A cleat clamping mechanism includes a base member, a first cleat clamping component movably coupled to the base member, and a second cleat clamping component coupled to the base member and spaced apart from the first cleat clamping component. The first cleat clamping component moves relative to the base member in response to a first force applied in a first direction, and the first cleat clamping component moves relative to the base member in response to a second force applied in a second direction that is different from the first direction. A resistance mechanism applies a particular resistive force to movement of the first cleat clamping component when the first cleat clamping component moves in response to the first force, but the resistance mechanism applies a different resistive force to movement of the first cleat clamping component when the first cleat clamping component moves in response to the second force.

The present invention is directed to bicycle pedals with cleat clamping mechanisms and, more particularly, to a bicycle pedal having a cleat clamping mechanism which has different clamping forces for engaging and disengaging the cleat.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,928,549 shows a conventional bicycle pedal with a cleat clamping mechanism for engaging a cleat attached to a sole of a bicycling shoe. The pedal includes a horizontally-oriented U-shaped front clamping member disposed on the front of the pedal for engaging a front projection of the cleat. An inverted L-shaped rear clamping member is pivotably connected to the rear of the pedal for engaging a rear projection of the cleat, and a spring biases the rear clamping member forward toward the pedal body. The upper surface of the rear clamping member has a vertically inclined portion which cooperates with the cleat when the cleat is to be engaged with the pedal, and inner side surfaces of the rear clamping member have respective horizontally inclined portions which cooperate with the cleat when the cleat is to be disengaged from the pedal.
In operation, the rider inserts the front cleat projection into the horizontally-oriented U-shaped front clamping member and presses the rear cleat projection downward on the upper surface of the rear clamping member. The rear cleat projection presses against the vertically inclined portion of the upper surface of the rear clamping member, thus causing the rear clamping member to pivot away from the pedal body against the biasing force of the spring. After the rear cleat projection passes below the edge of the rear clamping member, the rear clamping member pivots forward toward the pedal body in accordance with the biasing force of the spring, thus engaging the rear cleat projection. As a result, the cleat now is firmly clamped by the front clamping member and rear clamping member. To disengage the cleat from the pedal, the rider rotates his or her foot around an axis perpendicular to the pedal surface. This causes the rear cleat projection to press against one of the horizontally inclined portions of the rear clamping member, thus causing the rear clamping member to pivot away from the pedal body against the biasing force of the spring. The cleat is released from the front and rear clamping members as soon as the rear projection passes by the lateral edge of the rear clamping member.
It is usually desirable to engage the cleat in the clamping mechanism quickly and to avoid inadvertent disengagement of the cleat from the clamping mechanism. The level of difficulty of engagement and disengagement of the cleat is determined by the biasing force of the spring connected to the pivoting rear clamping member. Thus, quick engagement is accomplished by using a spring having a small biasing force so that the rear clamping member moves easily when the rear cleat projection contacts the vertically inclined portion of the rear clamping member. On the other hand, prevention of inadvertent disengagement is accomplished by using a spring with a large biasing force, thus making it difficult to accidentally pivot the rear clamping member during vigorous riding. In a conventional bicycle pedal such as the pedal described above, there is only one biasing force for both engagement and disengagement of the cleat. Thus, the desired differences in engagement and disengagement forces cannot be accommodated.


A fast, CMOS-based peak detection cell circuit and related methods can be used to determine maximum and minimum excursions of a signal being monitored during the very short intervals between high speed sampling points. Two nodes, "a" and "b", of such a circuit are precharged. Node "a" is then connected to the signal to be monitored. A PMOS transistor, with node "a" on its gate and node "b" on its drain, then causes a capacitance at node "b" to discharge to the voltage level of node "a" plus a constant offset voltage. Node "b" thus tracks downward excursions of the signal to be monitored, but not upward ones. Therefore, the voltage level at node "b" at the end of the acquisition interval is a function of the lowest voltage level assumed by the signal. A trio of such minimum detection cell circuits can be used together to find minimum and maximum behaviors of a differential complementary pair of signals. One cell is used to find the minimum of the signal, another the minimum of its complement, and the third the minimum of a common mode signal associated with the signal and its complement. Appropriate subtraction then produces actual signal minimums and maximums. An alternative embodiment for use with longer hold windows has a third node, "c", that is isolated from sub-threshold currents that would otherwise corrupt the analog data over time.

This invention relates to high speed peak detection, and more particularly to a CMOS-based peak detector for finding signal minimums and maximums, e.g., glitches, on a signal during the intervals between successive high speed samples in a fast-in, slow-out data acquisition system.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,271,488 to Saxe for a "High-Speed Acquisition System Employing an Analog Memory Matrix", hereby incorporated by reference, disclosed one version of a high speed analog data acquisition system. Co-pending patent application Ser. No. 07/589,222 by Saxe et al. for an "Analog Acquisition System Including a High Speed Timing Generator", hereby incorporated by reference, describes an improved analog signal acquisition system that is faster than the system described in the '488 patent.
Any method for determining the behavior of an analog signal that is based on sampling the signal at discrete intervals faces the fundamental issue of uncertainty as to the behavior of the signal between samples. The behavior of the signal between samples may nonetheless be of great interest, e.g., if there are glitches on the signal that are causing some sort of problem.
There are digital methods for finding the minimum and maximum behavior of an analog signal, but they also leave gaps between samples and the behavior of the signal within those gaps is still undetermined. However, if the signal can be sufficiently oversampled to ensure capture of the transient events of interest, such approaches can appear to be continuous relative to lower bandwidth activity. In one of these digital methods, two registers are used to store the output of an analog-to-digital converter. A digital comparator monitors the contents of the two registers and retains, for example, the larger value, while enabling the other register to store the next incoming sample. For a "max" detector, the smaller sample is always discarded and the larger one retained. Thus, the largest value received so far is always saved in one register, while the other register is made available for storing the next incoming value. The result is that the largest value found during a sampling period ends up stored in one or the other of the two registers at the end of the period and that register is then selected for readout. Speed increases can be achieved by interleaving several such max (or min) monitors and selecting the most extreme of their outputs as the maximum-max at the end of the sampling period. However, for high frequency signals and/or very fast transients sufficient oversampling is either technically infeasible or prohibitively expensive.
In analog data acquisition systems implemented using analog circuitry and bipolar transistors and diodes there is a convenient way to determine signal minimums and maximums. A diode and capacitor can be arranged to store the largest voltage signal that appears on the input within a sample interval. Using two such diode/capacitor circuits in alternation, one can be used to monitor the signal while the other is being read out and cleared to prepare it for its turn at monitoring the signal.
Complementary Metal Oxide on Semiconductor (CMOS) transistor technology provides some advantages over bipolar transistor technology. In particular, circuitry implemented in CMOS is less expensive, more dense, and uses less power than comparable circuitry implemented in bipolar transistors. However, MOS transistors are slower than bipolar ones, and must be configured differently in order to achieve high bandwidth operation.

CMOS-based peak detector for fast-in, slow-out min/max detection


A projector type headlamp comprises expansion reflecting mirrors having an elliptic reflecting surface which has a first focus where a light source is provided and a second focus close to a projection lens and which is provided above a horizontal line passing through an optical center line between a main reflecting mirror and the projection lens and an auxiliary reflecting mirror having a parabolic reflecting surface which has a focus where the light source is provided and which is provided outside the projection lens. The width of a light distribution is expanded by the expansion reflecting mirrors and a spot high-illuminance portion is generated in the light distribution by the auxiliary reflecting mirror to expand a field of view.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a headlamp or an auxiliary headlamp for a vehicle and, more specifically, to a projector type headlamp which employs an elliptic reflection surface such as a composite elliptic surface.
2. Background Art
FIG. 7 shows the configuration of a conventional projector type headlamp 90. The projector type headlamp 90 has a reflecting mirror 92 having a complex elliptic surface and a first focus where a light source 91 such as a tungsten halogen lamp is provided, and a shade 93 near a second focus of the reflecting mirror 92 is provided. In front of the shade 93, there is provided a projection lens 94 whose focus is in the vicinity of the shade 93.
The light source 91, the reflecting mirror 92 and the projection lens 94 are arranged such that their centers are aligned with an optical center line (an optical axis) Z of the projector type headlamp 90 and the shade 93 is arranged such that an upper end thereof is substantially aligned with the optical center line Z.
In the thus formed projector type headlamp 90, since light converges as an elliptic pencil of rays having such a cross section which is wider in a horizontal direction at the second focus by the reflecting mirror 92, a portion of light unnecessary from a viewpoint of light distribution characteristics is shaded by the shade 93 to shape the pencil of rays and the shaped pencil of rays is projected in a radiation direction by the projection lens 94.
FIG. 8 shows an example of light distribution characteristics QDP obtained by the projector type headlamp 90 configured as described above in which the cross section of the pencil of rays whose lower half portion is shaded by the shade 93 is inverted upside down by the projection lens 94 and projected. At this point, to facilitate the confirmation of a road shoulder side, a road illuminating portion DPL which rises at an angle of 15.degree. to the left from the center of the light distribution characteristics is provided by the shape of the shade 93 when this headlamp 90 is for passage on the left.
The light distribution characteristics QDP show the actual measurement values of the projector type headlamp 90 which uses a 55W tungsten halogen lamp as the currently used light source 91 and the total quantity of light for generating the light distribution characteristics QDP is substantially 485 lumen and the maximum luminous intensity is 21,800 candela.
However, in the conventional projector type headlamp 90 described above, firstly, since a light quantity distribution in the direction of the cross section of the pencil of rays is determined by the characteristics of the reflecting mirror 92 and a relatively uniform brightness distribution is obtained from an elliptic reflecting surface such as the above-described complex elliptic surface, illuminance in a front direction of an automobile becomes not so high due to light distribution characteristics, thereby lowering the remote visibility.
Secondly, in this projector type headlamp 90, since a light emitting portion which can be seen from the outside when the headlamp lights up is only the projection lens 94, the portion has an extremely small area, and light radiated from the projection lens 94 has strong directivity, the visibility of the outside at night deteriorates. Further, thirdly, since an opening portion is only the projection lens 94 having a small area, external light hardly enters therein, and the projection lens 94 appears black and looks like a hole during daytime when the headlamp does not light up with the result that it mars the appearance of the headlamp. Solutions to these problems are awaited.


The use of 1,1,1,3,3-pentafluorobutane (R365mfc) as refrigerant in turbocompressor cooling systems, which, due to their construction, can achieve high outputs with a small space and material requirement. Such systems used in high-performance commercial and industrial refrigeration units.

The invention relates to the use of a refrigerant in turbocompressors.
Following the discovery of the ozone-damaging effect of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), such as R11, R12, R114, and chlorofluorohydrocarbons (HCFCs), such as R22 and R123, in the 1970s, with the Montreal Protocol an agreement was signed in 1987 to replace these substances with other refrigerants. Further international and national secondary legislation shortened the agreed phasing-out terms for these substances. For this reason, it was necessary to search for suitable substitutes which can replace CFCs and HCFCs in present applications.
The use of R365mfc as blowing agent or refrigerant is known, but its application as refrigerant in turbocompressors has not been described hitherto.
Turbocompressors in the field of refrigeration engineering are exclusively of radial construction. They are distinguished e.g. by a low power to weight ratio, small bulk and low susceptibility to failure.
It is likewise known that substances having a high relative molecular weight are suitable as refrigerants for turbocompressors, since a lower head and hence frequently a lower number of stages are required in order to reach a given compression ratio than for a substance with a lower relative molecular weight.
Typical refrigerants for turbocompressors include, for example, trichlorofluoromethane (R11), dichlorodifluoromethane (R12), chlorodifluoromethane (R22), 1,2-dichlorotetrafluoroethane (R114) or dichlorotrifluoroethane (R123). The use of 1,2,2,3,3-pentafluoropropane and 1,1,1,3,3,3-hexafluoropropane as refrigerant in turbocompressors has been described in EP 0 595 937 and U.S. Pat. No. 5,662,825, respectively.
The specifications of the turbocompressors are determined, inter alia, by the type of refrigerant. Usually, the turbocompressors are designed based on the necessary, known or still to be determined properties of the selected refrigerant.

Use of 1,1,1,3,3-pentafluorobutane as a refrigerant in a turbocompressor cooling system


A fluid displacement apparatus includes a stator section with a rotor therein. The stator section includes a cylindrical casing, a helically-convoluted chamber section within the cylindrical casing, and a rigid sleeve within the cylindrical casing and separate from the helically-convoluted chamber section. The rigid sleeve includes a circular internal bore. The rotor is rotatably disposed within the cylindrical casing. The rotor includes a helically-lobed section disposed within the helically-convoluted chamber section, and a circular cylinder section disposed within the rigid sleeve. The circular cylinder section provides a fluid passageway between the rigid sleeve and the circular cylinder section. Side loads from the rotor are distributed along a contact line at any point of rotation of the circular cylinder section within the rigid sleeve.

This invention relates generally to motors, and more particularly, to hydraulic motors and gear pumps.
Today's downhole drilling motors usually are of the convoluted helical gear expansible chamber construction because of their high power performance and relatively thin profile. In these motors, drilling fluid is pumped through the motor to operate the motor and is used to wash the chips away from the drilling area. These motors can provide direct drive for a drill bit and can be used in directional drilling or deep drilling. In the typical design, the working portion of the motor includes an outer housing having an internal multi-lobed stator mounted therein and a multi-lobed rotor disposed within the stator. Generally, the rotor has one less lobe than the stator to facilitate pumping rotation. The rotor and stator both have helical lobes and their lobes engage to form sealing surfaces which are acted on by the drilling fluid to drive the rotor within the stator. In the case of a helical gear pump, the rotor is turned by an external power source to facilitate pumping of the fluid. In other words, a downhole drilling motor uses pumped fluid to rotate the rotor, while the helical gear pump turns the rotor to pump fluid.

Lobed rotor with circular section for fluid-driving apparatus


A computing system compares various reference fingerprints each representing a reference media stream broadcast on a different respective known channel, and the computing system determines that a plurality of the reference fingerprints match each other, thus defining a multi-match group of the matching reference fingerprints. In response, the computing system identifies a fingerprint feature that could define a distinction between the reference fingerprints, and the computing system resolves the multi-match based on the identified feature, thereby determining the channel carrying the media stream being rendered by the media presentation device. And the server then takes channel-specific action based on the determined channel.

A typical media presentation device operates to receive an analog or digital media stream representing media content such as video and/or audio content and to render and present the media content on a user interface such as a display screen and/or an audio speaker. Examples of such devices include, without limitation, televisions, computer monitors, projection systems, loudspeakers, headphones, and the like.
In many cases, such a media presentation device may be in communication with a receiver, such as a local set top box or other similar device or a remote server, that has access to numerous discrete channels of media content and that can selectively deliver a given such channel's media content to the media presentation device for playout.
By way of example, a television may be communicatively linked with a cable-TV set top box that has access to a set of cable-TV channels, and the set top box may be configured to receive user input selecting a particular channel and to responsively tune to the selected channel and output to the television the media content of the selected channel, for presentation of the media content to a user. As another example, a loudspeaker may be communicatively linked with a radio that has access to a set of radio stations, and the radio may be configured to receive user input selecting a particular channel (station) and to responsively tune to the selected channel and output to the loudspeaker the media content of the selected channel, for presentation of the media content to a user. And as still another example, a media presentation device such as a display or speaker may be communicatively linked with a computer that has access to a myriad of online streaming media channels, and the computer may be configured to receive user input selecting a particular channel and to responsively initiate receipt and output of the selected media content and provide the media content to the display and/or speaker for presentation to a user.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Media channel identification and action with multi-match detection and disambiguation based on matching with differential reference- fingerprint feature


A method and disk apparatus, for writing data disk apparatus, that reduces the adverse influence of noise caused by data head writing on a read signal of a servo head even though the data head and the servo head are collaterally paired with no disks there between. A magnetic disk apparatus comprises a plurality of magnetic disks that are stacked at predetermined intervals; a servo head for reading servo signals recorded on a servo surface of one of the magnetic disks; a plurality of data heads, one of which is provided for each data surface of the magnetic disks with a first data head being collaterally positioned with the servo head, with no intervening magnetic disk, and second data heads being positioned at other than the collateral position; and an actuator for supporting the servo head and the data heads and for positioning the servo head and the data heads by moving them radially relative to the magnetic disks. The method comprises the steps of: producing a write current whose value is varied by selecting either the first data head or one of the second data heads in consonance with a head select signal; and driving, at the write current value, the data head that is selected by the head select signal in consonance with write data. The magnetic disk apparatus further comprises a write circuit for varying a write current value by selecting either the first data head or one of the second data heads in consonance with a head select signal, and for driving the selected data head in consonance with write data.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method for writing data in a magnetic disk apparatus that employs a single surface of one disk of stacked magnetic disks as a dedicated servo surface, and a magnetic disk apparatus. In particular, the present invention pertains to a method for writing data in a magnetic disk apparatus that prevents the noise that occurs during data head writing from adversely affecting a servo head read signal, and a magnetic disk apparatus that employs that method.
2. Description of the Related Art
A magnetic disk apparatus, a kind of data storage device, includes rotary magnetic disks, magnetic heads, and an actuator to position the magnetic heads over desired tracks on the magnetic disks. In this magnetic disk apparatus, after the actuator position the magnetic head over a desired track on the magnetic disk, the magnetic head read data from or write data to the track. Such magnetic disk apparatuses are widely used as external data storage devices. Because of the recent emphasis on reducing the size of computer systems, compact magnetic disk apparatuses that have large memory capacities are in demand. To further expand the memory capacity of magnetic disk apparatuses, in addition to increasing the disk data recording density, it is also necessary to increase the number of disks that can be mounted in an apparatus without exceeding a predetermined height.
FIGS. 1A and 1B are explanatory diagrams for prior art.
As shown in FIG. 1A, a magnetic disk apparatus includes a plurality of rotary magnetic disks 10-1 to 10-n and an actuator (or a carriage) 12 that carries a plurality of magnetic heads 11-1 to 11-p at its extremity. When seeking a desired track, the actuator 12 moves the magnetic heads 11-1 to 11-p radially across the tracks on the magnetic disks 10-1 to 10-n. After the magnetic heads 11-1 to 11-p are positioned over the desired track, it performs either data reading from or data writing to that track.
To position the magnetic heads 11-1 to 11-p over a desired track, it is necessary to control the position of the actuator 12. For this purpose, a servo signal pattern, which has been recorded on one surface (servo surface) of a magnetic disk, is read by a servo head and the actuator 12 is controlled in consonance with the read servo signal.
Generally, a dedicated servo surface is provided either on the top magnetic disk of the stacked magnetic disks 10-1 to 10-n (magnetic disk 10-1 in the diagram), or on the bottom magnetic disk (magnetic disk 10-n in the diagram). When the thermal deformation of arms 13, of the actuator 12, to which are fixed magnetic heads 11-1 to 11-p, occurs, however, positioning differences between the servo head 11-1, which faces the servo surfaces and the data head 11-p, which is the farthest from the servo head 11-1, commonly occur. More specifically, the greater the distance between the arms 13, the greater is the temperature variation between the arms 13. Also, because the actuator 12 is not uniformly constructed, the thermal deformation of the arms 13 varies widely. Thus, there is an increased difference in the relative positions of the servo head 11-1l to the data head 11-p that is located farthest therefrom.
When the above described thermal deformation occurs at the actuator 12, the positioning difference (i.e., off track measurement) of the data head, located farthest from the servo head, increases with respect to the data track to which data was written by that data head before deformation, and read errors easily occur. Likewise, a data track where data was newly written after deformation has occurred tends to have a large off track measurement when the arm 13 assumes its original shape, and the above described conditions will also occur.
To prevent such an occurrence, one method reduces an off track measurement by providing a servo surface on a magnetic disk 10-m that is located almost in the middle of the stacked magnetic disks 10-1 to 10-n, and by shortening the distance between the top head and the bottom head, both of which are positioned the farthest from the servo surface.
In this method, as shown in FIG. 1B, a servo head 11-m, for the servo surface, which is positioned over the top surface of the magnetic disk 10-m, is collaterally paired with a data head 11-l, which is positioned over the bottom surface of the adjacent magnetic disk 10-l, with no intervening magnetic disk.
In this case, when the inter-disk spacing for the magnetic disks is reduced so that more magnetic disks can be stacked, because of the recently arising request for increased memory capacity, the space between the servo head 11-m and the data head 11-l is accordingly reduced. When data is written by the data head 11-l, therefore, electromagnetic induction caused by the write current that is supplied to the data head 11-l increases, and magnetic flux leakage from the data head 11-l greatly interferes with read signals from the servo head 11-m. Consequently, since electromagnetic noise leakage due to data writing by the data head 11-l is easily carried by the read output from the servo head 11-m, the quality of a servo signal is deteriorated and servo positioning errors easily occur.
For a magnetic disk apparatus within which the inter-disk spacing for the stacked magnetic disks is restricted, therefore, reduction of the electromagnetic noise is required in order to collaterally locate the data head 11-l with the servo head 11-m. Conventionally, the following proposals have been made:
(1) A shield plate is provided between the servo head 11-m and the collaterally positioned data head 11-l to prevent electromagnetic noise leakage (for example, Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication Nos. Sho 61-105783, and Hei 4-103088). PA1 (2) To reduce the effect on the servo head 11-m of the noise produced by its collaterally positioned data head 11-1, the relative positions of the two heads are altered by shifting them radially or circumferentially with respect to magnetic disks (for example, Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. Sho 63-53710). PA1 (3) In order to reduce noise, the points at which a write current that flows to the data head 11-1 rises and falls are shifted with respect to the peak of the output of a read signal from the servo head 11-m (for example, Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. Sho 58-97164).
As for the first proposal, however, shield plate components are necessary. Also, a shield plate attached to a servo head, or its collaterally positioned data head, alters the floating characteristics of the head to which it is attached compared to a head without an attached shield plate, and this causes excessive abrasion of a head and a magnetic disk. Further, because of the configuration of the apparatus, it is difficult to place the shield plate between a magnetic disk with a servo surface and a facing magnetic disk by adding it to the magnetic disk stack.
Regarding the second proposal, a gimbal to hold a magnetic head at the arm of a carriage cannot commonly be used for all the heads, and as the positions of these heads are shifted, the heads move off the tracks radially or circumferentially and narrow the movable range of a carriage.
Further, as for the third proposal, since the frequency of a write current is high even though the points at which a current rises and falls are shifted between the peaks of signals, noise leakage cannot be reduced. Therefore, it is not possible to prevent noise from being carried by a servo signal.

Magnetic disk writing method and a magnetic disk apparatus


A distributive and dispersive mixing apparatus comprising two confronting surfaces (1,2) having cavities (3) therein which on relative motion of the surfaces function as a cavity transfer mixer (CTM) or controlled deformation dynamic mixer (CDDM) or both, CHARACTERISED IN THAT the normal separation of the confronting surfaces varies in the direction of bulk flow, so as to define a plurality of regions of successive closer and wider spacing of the confronting surfaces.

It is recognised that mixing can be described as either distributive or dispersive. In a multi-phase material comprising discrete domains of each phase, distributive mixing seeks to change the relative spatial positions of the domains of each phase, whereas dispersive mixing seeks to overcome cohesive forces to alter the size and size distribution of the domains of each phase. Most mixers employ a combination of distributive or dispersive mixing although, depending on the intended application, the balance will alter. For example, a machine for mixing peanuts and raisins will ideally be wholly distributive so as not to damage the things being mixed, whereas a blender/homogeniser will be dispersive.
Many different types of rotor/stator mixer are known. Flow-through stirring reactors such as those disclosed in US 2003/0139543 comprise a vessel with internally mounted mixing elements and are generally distributive in function. The direction of bulk flow within such a mixer is from the inlet port to the outlet port.
Other types of rotor-stator mixer (such as that disclosed in WO 2007/105323 are designed with the intention of forming fine emulsions and are dispersive in character. DE 1557171 discloses a mixer with a plurality of alternately rotating and static, concentric cage-like elements through which the direction of bulk flow is radial.
EP 0048590, EP 0799303 and GB 2118058 describe a known mixer type hereinafter referred to as a "Cavity Transfer Mixer" (CTM). The CTM comprises elements which define confronting surfaces, each having a series of cavities formed therein, in which the surfaces move relatively to each other and in which a liquid material is passed between the surfaces and flows along a pathway successively passing through the cavities in each surface. In FIG. 1 of GB 2118058, the confronting surfaces are the inner surface of a sleeve and the outer surface of a co-axially disposed inner drum. The cavities are arranged so that they overlap, forming sinuous flow paths which change as the drum and the sleeve rotate relative to each other. The type of mixer shown in GB 2118058 has stator and rotor elements with opposed cavities which, as the mixer operates, move past each other across the direction of bulk flow through the mixer. In such CTM-type mixers, primarily distributive mixing is obtained. Shear is applied by the relative movement of the surfaces in a generally perpendicular direction to the bulk flow of material along the mixer. In such a device there is relatively little variation in the cross-sectional area for flow as the material passes axially down the device. Generally, the cross-sectional area for flow (due to the cavities) varies by a factor of less than 3 through the apparatus. Absent the cavities, the "metal to metal" separation between the inner surface of the sleeve and the surface of the drum is essentially constant.
The commercial application of CTMs has been largely restricted to the thermoplastics' conversion industry, where CTM technology originated (see EP 048590). In part this is because established rotor/stator devices, such as "Silverson" mixers, offer some of the benefits and at a significantly lower cost.
In some mixers, such as that described in EP 0434124 a cage-like rotor and stator elements are configured such that the bulk flow must pass through relatively narrow spaces within the mixer. Similar alternation of relatively wide and relatively narrow flow spaces, for the purpose of forming an emulsion, are known from GB 129757. GB 129757 discloses a mixer in which the confronting surfaces are formed between two conical members, located one within the other. The inner conical member is a rotor and has two semicircular, circumferential and horizontally disposed grooves which, together with similar grooves on the confronting surface of the outer conical member define annular mixing chambers between regions of high extensional flow. A further feature of the mixer disclosed in GB 129757 is that the spacing between the confronting surfaces tapers in the direction of bulk flow, such that the normal spacing between the surfaces (i.e. the spacing ignoring the grooves) is reduced in the direction of bulk flow.
GB 129757 and EP 0434124 are not CTM's as the relatively wide spaces within the mixers form annuli and there it little or no alteration of the flow path geometry as the rotor and stator move.
EP 0799303 describes a mixer, hereinafter referred to as a "Controlled Deformation Dynamic Mixer" (CDDM). In common with the CTM, this type of mixer has stator and rotor elements with confronting surfaces having opposed cavities which, as the mixer operates, move past each other across the direction of bulk flow through the mixer. The CDDM is distinguished from the CTM in that material is also subjected to extensional deformation. The extensional flow and efficient dispersive mixing is secured by having confronting surfaces with cavities arranged such that the cross sectional area for bulk flow of the liquid through the mixer successively increases and decreases by a factor of at least 5 through the apparatus. In comparison with the embodiment of the CTM described above, the cavities of the CDDM are generally aligned or slightly offset in an axial direction such that material flowing axially along the confronting surfaces is forced through narrow gaps as well as flowing along and between the cavities. The CDDM combines the distributive mixing performance of the CTM with dispersive mixing performance. Thus, the CDDM is better suited to problems such as reducing the droplet size of an emulsion, where dispersive mixing is essential. As with the CTM disclosed in GB 2118058, the normal spacing of the confronting surfaces (absent the cavities) in the CDDM is constant along the length of the mixer. GB 129757 does not disclose a CDDM mixer because although regions of dispersive extensional flow alternate with distributive mixing zones, the distributive mixing zones are annular and do not have the CTM-like mixing action across the bulk flow through the mixer.
GB 2308076 shows several embodiments of a mixer comprising a co-called "sliding vane" pump. These include both drum/sleeve types where the bulk flow is along the axis of the mixer and mixers in which the flow is radial. Many other types of mixer can be configured either as the drum/sleeve type or the "flat" type. For example DD207104 and GB 2108407 show a mixer comprising two movable confronting surfaces with projecting pins which cause mixing in material flowing in a radial direction between the plates.
Both the CTM and the CDDM can be embodied in a "flat" form where the drum and the sleeve are replaced with a pair of disks mounted for relative rotation and the cavities are provided in the confronting surfaces of the disks. In this modified "flat" form the bulk flow is generally radial.
An important further consideration in certain CDDM designs concerns the relative axial positions of rotor and stator components during operation which are critical to performance. Such relative positions may change by axial displacement of the rotating parts with respect to the static parts and this may compromise critical clearances. Under "normal" operating conditions, such displacement is resisted through thrust bearings, an approach which becomes more difficult at high pressures and mixer speeds.
There are practical limits to the spacing between the confronting surfaces in the CDDM and CTM. As the device is heated, expansion may mean that the rotor/drum expands in a radial direction. The stator/sleeve may expand less as it is better able to lose heat. This can result in a narrowing of the gap between the confronting surfaces and even contact. At high operating speeds, contact between the surfaces can be catastrophic.
Further difficulties arise from the high shear rates which are encountered in mixers with very closely confronting surfaces. High shear rates lead to high shear stress (which is a function of shear rate and viscosity). These shear stresses lead to a high torque (which is related to the shear stress for a given geometry). For a fixed angular velocity of the mixing elements the power consumption is directly related to the torque. Hence mixers which employ high shear rates typically require large power inputs. This is not only adds cost, but can produce unwanted or uncontrolled heating of the material being processed.

Mixing apparatus of the CDDM- and/or CTM-type, and its use


An exercise machine to facilitate a leg extension exercise by a user. A rigid frame supports a pair of spaced-apart guide rails. A foot plate assembly is adapted to move along the guide rails and includes a foot support surface at a selected angle to support a sole of a foot of the user. A wing flange extends upwardly along an inner side of the foot support surface to align the foot during extension and retraction of the foot plate assembly along the guide rails. Rollers are arranged along each side of the guide rails to support the foot plate assembly. The rollers are arranged into sets of at least three rollers including two upper rollers and at least one lower roller in a triangular configuration. At least one of the lower rollers is offset horizontally from and disposed between the at least two of the upper rollers.

A number of exercise machines have been proposed in the art to facilitate exercise training of a human body. Such machines can use free weights, plates, resistance members (e.g., springs, bands), the body weight of the user, etc., in order to supply resistance to movement along a selected path to safely strengthen one or more muscle groups.
United States Published Patent Application No. 2004/0167000 discloses a leg exercise type machine invented by the inventor of the present application. The published '000 application generally provides a stationary sled exercise machine in which a user reciprocally advances and retracts the legs while leaning forward into a shoulder rest assembly to support the upper torso of the user. Unlike portable sleds which are designed to be pushed along a floor surface as the users take alternating, large extended and retracted strides, the stationary sled has foot mount guides that alternately advance and retract along rails against resistance supplied by a spring or other resistance member.
While operable, several patentably distinct improvements have been generated by the present inventor since the time of the filing of the '000 patent application, and it is to such improvements that the present application is directed.


An outsole for a shoe including first and second sole segments that overlap at least partially. The first sole segment can include at least one stud and be arranged at least in a mid-foot portion of the outsole. The second sole segment can include at least one stud and be arranged at least in a toe portion of the outsole. In some embodiments, the outsole can include a first cushion element arranged between the first sole segment and the second sole segment and overlapping with at least one first stud of the first or second sole segment. In some embodiments, the outsole can include a second cushion element being arranged between the first sole segment and the second sole segment and overlapping with at least one second stud of the first or second sole segment. In some embodiments, the outsole may be an outsole for a football shoe.

When designing outsoles for shoes and/or shoes, a compromise is often made between different properties that the outsole and/or the shoe should have. Exemplarily, a football shoe with a stiff outsole can provide outstanding properties for running with high speed, whereas the stiff outsole may however result in a reduced comfort. Hence, there is a continuing need for shoes designed to improve the overall properties of the outsole and/or the shoe.


A double tuned probe for employment in NMR apparatus includes a first resonant circuit of normal phase conductor coupled to the sample and also in communication with a second circuit containing a component in a superconductive phase. Communication between the two circuits supports two RF channels which may be exhibit relative sensitivities in proportion to their relative Q values.

The invention is in the field of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) and particularly relates to NMR probes having superconducting components.
NMR data are among the most precise characterizations of the chemical structure of matter, being based upon time/frequency measurements. The sensitivity, R, of an NMR instrument is limited by the relationship of the signal amplitude to the noise in the signal channel. Where the noise is treated as the rms value of the observed noise level, the sensitivity may be expressed as
R=S/(2Nrms)
and S/Nrms, the signal to noise parameter can be shown to be directly proportional to the square root of the quality factor, Q, of the receiver probe coil and inversely proportional to the square root of the temperature characterizing the probe coil resistance.
Thermal adjustment of the RF circuit of an NMR probe has been known for a number of years. NMR probe sensitivity is significantly enhanced by reduction of thermal noise by cooling of normal metal NMR coils as demonstrated by Styles, et al, J. Mag. Res. v. 60, 397 (1984) to yield a sensitivity gain of about a factor of three compared with a conventional probe. Rollwitz, U.S. Pat. No. 3,764,892, proposed a superconducting NMR coil, but this apparatus was not reduced to practice. Black, et al describe an NMR imaging probe using high temperature superconducting (HTS) materials. The application of these materials to high resolution NMR has been described by Hill, IEEE Trans. Appl. Superconductivity, v.7, p. 3750 (1997) and by Anderson, et al, Bull. Magn. Reson., v17, p.98 (1995).
The sensitivity of an NMR probe for fixed sample volume is also proportional to xcex7, the filling factor, for the coil. Thus, one may manipulate xcex7, Q and T to improve sensitivity. In particular, superconducting coils may achieve a Q of the order of 104 compared to values less than 102 for conventional coils. In addition, superconducting coils operate at temperatures of about 30xc2x0 K. compared to 300xc2x0 K. Thermal control of the NMR probe coil necessitates provision for thermal isolation between the coil and the object under study. As a consequence, the filling factor for the coil is diminished. With allowance for loss in filling factor appropriate to a typical 5 mm sample tube, sensitivity enhancement of an order of magnitude is achievable in respect to the conventional NMR probe. Clearly, a coil operating at room temperature facilitates maximization of filling factor.
The transmit (excitation) pulse of an analytic NMR instrument must produce an RF field of sufficient magnitude to excite all resonances in the frequency range under study. It is often desirable to produce and/or detect resonance conditions concurrently in different nuclei and this function is accommodated in an RF probe circuit capable of supporting resonance at multiple frequencies. Such multi-resonant RF probes are well known in the art. Generally, such a probe circuit supports two separate RF channels, each independently tunable where the two channels incorporate a common inductance coupled to the sample. One practical attribute of multi-resonant circuits is that the sensitivity in either channel is rather less than might be achieved in a corresponding singly resonant probe circuit. Moreover, in a multiply resonant circuit, the sensitivity can only be optimized at a one of the resonant frequencies while the remaining resonance(s) result in circuit sensitivities(s) significantly less than the circuit sensitivity for that one resonance. Accordingly, it would be desirable to increase the sensitivities of each RF channel of a multi-resonant NMR probe to approach the sensitivity achievable for corresponding singly resonant probe circuits.
In the prior art, a balanced dual resonant circuit is known wherein the high Q value properties of coaxial transmission lines is exploited to effectuate trap inductances. See U.S. Pat. No. 4,833,412, commonly assigned herewith.
An object for the present invention is the achievement of a multiply resonant NMR probe circuit wherein the sensitivity of the RF channels more closely approaches the sensitivity characterizing an equivalent singly tuned circuit for any such channel.
Further and additional advantages and objectives of the invention will be set forth in the description which follows, and in part will be apparent from practice of the invention.
The objectives are achieved in a mutliply tuned circuit which is realized from a first resonant circuit which couples to the object under study (typically via inductive component, or sample coil surrounding said object) and which first circuit communicates with at least one other resonant circuit (including a trap coil) which is remote from the object, and thus from the inductive component of the first circuit. Each of these first and other circuits supports an RF channel for communication to either a corresponding RF source or for the processing of a resonant signal developed in the respective circuit. The two resonant circuits preferably communicate through simple series connection whereby the RF channel which is directed to the other, or trap circuit (usually a low frequency channel) encounters a series connection to ground. The higher frequency RF channel is directed in parallel to the two resonant circuits. As described this multiple tuned circuit is conventional. However, as shown below, the sensitivity is relatively degraded for the two RF channels as a function of the ratio of the Q values for the respective inductive components. If the trap coil and/or components of this resonant circuit (which is remote from the object of study) incorporates superconductor in the superconducting phase, the corresponding Q value becomes very large, e.g. of order 103 to 104, whereas the non-superconductive resonant circuit coupled to the object retains a Q value of the order 102. The sensitivity of the respective RF channels may be adjusted to more nearly correspond to the sensitivity of independent singly tuned resonant circuits by the employment of superconductor in only one sub-circuit of the dual resonant circuit.

Superconductive networks to optimize multiply tuned NMR coils


A multi-functional adjustable tray that mounts on the arm of a chair to provide a comfortably accessible work surface to support a computer mouse and other devices. The adjustable tray may be easily mounted to either arm of a chair and provides width, length, rotation, and storage adjustments. The adjustable tray includes a generally planar platform and is pivotally connected to an armchair stop supported by adjustable guides secured to the chair arm by a compression element.

Computers are operated through the use of peripheral systems and devices such as the keyboard and the mouse. These devices enable a user to interact with a computer to input information, make decisions, and carry out various other functions. Direct physical contact with, and therefore close proximity to, these devices are essential to their operation.
However, in most circumstances a computer user works at a desk and leans forward or sideways from a comfortable sitting position to reach a keyboard or mouse on a desk or other flat surface. Reaching for the keyboard or the mouse in this way makes it very difficult to maintain proper posture and operate the computer comfortably. Use of a computer mouse or similar input device on a desktop stresses the back, shoulder and the wrist. For wrist stress and carpal tunnel syndrome, numerous products, such as ergonomically shaped mice and wrist supports, attempt to address the symptoms of this stress without addressing the awkward positioning that often causes strain.
Additionally, persons with debilitating injuries may find that reaching to a desk to use a keyboard, mouse, or other input device, is difficult or painful. Accordingly, there is a need for a surface for supporting an input device that maintains a position so that the user may maintain ergonomically correct posture and wrist position.


Drug delivery articles, resident articles, and retrieval systems e.g., for gram-level dosing, are generally provided. In some embodiments, the articles are configured for transesophageal administration, transesophageal retrieval, and/or gastric retention to/in a subject. In certain embodiments, the article includes dimensions configured for transesophageal administration with a gastric resident system. In some cases, the article may be configured to control drug release e.g., with zero-order drug kinetics with no potential for burst release for weeks to months. In some embodiments, the articles described herein comprise biocompatible materials and/or are safe for gastric retention. In certain embodiments, the article includes dimensions configured for transesophageal retrieval. In some cases, the articles described herein may comprise relatively large doses of drug (e.g., greater than or equal to 1 gram).

Drug adherence to indefinite duration oral therapy is often poor. Recent advances in developing gastric resident systems for long-term drug delivery of medication are addressing the challenge of medication adherence with swallowable systems. However, challenges for these drug delivery devices include, for example, achieving high levels of drug loading, controlling the release rate of drug for an extended period, and preventing the burst release of drug. Additionally, adherence rates to oral therapies for chronic asymptomatic conditions are estimated to be less than 50%. Current pharmacologic solutions to the adherence problem are limited to invasive devices and a restricted subset of pharmacologic agents. Furthermore, extended release orally administered drug delivery systems are limited by the quantity of drug that can fit inside the largest ingestible capsule and therefore cannot be used to treat many diseases with long and frequent dosing regimens.
Accordingly, improved systems, articles and methods are needed.


A method and apparatus for quantifying differences in human sensorimotor performance useful for diagnosing, assessing, and/or detecting brain injury and/or a neurological disorder, or identifying exceptional performance in a subject. In a task a subject's limb movement is restricted to a limited workspace and an object moves towards the limb. The objective of the task is for the subject to contact the object with the limb within a set time period. During the task a perturbation directed to the object and/or limb, or other feature of the environment, may occur on some trials, requiring a rapid motor correction in order to contact the object, or the subject may receive an alternative instruction on whether to interact with the object. Position data and/or motion data and/or kinetic data of the limb or portions thereof with respect to a presented object are obtained, and a data set is acquired for a plurality of trials. The acquired data set provides information about brain injury and/or a neurological disorder in the subject or exceptional capabilities of the subject.

A key aspect of our ability to move and interact within the environment is the ability to rapidly respond to motor errors or changes in the environment and continue to perform a motor action. For example, a hockey player may be skating down the ice with the puck and gets bumped by an opposing player or the hockey stick of the opposing player may redirect the puck along the ice. Skilled players will quickly adjust their movements to continue to skate down the ice or quickly move the stick to regain control of the puck. In other cases, we use contextual signals to alter ongoing motor actions. For example, a green traffic light signals that you can continue moving and proceed through the intersection, but the light can quickly change to yellow signaling you must stop moving if not presently near the intersection.
Our ability to make these goal-directed motor corrections are a hallmark of our voluntary motor systems allowing us to move and interact in a complex world (Scott, 2016). This rapid processing of sensory information to guide our movements is supported by broad cortical and sub-cortical circuits. Neurological disease and injury can damage these brain circuits and impact our ability to make rapid motor corrections, impacting our ability to perform a broad range of daily activities. Critically, different types of sensory feedback involve partially separate brain circuits so that focal lesions or impairments in brain circuits may impact the use of one sensory feedback pathway and not another. For example, lesion of the dorsal column-medial lemniscus pathway or primary somatosensory cortex will impact the use of sensory information from the limb, but not impact visual feedback (Kandel et al., 2013).
Clinical assessment plays a crucial role in all facets of patient care from diagnosis to prognosis as well as managing all aspects of patient care (Van Duesen and Brunt, 1997). Many areas of medicine rely on a broad range of technologies to assess body structure and function to aid clinical assessment. However, assessment of brain function continues to rely largely on subjective assessment through visual or physical inspection of the patient by a clinician. Traditional clinical scales use relatively coarse ordinal scales to ensure reliability, but also make it difficult to measure subtle but potentially important changes in performance across time.
There are essentially no standard clinical tools to accurately assess the ability of a subject to generate rapid motor corrections. The standard test of asking a subject to repeatedly touch their nose and the clinician's finger can involve the clinician abruptly moving their hand to a new spatial location so that the subject must generate a corrective response to this new location. As well, assessment of whole-body balance control can involve the clinician supporting a patient as they lean forward and then releasing their support to observe how the subject generates a corrective response to maintain balance. However, in healthy subjects, motor commands to muscles for these goal-directed motor corrections or corrections to maintain balance occur in as little as 100 ms, leading to changes in limb motion in under 200 ms (Cluff et al. 2015a; Scott, 2016). Given a standard blink of an eye takes 200 to 300 ms, it is very difficult for anyone to observe even a 50% slowing in the speed of such corrections by visual inspection.
Automated processes have been developed such as computer-based assessments. For example, CANTAB (Cambridge Cognition Ltd., Cambridge, U.K.) provides a range of behavioural tasks to assess various aspects of cognitive function, including measurements of reaction time to press or release a button when a sensory stimuli is presented on a computer screen. However, research now highlights that reaction time tasks capture only one aspect of how sensory information may be used, in this case to switch from one motor action to another, from holding a button, to lifting the hand to stop contact with the button (Scott, 2016). Importantly, such tasks do not assess how sensory information is used to guide an ongoing motor action.
Robotic technology provides one potential approach to provide a precise, objective measure of sensory, motor, and/or cognitive functions. This technology can measure subject performance during various tasks and quantify subject performance based on comparisons to performance of healthy subjects. For example, BKIN Technologies Ltd. (Kingston, Ontario, Canada) has developed a suite of tasks that assess brain functions including limb position sense, visual-guided reaching, rapid motor actions, as well as various tasks that also engage cognitive processes. However, none of these tasks directly assesses the ability of a subject to generate rapid motor corrections.
A number of studies have used either visual or mechanical disturbances as a subject performs tasks such as reaching to a spatial goal (Goodale et al. 1986; Brenner and Smeets, 2003; Cluff et al. 2015a; for Review see Cluff et al. 2015b). Visual disturbances are commonly either a shift of the position of the goal (target jump) or shift of a cursor representing the position of the subject's hand on a computer screen (cursor jump). Mechanical disturbances can also be applied to the limb, altering its motion towards the spatial goal, and requiring the subject to generate a motor correction to attain the goal. In order to ensure a subject does not anticipate the visual or mechanical disturbances, many reaching trials do not have any disturbance, allowing measures of the performance of the subject during unperturbed reaching.
While reaching tasks provide a useful task for basic and clinical research, there are several problems with using such techniques clinically. Notable is the substantial amount of time to complete enough reaching trials to quantify reliably the performance of a subject. For example, a single reaching trial requires the subject to maintain their hand at a start position, reach to the spatial goal when it is presented, stabilize their hand briefly at the spatial goal, and then return to the start position to start the next trial. For healthy subjects, such trials take ˜6 seconds to complete, then assessment of a single type of sensory feedback will take approximately 2.5 minutes (time based on two mechanical disturbances that push the hand laterally one direction or the other from the target, 12 trials of each disturbance and half of all trials do not include a disturbance). As sensory feedback involves many different pathways, one can have impairments in one type of feedback process and not another. Assessment of each of these pathways quickly increases the time necessary to assess a subject's ability to generate rapid motor corrections. For patients with difficulties making reaching movements the time to complete a single trial can quickly increase to 10 seconds or more. Thus, accurate assessment of four different types of sensory feedback processing can quickly increase to 20 minutes for various patient groups.
Another problem is that subjects with poor motor abilities may be much slower and not follow a roughly direct path to the goal (Coderre et al., 2010). These substantial differences in non-perturbed reaching make it difficult to directly compare their motor corrections relative to healthy subjects that display a stereotypical bell-shaped velocity profile and move relatively straight to the spatial goal (Morasso 1981; Sergio and Scott, 1999). Simple postural tasks have been used to quantify motor corrections to mechanical disturbances (Bourke et al., 2014). However, exploring motor corrections for target jumps (the goal) versus cursor jumps (representing the subject's hand) will be difficult to assess as the collinearity of the goal and cursor before the jump means subjects must immediately recognize whether the jump in the visual feedback is the goal or hand position. Specifically, a shift of the goal to the right requires a motor correction of the hand to the right. In contrast, a shift of the cursor to the right requires a motor correction of the hand to the left to attain the goal. This opposing response due to the collinearity of the target and hand likely impacts response time particularly for patient groups.

Method and apparatus for assessing sensorimotor performance


A method for presenting a user with a unified bill of material from a plurality of bills of materials respectively stored in multiple databases is disclosed. The method includes receiving at least one keyword from the user, querying a taxonomy associated with the at least one keyword, utilizing a semantic based ontology model to generate queries for forwarding to the databases, the queries based on the taxonomy and the at least one keyword, receiving from the databases, a listing of the available information stored in the databases that includes the at least one keyword, presenting the listing to the user, receiving from the user, based on the listing, a selection of the information they wish to retrieve from the databases, generating a query requesting retrieval of the user selected information from the databases, receiving the retrieved information from the databases, and providing the retrieved information in an organized format.

The field of the invention relates generally to bills of materials, and more specifically, to methods and systems that provide unified bills of materials.
The bill of materials (BOM) is an official description of a product. As the information contents for a product evolve over the product lifecycle, there is not one, but many bills of materials. Specifically, each bill of materials represents a different functional domain perspective of the product lifecycle. Examples include engineering, manufacturing, sales, and service or support. These bills of materials are often stored in dissimilar databases in different locations since the bills of materials are serving the diverse purposes, for example, of the various groups listed above.
There are generally difficulties in the identification, retrieval, and/or collaboration on a correct bill of materials, even in the networked environment. At least one of the reasons there are difficulties is that generally each site has it's own unique access procedure. In other words, there generally is no standard access procedure between the various sites of large enterprises. Another challenge is to find the correct access method for a desired BOM depending on the system on which the BOM is sourced.
These issues are currently addressed through manual processes. Specifically, accessing a desired BOM is a manual process that includes searching for the BOM location to retrieve the BOM data, even though the BOM data are stored in computing systems. With respect to operations across an enterprise, BOMs are generated, stored, and used, for example, by engineering, manufacturing, and finance domains. Each domain generates a BOM that is distinct from the BOMs associated with other domains. Therefore, the various BOMs are often not consistent, nor compatible with each other in terms of contents and data types making it unbearably difficult for the users to intuitively find the desired BOM data. At least one reason for these difficulties is because there are no embedded semantics in the procedure. User difficulties increase when the BOM systems need scaling-up or down to accommodate business demand changes. To ease the increasing difficulties, the BOM database may be replicated between remote sites. However, the replication process is complex, slow, and error prone especially when product configuration changes are frequent.

Methods and systems that provide unified bills of material


A method of preparing heavy ANFO including loading high density ammonium nitrate into a hopper; feeding the high density ammonium nitrate into a mixing chamber; during the feeding step, injecting fuel into a high density ammonium nitrate feeding pipe, thereby obtaining ANFO; loading bulk emulsion into a hopper; gassing the bulk emulsion; feeding the gassed bulk emulsion into a same mixing chamber as the ANFO; and mixing the gassed bulk emulsion and the ANFO, thereby obtaining heavy ANFO.

1. Field of the Invention
The embodiments of the present invention are related to explosive compositions comprising a mixture of gassed bulk emulsion and ammonium nitrate/fuel oil (ANFO), also known as heavy ANFO, and in particular to a method for preparing the same by using high density ammonium nitrate in the manufacture of ANFO.
2. Description of the Related Art
Ammonium nitrate/fuel oil (ANFO) type explosives are a mixture of ammonium nitrate and fuel oil, which are used as a blasting compound in mining and industrial engineering. Typically, ANFO type explosives are composed of 94% ammonium nitrate and 6% fuel oil, and have a density of 0.8-0.9 kg/L. The ammonium nitrate particles used for ANFO type explosives are porous and spherical in shape because their microporous structure of air cavities enclosed within the body of the prills provide a larger number of points of initiation with increased detonation sensitivity, or hotspots, which are closed adiabatically as a result of mechanical action and spread the burning process throughout the charge. The fuel oil is absorbed by the ammonium nitrate particles to produce a free-flowing particulate mixture which can be detonated. Other additives may be added to this mixture in order to modify the properties of the ANFO explosive, such as adding guar gums and polyisobutylene to improve water resistance.
Detonation velocity of ANFO explosives falls within the range 2500-3500 m/s because of its volumetric density and flame temperature, which are lower than that of other industrial explosives. The sensitivity of these materials to detonation is also lower than that of emulsion and dynamite type explosives; thus, the handling of ANFO type explosives is easier. The performance of ANFO depends on the ammonium nitrate prills used and the efficiency of mixing the prills with the fuel oil.
Heavy ANFO type explosives comprise a mixture of bulk emulsion and ammonium nitrate/fuel oil (ANFO). The use of emulsion type explosives as a coating substance creates a waterproof-resistant barrier, surrounding the particles of ANFO and solving the problem of its low water resistance. This waterproof-resistant barrier also improves other characteristics of ANFO by increasing its density, detonation velocity, sensitivity to initiation and shock wave intensity. Heavy ANFO is typically prepared in a bulk truck by making ANFO first, and then blending it with emulsion. Bulk emulsion used in the preparation of heavy ANFO may be gassed or not gassed. The system of heavy ANFO allows for a great deal of flexibility in the relative proportions of ANFO/bulk emulsion. This ratio can be optimized depending on the blast site-specific requirements.
As mentioned, ANFO and heavy ANFO type explosives typically need porous ammonium nitrate prills. However, the present invention provides a method to prepare heavy ANFO by using high density ammonium nitrate, preferably fertilizer or technical grade (see Table 1), as a substitute for porous ammonium nitrate in the ANFO manufacturing process. The method includes using gassed bulk emulsion and ANFO to manufacture heavy ANFO. The explosive composition of ANFO is modified to use less fuel than regular ANFO type explosives.
Information about the Assignee
EXSA was incorporated in 1954. The company's plant, offices and main warehouses are located in Lima, Peru. In addition, the company has various business offices, other industrial plants, powder magazines, and warehouses throughout the Peruvian territory.
EXSA engages in the manufacture, transformation, industrial operation, representation, development, research, marketing, distribution, transportation, import and export of explosives, as well as their components, accessories, associated products and by-products. Likewise, EXSA may provide any services associated with the aforementioned activities, including specialized support works for mining prospecting, development and operation, and ore reduction.

Method for the preparation of heavy ANFO using high density ammonium nitrate and gassed bulk emulsion


Methods and systems for handling a single event upset. The methods include, and/or the systems include functionality for, receiving, from a monitored device, data at a first input of an initial state change device; detecting, based on receiving the data, a state change; asserting, based on detecting the state change, an initial state change device enable signal; transferring the first data from the first input to a first output of the initial state change device (which may be operatively connected to a second input of a state hold device); triggering, based on detecting the state change, a delay counter; making a determination that the delay period counted by the delay counter expired without receipt of an error detection signal; and based on the determination, asserting a state hold device enable signal to allow the data to pass from the second input to a second output of the state hold device.

Electronic devices that include certain types of data storage elements (e.g., static random access memory (SRAM)) may be susceptible to unexpected state changes. For example, a particle (e.g., ion, election, photon, etc.) may cause a single event upset (SEU) when striking a portion of SRAM of a device, which may cause the value of a logical bit to change (e.g., from a 0 to a 1). Such unexpected state changes may alter the expected logical operation of a device, which may cause the device to malfunction in some way.

Logic buffer for hitless single event upset handling


There are disclosed methods useful for the inhibition of inducible nitric oxide synthase by the adminstration of a compound of the formula I:. when R.sub.2 is H then R.sub.1 is selected from the group consisting of:. 1) aryl,--NH--C.sub.0 -C.sub.10 alkyl -aryl, N-(C.sub.0 -C.sub.10 alkyl substituted aryl).sub.2, --C.sub.0 -C.sub.10 alkyl substituted aryl, --N(C.sub.0 -C.sub.10 alkyl substituted aryl)(C.sub.0 -C.sub.10 alkyl), wherein "Aryl" is optionally attached to Compound I through C or N and is selected from the group consisting of isoindanolyl, isoindolinyl, tetrahydroquinolyl, phenyl, naphthyl, pyridyl, furyl, pyrryl, thienyl, isothiazolyl, imidazolyl, benzimidazolyl, triazolyl, tetrazolyl, pyrazinyl,pyrimidyl, quinolyl, isoquinolyl, benzofuryl, benzothienyl, pyrazolyl, indolyl, isoindolyl, purinyl, carbazolyl, isoxazolyl, thiazolyl, oxazolyl, benzthiazolyl, and benzoxazolyl; and the term "substituted aryl" denotes mono-, di- and/or tri-substituted aryl wherein aryl is as defined above and in which the substituents are independently selected from the group consistng of H, trifluoromethyl, amino, hydroxy, halo, nitro, --O--C.sub.1 -C.sub.6 alkyl, --S--C.sub.1 -C.sub.6 alkyl, --NH--C.sub.1 -C.sub.6 alkyl, --N (C.sub.1 -C.sub.6 allyl).sub.2, --C(O) --C.sub.1 -C.sub.6 alkyl, --NHC(O) C.sub.1 -C.sub.6 alkyl, --C.sub.1 -C.sub.11 COO.sub.2 R wherein R.dbd.C.sub.1 -C.sub.11 alkyl, or --C.sub.1 -C.sub.11 alkylphenyl, --C.sub.1 -C.sub.11 CONHR wherein R.dbd.C.sub.1 -C.sub.11 alkyl or C.sub.1 -C.sub.11 alkylphenyl, carboxy, --C(O) O C.sub.1 -C.sub.6 alkyl; trans-CH.dbd.CHCO.sub.2 R; wherein R.dbd.C.sub.1 -C.sub.11 alkyl or C.sub.1 -C.sub.6 alkylphenyl, trans CH.dbd.CHCONHR; wherein R.dbd.C.sub.1 -C.sub.11 alkyl or C.sub.1 -C.sub.11 alkylphenyl; PA1 2) cyclic --N(CH.sub.2 CH.sub.2).sub.2 Y, cyclic NCHA(CH.sub.2).sub.3, or --NH C.sub.2 -C.sub.11 alkyl-Y wherein A=. i) C.sub.1 -C.sub.10 alkyl, C.sub.1 -C.sub.10 alkylaryl or, PA2 ii) COZR.sub.3 wherein Z=oxygen, NH and R.sub.3 =H, or C.sub.1 -C.sub.10 alkyl, or C.sub.0 -C.sub.10 alkylaryl wherein aryl group is as defined in (1) above, and Y= PA2 i) oxygen,or S, or NH or PA2 ii) NC.sub.0 -C.sub.10 alkyl or PA2 iii) NC.sub.1 -C.sub.10 alkylsubstituted aryl, PA2 iv) NC=ZMR.sub.3 or COZR.sub.3 wherein Z=oxygen, or NH; M=C, oxygen, N, and R.sub.3 is C.sub.0 -C.sub.10 alkyl substituted aryl; wherein Z is as defined in (2iv) above and R.sub.3 is C.sub.0 -C.sub.10 alkylsubstituted aryl wherein "substituted aryl" is as defined above.; R.sub.2 is hydrogen; or R.sub.1 and R.sub.2 taken together forming another aryl group; and X is hydrogen, halo, alkyl, alkoxy, hydroxy, nitro, amino, trifluoromethyl and aryl, to a patient in need of such inhibition such as hypotension, inflammtion, autoimmune diseases, and septic shock and the like.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the use of compounds which are inhibitors of nitric oxide synthase (NOS). The present invention also includes within its scope methods of treatment where nitric oxide is involved in the biological functions of the human body,e.g. hypotension, inflammation, the damage due to inflammation, acute and/or chronic pain, neuronal disorders such as stoke, memory disorders,and depression, autoimmune diseases, including allograft rejection,diabetes, septic and endotoxic shock and the like.
2.Background of the Art
Nitric oxide is an important component of endothelium derived relaxing factors (EDRFs). EDRFs have been shown to be involve in the regulation of blood flow and vascular resistance. In addition to the vascular endothelium, macrophages have also been reported to produce nitric oxide in the body which is a component of their cell killing and/or cytostatic function. Nitric oxide is produced in mammalian cells by nitric oxide synthase (NOS) by conversion of L-arginine to citrulline Moncada, S., Palmer,R. M. J., and Higgs, E. A. (1991) Pharm. Rev. 43, 109-142.; Nathan, C. (1992) FASEB J. 6, 3051-3064; Jacob, T. D., Morrell, M. K., Manzi, S., Ochoa, J. B., Verdile, V., Udekwu, A. O., Berceli, S. A., Simmons, R. L., and Peitzman, A. B. (1992) in NitricOxide: Implications for Drug Research, P. 28, IBC, South Natick, Mass.; Langrehr, J. M., Murase, N., Markus, P. M., Cai, X., Neuhaus, P., Schraut, W., Simmons, R. L., and Hoffinan, R. A. (1992) J. Clin. Invest 90, 679-683; Corbett, J. A., Tilton, R. G., Chang, K., Hasan, K. S., Ido, Y., Wang, J. L., Sweetland, M. A., Lancaster, J. R. Jr., Williamson, J. R., and McDaniel, M. L. (1992) Diabetes 41, 552-556; Griess, P. (1879) Chem. Ber. 12 426.
There are three distinct isoforms of human NOS, neuronal (bNOS), endothelial (eNOS) and inducible (iNOS).
In general eNOS is constitutively expressed and produces reletively low levels of NO. Activity of eNOS is dependent on Ca.sup.2+ influx. eNOS is found in vascular smooth muscle cells which is not identical to the form of enzyme found in neurons. Formation of NO by the eNOS in vascular endothelial cells is believed to play a role in regulating blood pressure by relaxing muscles and allowing the vessel to dialate, which lower the blood pressure Pollock, J. S., Forstermann, U., Mitchell, J. A., Warner, T. D., Schmidt, H. H. H. W., Nakane, M. and Murad, F. (1991) Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 88, 10480-10484; Lamas, S., Marsden, P. A., Li, G. K., Tempst, P. and Michel, T. (1992) Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 89, 7773-7777.
Disruption of the neuronal NOS (second isoform of NOS) gene causes no histological abnormalities in the central nervous system Huang, P. L., Dawson, T. M., bredt, D. S., Snyder, S. H. and Fishman, M. C. (1993) Cell 75, 1273-1286.
iNOS is not dependent on elevated Ca.sup.2+ concentration and generally expressed only after induction by certain cytokines or by bacterial lipopolsaccharide (LPS) Wei, X.sub.-- q., Charles, I. G., Smith, A., Ure, J., Feng, G. .sub.-- j., Huang, F. .sub.-- p., Xu, D., Muller, W., Moncada, S. and Liew, F. Y. (1995) Nature (London) 375, 408-411.
It is thought that in sepsis or cytokine-induced shock, excess production of nitric oxide by iNOS plays an important role in life-threatening hypotension. Evidence for this has come from observations that serum levels of NO oxidation products are elevated in animals and humans undergoing septic shock and from in vivo studies with NOS inhibitors Goode, H. F., Howdle, P. D., Walker, B. E. and Webster, N. R. (1995) Clin. Sci. 88, 131-133; Barthlen, W., Stadler, J., Lehn, N. L., Miethke, T., Bartles, H. and Siewert, J. R., (1994) Shock 2, 398-401; Cunha, F. Q., Assreuy, J., Mass, D. W., Rees, D., Leal L. M. C., Moncada, S. and Carrier, M. (1994) Immu. 81, 211-215. Furthermore, it has been postulated that excess production of nitric oxide by iNOS is a factor in the unresponsiveness to pressor agents such as alpha.sub.1 -adrenergic agonists employed in the treatment of septic or cytokine-induced shock patients.
We are now describing a new class of compounds useful as inhibitors of iNOS. See for example the paper presented by Mosby et al. reported in J. Org. Chem., 24, 374-380 (1959) entitiled "Reactions of 2,3-dichloro-1,4-naphthoquinone with 2,Aminopyridine and Related Amines", Offenlegungsschrift DE 3926747 A1 entitled "1,2-Naphthochinone enthalende fungizide Mittel", Asahi et al. Chem. Pharm. Bull., 32, 3093-3099 (1984), and Carroll et al. J. Heterocycl. Chem. 7, 297-306 (1970). These compounds are described below.

Naphthalenedione nitric oxide synthase (NOS) inhibitors


A portable cooking apparatus is light, packable, compatible with back-country hiking, and is multi-functional for use over a heat source. An arm of the apparatus may elongate and shorten and may have an attachment system on the arm that allows the attachment of a plurality of food and drink holding attachments. The attachments may be coupled to a strap connected to a handle. The handle may include a compartment for holding parts of the apparatus or other articles so that the apparatus may be disassembled and stowed. A rotisserie mode enables rotation of food over an open flame. A rotisserie handle can be releasably coupled to the apparatus handle. The rotisserie handle can be placed in a locked condition to prevent rotation in a variety of cooking positions. A pivoting arm stabilizer enables cooking food to be horizontally pivoted to and from the heat source.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to cooking equipment, and more specifically for cooking equipment used over heat sources outside of the home.
2. Description of the Related Art
Cooking utensils have been used for hundreds, if not thousands, of years and are still heavily used today. There are cooking utensils that are used by outdoor enthusiasts and those looking for a hot cooked meal where conventional ovens, gas fuel and electric power devices are not available. Some of these utensils have proven to be useful when backpacking, camping, or being far away from the usual utilities that cook food and boil water.
Camp cooking utensils offer a variety of cooking experiences. There are millions of people world wide who enjoy camping in the outdoors and getting closer to nature. In the process of camping outdoors in remote areas of the planet camping enthusiasts heat their food with a variety of camp fire oriented products such as a handled cooking iron to name one. A cooking iron or the like commonly consists of two long handles and usually two food encompassing portions pivoting on an axis allowing the two portions to open and close. These types of cooking devices have been used for centuries. Unfortunately however for such campers the current state of the art only provides cooking irons and the like that have very limited adjustability and flexibility in the ways that they can be used.
Thus, there is a need for a camp cooker with greater flexibility and adjustability.

Apparatus, system, and method for portable camp cooker with attachments


An apparatus for preparing a beverage fit for consumption with a fine-bubble froth layer, such as coffee or milk with a fine-bubble froth layer, provided with a beverage unit for dispensing under pressure a beverage to be processed, at least one nozzle, which is in fluid communication with the beverage unit for feeding the beverage to the nozzle to generate a jet of the beverage by means of the nozzle, and a collecting unit, into which the jet squirts to obtain the beverage with the fine-bubble froth layer. The collecting unit is then provided with a tubular chamber with at least one open end for dispensing the beverage with the fine-bubble froth layer, the nozzle and the collecting unit being in fluid communication with each other such that the jet squirts against an inner wall of the tubular chamber for beating, in the tubular chamber, air into the beverage to obtain the beverage with the fine-bubble froth layer, which, in use, leaves the tubular chamber via the at least one open end.

The invention relates to an apparatus for preparing a beverage fit for consumption with a fine-bubble froth layer, such as coffee or milk with a fine-bubble froth layer, provided with a beverage unit for dispensing under pressure a beverage to be processed, at least one nozzle, which is in fluid communication with the beverage unit for feeding the beverage to the nozzle to generate a jet of the beverage by means of the nozzle, and a collecting unit, into which the jet squirts to obtain the beverage with the fine-bubble froth layer.
The invention also relates to a method for preparing a beverage fit for consumption with a fine-bubble froth layer, such as coffee or milk, a liquid jet comprising a beverage to be processed being generated and the liquid jet being fed to the collecting unit so that the jet squirts into the collecting unit to obtain the beverage with the fine-bubble froth layer.
The invention also relates to an assembly of the nozzle and the collecting unit.
Such an apparatus and method are known from European patent application EP 0 878 158.
In the known apparatus, the collecting means is provided with a buffer reservoir, which, in this example, comprises a bottom with raised side walls. In use, the jet squirts into the buffer reservoir, which is thus filled with the beverage to be processed. A liquid surface is thus formed in the buffer reservoir. The liquid jet squirts into the liquid surface, air being beaten into the beverage so that a fine-bubble froth layer is formed. The buffer reservoir is further provided with an outlet path for discharging from the buffer reservoir the beverage with the fine-bubble froth layer.
After some time, the squirting of the beverage into the buffer reservoir stops. In the example, the buffer reservoir will subsequently empty. The buffer reservoir may, in the example, be provided with specifically arranged outflow openings in a bottom of the buffer reservoir.
Although in the known system a desired quality of beverage with a fine-bubble froth layer is formed, it is a drawback that it takes some time before the buffer reservoir has emptied completely. In particular the attendant dripping after may take a relatively long time. When, for instance with the known apparatus and according to the known method, one cup of coffee is prepared, the emptying of the buffer reservoir and the dripping after may take half a minute. The dripping after itself may take twenty seconds.

Apparatus and method for preparing a beverage fit for consumption with a fine-bubble froth layer


A portable electronic device and an accessory device thereof, and an operating method for a portable electronic device. According to the disclosure, an accessory device coupled at a universal serial bus connector of a portable electronic device is detected and identified via the identification pin of the universal serial bus connector. When it is identified that the accessory device supports 1-wire communication via the identification pin, the accessory device is accessed via the 1-wire communication via the identification pin.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a portable electronic device, an accessory device for the portable electronic device, and an operating method for a portable electronic device.
2. Description of the Related Art
Various accessory devices have been developed due to the increasingly powerful computing capabilities of portable electronic devices, such as a smart phones.
Therefore, it is an important issue to correctly detect and identify an accessory device coupled to the portable electronic device and to communicate with the accessory device.

Portable electronic device and accessory device thereof, and operating method for the portable electronic device


A food product slicer with a rotatable slicer knife includes a knife sharpener and an associated knife guard assembly with a guard member positioned for protecting the edge of the knife when the sharpener is positioned in its standby, or non-sharpening state.

Food product slicers having circular slicer knives are commonly used in restaurant and grocery businesses, among others. The use of slicer mounted knife sharpening assemblies to sharpen the peripheral edge of the slicer knife when necessary is also known. Protecting the edge of the knife along non-cutting zone regions of the knife is desirable as demonstrated by the common use of a ring guard disposed about a portion of the knife cutting edge to protect the edge of the knife. Because most ring guards are mounted in a manner to prevent removal by the end user in order to assure the knife protecting function, the ring guard cannot be positioned along the edge of the knife in the region where knife sharpening occurs, as doing so would interfere with knife sharpening. It would be desirable to provide a food product slicer that includes a knife guard member in association with the knife sharpener.

Food product slicer with knife sharpener and associated knife guard


A multi-layer visor system for a surgical hood or garment is provided. The system includes a base film layer and one or more removable film layers that are coextruded at high temperature to form a sterile surface between each of the film layers should the surgeon elect to peel away a soiled or splattered removable film layer during the course of a surgical procedure so that an unobstructed view can be maintained. Thus, no separate sterilization step is required in order to sterilize the layers of the visor system. Each of the removable film layers can additionally include a tab having distinctive features in order to enable a wearer to easily distinguish between the tabs in order to make it easier for a wearer to know which tab to pull first to remove the outermost removable film layer. Further, because the tabs are located about the perimeter of the removable films, viewing is not obscured, yet the film layers are held securely in place until easily removed from the underlying removable film layer or base film layer.

Surgeons and other healthcare providers often wear a combination of a nonwoven-based surgical suit or gown, a hood with a visor, and an air cooling or ventilation system during operating procedures, particularly orthopedic total joint replacement surgeries such as arthroplasties and revisions of the knee, hip, and shoulder, in order to ensure sterile conditions in the operating room, protect the wearer, and create a comfortable environment for the wearer. During the course of such surgeries, aerosolized or droplets of biological fluid can spray onto the visor, obstructing the view of the surgeon or other healthcare provider. Thus, in order to provide surgeons and other healthcare providers with improved visibility, the visor can include one or more removable transparent films, where the surgeon or other healthcare provider can remove or peel away the transparent film should it become covered with biological fluids, tissue, etc., thus exposing a clean, unobstructed surface of an additional removable transparent film or the transparent base film of the visor positioned below the transparent film that was removed. The transparent films must be sterile, and because the transparent films are in close contact with each other, adequate sterilization of the transparent films is often problematic.
Currently, ethylene oxide (EO) gas is used to sterilize all nonwoven-based surgical suits or gowns and hoods. However, a problem exists when using EO gas to sterilize visors with multiple transparent films, as the transparent films are typically in direct contact with each other and such polyester films are not gas-permeable. The direct contact between film layers and non-permeability of the polyester film thereby prevents the EO gas from penetrating through the outermost, exposed transparent film to sterilize the underlying additional transparent films present.
In some cases, radiation sterilization, such as gamma or e-beam irradiation, is used to pre-sterilize visors with multiple transparent films in order to sterilize the underlying transparent films that are not exposed. However, radiation sterilization of the visor must occur prior to affixing the visor to a hood or suit of a personal protection system. If radiation sterilization were used on the final personal protection system, e.g., hood including the visor and one or more nonwoven-based gowns or suits, the polypropylene nonwoven fabric would suffer degradation that may include loss of strength, durability, or integrity, as well as generating unwanted odors, as a result of the radiation. In addition, stability of the nonwoven fabric over time may suffer unacceptably as a result of such radiation. Thus, the pre-sterilization step of radiation is required to sterilize the multi-layer visor prior to affixing the visor to the personal protection system, which is followed by sterilization of the final converted personal protection system using EO gas. However, the performance of separate pre-sterilization of the multi-layer visor in addition to EO gas sterilization of the final surgical hood or personal protection system significantly increases both the time and the cost of manufacturing.
Consequently, a need exists for a visor having a transparent base film and one or more transparent removable films attached thereto that does not require a separate step of pre-sterilization of the visor prior to incorporating the visor into a hood and/or surgical suit or gown with which it will be worn. In particular, a visor having two or more transparent removable films with one or more features to distinguish between each transparent removable film to improve ease of removal would also be useful.

Multi-layer visor system for surgical hood