The present invention discloses an ultrasonic and infrared transmitter with tunable carrier frequency, which comprises an oscillation frequency, a frequency divider, a multiplexer and an output buffer on an integrated circuit in association with an infrared light emitting diode or ultrasonic transducer to transmit infrared or ultrasonic carrier signals. The oscillation frequency is divided by the frequency divider and sent to one input of the multiplexer which has the other input connected with a user-controlled data, and finally the output buffer outputs the data. The integrated circuit provides two carrier signal output ports, and the carrier signals from these two output ports are inverted to each other, thus the described apparatus can transmit not only infrared carrier signal but also ultrasonic carrier signal.

In the prior art, for wireless communications by infrared and ultrasonic transmitters, the infrared and ultrasonic carrier signals are generated in different ways, for instance by oscillators. However, the frequency of the carrier generated this way needs to be adjusted and thus inconvenient for utilization. FIG. 1 shows the circuit diagram of a conventional carrier signal generator for infrared or ultrasonic transmission, in which the output of an integrated circuit 10 is connected to a complicated carrier generator 13 and an infrared light emitting diode (LED) or ultrasonic transducer 12, the carrier generator 13 for production of the carrier signal for infrared or ultrasonic output and the infrared LIGHT EMITTING DIODE or ultrasonic transducer 12 for transmission of the carrier signal. However, the frequency characteristics of the infrared LIGHT EMITTING DIODE and the ultrasonic transducer are different, once one transmission type has been determined, for example the ultrasonic one, the circuit must be modified to switch to the other transmission type. Therefore, the user has to choose the transmission type first and then design the circuit for producing the carrier, and thus it is more difficult to design the circuit.
Due to the shortcomings of the prior arts, it is desired an ultrasonic and infrared transmitter with tunable carrier frequency.

Ultrasonic and infrared transmitter with tunable carrier frequency


A gas-air premixing burner for gas turbines includes an air swirler and an annular burner tube surrounding a bluff centerbody. The bluff body serves to stabilize the flame by defining a recirculating vortex. Cooling air is directed to impinge against the bluff face of the centerbody and the spent impingement cooling air flows in a reverse direction towards the air swirler within the centerbody and is discharged through holes at the outer diameter of the centerbody, where it mixes with the fuel/air mixture prior to reaching the flame zone.

The invention relates to a fuel nozzle such as a gas-air premixing burner for use in gas turbines, comprising an air swirler and annular burner tube surrounding a bluff centerbody. More particularly, the invention relates to a nozzle end configuration and to an adaptation for cooling the same.
Gas turbines for power generation are generally available with fuel nozzles configured for either "Dual Fuel" or "Gas Only". "Gas Only" refers to operation burning, for example, natural gas and "Dual Fuel" refers to having the capability of operation burning either natural gas or liquid fuel. The "Dual Fuel" configuration is generally applied with oil used as a backup fuel, if natural gas is unavailable. The "Gas Only" configuration is offered in order to reduce costs as the nozzle parts and all associated equipment required for liquid fuel operation are not supplied. In general, fuel nozzles are designed to have "Dual Fuel" capability and the "Gas Only" version is a modification to the dual fuel design in which the liquid fuel parts, which include the oil, atomizing air and diluent water passages, are omitted from the nozzle and replaced with a component of similar size and shape, but without the internal features of the liquid fuel cartridge. This replacement component is known as a "Gas-Only Insert." An example of a fuel nozzle configured for gas-only operation is illustrated in FIG. 1.
FIG. 1 is a cross-section through the burner assembly 10. The burner assembly is divided into four regions by function including an inlet flow conditioner 12, an air swirler assembly with natural gas fuel injection (referred to as a swozzle assembly) 14, an annular fuel/air mixing passage 16, and a central diffusion flame fuel nozzle assembly 18.
Air enters the burner from a high pressure plenum, which surrounds the assembly, except the discharge end which enters the combustor reaction zone. Most of the air for combustion enters the premixer via the inlet flow conditioner 12. The inlet flow conditioner includes an annular flow passage that is bounded by a solid cylindrical inner wall 20 at the inside diameter, a perforated cylindrical outer wall 22 at the outside diameter, and a perforated end cap 24 at the upstream end. In the center of the flow passage are one or more annular turning vanes 26. Premixer air enters the inlet flow conditioner 12 via the perforations in the end cap 24 and in the cylindrical outer wall 22.
After combustion air exits the inlet flow conditioner 12, it enters the swozzle assembly 14. The swozzle assembly includes a hub 28 and a shroud 30 connected by a series of air foil shaped turning vanes 32, which impart swirl to the combustion air passing through the premixer. Each turning vane 32 contains natural gas fuel supply passage(s) through the core of the air foil. These fuel passages distribute natural gas fuel to gas fuel injection holes 34 which penetrate the wall of the air foil. The fuel injection holes may be located on the pressure side, the suction side, or both sides of the turning vanes 32. Natural gas fuel enters the swozzle assembly 14 through inlet port(s) and annular passage(s) 36, which feed the turning vane passages. The natural gas fuel begins mixing with combustion air in the swozzle assembly, and fuel/air mixing is completed in the annular passage 16, which is formed by a centerbody extension 38 and a burner tube extension 40. After exiting the annular passage 16, the fuel/air mixture enters the combustor reaction zone where combustion takes place.
At the center of the burner assembly is a diffusion flame fuel nozzle assembly 18, which receives natural gas fuel through annular passage 42 and holes 44. In the center of this diffusion flame fuel nozzle is a cavity 46, which, as noted above, receives either the liquid fuel assembly to provide dual fuel capability or the gas-only insert. The gas-only insert 45 is shown in this example. In the dual fuel configuration, during gas fuel operation, the oil, atomizing air and water passages in this region are purged with cool air to block hot gas from entering the passages when not in use. When the nozzle is configured for gas only operation, cavity 46 must be substantially capped, as shown, at the distal end of the nozzle, to block hot combustion gas from entering the center region 46, which may result in mechanical damage due to the high temperature. A small amount of air passes through holes 47 in the end of the gas-only insert to cool and purge the tip of the gas-only insert.
Currently, the centerbody is cooled with air discharged directly into the recirculation zone 57 through orifices or passages 48 at the bluff face 63 of the centerbody. This air is sometimes referred to as curtain air. As schematically illustrated in FIG. 1, the curtain air stream 50 for cooling the centerbody conventionally feeds through a passage defined therefor in the swirler vanes 32, through annular passage 52 and, as mentioned above, exits through orifices or passages 48 at the end of the centerbody. However, this air does not have time to mix thoroughly before it reaches the flame.
Some fuel nozzle designs do not have a separate cooling air passage for the tip of the centerbody. These designs rely for cooling on air used to purge the diffusion fuel passages when fuel is not supplied to the diffusion fuel passages. In these designs, there is a risk of thermal distress during the transient transition between diffusion fuel flow and purge air flow.

Method of cooling centerbody of premixing burner


An apparatus includes an echo canceller having an audio signal input and an audio signal output and dynamic pre-conditioning logic. The dynamic pre-conditioning logic is operatively coupled to the echo canceller audio signal output as a feedback signal and has a dynamic pre-conditioning logic output operatively coupled to the echo canceller audio signal input. The dynamic pre-conditioning logic is also operative to receive an audio signal input from at least one microphone. The dynamic pre-conditioning logic is operative to analyze the feedback signal to obtain at least one characteristic, and pre-condition the audio signal input, based on the at least one characteristic of the feedback signal, and provide a pre-conditioned audio signal at the echo canceller audio signal input. The echo canceller audio signal output is then provided to a noise suppressor for the send path of a full duplex communication channel.

Communication devices such as, but not limited to, stationary telephones, cordless telephones, mobile phones, smart phones, tablets, laptops, etc., include, or may include, audio processing for voice communications, or to drive voice recognition systems to provide hands free voice control of the devices. Such communication devices employ mechanisms to cancel or reduce near field ambient noise in order to sustain a level of clarity during two-way voice (i.e. full duplex) communications. Most systems employ noise suppressors as one mechanism to stop, minimize or subtract unintended audio signals from contaminating desired speech signals during voice communications.
Most of such systems also utilize pre-conditioning processing which is applied prior to the application of more sophisticated noise suppression. For example, high pass filtering may help block or reduce wind noise or road noise. More generally, the pre-conditioning processing may include various filters or amplifiers that may be applied to one or more microphone signal outputs prior to noise suppression. This pre-conditioning however is fixed and treats all signals in the same manner. However, because input signal characteristics are dynamic and change with external conditions, including orientation of the device, the fixed pre-conditioning may not be appropriate for the given signal characteristics. Therefore, in some situations, the pre-conditioning may adversely impact subsequent noise suppression if the audio signal input to the noise suppression is inappropriately filtered or amplified.

Apparatus with dynamic audio signal pre-conditioning and methods therefor


According to one aspect of the present invention the optical interrogation system comprises: (i) an optical sensor capable of immobilizing biological, bio-chemical and/or chemical substance; and (ii) an optical isolator that filters and eliminates parasitic reflections introduced by the optical sensor. In some embodiments the optical sensor includes a GCW with a surface having a sensing region capable of immobilizing biological, bio-chemical or chemical substances includes, and the optical interrogation system includes an optical detection system for monitoring this sensing region, the optical detection system comprising a light source, an optical delivery system, and a detection instrument.

Optical interrogation systems that utilize evanescent field-based sensors are fast becoming a technology of choice for accurate label-free detection of a biological, biochemical, or chemical substance (e.g., cells, spores, biological or drug molecules, or chemical compounds). This technology typically involves the use of grating-coupled waveguides (GCWs) to sense a concentration change, surface adsorption, reaction, or the mere presence of a biological or chemical substance at the waveguide surface. Evanescent field-based sensors typically utilize a planar grating-coupled waveguide in direct contact with the compounds that are immobilized on the surface of the waveguide. When a biological, bio-chemical or chemical reaction happens at the surface of the waveguide, it changes the refractive index over a thin layer (few nanometers thick) and, as a consequence, the effective refractive index of the grating-coupled waveguide also changes. When a light beam is sent to the grating-coupled waveguide, the light couples into the GCW (under resonant condition) and then reflects at one specific angle and at one specific wavelength. (These angles and wavelengths are referred to as resonant angles and resonant wavelengths.) These angles and wavelengths are a function of the waveguide's effective refractive index.
More specifically, the resonant condition occurs only for a specific wavelength and angle of the incoming light beam, and changes in either angle or wavelength of reflected (resonant) light correspond to changes in the effective refractive index of the GCW. Thus, the optical interrogation system is used to sense a change in the effective index of the GCW, which enables one to determine whether or not a substance of interest is located within the sensing region of the GCW. Therefore, by measuring the resonant angles and/or the wavelengths of the reflected light, one can detect variation in the waveguide's effective refractive index and, thereby, detect the presence of biological, biochemical, or chemical substances.
In order for this technology to be viable, one must be able to accurately monitor the resonant angle(s) and/or the resonant wavelength(s). Optical interrogation systems utilizing evanescent field-based sensors employ two different interrogation methods. The first method is called the wavelength interrogation approach. It utilizes a collimated wide spectral band light beam incident at one at one specific angle at the GCW and uses a spectrometer to measure the (resonant) wavelength of the reflected light beam. The second method is called the angular interrogation approach. This method utilizes a single wavelength light beam, at multiple incidence angles to interrogate GCW. When utilizing this approach, the detector measures the (resonant) angle of the reflected light beam. The optical interrogation system that utilizes the angular interrogation approach is disclosed, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 6,218,194 and is incorporated by reference herein.
However, in addition to reflecting light at the resonance wavelength or the resonance angle, grating-coupled waveguides (GCWs) also reflect light at other wavelengths and angles (parasitic geometric reflections), thus reducing the quality of the detected resonant signal. More specifically, because of these parasitic reflections one may see a low contrast weak resonance signal superimposed to a background of reflected light happening at all angles or wavelengths. The background lowers signal to noise ratio and makes the angular or wavelength measurement of the resonance less accurate. A second problem is caused by the reflections from the first (front) surface of the substrate or microplate, which are referred to herein as parasitic Fresnel reflections. Parasitic Fresnel reflections interfere with the resonance measurements and generate fringes in the angular or spectral space making the resonance detection very noisy and, due to temperature fluctuations and other factors, instable over time.
One example of wavelength interrogation system is shown on FIG. 1. A lens 108 collimates the light beam provided by the input fiber 106 which is connected to a broad spectral range light source 100. The collimated beam is then directed, at a specific angle, toward the sensor that includes the microplate 102 and the GCW 104. The reflected (resonant) light beam is collected by the lens 108 and imaged over the output fiber 107 which is connected to a spectrometer 101.
FIG. 2 shows an example of an angular interrogation system were the input fiber 106 is connected to a monochromatic light source 110 and the light beam is focused on GCW 104. After the light beams couples in GCW it is reflected at angles corresponding to the resonance condition and is imaged over a position sensitive detector 111.
However, as stated above, both of these approaches suffer from parasitic reflections which obscure the true resonance signal. To illustrate the problem, the curve 130 of FIG. 3 shows the simulated spectral resonance shape of the light reflected by the sensor. This curve is highly non symmetric and has a relatively bad contrast definition that is due only to the geometric reflections of the GCW across different wavelengths.
The problem of the parasitic Fresnel reflections happening at the first face of the microplate is illustrated by the curve 132 of FIG. 4. This resonance curve 132 is modulated at high frequency because of interference effects between the resonant light and the parasitic Fresnel reflections of the first face of the microplate 102. The phase and the frequency of this modulation is a function of the thickness of the microplate 102.
Some solutions for avoiding parasitic reflections, such as increasing the spatial and/or angular separation of the incident and reflected beams, are proposed in the literature (e.g., Cottier, K., et al., "Label-free Highly Sensitive Detection of (Small) Molecules by Wavelength Interrogation of Integrated Optical Chips," Sensors and Actuators B: Chemical, June 2003). The principle of this approach lies in defining the reader optics in such a way that the light is injected into one area of the grating-coupled waveguide and is collected from another area of the grating-coupled waveguide. Such a configuration is illustrated on FIG. 5. Hence, the detector is not collecting the parasitic reflections that occur at the input side of GCW, but rather collects only the light that has propagated into the grating coupled waveguide.
The solution described by Cottier, K., et al., however, is limited to unidirectional light propagation. It is important, in some cases, to collect the light that is propagating within the GCW in both directions. Therefore, Cottier's solution is not compatible with a double resonance approach, such as the one described, for example, in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/676,352, filed Sep. 30, 2003, by Gollier et al, which is incorporated by reference herein. Another limitation of the Cottier's technique is that it can only be utilized when the light propagation distances within the waveguide are larger than the input light beam diameter. Furthermore, in some cases, we want to measure different propagation modes (TE and TM). These modes have significantly different propagation distances. It is impossible, in utilizing the Cottier approach, to find a distance between the incident input beam (on GCW) and the collected output beam (from GCW) that allows us to keep all the modes and to simultaneously filter out parasitic reflections. Finally, in some other cases, it may be desirable to sending the light beam at normal incidence with respect to the GCW. However, in this case, a stationary wave is excited within the GCW. Thus, using the spatial separation suggested by the Cottier is not possible, because the light is not propagating within the GCW.
To illustrate those problems, the FIG. 6a shows a 4 resonances spectrum produced by the device of FIG. 1. The two peaks 140 on the left side of the spectrum curve represent the two TM modes propagating in opposite directions. The two peaks 141 on the right side of the spectrum curve represent the two TE modes propagating in the two directions. FIG. 6a illustrates that peaks 140 are difficult to detect due to parasitic reflections and that all peaks suffer from high frequency modulation. When the input and output light beams are separated as taught by Cottier, so as to filter out parasitic reflections around one of the resonant wavelengths corresponding to one of TM modes, the resonant wavelength corresponding to the second TM mode can no longer be detected. Furthermore, the two TE modes (which have smaller propagation distances within the waveguide) begin to disappear into the background noise (due to parasitic reflections) and are now difficult to detect. This is illustrated in FIG. 6b. Thus, Cottier method can not be utilized if one needs to detect both TM and TE (resonant modes), and/or if one needs to detect resonant modes propagating in opposing directions.

Optical interrogation systems with reduced parasitic reflections and a method for filtering parasitic reflections


A process for making a composition for conversion to lyocell fiber where the process comprises pulping a raw material in a digester to provide an alkaline pulp, wherein the raw material comprises sawdust in an amount greater than 0 % up to 100 %; and contacting the alkaline pulp comprising cellulose and at least about 7 % hemicellulose under alkaline conditions with an amount of an oxidant sufficient to reduce the average degree of polymerization of the cellulose to within the range of from about 200 to about 1100, without substantially reducing the hemicellulose content of the pulp or substantially increasing the copper number.

Cellulose is a polymer of D-glucose and is a structural component of plant cell walls. Cellulose is especially abundant in tree trunks from which it is extracted, converted into pulp, and thereafter utilized to manufacture a variety of products. Rayon is the name given to a fibrous form of regenerated cellulose that is extensively used in the textile industry to manufacture articles of clothing. For over a century strong fibers of rayon have been produced by the viscose and cuprammonium processes. The latter process was first patented in 1890 and the viscose process two years later. In the viscose process cellulose is first steeped in a mercerizing strength caustic soda solution to form an alkali cellulose. This is reacted with carbon disulfide to form cellulose xanthate which is then dissolved in dilute caustic soda solution. After filtration and deaeration the xanthate solution is extruded from submerged spinnerets into a regenerating bath of sulfuric acid, sodium sulfate, zinc sulfate, and glucose to form continuous filaments. The resulting so-called viscose rayon is presently used in textiles and was formerly widely used for reinforcing rubber articles such as tires and drive belts.
Cellulose is also soluble in a solution of ammonia copper oxide. This property forms the basis for production of cuprammonium rayon. The cellulose solution is forced through submerged spinnerets into a solution of 5% caustic soda or dilute sulfuric acid to form the fibers, which are then decoppered and washed. Cuprammonium rayon is available in fibers of very low deniers and is used almost exclusively in textiles.
The foregoing processes for preparing rayon both require that the cellulose be chemically derivatized or complexed in order to render it soluble and therefore capable of being spun into fibers. In the viscose process, the cellulose is derivatized, while in the cuprammonium rayon process, the cellulose is complexed. In either process, the derivatized or complexed cellulose must be regenerated and the reagents that were used to solubilize it must be removed. The derivatization and regeneration steps in the production of rayon significantly add to the cost of this form of cellulose fiber. Consequently, in recent years attempts have been made to identify solvents that are capable of dissolving underivatized cellulose to form a dope of underivatized cellulose from which fibers can be spun.
One class of organic solvents useful for dissolving cellulose are the amine-N oxides, in particular the tertiary amine-N oxides. For example, Graenacher, in U.S. Pat. No. 2,179,181, discloses a group of amine oxide materials suitable as solvents. Johnson, in U.S. Pat. No. 3,447,939, describes the use of anhydrous N-methylmorpholine-N-oxide (NMMO) and other amine N-oxides as solvents for cellulose and many other natural and synthetic polymers. Franks et al., in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,145,532 and 4,196,282, deals with the difficulties of dissolving cellulose in amine oxide solvents and of achieving higher concentrations of cellulose.
Lyocell is an accepted generic term for a fiber composed of cellulose precipitated from an organic solution in which no substitution of hydroxyl groups takes place and no chemical intermediates are formed. Several manufacturers presently produce lyocell fibers, principally for use in the textile industry. For example, Acordis, Ltd. presently manufactures and sells a lyocell fiber called Tencel® fiber.
Currently available lyocell fibers are produced from high quality wood pulps that have been extensively processed to remove non-cellulose components, especially hemicellulose. These highly processed pulps are referred to as dissolving grade or high alpha (or high α) pulps, where the term alpha (or α) refers to the percentage of cellulose. Thus, a high alpha pulp contains a high percentage of cellulose, and a correspondingly low percentage of other components, especially hemicellulose. The processing required to generate a high alpha pulp significantly adds to the cost of lyocell fibers and products manufactured therefrom. Typically, the cellulose for these high alpha pulps comes from softwood, which generally has longer fibers than hardwoods. Softwoods must be made into wood chips to make them suitable to be pulped in the digesters. The digesters are normally equipped with a system for recycle of the black liquor. Recycle provides a desirable homogenous mixture throughout the digester that leads to uniform pulping conditions. In order to move the black liquor, digesters are equipped with screens to keep wood chips from the pump inlet.
Since conventional Kraft processes stabilize residual hemicelluloses against further alkaline attack, it is not possible to obtain acceptable quality dissolving pulps, i.e., high alpha pulps, through subsequent treatment of Kraft pulp in the bleaching stages. Thus, in order to prepare dissolving type pulps by the Kraft process, it is necessary to give the raw material an acidic pretreatment before the alkaline pulping stage. A significant amount of material primarily hemicellulose, on the order of 10% or greater of the original wood substance, is solubilized in this acid phase pretreatment and thus process yields drop. Under the prehydrolysis conditions, the cellulose is largely resistant to attack, but the residual hemicelluloses are degraded to a much shorter chain length and can therefore be removed to a large extent in the subsequent Kraft cook by a variety of hemicellulose hydrolysis reactions or by dissolution.
A relatively low copper number, reflective of the relative carbonyl content of the cellulose, is a desirable property of a pulp that is to be used to make lyocell fibers because it is generally believed that a high copper number causes cellulose and solvent degradation, before, during, and/or after dissolution in an amine oxide solvent. The degraded solvent can either be disposed of or regenerated; however, due to its cost it is generally undesirable to dispose of the solvent. Regeneration of the solvent suffers from the drawback that the regeneration process involves dangerous, potentially explosive conditions.
A low transition metal content is a desirable property of a pulp that is to be used to make lyocell fibers because, for example, transition metals accelerate the undesirable degradation of cellulose and NMMO in the lyocell process.
In view of the expense of producing commercial dissolving grade pulps, it would be desirable to have alternatives to conventional high alpha dissolving grade pulps as a lyocell raw material. In addition, pulp manufacturers would like to minimize the capital investment necessary to produce such types of pulps by utilizing existing capital plants.
In order to control lyocell fiber properties, lyocell manufacturers utilize dopes that comprise a blend of different pulps having different ranges of average degree of polymerization values. In view of this, there is also a need for pulp manufacturers to produce pulps having an average degree of polymerization within a broad band to eliminate the need for blending.
Thus, there is a need for relatively inexpensive, low alpha (e.g., high yield) pulps that can be used to make lyocell fibers, for a process of making the foregoing low alpha pulps using capital equipment that is currently available to pulp manufacturers, and for lyocell fibers from the foregoing low alpha pulp. Preferably, the desired low alpha pulps will have a desirably low copper number, a desirably low lignin content and a desirably low transition metal content but broad molecular weight distribution.
In a prior application having a Ser. No. 09/256,197, the disclosure of which is herein incorporated by reference, assigned to the assignee of the present application, various methods of reducing D.P. values and copper number of a Kraft pulp are described. Such methods include treating pulp with acid, or an acid substitute, or a combination of acids and acid substitutes. Other means of treating the pulp to reduce the average D.P. of cellulose without substantially reducing the hemicellulose content described in the prior application include treatment of the pulp with steam, a combination of ferrous sulfate and hydrogen peroxide, at least one transition metal and peracetic acid, an alkaline chlorine dioxide treatment which ends acidic or a sodium hypochlorite treatment which ends near neutral. Such processes are effective at reducing the average degree of polymerization without substantially reducing the hemicellulose content, however, such processes can be expensive from a capital improvement standpoint if the existing pulp mills in which such processes are to be used are not configured to allow for the simple deployment of such processes. In the prior application, additional steps are described in order to reduce the copper number of the pulp which has been treated to reduce its average degree of polymerization without substantially decreasing the hemicellulose content. The need for this subsequent copper number reducing step arose because the methods described in the prior application for reducing the average degree of polymerization for the cellulose resulted in an increase in the copper number for the resultant pulp.
In view of environmental concerns, there has been a great interest in using bleaching agents, which reduce the amount of chlorocompounds that must be recovered from process streams. In recent years, the use of oxygen as a delignifying agent has occurred on a commercial scale. Examples of equipment and apparatus useful for carrying out an oxygen stage delignification are described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,295,927; 4,295,925; 4,298,426; and 4,295,926.
While the methods described in prior application '197 are effective at reducing the average D.P. of cellulose without substantially decreasing the hemicellulose content, a further need still existed for a process that did not require a separate copper number reducing step and which was readily adaptable to pulp mills that include oxygen reactors, multiple alkaline stages and/or alkaline conditions suitable for substantial D.P. reduction of bleached or semi-bleached pulp. In a more recent application having Ser. No. 09/574,538, assigned to the assignee of the present application, the disclosure of which is herein incorporated by reference, the assignee of the present application discovered how to make a highly desirable low viscosity pulp from an alkaline pulp by treatment of the alkaline pulp under conditions of an oxidizing agent in a medium to high consistency reactor to reduce the D.P. of the cellulose, without substantially reducing the hemicellulose or increasing the copper number.
Presently, the forest industry generates vast quantities of sawdust byproduct in the normal course of day-to-day wood processing. While some sawdust has found its way into pulping mills that use digesters made to be used with sawdust, a large proportion of the total byproduct sawdust remains unused. Even so, the conventional pulp made from sawdust in M&D or Pandia digesters is considered unsuitable to be used as a dissolving type pulp. One of the drawbacks to using sawdust in a digester suited to make high alpha pulp is that the recycle stream continuously plugs with the sawdust particulates. The typical sawdust pulp currently being made therefore does not have a high alpha content or viscosity level suitable for use as dissolving pulp. The typical sawdust pulp also contains contaminates (dirt, metal or plastic) that are unacceptable for dissolving grade pulps.
The need to conserve resources by utilizing sawdust byproducts, however, presents a unique opportunity. It would be advantageous to develop a pulp and method using the conventional sawdust digesters to produce a dissolving type pulp that would be useful for making lyocell molded bodies from the byproducts of wood processing, with none of the heretofore mentioned drawbacks.

Process for making composition for conversion to lyocell fiber from sawdust


A heat-curable polyorganosiloxane composition which includes (A) an alkenyl group-containing linear polyorganosiloxane of the formula (I) below, wherein Ra represents a C2-C6 alkenyl and Rb represents a C1-C6 alkyl or a phenyl; (B1) a linear polyorganohydrogensiloxane of the formula (II) below, wherein Rc is hydrogen and Rd represents a C1-C6 alkyl or a phenyl; (B2) a cyclic polyorganohydrogensiloxane including Re2HSiO1/2, wherein Re represents a hydrogen atom or C1-C6 alkyl group, and SiO4/2, and having three or more hydrogen atoms bonded to a silicon atom in one molecule; (C) a platinum series catalyst; and (D) an adhesion promoter, wherein the formula (I) and the formula (II) are as follows:

An image display device such as a cathode-ray tube, liquid crystal, plasma, organic EL, etc., has been generally constituted by using, as a polarization splitter, a polarization splitting type diffractive optical element (holographic color filter) in which incident light flux is diffracted and dispersed, and the light of the respective wavelength regions diffracted and dispersed is selectively focused to the positions of the picture elements corresponding to the respective colors of R (red color), G (green color) and B (blue color) formed on photoelastic modulators. Of these, a panel type image display device generally has a display area (an image display portion) in which a number of picture elements comprising a semiconductor layer or a fluorescent layer which constitutes an active element, or a light-emitting layer are provided in a matrix state between a pair of the substrate at least one of which has optical transparency such as a glass, and has been constituted by encapsulating the gap between the display area (an image display portion) and a protective portion formed by a glass or an optical plastic such as an acrylic resin with an adhesive extremely closely.
As the adhesive to be used for such a purpose, a thermosetting resin composition has generally bee used in place of the UV ray curing type resin composition for the structural reason that a light-shielding paint is applied to the outer frame portion of the protective portion of the image display device, and of these, an acrylic adhesive has been usually used. However, the acrylic adhesive has less wetting property with the parts whereby its productivity is poor, and has high shrinkage at the time of curing, which could cause a bad effect such as distortion etc. on the parts. Further, after curing, there are problems that yellowing or crack, etc., occur at high temperature. Therefore, development of a substitute material has been earnestly desired.
In Patent Literature 1, there is disclosed a transparent impact-relieving material for a platy optical display which is obtained by curing a silicone composition.
In Patent Literature 2, there is disclosed a technique in which with regard to electronic parts such as a transistor, diode, capacitor, coil, LSI, IC, etc., encapsulated by an encapsulating resin such as an epoxy resin, a polyphenylene sulfide resin, etc., a liquid state specific thermosetting silicone resin composition is impregnated between gap(s) frequently causing an interface between the encapsulating resin and a lead of the electronic parts, or gap(s) inherently possessed by the electronic parts themselves due to structural reason to recover the encapsulated state.

Heat-curable polyorganosiloxane composition and use thereof

MOMENTIVE PERFORMANCE MATERIALS JAPAN LLC


A system may include one or more transmitter processing modules each having at least one of a plurality of modulation elements arranged in parallel. Each modulation element may be configured to modulate a respective baseband data signal at a different rate than other modulation elements. The system may include one or more receiver processing modules each having a plurality of demodulation elements arranged in parallel. Each demodulation element may be configured to demodulate a respective baseband data signal at a different rate than other demodulation elements. The system may include a first antenna for transmitting signals and a second antenna for receiving signals. One or more isolation systems may be used to actively cancel electromagnetic interference received by the receiving antenna from the transmitting antenna.

A conventional approach for achieving multiple communications functions is to use different set(s) of signal processors, such as modulators/demodulators, for each communication rate. In this configuration, a single processing chain is required for transmitting and another processing chain is used for receiving. Unfortunately, this conventional concept breaks down when the system operates at various speeds without changing the actual processors. There are currently no practical single system architectures that may operate at varying frequencies, while combining different coding spectrums. New approaches for variable rate communications are desirable.

Multi-spectrum high data rate communications system with electromagnetic interference cancellation

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


A liposome composition for treating a bacterial infection is described. The composition includes liposomes having a surface coating of hydrophilic polymer chains and an entrapped drug-conjugate composed of ciprofloxacin conjugated to an amino acid.

Liposomes have been proposed as carriers for a variety of therapeutic agents. Drug delivery systems utilizing liposomes offer the potential of improved delivery properties, including enhanced blood circulation time, reduced cytotoxicity, sustained drug release, and targeting to selected tissues.
In utilizing liposomes for drug delivery, it is generally desirable to load the liposomes to high encapsulated drug concentration. Rate of leakage of the drug from the liposomes should also be low, to preserve the advantages of drug delivery in liposome-entrapped form.
A variety of drug-loading methods are available for preparing liposomes with entrapped drug. In the case of many lipophilic drugs, efficient drug entrapment can be achieved by preparing a mixture of vesicle-forming lipids and the drug, e.g., in a dried film, and hydrating the mixture to form liposomes with drug entrapped predominantly in the lipid bilayer phase of the vesicles. Assuming the partition coefficient of the drug favors the lipid phase, high loading efficiency and stable drug retention can be achieved.
The same type of passive loading may also be employed for preparing liposomes with encapsulated hydrophilic compounds. In this case, the drug is usually dissolved in the aqueous medium used to hydrate a lipid film of vesicle-forming lipids. Depending on the hydration conditions, and the nature of the drug, encapsulation efficiencies of between about 5-20% are typically obtained, with the remainder of the drug being in the bulk aqueous phase. An additional processing step for removing non-encapsulated drug is usually required.
A more efficient method for encapsulated hydrophilic drugs, involving reverse evaporation from an organic solvent, has also been reported (Szoka, et al., 1980). In this approach, a mixture of hydrophilic drug and vesicle-forming lipids are emulsified in a water-in-oil emulsion, followed by solvent removal to form an unstable lipid-monolayer gel. When the gel is agitated, typically in the presence of added aqueous phase, the gel collapses to form oligolamellar liposomes with high (up to 50%) encapsulation of the drug.
In the case of ionizable hydrophilic or amphipathic drugs, even greater drug-loading efficiency can be achieved by loading the drug into liposomes against a transmembrane ion gradient (Nichols, et al., 1976; Cramer, et al., 1977). This loading method, generally referred to as remote loading, typically involves a drug having an ionizable amine group which is loaded by adding it to a suspension of liposomes prepared to have a lower inside/higher outside ion gradient, often a pH gradient.
However, there are recognized problems with remote loading, one being that not all ionizable drugs accumulate in the liposomes in response to an ion gradient (Chakrabarti, et al., 1995; Madden, et al., 1990). Another problem is that some agents which do accumulate in the liposomes are immediately released after accumulation. Yet another problem is that some agents which are successfully loaded and retained in the liposome in vitro have a high leakage rate from the liposomes in vivo, obviating the advantages of administering the agent in liposome-entrapped form.

Liposome composition and method for administering a quinolone


In one embodiment, a method includes receive a connection event message including information identifying a wireless node, wherein the identifying information comprises a wireless node identifier and an area code associated with the wireless node; determine, based on the area code, whether the wireless node is connected to its home wireless network region; add the identifying information to a location services table; and if the wireless node is not connected to its home network region, transmit a remote connection event message to a home area code authority server corresponding to the wireless node.

Market adoption of wireless LAN (WLAN) technology has exploded, as users from a wide range of backgrounds and vertical industries have brought this technology into their homes, offices, and increasingly into the public air space. This inflection point has highlighted not only the limitations of earlier-generation systems, but also the changing role that WLAN technology now plays in people's work and lifestyles across the globe. Indeed, WLANs are rapidly changing from convenience networks to business-critical networks. Increasingly users are depending on WLANs to improve the timeliness and productivity of their communications and applications, and in doing so, require greater visibility, security, management, and performance from their network. As WLANs deployments, as well as wired networks, grow in scale, the products that provide location services on top of those networks need to also scale.

Location architecture for large scale networks


The present invention provides protein tyrosine phosphatases (PTP) in which the invariant aspartate residue and the invariant glutamine residue are each replaced with a replacement amino acid residue, wherein the replacement residues together cause a reduction in catalytic rate (kcat) of the enzyme and an increase in substrate-binding affinity (Kd) of the enzyme. The present invention further provides methods for identifying a substrate of a PTP. Also provided are kits for identifying a substrate of a PTP. Additionally, the present invention provides methods for identifying an agent that alters interaction between a PTP and a substrate of the PTP. The invention also provides methods for reducing the activity of a substrate of a PTP.

Sequencing of the human and other genomes has radically changed the ways in which we identify and characterize genes. Typically, database searches that are based on structural similarities can assign a gene product to an established protein family. Although members of protein families often share a common mechanism of action, the cellular processes in which they are involved can be both highly specialized and fundamentally important.
Protein tyrosine phosphatases (PTPs), enzymes which have conserved catalytic domains but are involved in controlling a broad constellation of cellular processes (1-3), provide a striking example of conserved structures associated with functional diversity. The hallmark that defines the PTP superfamily is the active site amino acid sequence (H/V)C(X)5R(S/T) (SEQ ID NO:1), also referred to as the PTP signature motif, within the catalytic domain. To date, analysis of the nearly completed human genome has revealed 112 predicted human PTPs (4). Therefore, it is relatively easy to attribute a general role to a PTP gene product based upon structural homologies. However, determination of the exact physiological function of a PTP requires a tedious and protracted effort. Identification of the cellular substrates of individual PTPs will help to elucidate the biological functions of individual PTPs. A major challenge, though, is the development of technologies for rapid substrate identification that can be applied to the entire PTP family.
Detailed mechanistic studies have shown that PTPs utilize a common mechanism for phosphomonoester hydrolysis (5). See FIG. 1. The PTPs employ the active site cysteine (e.g., Cys215 in PTP1B) as the attacking nucleophile, thereby forming a thiophosphoryl enzyme intermediate ("E-P") (6, 7). The E-P formation is assisted by a conserved aspartic acid (e.g., Asp181 in PTP1B), functioning as a general acid, to neutralize the build-up of a negative charge on the leaving group (8, 9). For the hydrolysis of E-P, Asp181, previously functioning as a general acid in E-P formation, acts as a general base, abstracting a proton from the attacking water (10, 11). This enhances the rate of E-P hydrolysis, thereby regenerating the active enzyme. The PTPs further accelerate the formation and hydrolysis of E-P by preferentially binding the pentacoordinated transition states with the guanidinium side chain of the active site arginine residue (e.g., Arg221 in PTP1B) (12, 13).
Because of the transient nature of the enzyme•substrate complex, it has been difficult to isolate substrates with wild-type PTPs. Based upon insights from mechanistic studies, two types of "substrate-trapping" mutant PTPs have been developed. In the first, the active site Cys residue is replaced by a Ser (14-16); in the second, the general acid Asp residue is substituted by an Ala (17, 18; see U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,912,138 and 5,951,979). These mutants retain the ability to bind substrates; however, because they are either unable to carry out substrate dephosphorylation (the Cys-to-Ser mutant) or severely impaired in carrying out substrate dephosphorylation (the Asp-to-Ala mutant), capture of the PTP enzyme•substrate complex becomes possible.
The substrate-trapping mutant PTPs have been used as affinity reagents to isolate and identify physiological substrates for various PTPs. Nevertheless, to date, only a limited number of PTP substrates have been identified by the substrate-trapping approach, and these have been mostly abundant proteins. For example, the adapter protein p130 has been found to be the target of several PTPs, including PTP1B (19), PTP-PEST (17), the Yersinia PTP (20), PTPα (21), LAR (22), and SAP (23). The fact that only a few proteins have been identified as PTP substrates is surprising, given the large number of protein tyrosine kinases and phosphotyrosine-(pTyr-) containing proteins in the cell. One possible explanation may be that the affinity of the available trapping mutants is not sufficiently high, such that only heavily populated phosphoproteins can be isolated. Accordingly, in view of the foregoing, there exists a need to create an improved PTP substrate-trapping mutant, with a higher affinity, that will enable the identification of less abundant substrates.

Protein tyrosine phosphatase substrate-trapping double mutant and uses thereof

Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University


Concepts and technologies are disclosed for creating and using cell clusters. Cellular network data associated with a cellular network can be obtained. The cellular network data can include configuration data associated with a cell of the cellular network and a performance indicator associated with the cellular network. A number of cell clusters to be generated can be determined and the cell clusters can be generated. The cell clusters can include a cell cluster that can represent multiple cells including the cell. A model that represents the cell cluster can be trained. An input cluster that represents multiple inputs can be generated. The inputs can be associated with the multiple cells and the input cluster can include a value. The value can be provided as input to the model to obtain a predicted output associated with the cell cluster.

In some communication networks, modeling techniques may be used to predict and/or to project demand or performance associated with the communications network. In a cellular network, for example, modeling techniques may be used to predict geographic locations of user equipment ("UE"), quality of service ("QoS"), reference signal receive power ("RSRP"), or other metrics that may reflect usage and/or performance of the cellular network. With the continuing advances in technology and the continued proliferation of network-enabled devices, the complexity of such modeling techniques may increase in the future.
In some instances, modeling techniques may be used to generate models of each base station or cell in a cellular network. Models may also be generated for each UE in a cellular network. These models (users and equipment) may then be used to attempt to project demand and/or movements. Thus, a large number of models may need to be created to accurately model behavior of a cellular network and/or users of the cellular network. Creating such models may require a large amount of computational resources and time.
As communications networks grow in capacity, scale, and/or use; these and/or other models may need to be updated and/or modified. In particular, modern networking approaches and flexibility may result in the models needing to be updated frequently. Such modifications may consume a large amount of time and resources. Still further, even updated models of large-scale and complex networks may require a high number of predictions and/or estimations to model the environments. Such computations may be cost-prohibitive in terms of computations and/or time.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.


A cover is provided for a storage bin of a refrigerator. The cover includes a panel and a communication portion. The panel has an upper surface for storing food items thereon that is substantially planar and substantially horizontal. Moreover, the panel separates an upper space located above the panel from a lower space located below the panel. The communication portion is configured to provide fluid communication between the upper and lower spaces. In particular, the communication portion includes an upward-facing recessed surface, one or more side wall portions that extend above and at least partially bound the recessed surface, and a plurality of apertures that extend through the recessed surface and provide fluid communication between the upper space and lower space. The recessed surface and the one or more side wall portions collectively define a recess. Optionally, a wine rack is provided.

Conventional refrigeration appliances, such as domestic refrigerators, typically have both a fresh food compartment and a freezer compartment or section. The fresh food compartment is where food items such as fruits, vegetables, and beverages are stored and the freezer compartment is where food items that are to be kept in a frozen condition are stored. The refrigerators are provided with a refrigeration system that maintains the fresh food compartment at temperatures above 0° C., such as between 0.25° C. and 4.5° C. and the freezer compartments at temperatures below 0° C., such as between 0° C. and −20° C.
The arrangements of the fresh food and freezer compartments with respect to one another in such refrigerators vary. For example, in some cases, the freezer compartment is located above the fresh food compartment and in other cases the freezer compartment is located below the fresh food compartment. Additionally, many modern refrigerators have their freezer compartments and fresh food compartments arranged in a side-by-side relationship. Whatever arrangement of the freezer compartment and the fresh food compartment is employed, typically, separate access doors are provided for the compartments so that either compartment may be accessed without exposing the other compartment to the ambient air.
Conventional refrigerator appliances typically include various storage structures for storing food items within their compartment(s). For instance, a refrigerator can include one or more storage bins or shelves for storing food items. A shelf can be mounted within a storage compartment and can provide a flat, level surface for food items to be stored thereon. Meanwhile, a storage bin can be provided within a storage compartment and can define a storage space for food items to be stored within. In some examples, the storage bin can be slidably coupled to the storage compartment to facilitate access to the storage space within the bin. Also in some examples, a cover can be provided to help establish a semi-sealed environment within the storage bin. An object of the present disclosure is to provide improvements to the storage structure(s) of conventional refrigerator appliances.

Storage structure for refrigerator appliance


Method and apparatus for forming halftone images which enables image recording on a process film without reducing the size of the recording area beyond that which is necessary. The method and apparatus is preferred particularly in the preparation of a master printing plate such as a printing plate which includes a photosensitive member having an organic silver salt. According to the method and apparatus, an image recording apparatus propagates error data when there exists a restriction on the minimum recording size and thereby preserves halftone concentration and reproduces intermediate gradation of darkness with stability.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the image forming method and apparatus wherein the control of the concentration of the output of image forming apparatus particularly laser beam printer and the like can be executed with stability.
2. Related Background Art
In recent years, non-impact printers are drawing attention because of their advantages, such as high print quality with low noise, over impact printers. Among other types of non-impact printers, laser beam printers, which utilize electronic photography and photography techniques, have become popular because such printers record with high precision. The semiconductor laser used as the light source in such printers can have its gradation easily varied by pulse width modulation (PWM), whereby high quality halftone images can be formed.
However, when high speed modulation is conducted, the semiconductor laser is subject to output fluctuations caused by delayed rising of laser output or temperature, and if short (quick) pulse modulation is conducted, the laser output lacks stability. Further in the gradient expression by PWM method, when pulse interval is short, beam shape generally has Gaussian distribution. Consequently, as shown at "a" in FIG. 2, when the laser power receives substantial brightness modulation, fluctuation of laser output produces variation of concentration, making the image reproduction unstable.
With the plate exposure apparatus for offset printing, it is necessary to do binary control such as control of presence or non-presence of resist layer and if short pulse interval as stated above exists, binarization is difficult and it is difficult to obtain an appropriate binary image.
Furthermore, reduction of the beam spot diameter which is presently 20 to 30.mu. presents serious problems such as generation of nonuniformity of beam shape caused by aberration, shallower depth of focus which necessitates stricter accuracy of apparatus, more complicated optical system, etc.
Another frequently used method as the method to reproduce gradation of darkness of the image is the method known as the "dither method" and "concentration pattern method". Generally speaking, the dither method is used when the image of high resolution such as those of high resolution printer or copier are handled while the concentration pattern method is used more frequently when input pixel number is relatively few as in the case of recording of TV input image.
According to dither method or concentration pattern method, when the concentration of input image signal is constant for a wide range, dot pattern which is the aggregate of blackened display pixels repeats the same pattern. In regard to the resolution, dither method is superior but in regard to gradation, both are equivalent. One of the important factors for gradation is the composition of threshold matrix which is roughly classified into the following two kinds.
(1) Starting with the center of the display area as the nucleus, pixels turn black one after another to form the dot (dot concentration type).
(2) Dot is formed by the pixels blackened one after another in such a way that the spatial frequency of dot becomes as high as possible in the display area (dot dispersion type).
When image quality is evaluated by using these two kinds of matrix, if the display pixels are arranged at high density in matrix form in the display area corresponding to one pixel of image signal, at the blackening of small number (particularly one) of display pixel in low concentration time, protrusion of blackening to the surrounding area becomes non-negligible because individual display pixel is small. Therefore, in the case of dot dispersion type, there is the drawback that the blackened area increases due to protrusion of blackened part to the surrounding area of dot. In this respect dot concentration type is superior. However even in the case of dot concentration type, gradation and resolution are restricted by the matrix composition and hence it is important to have both types co-exist. To solve this problem, for example an IH method ("improved halftone") has been proposed. (Shashin Kogyo, Imaging Jan. 20, 1988, P35/Journal of Denshi Shashin Gakkai, Vol. 25 No. 1 P31, 1986.)
Next is explained hereinbelow the composition of threshold matrix in the display area corresponding to image signal.
FIG. 16A is the schematic diagram to show the composition of threshold matrix in the partial display area corresponding to one pixel of image signal and FIG. 16B is the schematic diagram to show 4 partial display areas corresponding to 4 pixels of image signal. Partial display area 40 is composed of 16 display pixels 31, forming 4.times.4 matrix and number of display pixels blackening one after another according to the order of the numbers described in the matrix, corresponding to the concentration of one pixel of image signal and the aggregate of blackened display pixels form the dot. FIGS. 17A to 17C are the drawings to show the state that blackened display pixels form the dot and FIG. 17A indicates the state of low concentration, FIG. 17B shows intermediate concentration and FIG. 17C shows the high concentration respectively of 4 pixels of image signal.
According to the aforesaid conventional method of image display, such problems exist that each dot displaying the low concentration pixel of image signal becomes extremely small and when said image display method is applied to offset printing, etc., uniform application of ink is not obtained or when it is applied to the plate or block copy, when the surface protective layer is peeled following exposure, the dot comes off together. When the high concentration (slightly lower than complete blackness) of image signal is displayed, ink is apt to stick to the gap between dots or the gap between dots is filled up due to inferior peeling of surface protective layer.
As stated above, especially at the preparation of the original plate of offset printing, it is known that problems exist as to the reproducibility of fine area.
With the electrophotographic laser beam printer, U.S. Pat. No. 4,800,442 (FIG. 7C) discloses the technology to define the minimum pulse width and maximum pulse width of laser but it makes no consideration of the preparation of original printing plate. Nothing is mentioned either as to the handling of input data of less than minimum pulse width or more than maximum pulse width and no measures to solve these problems are indicated.

Method and apparatus for forming halftone images on organic-silver-salt-based printing plates


A composition for dyeing keratin-containing fibers, particularly human hair, comprising 1,2-dihydropyrimidinium derivatives in combination with reactive carbonyl compounds and methods of employing this combination for dyeing keratin-containing fibers, for color restoration or shading keratin-containing fibers that are already dyed.

The invention relates to an agent for dyeing (coloring) keratin-containing fibers, particularly human hair, comprising 1,2-dihydropyrimidinium derivatives in combination with reactive carbonyl compounds, the use of this combination in compositions for dyeing keratin-containing fibers, for color restoration or shading keratin-containing fibers that are already dyed, as well as a process for dyeing keratin-containing fibers, particularly human hair.
For dyeing keratin-containing fibers, generally either substantive dyestuffs or oxidation dyestuffs are used, the latter resulting from oxidative coupling of one or more developer components with each other or with one or more coupler components. Coupler and developer components are also referred to as oxidation dyestuff precursors.
Usually, primary aromatic amines with a further free or substituted hydroxyl or amino group in the para or ortho position, diaminopyridine derivatives, heterocyclic hydrazones, 4-aminopyrazolone derivatives as well as 2,4,5,6-tetraminopyrimidine and its derivatives are employed as developer components.
Specific representatives are for example p-phenylenediamine, p-toluylenediamine, 2,4,5,6-tetraminopyrimidine, p-aminophenol, N,N-bis-(2-hydroxyethyl)-p-phenylenediamine, 2-(2,5-diaminophenyl)ethanol, 2-(2,5-diaminophenoxy)ethanol, 1-phenyl-3-carboxyamido-4-aminopyrazol-5-one, 4-amino-3-methylphenol, 2-aminomethyl-4-aminophenol, 2-hydroxymethyl-4-aminophenol, 2-hydroxy-4,5,6-triaminopyrimidine, 2,4-dihydroxy-5,6-diaminopyrimidine and 2,5,6-triamino-4-hydroxypyrimidine.
Generally, m-phenylenediamine derivatives, naphthols, resorcinol and resorcinol derivatives, pyrazolones, m-aminophenols and substituted pyridine derivatives. Suitable coupler substances are particularly α-naphthol, 1,5-, 2,7- and 1,7-dihydroxynaphthalene, 5-amino-2-methylphenol, m-aminophenol, resorcinol, resorcinol monomethylether, m-phenylenediamine, 2,4-diaminophenoxyethanol, 2-amino-4-(2-hydroxyethylamino)anisole (Lehmann's Blue), 1-phenyl-3-methylpyrazol-5-one, 2,4-dichloro-3-aminophenol, 1,3-bis-(2,4-diaminophenoxy)propane, 2-chlororesorcinol, 4-chlororesorcinol, 2-chloro-6-methyl-3-aminophenol, 2-methylresorcinol, 5-methylresorcinol, 3-amino-6-methoxy-2-methylaminopyridine and 3,5-diamino-2,6-dimethoxypyridine are employed as coupler components.
With respect to other customary dyestuff components, reference is expressly made to the series "Dermatology", edited by Ch. Culnan, H. Maibach, publisher Marcel Dekker Inc., New York, Basel, 1986, vol. 7, Ch. Zviak, The Science of Hair Care, ch. 7, pages 248–250 (substantive dyestuffs), and ch. 8, pages 264–267 (oxidation dyestuffs) and the "European Inventory of Cosmetic Raw Materials", 1996, published by the European Commission, obtainable as a floppy disk from the Bundesverband der deutschen Industrie-und Handelsunternehmen für Arzneimittel, Reformwaren und Körperpflegemittel e.V., Mannheim.
Although intense colorations with good fastness properties can be obtained with oxidation dyestuffs, the development of the color generally occurs however, under the influence of oxidizing agents such as e.g. H2O2, which in some cases can result in damage to the fibers. The preparation of oxidation hair colorations in the reddish range with satisfactory fastness properties still proves to be problematic, particularly for very good wash fastness and rubbing fastness. Furthermore, some oxidation dyestuff precursors or particular mixtures of oxidation dyestuff precursors can sometimes produce a sensitizing effect on persons with sensitive skin. Substantive dyestuffs are applied under milder conditions but have the disadvantage that the colorations often suffer from inadequate fastness properties.
Colorants comprising 1,2-dihydropyrimidinium derivatives, together with their use for dyeing keratin-containing fibers or for color restoration or shading keratin-containing fibers that have already been dyed, are so far unknown.
Reactions of pyrimidones as methylene bases are described in the publication of H. Baumann et al., Liebigs Ann. Chem., 1968, 717, 124–136. A hair colorant comprising 1,2-dihydropyrimidinium derivatives, or the use of the disclosed hemicyanines for dyeing keratin-containing fibers is not suggested.
In the German patent application DE-A1-2047431, cationic methine dyestuffs are described for the coloration of anionically modified fibers such as acid modified polyesters or acrylonitrile polymers. For the synthesis of cationic methine dyestuffs, 3,4-dihydro-3-methyl-4-methylenequinazol-2-one and 1,3,6-trimethyl-4-methylenepyrimidine-2-one inter alia are used as well as imperatively terephthalaldehyde.
In the German patent application DE-A1-2165913, a process for the manufacture of bleached images by using light-sensitive dyestuffs is proposed. The claimed light-sensitive dyestuffs belong to the class of pyrimidone or thiopyrimidone dyestuffs.
The object of the present invention is to provide colorants for keratin-containing fibers, particularly human hair, which with respect to depth of color, gray coverage and fastness properties such as for example light-, rubbing- and wash fastness as well as perspiration fastness and cold-waving fastness, are qualitatively at least equal, particularly in the reddish range, to typical oxidation hair colorants, without however being necessarily dependent on oxidizing agents such as for example H2O2. Moreover, the dyes must not possess any, or only a very low degree of sensitization.

Agents used for dyeing keratinous fibers

Henkel Kommanditgesellschaft auf Aktien (Henkel KGaA)


A method for updating expiry information of an account is provided. Additionally, a prediction computing device for updating expiry information of an account is provided. Further, a computer-readable storage medium having computer-executable instructions embodied thereon for updating expiry information of an account is provided.

This disclosure relates to updating expiry information of an account, and more specifically to updating expiry information of an account for use in card-on-file (COF) transactions.
COF transactions allow cardholders to make purchases without the presence of a physical payment card. More specifically, a COF transaction is a type of card-not-present (CNP) transaction in which a merchant stores information about the payment card and initiates a transaction using the stored payment card information. Card-on-file recurring payment (COF/RP) transactions, a subset of COF transactions, are initiated by a merchant on a repeated basis for a particular cardholder. This payment method is designed to relieve cardholders of remembering to initiate recurring transactions with a merchant. For example, a cardholder subscribes to an online video streaming service that requires a monthly payment to keep the cardholder's subscription valid. Rather than requiring the cardholder to affirmatively initiate a transaction each month or pay for multiple months in advance, the merchant associated with the online video streaming service charges the cardholder for the service on a monthly basis using COF/RP transactions.
In known systems, in order for a merchant to initiate a COF transaction, the merchant stores payment card information for a cardholder in a merchant database. In at least some known systems, a merchant accesses a database of payment card information at a payment network (a payment network database) and compares the payment card information stored in the merchant database with corresponding payment card information in the payment network database. If updated payment information is within the payment network database, the merchant will then update its own database to include the new payment information. One difficulty with such systems arises when an issuer fails to provide updated payment card information to the payment network database, for example when an account reissuance occurs (i.e., due to an account data compromise event, a lost or stolen payment card being replaced, or a payment card being reissued because the expiration date has passed). In such instances, merchants may be unable to update their databases to include the updated payment card information and COF transactions are declined due to expired payment card information.

Methods and systems for updating expiry information of an account


A method for quantitatively evaluating multiple computer-based plate tectonic models for application in a geographic region of interest, in some embodiments, comprises: selecting a plurality of computer-based plate tectonic models; using multiple computer-based plate tectonic models to generate one or more predictions for one or more geological parameters; obtaining observational data for each of said one or more geological parameters; for each of said one or more geological parameters, quantitatively comparing the predictions and the observational data to determine model rankings; and displaying said model rankings on a computer display.

Plate tectonics is a theory that attributes the past, present and future structures of the Earth's crust to the interactions of rigid lithospheric plates that move over the underlying mantle independently of each other. Reconstructing historical plate movements often provides valuable information to oil and gas companies assessing the formation properties of a particular geographic region (e.g., a hydrocarbon play). Such "paleogeographic reconstruction" provides data on the timing of the formation of basins due to tectonism, tectonic events responsible for the production of sediments and deformation, paleoclimates, and paleotopography, all of which may be used to assess exploration risk.
A number of paleogeographic reconstruction models are available and are widely used for the aforementioned purposes. The manner in which reconstruction models are selected to assess particular geographic regions, however, is suboptimal. In many cases, for example, reconstruction models are chosen for their ease of use or pleasing aesthetics. In other cases, models are chosen based on qualitative assessments of their potential usefulness in evaluating a specific region. These reconstruction model selection techniques focus on each model's superficial qualities instead of the model's quantitative accuracy.

Quantitative assessment of plate tectonic models


The disclosure relates to an extensometer wherein the actuation of the contact arms is performed by a separate rotating bar so as to avoid or minimize placing active mechanics onto the arms. The rotating bar includes a spool about which a metal belt is wound. Rotating the bar, and hence the spool, in the desired direction pulls the metal belt which pulls a spring-loaded wedge with internal camming slots which urges the contact arms apart.

Field of the Disclosure
The present disclosure relates to an extensometer wherein the actuation of the arms is performed by a separate rotating bar.
Description of the Prior Art
An extensometer is an instrument that very accurately measures the extension of a test specimen in order to better capture the material properties of the specimen. A common extensometer is of the contacting type, which physically tracks two points in the specimen as the test takes place. These contacting points are typically in the form of arms that reach from the main body of the extensometer to the specimen location.
For automatic contacting extensometers, it is necessary to have a means to make the contacting arms attach to and detach from the test specimen. Existing products make use of actuators, usually electric motors that are mounted to each of the two moving arms.
During a test, the load cell on a test frame measures the force that is applied to the specimen. Since the arms are contacting the specimen, the load cell output will include not just the force applied to the specimen but also the additional force required to move the contacting arms. The force required to move these arms is called the running force. The running force also causes the contacting arms to deflect, causing errors in the extensometer readings. For these reasons, minimizing the running force is crucial to load output accuracy and extension accuracy.
The idea of an external bar being used to remotely actuate the arms has been used before in an extensometer, notably the MFL by Mess & Feinwerktechnik (MF) shown on FIG. 1. The device in FIG. 1 does not use a linear encoder to measure the displacement of the arms.
The actuation method employed in FIG. 1 is based on the use of two eccentrically-mounted shafts that operate in a cam-action as shown in FIG. 2. Driven from a common actuator shown in FIG. 3, the cam bars move synchronously until the high point rotates into contact with a tab on each arm of the arm pair, forcing the arms open as shown in FIG. 4.
Another prior art approach is to have a system where sensitive strain gauges are attached to the ends of the arms. The device then lets the strain gauges track the displacement of the specimen until the end of the very limited travel of the strain gauges is about to be reached, at which point the instrument uses actuators to move the arms in the direction of specimen elongation to provide slack and allow more strain gauge travel. As a result, this architecture is immune to increased friction. The arm location is driven by motors even during testing, and not by the specimen itself.


A modem for use at a terminal, the modem comprising: a first interface arranged to connect to a communications network; a second interface arranged to connect to a host processor on the terminal; and a processing unit, the processing unit configured to: detect that a call is to be established over the communications network; in response to said detection, perform a call setup procedure; determine if the call setup procedure has been successful or has failed due to failure of a security procedure; and in response to determining that the call setup procedure has failed due to failure of a security procedure, repeat said call setup procedure without indicating failure of the call setup procedure to a user of said terminal.

In a communication system, a device (typically a mobile device) termed user equipment (UE) communicates wirelessly with a core network via a radio access network. Communications between the UE and the radio access network are effected in accordance with a multi-layered communications protocol.
Upon detecting that a call is to be established, the UE implements a procedure to establish a Radio Resource Control (RRC) connection between the UE and the radio access network. This known procedure is described in the 3GPP TS 25.331 specification. If there is a logical connection between the UE and the radio access network, then the UE is said to be in a connected mode. Once in the connected mode, the UE transmits an indication that a mobile originating call is required to the radio access network.
In response to receiving the indication from the UE that a mobile originating call is required, the radio access network initiates a Security Mode Command procedure in order to establish a secure channel between the UE and radio access network. This known security procedure is described in detail in the 3GPP TS 25.331 specification.
The security consists of two aspects, optional ciphering and mandatory integrity protection. Ciphering provides encryption according to a ciphering configuration to ensure that all signalling and data messages transmitted between the UE and the radio access network are ciphered over the air interface to provide data confidentiality. Integrity protection provides protection against message manipulation between the UE and the radio access network. That is, integrity protection prevents third parties from sending unauthorised signaling messages between the UE and the radio access network. Typically, both ciphering and integrity protection are enabled during a call.
As part of the Security Mode Command procedure the radio access network sends a Security Mode Command using the Radio Resource Control (RRC) protocol to the UE with an indication of a new integrity protection configuration and new cipher configuration. In response to receiving the Security Mode Command, the UE sends a RRC Security Mode Command Complete message to the radio access network. The radio access network completes the security mode command procedure successfully when the Security Mode Command Complete message is received.
After sending the Security Mode Command Complete message to the radio access network, the UE transmits a call setup message to the radio access network. If the call setup message is correctly received by the radio access network after the Security Mode Command procedure has successfully completed (i.e. a security configuration has been successfully established between the UE and the radio access network) then the radio access network will respond to the call setup message by transmitting a call proceeding message to the UE 102 and proceed with the known mobile originating call establishment procedure which is described in detail in the 3GPP TS 24.008 specification.


Polymeric compounds suitable for ink and toner compositions, and image forming methods and apparatus using an ink or toner composition containing such a polymer compound, and particularly to a polymer compound having a repeating unit structure represented by the general formula

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to novel polymerizable compounds and polymer compounds that are useful as various kinds of functional materials, compositions using such a polymer compound, and image forming methods and image forming apparatus, and particularly to ink compositions and toner compositions using such a polymer compound together with a solvent or dispersion medium and a coloring material, and various image forming methods and image forming apparatus using such a composition.
2. Related Background Art
An ink composition or toner composition has heretofore been prepared by dissolving or dispersing a coloring material in a solvent. In these compositions, various kinds of polymer materials are preferably used. For example, styrylic, acrylic and methacrylic polymer compounds are used. In a color material composition using a solvent and/or water as a base material, it is generally attempted to preferably utilize a polymer material having an ionic functional group to improve the dispersibility of a coloring material such as a pigment.
On the other hand, polymer compounds having a main poly(vinyl ether) chain have also been known as polymer materials having a flexible polymer chain. However, it is scarcely conducted to introduce an ionic functional group into a repeating unit of such a polymer compound. "Journal of Polymer Science: Part A, Polymer Chemistry", Vol. 27, (1989) slightly describes that carboxylic acids and esters thereof described on pages 3303 to 3314 in the Journal have such a possibility. As the stability of such compounds, higher stability is required under the circumstances.

Polymerizable compound, polymer compound, composition using such compound, and image forming method and apparatus

Abstract: wherein B is a linear or branched alkylene group having 1 to 15 carbon atoms and may be substituted, m is an integer of 1 to 30, q is an integer of 2 to 30, and R1 is hydrogen, an alkyl group which may be substituted, or an aromatic ring structure which may be substituted, with the proviso that when m is a plural number, the B groups may be different from each other, ink and toner compositions containing the polymer compound, a solvent or dispersion medium and a coloring material, and image forming methods and image forming apparatus using such a composition.


A system includes a processor and an external fuel indicator. The processor is configured to instruct powering of a digital display in response to detection that one or more power-up indicators has been satisfied. The processor is also configured to obtain fuel-related readings as a vehicle is fueled. Also, the processor is further configured to determine at least one fuel-related statistic other than a current fuel level. Further, the processor is configured to output the at least one fuel-related statistic to the external fuel indicator.

Refueling vehicles is an ongoing task for drivers. Depending on resources, refueling may be done daily, weekly, or as required by a vehicle for continued travel. If a driver wishes to fill a tank, the refueling may be simple, the driver can merely add fuel until the automatic shutoff on the pump engages.
In some instances, however, the driver may have a limited amount of resources, and may only wish to add fuel to arrive at a destination. Drivers who are familiar with their cars may often know how far, for example, they can get on a half or quarter tank of gas. They may not necessarily have translated this into actual gallons of fuel in their minds, so the fuel pump readout informing a driver that five gallons have been dispensed may not be as useful as the knowledge that the tank is now one half full.
Some attempts have been made to address this. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 7,287,556 describes a fuel level indicator indicating a fuel level in a vehicle fuel tank and disposed proximate a cap for closing a refueling orifice extending from the fuel tank. The fuel indicator indicates the fuel level in response to a fuel level sender unit disposed in the fuel tank. According to one embodiment, the fuel level sender unit supplies fuel level information to both a dashboard-mounted gauge and the cap-proximate fuel indicator. A switch supplies power to the cap-proximate fuel indicator and the fuel level sender unit, without powering on other watercraft systems.

Method and apparatus for fuel filling monitoring


The present invention provides a photoresist removal process and a method for manufacturing an interconnect using the same. One embodiment of the photoresist removal process includes, among other steps, providing a low dielectric constant (k) substrate having a photoresist layer located thereover, and removing the photoresist layer using a plasma which incorporates a gas which includes hydrogen or deuterium and a small amount of oxygen less than about 20 volume percent of the gas. Another embodiment of the photoresist removal process includes, among other steps, providing a low dielectric constant (k) substrate having a photoresist layer located thereover, removing a bulk portion of the photoresist layer using a plasma which incorporates a gas which includes hydrogen or deuterium, and removing a small portion of the photoresist layer using a plasma which incorporates a gas which includes oxygen, wherein the order of the two removing steps is interchangeable.

Most semiconductor devices make use of several different levels of metallization. With the increasing complexity of devices and the need to reduce the physical size of devices, the number of metal interconnect levels is increasing. In addition, with the desire to increase the speed of the devices while reducing the power consumed by the devices, advanced metallization schemes are being developed. One such scheme involves the use of copper for the bus lines and interconnects. To improve the speed performance of the interconnect lines, interlevel dielectrics with lower dielectric constants than standard silicon dioxide films may be used as the insulating material situated between metallic structures. One such low dielectric constant interlevel dielectric material is OSG (organo-silicate glass).
Prior to the use of Cu for interconnection metal, aluminum metallization schemes used a standard, isotropic oxygen plasma etch to remove photoresist after a via or trench dielectric etch process. Unfortunately, it was observed that when Cu was used for the metallization, the etch removal of the photoresist with oxygen plasma at the 250° C. to 300° C. substrate temperatures typically used for Al metallization undesirably caused a substantial amount of oxidation to any exposed copper at the bottom of the via structures. It was also observed that etching the photoresist with substantial amounts of oxygen caused an undesirable reaction of oxygen with the Si-C bonding in the dielectric layer. When the dielectric layer is OSG, the material contains from 10-25% of C bound to Si. The removal of the Si-C bonding occurs when O2 gas is used in plasmas exposed to OSG, and occurs for isotropic (250° C.-350° C.) or anisotropic (from room T to 300° C.) plasma processing. Removal of the Si-C bonding leads to an increase in the dielectric constant from approximately 2.9 for some forms of OSG, to close to 4.0, which is the dielectric constant of SiO2. Accordingly, the use of oxygen to etch the photoresist dispenses with many of the benefits of using low dielectric constant interlevel dielectric materials.
In turn, the industry moved away from O2 based photoresist etches to hydrogen-based photoresist etches, especially in those situations where copper metallization schemes and low dielectric constant interlevel dielectrics were being used. The original hydrogen based photoresist etches were conducted at relatively high temperatures (e.g., temperatures ranging from about 225° C. to about 350° C.). In certain situations, however, the relatively high temperatures caused an undesirable large amount of residue formation on the copper metallization structure.
Accordingly, it was discovered that lowering the temperature (e.g., to a substrate temperature of around 150° C.) of the hydrogen based photoresist etches would reduce the amount of residue formation on the copper metallization structure to an allowable amount that could be handled by various clean up steps. While the lower temperatures created less residue formation on the copper metallization structure, it also substantially reduced the etch rate of the hydrogen based photoresist etches. Unfortunately, in certain circumstances the lower temperature reduced the etch rate of the hydrogen based photoresist etches to a value too low to be useful in a practical manufacturing situation.
Accordingly, what is needed in the art is a hydrogen-based photoresist etch that accommodates the desires of the industry without experiencing the drawbacks of the prior art processes.

Hydrogen and oxygen based photoresist removal process


A vehicle control method of starting and shutting down an engine, in which a processor receives a blockchain update comprising a first transaction with instructions to perform an engine startup or shutdown; the blockchain update is validated; an engine startup or shutdown is performed based on the validated blockchain update; where the engine startup or shutdown is delayed based on validating a predetermined number of subsequent blockchain updates, including a second transaction with instructions to perform the engine startup or shutdown.

Pilots currently deactivate aerospace turbine engines by turning off master levers and toggle switches in a cockpit. Doing so cuts jet fuel flow to the engine and the on-board engine controller automatically turns off remaining systems in the engine in response. Failure events may sever wires harnesses leading from the cockpit to the engine, which may undesirably allow jet fuel to flow into an unstable engine.
In several incidents logged by aviation authorities, this type of engine failure has caused excessive delays and damage to the aircraft. One example that occurred within the last few years were the events observed during the QF32 uncontained engine failure in 2011. During this Qantas flight the engine suffered an uncontained turbine disc failure on the Number 2 engine. The root cause of this incident was attributed to a manufacturing defect found in one of the pipes in the oil system. While the flight was able to continue to operate and land safely, the Number 1 engine was not able to be turned off when commanded from the cockpit, resulting in a team of fire fighters on the ground working for in excess of 3 hours after the plane landed to drown the Number 1 engine into shutting down. If failure to shut down occurs during an overspeed event, an uncontained engine failure may result. Due to the inherent dangers in getting too close to the inlet or exhaust of a large engine with thrust in the range of 80 to 100,000 pounds, emergency exiting of a plane may be restricted and manual shutdown at the engine would not be feasible.
It would be advantageous to be able to wirelessly shut down an engine. As this presents a danger of hacking, a secure means of sending a wireless shut down signal in needed.
A blockchain being a cryptographically secure ledger containing many different transactions, may be used to provide secure wireless communication with the engine. The transactions may be grouped into blocks. The blocks may be linked (i.e., chained) together with cryptographic algorithms to form a blockchain. An advantage of blockchain is its integrity. Once appended to the blockchain for a sufficient amount of time, revising blocks to add, modify, and/or remove transactions becomes intractable (i.e., substantially impossible). In existing implementations of blockchain (e.g., Bitcoin, Ethereum), transactions are often financial events in which a sender transfers cryptocurrency to a receiver.

ROLLS-ROYCE NORTH AMERICAN TECHNOLOGIES INC.


An ultrasound imaging device including a display which displays an ultrasound image of an object (such as a portion of a body of a patient) and a soft keyboard displayed on the display, which enables entering of identification information relating to the ultrasound image. The soft keyboard replaces the ultrasound image during an identification entry mode, to easily enable the entry of the identification information. The identification information may be patient identification information or date/time information, for example. The ultrasound imaging device may include software which enables the soft keyboard to be displayed in a plurality of different languages.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an ultrasound imaging device which enables simple and easy entry of information relating to an ultrasound image, and more particularly, to an ultrasound imaging device having a soft keyboard displayed on a screen of the ultrasound imaging device which is used to enter the information.
2. Description of the Related Art
In the past, ultrasound imaging devices have implemented an alphanumeric keyboard as part of a control panel to enable a user to enter patient identification information. Through the alphanumeric keyboard, the patient""s name and/or other patient identification data can be displayed and stored along with an ultrasound image of the patient. The complexity and size of the control panel are increased due to the implementation of the alphanumeric keyboard, and the alphanumeric keyboard has additional keys which are irrelevant with regard to entering the patient identification information. On such a control panel, the size and spacing of the alphanumeric keys are usually smaller than that of a standard keyboard, making use of the control panel alphanumeric keyboard less than optimal. The additional space required for the alphanumeric keyboard may result in a more intimidating user interface, particularly for someone who does not perform diagnostic ultrasound imaging functions as a primary part of their occupation, such as someone other than a full-time diagnostic ultrasound sonographer. The additional space also results in a larger overall ultrasound imaging device.
Because the control panel alphanumeric keyboard is of a fixed configuration, it is not possible to easily convert the use of the alphanumeric keyboard to be compatible with a plurality of different languages. Accordingly, manufacturing inventory and selling costs are increased as a result of localization requirements of the alphanumeric keyboard on the control panel for the various different languages.
Various objects and advantages of the invention will be set forth in part in the description which follows and, in part, will be obvious from the description, or may be learned by practice of the invention.
The present invention is achieved by providing an ultrasound imaging device comprising a display which displays an ultrasound image of an object, and a soft keyboard displayed on the display, which enables entering of identification information such as information relating to the ultrasound image.
The present invention is also achieved by providing a portable ultrasound imaging device comprising a display which displays an ultrasound image of a portion of a body of a patient, a patient identification input key which enables the ultrasound imaging device to enter a patient identification entry mode, and a soft keyboard which replaces the ultrasound image on the display in response to activation of the patient identification input key, to enable identification of the ultrasound image.

Ultrasound imaging device having a soft keyboard for entering data


A wireless base station has a transmitter and receiver. Transmission signals are applied to an antenna through a transmit bandpass filter that is tuned for a transmit band of frequencies. Received signals from the antenna are applied to the receiver through a receive bandpass filter that is tuned for a receive band of frequencies. An RF switching array consisting of four RF switches interconnects the output of the transmitter and the input of the receiver such that normal, loopback (self-test), and scanning modes can be performed. In the normal mode, the antenna is connected to the transmitter and receiver through the transmit and receive bandpass filters, respectively. The transmit and signal paths are effectively isolated from each other by three serially-connected open switches. In the loopback mode, the transmitter output is connected to the receiver input. In the scanning mode, the antenna is connected to the receiver through the transmit bandpass filter. The same set of interconnects provides for loopback and normal operation as well as the new scanning operation. The use of switches rather than couplers or couplers for the loopback function reduces noise and crosstalk between transmit and receive signal lines and lower losses in these lines.

Wireless services are becoming increasingly popular and the demand for the limited supply of bandwidth for such services is increasing. New ways of supplying service to a larger population of users has resulted in the development of cellular technology which allows access to more users by limiting the range of transceiver base stations, and the mobile transceivers with which they communicate, to geographic cells. The smaller the individual cells (the shorter the range), the more users that can be supplied with service. Current cells with a 3 to 5 mile radius stand in contrast with much smaller ranges of microcells and picocells with transmission radii down to 100 feet or less.
With a need for to install smaller, and consequently more numerous, cells comes a need for adding and replacing base stations. This is expensive and labor intensive. Currently, to set up a base station transceiver, an RF engineer must determine the available channels and the available coverage area by performing channel measurements using a special transceiver with its own antenna. Manually setting up base stations ("drive tests") is time-consuming and expensive because it requires human labor and additional equipment. Also, determining the available channels from an antenna that is not identical nor located at the same position as the antenna of the base-station introduces inaccuracies in the channel determinations. Moreover, if conditions change, for example, due to replacement of an adjacent base station with one or more new base stations, the coverage area and channel allocation must be performed again.

Transceiver with RF loopback and downlink frequency scanning