The present invention relates to a novel aldose reductase inhibitor of the formula: ##STR1## wherein X is methylene or carbonyl;. R is ##STR2## R.sup.1, R.sup.2, R.sup.3, and R.sup.4 each is hydrogen or lower alkyl, to a method for producing the inhibitor by culturing Crucibulum sp. RF-3817 or its variants, and to an agent for inhibiting an aldose reductase comprising the inhibitor.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a novel aldose reductase inhibitor and a method for producing the same.
The novel compound of the invention is represented by the formula: ##STR3## wherein X is methylene or carbonyl;
R is ##STR4## R.sup.1, R.sup.2, R.sup.3, and R.sup.4 each is hydrogen or lower alkyl. PA1 R is ##STR6## R.sup.1, R.sup.2, R.sup.3, and R.sup.4 each is hydrogen or lower alkyl, or the salt thereof, PA1 preferably to the compound wherein R is ##STR7## where X is methylene; PA1 R is ##STR8## where X is carbonyl, or the salt thereof, PA1 and more preferably to the compound wherein R.sup.3 or R.sup.4 is hydrogen or the salt thereof. PA1 R is ##STR11## where X is carbonyl; isolating the above mentioned compound from the cultured medium and optionally alkylating the compound. It further provides a pharmaceutical agent comprising the compound, as an effective ingredient, in association with a pharmaceutically acceptable, substantially nontoxic carrier or excipient, which inhibits an aldose reductase.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The incidence rate of diabetes has hitherto increased and various complications thereof have become a quite serious problem. The complications of diabetes may be caused by, for example, accumulation of polyol (e.g., sorbitol), free radical peroxidation, and glycosylation of proteins at the site of lysine residues. An inhibitor for aldose reductase (abbreviated hereinafter as AR) relating to polyol accumulation is expected to serve as a medicine for diabetic complications, that is, diseases arising from diabetes such as diabetic neuropathy, diabetic cataract, diabetic keratopathy, diabetic retinopathy, and diabetic nephropathy. Although there have been many investigations into the development of such a medicine, development of more beneficial inhibitors is still necessary (see Reinhard Sages, Advances in Drug Research, 18, 139-175 (1989)). Typical examples of AR inhibitors include Quercitrin reported by Horhammer et al. (see Arch Pharm., 292, 113 (1959)).
It has been revealed that AR as a rate-limiting enzyme in the metabolic pathway of polyol is present in blood vessels, peripheral nerves, lenses, retinae, and so forth, in which many complications of diabetes often occur. Therefore, the significance of AR became understood in relation to diabetes. In the state of glycophilia such as diabetes, a larger amount of glucose than is capable of being metabolized in the glycolysis system is present in cells and the metabolism of glucose in the metabolic pathway of polyol can readily be promoted because glucose is used as a substrate for AR. As a result, the abnormal accumulation of sorbitol is further enhanced. Sorbitol is a relatively stable substance; once the cells produce sorbitol, very little extracellular release of the sorbitol is found. The imbalance between the production and metabolism causes the intracellular accumulation of this sugar alcohol. This results in an increase in intracellular osmotic pressure and a lot of water remains in the cells, thereby making it impossible to maintain the normal function of the cells and exhibiting a disorder of the cells. If the AR activity is inhibited, the abnormal intracellular accumulation of sorbitol can be avoided, and there is a great possibility that the normal function of the cells can be maintained. Accordingly, the present inventors have made an effort to search compounds having an AR-inhibiting activity.

Aldose reductase inhibitor obtained from Crucibulum sp. RF-3817


The present disclosure relates to a low temperature-calcined lead-free glass frit and paste, and a vacuum glass assembly using the same. The glass frit according to the present disclosure has a novel component system comprising V2O5, TeO2, CuO, BaO, one or more of Ag2O and Bi2O3, ZnO, and one or more of SnO and MoO3 at a characteristic composition ratio according to the disclosure, whereby the glass frit can replace a lead-based glass composition of the related art, can be calcined at a low temperature of 350° C. or lower and can ensure excellent chemical durability.

Glass windows or home appliances or electric and electronic parts such as a multi-layer vacuum insulated glass panel, a display panel, an organic EL display panel and the like are sealed or attached by a glass frit including a glass composition and inorganic ceramic particles. The glass frit for sealing is usually applied in the form of paste, and the glass paste is applied onto glass using a screen printing method or a dispensing method and the like, is dried and then is calcined, to have a sealing function.
A PbO—B2O3-based glass composition including a large amount of lead oxide has been widely used. The APbO—B2O3-based glass composition has a softening point ranging from 400 to 450° C. Accordingly, the APbO—B2O3-based glass composition shows good fluidity and softening and has relatively high chemical reliability.
At a time when the environment is top priority across the world, the demand for environmentally friendly materials grows. For example, Directive of Restriction of Hazardous Substances (RoHS) in Electrical and Electronic Equipment came into force in Jul. 1, 2006 in European countries. Under the directive, the use of a total of six materials including lead is banned.
The PbO—B2O3-based glass composition includes large amounts of lead that is banned in accordance with the RoHS Directive. Accordingly, the glass composition cannot be used for glass paste for sealing. Under the circumstances, there is a growing need for a novel glass composition including no lead. Additionally, the demand for a lead-free glass composition that replaces the PbO—B2O3-based glass composition, ensures low temperature fluidity and low temperature softening and has chemical reliability grows to reduce thermal degradation of various types of glass sealed parts or glass sealed electric and electronic parts and to improve productivity.
An Ag2O—V2O5—TeO2-based lead-free glass composition is widely known as the lead-free glass composition that includes no lead and is calcined at low temperature.
The Ag2O—V2O5—TeO2-based glass composition of the related art is highly likely to crystallize during a calcination process. Accordingly, the Ag2O—V2O5—TeO2-based glass composition cannot ensure fluidity and softening to a sufficient degree.
When the Ag2O—V2O5—TeO2-based lead-free glass composition of the related art is applied to tempered glass used for a home appliance and the like, a thermal expansion coefficient of the lead-free glass composition of the related art does match a thermal expansion coefficient of the tempered glass. Accordingly, the Ag2O—V2O5—TeO2-based lead-free glass composition can hardly be calcined at low temperature, and reinforcement of the tempered glass can be undone.
Additionally, since the Ag2O—V2O5—TeO2-based lead-free glass composition of the related art includes no Pb, the lead-free glass composition cannot ensure durability and can easily react with moisture.

Low temperature-calcined lead-free glass frit and paste, and vacuum glass assembly using same


An improved battery charger and reconditioner employs a charging sequence calling for a discharge pulse to be applied substantially immediately before a charging pulse to effectively lower the impedance of the subject battery and to thereby more effectively charge the battery at a lower voltage level. The apparatus and method of the invention enhances the current receiving properties of the battery to lower thermal properties associated with charging and to more efficiently and more rapidly charge a subject battery. The charging sequence reconditions a battery by applying the improved sequence so as to rejuvenate an otherwise damaged battery. The invention also provides a method and means for formatting a battery and for removing dendritic formations which occur in a battery. Further, methods for aborting battery charging and for detecting abnormal conditions are also provided by the present invention.

The invention relates generally to devices for charging, formatting, and reconditioning batteries. More particularly, the invention relates to methods and devices for rapidly charging and/or reconditioning a battery that provide particular staging sequences that primarily consist of charge pulses, discharge pulses, such as by applying a load across the battery, and wait or rest periods. Batteries are commonly used to provide a direct-current (dc) source of electrical energy in a wide variety of applications. A battery generally consists of a plurality of cells grouped together in a common container and electrically connected to provide a particular dc source. For example, four 1.5 volt cells rated at 1 ampere (amp) may be series connected to provide a 6 volt dc source rated at 1 amp. Cells may also be connected in parallel, e.g., four 1.5 volt cells rated at 1 amp connected in parallel provide a 1.5 volt dc source rated at 4 amps, or in a combined series-parallel fashion. The cell consists of two electrodes, one connected to a positive terminal and the other connected to a negative terminal, which serve as conductors through which current enters and leaves the battery. The electrodes or plates are surrounded by an electrolyte that acts upon the electrodes in a manner dependent upon the nature of the materials used to comprise the battery.
A battery may be a primary or a secondary cell type. The present invention is essentially concerned only with secondary cell type batteries, which may be recharged by forcing an electrical current through the battery in a direction opposite to that of discharge. Batteries store current, the storage capacity of a battery is generally rated according to ampere-hour capacity, e.g. a battery that delivers an average of 10 amps without interruption over a 2 hour period, at the end of which time the battery is completely discharged upon reaching a low voltage limit, has a capacity rating of 20 (10.times.2) amp-hours. If discharged at a faster rate, e.g. over one hour instead of two, the battery will deliver less than the rated capacity.
Battery charging is, in its simplest terms, accomplished through delivery of a current to a battery, thereby ionizing the plates to opposing potentials (voltages or electrical pressures). With a linear charger, this is achieved through the use of a marginally higher charger voltage vs. what the battery's maximum rest voltage is. Usually, in the most rudimentary charger types, minimal consideration is given to regulation, whether it be current or voltage. The battery is simply allowed to drift up to its maximum potential. This is useable, albeit slow, and also does not treat the battery equally over time. When the battery is lowest, the most amount of current flows. If you were to divide the time that it takes for the battery to charge by five, the first time segment would appear to have charged the battery by about 70%, the next segment would be up to 90%. The remaining three time segments gradually approach the 100%.
When charging a battery, it is preferred to use a charge voltage that is only marginally higher than the full battery potential. This is because any voltage above that will be leaked across the electrolyte of the battery and not stored. Energy not stored, having nowhere else to go, is converted to heat. Roughly, this would be (E.sub.c -E.sub.R).times.I.sub.c =P.sub.w where E.sub.c is the charging voltage, E.sub.R is the battery resting voltage, I.sub.c is the charging current, in amperes, and P.sub.w is the power wasted in watts. This P.sub.w is converted to heat since it cannot be absorbed by the battery. More advanced chargers use a pulsing technique to send bursts of energy to the battery at higher voltages. While this does get the job done quicker, the effects are to gradually destroy the battery by heating, and eventually evaporating, the electrolyte inside.
An alternative path is to use a constant current source, assuming that the battery is capable of accepting a set amount of current at any time. These chargers regulate current by automatically adjusting the voltage so a predetermined amount of current is delivered. Volume of current is the design factor, not the voltage of the battery. Unfortunately, the results here can be less than desirable. If the amount acceptable to the battery is overestimated, the battery becomes less willing to accept the current. The charger instantly compensates by raising the charge voltage. The battery heats up, which further exacerbates the situation by causing the battery to become even less able to accept further charging. The cycle continues. Without limits, this scenario could escalate to destruction of the battery.
During the charging process, ionization of the plates, negative ions to the positive plate and positive ions to the negative plate, occurs which impedes the further transfer of ions to the plates and therefore further charging of the battery. The battery develops increased resistance, in the form of impedance, to charging as the battery's charge increases. Recent battery charging techniques attempt to more rapidly charge a battery by applying discharge pulses intermittently between charging pulses to depolarize the plates of the battery. The discharge pulse intermittently removes ions from the plates, thereby permitting the flow of additional ions which will then transfer additional charge to the plates upon subsequent charge pulses.
During a given charge pulse, the voltage of the battery will be at its greatest at the end of the charge pulse. Battery chargers of the prior art apply the discharge pulse after the charge pulse to depolarize the battery while at its highest voltage level to prepare the battery for the subsequent charge pulse. One such prior art charger is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,829,225 (Podrazhansky) and calls for the discharge pulse to immediately follow the charge pulse. Wait or rest periods are applied intermediate the charge and discharge pulses to stabilize the battery during charging, this is especially important in charging applications for nickel-based batteries. The durations of the charge, discharge, and wait periods are generally in the order of tenths of seconds to a few seconds. The load across the battery generally takes the form of a depolarization pulse, the current level of which is of the same magnitude or greater than the current level of the charging pulse. Generally, the charging pulse is of substantially longer duration than that of the load or depolarization pulse. Generally, the duration of the rest period, or stabilization period, is greater than the duration associated with the load or depolarizing pulse.
The magnitude of the charge or load, the duration of the charge, load, and rest stages, and the particular sequencing of the three stages is dependent upon the particular battery type being charged or reconditioned Further, the sequencing, magnitude, and duration of these stages may be varied during the process of charging or reconditioning the battery. Generally, the batteries are measured while under load to determine the level of charge as this tends to give a more accurate measurement of the battery that would otherwise be colored by the battery's impedance and the charge delivered.
Conventional battery chargers merely deliver steady voltages and slowly ionize the plates in the battery. A problem with this is that the battery cannot absorb all of the energy delivered and the charging process takes an excessive amount of time to complete. Part of the reason is that the charger is forced to deliver a certain voltage level, just above the normal capacity, and the static resistance of the battery makes it so that a certain amount of current is delivered. Initially, the amount of such current is often too much for an ongoing charge. In addition, at various points during the charging process, the resistance of the battery changes, further complicating efficient battery charging. Whenever there is more power being delivered to the battery than it can absorb, the excess is spent by converting it to heat.
Some modern pulse chargers disclose the use of load, charge, and wait/rest periods during charging. Although such pulse chargers do "shock" a charge into a battery, the amount of positive-going rail-to-rail voltage measured across the battery is not very significant. If the bakery were discharged by a load just before it received a charging pulse, the positive-going rail-to-rail voltage would be increased, thereby "shocking" the battery even harder. Because pulse chargers use non-linear power delivery, static battery resistance cannot be a factor. However, battery impedance is a factor and is affected by the frequency and duty cycle associated with the pulse charges.
One problem associated with prior art battery chargers, such as so-called wall-wart type chargers, concerns the amount of time required to fully charge a battery. Such known chargers generally require a period of 12-24 hours of continuous charging to fully charge a typical battery. This results in undesirable, extended down-times for devices being served by the battery being charged or the expense of purchasing and maintaining multiple batteries.
Another problem associated with the prior art is that batteries charged by prior art chargers typically suffer the undesirable effect of steadily decreasing charge capacity, or memory, the so-called "memory effect." As the battery is charged over numerous occasions, its charge capacity gradually decreases. The memory effect relates to a permanent increase in the impedance of the battery resulting in increased resistance to charging. Eventually the battery cannot maintain any appreciable charge and must be discarded or reconditioned.

Method and apparatus for rapidly charging and reconditioning a battery


A boost-enhanced gas pressure regulator consists of a bonnet and a body (main casing) that are secured together so as to capture a pressure-responsive diaphragm between both components. The body has an inlet port and one or more outlet ports. An actuator providing a camming means, preferably in the form of a pair of spaced control channels, is connected to the diaphragm to be moved with and by the latter. The camming means/control channels engage a corresponding pair of control pins on opposite sides of a movable boost tube, such that there is a direct-acting connection between the diaphragm and boost tube. The boost tube has external guide surfaces which serve to guide and control its movement, and it also has an internal gas flow passage in which a valve seat disk (valve member) is mounted. The boost tube is restricted to travel in a linear fashion with respect to an inlet orifice/valve seat by a plurality of mutually spaced guides that are an integral part of the orifice insert, upon which certain contact areas of the guide surfaces on the boost tube are slidable. The control channels, control pins, guide surfaces, and contact areas are designed to cooperatively mount the boost tube so as to position and guide it in precise, low-friction motion that mechanically induces a velocity boosting effect.

This invention is applicable to a wide range of gas pressure-regulating applications, but is designed for particularly advantageous use in propane outdoor cooking appliance applications. For example, the device may be used to supply an appliance with a consistent pressure in the range of 11 inches of water column when provided with inlet pressures up to 250 psig. Many conventional devices used in these applications experience three flow performance limitations that are inherent to their design. The first limitation is termed "droop, " i.e. pressure droop, which is caused by the change in the effective area of the diaphragm as it moves and the loss of load experienced by the diaphragm control spring throughout the same motion. These factors combine to cause the delivery (output) pressure to decrease as flow increases. The described invention partially overcomes this limitation by using velocity boosting to compensate. Velocity boosting subjects the diaphragm to a lower pressure than the controlled downstream pressure, which allows for a larger valve opening and higher flow rates. The second limitation, hysteresis or backlash, is partially caused by change of direction of friction forces throughout the range of motion for the device. Hysteresis causes inconsistency in the performance of such a device. The described invention reduces the effect of this limitation by providing a novel floating suspension for valving and velocity-boost components together with smoothly rounded continuous guides and slide surfaces providing essentially point-to-point controlled, low-friction contact for mechanism control. This combined with novel and improved component configurations and actuation mechanisms provides a device having novel control and operational characteristics which produce significantly enhanced performance consistency. The third limitation is caused by physical obstructions in the flow path direction. The described invention has eliminated virtually all unnecessary obstructions from the flow stream.

Direct-acting boost-enhanced pressure regulator


A visible-light-photocatalyzed composite light-transmitting concrete contains several bundles of optical fibers, the optical fibers are coated with a protective layer on their outer surface, the protective layer contains a visible light photocatalyst, and the concrete has several gas-permeable pores. Such concrete is prepared by mixing a visible light photocatalyst and a light-transmitting glue, applying the mixture to the surface of optical fibers to form a protective layer, and using optical fibers in the concrete. The resulting concrete has dual properties of light transmittance and photocatalytic oxidation of gas-phase pollutants under visible light irradiation. The visible-light-photocatalyzed composite light-transmitting concrete significantly breaks through the limitation of photocatalytic concrete to light sources, so that gas-phase pollutants can be removed under visible light irradiation through photocatalysis of light-transmitting concrete. It also has good mechanical properties, decorativeness, and functional practicability due to coated optical fibers.

With the rapid development of industry, the air pollution problem has become increasingly prominent. Nitrogen oxides (NOx) are a key factor in the formation of air pollution, and an important precursor of haze and photochemical smog. According to the statistics, air pollution kills more than 3 million people every year in the world, and it has become the most serious environmental pollution problem in the 21st century. In response to this problem, all sectors of society have begun to improve technology to achieve energy saving and emission reduction. As crucial basic raw materials for the national economy, building materials shoulder a great mission of providing material support for the construction of ecological civilization in addition to energy saving and emission reduction in their production processes. In this context, photocatalytic functional building materials have attracted extensive attention of domestic and overseas researchers due to their additional photolysis of pollutants.
At present, however, this technology is restricted by problems such as low solar energy utilization efficiency, low pollutant purification efficiency and unclear reaction mechanism of existing photocatalytic materials in practical applications. The photocatalytic performance of nano-TiO2 requires excessively severe ultraviolet irradiation conditions, and a key point is the preparation of photocatalytic functional materials with the photocatalytic performance under visible light wavelengths.
Concrete is the artificial material most used by human beings currently. In the context of increasing resource consumption, modern concrete product development concepts have tended to focus on the functional design of concrete and require it to embark on the road of green development. Therefore, new building materials such as pervious concrete, fair-faced concrete and cellular concrete emerge as the times require. In addition to characteristics of traditional concrete, these materials have functional effects such as perviousness, decoration, sound insulation and thermal insulation. As a novel and high-end functional building material, light-transmitting concrete can clearly show outlines or shapes of objects, play the role of light-transmitting development, and give people a strong visual impact; its light transmittance can reduce the power consumption of lighting, save energy, and protect the environment, which has drawn considerable attention in the architectural engineering field. In addition, light-transmitting concrete used in conjunction with the design of lighting art can greatly increase the aesthetics of buildings, making dull and monotonous concrete structures light and lively, and has been applied in buildings such as exhibition halls and art galleries.
If light-transmitting concrete can be combined with photocatalytic functional building materials, this new type of concrete will have dual functions of photocatalysis and light transmittance, with a certainty of broad development prospects.

Visible-light-photocatalyzed composite light-transmitting concrete as well as preparation method and application thereof


An optical information recording medium has tolerance to warping. The optical information recording medium includes at least one information recording layer on a main surface of a substrate and a light-transmitting layer. The substrate includes a clamp area and an information recording area in accordance with the information recording layer. In the light-transmitting layer, the average thickness of a second area corresponding to the clamp area is thinner than the average thickness of a first area corresponding to the information recording area.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an optical information recording medium, and more particularly relates to an optical information recording medium having at least one information recording layer and a light-transmitting layer on a main surface of a substrate.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Recently, research relating to various types of optical information recording has been studied in the optical information recording field. Optical information recording methods have been emerging which are applicable to a range of uses, because these methods can allow media to have higher density, can record/reproduce information by a non-contact method, and can also achieve these objectives at a low price. Currently, an optical disk has a structure produced, for example, by forming an information layer on a transparent resin layer with a thickness of 1.2 mm, and then covering and protecting the layer with an over coating, or by forming information layers on one or both sides of a transparent resin layer with an over coating, or by forming information layers on one or both sides of a transparent resin layer with a thickness of 0.6 mm, and then laminating two of the information layers.
Recently, as a way to increase the recording density of optical disks, methods have been studied such as increasing the numerical aperture (NA) of an objective lens, and shortening the wavelength of the laser. In these methods, if the thickness of a recording/reproducing carrier (which is a substrate of the side on which an optical laser is incident) is thin, the influence of an aberration of the laser spot decreases, and allowance for a gradient angle (tilt) of a disk increases. From this, an idea was proposed to set the thickness of the recording/reproducing carrier to be around 0.1 mm, NA to be around 0.85, and the wavelength of a laser to be around 400 nm (see Japanese unexamined patent publication H08-235638, for example). Here, considering effects on the focus of the recording/reproducing light and risk of spherical aberration, it is preferable that the thickness variation of the recording/reproducing carrier is reduced to be within 5%. Even in an optical disk having such reduced thickness variation, the recording/reproducing carrier of which has thickness is 0.1 mm, a thickness of the disk is preferably 1.2 mm like a conventional CD or DVD because the disk should have compatibility with existing hardware.
An optical disk having a recording/reproducing carrier with a thickness of 0.1 mm has an asymmetrical structure in the thickness direction because the thickness of the disk is 1.2 mm. Because of the asymmetrical structure, warping of the optical disk occurs due to variations in environmental conditions such as temperature or humidity. More specifically, when placing the optical disk, which is at room temperature, in a recording/reproducing machine which has been heated to 50 degrees C. by uninterrupted operations, drastic warping occurs in a short time.

Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.


A non-transitory computer-readable recording medium stores therein a program for causing a computer to execute a process for reading design data from a memory which stores the design data that indicates an auxiliary geometric shape and an article, the auxiliary geometric shape being arranged in association with a setting portion for which a condition for performing simulation for structural analysis of the article is set, and being assigned identification information including the condition; identifying the auxiliary geometric shape and the condition from the design data based on the identification information; setting the condition for the setting portion; and performing the simulation based on the condition.

In a known technique, in order to evaluate the performance, such as strength, anti-vibration, anti-heat, of an article to be designed, structural analysis of the article is performed on a computer based on design data corresponding to the article. When structural analysis is performed, a condition (such as a boundary condition) under which simulation for structural analysis is performed is set by a user input for an area of the article indicated by the design data. Subsequently, finite elements are generated by element division according to the geometric shape of the article and the purpose of analysis, and simulation is performed. A result of the simulation is then displayed on a display device.
In a related art technique, input request for an analysis condition for a portion of an article, in which the geometric shape of the article is changed, is displayed on a display to avoid neglecting to set an analysis condition (see, for instance, Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 9-138812). In a related art technique, design data, and conditions for generating an analysis model, analysis conditions are managed in association with each other (see, for instance, Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 2007-264724).
Related techniques are disclosed in, for example, Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 2003-6240.
In a related art technique, various conditions including boundary conditions, such as a loading condition and a restriction condition, for performing simulation for structural analysis are set by a user, and thus there was a problem in that the structural analysis took a long time.

Computer-readable recording medium storing structural analysis simulation program, structural analysis simulation method, and information processing device


A ladle preheating system and method in which heat input rate to the ladle is calculated and monitored throughout the preheating period, calculating the moving average slope representing change over time of the rate of change of heat input, correcting the moving average slope for unavoidable variations in the measurements of the heat input rate, calculating the change of the moving average slope over time (the approximate second derivative), and signaling to an operator the readiness of the ladle based upon this second derivative's falling below a preset criteria indicating a fully preheated ladle.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to the preheating of refractory-lined ladles for containing and transporting molten metal and, more particularly, to a system and method for monitoring the heat content of a ladle during preheating and indicating accurately when the ladle refractories are uniformly heated throughout, and particularly to such a system and method in which it is determined when the ladle is so heated by measuring the slope of the heat input rate (or the fuel flow rate) over time and, especially, the second derivative of a variation-corrected rate of change of heat input rate to the ladle.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In a steelmaking shop, brick or cast refractory-lined ladles are used to transport liquid steel from a steelmaking furnace to a treatment section of the shop or to a forming operation such as continuous casting. In the latter case, it is necessary that the casting operation be carried out continuously, so several ladles may rotate through the shop simultaneously. The thermal state of the ladle has a direct and significant impact on heating of the ladle and also on liquid steel temperature loss during transport of the ladle from the steelmaking furnace to secondary steelmaking processes and to a continuous caster.
Such ladles may heat up when filled with liquid metal because of the heat absorbed from the melt by the ladle refractory lining. On the other hand, the ladles cool off when empty. The length of time during which a ladle is empty is highly variable and unpredictable. For example, delays due to a major ladle repair taking many hours to complete may result in a very cool ladle which, if used in that condition, will cause relatively high loss of the liquid metal temperature. In continuous casting operations, liquid steel, as introduced into the caster tundish, may be only about 40.degree. F. above the metal liquidus temperature. In such case, one cannot afford to lose significant and unanticipated heat to the ladle.
On the other hand, over-heating of a ladle is inefficient and costly and may result in increased refractory damage.
Accordingly, ladle preheating is an important common practice in the metals manufacturing field, and serves to normalize heat losses for ladles taken out of the rotational use cycle for repair and for ladles first introduced into the use cycle, and to minimize thermal stresses in the ladle refractory due to pouring hot liquid metal into a cool refractory lining.
Usually a gas-fired burner is used to inject a flame into the interior of the ladle, for example when the ladle is positioned on its side on a horizontal preheating stand. Gas-fired ladle preheaters are represented, for example, by U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,359,209; 4,229,211; 4,014,532, and 3,907,260. Heating a ladle with electrical power also is known, for example as shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,394,566.
FIG. 1 of the present application illustrates a typical prior art method of changing fuel gas flow to a ladle preheater in respect to control temperature (actual ladle refractory hot face temperature as measured by a thermocouple in the ladle) and set point temperature (predetermined desired ladle hot face temperature). As indicated by FIG. 1, it is usual to use a maximum fuel flow rate during an initial preheating time period when the ladle is relatively cool, then gradually to decrease fuel flow rate after the set point temperature is reached and until the ladle is fully heated. A typical time for control temperature to reach the set point temperature is about 2 hours, and a typical time to reach a fully heated condition of the ladle refractory is about 20 hours, as also indicated in FIG. 1.
Currently, control of a ladle preheater usually is based on feedback from a thermocouple located in the preheater lid. This thermocouple measures the average hot face temperature of the ladle refractory. Initially, when the ladle first is placed on the preheater, the burner fires at maximum capacity to input heat as rapidly as possible. As the hot face temperature approaches the set point temperature, the burner is throttled back so that the set point temperature is maintained and not overshot. That is, as the ladle hot face approaches the set point temperature, the fuel flow rate is reduced so that the rate of heat input matches the rate at which heat is being absorbed into the refractory, as shown in FIG. 1.
Practically, fuel flow rate can be considered to be equivalent to the heat input rate to a ladle during preheating. The principal difference is that some heat from the burning fuel, e.g. natural gas, is lost, primarily to off-gases (flue gases). Thus, heat input rate is a somewhat more accurate measure of ladle heat content than is gas flow rate.
Exemplary of such prior art, U.S. Pat. No. 1,512,008 discloses methods and apparatus for maintaining working temperature, in, e.g. an electrically-heated furnace, by varying the rate of heat input rapidly in response to wide variations in thermocouple-determined furnace temperature, for example, by quickly raising the temperature near a desired level, then varying the heat input rate slowly as the temperature nears the desired value.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,223,873 discloses a direct flame ladle preheating system including a control circuit to maintain combustion gases at a predetermined temperature and to adjust fuel-air ratio in order to maximize combustion and minimize oxygen remaining in the combustion gases.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,718,643 relates to ladle preheating in which flow of fuel and oxygen is controlled responsive to ladle temperature to increase heat input during an initial preheating phase and to insure maximum system efficiency during a soaking phase.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,462,698 relates to ladle preheating in which a radiation pyrometer is used to measure the (hot face) ladle refractory for control of gas flow rate.
Such prior art methods are appropriate for controlling the surface temperature of the ladle refractory during preheating, but they do not indicate when a preheated ladle has absorbed enough heat so that the temperature losses of the liquid metal will be consistent and controllable. Thus these earlier practices fall short of indicating ladle readiness for use after preheating because the temperature distribution within the ladle lining thickness is unsteady due to a cyclic heat input (e.g. when liquid steel is poured into the ladle) and cooling periods (e.g. when the ladle is empty). For example, when a ladle is full of liquid steel, the refractory is exposed to a heat source of high temperature, e.g. about 2800-3000.degree. F. in contact with and moving against the inside surface of the refractory lining of the ladle. After casting or pouring the liquid steel out of the ladle, the empty ladle is exposed to the atmosphere for a significant period of time during which the inside surface of the refractory lining cools, typically to about 1400.degree. F. or less. Further unpredictable variables, such as ambient temperature and wind conditions in the steelmaking shop, significantly affect ladle refractory and shell temperatures. These thermal variables are not taken into account by such prior art practices. The same is true of changes in refractory thickness over the course of several use cycles, due to erosion of the refractory, which causes a loss in insulating capacity and hence a change in heat capacity of the ladle and the rate of heat input during preheating.
Measuring the temperature of the steel shell of the ladle also does not provide an effective way of measuring or controlling the rate of heat input to the ladle. For example, a ladle, recycled, say 11/2 hours after casting its contents, may be put on a preheater because it is considered to be too cold. The inside surface of the refractory lining may be about 1200.degree. F. and the working lining (the lining next to a bath of liquid metal and underlain with a thinner safety lining) may have lost a significant amount of heat, but the shell temperature may be about 650.degree. F.--which would indicate that the ladle is ready for service--but in fact the ladle is cold and, if used in this condition, will cause significant heat loss from the liquid metal. Thus, similarly to ladle hot face temperature, ladle shell temperature will not reliably indicate overall thermal conditions of the ladle refractories.
A practical monitoring and signalling system is needed for more accurately indicating to an operator when a preheated ladle is ready for service, i.e. when the ladle is heat soaked throughout the refractory lining and thus is hot enough to guarantee minimum and consistent heat loss from the molten metal.


The four types of the zero idle time Z-state circuits are presented with an improvement in productivity, cost, chip area, power consumption, and design time. The zero idle time Z-state circuits basically include a sensing gate, two stacked PMOS transistors, and a feedback line. The sensing gate senses a voltage at its input assuming no feedback is applied. Again, the corresponding output of two stacked PMOS transistors is assumed to be connected to the sensing input. Two stacked PMOS transistors generate a high impedance Z-state at its output according to the corresponding output of the sensing gate. Therefore, the feedback line keeps sampling the output and feeding back the output voltage to the sensing input. Consequently, the feedback configuration provides the initial output voltage, which is the midpoint voltage decided by the device aspect ratios of the sensing gate before normal operation starts in all three systems such as all kinds of phase-locked loops, delay-locked loops, and switching regulators. Thus, all the zero idle time Z-state circuits within all three systems make the initial condition close to the expected condition in order to enable these systems to come into lock or regulation quickly. Thus, all the zero idle time Z-state circuits utilizing less than twelve transistors presented achieve a fast lock-in time, a solution for harmonic locking problem, a minimization of start-up time, a initial reduction in power and time, a significant reduction in design simulation time, an improvement in productivity, and a higher performance.

Phase-looked loops, delay-locked loops, and switching regulators are vitally important devices. Phase-looked loops, delay-locked loops, and switching regulators are analog and mixed signal building blocks used extensively in communication, networks, digital systems, consumer electronics, computers, and any other fields that require frequency synthesizing and high efficient voltage regulating functions.
The phase-looked loop is a very versatile building block suitable for a variety of frequency synthesis, clock recovery, and synchronization applications. Prior Art FIG. 1 illustrates a basic architecture of a conventional phase-locked loop. The conventional phase-locked loop 100 typically consists of a phase-frequency detector, a charge-pump, a low-pass filter, a voltage-controlled oscillator, and a frequency divider in a loop. However, to understand phase-locked loops, phase-locked loops without any frequency dividers in a loop will be considered here. The phase-frequency detector is a block that has an output voltage with an average value proportional to the phase difference between the input signal and the output of the voltage-controlled oscillator. The charge-pump either injects the charge into the low-pass filter or subtracts the charge from the low-pass filter, depending on the outputs of the phase-frequency detector. Therefore, change in the low-pass filter's output voltage is used to drive the voltage-controlled oscillator. The negative feedback of the loop results in the output of the voltage-controlled oscillator being synchronized with the input signal. As a result, the phase-locked loop is in lock.
In the conventional phase-locked loop of Prior Art FIG. 1, lock-in time is defined as the time that is required to attain lock from an initial loop condition. Assuming that the phase-locked loop bandwidth is fixed, the lock-in time is proportional to the initial difference frequency between the initial input signal frequency and the voltage-controlled oscillator's frequency as follows:
            (                        ω          in                -                  ω          osc                    )        2        ω    0    3  where ωin is the input signal frequency, ωosc is the voltage-controlled oscillator's frequency, and ω0 is the loop bandwidth. It should be noted that a loop bandwidth must be wide enough to obtain a fast lock-in time, unless the narrow bandwidth is inevitable to minimize output phase jitter due to external noise. If the loop bandwidth of a phase-locked loop is very narrow, the lock-in time is very slow. Modern communication systems require a fast lock-time time even though the loop bandwidth is narrow. However, the conventional phase-locked loops including Prior Art FIG. 1 have suffered from slow locking. Time and power are unnecessarily consumed until the phase-locked loops are in lock. To overcome the drawbacks, a conventional fast-locking phase-locked loop of Prior Art FIG. 2 is illustrated. The conventional fast-locking phase-locked loop consists of a digital phase-frequency detector including a 6-bit counter, a proportional-integral controller, a 10-bit digital-to-analog converter, and a voltage-controlled oscillator. Unfortunately, the conventional fast-locking phase-locked loop is costly, complicated, and inefficient in an integrated circuit (IC) because additional blocks such as the proportional-integral controller and the 10-bit digital-to-analog converter take much more chip area and consume much more power. Since there are much more functional blocks integrated on the same chip, the chip area of the conventional fast-locking phase-locked loop 200 is about three times as large as that of the conventional phase-locked loop 100. In addition, complicated additional functional blocks in a loop make the stability analysis very difficult. The complexity increases the number of blocks that need to be designed and verified. Thus, the conventional fast-locking phase-locked loop of Prior Art FIG. 2 might improve the lock-in time, but definitely results in the following penalties: bad productivity, higher cost, larger chip area, much more power consumption, and longer design time. Therefore, the conventional fast-locking phase-locked loop 200 can not be implemented in an integrated circuit (IC). In addition to slow lock-in time problem, there have been serious harmonic locking problems when a multiplier is used for the phase detector.
Thus, what is desperately needed is a phase-locked loop integrated circuit that can attain a fast lock-in time and solve serious harmonic locking problems with an improvement in productivity, cost, chip area, power consumption, and design time. The present invention satisfies these needs by providing zero idle time Z-state circuits utilizing a small number of transistors.
Delay-looked loops are typically employed for the purpose of synchronization. Prior Art FIG. 3 illustrates a basic architecture of a conventional delay-locked loop. A conventional delay-locked loop 300 typically consists of a phase detector, a charge-pump, a loop filter, and a voltage-controlled delay line. In delay-locked loops, the phase detector is a block that has an output voltage with an average value proportional to the phase difference between the input signal clock and the output clock at the end of delay line. The charge-pump either injects the charge into the loop filter or subtracts the charge from the loop filter, depending on the outputs of the phase detector. Therefore, change in the loop filter's output voltage will affect the delay time of the voltage-controlled delay line. If delay different from integer multiples of clock period is detected, the closed delay-locked loop will automatically correct it by changing the delay time of the voltage-controlled delay line. However, conventional delay locked-loops have suffered from harmonic locking over wide operating range or failing to lock. To overcome the drawbacks, a conventional fast-locking delay-locked loop of Prior Art FIG. 4 is illustrated. The conventional fast-locking delay-locked loop 400 basically consists of an analog phase detector, a charge-pump, a loop filter, a voltage-controlled delay lines, a digital phase detector, a 2-bit successive-approximation register (SAR), and a DCDL. Unfortunately, the conventional fast-locking delay-locked loop is costly, complicated, and inefficient in an integrated circuit (IC) because additional blocks such as the DCDL and 2-bit successive-approximation register (SAR) take much more chip area and consume much more power. Since there are much more functional blocks integrated on the same chip, the chip area of the conventional fast-locking delay-locked loop 400 is about 2.6 times as large as that of the conventional delay-locked loop 300. The complexity increases the number of blocks that need to be designed and verified. Thus, the conventional fast-locking delay-locked loop of Prior Art FIG. 4 might improve the lock-in time, but certainly results in the following penalties: bad productivity, higher cost, larger chip area, much more power consumption, and longer design time. Thus, the conventional fast-locking delay-locked loop 400 can not be implemented in an integrated circuit (IC). In addition to slow lock-in time problem, there have been serious lock failure problems.
Thus, what is desperately needed is a delay-locked loop integrated circuit that can attain a fast lock-in time and solve lock failure problems with an improvement in productivity, cost, chip area, power consumption, and design time. At the same time, what is desperately needed is to add one circuit that enables both phase-locked loops and delay-locked loops to achieve fast lock and to eliminate lock failure and harmonic locking problems. The present invention satisfies these needs by providing zero idle time Z-state circuits utilizing a small number of transistors, too.
Switching regulators (DC-TO-DC converters) are typically used for high efficient power supply system. Switching regulators can provide output voltages which can be less than, greater than, or of opposite polarity to the input voltage. Prior Art FIG. 5 illustrates a basic architecture of a conventional switching regulator 500. The conventional switching regulator basically consists of an oscillator, a reference circuit, an error amplifier, a modulator including a comparator, resistors, and a control logic circuit. Control technique of switching regulators has typically used two modulators: a pulse-width modulator and a pulse-frequency modulator. For pulse-width modulator, the output dc level is sensed through the feedback loop including two resistors. An error amplifier compares this sampled output voltage and the reference voltage. The output of the error amplifier is compared against a periodic ramp generated by the saw tooth oscillator. The pulse-width modulator output passes through the control logic to the high voltage power switch. The feedback system regulates the current transfer to maintain a constant voltage within the load limits. In other words, it insures that the output voltage comes into regulation. Unfortunately, the conventional switching regulator 500 is inefficient in an integrated circuit (IC). The reason why is that it takes a long time until the regulated output reaches the equilibrium after the power supply or the power system starts. Thus, power and time are wasted until the output voltage comes into regulation. In addition, the slow start-up increases design simulation time.
In summary, unfortunately the conventional phase-locked loop 100 of Prior Art FIG. 1, the conventional fast-locking phase-locked loop 200 of Prior Art FIG. 2, the conventional delay-locked loop 300 of Prior Art FIG. 3, the conventional fast-locking delay-locked loop 400 of Prior Art FIG. 4, and the conventional switching regulator 500 of Prior Art FIG. 5 are very inefficient and unreliable to implement in an integrated circuit. In addition, those integrated circuits 100, 200, 300, 400, and 500 have taken a long time to be simulated and verified before they are fabricated. Also, many other additional drawbacks are described as follows: First, the conventional phase-locked loops 100 and conventional delay-locked loop 300 have suffered from a very long time required to attain lock. Hence, time and power are unnecessarily consumed until the conventional phase-locked loop 100 and conventional delay-locked loop 300 are in lock. Second, the conventional phase-locked loop 100 has suffered from harmonic locking and the conventional delay-locked loop 300 has suffered from failing to lock. Especially harmonic locking is that the phase-locked loop locks to harmonics of the input signal when a multiplier is used for the phase detector. Third, the conventional switching regulator 500 has suffered from long time to require the output voltage to be regulated. Fourth, simulation time in designing these integrated circuits is absolutely proportional to time required the loops to lock and time to require the output voltage of the switching regulators to be regulated. Hence, this long simulation time adds additional cost to the integrated circuit (IC) and slows down design time to market. Fifth, the conventional locked loops and the conventional switching regulators do not have common analog building block to reduce the number of different blocks that need to be designed and verified. As a result, regularity and productivity can not be achieved. Sixth, the conventional fast-locking phase-locked loop 200 and conventional fast-locking delay-locked loop 400 might improve the lock-in time, but definitely results in bad productivity, higher cost, larger chip area, much more power consumption, and longer design time.
Thus, what is finally needed for a cost-effective circuit that can make a fast lock-in time for phase-locked loops and delay-locked loops, resolve harmonic locking for phase-locked loops, prevent delay-locked loops from failing to lock, minimize start-up time of switching regulators, reduce power and time consumption until loops are in lock or the output voltage of switching regulators comes into regulation, reduce significantly design time for better time-to-market, and improve productivity by reusing the same cost-effective circuit design for three applications such as phase-locked loops, delay-locked loops, and switching regulators. The present invention satisfies these needs by providing four embodiments utilizing a small number of transistors.

Zero idle time Z-state circuit for phase-locked loops, delay-locked loops, and switching regulators


The invention provides methods and systems useful for quickly and accurately sampling a switched capacitive load. Systems are disclosed in which the methods are implemented using an operational amplifier operably coupled to a pre-charge capacitor for storing an input charge. A sampling capacitor is also coupled to the operational amplifier and to the pre-charge capacitor for receiving and holding the input charge. The system is so configured for a coarse sampling phase and a fine sampling phase the to ensure that the sampling capacitor settles quickly to provides an output.

An analog to digital converter (ADC) system typically uses an input driver circuit to sample an analog signal for input to the converter. Depending on the application, there may be a need to manipulate the signal in various ways in order to make use of the capabilities of the ADC. Op amp circuitry is typically used to perform one or more operations such as inverting, attenuating, multiplying, and shifting the input signal to be operated on by the ADC. The ADC cannot convert a moving target, necessitating that the sample of the input signal be held for a period of time. Ideally, a holding capacitor is instantaneously charged to the input voltage, the sampled charge is held for the ADC, and the sample is then converted by the ADC. Departures from the ideal occur in practice due to several problems.
In systems having a capacitive load, op amp sampling circuits have inherent instability problems. Compensation capacitance may be added to offset the phase delay of the capacitive load and keep the system under control, but increasing the compensation capacitor in order to enhance stability has the undesirable side-effect of increasing rise time and reducing bandwidth. As the resolution and speed of ADCs increases, it becomes increasingly difficult to use an op amp to drive the switching input load of high-speed over-sampling ADCs. An approach known in the arts is to attempt to use a feedback network of resistors and capacitors to increase stability. In some instances, the system input driver may be integrated onto the ADC chip to reduce the component count, e.g., the opamp and associated passives, as well as to eliminate a power supply, which is very desirable. In order to arrive at a satisfactory configuration using an opamp to drive a high performance ADC, it is often necessary for the user to make adjustments to the R and C at the input according to performance measurements, making such solutions costly and application-specific.
Spurious free dynamic range (SFDR) is the measure of the difference of the fundamental signal and the largest spur among the samples. The SFDR in general is approximately equal to the worst case signal to noise ratio (SNR). There is a need in the arts for higher bandwidths with both better SNR and SFDR. This in turn means that in order to keep the same over-sampling ratio, the clock frequency as well as the sampling capacitor size must be increased. The SFDR of the sampled signal in these cases is limited by how fast the input amplifier can settle in response to the step at the output caused by the switching load. Since the available time to settle is only one half of a clock cycle, it becomes extremely difficult for the amplifier to settle, to 16-18-bit linearity for example, as the clock frequencies increase, and also as the value of capacitor being switched increases. Traditionally a low pass RC filter is placed in the driver circuit to filter out high frequency thermal noise from the driving opamp and any resistors included in the opamp configuration. This approach becomes less effective as the signal frequency increases, since the −3 db bandwidth of the filter has to be increased to prevent signal attenuation, implying that high frequency thermal noise will necessarily also increase. Moreover, this approach falls short of achieving very good SFDR numbers because the output at the RC filter is a slow moving node and requires a relatively long settling time. This technique works only if the switching capacitor is a very small fraction of the capacitor in the RC filter so that majority of the charge is provided to the capacitor by charge sharing. Additionally, there must be sufficient time for the output to settle for required accuracy. This is generally not the case in high speed over-sampling ADCs. These problems are often encountered in high speed pipelined ADC systems as well as successive approximation register (SAR) ADCs.
Another important practical problem encountered in the arts is that high-speed amplifiers are generally manufactured using BICMOS processes. If the ADC system is implemented using a slow CMOS process to achieve higher swings, then it may not be practical to integrate very fast amplifiers into the system because of the effect of parasitic capacitances on bandwidth and slew rate. One approach known in the arts is to configure a system with a multi-chip module (MCM), having both a BICMOS amplifier and a CMOS ADC together in the same package. However, those familiar with the applicable arts will recognize that this approach to the problem presents additional problems from a manufacturing point of view.
For fully differential circuits, load capacitors switched in the sampling phase are traditionally used, sometimes also with the addition of an RC filter at the driver output. Such a circuit uses a continuous time amplifier with a load capacitor connected during sampling clock phases. Such an amplifier is required to be extremely fast to settle to desired accuracy in one-half clock cycle. It is known to use a pre-charging scheme in SAR converters to relax the requirements on the input driver. The desired effect of this technique is to relax the requirement on the external amplifier by having an internal pre-charge buffer to provide the initial surge current and provide an initial sampling of the input. The pre-charge buffer drives the input during a pre-charge phase, after which the external driver takes over during the sampling phase. One particular disadvantage of this approach is the requirement to use an additional buffer, which means additional power is required. Another problem is that the power consumption for the pre-charge buffer may be excessive.
There is a need in the arts for improved systems and methods for input driver circuits useful for reducing or eliminating one or more of these and possibly other problems, particularly for use in the context of high speed ADC systems.

Pre-charge systems and methods for ADC input sampling


An intelligent education and simulation system which is capable of executing an optimized follow-up reeducation to the learner reflecting his/her idiosyncrasy toward understanding in learning. The intelligent education and simulation system has an execution instruction to execute a curriculum comprising a plurality of instruction courses regarding the subject teaching of an educational object and its simulation-based instruction. According to this execution instruction, intelligent computer assisted instruction of the subject teaching and the simulation-based instruction are implemented. The degree of understanding of these instructions by the learner is evaluated, and according to the degree of understanding thus comprehended, a pertinent follow-up instruction course(s) is chosen for reeducation. In this way, a pertinent reeducation instruction course(s) optimized for each learner is capable of being selected, and the time required for reeducation of the learner is minimized.

The present invention relates to an educational system, and more particularly, to an educational system which is suitable for teaching operational procedures in a plant, and physical behaviors in the plant by using a simulator. A known simulation-based instruction such as a training system as shown in "Intelligent Training System GTS-PDTS" (Symposium on the New Approaches to Computer Utilization in Education) focuses on the teaching of plant operations and its system flow through the teaching of related subject knowledge in conjunction with its simulator instruction. In that system, education through simulation is performed after the learning step of the subject knowledge is completed. Also, at each step of the teaching or education, a related education corresponding to the degree of understanding by a learner is offered using a bug model as a learner's model.
The learner's model used in the above known system only contains the learner's achievement test data in the exams on the subject knowledge and the learner's erroneous operation data, respectively. In the known education system, the subject knowledge teaching and the simulation teaching are offered independently, thus without effecting mutual interference or interaction to be taken responding to the degree of understanding by the learner. It therefore lacks flexibility in a sense of a more efficient overall education. Thus, there has been a problem that the subject domain knowledge and the knowledge on the actual plant behaviors are difficult to be matched or correlated. Among learners, some are more adept at learning through subject domain teaching, while others are more adept at learning through simulator teaching. It will be a burden for those who are adept at learning through subject teaching simply to be forced uniformly to take both the subject teaching and the simulator teaching. The same occurs to those who are adept at learning through simulator teaching when they are simply forced uniformly to take both the subject teaching and the simulator teaching.

Intelligent education and simulation system and method


Structures are described that create spaces while installing anchor sheet and attachment piece subfloors, but which allow for the expansion and contraction of anchor sheets after installation. The structures may be used on either the attachment pieces, anchor sheets or both. In one embodiment, the structure is a deformable margin; in another embodiment, the structure is a pull-away strip.

Several earlier patent applications filed by the same inventor disclose an anchor sheet which can be supplied as a small or large module, with or without a pre-attached decorative covering, including the current inventor's U.S. applications Ser. Nos. 08/850,720 filed May 2, 1997, 09/008,565 filed Jan. 16, 1998 and 09/008,584 filed Jan. 16, 1998. These earlier cases also disclose the anchor sheet as a modular unit which can form a contiguous mass of anchor sheet to be used as a subfloor to which a decorative covering is to be attached or as a finished floor when presupplied with a decorative surface. Such a contiguous mass can be formed by attaching the anchor sheets together by some form of overlap or by abutting the anchor sheets to each other and using an overlap of decorative covering or tape. Such mass can be free floating or attached to the floor.

Structures for creating spaces while installing anchor sheet and attachment piece subfloors


Embodiments of the present invention relate to a method, computer program product and system for optimizing database transactions configured for receiving a query. The query specifies a set of predicates supplied to the query and a minimal number of predicates to be satisfied for the query to be true. An operation using the query is performed on a repository that is stored in a computer readable storage medium. A set of results satisfying the minimal number of predicated is rendered.

Data repositories and in particular, databases are computerized information storage and retrieval systems. A database query refers to a set of commands or clauses for retrieving data stored in the databases. Queries may come from users, application programs, or remote systems. A query may specify a specific location, such as, a table or a column in a database to retrieve data from, how to join columns from multiple tables, and conditions that must be satisfied for a particular data record to be included in a query result set. Current structured data, typically relational databases, process queries composed in an exacting format specified by a query language. For example, the widely used Structured Query Language (SQL) is supported by many relational databases.
There are many disciplines that rely on databases, such as life sciences, require increasingly complex databases and database queries. Running large or complex query typically uses multiple resources and has been a subject of study and interest.

International Business Machines Corporation


One of the problems in display devices is that the black level is different for each type of display tube and is also dependent on temperature and ageing. The display devices hitherto known with black level setting circuits apply one control voltage to the relevant cathode during the field blanking interval, whereafter the cathode current is measured and subsequently compared with a reference current. Subsequently, the black level is adapted until the measured current approximately corresponds to the reference current.. The display device now includes a black level setting circuit with a control circuit adapted to successively apply at least two control voltages in a predetermined ratio to the cathode. Moreover, the black level setting circuit includes a correction circuit for supplying a correction value dependent on the ratio between the currents generated in the relevant cathode in response to the at least two control voltages.

1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a display device comprising a display tube having at least one cathode, and a black level setting circuit for setting the black level of a video signal to be applied to the cathode, said black level setting circuit comprising a correction circuit for correcting the black level and for supplying a correction value for the cathode, control means for applying a predetermined control signal to the cathode during a measuring interval, and a measuring circuit for measuring a current generated in the cathode by the control signal, said measuring circuit having an output which is coupled to an input of the correction circuit.
At a voltage of 0 V at the cathode (with respect to the first control grid), a given current flows in the cathode. If the voltage increases, the current decreases until the current becomes zero. This is referred to as the cut-off point. The problem occurring when controlling the display tube is that the control is to be effected from the cut-off point. The cut-off point of a display tube is difficult to determine, certainly if this is to be effected automatically. If there is no control voltage, the voltage at the cathode must be equal to the cut-off voltage, thus just precluding the flow of beam current. The black level setting circuit is used to render the black level equal to the cut-off voltage.
2. Description of the Related Art
A display device of this type is known from Valvo Technische Information of Jul. 19, 1985 "Die Video-Kombination TDA 4580". At the black level setting circuit in this known display device, a fixed control voltage is applied as a control signal to the relevant cathode for each color during one measuring line in the field retrace interval. The cathode current Ik is measured and compared with a reference current Iref. The black level is corrected until the cathode current is equal to the reference current. In this way the black level is set close to the cut-off voltage.
A drawback of this known display device is that the black level of the amplifier never corresponds exactly to the cut-off point of the display tube.
The invention is based on the recognition that the relation between the cathode, current Ik and the control voltage V.sub.D (i.e. the voltage applied to the cathode, sent in a negative direction from the cut-off point) is approximately as follows: ##EQU1## The cathode current Ik is dependent on the cut-off voltage Vco and on .gamma.. .gamma. is a quantity related to the display tube. Among the different cathodes for the colors (R, G, B) in one display tube, the cut-off voltage may have different values varying, for example between 105 and 130 Volts. One reference current for one display tube is thus insufficient. Moreover, the cut-off points also vary due to heating, ageing, etc. The reference current should then vary accordingly.
In the above-mentioned black level setting circuit, .gamma. is required as an input parameter and will therefore have to be measured and taken into account for each type of display tube.

Display device including a black level setting circuit


A nozzle arrangement for an inkjet printhead includes a wafer substrate that defines an inlet channel and incorporates CMOS layers to generate electrical drive signals. A nozzle chamber wall and a roof wall are positioned on the wafer substrate to define a nozzle chamber in fluid communication with the inlet channel, the roof wall defining an ink ejection port in fluid communication with the nozzle chamber. A paddle is positioned in the nozzle chamber and is reciprocally displaceable to eject ink from the ejection port. An actuating arm extends through the nozzle chamber wall and is connected to the paddle. The actuating arm has an actuating portion having a pair of actuating members. One of the actuating members defines a heating circuit such that, on receipt of an electrical signal to the exclusion of the other actuating member, the actuating arm is displaced in one direction as a result of differential thermal expansion. The actuating arm is of a resiliently flexible material such that, when the electrical signal is cut off, the actuating arm is displaced in an opposite direction.

Micro-electromechanical devices are becoming increasingly popular and normally involve the creation of devices on the μm (micron) scale utilizing semi-conductor fabrication techniques. For a recent review on micro-electromechanical devices, reference is made to the article "The Broad Sweep of Integrated Micro Systems" by S. Tom Picraux and Paul J. McWhorter published December 1998 in IEEE Spectrum at pages 24 to 33.
Many different techniques on ink jet printing and associated devices have been invented. For a survey of the field, reference is made to an article by J Moore, "Non-Impact Printing: Introduction and Historical Perspective", Output Hard Copy Devices, Editors R Dubeck and S Sherr, pages 207-220 (1988).
Recently, a new form of ink jet printing has been developed by the present applicant, which uses micro-electromechanical technology to achieve ink drop ejection. In one form of this technology, ink is ejected from an ink ejection nozzle chamber utilising an electromechanical actuator connected to a paddle or plunger operatively positioned with respect to a nozzle chamber and which moves towards and away from an ejection nozzle of the chamber for ejecting drops of ink from the chamber.
The Applicant has filed a substantial number of patent applications covering various aspects of this technology. In the invention that is the subject matter of this specification, the Applicant has conceived a number of improvements and developments to the technology described in those patent applications.

Inkjet nozzle arrangement incorporating thermal differential actuation


A multi-channel current regulator includes two or more channels, each channel acting as a current source or sink for a respective load. Each channel regulates its load current so that the load current is proportional to an input voltage supplied to the channel. An operational amplifier is shared between the channels. Each channel is selected in a rotating sequence for connection to the amplifier. As each channel is selected, a two-phase refresh cycle is initiated. During the first phase, the output of the amplifier is charged until it substantially matches the drive voltage of the selected channel. This is followed by the second phase where the output of the amplifier is adjusted until the load current of the selected channel is proportional to a set voltage Vset.

Current sources and current sinks are commonly used to provide regulated currents in circuits of all types. As shown in FIG. 1A, a current sink can be constructed as a combination of a sense resistor, a MOSFET and an operational amplifier. The operational amplifier adjusts the voltage at the gate of the MOSFET to minimize the voltage difference between the inputs of the op amp. In a perfect system, the voltage at the source of the MOSFET, Vs, equals the voltage on the positive terminal of the amplifier, Vset, and the current is given by I=Vset/R. FIG. 1B shows a current source constructed using a similar combination of components.
For some applications, it is desirable to use a series of current sinks or sources driven using the same set voltage, Vset. In an arrangement of this type, each current sink or current source defines a separate channel for current flowing to ground. For the currents in each channel to be equal, all duplicated elements must exactly match in value and characteristics. Unfortunately, mismatches inevitably result because manufacturing variations are unavoidable. Though mismatch between sense-resistors can be minimized with careful layout, random offset within each amplifier is more difficult to correct and can contribute directly to mismatch between channel currents. In fact, random offset is often the main contributor to mismatch—particularly where R is small since I=Vset/R+VOS/R. Consider for example, a hypothetical low power implementation where R is 2 Ohms. If Vos is in the range of −10 mV to 10 mV, then VOS/R can be as large as 5 mA. This would be significant for the case where Vset/R is 20 mA (which would not be unusual for low power devices).
For this reason, U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/970,061 (incorporated in this document by reference) describes a method for sharing a single operational amplifier between a series of channels. As shown in FIG. 2, this method uses two multiplexers. The first allows the output of an operational amplifier to be switched between channels. The second multiplexer allows the feedback voltage to the operational amplifier to be switch in the same fashion. The overall result is that the operational amplifier is shared, with each channel being selected in a (typically) rotating sequence. A problem encountered with this method arises because the operational amplifier takes time to adapt as it is switched between channels. If two channels are operating at significantly different values, regulation of the channel selected second will be bobbled as the operational amplifiers adapts to conditions of the second channel. The second channel starts with the conditions from the previous channel and then the current has to be changed to the final desired value.

Method for operational amplifier sharing between channels


There is provided a method for generating network optimizing information including the steps of identifying system devices that are comprised in a network, collecting metrics from the identified system devices, including collecting at least one metric relating to the operation, status, capability, limitations, expandability, scalability, or performance of the system devices, assessing the collected metrics according to a predetermined assessment protocol, generating a roster of metrics of interest, such metrics of interest being a group of the collected metrics that meet a selection criteria and not including other collected metrics that do not meet the selection criteria, and presenting each of the metrics of interest in a format suitable for a network operator to take corrective actions with regard to the identified non-compliant metrics or to capitalize on the identified optimization opportunities with respect to the network.

U.S. Pat. No. 7,444,263 to White et al points out that the efficient, optimum operation of large, complex systems, such as web-based enterprise systems, requires the monitoring, careful analysis and identification of system metrics that reflect the performance of the system and the use of information regarding system metrics to identify probable root causes of performance problems in complex, distributed, multi-tier applications. According to White et al '263, such metrics, which in general relate to the operation of database systems and application servers, operating systems, physical hardware, network performance, and so on, all must be monitored across networks that may include many computers, each executing numerous processes, so that problems can be detected and corrected when or preferably before they arise.
White et al '263 further points out that several known system monitoring methods have attempted to identify and monitor only the metrics and combinations of metrics that are significant in representing the operation of a system and in detecting any abnormalities therein. However, according to White et at '263, the complexity of modern systems and the large number of possibly significant metrics and combinations of metrics lead to circumstances in which a monitoring system or operator may miss monitoring at least some of the significant metrics or combinations of metrics.
One possible solution, according to White et al '263, is to clearly and unambiguously identify and provide information pertaining to only those metrics or combinations of metrics that are of significance to or usefully represent and reflect the performance of the system, such as abnormalities in system operation. However, according to White et at '263, the clear and unambiguous identification and presentation of metrics and combinations of metrics accurately reflecting system performance or problems, in turn, involves a number of data collection and processing operations, each of which involves unique and significant problems that have seriously limited the capabilities of known performance monitoring systems and, as a consequence, the performance of the systems being monitored.
It is thus clear that there is a need to measure the metrics of a network system, and especially to measure those metrics that truly indicate the performance of the network system. However, even the clear and unambiguous identification and presentation of system metrics that reflect the performance of the network system does not fully put the network system operator in a favorable position to resolve the root causes that cause "out-of-limits" system metrics. Moreover, merely presenting clear and unambiguous identification and presentation of system metrics does not assist a network system operator in evaluating the desirability of, and/or the need for, improvements or enhancements to the existing network system, up to and including fully replacing the existing network system with a more robust network system. Thus, the need exists for a method for generating network optimizing information, whereupon this network optimizing information can provide a network operator with tools to remediate current problems with a network, such as bottleneck and undercapacity issues, as well as tools to guide an expansion and enhancement of the network. Additionally, the need exists for a system and a device for implementing such a method.

Method for generating network optimizing information


A display panel and a driving circuit thereof are provided. The driving circuit includes a data signal supplying module for generating a data signal; a first selection signal generating module for providing a first selecting signal; a second selection signal generating module for providing a second selecting signal; a selecting module including selecting switch sets, which are utilized to receive the first and second selecting signals and output the data signal to a pixel array. The present invention is capable of decreasing a level switching frequency of the selecting signals.

A conventional display panel usually includes a driving circuit. The typical driving circuit is utilized to control pixel units of the display panel for displaying corresponding images.
The technical solution that the typical driving circuit drives the display panel is generally as follows.
The driving circuit generates scanning signals, data signals and selecting signals. The scanning signals are transmitted to the pixel units via scan lines, and the data signals are transmitted to the pixel units via data lines. The selecting signals are utilized to selectively control the data signals to output to the pixel units.
In practice, the inventor at least found the following questions existing in the prior art.
The display panel requires a large number of wires for supporting the requirement of the display panel for high resolution. That is to say, the high-resolution display panel requires the more wires. However, wiring space on the display panel is restricted, and the number of the wires on the display panel cannot grow indefinitely. Thus, resolution enhancement of the display panel is also subject to the corresponding restriction.
Therefore, there is a significant need to provide a new technical solution for solving the above-mentioned technical problem.

Display panel and driving circuit thereof

SHENZHEN CHINA OPTOELECTRONICS TECHNOLOGY CO., LTD


Compositions including carbide-containing nanorods and/or oxycarbide-containing nanorods and/or carbon nanotubes bearing carbides and oxycarbides and methods of making the same are provided. Rigid porous structures including oxycarbide-containing nanorods and/or carbide containing nanorods and/or carbon nanotubes bearing carbides and oxycarbides and methods of making the same are also provided. The compositions and rigid porous structures of the invention can be used either as catalyst and/or catalyst supports in fluid phase catalytic chemical reactions. Processes for making supported catalyst for selected fluid phase catalytic reactions are also provided.

1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to compositions of carbide-containing and oxycarbide-containing nanorods, carbon nanotubes including carbide and/or oxycarbide compounds, rigid porous structures including these compositions, and methods of making and using the same. More specifically, the invention relates to rigid three dimensional structures comprising carbide and/or oxycarbide-containing nanorods or carbon nanotubes bearing carbides and oxycarbides, having high surface areas and porosities, low bulk densities, substantially no micropores and increased crush strengths. The invention also relates to using the compositions and the rigid porous structures including these compositions as catalysts and catalyst supports, in heterogeneous catalytic reactions frequently encountered in petrochemical and refining processes.
2. Description of the Related Art
Heterogeneous catalytic reactions are widely used in chemical processes in the petroleum, petrochemical and chemical industries. Such reactions are commonly performed with the reactant(s) and product(s) in the fluid phase and the catalyst in the solid phase. In heterogeneous catalytic reactions, the reaction occurs at the interface between the phases, i.e., the interface between the fluid phase of the reactant(s) and product(s) and the solid phase of the supported catalyst. Hence, the properties of the surface of a heterogeneous supported catalyst are important factors in the effective use of the catalyst. Specifically, the surface area of the active catalyst, as supported, and the accessibility of that surface area to reactant adsorption and product desorption are important. These factors affect the activity of the catalyst, i.e., the rate of conversion of reactants to products. The chemical purity of the catalyst and the catalyst support have an important effect on the selectivity of the catalyst, i.e., the degree to which the catalyst produces one product from among several products and the life of the catalyst.
Generally catalytic activity is proportional to catalyst surface area. Therefore, a high specific area is desirable. However, the surface area should be accessible to reactants and products as well as to heat flow. The chemisorption of a reactant by a catalyst surface is preceded by the diffusion of that reactant through the internal structure of the catalyst.
Since the active catalyst compounds are often supported on the internal structure of a support, the accessibility of the internal structure of a support material to reactant(s), product(s) and heat flow is important. Accessibility is measured by porosity and pore size distribution. Activated carbons and charcoals used as catalyst supports may have surface areas of about a thousand square meters per gram and porosities of less than 1 ml/gm. However, much of this surface area and porosity, as much as 50%, and often more, is associated with micropores, i.e., pores with pore diameters of 2 nm or less. These pores can be inaccessible because of diffusion limitations. They are easily plugged and thereby deactivated. Thus, high porosity material where the pores are mainly in the mesopore region, i.e., greater than 2 nm or macropore region, i.e., greater than 50 nm, ranges are most desirable.
It is also important that self-supported catalysts and supported catalysts not fracture or attrit during use because such fragments may become entrained in the reaction stream and must then be separated from the reaction mixture. The cost of replacing attritted catalyst, the cost of separating it from the reaction mixture and the risk of contaminating the product are all burdens upon the process. In slurry phase, e.g. where the solid supported catalyst is filtered from the process stream and recycled to the reaction zone, the fines may plug the filters and disrupt the process. It is also important that a catalyst, at the very least, minimize its contribution to the chemical contamination of reactant(s) and product(s). In the case of a catalyst support, this is even more important since the support is a potential source of contamination both to the catalyst it supports and to the chemical process. Further, some catalysts are particularly sensitive to contamination that can either promote unwanted competing reactions, i.e., affect its selectivity, or render the catalyst ineffective, i.e., "poison" it. For example, charcoal and commercial graphites or carbons made from petroleum residues usually contain trace amounts of sulfur or nitrogen as well as metals common to biological systems and may be undesirable for that reason.
Since the 1970s carbon nanofibers or nanotubes have been identified as materials of interest for use as catalysts and catalyst supports. Carbon nanotubes exist in a variety of forms and have been prepared through the catalytic decomposition of various carbon-containing gases at metal surfaces. Nanofibers such as fibrils, bucky tubes and nanotubes are distinguishable from continuous carbon fibers commercially available as reinforcement materials. In contrast to nanofibers, which have, desirably large, but unavoidably finite aspect ratios, continuous carbon fibers have aspect ratios (L/D) of at least 104 and often 106 or more. The diameter of continuous fibers is also far larger than that of nanofibers, being always greater than 1 μm and typically 5 μm to 7 μm.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,576,466 to Ledoux et al. discloses a process for isomerizing straight chain hydrocarbons having at least 7 carbon atoms using catalysts which include molybdenum compounds whose active surface consists of molybdenum carbide which is partially oxidized to form one or more oxycarbides. Ledoux et al. disclose several ways of obtaining an oxycarbide phase on molybdenum carbide. These methods require the formation of molybdenum carbides by reacting gaseous compounds of molybdenum metal with charcoal at temperatures between 900° C. and 1400° C. These are energy intensive processes. Moreover, the resulting molybdenum carbides have many drawbacks similar to catalysts prepared with charcoal. For example, much of the surface area and porosity of the catalysts is associated with micropores and as such these catalysts are easily plugged and thereby deactivated.
While activated charcoals and other materials have been used as catalysts and catalyst supports, none have heretofore had all of the requisite qualities of high surface area, porosity, pore size distribution, resistance to attrition and purity for the conduct of a variety of selected petrochemical and refining processes. Although many of these materials have high surface area, much of the surface area is in the form of inaccessible micropores.
It would therefore be desirable to provide a family of carbide-containing and oxycarbide containing catalysts that have highly accessible surface area, high porosity, and attrition resistance, and which are substantially micropore free, highly active, highly selective and are capable of extended use with no significant deactivation.
Nanofiber mats, assemblages and aggregates have been previously produced to take advantage of the increased surface area per gram achieved using extremely thin diameter fibers. These structures are typically composed of a plurality of intertwined or intermeshed nanotubes.

Method of using carbide and/or oxycarbide containing compositions