An apparatus for an a method of closing a fixed gap in an activity surface such as a turfed race-track is described. The apparatus comprises a movable turf tray having an upper surface with the same characteristics as the activity surface and means for guiding the tray into the gap so as to wedge the tray releasably in the gap and thereby to provide a substantially continuous activity surface. The apparatus can be used to provide a reconfigurable racetrack crossing with the permanent road gap in the racetrack being closeable by means of the movable turf tray. Overlapping edges of the turf tray provide a weight wedging action which provides reliable pressure joins. This also has application for creating reconfigurable turfed activity surfaces such as are used in sports stadia and the like.

As the populations of our cities and towns increase, so does the need to provide multi-functional venues or stadia where we can watch, play or participate in a variety of sports or other activities. Increasingly these days a sports stadium may double as a football pitch, hockey field and athletics track, whereas the local racecourse also caters for both dog racing and horse racing. In our larger cities, international-standard stadia are used for major sports fixtures, parades, even concerts.
Whilst the design of such multi-purpose venues primarily focuses on the needs of spectators, the wear and tear on the activity surface contained within the venue can be a ground-keeper's nightmare. For a number of sports such as cricket, tennis or football, there is constant pressure to maintain the playing surface in the best condition possible and quite often the ranking of, for example, a football stadium as a fixture will be judged not only on its physical design, but also the quality of its playing surface.
Both single and multi-purpose activity surfaces are subject to wear and tear through use and exposure to the elements. Some areas of an activity surface will wear at a different rate than other areas, and a good example of this is the region in a football pitch around the so called 'six yard box', which often will be worn down before any other part of the pitch. Exposure to the elements further complicates the upkeep of an activity surface and, despite the best endeavours of all concerned, some areas can never be returned to a satisfactory state. Attempts to solve this problem by enclosing the activity surface are not always successful, especially where the activity surface is turfed as the resulting environment may be inhospitable to the turf surface.
In addition, it may be desirable to be able to easily and quickly reconfigure a part or all of an activity surface such that the function of the reconfigured area can be altered. For example, a stadium surface (or a portion of same) could be changed from a turfed surface used for football to an artificial surface used for hockey. Ideally, such a transformation should be able to be effected quickly, and the reconfigured surface as a whole should be as uniform as possible.
Another type of activity surface which is of interest is a racetrack. As racecourses occupy considerable areas, they often have points of the racetrack at which a crossing is provided. The crossing is usually in the form of a road which is used by vehicles for the vast majority of time throughout the year. However, shortly before a race meeting, the crossing is closed to road vehicles and measures are taken to make the tarmac road surface temporarily simulate the natural surface of the racetrack. These measures include placing coconut matting on the tarmac road surface and overlaying this with natural turf. In addition, a running rail of the racetrack is connected across the road for the racehorses' guidance. Once the race meeting is over, the added section of running rail is taken down and the coconut matting and the sections of turf placed thereon are simply removed from the tarmac road surface so that the crossing can be used by road vehicles once again.
Horses racing on the racetrack can be quite sensitive to changes in the 'going' of the racetrack ground. On approaching the crossing, they feel the difference in the way in which the ground deflects under their hoofs. In the past, most horses have simply got used to this difference and though experience they learn how to deal with this change in hardness of the ground so as not to be startled by it. For young horses this has however, always been a problem which causes adverse reaction in the horse's behaviour. For example, some horses try to jump the road and other simply pull up. Recently, some young horses have actually broken their hoofs on the harder road crossing section of the racetrack.
One possible way of overcoming this problem is to make the access via both the road and the racetrack continuous. This can be achieved by building a road tunnel or underpass such that the vehicles can pass under the flat continuous racetrack at the crossing. The major difficulty with this proposal is that of cost. Building such a road tunnel or underpass is extremely expensive and also requires local planning permission to be obtained.
Many attempts have been made to provide systems and methods to allow an activity surface or part of the same to be reconfigured. The most common solution has been to provide a multitude of mobile sections of the activity surface, which are positioned where required and joined together. However, the present inventors have realised that there are a number of disadvantages with existing systems and methods which, for example, make them unsuitable for solving the problems associated with racetrack crossings. Some of these known systems and their known implementations are described below.
Turf moving systems are known for creating turfed sports surfaces such as football pitches. One such system is described in International patent application WO-A-92/05690. This document describes a system in which a plurality of mobile turf units are provided each containing turf growing medium and a turf surface. Each of the units is stored in a growing position and then moved into a stadium and assembled together for use. However, the difficulty with these types of turf moving systems is that the units are designed to be replaceable infrequently, namely that they are semi-permanent. More particularly, once the turf units have been assembled together, the turf and soil at the edges of the turf units are tended to grow as a single continuous surface with the turf roots binding the edges together in a semi-permanent fashion to provide the required integrity of contacting turf unit edges. Accordingly, these types of systems are not designed to be readily reconfigurable. Furthermore, the units' assembly can take a long time as the units have to be physically connected together and then the upper turfed surface constructed by the addition of topsoil and turf.
GB-A-2 138 690 describes a reconfigurable turf tray moving system. A plurality of turf trays are provided, which are mobile by floatation on compressed air, and can be arranged to make up a turfed sports pitch. Each turf tray is provided with a pliable plastics edging which is supposed retain the integrity of the playing surface. However, in practice, as the pliable edging has different deformation characteristics to natural turf and soil, the pliable edging can interfere with the performance of the sports surface. More specifically, a natural turfed soil surface varies in its deformation characteristics with weather conditions. For example, the water content of the soil changes the hardness of the soil with changes in temperature such that the soil can become quite hard with cold frosty weather and can become very soft with relatively warm wet weather. However, the pliable edging used does not have this variation in its deformation characteristics such that in some weather conditions, the performance of the sports surface at the edging is too different to that of the surrounding turf to be acceptable.
Another reconfigurable turf tray moving system is known from International patent application WO-A-95/33890. A utility surface such as a turfed playing surface can be constructed from a plurality of turf trays. Each of the turf trays is provided on air bearings and several such trays can be moved into position to create a turfed sports surface. The edges of the turf trays when mated together are provided below the turfed surface. This is achieved by having pivotable edging which can be raised for providing support of the turf and soil during a growth phase and lowered when the turf tray is to be connected to another turf tray.
The types of turf trays described in WO-A-95/33890 are not suitable for use in reconfigurably closing a gap in a pathway such as a racetrack or, in fact, for reconfigurably closing a gap between any two fixed opposing edges of an activity surface. This is because in order to move a movable tray into its final position within a gap, an excessive amount of rubbing is caused between the edges of the tray and those of the fixed activity surface which leads to an unacceptable amount of wear at the join between the activity surface and that of the tray surface. More specifically, excessive wear can lead to dangerous gaps in the activity surface appearing. Furthermore, the prior art turf tray systems are not designed to be moved frequently and as such there is no appreciation of the problems of maintaining a turf edge which has to be engaged and disengaged from the edges of the activity surface quickly and repetitively without substantial deterioration.
GB 319 472 describes a system in which flat indoor or outdoor tracks and racing surfaces or portions of same are converted to a banked or other type of track by means of portable or removable sections or receptacles. The sections are arranged on top of the original track surface and a new track surface is constructed thereon using the sections, which may be bolted or fixed together to form a complete arrangement of any desired design or form of surface. This type of system is at least semi-permanent and is not suitable for the frequent replacement of a section of the original activity surface. In addition, the resulting arrangement is not able to be removed and replaced relatively quickly, and the construction of the arrangement on top of the original activity surface is likely to damage the latter, which is unacceptable.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,281,831 describes a movable dirt tray which can be used to convert a continuous horse racetrack into a continuous dog racetrack and has particular application where horse racetracks are combined with dog racetracks so that dog races may be held during the period when the horses are not racing. A pair of portable sections for a dog racetrack are provided and positioned relative to fixed sections of the racetrack. Movement of the sections is achieved by providing each section with at least one laterally extending axle which engages with a pair of wide tread rollers or wheels. Each section can be connected to a power plant via a winch and cable system such that when required, the portable sections can be automatically aligned and joined with the fixed sections to form a continuous racetrack. The sections are joined by way of a number of hingedly mounted plates or spans, and any gaps between the sections are filled or covered by sand, silt or other natural or man-made material which forms part of the track surface.
The quality of the activity surface is not suitable for use in relation to turfed activity surfaces or where a seamless join between the sections is required. Furthermore, as with GB 319 472 this system has the disadvantage of not being readily reconfigurable, and the movement of the sections across the horse racetrack may result in damage to same, which is unsatisfactory.
GB-B-2 290 239 describes an element for use in constructing a utility or activity surface, such as a football pitch. To solve the problem of wear and tear on such large surface areas, coupled with exposure to the elements, a tray-shaped member element is used to construct a utility surface. The element has at least one upstanding side wall with a detachable or movable upper portion and a flexible lining disposed within the element. The side wall has an upper portion which is pivotable (foldable) between a raised 'operative' position and a lowered 'inoperative' position. The purpose of this is to secure a retaining structure for the soil filling of the tray during the growth of the turf, particularly at the periphery of the tray, and to provide a continuous turf surface when the elements are put together to form the activity surface. The upper portions of the tray are retained in the operative position whilst the tray is in storage or when it is being transported to or from a storage area. However, the system is not designed to be used for closing a gap as the edge profile of each element would degrade unacceptably if used in this manner. The use of a compressed air source to create a fluid cushion between the tray-shaped member elements and an underlying support surface is also described, by which the elements may be moved from a storage position and positioned as desired to form the activity surface, and a method of forming a games pitch for use using the aforementioned features.
International patent application WO-A-96/12533 refers to turfing systems for stadia and describes a turf unit which has a fence hingeably connected to a growing pan. The outer periphery of the fence extends beyond the outer periphery of the growing pans such that when the turf units are assembled to create a playing surface, large open volumes are created beneath the peripheries of the adjacent growing pans for storing the fence sections and allowing good water drainage of the playing surface. However, an activity surface formed using such turf units is not reconfigurable without damage to the activity surface itself and is also unsuitable for closing a gap in an activity surface.
Accordingly, as mentioned before the existing turf tray moving systems are not suitable for closing a fixed gap in an activity surface and so could not be used as part of a reconfigurable racetrack crossing.
Therefore, it is desired to provide a practical solution to the racetrack crossing problem and also to eliminate or at least substantially reduce the disadvantages of the existing movable activity section systems via the present invention.


A transparent display device including a liquid crystal panel is provided. The liquid crystal panel includes a color filter substrate, an array substrate, a liquid crystal layer, a first polarizer and a second polarizer. The first polarizer is disposed on a side of the color filter substrate far from the liquid crystal layer. The second polarizer is disposed on a side of the array substrate far from the liquid crystal layer. The color filter substrate includes a transparent base, and a color filter formed on the transparent base. The color filter includes compound pixel regions, wherein each of the compound pixel regions has color sub-pixel regions and a transparent sub-pixel region. The second polarizer includes a non-polarized pattern spatially corresponding to the transparent sub-pixel region in the color filter, after a light passing through the non-polarized pattern, the polarization state remains unchanged.

Transparent display technology is an emerging display technology. When a transparent display device display an image, objects disposed behind the transparent display device also can be seen through the device. That needs to enhance a transmittance of the transparent display device without losing its color gamut and contrast.
Meanwhile, the transparent display technology is a typical representative of the green display technology. For example, a conventional liquid crystal display needs a backlight module as a light source to display an image. The transparent display may use an ambient light to meet the need of the backlight. Especially in the daytime, the transparent display almost needs no backlight. The power consumption of the transparent display is about one-tenth of the ordinary liquid crystal display.
In order to improve the transmittance of the transparent display device, the original three primary colors of RGB color filter is usually reduced to 1/3 colors. However, by doing so, the color saturation of the image is also decreased.
Therefore, it needs to develop a transparent display device with high color saturation and high transmittance.
In order to increase the brightness of an image displayed by a transparent display device, an optical sheet can be placed under a light guide plate thereof, to reflect the light emitted from the light guide plate to the bottom and reflect it back to the light guide plate. The light guide plate includes a first refractive layer and a second refractive layer to allow a natural light transmits through the light guide plate. The first refractive layer is located adjacent to the liquid crystal panel. The second refractive layer has a higher refractive index than the first refractive layer. A first polarized light in the light guide plate is total reflected by a interface between the first refractive layer and the second refractive layer, and incident on the liquid crystal panel above the light guide plate, and a natural light transmits through the first and the second refraction layers incident on the liquid crystal panel, so that the user in front of the display device can see an object behind the light guide plate. However, the addition optical sheet and the special design of the light guide plate will increase the manufacturing cost of the display device.

Transparent display device and electronic equipment with same


This invention is thought as a material for decoration and construction. It can be used in wet areas, walls, floors, and all surfaces. Changing appearance glass tile (8) is made up of colored, non colored, transparent, translucent, or any type, any size, shape, form and thickness of glass (6) laminated with the use of an adhesive material (7) to a lenticular image (5) which is made up of more than one image (1) divided into dozens of strips per cm with the use of special computer programs (2) and are interlaced in to one image (3) which is then printed behind a lenticular film (4) which is a semi cylindrical formed, precisely specified dimensioned, ribbed transparent plastic which allows the viewer to see one image at a time according to the observation angle or printed on a graphic film and then laminated to lenticular film (4).

For many years, natural and artificial construction materials have been used for tiling interior and exterior faces of buildings. Marble, granite, and ceramic tiles of various kind are the most often used surface covering materials. In addition to being decorative, surface covering material used should be functional, exhibiting the following characteristics: long durability, resistance to weather effects, resistance to corrosion, inert behavior to chemicals, hygiene, thermal insulation properties, resistance to abrasion, and at the same time it should also be economical in both production and installation costs. It is known that no natural or artificial material meets all the aforementioned requirements.
Additionally all known artificial and natural covering materials has fixed images. Even presently fabricated glass tiles have fixed images and pictures. Glass tiles as stated in U.S. Pat. No. 1,454,842 has been known since 1923's. This material has changed in years and glass tiling material technique has been developed in years as the following example patents:
CN Pat. No. 1,090,00607, 1994Glass tile for decoration andproduction thereofU.S. Pat. No. 5,792,52408, 1998Decorative construction materialU.S. Pat. No. 5,997,67212, 1999Glass photo tileDE Pat. No. 1981371109, 1999Glass tile with a durably attacheddecorative patternU.S. Pat. No. 6,042,90503, 2000Decorative construction material andmethods of its productionGB Pat. No. 234936211, 2000Decorative glass tile with slumpededges and painted rear surface
Covering materials that are composed of glass with graphic or photographic images are the techniques known state. The difference between this invention and existing glass tiles is achieved by uniting glass with a lenticular image. Lenticular image technique has been known since 1940's which enables changing appearances according to the viewers observation angle. Lenticular image technique has been explained in U.S. Pat. No. RE35029 dated August 1995. Some patents for the lenticular image technique are as follows:
U.S. Pat. No. 2,815,31012, 1957Process of assembling in the art ofchangeable picture display devicesU.S. Pat. No. 5,276,47801, 1994Method and apparatus for optimizingdepth images by adjusting printspacingU.S. Pat. No. 5,924,87007, 1999Lenticular image and methodU.S. Pat. No. 6,115,10109, 2000Method and apparatus for producingthree-dimensional images withmotionU.S. Pat. No. 6,211,89604, 2001Method for producing lenticularimagesU.S. Pat. No. 6,252,62106, 2001Printing lenticular images
According to the techniques known state, lenticular image techniques has developed in time. As a result, along with different printing techniques, different image effects have been developed. The current effects which are still being developed can be described as follows:    a) Flip: The quick transition between two or more distinct graphical elements depending on the viewers observation angle.    b) Motion: As the viewing angle changes, rotation of an image on an axis or achieving a motion in one or multiple directions.    c) Morph: As the viewing angle changes, a fluid transition between one graphical element to another graphic element, usually of like size and shape.    d) Zoom: As the viewing angle changes, image moves front to back gaining or decreasing in size.    e) Animation: As the viewing angle changes, usage of about 50 frames from a video to form a small video clip.    f) 3D: Without the need of change in the viewing angle, the optical illusion of depth and distance between elements from the foreground to the background.
Glass as a material, in relation to other natural and artificial covering materials, is known to be resistant to weather effects, fading, and to chemicals. Characteristics of the glass material used in changing appearance glass tile is as stated below:
Required resultStandardPhysical featuresfor tilesResultEN 99Water absorptionAverage ≦ 3, max0.0%for each 3.3EN 100Modulus of ruptureMinimum 27 MPa65.6 MPaEN 104Thermal shockResistantResistantresistanceEN 105Cracking resistanceResistantResistantEN 106,22Chemical resistanceResistantResistantEN 176Size allowance±0.5%±0.1%EN 202Frost ResistanceMin. 50 cyclesResistantat −15° C./+15° C.ISO 7991Thermal lin.Max 9.10−6 K−18.61 · 10−6 K−1expansion coefficient(20-300° C.)IP F-11-95Sudden temperatureResistantResistantvariation resistanceIZP-01Light resistanceNo changesNo changesdetermination
Along with the advantages of glass material, by using the effects brought by lenticular imaging technique, changing appearance glass tiling material is bringing new dimension to the decoration and construction field. With this invention theme environments can be achieved more realistically and effectively. In relation to regular tiles, changing appearance glass tiles will bring constant variation and differentiating living spaces to its environment through the use of different color, design, graphic and image effects. For example, instead of ceramic tiles which has fixed designs, with the use of this invention on the wall tiles by using motion effect, swimming fish in a wavy sea and on the floor tiles by depth effect, shimmering of underwater world can be achieved. A decorative construction material is disclosed in document EP-A-0425670.


The present invention relates to a battery mounted integrated circuit device where an integrated circuit and a solid state battery are formed on the same substrate. In this battery mounted integrated circuit device, a first diffusion layer containing an N-type impurity is formed between a region of a semiconductor substrate where the solid state battery is mounted and a region of the semiconductor substrate where the integrated circuit is mounted, and a second diffusion layer containing an N-type impurity is formed below the region of the semiconductor substrate where the solid state battery is mounted, and overlaps with the first diffusion layer.

In recent years, with size reduction in electronic devices, an all-solid state battery has been formed together with semiconductor devices on a semiconductor substrate. In such a semiconductor substrate, in some cases, ions which serve to charge/discharge a solid state battery, e.g. lithium ions, diffuse to the semiconductor substrate. When those ions having diffused in the semiconductor substrate reach semiconductor devices, there are possibilities that the characteristics of the semiconductor devices deteriorate or the semiconductor devices improperly operate.
Regarding such a battery mounted integrated circuit device as described above where semiconductor devices and a solid state battery are formed on the same semiconductor substrate, as a method for reducing an influence on the semiconductor substrate exerted by ions serving to charge/discharge the solid state battery, it has been proposed that a diffusion layer be formed by doping an N-type impurity into the semiconductor substrate directly under the solid state battery, and this diffusion layer be applied with a potential not lower than a potential of a positive electrode of the solid state battery (Japanese Laid-Open patent Publication No. 2003-133420).
The diffusion layer applied with a potential not lower than the potential of the positive electrode of the solid state battery can prevent positive ions serving to charge/discharge the solid state battery, e.g. lithium ions, from diffusing into the semiconductor substrate. This can prevent the ions serving to charge/discharge the solid state battery from causing deterioration in characteristics of the semiconductor devices and improper operations of the semiconductor devices.
However, in the configuration as described above, a contact resistance between the diffusion layer and an electrode for applying a potential increases when a potential higher than the potential of the positive electrode of the solid state battery is applied. In order to reduce this contact resistance, it is necessary to increase the concentration of the N-type impurity in the diffusion layer directly under the solid state battery.
When the area of the solid state battery occupied on the substrate is small, a region for the diffusion layer to be formed can be made small. This can decrease an amount of the N-type impurity required to increase the concentration of the N-type impurity in the diffusion layer. However, when the area of the solid state battery occupied on the substrate is large, the region for the diffusion layer to be formed increases. This leads to an increase in amount of the N-type impurity required for increasing the concentration of the N-type impurity in the diffusion layer. Further, with the increase in amount of the N-type impurity required, the time required for the formation of the diffusion layer also increases. As thus described, a problem of lowering the production efficiency may arise as the solid state battery formed on the semiconductor substrate becomes larger.
Accordingly, an object of the present invention is to provide a battery mounted integrated circuit device capable of effectively preventing deterioration in characteristics of semiconductor devices and improper operation of the semiconductor devices, without using a large amount of N-type impurity.

Battery mounted integrated circuit device having diffusion layers that prevent cations serving to charge and discharge battery from diffusing into the integrated circuit region

Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.


A method can include receiving information associated with a conveyance of equipment in a borehole via a cable. The method may further include determining cable tension values based at least in part on a model and at least a portion of the information and conveying the equipment in the borehole via the cable; acquiring a cable tension value via one or more sensors. The method may further include comparing the acquired cable tension value to at least one of the determined cable tension values and, based at least in part on the comparing, setting a cable tension limit for further conveying of the equipment in the borehole via the cable.

A bore can be drilled into a geologic environment where the bore may be utilized to form a well. A rig may be a system of components that can be operated to form a bore in a geologic environment, to transport equipment into and out of a bore in a geologic environment, etc. As an example, a rig may include a system that can be used to drill a bore and/or to acquire information about a geologic environment, drilling, etc. As an example, a rig can include or be operatively coupled to a conveyance system that can convey equipment into and/or out of a bore. For example, consider a wireline operation where equipment may be transported into and/or out of a bore using a cable controlled via a conveyance system, which may include a rig or be operatively coupled to a rig.


A new DTX-MAC protocol is proposed for a cellular radio telecommunications system with many users. Several users are allowed to transmit packets within a time-slotted frame structure. Direct sequence spread spectrum technique is used to spread the packets, and all packets within the frame are spread using the same spreading sequence. The packets overlap, but each packet begins within a distinct slot of the frame. Each slot, or mini-slot, since it is much shorter than the packet, is dedicated to one of the mobile terminal users. Collisions between packets are prevented by appropriate selection of the duration of the mini-slot. Packets may be ARMs, user data, or both. A packet beginning within a mini-slot is assumed to be from the mobile terminal to which that mini-slot is dedicated

This invention relates to packet transmission in multiple access communication systems.
In this patent document, the references referred to in square brackets, eg [1], are listed at the end of the disclosure.
The 3G CDMA system is supposed to support simultaneous voice/packet data/circuit data operations [1] with different QoS requirements. Since the traffic characteristics and the quality of service requirements for packet data services are quite different from those of voice traffic, system re-design in certain essential aspects is necessary for an integrated voice-data system without impacting voice quality or sacrificing data performance.
Packet-type services are designed for on-off sources, which generate no information during often prolonged, but unpredictable, off intervals. For many data applications the intermittent nature of the traffic is orders of magnitude greater than that of voice signals as shown in FIG. 1. The system capacity can be greatly increased if no signal is transmitted during the off period, since the CDMA system is interference limited.
The efficient provision of packet-type services is particularly difficult on reverse links (from mobile to base station) of CDMA systems, because of the need to rapidly regain synchronization of spreading sequences when the source resumes transmission after a period of silence. One possible solution to the link maintenance problem when bursty transmission is required on reverse links of CDMA systems is to assign a separate low bit rate physical control channel (created using code division multiplex) to each portable in a given cell. This approach, proposed by some investigators [2], can be called a continuous transmission medium access control scheme (CTX-MAC), and it unfortunately causes increased multi-user interference introduced by continuously transmitted maintenance signals. Increased interference naturally leads to reduced traffic capacity. Also its implementation is characterized by significantly increased complexity of base station receivers, where each physical control channel (serving one portable) would require a separate despreading correlator. If the duty cycle (ratio of the on-period to off-period of the mobile""s transmitter) as shown in FIG. 1 is small, then considerable savings in both base station hardware and system capacity may be achieved if transmission is discontinued during the off-periods and the hardware is shared among different users. This is the discontinuous transmission medium access control (DTX-MAC) scheme. With the DTX-MAC scheme, when a particular user has a data packet to send, the base station needs to be notified by the mobile of its intention to transmit, and synchronization needs to be quickly resumed. To achieve that an access request message (ARM) is transmitted from the mobile to base station to acquire synchronism, and to inform the base station of the mobile""s identity. An access reservation channel (ARC) is allocated for such a purpose. All mobiles in a cell (or sector) use the same PN code to send their ARMs on the ARC; this avoids the need to have a separate receiver for each mobile, even in the off mode. If the number of sources is large, then more than one ARC may be used.
A MAC protocol is required on the ARC for the mobiles to access the base station with individual ARMs. One possible approach is to allow the mobile units to send ARMs in an asynchronous fashionxe2x80x94ADTX-MAC protocol. Another is a synchronous approachxe2x80x94SDTX-MAC protocol, in which a slotted frame structure is used for the access control of ARMs from all users.
Since the user sending a transmission request has already been registered and has acquired synchronization before, the timing ambiguity is mainly caused by the propagation delay uncertainty due to the movement of the mobile in a cell during the silent period. Hence, it is relatively easier to synchronize again than to acquire initial synchronization during the registration phase involving the access channel. On the other hand, the synchronization needs to be regained very quickly so that the arriving data burst can be transmitted without undue delay. Due to these reasons, the specific structure of the IS-95 access channel [3] which is used by the mobile station to initiate communication with the base station and to respond to paging channel messages, is no longer suitable, since its access probe occupies several 20 ms frames in time. Instead, much shorter access request messages are used within the access reservation channel structure significantly different from the IS-95 access channel. Such an approach dramatically reduces access delay and increases throughput.
SDTX-MAC Protocol
In the SDTX-MAC system, a time-slotted frame structure is used to accommodate access requests from different users on the access reservation channel (ARC). Specific time slots in the frame equal in length to the duration of the access request message (if necessary, a small guard time may be added) are assigned by the base station to mobile users after registration (one slot per user). Collision is thus avoided and there is no need of inserting an identifier appendix after the synchronizing part of the ARM. A method of step-increase of power is used for ARMs. After each ARM, the mobile monitors the paging channel for an acknowledgment (ACK) from the base station. If the elapsed time before the ACK is received is longer than the prescribed maximum, the corresponding ARM is regarded as a failure, and next one is sent at a power level increased by a fixed step. For each user, a fixed number of ARMs of increasing powers form an ARM sequence. If the synchronization is still not acquired after the sequence of ARMs is sent, a new sequence is started, with the transmitting power starting from the lowest level. Identical ARM sequences are repeated up to a maximum allowed number of repetitions, which is assumed large enough to ensure acquisition. The synchronism acquired through the ARC may be coarse, but it is sufficiently accurate to receive data packets from the user in question on a dedicated data channel. Each data packet sent on that channel is preceded by a short synchronizing preamble to refine synchronism.
The number of slots in one slotted frame of the access reservation channel (ARC) is designed to accommodate the expected number of registered users in a cell or sector. Once a user is registered, a slot is assigned to him on the ARC, and the base station subsequently uses that assignment to identify a user sending an access request. An example is shown in FIG. 2 wherein there are four slots within one frame, Tp, TF are the slot and frame lengths, respectively, and there are three ARMs within one access message sequence.
ADTX-MAC Protocol
The asynchronous discontinuous transmission medium access control (ADTX-MAC) protocol is in general terms similar to that used in the IS-95 access channel. It is a spread slotted ALOHA [4]-[6] with p-persistence [7] (plus sequence back-off) between ARM sequences. As shown in FIG. 3 a fixed number of ARMs forms an ARM sequence (three ARMs within an ARM sequence in this figure), with the transmission power increasing consecutively by a fixed increment. There is a random back-off TR between ARMs in the sequence, if the ACK is not received before time-out, TA. If the second ARM sequence is required, there is a random back-off TS before a p-persistence test, for the next ARM sequence to start. To reduce the probability of collision, the exact transmission time of each user is pseudo-randomly delayed from the slot start time, the delay being known to the base station.
Since all the users use the same PN code to spread their ARMs, each ARM consists of one synchronization preamble and an appendix for user identification. This appendix is designed to have the same length as the preamble, and is block-coded to provide the necessary error protection. The ARM for ADTX-MAC is of twice the length of an ARM in SDTX-MAC protocol.
SDTX-MAC can provide delay characteristics superior to those of the ADTX-MAC, but ADTX-MAC""s throughput may be larger or smaller than that of the SDTX-MAC depending on the offered traffic and the selected maximum value of the randomization delay. This is also intuitive, since ADTX-MAC""s access request message (ARM) must include an appendix, which increases the access delay. On the other hand, due to PN spreading and randomization procedure, more than one ADTX-MAC""s ARM within one time slot can be received successfully without collision, and clearly only one ARM can be transmitted per slot in SDTX-MAC. Even if the time slot is normalized to enable fair comparison, ADTX-MAC may still provide better throughout characteristics. The reason is that, although SDTX-MAC does solve the collision problem, and takes advantage of TDMA structure, it does not take advantage of the interference suppression capabilities of spread spectrum, and thus its performance is not optimal. On the other hand, ADTX-MAC does take advantage of spread spectrum, but it does not solve the potential collision problem.
When the transmitted signal propagates through a multipath fading channel, its replicas will arrive at the receiving end at different times spread over the maximum excess delay interval. If we denote the maximum excess delay expressed in chip intervals by xcfx84M, it is reasonable to assume that when the temporal separation of signals arriving from different users is larger than (xcfx84M+1) chip intervals, collisions will not occur. If we assume that the start times of transmitted packets form a Poisson point process with the arrival rate xcex packets/s, and denote the duration of a packet in seconds as Tp, the offered channel traffic G (in packets) will be:
G=xcexTp
The present invention provides for an improved multiple access protocol that improves upon the ADTX-MAC protocol and the SDTX-MAC protocol.
The limitations in the SDTX-MAC and ADTX-MAC discussed above are addressed by the following invention, which has been called minislotted SDTX-MAC, or M-SDTX-MAC.
Accordingly, there is provided a method of transmitting packets in a telecommunications system. Packets are transmitted from multiple terminals, in which the packets are spread with an identical spreading sequence for each terminal. The packets are transmitted in frames. An aspect of the invention includes allocating a respective mini-slot in each frame to a particular terminal as an identification reference for a packet transmitted from the particular terminal in the respective time slot. Further, at each terminal, packets are transmitted from the terminal beginning at a time within the mini-slot allocated to that terminal, with the packet being longer than the mini-slot.
In one aspect of the invention, the method is used to gain access to packet data transmission channels in a cellular radio CDMA system. The packets may thus be access request messages (ARMs). The packets may also be data packets.
In a further aspect of the invention, there is provided a method of transmitting ARMs to gain access to a packet data telecommunications channel, comprising the steps of:
transmitting ARMs from multiple terminals as overlapping packets, where each identical packet contains several repetitions of an identical spreading sequence for each terminal; the ARMs corresponding to different terminals being arranged into frames;
allocating a respective mini-slot in each frame to a particular terminal as an initial synchronization and identification reference for an ARM transmitted from the particular terminal; each ARM being longer than its associated mini-slot, but the ARM beginning inside the mini-slot; and
at each terminal, beginning to transmit data from the terminal after a base station allocates to it a packet data transmission channel upon successful receipt of an ARM.
Each mini-slot should be sufficiently long to avoid a collision between ARMs sent from different terminals.
In a further aspect of the invention, the data packet, or ARM, is transmitted within a cell over a radio channel, the channel has a cell-size dependent propagation delay and a maximum excess delay, and each mini-slot has a length at least equal to the maximum excess delay plus twice the maximum expected propagation delay plus guard time.
The mini-slot may be allocated to a terminal upon registration of the terminal in a telecommunications system.
These and other aspects of the invention, including apparatus for implementing the invention, are described in the detailed description of the invention and claimed in the claims that follow.

Spread spectrum time-division multiple access communication scheme


A method for removing mercury, and in particular elemental mercury, from a fluid stream by blending the fluid stream with a second stream comprising iodine. The blended stream is then passed through at least one filter, which is capable of removing oxidized forms of mercury from gas streams.

This invention relates to the removal of mercury (Hg) from gas streams, and in particular, to an apparatus and method for removing Hg, and in particular, elemental Hg from gas streams.
Mercury is a neurotoxin, which when emitted into the environment is of concern for both the health of man and other components of the biosphere. Even though the concentration of mercury in the atmosphere is low, it can be accumulated in the food chains of man and other species. The degree of environmental availability is dependent in part on the chemical form of mercury. Because of the widely recognized health impacts of this element, it has been identified as a key pollutant to be controlled. Some countries and states have banned the use of mercury in industrial processes, and the use of products containing mercury. As such, reduction of the amount of mercury from sources such as products like batteries and fluorescent light bulbs, and the emission of mercury from sources such as industrial processes, incineration, land fills and boilers is critical.
As mercury emission limits become more stringent, analytical methods capable of detecting ever lower mercury levels are required. In some cases, the required sensitivity exceeds that which can be achieved with known analytical methods. As a result, these measuring methods frequently require pre-concentration of the mercury-containing gas stream prior to analysis in order to measure low concentrations of mercury in typical gas streams.
To further complicate matters, mercury and some of its readily-formed compounds are relatively volatile. For example, mercury readily combines with chloride to form mercuric chloride (HgCl2). However, both elemental mercury and mercuric chloride have high vapor pressures at typical ambient and in-stack temperatures. As such, both elemental mercury and mercuric chloride vapor are difficult to remove from a gas stream for emissions control and/or subsequent analysis.
For all of these reasons, removal of mercury from gas streams has been extensively studied, and numerous methods have been reported that purport to effectively remove elemental mercury and mercury compounds from gas streams.
Mercury's propensity to combine with iodine has led to numerous efforts to remove mercury from gas streams by combining the Hg with iodine in some form. For example, Japanese patent JP 49-43197 teaches the removal of mercury from alkali electrolysis cell gas by contacting the gas with an iodide of Li, K, Ca, Mg, Zn, Al, Fe, Ni, or Co, or a compound of the general formula R4NI, where R is H or 1-4C alkyl containing no free I2, and which also includes at least one inorganic reducing agent. The carrier is carbon, a zeolite or silica gel.
JP 50-6438 teaches removal of Hg from gas streams by contacting the gas stream with a cationic exchange resin on which is adsorbed an iodide of Al, Zn, Sr, Fe, Na, Ni, Mg, Li, tetracthylamonium, methylene, naphthalene, o-phenol or benzene. Iodine is optionally loaded onto the resin in addition to the iodide compound.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,474,896 discloses an absorbent for mercury that is a polysulfide-containing adsorbent composition. In one embodiment, the adsorbent is a zeolite that has been treated to contain metal cation capable of forming insoluble polysulfides when exposed to sulfanes in either vapor form or in an organic solution.
While each of these methods is somewhat successful in removing Hg from gas streams, none is capable of doing so quantitatively; i.e., at low concentrations that might be present down stream at mercury controls and capture the mercury in a form that might be applicable to nondestructive analysis procedures such as x-ray fluorescence. As a result, none of these known methods are suitable for Hg removal to the levels required for either thoroughly removing Hg from a process or waste gas stream, for control of emissions, or for quantitative analysis of mercury-containing vapors in a gas stream.
It has been found that certain bio-membrane and resin media will efficiently removed oxidized forms of mercury from gas streams, but do not remove elemental mercury from these gas streams. The addition of chlorine gas to a gas stream containing elemental mercury will convert some of the elemental mercury to mercuric chloride, which could then be removed from the gas stream with the bio-membrane or resin media. However, the conversion of elemental mercury to mercuric chloride is inefficient and complete conversion can not be achieved under typical or generally applicable conditions.
It has also been found that elemental mercury can efficiently be removed from a gas stream by passing the gas stream through a bio-membrane or resin media that had been pre-treated with iodine. However, a limitation of this method is that the iodine on the filter can be transferred to the gas stream passing through the filter. Thus, the time of sampling through a fixed spot is limited to about an hour at normal operating conditions. Similarly, the volume and flow rates through the filter are limited not only by the pressure drop across the filter, but also the increased loss of iodine from the filter at higher volumes sampled. Another limitation of this method is that the gas stream may also contain high concentrations of condensable gases and the material must be used above the dew points for these gases. The high end of the temperature range for the filter is limited to about 200° F. to 250° F. Therefore, the effective temperature range within which the iodine-doped filter can be efficiently applied is limited to about 150° F. to 200° F.
It is desirable in the art to find alternative methods of trapping mercury on filters or other media for removing Hg from a process or waste gas stream, for control of emissions, or for quantitative analysis of mercury-containing vapors in a gas stream.

Method for removing mercury from a gas stream using iodine-doped dilution gas


A switch including a first transistor including a first main terminal connected to a first switch node, a second main terminal connected to a second switch node and a control terminal, the second switch node being connected to a first clean voltage supply, and first control circuitry connected to the control terminal of the first transistor, including a first node connected to the first clean voltage supply, a second node connected to a second voltage level, and a control input node for receiving a first input control signal variable between a supply voltage level and a third voltage level, the first control means arranged to selectively connect the control terminal of the first transistor to one of the first node and the second node based on the first input control signal.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an improved switch configuration, and in particular an improved switch configuration having an improved power supply rejection ratio (PSRR).
2. Discussion of the Related Art
In order to reduce noise at the output of an amplification system, it is desirable to increase the PSRR (Power Supply Rejection Ratio). The PSRR is a measure of the influence of power supply ripple at the output of the system.
Referring to FIG. 1, a switch 2 has one input node 21 and first and second output nodes 23, 25. The switch operates in one of two states, a first in which the input node 21 is connected to the first output node 23, isolating the input from the second output node 25, and a second state in which the input node 21 is connected to the second output node 25 and is isolated from the first output node 23.
Switch 2 can be implemented using MOSFETs (Metal Oxide Semiconductor Field-Effect Transistors) as shown in FIG. 2. With reference to FIG. 2, the switch 2 is shown comprising the input node 21, the first output node 23 and the second output node 25. Switch 2 further comprises a first P-channel MOS transistor 22, connected in parallel with a first N-channel MOS transistor 24, and a second P-channel MOS transistor 26 connected in parallel with a second N-channel MOS transistor 28. The drains of the first and second NMOS transistors 24 and 28 are connected to input node 21, and their sources are connected to first output node 23 and the second output node 25 respectively. The sources of the first and second PMOS transistors 22 and 26 are connected to input node 21, and their drains are connected to the first output node 23 and the second output node 25 respectively. A first switch control signal on a line 30 is connected to the gate node of the first PMOS transistor and second NMOS transistor 22 and 28. A second switch control signal on line 32, which is the inverse of the first switch control signal, is connected to the gates of the second NMOS transistor and first PMOS transistors 24 and 26.
As described above, switch 2 operates in one of two states. In the first state the first switch control signal on line 30 is high and the second switch control signal on line 32 is low, thus turning off first PMOS transistor and NMOS transistors 22 and 24, and turning on second PMOS transistor and NMOS transistors 26 and 28, thereby connecting input node 21 to the second output node 25. In a second state, the first switch control signal on line 30 is low and the second switch control signal on line 32 high, thus turning on first PMOS transistor and NMOS transistors 22 and 24, and turning off second PMOS transistor and NMOS transistors 26 and 28, thereby connecting the input node 21 to the first output node 23.
Switch 2 is disadvantageous due to the parasitic capacitances present between the nodes of the N and P channel MOS transistors. Referring to PMOS transistor 22, a parasitic capacitance 36 is present between the well 34 of PMOS transistor 22 and its drain node, a parasitic capacitance 38 is present between the drain node and the gate node of transistor 22, a parasitic capacitance 40 is present between the gate node and the source node of transistor 22, and a parasitic capacitance 42 is present between the source node and the well 34. NMOS transistor 24 comprises parasitic capacitances 44 and 46 between its gate node and its drain and source respectively. PMOS transistor 26 comprises a well 48, and the same parasitic capacitances, labeled 50 to 56, between adjacent nodes as described above for PMOS transistor 22. NMOS transistor 28 comprises parasitic capacitances 58 and 60 between its gate node and its drain and source respectively.
Combinations of these parasitic capacitances will be present at the input node 21 or the first and second output nodes 23, 25 of the switch when it is in either of the first or second states. Wells 34 and 48 of PMOS transistors 22 and 26 are connected to the noisy supply voltage Vdd, and one of the first and second switch control signals on lines 30 and 32 will always be connected to the noisy supply voltage Vdd in each state of the switch, and thus due to the parasitic capacitances, any ripple in this supply voltage will be present at the input/output nodes of the switch. Particularly in situations in which this switch is used in amplifying circuit arrangements, and the nodes of the switch are connected to inputs of the amplifier, this will result in noise at the output of the system, which is clearly disadvantageous. A high PSRR should therefore be provided for the amplifier system.

Amplifier input switch configuration with improved PSRR

STMicroelectronics Design and Application s.r.o.


A web browser application program provides graphical print techniques, which allow the user to control how a web page is presented. The data processing system, under instruction of a program, responds to an instruction by the user to present a selected portion of a first document by creating a new document from the first document including the header, trailer, and the selected portion. The data processing system responds to an instruction by the user to change the font size of a selected portion of the first document by creating a copy of the first document and modifying or inserting font tags within the copy of the document. The data processing system responds to an instruction by the user to present the first document with page break indicators by creating a copy of the first document and inserting page break indicators within the copy to be presented to the user. The graphical print techniques may also be used together.

1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to an improved data processing system and, in particular, to a method and apparatus for managing world wide web documents in a data processing system. Still more particularly, the present invention provides a method and apparatus for performing actions on selected portions of web documents and displaying the location of page breaks within a web browser in a data processing system.
2. Description of Related Art
The worldwide network of computers commonly known as the "Internet" has seen explosive growth in the last several years. Mainly, this growth has been fueled by the introduction and widespread use of so-called "web browsers," which enable simple graphical user interface-based access to network servers, which support documents formatted as so-called "web pages." These web pages are versatile and customized by authors. For example, web pages may mix text and graphic images. A web page also may include fonts of varying sizes. A browser is a program that is executed on a graphical user interface (GUI). The browser allows a user to seamlessly load documents from the Internet and display them by means of the GUI. These documents are commonly formatted using markup language protocols, such as hypertext markup language (HTML). Portions of text and images within a document are delimited by indicators, which affect the format for display. In HTML documents, the indicators are referred to as tags. The browser gives some means of viewing the contents of web pages (or nodes) and of navigating from one web page to another.
The versatility and customization of web pages, however, is sometimes an impediment to user generating hard copies of the documents. Popular web browsers let users print entire HTML documents. Often, web pages contain information that the user may not want in a printed copy of the document, such as advertising banners or large pictures. Web pages may contain text, which is the same color as the background and contains keywords to improve the chances of being returned to users by a search engine.
Currently; web browsers provide the ability to select a portion of a document and to print only the selected portion. However, the layout of a web page is relative to the locations of the indicators (i.e. tags) within the page. When only a portion is selected for print, how the layout is affected is not known until the portion is actually printed. For example, if a user selects a portion of a document containing images, the user does not know how the image will fall within surrounding text until the portion is printed. To view how a selected portion of a document will look when only that portion is printed, a user must edit the document in a two step process. First, the user must cut the highlighted portion and paste it into a word processor or HTML editor. Then, the pasted portion is printed from the word processor.
Another difficulty in generating hard copies occurs with varying font sizes within a web page. Often, web pages contain text, which may be too big or too small to be printed practically.
For example, an author might make some text very large to capture the attention of the viewer. Web pages may contain disclaimers, the text of which is too small to be printed legibly. Currently, web browsers do not provide the ability to select portions of a document and to increase or decrease the font size of the selected portions. Again, to do such, a user must copy the web page to or open the web page in a word processor or HTML editor, select portions of the text by highlighting, change the font properties of the highlighted portions, and print the document from the word processor.
Web pages are authored for the purpose of display. As such, a single web page may correspond to several printed pages. This feature is frustrating when a user tries to generate a hard copy of a web page. The number of pages that will be printed and where the page breaks will fall cannot be determined until the document is actually printed. A user may unwittingly print a document, which contains far more pages than desired. Some web browsers include a "print preview" function, which displays an image of how each page will appear when printed. However, the images are often difficult to read and it is difficult to determine the subject matter on each page. The user must use "zoom" functions and navigate through the images to identify the layout of the pages. The prior art "print preview" function does not allow the user to view page break indicators within a web document as it is displayed by the web browser.

Method and system for incorporation of graphical print techniques in a web browser

International Business Machines Corporation


An emergency notification system includes a first server for receiving a communication from a telecommunications network and for transmitting a message to a subscriber of the notification system. The system also includes a second server in communication with the first server, the second server for supplying the first server with information associated with a subscriber.

The present invention is directed generally to notification systems, and, more particularly, to an emergency notification system.
In today's society, there are increasing numbers of people who work at locations other than their homes. In many instances, there are young children who spend considerable amounts of time at home without adult supervision while their parents are working. Such situations can be very stressful to a working parent because of the uncertainty of knowing exactly what the unsupervised children may be doing. There are also a growing number of exactly people who have elderly parents living alone. Understandably, there are many people who, for various reasons, desire to be notified as soon as possible if an emergency call is placed from a location that concerns them.
One service that has attempted to address this desire is the family 911 notification service offered by Lucent Technologies Inc., Murray Hill, N.J. Each subscriber to the service may select up to five telephone numbers, each associated with a particular person, that they wish to be called if a 911 call is placed from a landline telephone associated with the subscriber. The selected telephone numbers may be given a priority from first to fifth and may be associated with landline telephones and/or wireless telephones. The service operates in the manner described hereinbelow.
After a 911 call has been placed from a landline telephone associated with a subscriber, the service calls the selected telephone numbers in a sequential order according to the specified priority. If the family 911 notification service reaches a live person at one of the selected telephone numbers, the service plays an announcement. The announcement informs the person that the incoming call is from the family 911 notification service and that a 911 call was placed. The announcement also informs the person as to the time that the 911 call was placed and the telephone number that the 911 call was placed from. The service stops calling the selected telephone numbers once the information has been provided to a live person. If the service has not reached a live person after all of the selected telephone numbers have been called, the service waits for five minutes before beginning to call the selected telephone numbers again. This process repeats itself for the first hour following the placement of the 911 call. During the first hour, if the service reaches an answering machine or a voice mail system at one of the selected telephone numbers, the service does not play an announcement.
If the service has not reached a live person within the first hour, the service continues to call the selected telephone numbers according to the specified priority. However, if the service reaches an answering machine or a voice mail system after the first hour, the service plays a slightly different announcement. This announcement informs the answering machine or voice mail system that the incoming call is from the family 911 notification service and that the service has been trying to reach the person associated with the selected telephone number to notify them that a 911 call has been placed. This announcement also informs the answering machine or the voice mail system as to the time that the 911 call was placed and the telephone number from which the 911 call was placed. The service stops dialing the selected telephone numbers once an announcement has been played to an answering machine or a voice mail system. If the service has not reached a live person, an answering machine, or a voice mail system within the first twenty-four hours following the placement of the 911 call, the service stops dialing the selected telephone numbers.
There are several shortcomings associated with Lucent's family 911 notification service. For example, the means used to provision the selected telephone numbers add complexity and cost to the service, the hardware used to implement the service is relatively expensive to acquire and maintain, and the service only offers oral notification that a 911 call has been placed. Thus, there exists a need for an emergency notification system that overcomes the limitations, shortcomings, and disadvantages of the emergency notification system described hereinabove.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Method of notifying a party of an emergency


An encoder includes a casing having an open end and a base which fits in the open end. Trapezoidal cutouts in the casing are arranged to receive partly trapezoidal projections on the base. The casing contains an optical sensor, a circuit board for operation of the sensor, and a timing disc mounted on a rotary hub. The hub has a passage for a drive shaft of a motor, and the passage is in register with an opening in the base. During assembly, the drive shaft is passed through the opening in the base and the motor and casing are urged towards one another to push the base into the casing. When the base enters the casing, the projections are received in the cutouts and a guide surface in the casing engages a centering surface on the hub. Once the projections are in the cutouts, the casing and the base are rotated relative to each other to secure the base to the casing. Due to the trapezoidal shape of the cutouts and the partly trapezoidal shape of the projections, the casing moves in a direction away from the base during rotation. This causes the guide surface of the casing to disengage from the centering surface of the hub.

The invention relates to an encoder which is connected to a motor and is equipped with a reflecting sensor, a timing disc and a circuit board. The circuit board contains all of the components, such as resistors and contact strips, necessary for operation of the sensor.
The reflecting sensor is disposed in a housing together with the timing disc which is to be adjusted on the motor shaft so as to be in axial alignment therewith. The housing is attached to the by a flange at the output side of the motor shaft.
A known design of the encoder is described on pages 1 to 70--of the HP handbook. Here, a base plate is screwed to the flange plane of the motor and the timing disc then precisely aligned on the shaft via an adjusting device. The housing is pressed onto the base plate from above and secured by a rocking cam.
The timing disc is mounted in the housing and a locking mechanism of large diameter is used. For operation of the locking mechanism, the known encoder must be accessible from the upper side of the housing so that the housing cover needs to be large. Therefore, the sensor must be arranged relatively far from the middle of the timing disc.
With this type of housing design, the width and height of the housing are significantly larger than required by the individual elements. It has also been found that substantial time, as well as special tools, are required for assembly and adjustment. Furthermore, under unfavorable circumstances, readjustment is necessary.

Encoder having first and second housing portions and guide means


This invention provides pyrrolobenzodiazepine pyridine carboxamides selected from those of Formula (1), which act as follicle stimulating hormone receptor antagonists. The invention also provides pharmaceutical compositions and methods of treatment utilizing the compounds of Formulae (1) and (2).

This invention concerns novel pyrrolobenzodiazepine pyridine carboxamides, which act as follicle-stimulating hormone receptor antagonists, as well as pharmaceutical compositions and methods of treatment utilizing these compounds.
Reproduction in women depends upon the dynamic interaction of several compartments of the female reproductive system. The hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal axis orchestrates a series of events affecting the ovaries and the uterine-endometrial compartment that leads to the production of mature ova, ovulation, and ultimately, appropriate conditions necessary for fertilization. Specifically, luteinizing hormone-releasing hormone (LHRH), which is released from the hypothalamus, initiates the release of the gonadotropins, luteinizing hormone (LH) and follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH) from the pituitary. These hormones act directly on the ovary to promote the development of selected follicles by inducing granulosa and theca cell proliferation and differentiation. FSH stimulates aromatization of androgens to estrogens and increases the expression of LH receptors in the theca cells. The follicles, in turn, secrete steroids (estradiol, progesterone) and peptides (inhibin, activin). Estradiol and inhibin levels progressively increase during the follicular phase of the menstrual cycle until ovulation. Inhibin decreases FSH secretion from the pituitary gland, while estradiol acts on the hypothalamus and pituitary to induce the LH surge in mid-cycle, which results in ovulation. Afterwards, the post-ovulation ruptured follicle forms the corpus luteum, which produces progesterone. Ovarian hormones, in turn, regulate the secretion of gonadotropins through a classical long-loop negative feedback mechanism. The elucidation of these control mechanisms has provided opportunities for the development of effective strategies to control fertility, including both enhancement of fertility and contraception. For recent reviews of FSH action see: "FSH Action and Intraovarian Regulation," B. C. J. M. Fauser, ed., Vol. 6 (London: Parthenon Publishing Group), 1997, and A. J. Hsueh et. al., Rec. Prog. Horm. Res., 45, 209-227, 1989.
Current hormonal contraception methods are steroidal in nature (progestins and estrogens) and modulate long-loop feedback inhibition of gonadotropin secretion, as well as affecting peripheral mechanisms such as sperm migration and fertilization. The development of specific antagonists of the receptor for FSH (FSH-R) would provide an alternative strategy for hormonal contraception. Such antagonists would block FSH-mediated follicular development leading to a blockade of ovulation, thereby producing the desired contraceptive effect. Support for the effectiveness of this strategy is provided by the mechanism that causes resistant ovary syndrome, which results in infertility in women. The infertility experienced by these women is the result of non-functional FSH receptors (K. Aittomaki et al., Cell, 82, 959-968,1995). This approach to contraception may be applicable to men as well, since idiopathic male infertility seems to be related to a reduction in FSH binding sites. In addition, men with selective FSH deficiency are oligo- or azoospermic with normal testosterone levels and present normal virilization (G. Lindstedt et al., Clin. Lab. Med., 36, 664, 1998). Therefore, low molecular weight FSH antagonists may provide a versatile novel method of contraception. Such an antagonist could be expected to interfere with follicle development and thus, ovulation, while maintaining sufficient estrogen production and beneficial effects on bone mass.
FSH actions are mediated by binding of the hormone to a specific transmembrane G protein-coupled receptor that is exclusively expressed in the ovary, thus, leading to activation of the adenyl cyclase system and elevation of intracellular levels of the second messenger cAMP (A. Mukherjee et al., Endocrinology, 137, 3234 1996).
Recently suramin, a sulfonic acid anticancer agent with a wide variety of activities, was shown to inhibit FHS binding to its receptor (R. L. Daugherty et al., J. Urol., 147, 727 (1992). Administration of suramin causes a decrease in testosterone production in rats and humans (R. Danesi et al., J. Clin. Endocrinol. Metab. 81, 2238-2246,1996). Recently, other more selective sulfonic acid-based FSH receptor antagonists were reported by B. J. Arey et al. (The Endocrine Society, 82nd Annual Meeting, Toronto, Canada Jun. 21-24, 2000, and Endocrinology 143 (10), 3822, 2002). An additional class of stilbene (bis)sulfonic acid competitive inhibitors of FSH at its receptor has also been reported by J. Wrobel et al. (Bioorg. Med. Chem. 10, 639-656, 2002).
Thiazolidinone FSH-R agonists and antagonists have been disclosed by R. Scheuerman et al. in WO 02/09705 and WO 02/09706 (2002) and in U.S. Pat. No. 6,426,357 (2002), respectively. Cyclic and acyclic alpha- and beta-aminocarboxamides as FSH-R agonists are disclosed by El Tayer et al. in WO 00/08015 (2000). Substituted aminoalkylamide derivative FSH-R antagonists have been disclosed by Coats et al. in WO 01/47875 (2001). Aryl sulfonic acids and derivatives FSH-R antagonists have been disclosed by Wrobel et al. in U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,200,963 (2001) and 6,355,633 (2002). Tetrahydroquinoline derivatives have been disclosed as FSH-R modulators to control fertility by Van Straten et al. in WO 03/004028 (2003). Bisaryl derivatives with FSH-R modulatory activity have been disclosed by T. Guo et al. in WO 02/070493A1. T. Guo et al. also have reported encoded combinatorial and parallel synthesis approaches to bisaryl FSH-R agonists; see Bioorg. Med. Chem. Lett. 14, 1713-1716, 2004 and 1717-1720, 2004, respectively. Failli et al. in WO 02/083683 (2002) have disclosed a subset of pyrrolobenzodiazepines as tocolytic oxytocin receptor binding antagonists.
It can be seen that there is a great need for FSH receptor binding antagonists that can be used for contraception. This invention is directed to these, as well as other, important ends.

Pyrrolobenzodiazepine pyridine carboxamides and derivatives as follicle-stimulating hormone receptor antagonists


Apparatus made of stainless steel which can be attached to the side rail of an operating table to hold and position an x-ray grid and x-ray cassette, and can be readily disassembled for sterilization in an autoclave.

X-ray film is used to capture the image of internal structures of the body through which x-rays are passed. An x-ray cassette is a lightweight housing containing a sheet of x-ray film. An x-ray grid is a grating consisting essentially of a series of narrow lead strips closely spaced on their edges and separated by spacers of low density material. The x-ray grid is used to reduce the amount of scattered radiation reaching the x-ray film. An x-ray grid-cassette is a housing containing both x-ray grid and film. Hereinafter, an x-ray grid-cassette will be referred to as a grid, and an x-ray cassette will be referred to as a cassette.
Surgical procedures often require the taking of x-rays before, during and after the surgery. It is necessary to have flexibility in positioning x-ray grids and cassettes relative to the patient lying on an operating table. It is also necessary for the environment of the operating room to be and remain sterile. During some operations, such as those on the lower back, e.g. lumbar laminectomy, precise x-ray images are critical and require long x-ray exposure times.
Several x-ray cassette holders are available which attach to the operating table and allow an x-ray cassette to be positioned relative to a patient lying on an operating table. For instance, U.S. Pat. No. 2,651,725 issued to A. M. McFarland discloses an x-ray cassette holder which allows a wide range of adjustments of the x-ray cassette relative to the patient.
It is currently common practice in hospitals to sterilize devices in autoclaves. One of the major disadvantages of the prior art cassette holders is that they cannot be sterilized in an autoclave. The size of a typical autoclave oven found in a hospital surgical suite has an opening of 15 inches by 15 inches, and a depth of 27 inches. The size of the prior art x-ray cassette holders, for instance that of McFarland mentioned above, do not enable them to fit within the cavity of the typical autoclave currently found in surgical suites at hospitals, even if they could be autoclaved.
Another disadvantage of the prior art x-ray cassette holders is their capacity to hold only a single x-ray cassette. Certain surgical operations, such as lumbar laminectomy and cervical fusion, require precise x-ray imaging. For such imaging, long exposure times are necessary. During the long exposure time required for lumbar laminectomy, not all the radiation will be absorbed by a single x-ray grid. Some radiation will leak through the single x-ray grid resulting in back scatter radiation and exposing the patient to additional unnecessary radiation. Back scatter radiation obscures the x-ray photograph decreasing the accuracy of the image.


A voltage regulator is provided that includes a plurality of buck-boost transformers each having primary and secondary windings. The secondary windings of the transformers are electrically disposed in series between a source and a load. Each transformer is controlled by a plurality of control switches configured to control the voltage across the primary winding of a corresponding transformer. A controller monitors the output voltage and generates control signals for the switches. The transformers generate different voltage level changes in between the source and load and the voltages across the primary windings are capable of assuming opposite polarities to enable scaling of resolution and range. The voltage regulator efficiently regulates power with relatively few or no moving parts and also partially protects the power switching components by removing them from the path of the load current thereby producing a device that is smaller in size, costs less and is more reliable.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a voltage regulator and, in particular, to a voltage regulator that provides enhanced resolution over a larger range of voltage while also achieving improvements in size, cost and reliability.
2. Discussion of Related Art
Voltage regulators are provided to maintain voltage levels at a predetermined level or within a predetermined range. Voltage regulators are used to protect devices used, for example, in broadcast transmission and telecommunications, computers, manufacturing and industrial control by insuring that voltage provided from a power source to a load is within the operating limits of the load.
There are a variety of known voltage regulators. One conventional voltage regulator includes a buck boost transformer disposed between a source and a load. The buck-boost transformer has a secondary winding in series with the line voltage source. Voltage to the primary winding of the buck-boost transformer is controlled by a variable autotransformer resulting in the addition or subtraction of voltage from the line voltage. A movable brush in the autotransformer is controlled by a motor which itself is controlled by a controller monitoring the output voltage. This conventional design is relatively complicated and has a large number of moving parts that limit the reliability of the device. Further, the device has a relatively slow response time to changes in voltage and the components must be sized to several times the corrective power rating of the load.
An improvement to the above-described device integrates the buck-boost transformer and autotransformer. In this device, a first part of the autotransformer winding is in series with the line voltage. A second part of the winding determines the total corrective range the first part can provide and the connection point in this first part of the winding determines what percentage of this corrective voltage that can be added to and what percentage can be removed from the line voltage. The brush of the autotransformer is placed in series between the source and load and is again controlled by a motor operating under the control of a controller monitoring the output voltage. Although this integrated device results in a slight reduction in the number of components, the device still suffers from a relatively complicated design, moving parts and slow response time and the components must again be sized to several times the corrective power rating of the load.
Another conventional voltage regulator is a ferro-resonant transformer. In this device, the magnetic core of the transformer is substantially saturated. A secondary winding draws power from a primary winding to replace power delivered to the load. Because of the saturation of the core, however, the impact of any change in voltage across the primary winding on the voltage across the secondary winding is limited thereby allowing the secondary winding to maintain a relatively constant voltage. Another secondary winding forms part of a resonant tank circuit which helps to maintain saturation of the core. This device suffers from relatively large audible noise, is relatively inefficient thereby leading to the production of excess heat, and creates distortions in the voltage waveforms. The device also is current limiting and must also be sized to handle the maximum power of the load. Further, the device is susceptible to line frequency changes because it is designed for a fixed frequency. The device also can suffer from poor resolution in the output voltage.
Another conventional voltage regulator includes an autotransformer or isolation transformer in which taps on the transformer are selected in response to semiconductor switches. These devices generally suffer from poor output resolution because increased resolution requires additional switches which then increase the cost of the device and reduces the reliability of the device. The switches are particularly susceptible to damage from overload conditions or load transients because they are located in the circuit between the source and load. The device must therefore again be sized to handle the maximum power of the load.
Another conventional voltage regulator functions in a manner similar to the ferro-resonant transformer. In this device, an additional control winding is supplied with direct current to cause saturation of the transformer core. Saturation of the core enables the secondary winding to maintain a substantially constant voltage despite variations in the line voltage on the primary winding. This device, however, again creates distortions in the voltage waveforms (requiring significant filtering to reduce these distortions), is relatively inefficient, and must be sized to handle the maximum power of the load.
Yet another voltage regulator includes a plurality of buck-boost transformers having secondary windings disposed in series between the source and load. Delivery of current to the primary windings of the transformers is controlled such that each transformer is capable of adding to, or subtracting from, the line voltage. Each transformer is configured to generate the same voltage level change between the source and the load. As a result, the device is incapable of achieving sufficient voltage resolution over a large voltage range. For example, if the transformers were configured to generate a voltage level change with relatively high resolution (e.g., 1%), ten separate transformers would be required to achieve only a 10% range. Similarly, if the transformers were configured to permit adjustment over a large voltage range, either the resolution of the transformers would need to be reduced to limit the number of transformers (e.g., four transformers at 5% resolution for a 20% range) or a large number of transformers would have to be added (e.g., twenty transformers at 1% resolution for a 20% range) increasing the size and cost of the device and reducing its reliability. This device is also sensitive to changes in power requirements for different loads thereby requiring recalibration of switching elements.
Yet another conventional voltage regulator includes a plurality of buck-boost transformers having secondary windings disposed in series between the source and load wherein the transformers generate different voltage level changes in the voltage between the source and the load. Although permitting some improvements in voltage resolution and range, this conventional device has several drawbacks. First, the device includes three primary windings in each transformer-one for the addition of voltage, one for subtraction of voltage and one for a shorted (null) voltage. The large number of windings increases the component cost and reduces its reliability and requires sizing the transformers to handle relatively high power requirements. Second, current delivered to the primary windings of each transformer had to be of the same polarity or a null polarity limiting the ability to obtain sufficient resolution of voltage levels without a large number of transformers.
The inventors herein have recognized a need for a voltage regulator that will minimize and/or eliminate one or more of the above-identified deficiencies.


A position finding system and method may be used to find an alignment position of a laser device relative to an optical fiber such as an angled optical fiber. The laser device may be positioned “off-axis” relative to the optical fiber such that light from the laser device is directed at an angle to an end of the optical fiber and coupled into the optical fiber. The position finding system and method may be used to find the alignment position by searching for relative high power positions at different angular orientations of the laser device and calculating coordinates of at least one alignment position from the coordinates of the relative high power positions. The relative high power positions may be positions at which the measured power coupled into the optical fiber by the laser is maximized.

The following descriptions and examples are not admitted to be prior art by virtue of their inclusion within this section.
Semiconductor lasers are used in a variety of applications, such as high-bit-rate optical fiber communications. To provide optical fiber communications, lasers are optically coupled to fibers to enable modulated light output from the laser to be transmitted into the fiber. Various modules, assemblies or packages are used to hold and align the laser, other optical components (e.g., collimation and coupling lenses, isolators, and the like), and optical fiber such that the laser is optically coupled to the fiber. The process of aligning an optical fiber to a laser and fixing it in place is sometimes referred to as fiber pigtailing. The laser and optical fiber may be aligned and coupled, for example, using a welding machine. Active alignment techniques may be used wherein the power of the light coupled into the optical fiber is measured as the laser and/or fiber is moved to search for the alignment position (e.g., a position of maximum power).
Standard laser package types include butterfly laser packages and coaxial or TO (transistor outline) can laser packages. In a TO can laser package, for example, the laser (e.g., a laser diode) and the light-receiving end of the optical fiber may be mounted together within a substantially cylindrical housing. The laser may be mounted on a laser submount on a TO can post of a TO can header. The fiber end may be disposed in a rigid cylindrical ferrule, which may be welded to the TO can housing after the laser and the optical fiber are aligned.
In this and other types of laser packages, one problem that often arises when a laser is coupled to an optical fiber is back reflection from the end face of the fiber back into the laser cavity. One way to reduce back reflection is to use an angle-polished fiber, which has its end surface polished to a fiber end angle (e.g., 8°) slightly off of the plane normal to the axis of the fiber core. Light from the laser that reflects off of the fiber end, instead of being coupled into the fiber, is reflected at an angle with respect to the axis of the fiber and is thus not reflected back into the laser cavity. One drawback of this approach, however, is that coupling efficiency may be reduced. A primary reason for this reduction in coupling efficiency is that the angled fiber end causes light coupled into the fiber core at the angled end to be bent at a certain refraction angle due to the different indices of refraction of the fiber and surrounding medium (e.g., air). As a result, the light is not coupled into the fiber substantially parallel to the axis of the fiber core, which reduces coupling efficiency.
To improve the coupling efficiency, the light from the laser may be directed at an angle to the angled end of the fiber such that the light coupled into the fiber core is better aligned with the axis of the fiber core. To direct the light at an angle to the angled end of the fiber, the laser may be positioned "off axis" relative to the axis of the fiber core. With such an "off-axis" configuration, aligning a laser relative to the angle-polished fiber may be more difficult. Because the laser is "off-axis" relative to the optical fiber to direct the light at an angle, the proper alignment of the laser is more sensitive to the angular position of the laser. When the laser package is positioned in a welding machine, for example, there may be a rotational shift in the alignment position of the laser, resulting in misalignment. Slight deviations from an alignment position (e.g., a position of maximum power) may result in a significant drop in measured power.
When the laser is "off-axis" relative to the optical fiber to direct the light at an angle to the angled end of the fiber, the use of existing active alignment techniques, such as randomly searching power, may require additional time to find maximum power at different angles. In one system, for example, randomly searching power may require 20 to 25 seconds to find maximum power and position after each rotation and power must be checked at different angles at least 5 times. Such techniques often take considerable amounts of time to find the desired position.

Position finding system and method for use in aligning laser device with an optical fiber


The present invention is directed to a system and method for propagation of security information for secure information exchange. Existing and new authentication information are gathered and combined into the same header. The header is attached to electronic document data encrypted by a client device and sent via a computer network to a document processing device. The document processing device, upon receipt of the header and document first decrypts the header and uses the existing authentication information to qualify the new authentication information by validating the existing authentication information through a trusted authentication mechanism. Once validated, the new authentication information is available for future document processing operations by the document processing device and other trusted document processing devices.

This invention is directed to a method and system for the propagation of security information for secure information exchange. More particularly, this invention is directed to a method and system for associating new authentication information with existing authentication information and using the existing authentication information to qualify the new authentication information for further usage.
Office settings typically include a variety of document processing devices, such as printers, copiers, facsimile machines, scanners, and the like, which employ little to no inherent data security. A user with physical access to the computer network of such an office is able to view or intercept the plain text transmission of documents sent by another user over the network. Various attempts to encrypt document data have been employed, such as requiring the input of a password at the receiving document processing device to output the document. In typical secure document processing operations, a user encrypts a document for transmission to a document processing device. Once received, the document processing device decrypts the data and outputs the document accordingly. However, to maintain security, each document processing device on a computer network employs a unique public key/private key encryption combination. Each of the security protocols requires the preliminary step of exchanging the encryption or security keys. Such an exchange requires a two-sided communication between the client and the server. When the client is only able to send information to the server, and not receive any information back, it becomes important to capture some kind of authentication information from existing sources on the client side, and also generate new authentication information on the client, for use for the specific purpose of communicating with a particular server.
Thus, there is a need for the association of existing authentication information with the new authentication information, and using the existing authentication information to qualify the new authentication information for further usage.

System and method for secure exchange of trust information


With the objective of simplifying the splicing of optical fibres and obtaining a very high degree of accuracy in the positional setting of the fibre ends prior to splicing the ends together fully automatically, the relative positions of the fibre ends are determined with the aid of laser light diffraction. By illuminating the fibre ends (1, 2) with laser light (3) and studying the image of the diffraction pattern on a display screen (6), which pattern can be related directly to the perpendicular distance between the fibre ends and the relative offset between the geometric axes of the ends, it is possible to determine the distance between the fibre ends by direct image analysis. A suitable splicing distance between the gap between the fibre ends can then be adjusted automatically to a value suitable for splicing, with regard to fibre material and fibre dimensions.

It is known to use optical instruments for splicing or bonding optical fibres, for instance instruments such as cameras equipped with microscope objectives, to determine the relative offset of and the distance between the fibre ends, computers provided with display screens for monitoring and controlling the fibre splicing process, means for adjusting and setting the positions of the fibre ends, and means for fusing the fibre ends together. When the camera is coupled to the computer via an image transmitter, an enlarged image of the fibre ends can be produced on the computer screen and the correct distance and offset between the fibre ends with respect to fibre material and dimensions can be adjusted automatically, so as to obtain a splice that has optical properties. Subsequent to having aligned the fibres and set the distance between the fibre ends, the fibre ends may be fused together with the aid of a light arc generated with the aid of high-voltage electrodes, so as to form an homogenous splice.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,323,225 discloses a method of determining the positions of transverse axes of an optical fibre that has an elliptical core. The fibre is illuminated with coherent light such as to produce an interference pattern which, when studied, is able to disclose optimal positioning of the fibre ends for obtaining a correct fibre bond or splice.

Method and system for determining the distance between optical fibres


A method and apparatus for selecting a beam combination of beam switched antennas in a multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) wireless communication system including a first node and a second node. The first node sends a plurality of modulation and coding scheme (MCS) requests to the second node. Each of the plurality of MCS requests is sent using a particular beam combination. The second node receives the MCS requests and generates MCS feedback signals for each of the MCS requests. Each MCS feedback signal includes an MCS recommendation for the particular beam. The first node selects a beam combination for communicating with the second node based on the MCS recommendations.

Among many emerging technologies developed to meet the increasing demand of high speed data transfer, MIMO is one of the most promising technologies. Unlike traditional techniques, such as a diversity technique which tries to mitigate multipaths, MIMO takes advantage of the existence of multipaths.
In a prior art MIMO system, multiple omni-directional antennas are typically placed at a transmitter and a receiver. To improve the MIMO system performance, multiple beam switched subscriber based smart antennas (SBSAs) are provided to replace omni-directional antennas at the transmitter, receiver, or both. The beam switched SBSAs may be switched parasitic antennas (SPAs), such as Trident or Delta type antennas, or phase-shift based beam selection antennas, such as those using a Butler matrix or a fast Fourier transform (FFT) matrix.
To support SBSA MIMO, physical layer information, such as a signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and channel state information (CSI) is available. Even though this information is accessible from the physical layer, it requires internal bandwidth to exchange this information between the physical layer and a medium access control (MAC) layer. Therefore, it is desirable to use some explicit information at the MAC layer to support the beam selection in the SBSA MIMO system.

Method and apparatus for selecting a beam combination in a MIMO wireless communication system