many computer resources. The simulation difficulty then results in limiting the number of tested stimuli, which strongly decreases the possibilities of detecting possible weaknesses. Further, even if wide hardware and time resources are available, the definition of "exhaustive" stimuli enabling testing all the cases of use often appears to be impossible.
The above-mentioned problems appear when a metal track has a shape or a positioning with respect to the other tracks which is inappropriate to its use. A problem may occur on a track, for example, in the case where the current density running through it is too high or in the case where the frequency of the electric signal running through it or running through a close track is too high.


The present invention provides a combination of carbon-13 and deuterium metabolic tracers and methods that when used in conjunction with nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, provide a measurement of metabolic fluxes in the target organisms. The tracers of the present invention may be taken orally during the same clinical exam. The metabolic information can be derived from blood, urine or other fluids to provide a comprehensive profile of glucogenic metabolism. The subject matter of the present invention may be applied to the study of metabolic dysfunction related to obesity, diabetes, HIV infection and a variety of other disease conditions.

Since the majority of gluconeogenic carbons are derived from phosphoenolpyruvate (PEP) via the Krebs TCA cycle, hepatic glucose production is also intimately linked to acetyl-CoA oxidation and energy production. Together, these biochemical pathways form a metabolic network, as depicted in FIG. 1, that is highly responsive to matching the external demand for glucose with the availability of glycogen, gluconeogenic precursors and energy. Measurements of carbon flux through this network typically combine an isotope dilution measurement of endogenous glucose production (GP) with additional tracer measurements of the contributing pathways.
As one example, GP in fasting humans has been determined by analysis of the 2H-enrichment at glucose C6 using the hexamethylenetetramine (HMT) method and mass spectrometry after infusion of [6,6-2H2] glucose at a known rate. It is possible to also give oral 2H2O and measure the contribution of gluconeogenesis to glucose production from 2H-enrichments at glucose C5 versus C2 after parallel selective degradations of plasma glucose and analysis by mass spectroscopy. However, the contributions of glycerol versus TCA cycle intermediates to gluconeogenesis cannot be differentiated by this method nor can 13C tracers be combined with 2H tracers using the HMT method.
13C tracers have also been used to measure metabolic flux through the network. Endogenous glucose production has been monitored with [U—13C6] glucose by following disappearance of the parent m+6 isotopomer from plasma glucose. Additional metabolic information has been derived from partially-labeled glucose molecules generated by recycling of 13C-label with this method. However, the extent to which the recycled label can be reliably analyzed and related to rates of gluconeogenesis and TCA cycle flux is questionable.
Others have used tracers like [3-13C] lactate that enter at the level of the TCA cycle along with a separate tracer for measuring endogenous glucose production. Neither [U—13C6]glucose or [3-13C]lactate tracers, however, can differentiate glucose produced from glycogen, glycerol or the TCA cycle.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Measurement of gluconeogenesis and intermediary metabolism using stable isotopes

Board of Regents, The University of Texas System


There is provided a toner for developing a latent electrostatic image, obtained by a method containing: ejecting a toner composition fluid from an ejection hole so as to make the toner composition fluid into droplets; and solidifying the droplets in an atomizing space so as to form solid particles, wherein the toner composition fluid contains at least a colorant formed by reacting a polymer containing 10 mol % or more of a monomer unit having a sulfonic acid group or a salt thereof, or a monomer unit having a sulfuric acid group or a salt thereof as a constitutional unit, and a basic dye.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a toner for developing latent electrostatic images formed by electrophotography, electrostatic recording, electrostatic printing, etc., method for producing the same, and apparatus for producing the same, and a developer, toner container, process cartridge, image forming method and image forming apparatus using such toner.
2. Description of the Related Art
The electrophotographic method generally contains a latent electrostatic image formation step in which a latent electrostatic image is formed on a photoconductor (hereinafter, also referred as a latent electrostatic image bearing member, image bearing member, electrophotographic photoconductor or the like) utilizing a photoconductive material by means of various means, a developing step in which the latent electrostatic image is developed with a toner so as to form a toner image, a transferring step in which the toner image is transferred to a recording medium such as paper, a fixing step in which the toner image transferred to the recording medium is fixed to the recording medium by heating, pressing, heating under pressure, applying a solvent vapor, or the like, a cleaning step in which the residual toner is removed from the photoconductor, and the like.
The developer for use in the electrophotography, electrostatic recording, electrostatic printing or the like is applied to an image bearing member such as a latent electrostatic image bearing member on which a latent electrostatic image is formed in the developing step, then transferred from the latent electrostatic image bearing member to a transfer medium such as a transfer paper in the transferring step. Thereafter, the developer is fixed onto a surface of the paper in the fixing step. As the developer for develop the latent electrostatic image formed on the latent electrostatic image bearing member, a two-component developer comprised of a carrier and a toner, and a single-component developer (e.g. a magnetic toner, and a non-magnetic toner) which does not require a carrier have been known in the art.
It has been required that the toner for use in the electrophotographic method is produced by a method which is energy-saving and has less adverse influence to the environment.
As a dry toner for use in the electrophotography, electrostatic recording or electrostatic printing, a pulverized toner has been widely used in the conventional art. Specifically, the pulverized toner is a toner formed by melt-kneading a binder resin such as a styrene resins or polyester resin together with other additives such as a colorant, and finely pulverizing the resulted mixture.
In the toner formation method using the pulverizing method, it is important to uniformly disperse each constituting materials and then pulverize in order to maintain the uniform shape of the resulted toner. Generally, the shape of the pulverized toner is uneven and the pulverized plane of the toner becomes random. Therefore, it is very difficult to control the shape or structure of the pulverized toner. Moreover, if the additives such as a colorant, a releasing agent, a charge controlling agent, and the like are added at a large quantity, the additives are prone to expose to the surface of the toner as the pulverization may occur at an interface between the additives and the binder resin at the time of the pulverization process. As a result, the charging becomes uneven between the toner particles, and there causes a problem such that the characteristics of the toner such as the flowability or charging ability are deteriorated.
Recently, the toner has been required to have a smaller particle size so as to realize a high quality image. However, the down sizing of the toner particle causes the following problems.    (1) The energy for the pulverization is exponentially increased.    (2) In addition to its uneven shape, the flowability of the toner is significantly lowered, and thus the supplying performance, transferring ability, and cleaning ability of the toner are deteriorated.    (3) The charging becomes significantly uneven between the toner particles, as a result of the pulverization at an interface between the additives and the binder resin.
Moreover, the toner production method using a chemical method has been recently studied. The chemical method is a method in which a toner is produced in a solvent, and specific examples thereof include a suspension-polymerization method, emulsified polymerization aggregation method, dissolution-suspension method, polyester elongation method, phase inversion emulsification method, and the like.
The suspension-polymerization method is such method that the additives, such as the colorant, releasing agent, charge controlling agent and the like, and the polymerization initiator are dispersed in monomers, the dispersion is then dispersed in an aqueous medium containing a dispersing agent so as to form oil droplets, and then the monomers within the droplet is polymerization reacted by heating so as to form a toner (refer to Journal of the Imaging Society of Japan, vol. 43, no. 1, pp. 33-39 (2004)).
One example of the emulsified polymerization aggregation method is a method described as follow. The polymerization initiator, styrene monomer and acryl monomer are added together so as to generate a resin emulsion as a result of the emulsification polymerization. The coloring agent dispersion and the resin emulsion, and optionally a dispersion of the other additives such as a releasing agent, charge controlling agent and the like are mixed, and added with a pH adjusting agent or aggregating agent so as to make them grow to have the predetermined particle size. Thereafter, fine particles are fused together by heating and stirring to thereby form a toner (refer to Japanese Patent (JP-B) No. 3141783, and Journal of the Imaging Society of Japan, vol. 43, no. 1, pp. 40-47 (2004)).
The dissolution suspension method is a method which involves a volume contraction, and includes a step for suspending, in an aqueous phase, an oil phase formed by dissolving a binder resin in an organic solvent capable of dissolving the binder resin so as to prepare suspension, and a step of removing the organic solvent from the suspension. In this method, additives such as a colorant, releasing agent, charging agent and the likes are dispersed or dissolved together with the binder resin in a volatile solvent such as an organic solvent having a low boiling point, this solution is then suspended in an aqueous medium in the presence of a dispersant so as to form oil droplets, and the volatile solvent is removed from the oil droplets. Therefore, the dissolution suspension method is superior to the suspension polymerization method, emulsified polymerization aggregation method or the like, as the wide selection of resin is usable for the binder resin, and particularly, polyester resin effective in a full-color process which requires clearness or smoothness of an image area after fixing can be used (refer to JP-A No. 07-152202, and Journal of the Imaging Society of Japan, vol. 43, no. 1, pp. 48-53 (2004)).
The polyester elongation method is a method which includes a step for emulsifying and aggregating an oil phase in an aqueous phase so as to form dispersion wherein the oil phase is formed by dissolving polyester resin containing a reactive resin in an organic solvent capable of dissolving the polyester resin, and a step for allowing the polyester to elongation reaction while removing the organic solvent from the dispersion. Unlike the suspension polymerization method and emulsified polymerization aggregation method, this method is superior in terms of that polyester resin effective in a full-color process which requires clearness or smoothness of an image area after fixing can be used, and viscoelasticity of a toner can be controlled by controlling the elongation reaction, resulting the fixing ability at a wide range of temperature (refer to Journal of the Imaging Society of Japan, vol. 43, no. 1, pp. 54-59 (2004)).
The phase inversion emulsification method is such a method that additives such as a colorant, releasing agent, charging agent and the like are dispersed or dissolved together with a binder resin in a volatile solvent such as an organic solvent having a low boiling point, a continuous aqueous phase is poured into the thus obtained solution so as to inverse from W/O (water in oil) dispersion to O/W (oil in water) dispersion to thereby form oil droplets, and the volatile solvent is removed from the oil droplets. This method is also notable as the wide selection of resin is usable for the binder resin, and particularly, polyester resin effective in a full-color process which requires clearness or smoothness of an image area after fixing can be used (refer to JP-B No. 3063269, and JP-A No. 08-211655).
As a toner produced in accordance with such the chemical method, there haven been known a capsule toner, core-shell toner and the like, which have embodiments capable of effectively exhibiting the predetermined functions in view of the recent concerns about the environmental issues.
Comparing to the pulverizing method, the chemical method produces toner having a smaller particle size and a narrower particle size distribution. However, in accordance with the chemical method, the toner is produced in water or a hydrophilic solvent, and thus the surface of the resulted toner becomes hydrophilic, which causes the lowered charging ability, and unstability in the storage stability and environmental characteristics, and induces problems such as inferior developing and transferring, toner scattering, lower image quality, and the like. Moreover, as the chemical method releases a large volume of waste liquid and requires a large amount of energy to dry the toner, it is not preferable in view of the environmental load.
In order to prevent deterioration of flowability, transferring property or cleaning property due to the down-sized toner in the pulverization method and to prevent lowering of charging ability, and unstability of storage stability and environmental characteristics due to the hydrophilic surface of the toner in the chemical method, the conventional toner is generally added with inorganic or organic fine particles on the surface thereof, and the adhesion of the toner is reduced by the effects of the fine particles. Moreover, the inorganic or organic fine particles are generally applied to the surface of the toner also for the purpose of applying sufficient flowability enough to transfer the toner from the toner vessel to the developing unit.
As such the fine particles, there have been known hydrophobic powder such as hydrophobic silica (refer to JP-A No. 52-30437), a mixture wherein aluminum oxide or titanium oxide fine particles are added to silica fine particles (refer to JP-A No. 60-238847), aluminum-coated titanium fine particles (refer to JP-A No. 57-079961). Moreover, as the titanium oxide, there have been proposed the one having a crystal structure of anatase (refer to JP-A No. 60-112052), aluminum oxide-coated titanium oxide (refer to JP-A No. 57-79961), and titanium oxide fine particles which are surface treated with a coupling agent (refer to JP-A No. 04-40467). However, silica, which has the highest effect on providing flowability, is commonly used. By applying hydrophobic powder such as silica, the flowability, developing performance and transferring performance of the toner is largely improved.
However, theses external additives applied on the surface of the toner continuously receive physical stress in the developing unit, transferring unit, cleaning unit, or the like at the time being used in a copying machine or printer. As a result, the external additives may be buried into the toner inside from the surface thereof, or be detached from the surface of the toner. Therefore, the adhesion of the toner increases with time, which causes the decrease in the transferring efficiency and reliability of cleaning.
As a toner production method which replaces the pulverization method or chemical method, there has been proposed a method in which fine droplets are formed by utilizing piezoelectric pulse, and the droplets are dried and solidified so as to form a toner (refer to JP-A No. 2003-262976). Moreover, there has proposed a method in which droplets are formed by utilizing heat expansion inside of a liquid room, and the droplets are dried and solidified so as to form a toner (refer to JP-A No. 2003-280236). Furthermore, there has been proposed a method in which acoustic lens are used to carry out the same process mentioned above (refer to JP-A No. 2003-262977).
The toner produced in accordance with any of these methods is also added with the charge controlling agent so as to provide charge controlling effect which is the important characteristic of the toner. In the case where the toner dispersion added with the charge controlling agent is ejected from fine ejection holes, it is difficult to stably eject the dispersion without clogging the ejection holes in most cases. Therefore, such the method requires a process for finely dispersing the charge controlling agent, and may further requires an addition of a dispersion stabilizer so as to maintain the finely dispersed state at a certain period. Especially when an aqueous medium is used and fine droplets are dried and solidified to thereby produce a toner, a surface of the resulted toner becomes hydrophilic. In such the case, similarly to the case of the pulverization method and chemical method, it is necessary to add inorganic or organic fine particle to the surface of the toner so as to prevent the reduction in the charging ability, and unstability in the storage stability and environmental characteristics.
In recent years, the dry toner has been required to realize an image of the quality close to offset printing or a photograph. To this end, as well as the down sizing the toner so as to attain high resolution, it is desired that the deposition about of the toner is reduced and a pile height of the toner layer is lowered so as to provide a natural texture like the one obtained with the offset printing, and clearness of the colorant is increased so as to widen the capacity of the color reproduction.
In order to balance between the reduced amount of toner deposition, lowered pile height of the toner layer, and remaining of the high image density, it is a common practice that the amount of the pigment to be contained in the toner is increased. If the amount of the pigment is increased, however, the large amount of the pigment may inhibit the fixing, or the charge of the toner may become unstable as the pigment is present on the surface of the toner, which may cause the deterioration of the image. In the case of the chemical toner, such as the one obtained from the suspension polymerization method or dissolution suspension method, it is difficult to form droplets and obtain particles as the viscosity of the solution is increased.
In order to improve the clearness of the colorant so as to widen the capacity of color reproduction, there have been known the method in which a pigment is finely dispersed, and the method in which a dye is used.
As the technique for finely dispersing the pigment, especially for the purpose of stabilizing the dispersion state in the organic solvent, JP-A No. 2005-232443 discloses the use of graft polymer pigment dispersant, and JP-A No. 2005-36220 discloses the use of silicone macromer pigment dispersant. If the pigment is dispersed more finely, the larger amount of the pigment dispersant is required to stabilize the dispersion. This cases problems such that the charging stability of the toner is inhibited, the fixing property is largely changed, and the like. As the technique for finely pulverizing the pigment, the use of a ball mill or beads mill is commonly known. In recent years, in order to even more finely pulverize the pigment, there have been proposed the pulverization method using a laser ablation (refer to JP-A Nos. 2004-267918 and 2005-238342), the pigment fine dispersion method using the dissolution and precipitation process (refer to JP-A Nos. 2004-331946, 2004-091560 and 2006-193681), and the method in which the pigment solution is spray-dried to provide fine particles of the pigment (refer to JP-A No. 2005-518278 and 2006-152103). However, the large amount of the pigment dispersant is necessary to stabilize the dispersion, and there are sill the problems such that charging stability of the toner is inhibited, the fixing property is largely changed, and the like.
The dye is excellent in color tone and clearness. However, it also has problems such that the light fastness is poor, the formed image is blurred as the dye is migrated during the storage, and a film or the like is stained if the image formed with the dye is contacted with the film or the like. In order to solve these problems, there has been proposed the use of polymer dye. Examples thereof are a polymer dye in which a phenol dye is introduced into polyester structure (refer to JP-A No. 62-245268), a polymer dye in which an azo dye having a vinyl group is polymerized (refer to JP-A No. 63-85644), a polymer dye added with a rhodamine dye (refer to JP-A Nos. 01-147472, 01-147476, 01-161362, 01-161363, 01-161364, 01-161365, 01-164956, 01-164957, 01-164958, 01-164959, 01-173056, 01-173057, 01-173058, 01-173059, 01-173060, 01-173064, 01-173065, 01-173066, 01-173067, 01-173068, and 02-2575). However, these polymer dyes are all unique and expensive.
Moreover, there have been proposed the toner for latent electrostatic photography containing a colorant obtained by reacting the resin having a carboxyl group or sulfonyl group at a side chain thereof with a basic dye (refer to JP-B No. 3068654), and color particles and a color toner in which the amount of the functional groups of the resin and reactive amount of the dye to the resin are determined. However, these are similar to the toner in the related art in terms of a particle size distribution and characteristics of the toner.
There has been also proposed a toner production method in which a toner composition fluid in which a toner composition is made into liquid is ejected from ejection holes of a nozzle by applying pressure to the toner composition fluid so as to form a column state of the toner composition fluid, and the toner composition fluid is made into droplets by vibrating a nozzle plate or retention means at a constant frequency (refer to JP-A Nos. 2006-293320, and 2007-108731). In this method, a pigment used as a colorant is finely dispersed, and thus the capacity of color reproduction is not necessarily wide, as well as having problems of clogging or unstable ejection due to the pigment.
As mentioned above, it is the current situation that there have not yet been provided a method for producing a toner, the toner produced by the same, and an image forming method using such the toner, all of which have sufficient performances such that the resulted toner has a wide capacity of color reproduction, vivid color tone, high clearness, sharp particle size distribution, and excellent toner characteristics such as charging ability, environmental stability, storage stability and the like, does not generate any waste liquid, does not contain any residual monomer, does not require drying process, and is at low cost.

Toner for developing latent electrostatic image, method for producing the same and apparatus for producing the same, and developer, toner container, process cartridge, image forming method and image forming apparatus


Water heater apparatus is provided with features that allow for a horizontally compact water heater installation comprising upper and lower vertically stacked electric individual water heaters served by a single electrical branch circuit. Each of the upper and lower water heaters has a water storage capacity not exceeding 55 gallons, and the combined water storage capacity of the upper and lower water heaters is greater than 55 gallons. The electric heating elements of the two water heaters are non-simultaneously controlled so that at no time do the two water heaters heat water at the same time.

The challenge of designing an energy efficient, economical residential electrical water heating system which effectively utilizes available building floor space has been heightened by the U.S. Department of Energy's recent amendment of their existing energy conservation standards for residential water heaters. In formulaic fashion, this amendment effectively requires that any residential water heater having a water storage capacity greater than fifty five gallons must incorporate therein a heat pump. While such incorporation is designed to increase the efficiency of an over-fifty five gallon water heater, installation with suitable airflow for all replacement applications may not be practical or cost effective. In view of this heightened efficiency requirement it would be desirable to provide multiple water heaters to meet the hot water requirements. It is to this goal that the present invention is primarily directed.
In representatively illustrated embodiments thereof, this invention provides specially designed water heater apparatus with features that allow for an installation comprising upper and lower vertically stacked electric individual water heaters served by a single electrical branch circuit. Each of the upper and lower water heaters has a water storage capacity not exceeding 55 gallons, and the combined water storage capacity of the upper and lower water heaters is greater than 55 gallons. The electric heating elements of the two water heaters are non-simultaneously controlled so that at no time do the two water heaters heat water at the same time.


A diamond thermistor having a pair of diamond contact regions having a low resistance formed on a temperature sensing diamond substrate. The formation of the diamond contact regions is carried out by depositing a diamond film using a carbon compound gas and a dopant gas and etching the diamond film to leave the contact regions by an etchant including fluorine or oxygen.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method of manufacturing diamond devices, and more particularly to a method of manufacturing thermistors having high temperature coefficients utilizing diamond films deposited by vapor phase reaction.
2. Description of the Prior Art
There have been two types of thermistors, i.e. PTC (positive temperature coefficient) devices and NTC (negative temperature coefficient) devices. The former are made of barium titanate and the later of silicon carbide for example. The temperature range in which these conventional devices can operate is not so wide and their response speed to temperature change is not so high.
On the other hand, electric devices utilizing diamond have recently attracted researcher's interest. Some attempts have been made to form thermistors by the use of diamond film as a thermally sensitive area. The prior art diamond thermistors have only small thermistor coefficiently and require relatively high voltages to be applied thereacross. The inventor carefully investigated the thermal characteristics of the prior art thermistors. The thermistor coefficients thereof were measured to be as large as about 7000 (activation energy=0.6 V) when the diamond was not given intentional doping such as boron. The resistance at the contact between the diamond and an electrode, however, was very high. Because of this, it was very difficult to control the distance between electrodes so that a relatively high voltage is needed as a bias voltage to drive the prior art device and therefore the characteristics of devices were substantially dispersed.
By introducing boron ions into the diamond, good ohmic low resistant contacts can be obtained. The thermistor coefficient of the device, however, is decreased to be about 2000 (activation energy=0.21 eV) in case of 300 ppm doping of boron. Therefore, a need exists for diamond thermistors for forming good ohmic contacts without sacrifice of the thermistor coefficient.

Semiconductor Energy Laboratory Co., Ltd.


A system for controlling a ground speed of an agricultural sprayer includes a boom and a nozzle mounted on the boom. The nozzle, in turn, is configured to dispense a fan of an agricultural fluid as the agricultural sprayer travels across a field. Additionally, the system includes a sensor configured to capture data indicative of a spray quality parameter associated with the dispensed fan of the agricultural fluid. Furthermore, the system includes a controller communicatively coupled to the sensor. As such, the controller is configured to receive the captured data from the sensor as the agricultural sprayer travels across the field. Moreover, the controller is configured to determine the spray quality parameter based on the received data. In addition, the controller is configured to control a ground speed of the agricultural sprayer based on the determined spray quality parameter.

Agricultural sprayers apply an agricultural substance (e.g., a pesticide, a nutrient, and/or the like) onto crops as the sprayer is traveling across a field. To facilitate such travel, sprayers are configured as self-propelled vehicles or implements towed behind an agricultural tractor or other suitable work vehicle. A typical sprayer includes one or more booms on which a plurality of spaced apart nozzles is mounted. Each nozzle is configured to dispense or otherwise spray a fan of the agricultural substance onto underlying crops and/or weeds.
Pesticides, nutrients, and other agricultural substances are typically applied at a target application to achieve the desired agricultural outcome (e.g., a reduction in weed coverage or pest activity). As such, an agricultural sprayer includes a pump that supplies the agricultural substance to the nozzles at a pressure sufficient to meet the target application rate. However, when the ground speed of the sprayer is too high and/or certain conditions (e.g., high winds) occur, the pump(s) may be unable to generate a sufficient pressure to achieve the target application rate. When the target application rate of the agricultural substance is not met, the desired agricultural outcome may not be achieved.
Accordingly, an improved system and method for controlling the ground speed of an agricultural sprayer would be welcomed in the technology.

System and method for controlling the ground speed of an agricultural sprayer based on a spray quality parameter


A semiconductor apparatus includes a printed circuit board, a peripheral type first semiconductor package which has a first group of ball electrodes arranged in a peripheral type first arrangement area and a first group of additional ball electrodes arranged inside the first arrangement area and which is arranged on a first surface of the printed circuit board, and a peripheral type second semiconductor package which has a second group of ball electrodes arranged in a second arrangement area and a second group of additional ball electrodes arranged inside the second arrangement area and which is arranged on a second surface of the printed circuit board. A ball electrode located at at least one corner of the first group of ball electrodes is arranged at a position to oppose a corner of the second arrangement area, and at least one ball electrode of the second group of ball electrodes is arranged at a position to oppose the second group of additional ball electrodes through the printed circuit board.

Conventionally, an electronic device uses a semiconductor apparatus mounted with a semiconductor package in which a plurality of solder ball electrodes are arranged in an array. At this time, a semiconductor device and package mold which form the semiconductor package, a printed circuit board, and the ball electrodes which bond the semiconductor package to the printed circuit board have different coefficients of thermal expansion. Hence, when heat is applied to the semiconductor apparatus, a large stress locally acts on the ball electrodes serving as a bonding portion to considerably shorten the service life of the bonding portion.
As a method of decreasing such a thermal stress, a technique is known in which reinforcing projections (bumps) are arranged in the vicinities of, among the ball electrodes arranged in an array, those at the outermost portion and innermost portion on which the largest stress acts (see Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 9-162241 (FIGS. 2, 4, and 6 on pages 2 and 3)).
In recent years, as the mounting integration degree increases, semiconductor packages are often respectively mounted on the two surfaces of a printed circuit board. When the semiconductor packages are mounted on the two surfaces of the printed circuit board, one semiconductor package constrains deformation of the other semiconductor package, so that the printed circuit board cannot flex freely. Therefore, a larger stress acts on the solder bonding portion than in a case wherein a semiconductor package is mounted on only one surface of the printed circuit board, thus largely degrading the reliability.
In view of this, for mounting the semiconductor packages on the two surfaces of the printed circuit board, a method of decreasing the thermal stress of the ball electrodes is known. More specifically, this method comprises a technique of arranging the semiconductor packages respectively on the two surfaces of the printed circuit board such that the ball electrode portions of the semiconductor packages do not correspond to the same positions on the two surfaces of the printed circuit board (see Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 5-82937 (FIGS. 1 to 3 on pages 3 and 4)).
Similarly, a method is also known of decreasing the warp of a printed circuit board having two surfaces where semiconductor package mold printed circuit boards are respectively mounted. More specifically, this method comprises a technique of respectively arranging plates each having openings on the two surfaces of a printed circuit board such that opposing frames overlap at least partially (see Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2001-326322 (FIGS. 1 and 2 on pages 5 and 6)).
According to the mounting method described in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 5-82937, the semiconductor devices are bonded at the lead portions such that the semiconductor packages to be mounted on the two surfaces of the circuit board are shifted from each other between the upper and lower surfaces. If, however, semiconductor packages each having ball electrodes arranged in an array are mounted on the two surfaces of a printed circuit board in the same manner as described above such that they are shifted from each other between the upper and lower surfaces, it causes very complicated thermal deformation, as will be described later. Accordingly, a very high stress locally acts to decrease the service life of specific ball electrodes. This shortens the service life as the semiconductor packages.
The mounting method described in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 9-162241 requires the reinforcing bumps, and the mounting method described in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2001-326322 requires the additional reinforcing plates. Consequently, the manufacturing cost increases greatly, which is not realistic.


A dispenser for delivering a liquid from a supply bottle is disclosed. The dispenser has a base with a base foot. A tubular support is attached to the base foot. The tubular support extends vertically from the base foot. A rim is attached to the tubular support. The rim extends horizontally from the tubular support at a location above the base foot. The rim is vertically aligned with the base foot. A removable bottle collar engages with the rim. The removable bottle collar is adapted to engage and support the supply bottle inverted and positioned within the rim. The removable bottle collar has a center aperture where a mouth of the supply bottle extends there through.

The present application generally relates to a bottled water dispenser, and, more particularly, to water bottle holders and water bottle dispensers that provide a convenient and simplified mechanism to access bottled water in a direct manner.
With the advent of increased popularity of bottled spring water and bottled purified water here and abroad, a need may have developed for water bottle holders and water bottle dispensers that may provide a convenient and simplified mechanism to access bottled water. In the past, water may have been dispensed through a water crock or similar devices. Water crocks may be jars or containers that store water. A dispensing device may be located at the bottom of the water crock for releasing water stored within the container. Water crocks generally require filling prior to usage and generally need to be cleaned periodically. Water dispensers have evolved from the simple water crocks to bottled water dispensers ranging from the original multiple gallon glass jugs that were inverted and positioned within large free standing and often refrigerated water coolers to the more current, disposable plastic bottles and single use "gallon" plastic water jugs.
A limited number of companies may offer purified and spring water in countertop plastic water jug dispensers. These plastic water jug dispensers may typically require that the dispensers lay flat on the countertop, and a single use valve may be located at the bottom of the jug. Of the few brands that may offer a countertop dispenser version of their product, several problems may be associated with their dispensers. To begin with, the user generally needs to administer a vent hole in these dispensers. Unfortunately, these plastic water jug dispensers generally do not provide a piercing tool for this task. Furthermore, the single use valves that may be offered with the small number of branded countertop dispensers on the market may be of a low quality and may often leak. Lastly, these dispensers may present a number of practical placement and use restrictions and problems.
Over the years, a variety of U.S. patents have issued on dispensing valves/valve parts, and water dispensing devices. U.S. Pat. No. 4,293,082 issued to Shinji Matsueda shows one way in which an inverted bottle can be supported by a stand that includes a thermal insulator for the inverted bottle. U.S. Pat. No. 5,123,720 issued to Blomster et al. discloses a floor based inverted water bottle stand for a 5 gallons bottle. As with the Shinji patent, Bolomster et al. is patenting the stand that supports an inverted bottle. U.S. Pat. No. 5,647,416 issued to Desrosiers et al. discloses another patent on a stand for a 5 gallons bottle that includes a reservoir and the support housing for the reservoir.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,241,126 issued to Andrew Goodman discloses a personal beverage desktop dispenser with a cubical base and valve housed therein. The male bottle threads are mated with the female threads of the base. An issue with this embodiment is that it may be difficult to invert the entire dispenser to union it with the upright bottle since the bottle valve is secured to the base. Even if the valve was not secured to the base, the valve with the handle is too large to fit through the bottle hole in the base top. It could prove rather difficult to threadably secure an entire base onto a bottle. Moreover, the base could become unsanitary rather quickly having liquid spilled within the base and it appears to be rather difficult to clean.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,527,145 issued to Jules G. Bennett, Jr. discloses a personal desktop beverage dispenser that has a base holding an inverted bottle with the male threads of the bottle threadably secured to the female threads of the dispenser base. An outflow valve controls the flow of bottle contents to a cup placed beneath. While this embodiment can be used with more than one bottle size it requires having to invert the entire base and threadably secure it onto an upright bottle, which could prove to be rather difficult.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,892,903 issued to Salvatore Barolotta discloses a personal beverage bottle dispenser. The personal beverage bottle dispenser requires that the entire base be inverted and threadably secured to the upright bottle in order to union the bottle with the valve.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,104,089 issued to Harold O. Seltsam, shows a self-closing lift type faucet adapted for use with water crocks, certain coolers, and beverage dispensers. Similarly, U.S. Pat. No. 3,207,472 issued Sep. 25, 1965 to Seltsam shows a tubular diaphragm valve. As with the self-closing valve, this valve is again configured for use with water crocks, certain coolers, and beverage dispensers.


A magnetic recording medium having a first magnetic layer, a spacer layer, and a second magnetic layer, in this order, wherein the spacer layer includes a non-magnetic layer and a thickness of the spacer layer is selected to establish anti-ferromagnetic coupling between the first magnetic layer and the second magnetic layer, and a thickness of both the first and second magnetic layers are less than a critical thickness for formation of stripe domains in the magnetic layers is disclosed.

Perpendicular magnetic recording systems have been developed for use in computer hard disc drives to provide higher liner density than longitudinal recording. FIG. 1, obtained from Magnetic Disk Drive Technology by Kanu G. Ashar, 322 (1997), shows magnetic bits and transitions in longitudinal and perpendicular recording. In a longitudinal recording there exists a demagnetization field between two magnetic bits. These demagnetization fields tend to separate bits, making transition space between bits, that is, transition parameter a, large as shown in FIG. 1(a). At very high bit densities, the limiting parameter may be the length of the transition region. Perpendicular recording bits do not face each other, and hence they can be written at closed distances as shown in FIG. 1(b).
A typical perpendicular recording head includes a trailing read/write pole, a leading return or opposing pole magnetically coupled to the read/write pole, and an electrically conductive magnetizing coil surrounding the yoke of the write pole as shown in FIG. 2, Magnetic Disk Drive Technology by Kanu G. Ashar, 323 (1997). Perpendicular recording media may include magnetic media and an underlayer as shown in FIG. 2. The magnetic media could be a hard magnetic recording layer with vertically oriented magnetic domains and the underlayer could be a soft magnetic underlayer to enhance the recording head fields and provide a flux path from the trailing write pole to the leading or opposing pole of the writer. The magnetic flux passes from the write pole tip, through the hard magnetic recording track, into the soft underlayer (SUL), and across to the opposing pole. Such perpendicular recording media may also include a thin interlayer between the hard recording layer and the soft underlayer to prevent exchange coupling between the hard and soft layers. The soft underlayer helps also during the read operation. During the read back process, the soft underlayer produces the image of magnetic charges in the magnetically hard layer, effectively increasing the magnetic flux coming from the medium. This provides a higher playback signal.
The soft underlayer is located below a recording layer and forms a mirror image of the recording head. Together with the image head, there are essentially two heads involved in each recording event; thus, the net recording field becomes fairly large compared to the field generated with a longitudinal head. Magnetic flux flows from head through the SUL to return pole crossing twice through the recording layer. The return pole is generally much wider than the writing pole in order to dilute the magnetic flux intensity flow back through the recording layer. In spite of this, it is sometimes found that writing also occurs at the return pole, with the consequence that data can be partially erased not only on the track being recorded, but also on an adjacent track resulting in unintentional erasure of data stored in the recording layer. The quality of the image, and therefore the effectiveness of the soft underlayer, and erasure of data both depend on the permeability of the soft underlayer. Thus, there is a need for a perpendicular recording medium having a soft underlayer that forms a good mirror image of the recording head without erasure of data in the recording layer.

Anti-ferromagnetically coupled soft underlayer


A magnetic tape cartridge includes a cartridge casing and a single reel which is contained in the cartridge casing for rotation. A brake member of the magnetic cartridge is provided with a brake gear and is movable up and down between an operative position and a retracted position. The reel is provided with a reel gear which is brought into mesh with a drive gear of a tape drive mechanism and a through hole through which a push rod extending from a brake release member projects to be brought into abutment against the drive gear of the tape drive mechanism so that the brake release member moves the brake member to the retracted position. The through hole opens in an area which is slightly wider than tips of teeth of the reel gear, wherein the area includes a pair of opposed flanks of the reel gear which form a valley.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a magnetic tape cartridge, and more particularly to a magnetic tape cartridge comprising a cartridge casing and a single reel around which a magnetic tape is wound and which is contained in the cartridge casing for rotation.
2. Description of the Related Art
There has been known a single reel magnetic tape cartridge, comprising a cartridge casing and a single reel around which a magnetic tape is wound and which is contained in the cartridge casing for rotation, as a recording medium for an external storage for a computer and the like. Such a single reel magnetic tape cartridge is used for retaining important data of a computer or the like and accordingly is arranged so that trouble such as tape jamming does not occur and the magnetic tape is not accidentally drawn out.
The reel is provided with a cylindrical reel hub having a closed bottom and stopper gear teeth formed in a circle and a brake member provided with a brake gear which is adapted to be brought into engagement with the stopper gear teeth disposed to be movable in the direction of thickness of the cartridge casing along the axis of rotation of the reel. The brake member is urged, for instance, by a coiled spring toward a position where the stopper gear teeth are engaged with the brake gear to prevent rotation of the reel when the magnetic tape cartridge is not used. When the magnetic tape cartridge is loaded in a recording and reproducing system, a brake release spindle of the recording and reproducing system pushes upward the brake member to disengage the stopper gear teeth from the brake gear.
However if a space is formed between the brake member and the reel hub when the brake member is moved upward, dust and dirt can enter the inside of the cartridge casing through the space.

Magnetic tape cartridge with brake release push rod extending through reel hole wider than only one reel gear pitch


A cryogen-free high-temperature superconductor undulator structure is provided. The superconductor undulator structure includes a magnetic core body and a coil structure. The magnetic core body includes a first and a second half magnetic pole arrays that are vertically aligned, a plurality of first winding cores in the first half magnetic pole array, and a plurality of second winding cores in the second half magnetic pole array. The coil structure is wound on the first winding cores and the second winding cores of the magnetic core body. The coil structure includes a plurality of first superconductor tapes in contact with each of the first winding cores and each of the second winding cores, and a plurality of second superconductor tapes, each of the second superconductor tapes is in contact with two adjacent first superconductor tapes. A method of manufacturing a cryogen-free high-temperature superconductor undulator structure is also provided.

A synchrotron light source is a source of electromagnetic radiation (EM) usually produced by a storage ring, for scientific and technical purposes. First observed in synchrotrons, synchrotron light is now produced by storage rings and other specialized particle accelerators, typically accelerating electrons. Once the high-energy electron beam has been generated, it is directed into auxiliary components such as undulators in storage rings and free-electron lasers. These supply the strong alternating magnetic fields perpendicular to the beam which are needed to convert high-energy electrons into photons.

Cryogen-free high-temperature superconductor undulator structure and method for manufacturing the same

NATIONAL SYNCHROTRON RADIATION RESEARCH CENTER


Auxiliary heat ejectors (380A, 490) having an optional independent circulator module (380D), heat exchange radiators (41e, 41f), heated fluid inlet lines (21e, 21f) and exchange fluid return lines (47e, 47f) with pumps (49e, 49f) connected to other tandem modules such as heat sources (30E, 40F) incorporated by reference, a flexible helical corrugated body (53e) or a retractable modular unite walls (53f) on cart wheels (25f), actuators (23e, 23f), partitions (35e, 37e, 37f), inlet and outlet end having flanges (45e, 45f, 35g) for connecting with shared ductwork of a primary heater. The independent circulator module (380D) comprises of a flexible body (41g), support (21g), flow check gate (31g), a blower motor (27g) with propeller 25g.

This invention relates to apparatus and method of auxiliary heat exchange module used to integrate a remote heating source into sharing ductwork with another heating system. More particularly, the present invention relates to modular heat ejection units configured to distribute heat to a living space by sharing existing ductwork and blower.
The supply and cost economics of meeting domestic energy needs points to alternative sources. There is not one clear dominant alternative source of energy at the present time. However, what appear clear are diversifications in all direction. While pursuing diversification, the cost of the main energy source (fossil) is rising rapidly. Some of the diversification leads to supplemental energy sources instead. Some supplemental energy sources such as fireplaces eject the heat in the vicinity of their location. Traditionally, it makes the location space of the fireplace, say family room, to be excessively warm while farther locations are colder. With increase in auxiliary energy sources comes the need to position and integrate them into existing main ductworks.
An efficient integration would have sole and simultaneous sharing of a distribution ductwork and return system. Various methods have been presented in prior art for integrating and circulating auxiliary heat derived from solid fuel combustion and solar cells into all section of a living space.

Remote distance transporting and integrating heat ejection connected to central heating ductwork (auxiliary heat ejectors)