A method is provided for adjusting a laser doppler anemometer (1-5) having an emitting optic (3) which emits at least two laser beams (7, 8), and a receiving optic (4) for gathering light scattered by dispersed particles. The method comprises the steps of coupling a laser light (17) into an output of the receiving optic to make a focal point (12) of the receiving optic visible on a spaced reference surface (13); adjusting the receiving optic with respect to the surface so that the focal point of the receiving optic lies on the surface; and adjusting and regulating the emitting optic and the receiving optic with respect to each other so that a crossing point (11) of the laser beams coincides with the focal point of the receiving optic on the surface.

Existing laser doppler anemometers have an emitting optic, a receiving optic and an evaluation unit as basic components. The emitting optic emits two laser beams which cross at a crossing point. The crossing point displays a certain spatial expansion and defines a measurement volume. The receiving optic collects the light scattered by dispersed particles located in the measurement volume. To this end, the receiving optic is to be focused on the measurement volume.
This adjustment, i.e. the crossing of the two laser beams exactly at the focal point of the receiving, optic must be carried out with extreme precision in order to obtain correct speed measurement results with the laser doppler anemometer. The evaluation unit analyzes the scattered light received by the receiving optic and originating with the dispersed particles. Up to this point the structure of a single-component laser doppler anemometer has been described. In the case of multi-component laser doppler anemometers for each direction, in which the speed of the dispersed particles is to be determined, two laser beams running in the respective direction are superimposed on each other in the measurement volume.
The invention relates to the adjustment of either a single-component or multi-component laser doppler anemometer.
In a known method of adjusting a laser doppler anemometer, laser light is coupled into the output of the receiving optic to determine the focal point of the receiving optic. This focal point establishes the measurement volume position on the optical axis of the receiving optic. In the measurement volume, an apertured diaphragm is set up with a diameter in the magnitude of the laser beams' minimal total radiation width. The emitting optic is then adjusted so that the emitted laser beams completely penetrate the aperture of the apertured diaphragm. In order to increase precision, apertured diaphragms with smaller aperture diameters can subsequently be used when the adjustment steps are repeated. In addition, the aperture of the apertured diaphragm can be projected on a surface with a microscopic objective attached to the surface in order to be able to more precisely check the position of the laser beams in the aperture of the apertured diaphragm.
The known method has a number of shortcomings. Since the precision of the laser beams' coincidence has to be evaluated subjectively, the quality of the adjustment is strongly dependent on the operator's experience. Many wind tunnel working sections in which laser doppler anemometers are frequently used are closed off with windows. When penetrating the windows, the laser beams are refracted, leading to a shift in the position of the measurement volume in the wind tunnel. The magnitude of this shift is dependent upon the wavelength of the laser light used, the thickness of the window and the angle at which the laser beams strike the window. Taking this refraction into consideration when adjusting the laser beam is difficult since it is not possible to bring the apertured diaphragm and the microscopic objective into the wind tunnel. Even if this is possible, flows in the working section when the wind tunnel is in operation can lead to a modification of the optical properties of the fluid used, in particular to a modification of its refraction index. This results in variations in the amount and/or the direction of refraction of the incident laser beams at the interface between the fluid and the windows, limiting the working section. In this way a shift of the crossing point of the laser beams with respect to the focal point of the receiving optic can occur, which then no longer coincide. An adjustment of the laser doppler anemometer during ongoing wind tunnel operations is not possible with the known methods so that, where there are modifications of fluid properties, speed measurements cannot be conducted. Since refraction at an interface between media with different optical properties is dependent upon the wavelength of the light used, a modification of the refraction index of the fluid flowing through a wind tunnel is particularly strongly felt in multi-component laser doppler anemometers which typically work with laser light of different wavelengths. The laser beams of the different wavelengths are affected by modifications in the refraction index with different intensity.

Method of adjusting a laser doppler anemometer

Deutsch Forschurgsanstalt fur Luft-und Raumfahrt e.V.


A backlight module includes a base, a plurality of point light sources distributed on the base and a light guide plate. Each of the point light sources includes a transparent cover and a light-emitting unit received in the cover. The transparent cover includes an inwardly curved light emitting top surface for emitting light from the light-emitting unit. The light guide plate includes an incidence surface disposed facing the point light sources, and an emission surface opposite to the incidence surface. The incidence surface includes a plurality of light diffusion areas spatially corresponding to the respective point light sources.

1. Technical Field
The present invention relates generally to backlight modules, and more particularly to a backlight module for use in a direct type liquid crystal display.
2. Background
Liquid crystal displays (LCDs) are widely used in various electronic products such as personal digital assistants (PDAs), notebook computers, digital cameras, digital camcorders, mobile telephones, computer monitors, liquid crystal televisions, and the like. Since LCD panels used in LCDs are not self-illuminating, they need a backlight module with a light source to illuminate the panels.
The backlight module enables colors of an image created on the LCD panel to be reproduced in real color by emitting white light from the rear of the LCD panel. As for the light source of the backlight, in the early days, Cold Cathode Fluorescent Lamps (CCFL) or External Electrode Fluorescent Lamps (EEFL) were used. However, with the advent of efficient Light-emitting Diodes (LEDs) with good physical and chemical properties, it has been suggested that LEDs may be employed as backlight light sources.
LEDs are semiconductor light-emitting devices, which emit various colors of light. LEDs can be composed of various semiconductor materials, such as GaAs, AlGaAs, GaN, InGaN and AlGaInP (Where Ga is gallium, As is arsenic, Al is aluminium, N is nitrogen, In is indium and P is potassium). Compared to other sources of illumination LEDs have the advantage of having a low operation voltage, high brightness, short response time and long lifetime. Furthermore, an important advantage of LEDs is that they are free of mercury, and are thus more environmentally friendly than other light sources, such as CCFLs.
Generally, an LED includes a base, a cover made of a plastic material, and an LED chip mounted in the cover. The cover has a top surface for emitting light generated by the LED chip.
As for the backlight module employing the LED, a conventional direct illumination type backlight module in which the light source of the backlight module emits light directly under the light guide plate of the backlight module panel is proposed. Due to the point light source, the illumination on the incidence surface of the light guide plate has poor uniformity. A number of darker areas are distributed on the incidence surface opposite to the central point between two adjacent LEDs. This will cause poor illumination uniformity of the light emitted from the emissive surface. Therefore, a backlight module employing LEDs as the light source with high brightness uniformity is desired.

Backlight module for liquid crystal display


A method for determining the distance and/or direction of a second earth borehole with respect to a first earth borehole, includes the following steps: providing, in the first borehole, first and second spaced apart magnetic field sources; providing, in the second borehole, a magnetic field sensor subsystem for sensing directional magnetic field components; activating the first and second magnetic field sources, and producing respective first and second outputs of the magnetic field sensor subsystem, the first output being responsive to the magnetic field produced by the first magnetic field source, and the second output being responsive to the magnetic field produced by the second magnetic field source; and determining distance and/or direction of the second earth borehole with respect to the first earth borehole as a function of the first output and the second output.

In the quest for hydrocarbons, the need can arise for drilling of an earth borehole in a determined spatial relationship with respect to another existing borehole. One example is the so-called steam-assisted gravity drainage ("SAGD") process which is used to enhance production from an existing section of a generally horizontal production wellbore in a reservoir of high viscosity low-mobility crude oil. A second wellbore, to be used for steam injection, is drilled above and in alignment with the production wellbore. The injection of steam in the second wellbore causes heated oil to flow toward the production well, and can greatly increase recovery from the reservoir. However, for the technique to work efficiently, the two boreholes should be in good alignment at a favorable spacing over the length of the production region.
Referring to FIG. 1, a pair of SAGD wells 10 and 20 are shown in the process of being constructed. The lower well is drilled first and then completed with a slotted liner in the horizontal section. The lower well 10 is the producer well and is located with respect to the geology of the heavy oil zone. Typically, the producer well is placed near the bottom of the heavy oil zone. The second well 20 is then drilled above the first well, and is used to inject steam into the heavy oil formation. The second, injector well is drilled so as to maintain a constant distance above the producer well throughout the horizontal section. Typically, SAGD wells are drilled in Canada to maintain a vertical distance of 5±1 meters above the horizontal section, and remain within ±1 meters of the vertical plane defined by the axis of the producer well. The length of the horizontal section can typically vary from approximately 500 meters to 1500 meters in length. Maintaining the injector well precisely above the producer well and in the same vertical plane is beyond the capability of conventional MWD direction and inclination measurements.
Instead, magnetic ranging is typically used to determine the distance between the two wells and their relative position. In U.S. Pat. No. 5,485,089, a magnetic ranging method is described where a solenoid is placed in one well and energized with current to produce a magnetic field. This solenoid (e.g. 12 in FIG. 1, which also depicts magnetic field B) comprises a long magnetic core wrapped with many turns of wire. The magnetic field from the solenoid has a known strength and produces a known field pattern that can be measured in the other well, for example by a 3-axis magnetometer (represented at 21 in FIG. 1) mounted in a measurement while drilling (MWD) tool. The solenoid must remain relatively close to the MWD tool for the magnetic ranging. The solenoid is pushed along the horizontal section of the well using a wireline tractor (e.g. 14 in FIG. 1), or coiled tubing, or it can be pumped down inside tubing (not shown).
In a typical sequence of operations, the bottom hole assembly (BHA) in the second well drills ahead a distance of 10 m to 90 m, corresponding to one to three lengths of drill pipe. The distance between measurements depends on the driller's ability to keep the well straight and on course. The drilling operation must be halted to perform the magnetic ranging operation. U.S. Pat. No. 5,485,089 teaches that first, the 3-axis magnetometers in the MWD tool measure the (50,000 nTesla) Earth's magnetic field with the current in the solenoid off. Then the solenoid is activated with DC current to produce a magnetic field which adds to the Earth's magnetic field. A third measurement is made with the DC current in the solenoid reversed. The multiple measurements are made to subtract the Earth's large magnetic field from the data obtained with the solenoid on.
The solenoid is then moved to a second position along the completed wellbore by a tractor or by other means. If the first position is slightly in front of the MWD magnetometer (i.e. closer to the toe of the well), then the other position should be somewhat behind the MWD magnetometer (i.e. closer to the heel of the well). The solenoid is again activated with DC current, and the MWD magnetometers make the fourth measurement of the magnetic field with DC current. The DC current in the solenoid is then reversed, and a fifth measurement is made. The five magnetic field measurements are transmitted to the surface where they are processed to determine the position of the MWD tool magnetometers with respect to the position of the solenoid.
There are drawbacks to this process. First, the solenoid must be physically moved between the two borehole positions, during which time the BHA is not drilling. This movement requires that the tractor be activated and driven along the wellbore, which is time consuming. Second, any errors in measuring the two axial positions of the solenoid, or errors in the distance the solenoid moves, introduce errors in the calculated distance between the two wells. Third, since the solenoid is driven from one position to another, the distance the solenoid travels may vary from one magnetic ranging operation to the next. Since the MWD tool does not know how far the solenoid moved, it cannot compute the distance to the first well. This means that all five magnetic field measurements must be transmitted to the surface via the typically slow MWD telemetry system. Only after the MWD measurements have been decoded at the surface and the appropriate algorithms processed (including knowledge of the two solenoid positions), can the distance between the two wells be determined and drilling resumed. Hence, this magnetic ranging process results in excess rig time and thus increases the cost of drilling the well.
Reference can also be made to U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,731,752, 4,710,708, 5,923,170 and Re. 36,569, and also to Grills et al, "Magnetic Ranging Technologies for Drilling Steam Assisted Gravity Drainage Wells Pairs and Unique Well Geometries". SPE 79005, 2002, and to "Kuckes et al., New Electromagnetic Surveying/Ranging Method for Drilling Parallel, Horizontal Twin Wells," SPE 27466, 1996.
It is among the objects of the present invention to provide improved magnetic ranging and improved distance and direction determination between wellbores and to improve controlled drilling of an earth borehole in a determined spatial relationship with respect to another existing earth borehole.

Magnetic ranging and controlled earth borehole drilling


A calorimeter is provided for measuring a quantity of heat. The calorimeter has a liquid constrained so as to allow expansion of the liquid solely in one dimension along a single axis such that liquid expansion may be measured on the basis of light impinging along the single axis of liquid expansion by means of a non-contact displacement transducer. Interferometric optical means for remote measurement of multiple microcalorimeters permits parallel monitoring of multiple chemical reactions and the performance of parallel biochemical assays.

The dominant existing methods for high-throughput drug discovery currently involve fluorescent or radioactive labeling of a target molecule. This is disadvantageous in that a new assay must be designed for each target molecule, a costly and time-consuming process. Moreover, the label may interfere with the natural biological activity of the target molecule. Current techniques are discussed by Macarrón et al., "Design and implementation of high-throughput screening assays," in Janzen, ed., High Throughput Screening: Methods and Protocols, (2002), which is incorporated herein by reference.
Thermodynamic indicators of reaction progress in microsamples would obviate the development of specific labels, however existing microcalorimeters lack the resolution and/or throughput (i.e., adaptability to parallel measurement) needed for high throughput drug discovery.
Several types of thermometers with microkelvin-level resolution at room temperature have been reported in the literature. Smith et al., Quartz crystal thermometer for measuring temperature deviations in the 10−3 to 10−6° C. range, Rev. Sci. Instrum., vol. 34, pp. 268-70 (1963) describe a quartz resonator with a measured noise level of 4 μK. A thermistor with sub-microkelvin noise is mentioned in Hansen et al., Comparison of the detection limits of microcalorimeters, Thermochim. Acta, vol. 70 pp. 257-268 (1983). Similar thermostats have been used to measure the properties of liquids near their critical points, as described, for example by Cohen et al., Viscosity of dilute poly-electrolyte solutions, J. Chem. Phys., vol. 88, pp. 7111-16, (1988). Finally, thermopiles may be used to measure small temperature differences such as in the thermopile microcalorimeter described by Velázquez-Campoy et al., Development of an isothermal titration microcalorimetric system with digital control and dynamic power Peltier compensation. I. Description and basic performance, Rev. Sci. Instrum., vol. 71, pp. 1824-31 (2000).
Interferometry has been used to measure the expansion of solids and liquid crystals, such as by Joly et al., Thermodilatometric measurements on small samples of liquid crystals, J. Therm. Anal., vol. 37, pp. 2483-95 (1991), incorporated herein by reference. Instrumental use of interferometry to record meniscus levels has been limited to manometers where such techniques were possible by virtue of the large meniscus cross-section, but were found to be limited in resolution due to vibration problems, as discussed by Tilford, Three and a halfcenturies later—the modern art of liquid-column manometry, Metrologia, vol. 30, 545-52 (1994), incorporated herein by reference.

Liquid expansion thermometer and microcalorimeter


A Managing component supply for complex products is achieved by monitoring the delivery performance of component suppliers and optimizing the times at which orders are placed. Supply delivery performance targets are set for each supplier, and component order times are optimized by 1) optimizing safety stock for each component, 2) calculating optimal times to place supply orders in order to maintain the safety stock level, and then 3) iterating safety stock calculations in order to minimize overall inventory costs and maximize supply availability. The process takes into account supply lead times, component costs, and target tolerances for delays in the assembly of components. The effects of changes in supply lead time performance on assembly schedules are projected for planning purposes.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to supply management, and in particular to techniques for optimizing supply management for the assembly of expensive products.
2. Background Description
There are numerous prior art methods and systems that manage inventory. Since inventory problems can show substantial variations depending on the industry, process, supply network, and product characteristics, there is a proliferation of academic publications as well as patents covering inventory management.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,016,764 to Penkar et al., "Inventory management system for reducing overall warehouse and pipeline inventory" discloses an inventory management system for warehouse and pipeline inventory. The system is designed to provide regular shipments of parts to multiple manufacturing facilities from a hub via an expedited delivery service. The objective of the design is to reduce the amount of safety stock needed to support the operations of the manufacturing facilities.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,983,189 to Lu, "Systems and methods for manufacturing a product in a pull and push manufacturing system and associated methods and computer program products for modeling the same" has a system of manufacturing a product in a pull and push planning environment where products consist of multiple subassemblies which have multiple components. The system includes an order scheduler, a component scheduler, a make-to-order (MTO) portion and an assemble to order (ATO) portion. This is done for multi-plant systems.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,970,756 to Levionnois, "Computer-assisted pull flow production management method" discloses a method to manage component inventory using kanbans.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,594,535 to Costanza, "Material and inventory control system for a demand flow process" discloses a material flow design computer system that designs and monitors material to the production paths of a manufacturing line using a replenishment card pull sequence. Its objective is to monitor the product flow through replenishment pull sequence so as to insure that material arrives as needed at the point-of-usage on the production path and that the quantity of material stored at the manufacturing plant is minimized.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,516,301 to Aykin, "Order-based material management system" has an order based materials management method using forecasts of actual customer orders to determine component stocking levels. Orders are specified by bills of materials. Quantities of the components required in the bill of material have multivariate probability distributions and they can be correlated. The method calculates target number of replenishment orders for components using target order fill rate, replenishment lead times, demand forecasts, forecast error variances and their distributions. The method also calculates order-up-to periodic inventory policies (including safety stocks) for components and subassemblies.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,963,920 to Rose et al., "Inventory control system and method", discloses a method and system for managing inventory of bulk commodities from a remote location. A rack storage unit at the point of use of the parts has multiple levels each having side by side rows for storing boxes of the parts. The rows are inclined downwardly from back to front to effect gravity feeding of the boxes toward the front. Each row has plural sites which may be occupied by a box, and a sensor senses whether a box is present at or absent from each site. Electrical signals from the sensors are processed and transmitted to the parts supplier at a remote location. The supplier receives a display containing information as to which sites are occupied and which are vacant. The supplier can respond by shipping parts that are indicated to be in short supply.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,946,662 to Ettl et al., "Method for providing inventory optimization", discloses a method for providing inventory optimization for levels of products in a complex supply chain network for multiple internal suppliers or manufacturer locations and external distributors or retailer locations. The invention constructs a representative supply chain network model to indicate the flow of products between internal and external locations, it determines inventory levels and fill rates to meet the service level requirements, calculates a total inventory cost for all products in the network, and optimizes the fill rates.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,630,070 to Dietrich et al., "Optimization of manufacturing resource planning", discloses a method for constrained material requirements planning, optimal resource allocation, and production planning provides for an optimization of a manufacturing process by designating the amounts of various manufactured products to be produced, which products include both end products as well as subassemblies to be employed in the manufacture of one or more of the end products. In order to accomplish the optimization, the method employs an objective function such as the maximization of income. In the method, the data describing elemental steps in the manufacturing process for the production of each end product, as well as the quantity or demand for each end product which is to be supplied, are presented as a set of linear mathematical relationships in matrix form to be inserted in a computer which determines the optimum number of each end product in accordance with an LP optimization algorithm. The matrix contains bill of material data, and various constraints.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,415,266 to Do, "Dynamic instruction system for input of parts in vehicle production line", discloses a dynamic instruction system for the input of parts in a vehicle production line which, based on vehicle type information at each process as well as dynamic production plans, performs computations on a variety of data in order to provide parts input information to both equipment in the production line and to workers such that parts can be provided as they are needed. The system is claimed to prevent the presence of defective parts at processes in the production line and in a parts storage area, and to provide optimum stock levels such that capacity utilization and productivity are enhanced.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,819,232 to Shipman, "Method and apparatus for inventory control of a manufacturing or distribution process", discloses a method and an apparatus, using a computer model, to control a manufacturing or distribution process, which determines a demand forecast by using an optimized historical weighting factor, determines an upper and a lower bound of a planned inventory by explicitly accounting for the customer order lead time, and computes a production schedule at predetermined intervals to maintain an actual inventory between the upper and lower bounds of the planned inventory.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,611,051 to Pirelli, "Point of supply use distribution process and apparatus", discloses a method of using a central computer and work station for managing inventory. To dispense inventory to consumers, a system user is issued a card imprinted with a personal user bar code. This user bar code is read into the computer and subsequently verified through the entry of individual user access data to ensure the user is authorized. The issued-item data is communicated to a central computer, where the issued item is decremented from inventory data. The central computer determines when and in what quantity to replenish each item from the inventory data. A replenishment order is processed by the central computer, and the replenishment order is transmitted to a vendor.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,287,267 to Jayaraman et al., "Methods for parts procurement quantity determination where demand is uncertain for the product in which the parts are used", discloses a method for predicting parts procurement requirements for products over multiple time periods, with parts common to multiple products. The actual demand for the products is uncertain, but the method assures that a specified service level is met for all products and minimizes expected excess part inventories. The method is provided with inputs, which, among others, includes lists of parts for each product, prices for the parts, and demand forecasts for each product in each time period, each forecast in the form of a mean and standard deviation. The description of the problem includes an objective function of minimizing expected excess inventory while satisfying the constraint that a specified service level be achieved. Solution is provided using Lagrange multiplier technique. Additional methods are described for improving the procurement decisions to more closely meet the service requirement.
In all of the above patents (with the exception of U.S. Pat. No. 6,983,189, which is discussed in the next paragraph) the methods disclosed are for managing inventory volumes to support some manufacturing or distribution activity. Managing inventory volumes means using policies such as base-stock levels, lot size or order-up-to levels. Such methods are quantity driven. In other words, they trigger replenishment orders when inventory levels drop to a threshold quantity. They are appropriate methods when usages of components, products or parts are at high volumes. However, quantity-based inventory policies do not perform well for scheduling manufacturing assembly of complex products, simply because they do not allow triggering replenishment orders at any point in time; they trigger orders only if inventory levels drop to a threshold level. For instance, if a component is needed once every 2 months, quantity-based policies will wait an average of 2 months to trigger an order while it might be better to time the order more accurately sometime within the 2 month period. Furthermore, when there are thousands of components that have to come together to perform an assembly, the quantity-based safety stocks can be prohibitively high. For instance, consider a complex product that needs a thousand different types of components for its assembly. If the assembly has to start on time with 99% probability and supply lead times for components are uncertain, then each component has to have a safety factor of at least 4.25. This requires extremely high levels of component inventories and therefore may be too costly. In such cases, there is a need for a fundamentally different method to managing inventory.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,983,189 is an exception to the others mentioned above. It generates order schedules. Generating some kind of supply order schedule is not new. There are procurement systems that suggest order times. For instance, standard MRP also schedules component orders but ignores the impact of uncertainty in lead times. Furthermore, MRP is quantity based (i.e. schedules orders of lots), and it does not focus on the best time to trigger an order for an individual part when managing a low volume manufacturing environment.
What is needed is a method for effectively managing supply for products that are expensive to assemble such as aircraft, heavy equipment and machinery. Supply inventory management of such products needs a different approach than those described in the prior art. Known techniques that are implemented in commercially available software are not adequate. Known techniques are designed for high volume products that tend to be less expensive and typically sell in hundreds or thousands in weekly volume.
However, for highly expensive items such as aircraft or heavy machinery, weekly volumes for each model or part number tend to be much smaller. Even the largest manufacturers make just a few items per week. In addition, due to product complexity, there are tens of thousands of components that have to be supplied to do the manufacturing. Furthermore, replenishment lead times for these components are uncertain. Therefore, management of component supply needs a different approach for such products. The challenge is twofold: 1) how to make sure that random variation in supply replenishment lead times does not disrupt the manufacturing activity due to supply shortages, and 2) how to minimize supply safety stock so that supply inventory turns are maximized.
In general, these two objectives are in conflict for any inventory management problem. For expensive items, the problem is particularly challenging. On the one hand, because expensive items tend to have an expensive manufacturing operation, maximizing manufacturing line utilization is an important goal. Therefore, supply must be available at very high levels of confidence. On the other hand, because tens of thousands of components must to be available simultaneously, each component must have extremely high levels of availability to support smooth operations of the manufacturing line. When random variation of supply replenishment lead times is added to this statement of the problem, one is required under conventional safety stock management methods to hold very high levels of component supply. But this is prohibitively expensive for a product which must be assembled from a very large number of component parts. An efficient process needs to be put in place in order to manage supply inventories at reasonable levels and still achieve smooth manufacturing operations for such products.

System and process for supply management for the assembly of expensive products

International Business Machines Corporation


A vehicle horn has data representing audio horn signals recorded in a memory. The horn includes a digital counter responsive to clock signals from an oscillator to sequentially read the horn audio data from the memory, provide the data to a D/A converter and the output audio signal to a speaker for broadcast.

This invention relates to horns for motor vehicles. Such horns conventionally include air horns, such as used on large trucks, which require a compressor and an air-operated horn. Other vehicles have electronically operated horns, which include a diaphragm that is subjected to an intermittent magnetic field to cause the diaphragm to vibrate producing a horn sound.
In most vehicles electrically operated horns fail from time to time and can be easily replaced when failure occurs. However, in vehicles used in certain environments, such as factories, warehouses, docks, mines, etc., safety regulations for operation may require frequent sounding of the vehicle horn. In such applications, the vehicle horn is subjected to more frequent use and failures occur more often than in vehicles used on the road. Further, a horn failure requires that the vehicle be taken out of operation for safety reasons.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a vehicles horn, wherein sound is generated electronically with components that have increased reliability.
In accordance with the present invention there is provided a horn for a motor vehicle having a read only memory with a memory space substantially filled with digital data representing a digitized horn sound. The memory is addressed by count signals from an N-bit counter which counts to its maximum count value in response to clock signals and thereafter repeats the count signals. The clock signals are provided by an oscillator. Data read from the memory in response to the count signals is provided to a digital-to-analog (D/A) converter which provides audio horn tone signals which are supplied to a speaker.
In one embodiment the memory may include first and second memory spaces, each substantially filled with data representing respective first and second horn sounds. At least one fixed address signal is selectable to select the desired horn sound.
In a preferred arrangement there is provided an amplifier for amplifying the audio signal.
According to the invention there is provided a method for providing a horn sound for a motor vehicle. Data representing a horn audio signal is recorded to substantially fill a contiguous addressable space of a digital memory. A continuous and repeating sequence of digital count signals are provided as address signals to the memory to continuously and repeatedly read out the data signals, which are converted to audio signals and broadcast by a speaker.
Preferably, a segment of the memory which includes all values of N address bits is substantially filled with the horn audio data.
For a better understanding of the present invention, together with other and further objects, reference is made to the following description, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, and its scope will be pointed out in the appended claims.


A battery management system and a driving method thereof to manage a battery including a plurality of cells. The battery management system includes a sensing unit, an MCU, and a cell balancing unit. The sensing unit measures cell voltages of the plurality of cells. The MCU detects cells requiring cell balancing according to the plurality of measured cell voltages and generates a plurality of cell voltage signals to control the cell balancing of the detected cells. The cell balancing unit balances the cells according to the plurality of cell voltage signals, and the number of the cell voltage signals is fewer than the number of cells. The cell balancing unit generates a plurality of cell balancing signals corresponding to each of the plurality of cell voltage signals, and at least one of the cell voltage signals balances at least two of cells in the battery.

1. Field of the Invention
Aspects of the present invention relate to a battery management system. More particularly, aspects of the present invention relate to a battery management system for a vehicle using electric energy, and a driving method thereof.
2. Description of the Related Art
Vehicles using internal combustion engines with gasoline or diesel fuel pollute the environment through the burning of fossil fuels which produces air pollution. In order to reduce such pollution, there have been many attempts to develop an electric or a hybrid vehicle.
The electric vehicle is a vehicle using an electric motor that is driven by electrical energy produced from a battery. Such an electric vehicle does not produce exhaust gas and produces very little noise because the electric vehicle uses a battery pack formed of a plurality of rechargeable battery cells as a power source.
The hybrid vehicle is a vehicle that uses both an internal combustion engine and an electric motor. That is, hybrid vehicles use at least two power sources, for example, an internal combustion engine and a battery engine. Currently, hybrid vehicles have been developed to use an internal combustion engine with a fuel cell or use a battery with a fuel cell such that the fuel cell generates electrical energy through a chemical reaction, to which hydrogen and oxygen are continuously applied.
In order to enhance the power of a vehicle using a battery engine, the number of rechargeable battery cells has increased. The vehicle using the battery engine requires a battery management system (BMS) with a cell balancing control method to effectively manage a plurality of battery cells connected to each other.
Particularly, a control unit of the BMS is required to have more input and output ports as the number of the battery cells increases. Accordingly, the manufacturing cost of the control unit becomes increased, and the control unit occupies a larger area in the BMS.
The above information disclosed in this Background section is only for enhancement of understanding of the background of the invention and therefore it may contain information that does not form the prior art that is already known in this country to a person of ordinary skill in the art.

Battery management system to manage a battery having a plurality of cells and driving method thereof


An object of the present invention is to enable the improvement of Qos and efficient use of resources with regard to the entire system by performing resource control of an own cell in cooperation with that of peripheral cells. The present invention provides a resource control system used for packet communication between a mobile station and each of a first and a second base stations. The first base station includes the judgment unit for judging whether or not the Qos of a packet to be communicated with the mobile station is ensured in the packet communication with the mobile station, or judging whether or not the resources necessary for a packet to be communicated with the mobile station are secured; and the second base station interface for requesting the second base station to suppress the use of resources when the Qos is judged not to be ensured, or the necessary resources are judged not to be secured. The second base station includes a resource use suppression unit, which suppresses the use of resources for the packet communication with the mobile station in accordance with the request from the first base station.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a resource control system and a resource control method for packet mobile communication and relates to a base station and a mobile station suitable for use in the same.
2. Description of the Related Art
In packet mobile communication using CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access), a capacity of an uplink radio channel is determined based on maximum allowed receiving power of a base station, and a capacity of a downlink radio channel is determined based on a maximum transmission power of the base station. In the packet mobile communication using CDMA, when transmission power control (TPC) is carried out, the received power (uplink direction) of the base station or the transmission power (downlink direction) of the base station is determined in accordance with an amount of interference received by the base station or the mobile station.
However, in the conventional packet mobile communication as described above, as the amount of interference received by the base station or the mobile station increases, the possibility increases that the total received power (uplink direction) of the base station exceeds the maximum allowed receiving power thereof and the total transmission power (downlink direction) of the base station exceeds the maximum transmission power thereof.
Therefore, there is a problem in that packet transmission fails or packet transmission becomes impossible between the base station and the mobile station, and packet discard or packet transmission delay is caused.
In order to solve such a problem, in conventional packet mobile communication, a technique performing Qos (Quality of Service) control has been known.
In a packet mobile communication performing the conventional Qos control, the base station individually performs resource control, like allocating resource to high priority users, in accordance with the amount of interference, the amount of resources (radio carrier frequency, time slot, code, etc) of an own cell, and the traffic priority of users in its own cell.
However, in the packet mobile communication performing the conventional Qos control, since the base station or mobile station performs the resource control individually in accordance only with the amount of interference from other cells, the amount of resources of the own cell, and the traffic priority of the own cell, the resource control is not intended to perform in cooperation with the resource control of other cells.
Therefore, there is a problem in that the Qos cannot be improved and the resources cannot be efficiently utilized from the point of view of the whole packet mobile communication system.
For example, as shown in FIG. 1, when real time users A to D are concentrated in a cell 1 and non-real time users G and H are concentrated in a cell 2 adjacent to the cell 1, in a case where downlink traffic in the cell 1 is in a state of congestion, each of mobile stations 10A to 10E receives a large amount of interference. Accordingly, each of mobile stations 10A to 10E requests transmission power (downlink direction) at high level to the base station 301.
As a result, even when the base station 301 of the cell 1 preferentially allocates available resources to the real time users (for example, the users A to C) as done by conventional Qos, the base station 301 cannot transmit packets directed to some real time users (for example, the user D). Therefore, in the cell 1, packet discard occurs because a delay time of packet transmission exceeds an allowable delay time thereof in some cases.
On the other hand, in the adjacent cell 2, since the number of real time users (for example, the user F) is small, the base station 302 of the cell 2 has enough margin in the allocatable resources even after transmitting the packets to the real time user F in the own cell. Accordingly, the base station 302 can transmit the packets (non-real time packets) directed to the users G and H up to the maximum transmission power of the base station 302.
As described above, in the case where real time packets cannot be transmitted in the cell 1 while even non-real time packets can be transmitted after real time packets are transmitted in the cell 2, there is a problem of lowering satisfaction of the Qos and the resource utilization efficiency with regard to the entire service area in the packet mobile communication system.
Especially, in a micro cell with a small cell diameter and a cell for fourth generation mobile communications, the mobile stations are often unevenly distributed in each service area, and the above described problem becomes marked.

Resource control system, resource control method, and base station and mobile station suitable for use in the same


Disclosed is a method for and an apparatus using various factors including system performance feedback data to optimize the time suggested to attempt retry of a request. Among the factors used there is included present system performance, type of request, status of pending action, current number of retries pending, a predefined fixed interval, a pseudo random interval, a random interval, past history of retry requests, heuristically determined interval, and an interval based upon hang detection.

Within typical multiprocessor systems, the system bus is used to communicate commands to be processed by the processors. Depending on the state of a given PU (processor unit) or other bus master to which the request is directed, the response to a given command may be an indication that this command cannot be processed at this time because of some conflicting condition. The requesting PU must then "retry" the command. Attempting to immediately retry will normally cause a livelock condition, thereby degrading the performance of the bus.
A prior art known approach to alleviating this problem is to have the requesting unit delay a "random" amount of time before reissuing the command. The problem with this approach is that, in some situations, the random time may be too soon and, in other operationally critical situations, the random time may be too long.
It would be desirable that the retry interval be related to the type of command to be executed and/or other factors that could affect the likelihood that the request for action be completed at the time of the retry. It would further be desirable that the retry mechanism could provide dynamic adjustment of the retry interval based upon past experience for different types of commands and/or for given associated bus masters.

Sender to receiver request retry method and apparatus


The invention relates to a radiation detector. The detector includes an insulating substrate, a thin-film layer made of semiconductor or insulator formed on the surface of the substrate, at least a pair of electrodes provided on the thin-film layer, voltage applying means for applying a voltage across the electrodes and current detection means for detecting current taken from the electrodes, wherein radiation is detected using the fact that conductance of the thin-film layer changes linearly with respect to radiation intensity due to irradiation with radiation. Preferably, the thin-film layer comprises a metallic oxide. The metallic oxide comprises either one or any combination of two or more selected from titanium oxide, aluminum oxide (alumina), zirconium oxide, iron oxide, zinc oxide, yttrium oxide, manganese oxide, neodymium oxide, ceric oxide, tin oxide, or strontium titanate.

Radiation detectors for detecting radiation using semiconductors are in practical use. It is necessary for related semiconductor radiation detectors to be of a thickness that is large enough to absorb radiation. Because of this, it is necessary to from p-n junctions using high-purity single-crystal semiconductors in order to provide depletion in this thick semiconductor to prevent generation of substantial leakage current.
For example, when the energy of detected radiation is 1 MeV or greater, a semiconductor of a thickness of 1 mm or more is necessary even when cadmium telluride having the largest absorption coefficient used in the semiconductors of the related art is adopted and complex pn junction structures for suppressing leakage current have to be adopted.
In addition, with radiation detectors adopting conventional silicon semiconductor or compound semiconductor such as gallium arsenide or cadmium telluride compound semiconductors etc., it is easy for the semiconductor element to become electrically damaged and deteriorate under a high-energy radiation environment of 1 kGy/h or greater such as for nuclear reactors, radioactive waste and its disposal facilities. It is therefore easy for operation to become unstable, for damage to be incurred during use over a short period of time, and for durability to be impaired. Further, with a radiation detector such as an iron dosimeter, the radiation dose cannot be measured at the location emitting the radiation, there is no immediacy, and usage limitations are therefore substantial.
An object of the present invention is therefore to provide a radiation detector, with a simple construction, capable of measuring radiation intensity in a stable manner across a broad range of radiation intensities including a high-intensity intensity range.

Radiation detector and radiation detecting element


This invention concerns making compounds destined for the protection of plants against oxidative stress, characterized by lipo-amino acids enriched with methionine during a process of acylation with hydrolysates of proteins or of amino acids taken individually or combined; or after acylation and lipo-amino acids partially or totally salified by basic amino acids which gives them antioxidant and anti-free radical properties. This invention extends to the total or partial salification of this type of lipo-amino acids with oligoelements.

It is well-known that many plants are sensitive to drops in temperature, even above the freezing point. This is the case for most fruit-bearing trees.
It has been determined that frost and other fluctuations in temperature, including dryness and excessive heat, are aggressive to plant life, generating a phenomenon defined as xe2x80x9coxidative stressxe2x80x9d, defined as an accelerated and excessive generation of free radicals: alkoxy, peroxy, and oxygen singlets. These free radicals are produced by the interaction of lipooxygenase with the lipids of cell membranes.
In the case of excessive dryness, the formation of super-oxidated anions (O2xc2x0) among the plant chloroplasts has been observed.
This oxidative stress leads to the formation of derivatives toxic to living cells such as malondialdehyde (MDA), this last substance being an indicator of the level of oxidative deterioration. Lipoperoxidation is indicated by the reaction of thiobarbituric acid with MDA.
The accumulation of lipoperoxides provokes an activation of the senescence of the leaves and dicotyledons.
It has been determined that the senescent leaves and dicotyledons accumulated fluorescent substances are derived from the oxidative process of unsaturated fatty acids. These fluorescent substances are also the end products of peroxidation, obtained by the interaction of aldehydic functions, particularly that of MDA upon the amino function of the proteins.
This oxidative stress provokes a decrease in superoxide dismutase (SOD), as well as a perturbation of membranoid proteins, as we have observed notably in vegetables.
The degenerative activity of lipid peroxidation is evident not only for plants at various stages of growth but also during the period of seed germination, according to the levels of hydroperoxidation present.
Many plants are rich in polyphenols (flavonoids) which are powerful antioxidants. The levels of these polyphenols are more elevated in plants in sunlight than in those located in the shade.
The present invention is intended to protect plants against the aforementioned oxidative stress with the use of compounds of lipo-amino acids specifically selected for their capacity as antioxidants.
Compounds of lipo-amino acids have been previously described as active agents for the stimulation of vegetal biosynthesis, or as fertilizing agents. These structures have also been cited as having antibacterial and antifungal properties in the following patents: FR-A-2 403 024, FR-A-2 503 153, FR-A-2 503 144.
The French patent FR-A-2 503 151 also mentions sulpho-butyryl-amino acids such as methionine or cystine but not in relation to any protection against lipoperoxidation. It is only recently that the antioxidant properties of butyryl-methionine have been discovered; butyryl-cystine, on the other hand, does not possess these properties.
French patent FR-A-85 137 38 concerns the utilization of lipo-amino acids and their salts to increase floral fertility. It is also a highly specified process.
French patent FR-A-2 503 153 concerns lipo-amino acids of proline and hydroxyproline which have specific effects upon dryness in plant life.
Later studies upon lipo-amino acids of proline have shown that those compounds also protected against the adverse effects of frost.

Compositions for the protection of plants against the stress of oxidation


Systems, methods, and computer-readable media are disclosed for determining and applying a timeout for streaming video. Processing circuitry of a device may request video fragments to be downloaded and played, and if a requested fragment is not downloaded entirely before expiration of a timeout, the device may adjust the timeout to allow the download to complete. A timeout may be set based on available bandwidth and a size of a fragment requested for download, and the timeout may be extended based on network and/or device conditions.

Streaming video devices may download and playback video content. If requested streaming video content fails to download in time for continuous playback, then buffering, stalling, artifacts, timeout, or other negative results decreasing video quality and user experience may occur. For example, a video device rendering downloaded video content may render the content as the content is being provided to the device. If the device does is unable to receive content quickly enough to keep pace with the playing of the content, video playback may freeze or otherwise stop, adversely impacting a device's ability to provide continuous playback for a viewer.
Certain implementations will now be described more fully below with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which various implementations and/or aspects are shown. However, various aspects may be implemented in many different forms and should not be construed as limited to the implementations set forth herein; rather, these implementations are provided so that this disclosure will be thorough and complete, and will fully convey the scope of the disclosure to those skilled in the art. Like numbers in the figures refer to like elements throughout. Hence, if a feature is used across several drawings, the number used to identify the feature in the drawing where the feature first appeared will be used in later drawings.

Timeout optimization for streaming video


Pipe or tubing of crosslinked polyethylene (“PEX”) containing less than 2% by wt. carbon black provides improved resistance to oxidizing agents such as chlorine and hypochlorous acid in water. The pipe may be further protected with a thin tubular core (inner layer) of high density polyethylene or chlorinated polyethylene. The pipe may optionally have an oxygen barrier layer, such as poly(ethylene-co-vinyl alcohol) (“EVOH”), contiguously disposed radially outward from the carbon-containing PEX layer. The pipe is suitable for potable water applications and for hot water radiant heating systems.

Plastic tubing denotes a particular diameter schedule of plastic pipe in which the outside diameter of the tubing is equal to the nominal size plus 3.175 mm or 0.125″ (inch). Plastic pipe outside diameter schedule conforms to ANSI B 36.10. For convenience, and in deference to common usage, plastic tubing having a nominal diameter in the range from 7 mm to 152 mm is referred to hereinafter as "pipe".
ASTM D3350 Section 2 dictates that for adequate protection against ultraviolet (or "u-v") radiation, PE pipe contain a minimum of 2 weight percent carbon black. Consequently, commercially available PE pipe in a wide variety of specifications is made to contain at least 2% by weight ("wt.") carbon black, typically about 2.5% by wt. Because PEX pipe is typically covered up or buried in use, protection against u-v light is not a concern unless the pipe is to be exposed or stored outdoors for an extended period; PEX is therefore not generally protected against u-v light and does not contain any carbon black. During construction of structures, PEX pipe may be exposed to u-v light for up to 3 months, and in such instances, u-v protection is desirable.
PEX is conventionally crosslinked using one of several processes such as those disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,117,195; U.S. Pat. No. 5,756,023 and U.S. Pat. No. 6,284,178. These crosslinking processes include addition of peroxide, addition of AZO compounds, electron beam irradiation, and addition of silane. Such crosslinking is known to enhance certain physical and chemical properties of the polyethylene. In particular, crosslinking has been shown to increase maximum useful temperature, reduce creep, improve chemical resistance, increase abrasion resistance, improve memory characteristics, improve impact resistance, and improve environmental stress crack resistance of polyethylene materials.
Though PEX has the foregoing good properties, PCT publication WO 99/49254 teaches protecting it exteriorly with an oxygen barrier layer; and U.S. Pat. No. 4,614,208 discloses a multilayer PEX pipe having an intermediate layer of oxygen diffusion resistance material and an outer layer of impact resistant polyethylene; the specific problem of protecting PEX pipe against attack by chlorine and HOCl in potable water has, to date, been ignored.
It is well recognized that PEX needs to be protected from oxidative degradation, but it is also well known that chlorine and hypochlorous acid (HOCl) are just as detrimental to PEX pipe as oxidizing agents such as oxygen, sulfur dioxide and oxides of nitrogen in the atmosphere, if not more so. Usually, antioxidants are added to protect the PEX materials from oxygen entering the material from the atmosphere. When PEX is used for piping in water distribution systems, oxidative degradation occurs not only from the oxygen in the atmosphere but also from oxidizing agents migrating from water inside the pipe. Oxidizing agents in the water, such as chlorine and HOCl are more detrimental to the PEX pipe than oxidizing agents in the atmosphere and such antioxidants as are used to protect the PEX pipe are consumed quickly when subjected to strong oxidizing agents such as chlorine and HOCl; in particular, the effectiveness of the antioxidants is diminished when the PEX pipe is exposed to u-v light. Moreover, large amounts of antioxidants cannot be used due to strict potable water extraction standards.
If one was to recognize the importance of protection not only from outside the pipe but also from within, it is evident that an effective solution would be to have a more effective antioxidant or antidegradant incorporated in the PEX. But, there is no suggestion in the art what material or "dopant" would provide such properties. Further, there is no suggestion that, should such dopant be used, and its effectiveness is to be enhanced, such enhancement might be obtained with an inner tubular core of oxidation-resistant material having a wall of thin cross-section in the range from as thin as 0.025 mm (1 mil) for 7 mm (0.25″) nominal diameter pipe, to 1.52 mm (0.06″) thick for 152 mm (6″) nominal diameter pipe. Nor is there any suggestion that such inner core be cohesively bondable to carbon-doped PEX, and co-extrudable in such a thin cross-section under substantially the same extrusion conditions as carbon-doped PEX.
From the foregoing, it will be evident that the problem of coping with degradation of PEX pipe is addressed in diverse ways, few of which are focused on the detrimental long term effects of chlorine deliberately added to water. The effectiveness of carbon black as a dopant in PEX pipe no greater than 152 mm in nominal diameter, optionally reinforced with an inner tubular of thin-walled core of high density polyethylene ("HDPE") or chlorinated PE is judged by its resistance to degradation by chlorine and HOCl in water at elevated temperature above about 80° C., and elevated pressure above about 274 kPa (25 psig) over a long period of time more than 20 years.

Carbon black-containing crosslinked polyethylene pipe having resistance to chlorine and hypochlorous acid


The present invention is a system for monitoring a patient's breath chemistry comprising a plurality of components, including a self-condensing pH sensor distally mounted on a catheter, a transmitter with hydration sensing circuitry for the pH sensor, and, a processing receiver/data recorder. The specifically designed self-condensing pH sensor located on the distal end of the catheter is designed to be inserted into the patient's airway. Monitoring of a patient's breath pH is accomplished by using the miniaturized self-condensing pH sensor, providing for real-time monitoring of patient airway pH values.

Recently, it has been reported that the monitoring of acidity or pH of a patient's breath could help physicians in estimating the potential for and occurrence of asthma, laryngopharyngeal reflux disease (LPRD), aspiration-related lung diseases, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), and sleep related breathing disorders such as obstructive sleep apnea (OSA).
Gastroesophageal reflux in the airway is associated with, and known to exacerbate, widespread respiratory diseases such as asthma, laryngopharyngeal reflux disease (LPRD), aspiration-related lung diseases, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), and sleep related breathing disorders such as obstructive sleep apnea (OSA). Reflux in the airway is also prevalent in infants and children as well as intubated or sedated patients in whom current pH diagnostic procedures are contraindicated. In extreme cases, the exposure of acid reflux into the respiratory system can lead to aspiration pneumonia or acute respiratory distress.
Given the current state of commercialized products, clinicians are limited in their ability to test pH in the respiratory tract. Evaluation of patient pH can be conducted by a qualified physician in a typical 24 hour pH study, using a pH measurement catheter. The presently available pH monitoring and diagnostic devices require insertion of a pH measurement catheter through a patient's nose, past the epiglottis, through the upper esophageal sphincter (UES), and into the esophagus. These catheters are comprised of a pH sensor and reference sensor at the catheter distal end, and require immersion in liquid to function effectively. The devices have invasive or uncomfortable consequences for the patient. Because they pass through the larynx and into the esophagus, discomfort during swallowing, talking, and movement can occur. A recently introduced product, the Medtronic Bravo™, is a catheter based device that requires attachment of a pH measurement capsule to the esophagus wall. The product requires a larger diameter trans-nasal catheter to place the capsule. Because these methods are invasive and uncomfortable, only a small percentage of prospective patients are able to undergo pH monitoring.
Placement of esophageal catheters requires special expertise to identify the physical landmarks required for proper catheter placement. Typically, pressure measurements are conducted to find the lower esophageal sphincter and upper esophageal sphincter, with endoscopic confirmation of placement required in some cases.
Traditional pH catheters used to conduct measurements of pH in the patient's laryngeal region and have several limitations when placed in the upper airway. They are capable of only measuring liquid reflux events which extend past the UES. They are subject to becoming fouled, contaminated or embedded in the mucosal wall. If placed higher in the airway, the sensor can become dehydrated, losing electrical continuity with the reference electrode. In these cases, the accuracy and reliability of the pH, measurements are compromised.
Accordingly, there is a need for a novel pH monitoring system with electronic or wireless communication linked to a processing receiver with data recording capability that can reliably measure and record pH in the patient's airway in real time.

Self-condensing pH sensor and catheter apparatus


An apparatus to facilitate data cache security is disclosed. The apparatus includes a cache memory to store data; and prefetch hardware to pre-fetch data to be stored in the cache memory, including a cache set monitor hardware to determine critical cache addresses to monitor to determine processes that retrieve data from the cache memory; and pattern monitor hardware to monitor cache access patterns to the critical cache addresses to detect potential side-channel cache attacks on the cache memory by an attacker process.

Central processing units (CPUs) include data cache subsystems that store prefetched data from storage in slower memory to a faster local memory before the data is actually needed. However, such cache subsystems are the most common source for architectural side channel attacks (e.g., speculative or traditional) due to the ease of software control over cache state manipulation (e.g., via load, stores, clflush, etc.), comparatively large sizes (e.g., encoding space for secrets), as well as distinct measurable times between a cache subsystem hit and miss.


A universal folding method that has been demonstrated to be effective in refolding a variety of very different proteins expressed in bacteria as inclusion bodies has been developed. Representative proteins that can be dissolved and refolded in biologically active form, with the native structure, are shown in Table I. The method has two key steps to unfold and then refold the proteins expressed in the inclusion bodies. The first step is to raise the pH of the protein solution in the presence of denaturing agents to pH greater than 9, preferably 10. The protein solution may be maintained at the elevated pH for a period of up to about 24 hours, or the pH immediately decreased slowly, in increments of about 0.2 pH units/24 hours, until the solution reaches a pH of about 8.0, or both steps used. In the preferred embodiment, purified inclusion bodies are dissolved in 8 M urea, 0.1 M Tris, 1 mM glycine, 1 mM EDTA, 10 mM beta-mercaptoethanol, 10 mM dithiothreitol (DTT), 1 mM reduced glutathione (GSH), 0.1 mM oxidized glutathione (GSSG), pH 10. The absorbance at 280 nm (OD280) of the protein solution is 5.0. This solution is rapidly diluted into 20 volumes of 20 mM Tris base. The resulting solution is adjusted to pH 9.0 with 1 M HCl and is kept at 4° C. for 24 hr. The pH is adjusted to pH 8.8 and the solution is kept at 4° C. for another 24 hrs. This process is repeated until the pH is adjusted to 8.0. After 24 hr at pH 8.0, the refolded proteins can be concentrated by ultrafiltration and applied to a gel filtration column for purification.

The present invention is generally in the field of methods for manufacture of recombinant proteins, and especially in the field of refolding of recombinant proteins expressed in the inclusion bodies of procaryotic expression systems such as E. coli.
Expression of recombinant proteins with natural biological activity and structure, referred to as "proteomics", becomes increasingly important with the completion of genomic sequencing for several organisms and the near completion of human genome sequencing. One aspect of proteomics is to express large amounts of protein for structural and functional studies, as well as for commercial applications. The least expensive and most efficient way to express recombinant proteins is to express the proteins in E. coli. Proteins are expressed either intracellularly or secreted into the periplasmic spaces. In the former case, the proteins are often deposited in inclusion bodies, especially if the protein has disulfide bonds.
However, one of the problems in expressing mammalian proteins in E. coli is that most of the expressed proteins form insoluble inclusion bodies. While this problem can be circumvented by using various mammalian or insect expression systems, growing E. coli is faster and less expensive compared to mammalian and insect cultures. Moreover, some proteins are toxic to the host when expressed in their native forms, thus expression as insoluble inclusion bodies is the only way to obtain large quantities of recombinant proteins. Importantly, high levels of expression can be achieved for most proteins. 400 to 600 mg of inclusion bodies per liter of bacterial culture can routinely be achieved, with up to 9,700 mg/L having been reported using this method (Jeong K L; Lee S Y, 1999. Appl. Environ. Microbiol 65:3027–32). Inclusion bodies can be easily purified to greater than 90% with a simple freeze/thaw and detergent washing procedure.
Inclusion bodies appear as dense cytoplasmic granules when the cells are observed under a light microscope. Typically, the cells will be lysed by mechanical disruption of the cells, followed by centrifugation for 30 min at 4700 g. Inclusion bodies will sediment at low g forces and can be separated from many other intracellular proteins. Further purification can be done by washing the pellet with the buffer used during the cell disruption, or by centrifuging the resuspended pellet in 40–50% glycerol.
Many extracellular proteins of eukaryotes contain disulfide bonds. Proteins having multiple disulfide bonds may form non-native disulfide bonds during folding from the reduced species. Further folding is then blocked unless the incorrect disulfide bond is cleaved by reduction with an external thiol or by attack from a protein thiol. Eukaryotic organisms that secrete disulfide containing proteins also machinery for ensuring proper disulfide bond formation. A distinct disadvantage of expression of recombinant proteins in prokaryotes as inclusion bodies is that the proteins are not obtained in their native state, and typically are not functionally active. A variety of methods have been used to re-solubilize the proteins and refold them to reform active protein. Dissolution of the pelleted recombinant protein usually requires the use of denaturants such as 7 M guanidine hydrochloride or 8 M urea. The amount of aggregation may continue to increase with time if the protein is allowed to remain in the denaturant (Kelley and Winkler, "Folding of Eukaryotic Proteins Produced in Escherichia coli" Genetic Engineering 12, 1–19 at p. 6 (1990)). Removal of the denaturant from the solubilized inclusion bodies by dialysis or desalting columns will cause the protein to precipitate under conditions where the native protein needs to be refolded. A misfolded protein solution can also have a very low specific activity in biological assays.
Although there are many reports of expression and refolding of various proteins in E. coli as inclusion bodies, one of the misconceptions in protein refolding is that a unique refolding method has to be developed for each individual protein (see Kelley and Winkler at p. 6). Another misconception is that most of the mammalian proteins cannot be refolded from inclusion bodies. (for review, see: Rudolph R., Lilie H., 1996. FASEB J 10:49–56; Lilie H, Schwarz E, Rudolph R. 1998. Curr Opin Biotechnol 9:497–501). Because published works are mostly "success" stories in refolding inclusion bodies from E. coli, it is impossible to get a general idea about what percentage of mammalian proteins can be purified using this procedure.
There are probably more refolding methods than refolded proteins reported in the literature (for review, see: Rudolph R., Lilie, H. 1996, FASEB J 10:49–56; Lilie, H., Schwarz, E., Rudolph, R. 1998, Curr. Opin. Biotechnol. 9:497–501). Different chaperones, detergents, and chaotrophs have been used to help refolding. In addition, pH, ionic strength, temperature, buffer formulation, and reducing/oxidation reagents can all effect refolding. It would be prohibitive to test all these conditions for refolding large amounts of proteins, as required for studies in proteomics or structural genomics.
A single simplified procedure to refold most of the proteins that are expressed in recombinant systems, especially those which form inclusion bodies in systems such as E. coli, is therefore needed.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a "universal" method for refolding of proteins, especially recombinant proteins, especially recombinant proteins present in inclusion bodies in bacterial hosts.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Universal procedure for refolding recombinant proteins


A suspension for a motor vehicle exhaust pipe, the suspension comprising an upper strength member 3 suitable for securing to the body 5 of the vehicle, and a lower strength member 4 suitable for securing to an exhaust pipe 6, the two strength members being interconnected by a resilient system. Such a suspension is characterized in that said resilient system comprises two crossed resilient loops 1, 2 each incorporating a ring B of material having a high modulus of elasticity that is coated in rubber C, the loops 1, 2 being fixed to each of the strength members 3, 4 at two diametrically-opposite locations of their respective circumferences. The invention also relates to an assembly of such a suspension, the vehicle body, and the exhaust pipe.

The object of the present invention is to obtain great flexibility for the suspension in the vertical direction (Z direction) under preloading, i.e. when the suspension, secured to the body of a vehicle, is supporting an exhaust pipe at rest; while naturally also ensuring a great increase in stiffness when large forces act on the pipe in the downward vertical direction. It is also necessary to obtain good damping of vibration in the Z direction, so that the exhaust pipe of a vehicle in operation transmits a minimum amount of vibration to the body.
It is also desirable for the suspension to be very flexible in the longitudinal direction of the vehicle (X direction) to accommodate expansion of the exhaust pipe under the effect of temperature.
Finally, a large amount of flexibility must also be obtained relative to forces acting in the transverse direction (Y direction), but with displacement in this direction being limited and, if possible, for this to be achieved without spoiling flexibility in the Z direction.
Presently-known suspensions do not satisfy all of these conditions, particularly with respect to limiting displacement in the transverse or Y direction.

Motor vehicle exhaust pipe suspension; an assembly including such a suspension


The present invention relates to assemblies and devices for the brewing of a beverage (e.g. coffee); the invention may, for example, be used in coin operated vending machines and the like. The invention in particular provides a brew chamber assembly for an apparatus for preparing a beverage from an aqueous medium and a particulate beverage material, the apparatus operating with a brewing cycle including the air agitation of a mixture of the aqueous medium and the particulate beverage material in a brew chamber. The brew chamber assembly comprises. a brewing vessel having a floor, PA1 a compartment having a top wall, and PA1 a common partitioning wall, the common partitioning wall defining the top wall of said compartment and defining the floor of the brewing vessel,. at least a portion of the common partitioning wall being configured as a filter for the evacuation of beverage from the vessel and being permeable to air, the compartment having opening means for the entry of air thereinto and for the exit of beverage therefrom, and the brew chamber assembly being characterized in that the compartment has a hopper configuration for gathering the beverage for discharge therefrom by the opening means. This brew chamber assembly may be used with a pump such as a peristaltic pump.

The present invention relates to assemblies and devices for the brewing of a beverage; the invention may, for example, be used in coin operated vending machines and the like. The invention particulary relates to beverages brewed from an aqueous medium and a particulate beverage material (for example, from, hot water and a coffee material, a tea material or the like).
For vending machines, it is desirable, from the point of view of the user, to be able to obtain a (acceptable) cup of beverage in as short a period of time as possible. From the point of view of the operator of the vending machine it is desirable to be able separate a maximum amount of beverage from the particulate beverage material; in this latter respect it is also desirable to have as dry a residue as possible in order to facilitate disposal of the residue.
The brew period for the extraction of an acceptable amount of solubles under ambient pressure conditions, may be reduced by increasing the amount of coffee grounds used per cup; this tactic however, increases the unit cost of the beverage product.
A number of coffee machines are known which employ a piston/cylinder combination for brewing coffee. At the end of each brew cycle, the coffee beverage, prior to discharge, is forced to pass through a filter, the ground coffee residue collected by the filter being thereafter separated from the piston/cylinder combination prior to the next brew cycyle.
Thus U.S. Pat. No. 3,565,641 teaches a piston/cylinder combination whereby a coffee beverage may be brewed in cup size amounts within a relatively brief period of time by forcing air through the mixture of hot water and beverage material and then filtering the obtained coffee beverage. Such air induced agitation improves considerably the brewing (leaching) process; it promotes and accelerates the thorough wetting of each of the particles of coffee by the hot water; and the agitation changes the water actually in contact with the coffee grounds so as to enhance the rate at which beverage (coffee) solubles dissolve. The brew-chamber of this reference is provided with a floor wall which is permeable to liquid and air but impermeable to the bulk of the insoluble coffee grounds; this floor wall also divides the brew-chamber from a piston-chamber. A piston is disposed in the piston-chamber for inducing a positive pressure (on the upward stroke) and a negative pressure (on the downward stroke). The piston/cylinder combination is configured such that during the upward stroke, the piston forces air trapped in the piston-chamber between the piston and the floor wall to pass through the floor wall into the the brew chamber so as to agitate the , liquid/solids mixture in the brew chamber. On the downward stroke away from the floor wall, beverage is pulled or sucked through the floor wall into the piston-chamber between the piston and the floor wall. An outlet is provided in the wall of the piston-chamber, spaced from the floor wall such that at the end of the downward stroke the coffee beverage can escape the piston-chamber by gravity into a waiting cup. Means are also provided for removing the waste coffee ground from the floor wall by replacing the used filter (with the grounds deposited thereon) with a fresh filter before each new brew cycle.
An alternate piston/cylinder combination is taught in U.S. Pat. No. 3,369,478; in this reference a permanent type filter is used. The piston/cylinder combination taught is such that the filter is mounted on the end of the piston, the upper surface of the filter being exposed after the brewing cycle for scraping away waste coffee grounds by scraper means. A small cavity is defined between the filter and the body of the piston and an opening through the piston body is included which communicates with the cavity. During the upward stroke of the piston, the brewing chamber is sealed off and contains in addition to the brewing mixture a cushion or layer of trapped air. The upward compression stroke of the piston effects discharge of the beverage and trapped air through the filter into the cavity for evacuation through the opening; the air is passed through the waste ground coffee for the purpose of effecting drying of this residue.
A number of drawbacks and limitations are associated with piston/cylinder combinations used for coffee brewers, namely:
A relatively large number of moving parts are associated with the pumping function. Accordingly, close attention must be paid to the repair and upkeep of the mechanism; more particularly, should the suction and compression characteristic of the system fall below that which is required, an expert repair person is needed in order to dismantle and rebuild the mechanism to replace or repair the piston/cylinder combination.
The maximum amount of coffee which may be produced by a piston/cylinder combination is limited by the volume displaceable during the piston stroke. In order to be able to deliver a larger maximum volume of coffee, the structure of the piston/cylinder combination must be altered so as to increase the upper limit of the pumping volume e.g. both the piston and cylinder may have to be replaced by correspondingly larger diameter or longer stroke units, the motor mechanism driving the piston including the piston arm may have to be replaced by a larger unit, etc. . . If significant replacements must be made, these can be burdensome to effect and can result in an undesirable increase in the size and weight of the apparatus. Morever, if the apparatus is intended to deliver a range of coffee volumes, increasing the size of the piston/cylinder combination may accentuate other drawbacks of such systems in relation to product taste, to the brewing temperature as well as the temperature of the final product.
The pumping mechanism has a relatively large number of parts such as the cylinder side walls, the piston head etc. which come into direct contact with the beverage; such contact can affect the final temperature of the product. The many parts of the mechanism can act as a heat sink with the undesirable side effect of robbing heat from the beverage during brewing, resulting in less efficient extraction of coffee solubles, i.e. extraction occurs better at higher water temperatures. This temperature effect will be greater, if the apparatus is intended to deliver a coffee volume which is smaller than the maximum pumping volume, i.e. the smaller volume of coffee to be produced will loose more relative heat than the larger volume.
As mentioned above, the maximum amount of coffee which may be produced by a piston/cylinder combination is limited by the volume displaceable during the piston stroke. However, for known devices, such as those following the teachings of U.S. Pat. No. 3,565,641, the brew vessel may provide a further limitation with respect to the maximum amount of coffee which may be produced. During the injection of air to agitate the brew mix, a significant amount of frothing or foaming may occur; the foam so produced, can, (if no special precautions are taken such as limiting the amount of brew mix and/or inserting foam suppression baffles in the brew vessel) overflow from the brew vessel and thus be lost as spillage.
for known devices such as those following the teachings of U.S. Pat. No. 3,565,641 a significant amount of fluid can remain in the piston-chamber (e.g. for an initial water input of 150 cc about 15 cc can remain in the piston chamber). A subsequent cup of coffee can thus be contaminated by this residual liquid, i.e. the residual liquid can lower the temperature of the beverage served and can distort its taste.
for known devices such as those following the teachings of U.S. Pat. No. 3,565,641 the coffee residue is relatively moist; for known devices such as those following the teachings of U.S. Pat. No. 3,369,478 the compressed air will tend to wedge particles into the openings of the permanent filter.
Accordingly, it would be advatageous to have an assembly for a brewing apparatus having a mechanically simple brew/pump mechanism with few moving parts and which can be relatively easily repaired or replaced.
It would be advatageous to have an assembly for a brewing apparatus having a mechanically simple brew/pump mechanism for providing a relatively small sized apparatus able to dispense relatively large single servings of a beverage such as coffee as well as relatively small servings (e.g. serving any amounts variable in size between about 4 to about 16 ounces).
It would be advantageous to have a mechanically simple brew/pump assembly for a brewing apparatus, the assembly having a reduced number of brew/pump elements, so as to limit or reduce beverage contact therewith as well as heat transfer during brewing and dispensing of the beverage.
It would be advantageous to have a mechanically simple brew/pump assembly for a brewing apparatus which provides for a positive and total displacement of beverage to a cup.
It would be advantageous to have a mechanically simple brew/pump assembly for a brewing apparatus which provides for back purge of air through the grounds residue after the beverage has been dispensed and which faclitates drying of the grounds residue and the loosening therof from the filter to facilitate removal from the filter or filter support means.
It would be advantageous to have a mechanically simple brew/pump assembly for a brewing apparatus, the assembly having a simple and relatively compact mechanism for suppressing splillage due to foaming during the injection of air into a brew vessel.


A thermal or infrared imaging system having an optical barrel, an external stop formed by a mirror, a dewar, a cold shield, a focal plane array, and multiple retroreflectors. The cold shield and focal plane array are located inside the dewar. The mirror directs desired light bundles at the focal plane array. The retroreflectors are attached to the inside of the optical barrel. The retroreflectors are arranged such that the retroreflectors exist in all lines of sight of the focal plane array, except those lines of sight associated with the external stop. Consequently, the retroreflectors do not interfere with the desired light bundles which are focused onto the focal plane array. However, all light outside of that which is focused is prevented from reaching the focal plane array by the retroreflectors. The retroreflectors are infrared retroreflectors arranged in a matrix. Each of the retroreflectors is a "concave" corner cube having low emissivity reflecting facets. The corner cubes reflect incoming rays by 180 degrees relative to input angles of the incoming rays. Thus, the focal plane array sees only cold outside of the desired light bundles.

1. Field of The Invention
The present invention is directed to imaging systems, and more particularly to thermal or infrared imaging systems.
2. Related Art
Thermal or infrared imaging systems have increased in importance in recent years. FIG. 1 is a cross-sectional view of a conventional infrared imaging system 101. The infrared imaging system 101 contains an IR detector 108 (also called focal plane array 108).
In order to keep the focal plane array 108 at a cryogenically cool temperature appropriate for thermal energy sensing (typically 77.degree. kelvin or cooler), the focal plane array 108 is integrated into a dewar assembly 102. The dewar 102 is essentially a small insulated container. A cold finger 110 contacts the focal plane array 108 to keep the focal plane array 108 cold. The cold finger 110 is cryogenically cooled from a gas bottle or a cryoengine.
The dewar 102 includes a dewar window 104. The dewar window 104 allows thermal energy into the dewar 102 but also serves as a vacuum seal for the dewar 102.
The infrared imaging system 101 also includes a cold shield 106 (also called a cold stop). The cold shield 106 is uniformly cooled and hence emits little or no thermal energy. The cold shield 106 serves the purpose of limiting the solid angle viewed by the focal plane array 108.
The need for highly efficient cold shielding of the focal plane array 108 is inherent in any high performance infrared imager 101. For conventional scanning infrared focal plane array sensors, such high efficiency cold shielding is normally achieved by making the cold shield aperture (within the dewar 102) the stop of the optical system 101. By doing this, the focal plane array 108 "sees" (in a thermodynamic sense) only the wanted cones of image forming light surrounded by a cold background represented by the cold shield.
In some high performance infrared imagers, however, the focal plane array 108 is perforce located far away from the optical stop of the optical system. Thus, an external stop 112 is used. The dewar 102 in which the focal plane array 108 is located is limited in length by cool-down time and other system constraints. Because of the location of the cold shield aperture, it is impossible for the cold shield itself to act as a stop of the optical system. Thus, an external stop is used. This is further described below with reference to FIGS. 2A and 2B.
FIG. 2A illustrates a cross-sectional view of a conventional infrared imaging system 101A. As shown in FIG. 2A, conventionally the infrared imaging system 101A is formed in an optical barrel 202. Unlike the cold shield 106, the optical barrel 202 is not cooled. Therefore, the optical barrel 202 emits thermal energy. For readability purposes, only half of the optical barrel 202 is shown.
FIG. 2A illustrates a desired light bundle 204 (one of the many which together image onto a focal plane array 108). Light bundle 204 is limited by the external stop 112 and focused on the focal plane array 108. In this patent document, the terms "light", "ray", and the like refer to the thermal (or infrared) energy contained in such lights or rays.
Also shown in FIG. 2A is undesired light 206 which is typical of that emitted by the inside of the optical barrel 202. The IR focal plane array 108 receives both the desired light bundle 204 and the undesired light 206. The reception of the undesired light 206 degrades the sensing performance of the infrared imaging system 101.
FIG. 2B illustrates a cross-sectional view of a modified conventional infrared imaging system 101B. The modified infrared imaging system 101B includes cold shield extensions 208. The cold shield extensions 208 are advantageous because they block the undesired light 206 from contacting the focal plane array 108. In other words, the cold shield 106 itself acts as a stop of the optical system. Again, only half the optical barrel 202 is shown for readability purposes.
Note, however, that the cold shield extensions 208 are undesirable because they also block the desired light bundle 204 from contacting the IR focal plane array 108. Therefore, the cold shield 106 cannot be modified to block the undesired light 206 because such modifications to the cold shield 106 would also result in a blockage of the desired light bundle 204. In other words, the cold shield 106 cannot act as a stop of the optical system.
Therefore, it is necessary to develop a means by which the focal plane array 108 sees a cold background even though the cold shield aperture does not define the external stop 112.

Retroreflectors for increasing cold shield efficiency


A power transmission apparatus T of a four wheel drive vehicle is provided with a multiple disc clutch C engaged in accordance with a difference between rotational speeds of a front wheel Wf and a rear wheel Wr and a gear ratio of a second gear mechanism 5 for transmitting rotation of the rear wheel Wr to an output shaft 9 of the multiple disc clutch C is set to be larger than a gear ratio of a first gear mechanism 4 for transmitting rotation of the front wheel Wf to an input shaft 8 of the multiple disc clutch C.

The present invention relates to a power transmission apparatus of a four wheel drive vehicle which includes a front wheel to which a driving force of an engine is directly transmitted, and a rear wheel to which a portion of the driving force of the engine is indirectly transmitted via a multiple disc clutch, and in which the multiple disc clutch is engaged by a hydraulic pressure generated by a hydraulic pump in accordance with a difference between rotational speeds of the front wheel and the rear wheel.
There is publicly known a power transmitting apparatus of such a four wheel drive vehicle provided with a torque cam mechanism for engaging a multiple disc clutch by a thrust force in an axial direction generated in accordance with a difference between rotational speeds of a first cam member moved in cooperation with rotation of a front wheel and a second cam member moved in cooperation with rotation of a rear wheel to promote response until a four wheel drive state is brought about after generating the differences between the rotational speeds of the front and the rear wheels by Patent Reference 1, shown below.
[Patent Reference 1]
JP-A-2001-213185
Meanwhile, although in running a vehicle forward at a constant speed, a rotational speed of a front wheel and a rotational speed of a rear wheel are to be the same, there is a case in which the rotational speed of the front wheel exceeds the rotational speed of the rear wheel by a difference in a small slip rate between the front and the rear wheels by a running resistance or the like, at this occasion, according to the power transmission apparatus of the four wheel drive vehicle described in Patent Reference 1, the multiple disc clutch is engaged to bring about an unnecessary four wheel drive state, further, a transmitting torque of the multiple disc clutch is amplified since the power transmission apparatus is provided with the torque cam mechanism and therefore, there poses a problem of increasing a fuel consumption amount of the engine. Further, a frequency of bringing about the four wheel drive state is increased and therefore, an extra strength needs to set in order to ensure durability of a drive system to pose a problem of causing an increase in weight of the drive system and an increase in cost.

Power transmission apparatus of four wheel drive apparatus


Automatic fault recovery of upsets in a memory controller are provided to minimize data loss. In addition to memory control, the present invention allows for the incorporation of majority voting circuits with integrated alignment between three voted data streams. The memory array is divided into two basic components: (1) the write side (data in); and (2) the read side (data out). Each of these components has a separate memory address counter. The write counter is loaded into a holding register during a synchronization period. After determining the validity of the write cycle for fault tolerance and setting data latency for pipelining, the read counter is loaded with the write counter value. The reading of the memory array commences at the counter value that was stored in the read counter, which is the same as the original write counter value.

1. Field
The present invention generally relates to memory controller synchronization and, in particular, relates to auto-recovery, fault tolerant synchronization of memory controllers.
2. Background
For space-based or high-reliability systems using memory controllers internal to Field Programmable Gate Arrays ("FPGAs"), radiation effects are a major concern. In applications with streaming data or other data flow, upsets in the internal memory structures can have both short- and long-term consequences to the validity of the information stored therein.
Other approaches to addressing this problem have compared write and read counters and stopped or interrupted the process on any overflow (i.e., when the write counter exceeds the read counter) or underflow (i.e., when the read counter exceeds the write counter). These approaches also use conditional flag generation (e.g., flags such as FULL, EMPTY, etc.) to start or stop the data flow.
These approaches present a number of problems because of their asynchronous signaling properties, which can generate glitches instead of valid signals when checking for FULL, EMPTY, or other conditions. Moreover, in case of faults, these approaches are not self-synchronizing and require additional circuitry or processing to recover from fault conditions.

Auto-recovery fault tolerant memory synchronization


Mechanisms for spatially isolating a region of interest (ROI) in a scene are disclosed. A first sensor generates sensor data that quantifies energy received from a scene within a field of view (FOV) of the first sensor to generate a real-time FOV full motion video. A processor analyzes the sensor data to identify a first ROI during a wait period of a frame period of the first sensor. A first subset of micromirrors in a micromirror array that is directed toward the scene is identified. The first subset of micromirrors receives energy from the first ROI. At least one micromirror in the first subset is controlled to move from a primary position of the at least one micromirror to a first tilt position of the at least one micromirror to reflect the energy from the first ROI toward a second sensor, the first ROI being spatially isolated from the real-time FOV full motion video.

Identification and classification of objects contained within a field of view of an image sensor is important in a number of contexts, including, for example, targeting systems used in aircraft. Analyzing energy emitted or reflected by a region of interest (ROI) in a scene may be useful in determining, for example, a range or distance to the ROI, a chemical composition of the ROI, an extent of the ROI, or a variety of other information about the ROI, that may be used, for example to determine whether the ROI poses a threat. The information that can be gleaned from such ROI may require many different types of sensors, including spectral sensors, range sensors, multiple image sensors, such as visible image sensors and infrared image sensors, and the like. Typically, each different sensor may require a corresponding lens system and other mechanical and/or electronic components that take up substantial space, and increase costs. On an aircraft, space is at a minimum. Accordingly, there is a need for mechanisms for analyzing energy associated with a scene that minimize space requirements and reduce costs.

Spatial isolation of energy associated with a scene