In order to improve the management of the power consumption of electronic devices (such as cellular telephones), the operating mode of an interface circuit in an electronic device may be changed when certain commands are received. In particular, when one or more commands are received that disable data communication via the interface circuit and a cellular-telephone network and/or enable communication via another interface circuit in the electronic device and a wireless local area network (WLAN), the interface circuit may be transitioned to an operating mode in which data communication via the cellular-telephone network using a communication protocol that supports only data and no voice is disabled. For example, the communication protocol may include a Long Term Evolution (LTE)-compatible communication protocol.

Field
The described embodiments relate to techniques for managing power consumption of an electronic device.
Related Art
The increasing functionality and popularity of electronic devices, such as cellular telephones, has resulted in demand for significantly higher data rates. For example, many software applications that execute on these electronic devices provide rich user experiences by receiving and transmitting large amounts of information with other electronic devices.
However, electronic devices with higher data rates typically consume significantly more power. In portable electronic devices, this increased power consumption usually decreases the operating time between recharging of the battery. In turn, the reduced operating time can degrade the user experience, which can be frustrating for consumers, and thus can adversely impact sales and customer retention.

Electronic device with reduced power consumption


A retractable multi-use cardiac monitor is provided that includes a memory, and first and second sensing connectors positioned on outsides of first and second housings, respectively. The first and second sensing connectors are configured to detect electrocardiogram (ECG) signals that are stored onto the memory as ECG data. The second housing of the retractable multi-use cardiac monitor also includes a wire retractor configured to extend and retract a wire that connects the second and first housings, and that defines an interelectrode distance between the first and second sensing connectors. The retractable multi-use cardiac monitor further includes systems and methods for determining a length for the interelectrode distance that is optimum in terms of strength and fidelity of the detected ECG signals. The retractable multi-use cardiac monitor further includes a wireless radio configured to transmit a portion of the stored ECG data from the memory to a destination.

Cardiac monitoring systems are generally comprised of a series of electrodes attached to the chest area of a patient to collect electrocardiogram (ECG) data. The series of electrodes are usually connected to a series of wires. However, the inventor has perceived that the series of electrodes and interconnected wires are not provided in a compact portable form that allows for easy adjustment of the vector length between the electrodes.
Accordingly, the inventor has perceived that there is a need for a retractable multi-use cardiac monitor that is compact in form and allows for easy adjustment of the vector length between the electrodes of the retractable multi-use cardiac monitor.
This background information is provided to reveal information believed by the applicant to be of possible relevance to the present invention. No admission is necessarily intended, nor should be construed, that any of the preceding information constitutes prior art against the present invention.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Systems and methods for interelectrode distance optimization in a retractable multi-use cardiac monitor


A hydraulic pressure booster is disclosed which, when used in conjunction with a control system for a subsurface safety valve, allows the use of lower pressure ratings on the wellhead equipment, yet at the same time provides sufficient hydraulic pressure to actuate a subsurface safety valve at depths that could exceed 4,000 feet. A preferred embodiment compensates for any fluid loss through the seals to ensure effective operation. The hydraulic pressure booster comprises an amplifier to receive fluid pressure from a fluid pressure source and magnify the pressure. A conduit system facilitates connection of the pressure source to the amplifier and the magnified pressure from the amplifier to the subsurface safety valve. The system is simple and self-regulating and can be alternatively installed as an integral portion of the subsurface safety valve or immediately adjacent the subsurface safety valve or immediately below the wellhead.

In some locations, the use of subsurface safety valves is mandated. Historically, this has been in locations such as in the Gulf of Mexico where wells were drilled on the Outer Continental Shelf to fairly shallow depths. The subsurface safety valves used in those applications required control lines which went to the surfaces with the subsurface safety valve generally deployed at depths of about 1,000 ft. The subsurface safety valve was maintained in a closed position by a return spring which was sized to keep a sleeve in the position required for the valve to be closed against the hydrostatic forces in the control line, as well as any pressures in the wellbore surrounding the subsurface safety valve.
As wells began to be drilled more deeply and subsurface safety valves had to be placed further and further below the surface, the force necessary for the return spring to resist these forces became far greater with increasing depth. Thus, one approach that was used previously was simply to increase the pressure rating of the control components, including the wellhead, so that they would be suitable for the pressures expected. Other techniques involved use of pressurized chambers to offset the effect of hydrostatic forces or equalization techniques to neutralize the effects of such hydrostatic forces. U.S. Pat. No. 4,660,646 illustrates the use of pressurized chambers to offset the return spring forces. U.S. Pat. No. 5,415,237 illustrates the use of valving arrangements to obtain the requisite pressure balance on the sliding sleeve so as to minimize the forces required to actuate the sleeve against a much smaller return spring.
These techniques were fairly complex, involving numerous moving parts and seals. While they accomplish the purpose of allowing wellheads of a lower pressure rating to be used, even in applications involving significant depths such as 10,000 ft., their cost was high and the numerous components used made maintenance and upkeep an issue. Accordingly, the apparatus and method of the present invention have been developed to allow a simple way to be able to use low-pressure wellheads, even in applications of fairly deep subsurface safety valves in the order of deeper than 10,000 ft., where the pressure rating on the wellhead can be fairly minimal, such as 5,000 PSI, yet the subsurface safety valve can operate effectively. The device can be installed at or near the surface or adjacent the wellhead to make access and maintenance considerably easier. The simple design dictates that the device is low cost and easy to install. By virtue of fairly minor changes in the configuration of the device, any given degree of amplification that would be needed for current applications and those likely to occur in the future can be achieved.

Subsurface safety valve actuation pressure amplifier


A shaving razor cartridge with a housing molded from a first polymeric material and having a top surface and an opposing bottom surface. The housing has a wall partially defining an opening extending from the top surface to the bottom surface. The wall has a pair of arms each with a distal end extending toward each other defining a gap. A guard is toward a front of the housing. A cap is toward a rear of the housing. At least one blade is mounted between the guard and the cap. A bridge interconnects the distal ends. The bridge is molded from a second polymeric material that is different than the first polymeric material.

In general, a cartridge or blade unit of a safety razor has at least one blade with a cutting edge which is moved across the surface of the skin being shaved by means of a handle to which the cartridge is attached. Some shaving razors are provided with a spring biased cartridge that pivots relative to the handle to follow the contours of the skin during shaving. The cartridge may be mounted detachably on the handle to enable the cartridge to be replaced by a fresh cartridge when the blade sharpness has diminished to an unsatisfactory level, or it may be attached permanently to the handle with the intention that the entire razor be discarded when the blade or blades have become dulled.
Razor blade assemblies have been disclosed wherein cutting edge portions of the blade members are held between skin engaging surfaces which are generally referred to as the guard and cap of the razor blade assembly. The guard contacts the skin in front of the blade member(s) and the cap contacts the skin behind the blade member(s) during a shaving stroke. The cap and guard may aid in establishing the so-called "shaving geometry", i.e., the parameters which determine the blade orientation and position relative to the skin during shaving, which in turn have a strong influence on the shaving performance and efficacy of the razor. The cap may comprise a water leachable shaving aid to reduce drag and improve comfort. The guard may be generally rigid, for example formed integrally with a frame or platform structure which provides a support for the blades. Guards may also comprise softer elastomeric materials (e.g., thermo-plastic elastomers) to improve skin stretching.
Shaving razor handles are currently being designed with more features in an attempt to meet new consumer needs. For example, razor handles may contain various electronic components to deliver vibration or heat to the skin during shaving. However, these electric components require batteries, which make the handle much heavier. A heavier handle is more likely to cause the plastic housing holding the blades to break if the razor is dropped. A broken housing may expose or release the blades, thus causing a potentially hazardous condition. Accordingly, more robust housing designs and methods of manufacture are needed to account for the increase weight of today's shaving razor handles.

Shaving razor cartridge and method of manufacture


To present a clock generator capable of spreading the spectrum of oscillation frequency by simple control in a small additional circuit, and its control method. A phase locked loop circuit is provided from a frequency phase comparator 11, an output clock signal PO is outputted from a voltage control oscillator (VCO) 14 by way of a charge pump circuit (CP) 12 and a loop filter (LF) 13, and is returned to the frequency phase comparator 11 by way of a frequency divider (DIV) 15. Detecting the phase difference of reference clock signal R and divided clock signal D, and locking the oscillation frequency of the output clock signal PO to specified frequency, a modulation signal M is outputted from a modulation pulse generator 1 regardless of phase locked control of phase locked loop circuit, and is superposed on phase comparison signal P, and thereby the oscillation frequency of output clock signal PO is modulated. An output clock signal PO having a predetermined spectrum spread characteristic can be obtained.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a clock generator using PLL circuit, and its control method, and more particularly it relates to a clock generator for generating a clock signal of which oscillation frequency is spread in spectrum in order to decrease electromagnetic radiation due to high speed oscillation operation, and a control method thereof.
2. Description of the Related Art
As shown in FIG. 11, a PLL circuit disclosed in Japanese Laid-open Patent No. 2001-7700 comprises a PLL section 100 which is an ordinary PLL circuit for generating oscillation signal PO by operating so that the center frequency may be synchronized in phase with reference frequency signal R, and a dithering control section 200 for controlling dithering which is frequency modulation in specified frequency bandwidth by receiving supply of up signal UP or down signal DN and generating a changeover control signal CC for changing over the dividing ratio of DIV 150. The dithering control section 200 is composed of a latch circuit 210 for latching the state of up signal UP and down signal DN from PFD 11, and a charge pump circuit 220 for generating an additional charge pump signal PS.
In FIG. 12, supposing the center frequency of oscillation signal PO to be 100 MHz, the frequency of reference signal R to be 1 MHz, the basic dividing ratio of DIV 150 to be 100, and the frequency amplitude width to be +/−1 MHz, the operation is described below.
At a certain point T1, suppose the oscillation signal PO drops from the center frequency to 99 MHz. Dividing signal D (0.99 MHz) corresponding to dividing ratio 100 of DIV 150 is delayed in phase from reference signal R, and four pulses of up signal UP are outputted. In response to supply of up signal UP, CP 12 outputs positive charge pump signal PC. The dithering control section 200 outputs dividing ratio changeover control signal CC of L level, and one is added to the dividing ratio of DIV 150 to become 101. The frequency of the dividing signal D further declines from the frequency of reference signal R, and output of up signal UP continues from PFD 11. When the frequency of oscillation signal PO continues to rise until reaching 101 MHz, output of up signal UP from PFD 11 stops, and output of down signal DN starts. In response to supply of down signal DN, CP 12 outputs negative charge pump signal PC. The dithering control section 200 outputs dividing ratio changeover control signal CC of H level, and one is subtracted from the dividing ratio of DIV 150 to become 99. The frequency of the dividing signal D further exceeds the frequency of reference signal R, and output of down signal DN continues from PFD 11. When the frequency of oscillation signal PO continues to fall until reaching 99 MHz, output of down signal DN from PFD 11 stops. Thereafter, repeating the same operation, the oscillation signal PO is dithered within a desired frequency width 99 to 101 MHz.


A handheld ultrasound device comprises a plurality of components configured to provide decreased size, weight, complexity and power consumption. The handheld ultrasound device may comprise an ultrasound transducer and an analog to digital (“A/D”) converter coupled to the ultrasound transducer. A processor comprising a beamformer can be coupled to the A/D converter and configured to selectively store a plurality of signals from the A/D converter in a memory of the processor. The beamformer can be configured to implement and compress a flag table in place of a delay table. These improvements can decrease the amount of memory used to generate ultrasound images, which can decrease the size weight and power consumption of the handheld ultrasound device.

Ultrasound imaging is commonly used as a non-invasive, diagnostic imaging modality that provides images of the internal volumes of objects in many different fields such as medical diagnostics and non-destructive materials testing. For instance, ultrasound imaging can be used to provide images of internal organs, such as an abdomen or a heart. One limitation in developing handheld ultrasound imaging devices without sacrificing image quality is the requirement of processing large amounts of data that consumes a substantial amount of computational resources. This reliance on substantial computational resources and implications of such resources on the device size and power requirements has limited the development of handheld ultrasound devices that are capable of producing images having the quality offered by conventional (i.e. non-handheld) ultrasound systems.
In light of the above, it would be advantageous to provide a handheld ultrasound system and method that requires or consumes fewer computational resources without sacrificing image quality. Ideally, such systems would be compact, handheld, and utilizable by individuals with no special technical training while still producing images of the same or comparable quality to those produced by conventional or non-handheld ultrasound systems.

Flag table based beamforming in a handheld ultrasound device


A method for arbitrating a bus grant among a plurality of master devices for access to a shared bus is disclosed. The method includes the steps of starting to accumulatively count time in response to a data transfer request signal outputted by one of the master devices for requesting a data transfer, and re-estimating a bus-utility condition for the one of the master devices to access to the shared bus when a preset threshold value of time is counted up. In addition, an arbiter for a bus grant among a plurality of master devices for access to a shared bus is disclosed. The arbiter is characterized by including a plurality of timer devices in communication with the plurality of master devices, respectively.

Please refer to FIG. 1 which is a schematic diagram illustrating the transmission among a plurality of master devices 111, 112, . . . , 11n and a plurality of target devices 121, 122, . . . , 12n via a shared bus 10. In order to coordinate the data transmission, an arbiter 13 is provided between the master devices 111, 112, . . . , 11n and the shared bus 10 to arbitrate the bus grant to which of the master devices in a certain period. Generally, a fixed priority or a Round-Robin mechanism is employed for the arbitration of the shared bus architecture.
In order to increase the utility rate of the shared bus 10, a retry mechanism is also widely applied to the current bus protocol, e.g. a peripheral component interconnect (PCI) bus protocol. That is, when the dominating one of the master devices, for example the master device 111, outputs a data transfer request signal to the target device 121 but the target device 121 cannot achieve the data transaction at that time, the target device 121 will output a retry signal to the master device 111. In response to the retry signal, the arbiter 13 will rearrange the bus grant order. In other words, the master device 111 has to wait a certain period of time to become a candidate for the bus grant again. When it is the turn again of the master device 111 to dominate the shared bus 10, a data transfer request signal is re-outputted to the target device 121. By this way, the shared bus 10 will not be idly occupied by the incomplete data transaction between the master device 111 and the target device 121.
A conventional retry mechanism for use with a PCI bus is illustrated hereinafter with reference to FIG. 2. During the data transaction between the master device 111 and the target device 121, the master device 111, first of all, obtains the bus grant from the arbiter 13 and then sends out a FRAME# signal and an IRDY# signal to inform the target device 121 that it is ready for the data transaction. If the target device 121 is also ready for the data transaction, the target device 121 will send out a TRDY# signal and then the master device 111 starts the data transaction. Otherwise, the target device 121 will output a STOP# signal to stop the data transaction. The above situation is a typical retry mechanism since no data transaction has been completed between the master device 111 and the target device 121.
So far, the arbiter coordinates the bus grant only depending on the request signals from the master devices. The application of the retry mechanism, under this circumstance, possibly causes the "starve" of the master device. For example, for some bus configurations or in a long-term operation, it possibly occurs that one of the master devices cannot complete the data transaction all the time since the target device happens to be busy whenever the master device gets the bus grant. Accordingly, the transaction cannot be achieved for a long time so as to "starve" the master device.
Therefore, the purpose of the present invention is to develop an arbitrating method and device for coordinating the bus grant to deal with the above situations encountered in the prior art.

Method and device for arbitrating bus grant


A free hand gesture control user interface is described. Components of the interface system may include a stereo vision camera, or multiple cameras, a control unit, a projector and a projecting surface. In an automotive application, the projecting surface may be the windscreen in the vehicle or a mounted screen. The camera together with software modules in the control unit define a gesture acceptance border and a gesture acceptance space within which hand gestures may be imaged, defined for various control actions, and executed. The hand images are analyzed in slices of the gesture acceptance space to determine hand orientation (open or closed) and/or motion.

There have been rudimentary attempts to develop machines that respond to free hand indicators of control commands. Certain attempts have addressed localized hand control regions in the view of one or more cameras using image structure methods or statistical learning for user interface (UI) control. Some are as simple as "on/off" control by waving a hand before a sensor of some type (e.g. photosensor or infrared (IR) sensor). Other methods involve defining a space in a region dictated by the camera system setup where only hand gestures within the defined region are accepted by the interaction system. However, these systems dictate a three-dimensional control area and the user needs to gesture within the control area, which may not necessarily be convenient for the user. These systems may also be challenged in regards to efficiently defining and recognizing gestures which fit a user's preference, and avoiding accidental gestures in gesture interactions, particularly in conjunction with an automotive UI.

Free hand gesture control of automotive user interface


A papermaking screen apparatus is formed of a tank, cylindrical first and second screens and a stirring unit, which are disposed inside the tank. The tank holds a papermaking material, and includes a papermaking material inlet at a peripheral portion and a screened material outlet for removing a screened material from a center portion of the tank. The first screen is situated inside the tank to form an inner compartment therein connected to the outlet. The second screen is situated inside the tank and located outside the first screen to thereby form an outer chamber between an inner periphery of the tank and the second screen, and an inner chamber between the first and second screens. The second screen is at least partly overlapped with the first screen along an axial direction. The stirring unit is rotatably situated inside the tank and includes a first stirrer situated in the inner chamber adjacent to the first screen, and a second stirrer situated in the outer chamber adjacent to the second screen. When the papermaking material is supplied from the inlet and the first and second stirrers are rotated, the papermaking material passes through the first and second screens and flows radially inwardly of the tank to be discharged from the outlet through the inner compartment.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a papermaking screen and, more particularly, to a papermaking screen which has a plurality of screens apparatus in a tank thereof.
2. Description of Related Art
Hitherto, there have been papermaking screens which have a plurality of screens in tanks thereof in order to ensure efficient separation of useful fibers and foreign substances (refer, for example, to the papermaking screen disclosed in Japanese Examined Utility Model Publication No. 6-40636 shown in FIG. 10).
In the conventional papermaking screen, a rotary agitator 6' is provided inside an outer cylindrical screen 4' to separate useful fibers and foreign substances while preventing, to a certain extent, the screen from clogging at the same time.
However, positive pressure and negative pressure are applied alternately by the agitator 6' on the papermaking material outlet side of the outer cylindrical screen 4' and therefore, sufficient pressure cannot be produced, causing the outer cylindrical screen 4' to be clogged easily.
Immediately after the agitator 6' passes, the area near an interstice which is composed of a round hole, slit, or the like is subject to negative pressure, causing foreign substances to be drawn toward an acceptor end, adding to the chance of the clogging of the outer cylindrical screen 4'. Furthermore, the agitator 6' rotates inside the outer cylindrical screen 4', so that the moving velocity of the papermaking material slows down when it flows along the outer surface of the outer cylindrical screen 4', presenting a problem of deteriorated dust removing effect. It should be noted that the velocity of papermaking material passing through a interstice which is composed of a round hole, slit, or the like is normally constant, and therefore, the dust removing effect is increased as the moving velocity of the papermaking material flowing along the outer surface of the screen increases. The conventional papermaking screen shown in FIG. 10 has an inlet 1' for a papermaking material, a screened material outlet 2', a tank 3', the outer cylindrical screen 4', a screen basket 5', the agitator 6', an agitator 7', tail discharge ports 8' and 9', a centrifugal cleaner 10', a material pre-screening compartment 11', a material compartment 12', a screening compartment 13', a material supply passage 14', a return passage 15', and a runner 16'.


Provided is an engine starting device enabling the meshing engagement of a pinion gear and a ring gear to be quickly and quietly achieved in an automatic idle-stop system while an engine is rotating by inertia. The engine starting device includes: a ring gear connected to a crankshaft of an engine; a starter motor for starting the engine; a pinion gear for transmitting rotation of the starter motor to the ring gear; pinion-gear moving portion for moving the pinion gear so as to achieve meshing engagement with the ring gear; and starter control portion for executing any one of a plurality of control modes.

Conventionally, for the purposes of improving fuel efficiency of an automobile, reducing an environmental load, and the like, an automatic idle-stop system, which automatically performs idle-stop when a predetermined condition is satisfied, has been developed. For example, with regard to a method for bringing a starter pinion into meshing engagement with a ring gear and a starter controller, there exists an engine starting device, in which, when an rpm of the ring gear is within a predetermined range and a direction of rotation is forward, the pinion gear is brought into meshing engagement with the ring gear, thereby realizing meshing state between the pinion gear and the ring gear in an early stage (see Patent Literature 1).
There also exists an engine starting device for predicting an engine rpm NE after elapse of predetermined time T(s) and determining a super-low rotation state to perform a normal restart when NE is smaller than a controllable minimum rpm Nemin of a pinion gear (see Patent Literature 2).


A control valve is constructed as a two-position three-way valve. A switching port of the control valve and a control chamber of a pressure intensifier are connected to the control valve through a reciprocation passage. Fuel pressure in the control chamber is controlled by the control valve. The reciprocation passage is formed of two fuel passages for connecting the switching port of the control valve with the control chamber in parallel. One fuel passage is provided with a check valve for preventing fuel from flowing from the control chamber to the control valve and the other fuel passage is provided with a hydraulic valve for preventing the fuel from flowing from the control valve to the control chamber and a restrictor.

A common rail system is known as a fuel injection system for an internal combustion engine. This common rail system is a system that includes an accumulator (common rail) for accumulating fuel in the state of a specified pressure and injects high-pressure fuel supplied by the accumulator into the cylinder of the internal combustion engine by an injector and has excellent performance of controlling an injection pressure and an injection quantity independently. In recent years, from the viewpoint of cleaning exhaust gas and decreasing fuel consumption, there has been a growing demand that such a common rail should be further enhanced in performance and an injection pressure needs to be increased. A publicly known technology capable of realizing this easily is proposed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,622,152.
A fuel injection system described in the patent document 1 has "a mechanism for hydraulically controlling an operation of opening and closing of an injection nozzle", which is an advantage of the common rail, and a pressure intensifying mechanism for intensifying the pressure of fuel in the accumulator. With this pressure increasing mechanism, it is possible not only to inject the fuel at high pressure but also to control both of pressure intensification and injection. As a result, it is possible to change the injection pressure in one injection cycle and to realize small injection at low pressure and main injection at extremely high pressure. Moreover, the pattern of injection rate can be optimized and hence finer combustion can be optimized.
However, in the '152 patent, essentially, it is necessary to control two operations, that is, a pressure intensifying operation and an injecting operation independently from each other. Hence, there is presented a problem that the technology needs at least two actuators and hence makes the construction of the system complex and increases cost.
In contrast to this, another system, described in JP 2003-106235A. is capable of more easily realizing the same function as is provided by the '152 patent.
FIG. 10 is a hydraulic circuit diagram of a fuel injection system described in the patent document 2.
This fuel injection system includes one control valve 100 driven by an actuator, a first fuel passage 120 for connecting this control valve 100 and a control chamber 111 of a pressure intensifier 110, a second fuel passage 140 for connecting the control valve 100 and a backpressure chamber 131 of an injection nozzle 130, and a third fuel passage 160 for connecting an accumulator 150 and the control chamber 111 of the pressure intensifier 110, and the fuel passages 120, 140, and 160 are provided with restrictors 170, 180, and 190, respectively.
The control valve 100 has a hydraulic port 101 to which the first fuel passage 120 and the second fuel passage 140 are connected in common and a low pressure port 102 connecting with a low pressure side and a valve body 103 is driven between a valve closing position (state shown in FIG. 10) where the hydraulic port 101 is disconnected from the low pressure port 102 and a valve opening position where the hydraulic port 101 is connected to the low pressure port 102.
When the valve body 103 is driven to the valve closing position, the fuel pressure in the accumulator 150 is supplied to the control chamber 111 of the pressure intensifier 110 and the backpressure chamber 131 of the injection nozzle 130. At this time, in the pressure intensifier 110, the hydraulic pressures on both upper and lower sides of a hydraulic piston 112 balance with each other, so that the pressure of fuel supplied from the accumulator 150 to a pressurizing chamber 113 is not intensified. Moreover, in the injection nozzle 130, a needle (not shown) receives fuel pressure in the backpressure chamber 131 to keep a state where a valve is closed and hence the fuel is not injected.
Next, when the valve body 103 is driven to a valve opening position, the hydraulic port 101 and the low pressure port 102 of the control valve 100 are connected to each other to release the fuel pressure in the control chamber 111 and the backpressure chamber 131 via the control valve 100 to a low pressure side. With this, in the pressure intensifier 110, the hydraulic pressures on both upper and lower sides of the hydraulic piston 112 are thrown out of balance to move the hydraulic piston 112 downward in the drawing, whereby the fuel in the pressurizing chamber 113 is pressurized and is supplied to the injection nozzle 130. Moreover, in the injection nozzle 130, the fuel pressure in the backpressure chamber 131 is decreased to lift the needle, whereby the fuel of extremely high pressure, which is supplied from the pressure intensifier 110, is injected.
However, in a fuel injection system described in the patent document 2, the control chamber 111 of the pressure intensifier 110 and the backpressure chamber 131 of the injection nozzle 130 are always connected to the accumulator 150. In other words, the control chamber 111 of the pressure intensifier 110 and the backpressure chamber 131 of the injection nozzle 130 always communicate with the accumulator 150 irrespective of a state where the control valve 100 is opened or closed. For this reason, although the restrictors 170 to 190 are provided in the respective fuel passages 120, 140, and 160, even if these three restrictors 170 to 190 are used, the values of the respective restrictors 170 to 190 have effects on each other to make it difficult to optimally control the action of the pressure intensifier 110 and the action of the injection nozzle 130.
Moreover, when the control valve 100 is opened, the fuel pressure in the accumulator 150 is released to the low pressure side via the control valve 100 to bring about a state where the fuel freely flows out of the accumulator 150 to cause an energy loss, which results in reducing the fuel consumption of the internal combustion engine.

Fuel injection system for internal combustion engine


A drywall corner-finishing accessory comprises three integrally joined, elongate strips, namely two relatively rigid, lateral strips and a relatively pliable, middle strip coextruded respectively from polyvinyl chloride having different durometer hardnesses. Each lateral strip has a rib along one edge. At its opposite edges, the middle strip is joined to the lateral strips at the distal edges of the ribs, preferably being joined to lateral surfaces of the ribs, so that a broad surface of the middle strip is stepped from the lateral strips. The accessory is flexible along the middle strip selectively to define a stepped, inside corner and to define a stepped, outside corner. The rib of each lateral strip guides a drywall-finishing tool and has a grooved pocket opening toward the distal edge of such lateral strip to receive drywall-finishing material.

Commonly, drywall corner beads, drywall seam-covering devices, and other drywall corner-finishing accessories are extruded from a substantially rigid, polymeric material, such as polyvinyl chloride. As exemplified in Failla et al. U.S. Pat. No. 4,288,016, such a corner bead has two strips joined by an integral, generally U-shaped lip, which functions to guide a drywall-finishing blade used to apply drywall-finishing material over the strips and adjoining drywall panels and which lends limited flexibility to such a corner bead.
However, as exemplified by Swanson U.S. Pat. No. 3,444,657, Lamb U.S. Pat. No. 4,313,991, and Hoffmann, Sr., U.S. Pat. No. 4,835,925, it is known for such accessories to be sufficiently flexible to be selectively useful at either inside or outside corners. As disclosed in the Swanson and Lamb patents, such accessories have grooves or notches to provide such flexibility. Along with embodiments of similarly grooved or notched accessories, the Hoffmann, Sr., patent discloses embodiments having strips of substantially rigid, polymeric material joined by hinges of substantially flexible, polymeric material.
Moreover, U.K. Patent Application GB 2,166,771A, as published May 14, 1986, discloses a corner molding of related interest. The corner moulding is flexible at three areas of reduced wall thickness.
This invention has resulted from efforts to improve such drywall corner-finishing accessories.


An apparatus and process for controlling the operation of a gas burner, by monitoring and controlling the stoichiometry of the air and fuel gas during the burning process.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to the control of gaseous fuel burners as used in various heating, cooling and cooking appliances. In particular, the present invention relates to a method and apparatus for setting and maintaining the proportions of fuel gas to air in the combustible mixture supplied to a power or induced draft, preferably premixed, burner at a desired firing rate.
2. The Prior Art
In the field of gas burner technology, relating to burners such as may be used in furnaces, water heaters, boilers, and the like, it is desirable to control the operation of a burner beyond merely supplying gas and providing air for combustion at a fixed flow rate, and igniting the mixture. Numerous factors must be considered in the construction, placement and operating conditions for a gas burner.
Some prior art appliances provide a fixed air supply to a burner, and must, therefore, not only supply enough air to prevent excessive production of carbon monoxide and oxides of nitrogen under ideal operating conditions, but also must provide a safety margin to account for incidences such as a blocked vent or an overfire condition (i.e., a significant increase in the firing rate above the rated value). Therefore, a standard appliance is typically designed with an excess air level significantly higher than would be required if changes in firing rate or air flow could be compensated for automatically. The additional safety margin of excess air can result in a significant reduction in appliance efficiency. Accordingly, it would be desirable to more closely control the fuel to air ratio.
In certain environments, in which human safety is a consideration, a burner must be operated in such a manner as to avoid the production of certain gases (such as carbon monoxide or oxides of nitrogen), beyond certain defined limits. The provision of air in excess of the applicable stoichiometric ratio for combustion of the particular fuel gas being burned may help to ensure safe operation and burning conditions, but may also create an inefficient operating situation.
Gas burner designs are being made in which the supplies of fuel gas, primary combustion air and secondary combustion air (if such is supplied) are capable of being closely physically controlled in finite increments. It is desirable to provide a method of monitoring the operation of the burner so that the incremental control of the gas and air supplies can be used to the best advantage to facilitate safe, and efficient operation.
It is, in general, a true proposition that a burner, which operates closely to stoichiometric conditions is more efficient than a furnace which is operating, for example, with a large amount of excess air. If the fuel gas is known, and the flow rates of fuel gas and combustion air are known, the actual combustion conditions, relative to stoichiometry are defined.
It is presently becoming popular in the art to provide appliances which have the capability to modulate or vary the fuel flow over a wide range, thus making a wide range of heating capacity (firing rates) available with a single appliance. Modulating capabilities can greatly increase a system's overall efficiency. Two-stage systems, i.e., systems capable of operating at two firing rate levels, are available, but are limited in their scope and range of operation due to their typical inability to precisely control the fuel gas and air mixture, and the need for a wide excess-air safety margin. A continuously modulating appliance, to be effective and efficient, would require close control of the fuel to air ratio. Though it is possible to directly measure the fuel and air flow rates independently and thereby determine the fuel and air mixture, such a detection system would require expensive sensor systems and be complex and possibly overly costly for most appliance applications of interest.
One method of monitoring burner operation, toward controlling same is disclosed in Noir et al., U.S. Pat. No. 4,188,172. In the Noir et al. '172 patent, a control burner is connected in parallel, with regard to the fuel gas and combustion air lines, with a main burner. The control burner is connected to two control loops. The first control loop consists of a waterfiller calorimeter, which surrounds the control burner. This calorimeter is used to determine the heating value of the fuel. The fuel flow is then adjusted to maintain a constant heat flux in the main burner. The second control loop consists of a temperature sensor located at the tip of the control burner flame. The control system of that reference functions on the basis that for a given firing rate, the flame temperature, for example, at the tip, will attain a maximum temperature, when the fuel/air ratio is at or near the theoretical stoichiometric ratio for the particular fuel. The air flow to the control burner is then varied until a peak temperature is reached. Then the air flow to the main burner is set at a predetermined multiple so as to achieve a desired fuel/air ratio in the main burner.
The control system of the Noir et al. '172 reference requires substantial calibration, as well as the provision of an entire, separate, pilot or control burner. Although passing reference is made to the possibility of applying the principles of Noir et al. '172 to other flame characteristics, such as the ionization of burned gases, no disclosure is provided or even remotely alluded to, as to how to practice such application.
Further, the Noir et al. reference is not directed to an apparatus suitable for use at widely varying firing rates. It would be desirable to provide a control apparatus having a method of control which could be provided at low cost, and capable of providing accurate burner control over a wide range of firing rates.
Problems faced by gas burners include performance variations caused by changes in air flow, due to fan/blower degradation and flue blockage, as well as changes in fuel heating value. Variations in burner performance caused by the aforementioned conditions can result in excessive pollutant production, which in turn can be a health and safety hazard. To compensate for these potential problems and provide a large margin of safety, current gas burner equipped appliances operate with a large amount of excess air. This large amount of excess air results in significantly lower system efficiencies.
An additional problem which gas burner equipped appliances, such as furnaces, face, is the effect which altitude has upon performance. At higher altitudes, burners receive air which is less dense, and accordingly, has less oxygen. Accordingly, for appliances which are not capable of modifying their operation in response to the altitude, such apparatus must be derated for altitudes which are different than a "base" or nominal optimum operating altitude (e.g., sea level). For example, it is typical to derate an appliance, such as a furnace, at a rate of -4% per every 1000 feet of increased altitude. That means, for an appliance having a rating of X BTU/hr at sea level, the rating will be X(1-0.04) BTU/hr at 1000 feet elevation.
It would be desirable to provide gas appliances with a way to self regulate, in response to changes in air flow, fuel heating value, and altitude so that substantially constant performance can be obtained, if desired (within the limits of the supply of available fuel and combustion air).

Flame ionization control apparatus and method


Exemplary embodiments described herein related to methods and systems for casting metal alloys into articles such as BMG articles. In one embodiment, processes involved for storing, pre-treating, alloying, melting, injecting, molding, etc. can be combined as desired and conducted in different chambers. During these processes, each chamber can be independently, separately controlled to have desired chamber environment, e.g., under vacuum, in an inert gas environment, or open to the surrounding environment. Due to the flexible, independent control of each chamber, the casting cycle time can be reduced and the production throughput can be increased. Contaminations of the molten materials and thus the final products are reduced or eliminated.

In injection molding, a melt crucible is often coupled with a cast machine in a vacuum environment to transfer molten material from the melt crucible into the cast machine. Often, there is leakage during this transfer and this leakage may contaminate molten material and/or the melt crucible. In addition, the melt crucible and the cast machine are configured contiguous in the same environment for both the melting and casting processes, which, however, requires long cycle time. Further, the molten material at high temperature may be in contact with the melt crucible for a sufficient long time to physically and/or chemically react with each other, i.e., to contaminate the molten material and/or surfaces of the melt crucible. Furthermore, in many cases, there are times that one does not want to have same one environment such as vacuum for the entire process.

Cold chamber die casting with melt crucible under vacuum environment


A method of increasing likelihood of locating sought individuals, including missing persons or wanted individuals by stimulating public awareness through the dissemination of pictures and other data or indicia (12) of such individuals on lottery game cards. In addition, a-portion of the card that bears data of an individual being sought is a detachable stub (24) which can be kept as an entry for an additional opportunity to participate in a contest at a later date.

This invention relates to the field of methods used for locating sought individuals, and also to the field of lottery game cards, specifically to a method and lottery game card for increasing the likelihood of locating said individuals.
A major problem that affects society is that of missing persons, usually abducted children. Another problem is that posed by dangerous criminals wanted by the law and on the loose. Significant efforts and resources are dedicated to disseminating information about such individuals in order to locate them. Unfortunately, recovery rate of missing victims or capture rate of wanted criminals is far from satisfactory.
Presently there are different methods used to disseminate images of sought individuals with the purpose of recruiting volunteers from the community to join in the search efforts to locate such individuals by raising awareness in the general public about such persons"" likeness in order to increase the likelihood that someone will spot the individual-and ultimately lead to the location and recovery or capture of such individual.
Some of these methods are based on media such as television, radio, newspapers, special brochures, posters, flyers, milk cartons, and more recently, internet web sites, among others.
Television transmissions may reach a large sector of the population to present full color images of the sought person, but for very limited amounts of time given its relatively high costs, thereby reducing retention of the resemblance of the featured individuals. Some television programs, such as AMERICA""S MOST WANTED; dedicate its airtime to diffusing information about dangerous criminals on the loose, and also about missing children. However, once transmission ends; audiences relies solely on memory recall. Additionally, television is limited in its audience reach considering rating competitions and other factors intrinsic to this media.
Another popular media, the radio, is null in its capacity to disseminate visual graphic data, a key driver in facial recognition.
In relation to high tech media used to disseminate data such as web sites and other electronic internet based technologies, the results are not very encouraging either. Even though this particular channel delivers messages selectively and almost immediately, it is not yet massively widespread, and even when it does become so, users will be bombarded with messages of all types. Given the interactive nature of-the internet, users will still have the option of navigating to sites of particular interest, whereby sites delivering information about sought individuals will increasingly need to compete for a web surfer""s preference and attention.
One of the most popular and common of these media devices could be the type prepared in printed form such as flyers, posters, milk cartons, newspapers, etc. This particular type of media could possibly achieve the task of disseminating data more cost efficiently than most other media thanks to certain advantages such as a wider availability to the masses as a result of lower production and distribution costs.
However, as the public is often bombarded with messages of all types, most of the aforementioned media devices go unnoticed. Flyers delivered in the mail, for instance, are frequently discarded along with accompanying-paid mail advertisements, commonly known as xe2x80x9cjunk mailxe2x80x9d. Likewise, milk cartons on the breakfast table and posters displayed in high traffic areas tend to be detailed by fewer people than intended, and pictures published in the daily paper and specialized magazines may receive a brief glance by most readers.
Also, in order to create awareness in the general public about the need to locate said individuals, these orchestrated efforts rely on the public""s voluntary disposition, willingness, benevolence, philanthropic tendencies, mercy for the missing, desire for justice on the antisocial, and memory retention to consciously study and retain the featured individual""s resemblance, among other factors.
Fortunately, most search efforts are successful sooner or later thanks mostly to the due diligence of police departments, detectives, government organizations, nonprofit organizations, special forces, private agencies and other entities. Public involvement also plays a key role and complements these organized searches as sightings of a sought person are relayed by the public to the corresponding authorities by means of a telephone call to a dedicate hotline, etc.
Nonetheless, there is a the lesser portion of efforts which are not so successful. Parents and relatives of missing victims, and the community in general; suffer the anxiety and consequences of an individual who has been missing for an unusually long period of time. Additionally, society as a whole suffers the fear, threat and potential consequences of a wanted criminal on the loose.
Even though a portion of the community becomes involved in the search efforts, it usually represents a relatively small percentage of the population, insufficient to make the efforts successful all the time, and many times the participating public fails to study the facial characteristics of the featured individual in enough detail so as to spot said individual casually.
Additionally, the process by which the individual""s image and/or data is-compiled, printed on the selected media (poster, flyer, milk carton, etc.), the media processed, the hardcopy produced, transported, distributed, delivered and finally placed in front of a potentially true volunteer requires a significant effort and mobilization of resources which translate into expenses which are ultimately absorbed by the general public in the form of taxes or other payments.
As can be seen, several types of methods have been proposed and implemented in the crusade for the location and recovery or capture of sought persons. One of the main goals of these methods has been to involve the community in the search efforts to locate these individuals in order to complement organized searches and thereby increase the success rate of these efforts. Some of the mentioned initiatives may have certainly improved the success rate to some degree, but nevertheless all methods and media devices heretofore known for locating sought persons suffer from a number of disadvantages:
(a) They lack control over the public""s disposition to consciously study the featured individual""s resemblance and facial features.
(b) To motivate individuals to volunteer, all these efforts rely mostly on the philanthropy instincts, feelings of mercy, desire for justice, and/or the disinterested goodwill of the public among other factors, qualities which may not be exactly abundant in the general public.
(c) They fail to motivate users to refer to and study the featured person""s facial features repeatedlyxe2x80x94a factor which could translate in a significant increase in retention.
(d) Even though an individual may be motivated to volunteer, contribution is usually limited to memory retention, unless said individual carries a graphic reference of the featured person being sought.
(e) Printed media devices fail to motivate volunteers to keep and carry the graphic reference given that a volunteer may overestimate own retentive capability and discard reference prematurely.
(f) The high cost tied to these efforts is unlikely to be directly funded by the recipients in view of the absence of benefits or satisfactions different to those of benevolent nature (philanthropy, goodwill, etc).
(g) The cost of printing and delivering the media is high given that it is not targeted at specific public volunteers but rather disseminated massively to the general public regardless of recipient""s potential volunteer profile, resulting in an inefficient, ineffective and relatively expensive distribution.
(h) One of the most popular and most widely distributed printed media, the mailed flyer; rests in a recipient""s mailbox until retrieved, thus wasting the valuable opportunity of exposing its contents to by-passers.
(i) The cost of producing and disseminating one of the most popular media, the color poster, may be very high if massive dissemination is to be achieved.
(j) All of the aforementioned media is of a passive nature, i.e., prospects receive messages without the intervention of conscious action, thereby reducing intentional and proactive involvement of the public significantly.
Accordingly, several objects and advantages of the present invention are:
(a) Control over the public""s disposition to consciously study a featured individual""s resemblance and facial features, thereby increasing memory retention.
(b) To motivate individuals to volunteer, regardless of the presence of philanthropic instincts, feelings of mercy, desire for justice, and disinterested goodwill, thereby recruiting a larger number of volunteers.
(c) It urges users to refer to, and study a featured person""s facial features repeatedly, thereby increasing memory retention.
(d) To motivate individuals to keep and carry a conveniently-sized graphic reference of a featured person being sought, thereby allowing on the spot verification of a sighting while increasing real alarms about actual individuals and decreasing false alarms about look-alikes.
(e) The cost tied to the effort is directly and voluntarily funded by the targeted recipients regardless of the existence of benevolent intentions such as philanthropy, mercy, desire for justice, or the general need to cooperate with the community but rather as a result of the incentive of probable economical benefit; thereby freeing monetary, human and organizational resources to cover other needs.
(f). Maximizes the opportunity to constantly expose its contents to by-passers while on display through-a vast and diverse network of points of sale.
(g) Full-color images are massively disseminated and displayed at points of sale through a vast and diverse network at fully recoverable cost, thereby maximizing exposure of featured individuals to the general public while minimizing or eliminating printing and distribution costs altogether.
(h) The entertainment nature and game mechanic of the lottery card device urges users to become proactively involved in reception of the message, thereby increasing intentional involvement of the public significantly.
(i) The lottery card allows the display of images and other data about a featured individual to a user and through the game mechanics urges said user to learn a featured individual""s facial resemblance and other data, thereby increasing public awareness.
Further objects and advantages are to provide an inexpensive method which can be used to disseminate data about sought individuals, which can stimulate public awareness about said individuals in order to increase the likelihood of locating said individuals, and which can encourage the public to fund said efforts voluntarily and directly. Still further objects and advantages will become apparent from a consideration of the ensuing description and drawings.

Method for increasing likelihood of locating sought individuals including missing persons or wanted individuals by providing pictures of the sought individuals on lottery game cards


There is disclosed a ceramic separation membrane. This ceramic separation membrane includes a porous substrate, and a separation layer formed on the substrate. The separation layer is a laminate having an outermost layer positioned on the most surface side, and a base layer positioned in a lower layer than the outermost layer and made of zeolite. The outermost layer is a layer made of a siliceous material containing 90 mol % or more of silica, an organic material-containing amorphous silica material having a Si—Cn—Si (wherein n is 1 or 2) bond and a Si/C ratio of 0.5 to 2, or a carbonaceous material containing 90 mass % or more of carbon. The outermost layer is different from the base layer.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a ceramic separation membrane and a dehydration method, and more particularly, it relates to a ceramic separation membrane in which durability and a separation property is enhanced, and a dehydration method in which this ceramic separation membrane is used.
2. Description of Related Art
Heretofore, to separate a specific component from a mixture of gases or liquids containing an organic material, various methods have been employed in accordance with properties of a substance which is an object of separation. Examples of the various methods include a distillation method, an azeotropic distillation method, a solvent extraction/distillation method, and a separation method by an adsorbent. However, these methods have the problems that a lot of energy is required and that an application range of the separation object is restrictive.
In recent years, as a method replacing the above separation methods, there has been suggested a membrane separation method in which a membrane such as a polymer membrane is used (see Patent Document 1). Examples of the polymer membrane include a carbon membrane and a hollow fiber membrane. This polymer membrane has excellent processing properties. However, the polymer membrane has a problem that a heat resistance is low. Furthermore, the polymer membrane has a low resistance to chemicals, and particularly, the polymer membrane comes in contact with an organic material such as an organic solvent or an organic acid to swell in many cases. Consequently, there has been the problem that the application range of the separation object is restrictive.
On the other hand, there has also been suggested a membrane separation method in which a separation membrane (a ceramic separation membrane) having an inorganic material as in a zeolite membrane or the like is used (see Patent Documents 2 to 5). As to the zeolite membrane, for example, a mixture (an acidic aqueous solution) of an organic material (an acid component such as acetic acid) and water is passed through this zeolite membrane, thereby allowing water to selectively permeate the membrane, so that the water can be removed from the acidic aqueous solution. In other words, when the zeolite membrane is used, the acidic aqueous solution can be concentrated. In such a membrane separation method in which the separation membrane having the inorganic material is used, an amount of the energy to be used can be reduced as compared with the above separation method by the distillation or the adsorbent. Furthermore, the separation can be performed in a broader temperature range than in the polymer membrane.

Ceramic separation membrane and dehydration method


The invention relates to a portable electronic device and computer software product. The portable electronic device comprises a motion detector for generating motion data characterizing the local movement of the portable electronic device, a motion intensity determiner for determining a instantaneous motion intensity value of the user of the portable electronic device from the motion data, and an active time counter for determining an active time accumulation that sums up the time periods, during which the instantaneous motion intensity value meets predefined activity criteria.

1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a portable electronic device and a computer software product. The portable electronic device and computer software product implement a process for determining the intensity of a performance.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recommendations provided by international organizations and professionals exist on the suitable amount of daily exercise for boosting health. Examples of such organizations are ACSM (American College of Sports Medicine) and CDC (Centers for Disease Control).
When doing normal daily routines or an irregular and long-term performance, such as a physical exercise, it is, however, difficult for an ordinary person to estimate the intensity and duration of the performance and whether the recommended amount of exercise is reached. The performance may be interrupted for indefinable time periods or the intensity of the performance may decrease such that the person finds it difficult to estimate, whether the criteria set for the performance are met.
Thus, it is useful to examine techniques for reliably estimating the intensity of a performance.

Portable electronic device and computer software product


A method and apparatus for locating the field of view of an imaging or vision system by generating an indicator light using at least one of the one or more light sources of the imaging system. The indicator light is transmitted along a projection path. The indicator light is output along the projection path onto the workpiece in a region adjacent to the field of view of the imaging system.

1. Field of Invention
This invention relates to vision systems or other imaging systems.
2. Description of Related Art
Measurements performed with a vision system involve some form of interaction between the operator of the vision system and the vision system. The operator can interact with the vision system at several levels. One particular interaction occurs when the operator sets up an object to be viewed by the vision system. The vision system images the object using an optical system and an image acquisition device and displays the acquired image. Often during setup, the operator must change, either manually or automatically, one or more of the magnification levels of the vision system, the location of the optical system relative to the object and/or the objects and/or the amount of light used to illuminate the object.
To acquire specific images of an object at various magnifications may require the physical location of the optical system field of view relative to the object be determined. One conventional way to determine the location of the optical system field of view relative to the object is to observe the shape of the portion of the object imaged by the optical system. However, determining the location of the field of view relative to the object by observing the shape of the portion of the object imaged by the optical system alone can be especially difficult when the vision system views the object at high magnification levels, and especially when there are several similar shapes on the object.
Another conventional way to determine the location of the optical system field of view relative to the object includes visually observing and gauging the location of the optical microscope axis in relation to the workpiece. However, determining the location of the optical system field of view relative to the object by solely observing the location of the center of the optical microscope axis in relation to the workpiece is also especially difficult when the vision system views the object at high magnification levels.
Yet another way to determine the location of the optical system field of view relative to the object includes illuminating the field of view orthogonally with bright field lighting and observing the location of a small-diameter light spot on the object. However, bright field light of a sufficient level to produce adequate light scattering intended for observation by the human eye normally saturates the vision system""s image acquisition device. This precludes simultaneously viewing any image details produced by the image acquisition device, thus making it difficult to determine the location of the optical system relative to the object.
Still another way to determine the location of the optical system relative to the object is to diffusely illuminate the object using dark-field lighting such as a ring light. However, the disproportionately large illumination field thereby produced relative to the image acquisition device viewing field makes it difficult to determine the location on the object of the optical system field of view.
This invention provides systems and methods for indicating the field of view of an optical system on the workpiece so that the indication can be viewed by the human eye.
This invention separately provides systems and methods that indicate the field of view of the optical system on the workpiece while simultaneously allowing a portion of the object to be imaged by the optical system and the image acquisition device.
This invention separately provides systems and methods for indicating the field of view of the imaging system on the workpiece using some of the imaging optics of the vision system, but without interfering with the image provided by the imaging optics of the vision system.
In various exemplary embodiments of the systems and methods according to this invention, the location of the field of view of an imaging or vision system is indicated by generating an indicator light using at least one of the one or more light sources of the imaging system. The indicator light is transmitted along a projection path. The indicator light is output along the projection path onto the workpiece in a region indicative of the field of view of the imaging system.
These and other forms and advantages of this invention are described in or are apparent from the following detailed description of exemplary embodiments of the systems and methods according to this invention.

Apparatus and method for indicating the location of a field of view for a vision system


Disclosed is a method for manufacturing a lithium transition metal phosphate. The disclosed method for manufacturing a lithium transition metal phosphate comprises the steps of: injecting reaction materials containing lithium, a transition metal, and a phosphate, into a reactor, and mixing the raw materials at the molecular level in the reactor; and allowing the reaction materials to chemically react in the reactor so as to cause nucleation.

Lithium transition metal phosphate (LiMPO4, where M denotes a transition metal; hereinafter referred to as LMP) is a promising cathode active material for lithium secondary batteries.
As a method of preparing LMP, for example, a solid phase method and a sol-gel method are used.
In a solid phase method, solid-phase reactants are mixed and heated to prepare LMP. However, due to the high heating temperature, it is difficult to obtain uniform nanoparticles. Also, to manufacture such uniform nanoparticles, micro-particle powder reactants are required. Accordingly, a dependency on reactants is high and thus economic efficiency reduces.
Moreover, the solid phase method involves thermal treatment in a reducing condition, which requires particular attention. Due to a low electric conductivity of LMP, to realize battery characteristics, surfaces of LMP particles need to be coated with a conductive material. However, this surface coating is difficult to be implemented with the solid phase method.
In a sol-gel method, a metal alkoxide source material is transformed into a sol state and then gelled through condensation reaction, followed by drying and heating to prepare LMP. However, reactants used in this method are expensive and also, this method is based on an organic solvent. Accordingly, manufacturing costs are high.

Method for manufacturing a lithium transition metal phosphate


Various exemplary embodiments relate to a method performed by a network node in a resource reservation protocol (RSVP) based label switch path (LSP) network, the method including: receiving a message to establish a LSP; receiving a resv message; initiating the establishment of a backup path; determining that the establishment of the backup path failed; setting a backup timer; and initiating the establishment of a backup path upon the expiration of the backup timer.

In multiprotocol label switching (MPLS) networking, a label-switched path (LSP) is a path through an MPLS network, set up by a signaling protocol such as resource reservation protocol-traffic engineering (RSVP-TE). The path is set up based on criteria in the forwarding equivalence class (FEC).
The path begins at a label edge router (LER), which makes a decision on which label to prefix to a packet based on the appropriate FEC. It then forwards the packet along to the next router in the path, which swaps the packet's outer label for another label, and forwards it to the next router. The last router in the path removes the label from the packet and forwards the packet based on the header of its next layer, for example IPv4. Due to the forwarding of packets through an LSP being opaque to higher network layers, an LSP is also sometimes referred to as an MPLS tunnel.
The router which first prefixes the MPLS header to a packet is called an ingress router. The last router in an LSP, which pops the label from the packet, is called an egress router. Routers in between, which need only swap labels, are called transit routers or label switch routers (LSRs).
RSVP-TE provides extensions to the RSVP protocol to establish backup LSP paths for local repair of LSP paths. These mechanisms enable the re-direction of traffic onto backup LSP paths in 10s of milliseconds, in the event of a failure.
Two methods are defined by the standard in RFC 4090. The one-to-one backup method creates detour LSPs for each protected LSP at each potential point of local repair. The facility backup method creates a bypass path to protect a potential failure point; by taking advantage of MPLS label stacking, this bypass path can protect a set of LSPs that have similar backup constraints. Both methods can be used to protect links and nodes during network failure. The described behavior and extensions to RSVP allow nodes to implement either method or both and to interoperate in a mixed network.

System and method for rapid protection of RSVP based LSP


Methods of reducing heat exchanger fouling rate or of producing polyolefins may include providing a first gas stream comprising a gas and entrained fine polyolefin particles to a gas outlet line; removing a portion of the entrained fine polyolefin particles from the gas outlet line to form a bypass stream; and providing the bypass stream to a bypass line comprising a bypass line inlet and a bypass line outlet. The bypass line inlet and outlet are located upstream and downstream of a first heat exchanger. The methods may further include providing at least a portion of the first gas stream to the first heat exchanger; and combining the bypass stream and a second gas stream at the bypass line outlet to form a combined gas stream comprising one or more olefins or paraffins. A temperature of the combined gas stream is below the dew point of the combined gas stream.

Gas-phase polyolefin reactor systems, such as fluidized bed reactor systems, are often configured to recycle at least a portion of the gases from the reactor. Specifically, gas-phase polyolefin reactor systems frequently separate solid polyolefin particles from an exiting gas stream, pass the separated gas stream through one or more heat exchangers to cool the separated gas stream, and recycle the cooled gas stream to the polyolefin reactor. However, over time, solid polyolefin particles tend to collect in the one or more heat exchangers. The collection of solid polyolefin particles fouls the one or more heat exchangers, and increases the pressure drop across the one or more heat exchangers, while also reducing the efficiency of the one or more heat exchangers. Once the pressure drop across the heat exchanger(s) exceeds a certain value, unit production rates are limited by this pressure drop, with higher pressure drops resulting in lower production rates. Due to the decrease in unit production caused by the heat exchanger fouling, the entire reactor system often has to be shut down, as often as once every 6 months for 7 or more days, to clean the heat exchangers and restore them to optimal efficiency, at a significant cost to the operator.
Accordingly, improved reactor systems and methods are needed.

Systems and methods for reducing heat exchanger fouling rate


A continuous plasma treatment process is disclosed. The process may include providing at least one plasma treatment zone having a pair of electrodes with endless dielectric belts, each belt having a first and a second side that covers one of the electrodes. The process may include producing a non-thermal plasma in a space between the belts, and transporting a web material via the belts such that there is a width of exposed belt on either side of the web material. The process may include transporting the web material such that a side of the web material not in contact with the belts is treated in two passes through the at least one plasma treatment zone, while exposed parts of the belts transporting the web material are also treated. The process may include cleaning treated parts of the belts prior to the belts re-entering the at least one plasma treatment zone.

In many applications the mechanical, chemical or physical properties of surfaces of materials are important. If such surface properties are not provided by the bulk properties of the material, the application of coatings and surface modification are convenient ways of improving surface properties such as hardness, chemical resistance, electrical resistivity, barrier properties and optical appearance. Conventionally, the application of such coatings or surface modification is often performed at reduced pressures using methods such as sputtering, vacuum deposition or ion plating. However, the realisation of continuous production of such coatings or surface modification is difficult to realise at reduced pressure. Atmospheric plasma treatment processes have been proposed to overcome these problems in which a layer with the required physical and/or chemical property is formed on the surface of a substrate with a uniform composition or the surface itself of a substrate is modified.
U.S. 2002/0057999A1 discloses an installation in which an operation is performed that requires control over the atmosphere inside a chamber (3), the operation being performed in the presence of a gaseous mixture capable of giving off emissions, characterized in that it comprises: inlet and outlet devices (5, 8) adjoining the chamber to oppose respectively the ingress of air into the chamber and the exit of gaseous emissions therefrom; an extraction device (4) comprising a duct opening into the chamber; and means (42) for regulating the flow rate of gas drawn out by said extraction device so as to maintain an approximately zero pressure difference between the inside of the chamber and the surrounding atmosphere.
U.S. 2003/0113479A1 discloses an atmospheric pressure plasma treatment apparatus comprising a first electrode and a second electrode opposed to each other in which a discharge space is formed between the opposed electrodes, a voltage application device for applying voltage across the discharge space, a gas supply device for supplying a reactive gas and an inert gas to the discharge space, wherein the reactive gas at the discharge space is excited at atmospheric pressure or at approximately atmospheric pressure by applying voltage through the voltage application device to generate discharge plasma, and a substrate is exposed to the discharge plasma to be subjected to surface treatment, and wherein the reactive gas is not directly in contact with the discharge surface of the first electrode or the second electrode.
U.S. 2004/0050685A1 discloses a method for plasma treatment under atmospheric pressure for treating an article to be treated comprising: providing a solid dielectric on at least one opposing face of a pair of opposing electrodes under pressure near the atmospheric pressure; introducing a treatment gas between said a pair of opposing electrodes; generating plasma by applying an electric field between said electrodes; and contacting the plasma with the article to be treated, wherein an used gas is exhausted from the vicinity of treatment section where said plasma and said body to be treated are in contact, and said vicinity of treatment section is maintained under a specified gas atmosphere by a gas atmosphere control mechanism.
U.S. 2004/0050685A1 further discloses an equipment for plasma treatment under the atmospheric pressure comprising: a pair of opposing electrodes with a solid dielectric being provided on at least one opposing face thereof; a mechanism for introducing a treatment gas between said pair of opposing electrodes; a mechanism for applying an electric field between said electrodes; a mechanism for contacting the plasma obtained by said electric field with said article to be treated; a mechanism for exhausting an used gas; and a mechanism for maintaining the vicinity of treatment section, where said plasma and said article to be treated are in contact, under the specified gas atmosphere.
WO 2004/028220A1 discloses a method for generating and maintaining a plasma according to the Dielectric Barrier Discharge (DBD) technique, said method comprising the steps of: introducing a sample in the space between two electrodes, a mixed atmosphere being present between said electrodes, applying an alternating voltage to said electrodes for generating and maintaining a plasma in the volumetric space between the electrodes preferably at a pressure in the range between 100 Pa and 1 MPa, said voltage having a profile as a function of time, defined by a sequence of time periods during which a positive or zero voltage is applied, alternated with time periods during which a negative or zero voltage is applied, characterized in that said profile is asymmetrical with respect to amplitude and/or time.
WO 2005/098007A1 discloses a method for coating a substrate with an inorganic-organic hybrid polymer material using the Dielectric Barrier Discharge (DBD) technique, said method comprising the steps of: a) introducing a sample in the space between two electrodes, b) controlling the atmosphere between the electrodes, c) generating a plasma discharge between the electrodes, d) mixing aerosols containing hybrid organic/inorganic cross-linked pre-polymers formed via sol-gel processing, into the plasma discharge.
WO 2006/081637A1 discloses a plasma jet apparatus for performing plasma processing of an article, comprising: an elongated central electrode, an elongated cylindrical outer electrode surrounding said central electrode and being coaxial with said central electrode, an electrical insulator coaxially disposed between said outer electrode and said central electrode, wherein a discharge lumen having a distal end and a proximal end is defined between said central electrode and said electrical insulator, a supply opening disposed at said distal end of said discharge lumen for supplying a plasma producing gas to said discharge lumen, a power source for providing a voltage between said central electrode and said outer electrode characterised in that said electrical insulator extends in a radially placed ring at said proximal end beyond the outer surface of said outer electrode.
WO 2006/116828A1 discloses an apparatus for disinfection and purification of a medium comprising a liquid, gaseous or solid phase, or a mixture thereof, said apparatus comprising: a central electrode, a dielectric layer adjacent to said electrode, a first area adjacent to said dielectric layer, and means to introduce a first medium into said first area, a second area adjacent to said first area, and means to introduce a second medium into said second area, a means for creating a plasma in said first medium, while said first medium is present in the first area, by applying a voltage between said first electrode and a second electrode, a means for injecting said plasma into the second area, in order to be mixed with the second medium.
U.S. 2007/0202270A1 further discloses a method for coating a substrate with an inorganic-organic hybrid polymer material using the Dielectric Barrier Discharge (DBD) technique, said method comprising the steps of: a) introducing a sample in the space between two electrodes, b) controlling the atmosphere between the electrodes, c) generating a plasma discharge between the electrodes, d) mixing aerosols containing hybrid organic/inorganic cross-linked pre-polymers formed via sol-gel processing, into the plasma discharge.
WO 2007/053916A1 discloses a method for producing a coating comprising a conjugated polymer on a substrate, comprising the steps of: providing a substrate, introducing a conjugated polymer coating forming material into an atmospheric pressure plasma discharge, or into the reactive gas stream resulting therefrom, simultaneously with the introduction of a coating forming material, introducing an additional material into said plasma discharge or the reactive gas stream resulting therefrom, exposing the substrate to said plasma discharge or the reactive gas stream resulting therefrom, thereby obtaining said coating.
WO 2008/119823A1 discloses a method of coating a substrate, said method comprising the steps of: providing a substrate, producing an atmospheric pressure plasma discharge in the presence or a gas, at least partially exposing the substrate to said atmospheric pressure plasma discharge, introducing a liquid aerosol of coating forming material into said atmospheric pressure plasma discharge, thereby forming a coating on the substrate, curing the substrate and the coating, by exposing the substrate to ultraviolet light.
D. Vangeneugden et al. in the "Proceedings of the 10th Asian Textile Conference—ATC-10- Sep. 7-9, 2009 at Ueda, Japan" reported that low temperature atmospheric pressure plasma by means of dielectric barrier discharges (DBD) constitutes an emerging technology for surface pre-treatment and coating and extended the variety of chemical precursors used in DBD deposition processes from gases and liquids with high vapour pressures and/or high stability to include nano-sized aerosols.
U.S. 2009/0120782A1 discloses a surface treater, comprising: a support for supporting a material passing through the treater; an active electrode having a discharge surface disposed opposite the support; a roller disposed proximate to the active electrode to define a discharge chamber between the support and the roller in which the discharge surface of the active electrode is disposed; and a high voltage power supply operatively connected to the active electrode to ionize a process gas and produce a discharge within the discharge chamber, wherein the roller sealingly engages the material to confine the discharge chamber. U.S. 2009/0120782A1 also discloses a process for surface treatment of continuous web materials, the process comprising: supporting a web material on a support; creating a discharge chamber between the support and at least one roller; disposing a discharge surface of an active electrode within the discharge chamber; passing the web material into the discharge chamber; confining the discharge chamber at the interface with the web material by contacting the web with the at least one roller; energizing the active electrode with high voltage to ionize process gas within the discharge chamber to create a discharge through which the web material passes.
JP 2001-279457A discloses a continuous surface treating method of a continuous film deposition method using atmospheric pressure plasma for performing discharge plasma treating under a pressure under an almost atmospheric pressure in a gaseous mixture atmosphere, wherein electrodes provided with opposed each other at a predetermined discharge interval supply a gaseous mixture between roll-shaped discharge plasma treating electrodes to perform the discharge plasma treating. The substrate is a film. JP 2001-279457A in FIG. 1 discloses the simultaneous roll to roll coating of two films moving in the same direction between two roll-shaped discharge plasma electrodes with the discharge in the space between the two continuous films.
JP 2007-073333A discloses a plasma discharge treatment apparatus, comprising: a pair of electrodes; gas supplying means supplying at least a discharge gas to a facing region of the electrodes; a high frequency power supply supplying high-frequency electricity to at least one of the electrodes and generating plasma discharge in the facing region of the electrodes; and substrate belt conveying means conveying a substrate belt to the facing region of the electrodes, wherein the apparatus includes an electrode moving means which moves at least one of the electrodes in parallel in a direction perpendicular to a conveying direction of the substrate belt with respect to the other electrode. JP 2007-073333A in FIG. 1 discloses the continuous roll to roll coating of a single film in two passes between two roll-shaped discharge plasma electrodes with the discharge in the space between the continuous film as it passes through in opposite directions.
JP 2007-332426A discloses a film deposition method characterized in that it comprises the plasma generation operation wherein the outer circumferential surface of a rotary electrode having cylindrical outer circumferential surface is arranged to face the surface of the base material made from an insulating material by keeping a space or, the said outer circumferential surface is arranged to face the counter component by keeping a space and generating plasma in the space, and the operation of conveying the said base material in the direction almost perpendicular to the direction of rotation of the axis of the said rotary electrode in the vicinity of the plasma formation region and, operation of supplying gas wherein the gas in the vicinity of the outer circumferential surface of the said rotary electrode is supplied to the said plasma generation region by dragging-in the gas by rotating the said rotary electrode around the axis at the centre of the outer circumferential surface to induce chemical reaction in the said gas by means of the energy of the plasma, to form a film on the surface of the said base material. Moreover, in the said plasma generation operation, the plasma is generated in a region situated at a position shifted to the upstream side in the direction of rotation of the rotary electrode with respect to the said position of said minimum space. Furthermore, JP 2007-332426A in FIG. 3 shows an almost flat electrode as a counter electrode in place of the earthed roller for conveyance, the electrode conveyor belt. The electrode that serves as counter electrode of the rotary electrode has a flat electrode plate which is almost parallel to the said base material and is situated on the back side of the conveyor belt made from an insulator-like rubber and acting as the means of transport of the base material.
WO 2009/104579A1 discloses a plasma discharge device comprising opposing electrodes consisting of a pair of rotating roll electrodes, a plasma discharge space wherein a voltage is applied between the opposing electrodes to generate a plasma discharge, a substrate that passes through the plasma discharge space while being held by said opposing electrodes that consist of roll electrodes, and a process gas supply means that supplies process gas into said plasma discharge space, wherein said process gas is composed of a discharge gas and a thin film-forming gas, said discharge gas containing at least 90 vol % or more of nitrogen gas, and the ratio of the diameters of the above pair of roll electrodes that constitute said opposing electrodes is 1.00:0.55 to 1.00:0.95. WO 2009/104579A1 further discloses that the substrate is preferably transported consecutively using a loop transportation method to form a functional film on said base material. The loop is formed by the substrate film itself. WO 2009/104579A1 in FIGS. 1, 3, 7, 10 and 11 discloses the continuous roll to roll coating of a single film in two passes between two roll-shaped discharge plasma electrodes with the discharge in the space between the continuous film as it passes through in opposite directions. WO 2009/104579A1 in FIGS. 5 and 8 discloses the forming of a film on a single endless loop in two passes in opposite directions between two roll-shaped discharge plasma electrodes with the discharge in the space between endless loop as it passes in opposite directions between the electrodes. WO 2009/104579A1 in FIG. 6 discloses the transport of endless loops round each of two roll-shaped discharge plasma electrodes each moving in opposite directions with the discharge in the space between the two endless loops as they pass between the electrodes with a film being formed simultaneously on different substrates. However, WO 2009/104579A fails to disclose the continuous coating of a web material transported by endless dielectric belts.
WO 2008/065861A discloses an atmospheric plasma processing apparatus capable of forming a thin film having high uniformity on a cylindrical substrate stably and with high productivity. The atmospheric plasma processing apparatus has at least two substrate carrying units each holding the cylindrical substrate by a roll electrode and a guide roll and disposed at positions opposing each other. A gas containing a thin film forming gas is supplied to a discharge space formed between the opposing roil electrodes under an atmospheric pressure or a pressure near the atmospheric pressure, and a high-frequency electric field is applied to the discharge space, thereby exciting the gas. At least the two cylindrical substrates are exposed to the excited gas, so that thin films are simultaneously formed. These 'cylindrical" substrates 175 are in fact an endless substrate forming a cylindrical surface by spanning round the roll electrode 20a and the driven roller 201 (see paragraph [0020]), Paragraphs [0112] and [0113] are silent in respect of the cleaning of the substrate. WO 2008/065861A fails to disclose the continuous coating of a web material transported by endless dielectric belts.
U.S. 2004/045806A1 discloses a method for treating the surface of objects, in particular made of strip material or of deep-drawn material, in which the to-be-treated surface (2) of the object (1) is subjected in a discharge region (3) filled with a first gas or gas mixture to a barrier discharge generated between a first planar electrode (4) and a second planar electrode (5), wherein a plasma-excited second gas or gas mixture emitting UV radiation to which said to-be-treated surface (2) is additionally subjected is provided as said second electrode (5). U.S. 2004/045806A fails to disclose the continuous coating of a web material transported by endless dielectric belts.
Plasma treatment at or near atmospheric pressure involving one or more roll electrodes has the advantage of precise parallelism of the gap between the electrodes, but the disadvantage of a very short coating zone due to the shape of the roll electrodes. Moreover, inhomogeneous treatments may be produced in the case of two pass-coating, if the passes are in opposite directions.

Method and device for atmospheric pressure plasma treatment