Single processing of the first channel search using the analog broadcasting tuner enables not only analog broadcasting channel to be detected but also the existence of digital broadcasting channel to be estimated. Furthermore, the acquisition of information transmitted on a digital broadcasting channel can be made apart from the first channel search when the channel is selected (received) or when the second channel search is performed. As a result, the first channel search (overall channel search) can be efficiently completed in a short time. In the second channel search for acquiring the digital broadcasting information, the number of physical channels to be searched is decreased by limiting to the number of the estimated channels. Accordingly, overall channel search which also acquires the digital broadcasting information is efficiently completed in a short time.

Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a broadcasting receiver capable of receiving both digital broadcasting and analog broadcasting.
A digital broadcasting receiver for receiving digital broadcasting using a satellite or a terrestrial wave selects an arbitrary broadcasting wave out of a plurality of broadcasting waves which are received through a satellite antenna or a terrestrial wave antenna by a digital tuner, and selects an arbitrary channel out of a plurality of channels included in the selected broadcasting wave by demultiplexing processing, and then takes out a digital signal on the selected channel to output a video/audio signal by decoding the digital signal.
A digital and analog broadcasting receiver comprising an analog tuner for receiving conventional analog broadcasting, together with a digital tuner for receiving digital television broadcasting can be configured. In existent station channel search processing in the broadcasting receiver, a technique for shortening the time required to perform channel search by executing search processing on the side of digital tuner and search processing on the side of analog tuner at the same time by the two CPUs is known (see JP-A-2002-171453).


A direct type backlight assembly is disclosed, in which a lamp guide is formed in a shape which can absorb an external force to prevent distortion from occurring from contact between the lamp guide and a diffusion plate, and to prevent the diffusion plate from being damaged. The direct type backlight assembly includes a light-emission lamp provided under an LCD panel; a reflecting plate provided on the bottom side of the light-emission lamp; a diffusion plate provided above the light-emission lamp; optical sheets provided on the diffusion plate; and a lamp guide provided on and connected with the reflecting plate, wherein the lamp guide has a supporter having a compression structure, the height thereof varying based on a load applied thereto.

Recently, various flat display devices have been actively studied and researched: for example, liquid crystal display (LCD) devices, field emission display (FED) devices, electro-luminescence display (ELD) devices, and plasma display panels (PDP). Among the flat display devices, the LCD device has been generally used for notebook PCs, desktop monitors and liquid crystal televisions. The LCD device has a high contrast ratio, good gray scale, high-quality moving picture image, and low power consumption.
As shown in FIG. 1, an LCD panel 70 includes an upper substrate 101 provided with a color filter layer 112 to represent various colors; a lower substrate 102 provided with a switching element to change the alignment of liquid crystal molecules; and a liquid crystal layer 100 provided between the upper substrate 101 and the lower substrate 102.
In addition to the color filter layer, the upper substrate 101 includes a black matrix 111 which prevents light leakage; and a common electrode 113 which applies a voltage to the liquid crystal layer 100. The lower substrate 102 includes a pixel electrode 122 as well as a switching element. In this case, the switching element is formed of a thin film transistor 121, and the pixel electrode 122 applies a voltage to the liquid crystal layer 100 in response to a signal outputted from the thin film transistor 121.
A spacer 115 is provided between the upper and lower substrates 101 and 102, and the spacer maintains a predetermined gap between the upper and lower substrate 101 and 102. Around the circumference of the substrate, there is a sealant 116 to prevent the liquid crystal 100 from flowing out.
The LCD panel does not itself emit light. Thus, the LCD device requires an additional light source. For a transmitting type LCD device, an additional light source, for example, a backlight assembly to emit and guide the light is provided.
The backlight assembly may be classified into an edge type and a direct type based on a transmission mode of light.
For the edge-type backlight assembly, a cylindrical line-type light source such as a light-emission lamp (hot cathode or cold cathode) is provided at a lateral side of an LCD panel, so that the light emitted from the light-emission lamp is transmitted to an entire surface of the LCD panel through the use of a transparent light-guiding plate. In case of the direct-type backlight assembly, light-emission lamps are provided under the LCD panel, and are selectively driven, so that the light emitted from the light-emission lamps is diffused to an entire surface of an LCD panel through the use of a light-diffusion plate provided between the light-emission lamps and the LCD panel.
The edge-type backlight assembly is problematic in that it is insufficiently competitive owing to the complicated and complex part sourcing and assembling process. Furthermore, after assembling the lamp into a lamp-housing, the light may leak. Also, the brightness is lowered since the light passes through the light-guiding plate.
To overcome these problems of the edge-type backlight assembly, the direct-type has been proposed, in which the light-emission lamps are selectively provided under the LCD panel, to realize high brightness and uniform luminosity.
For a large display area, it is necessary to provide the light source of uniform luminosity. In this respect, it is preferable to provide the direct-type backlight assembly.
In order to realize the backlight assembly of high brightness by the direct type, a plurality of light-emission lamps may be provided under the display screen, or one light-emission lamp having a bent structure may be provided.
FIG. 2 is an exploded perspective view of illustrating a related art backlight assembly. FIG. 3 is a cross section view along I-I′ of FIG. 2. FIG. 4 is a perspective view of illustrating a related art lamp guide 60.
As shown in FIGS. 2 and 3, the direct-type backlight assembly includes a plurality of light-emission lamps 51 which emit the light; a reflecting plate 52 which reflects the light emitted from the lamps 51 toward an LCD panel (not shown); a light-diffusion plate 55 which is provided above the light-emission lamps 51; optical sheets 56 which are comprised of a light-diffusion sheet and a prism sheet; a case 53 which fixes and supports the various elements including the light-emission lamps 51; and a bezel 71 of stainless steel which is provided on the circumference of the LCD panel to surround the circumferential part except for an effective area to display images.
A lamp guide 60 which is provided inside the case 53 maintains a predetermined gap between the light-emission lamps 51 and the reflecting plate 52; and support sides (not shown) which are provided at both ends of each light-emission lamp 51 to support and fix each light-emission lamp 51.
The lamp guide 60 supports the light-emission lamps and prevents the light-diffusion plate 55 and the optical sheets 56 from sagging. The support side fixes the light-emission lamp 51, and stably maintains the light-diffusion plate 55 and the optical sheets 56 thereon.
The lamp guide 60 is provided in the space between the light-diffusion plate 55 and the reflecting plate 52. As shown in FIG. 4, the lamp guide 60 is comprised of a supporter 61 which contacts and supports the light-diffusion plate 55; and holders 62 which are provided to fix and support the light-emission lamp. The supporter 61 of the lamp guide is formed in a conical structure having a fixed height, so that the height of the supporter 61 is does not change, even though an external force is applied thereto.
The light emitted from the light-emission lamps 51 is transmitted to the display area through the light-diffusion plate 55 and the optical sheets 56.
In the direct-type backlight assembly, the light-diffusion plate is formed of polymer material. In this case, if an external force is applied to the LCD device, or the LCD device is distorted, the light-diffusion plate may be moved upward or downward. Thus, whenever the light-diffusion plate contacts the supporter, a distortion occurs due to the contact force therebetween. Also, the scratches may occur in the light-diffusion plate since the supporter of the lamp guide is stronger than the light-diffusion plate. Thus, the light is not diffused in the scratched areas of the light-diffusion plate, and the image may be blurred.


A fuel injection valve includes a nozzle body including an injection aperture; a needle that is slidably located in the nozzle body, forms a fuel introduction path between the needle and the nozzle body, and is seated on a seat portion in the nozzle body; a swirling flow generating portion that is located more upstream than the seat portion, and imparts a swirl with respect to a sliding direction of the needle to fuel introduced from the fuel introduction path; a swirl velocity increasing portion that is located more downstream than the seat portion, and increases a swirl velocity of a swirling flow generated in the swirling flow generating portion; and an air bubble reserving portion that is located more downstream than the swirl velocity increasing portion, and reserves air bubbles generated by passage through the swirl velocity increasing portion. The injection aperture opens in the air bubble reserving portion.

In recent years, to reduce CO2 and emissions, there has been an increase in research relating to internal-combustion engines into supercharged lean, a large amount EGR, and premixed self-ignition combustion. According to the research, a stable combustion state near the combustion limit is required in order to reduce CO2 and emissions most effectively. In addition, while petroleum-based fuel dwindles, the robustness that allows stable combustion even with various fuel such as biofuel is required. The most important point to achieve such stable combustion is to reduce variations in ignition timing of an air-fuel mixture and smooth combustion that burns out the fuel during an expansion stroke.
In addition, an in-cylinder injection system that directly injects fuel into a combustion chamber is employed for a fuel supply in internal-combustion engines to improve transient responsiveness, improve volumetric efficiency by a latent heat of vaporization, and achieve significantly-retarded combustion for catalyst activation at low temperature. However, adoption of the in-cylinder injection system promotes combustion fluctuation due to oil dilution caused by crash of sprayed fuel against a combustion chamber wall with remaining droplet and degradation in fuel atomization due to deposits produced around an injection aperture of an injection valve by liquid fuel.
To prevent such oil dilution and degradation in fuel atomization caused by adoption of the in-cylinder injection system and reduce a variation in ignition timing to achieve stable combustion, it is important to atomize fuel spray so that the fuel in the combustion chamber smoothly vaporizes.
As a method of atomizing the fuel spray injected from a fuel injection valve, there has been known a method using a shear force of a thinned liquid film or cavitation occurring by separation of a flow, or atomizing fuel adhering to a surface by mechanical vibration of ultrasonic waves.
Patent Document 1 discloses a fuel injection nozzle that causes the fuel passing through a spiral passage formed between a wall surface of a hollow hole in a nozzle body and a sliding surface of a needle valve to be a rotating flow in a fuel basin that is a circular chamber. This fuel injection nozzle injects the fuel rotating in the fuel basin from a single injection aperture that is located downstream of the fuel basin and has a divergent tapered surface. The injected fuel is dispersed, and mixing with air is promoted.
Patent Document 2 discloses a fuel injection valve that injects fuel mixed with air bubbles generated by a difference between pressures in an air bubble generating passage and an air bubble retaining passage, and atomizes the fuel by collapse energy of air bubbles in the fuel after the injection.
As described above, various approaches have been suggested for fuel injection nozzles and fuel injection valves.


Disclosed is a method of removing soluble vanadium from an aqueous stream containing sodium chromate or sodium bichromate. The liquor is passed over a water-insoluble trivalent chromium compound, and the vanadium in the liquor is extracted from the liquor onto the trivalent chromium compound. The process is especially useful in removing vanadium from a recycled concentrated sodium bichromate liquor to prevent the buildup of vanadium therein.

This invention relates to a process for reducing the vanadium content of an aqueous stream. In particular, the invention relates to passing a sodium chromate or sodium bichromate liquor containing dissolved vanadium over an insoluble trivalent chromium compound.
The principal uses for sodium bichromate are in leather tanning, metal finishing, chrome metal manufacturing, and chromate pigments manufacturing. In leather tanning, the sodium bichromate in the liquor is converted to basic chrome sulfate, which is then used in tanning the leather. Even small amounts of vanadium (e.g., less than 1000 ppm) in the bichromate liquor can result in discoloration of the leather. Sodium bichromate is used to manufacture Cr.sub.2 O.sub.3 which in turn is converted into chrome metal. Chrome metal is used for making super alloys, which are high temperature, high strength alloys of chromium used in the turbine blades of jet engines. The properties of these alloys are very sensitive to the presence of vanadium and other metal contaminants. Vanadium concentrations in excess of about 100 ppm are not desirable. Vanadium in sodium bichromate at concentrations of <100 ppm may also affect the properties of chromate based pigments.
Sodium bichromate liquor is now being made commercially by roasting chromite ore, leaching sodium chromate from the ore, and filtering off the solids. The presence of lime in the ore results in the precipitation of calcium vanadate, which is removed with the solids in the filtration. This reduces the vanadium concentration of the liquor to about 120 ppm. The sodium chromate liquor is then acidified with sulfuric acid and is partially evaporated to precipitate sodium sulfate and form a sodium bichromate liquor. Some of the sodium bichromate liquor is sold or used to make chromic acid and the remainder is cooled, which results in the precipitation of sodium bichromate crystals. The remaining liquor is then recycled to the evaporation stage.
Since little of the vanadium that is in the liquor is entrained with the sodium bichromate crystals, as the sodium bichromate liquor is recycled and new vanadium-containing liquor is processed, the vanadium concentration in the liquor tends to increase. As the vanadium concentration in the sodium bichromate liquor builds up, the amount of vanadium in the sodium bichromate crystals increases. If the production and sale of sodium bichromate liquor is large compared to that of the crystals, then the liquor sales provide an adequate purge for vanadium at levels below customer specifications. However, if the production of liquor is reduced, or the production of crystals is increased, then the concentration of vanadium in the liquor may become unacceptably high without a secondary removal method. Thus, under certain market conditions, a method is needed for removing vanadium either from the recycled sodium bichromate liquor or in the sodium chromate solution which ultimately feeds the bichromate process. Until now, little technology was available for producing a concentrated sodium bichromate liquor containing less than 100 ppm of vanadium. One method was to crystallize the sodium bichromate and redissolve the crystals, a procedure that is too costly to be of much commercial value. Even ion exchange resins are ineffective in removing vanadium from concentrated bichromate liquors because the liquor attacks the ion exchange resin.


A fully temperature controlled apparatus comprising a thermoplastic stage assembly having solids processing components and a finishing stage assembly having liquid processing components and liquid applicator components or finishing assembly.

Coatings are applied to various surfaces to protect the surface. For example, coatings are used to waterproof and insulate and to prevent corrosion, rust, rot, water damage, fouling, burning, as well as other types of deterioration and damage to a surface. The surfaces may include, but are not limited to, metal, wood, concrete or a synthetic, such as composites, tile, foam, fiberglass, PVC, plastic or the like, as for example. The surface may be the surface of a vehicle, piping, tubing, a vessel, furniture, caskets, structures (such as flooring, roofing, decking, etc.) to name a few. It is important that the coatings are effective, are inexpensive to apply and maintain, and have an extended lifetime.
In one application of coatings, surfaces exposed to sea wash or water containing marine organisms are susceptible to fouling. For example, the hull of a ship is designed to cut through the water with minimal resistance for maximum efficiency of the wind or mechanical power driving the vessel. In addition to a hydrodynamics design, the hull should be clean and smooth. However, with time (often relatively quickly), the hulls of ships or other exposed surfaces become fouled by all types of organic and inorganic material, i.e., the attachment of organisms to the exposed surfaces. Other structures exposed to water may also become fouled. Barnacles, bryozoans, mollusks, mussels, annelids, tunicates, algae, slimes and hydroids make up the most common type of fouling marine organisms.
The consequences are significant. Fouling causes the once smooth hull to become extremely rough, promoting corrosion, weakening the hull, eventually decreasing the ships maneuverability and increasing drag. The domino effect is obvious—fuel consumption is increased (in some cases by as much as 30%), which causes both economic (e.g., increased fuel costs) and environmental consequences (e.g., increased greenhouse gases). Not surprisingly, a significant amount of attention has been devoted to this problem.
Historically, one solution was to frequently scrape or blast the hull clean to remove the fouling. However, this cumbersome process is time consuming and costly. In addition, frequent scraping of the hull can result in weakening the hull. The most widely accepted method of controlling and/or preventing fouling is to apply some type of anti-fouling coating on the surfaces. Common anti-fouling coatings contain amounts of metals, e.g., copper, aluminum or tin, which the organisms find distasteful, even toxic. As an added benefit, the coatings also prevent corrosion.
Anti-fouling compositions have been known for years. Although such anti-fouling compositions are an improvement, they do not represent a perfect solution. Several problems exist today, e.g., applying the coating evenly, difficulty in handling the material, the need for an efficient, consistent and durable apparatus for applying the materials, and the fact that the coatings are notorious for their inability to adhere to the surfaces. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 2,602,752 discloses an anti-fouling composition designed by the U.S. Navy to prevent the fouling of the hulls of vessels. In fact, the composition developed in U.S. Pat. No. 2,602,752 achieved minimal success because of the difficulty of the coating adhering to the metal ship hulls and because of the difficulty in achieving an even, smooth, homogenous coating. This is in part due to the high solids content. The material described in U.S. Pat. No. 2,602,752 has essentially a solids content of essentially 100%. Paint typically has a solids content of about 50-60% and other anti-fouling compositions have a solids content of about 60-75%.
In addition, the anti-fouling chemicals and spray technology required high handling temperatures, e.g., greater than or equal to about 300° F., to reduce viscosity and keep the material fluid. These high temperatures create difficult equipment and handling requirements. New problems have also emerged.
The anti-fouling coatings on the market today leach toxic metal compounds into the water. The high leaching of toxic metal compounds over short periods of time unnecessarily contaminates the water. Regulatory agencies are seeking to limit the amount of leaching that can take place over a specified period of time, e.g., for the metal copper, regulations in Sweden require less that 55 μg/cm2/day, Canada requires less than 40 μg/cm2/day. In addition, high leaching results in a shorter lifetime of the coating, i.e., once the toxic chemicals have been leached away, the coating will no longer be a deterrent to fouling organisms. Accordingly, coatings with a slower but effective leach rate can provide the added benefit of longer and extended lifetimes.
Further, the lifetime of coatings on the market today is relatively short in that ships have to be dry docked for cleaning at a frequency of about every 18 months. The process currently utilized for applying anti-fouling coatings requires having the ship in dry dock for weeks. Generally, the process involves about one day to blast the hull clean, at least one day to prime the hull, several days for the primer to completely dry, followed by a minimum of two weeks to coat the hull with the anti-fouling paint. Five to six coats are necessary and each coat involves about one day for application and about two days for drying. Every day represents a significant loss for the ship owner in that they are paying to be in dry dock and losing money due to the ship being out of commission.
In addition, the organic compounds present in the prior art anti-fouling coatings pose a pollution problem and they require volatile organic compounds (VOC) to assist in application and drying.
At present, two significant areas of interest with respect to using anti-fouling coatings remain i.e., how to achieve a better bond between the coating and the metal surface and more efficient and productive means for applying the coatings, particularly at higher temperatures. Accordingly, improvements need to be made in the field. The present invention addresses the deficiencies of the prior art discussed above.

Apparatus for applying chemical coatings


An apparatus, method, and system to provide a backoff method and device used for a lower priority access category AC. The method includes: when the lower priority AC and another AC in a same station STA obtain a transmission opportunity TXOP at the same time and an internal collision occurs, detecting a TXOP sharing state of the lower priority AC; and executing backoff of the lower priority AC according to the detected TXOP sharing state.

In a wireless communication system adopting distributed access (such as a Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN)), an access premise of its channel is that all stations (STAs), including common user-oriented stations and Access Points (APs), are viewed as equal STAs. An access manner is that each STA randomly generates backoff time in a contention window (CW) and contends for obtaining the channel by decreasing to zero. An advantage of the manner is that all the stations can obtain an access opportunity from the angle of a statistical probability, and there is no need of a dedicated device with powerful functions to implement central scheduling.
Specifically, for a quality of service (QoS) STA (QSTA), for example, all services are classified into 4 types: AC Video (AC_VI), AC Voice (AC_VO), AC Best Effort (AC_BE) and AC Background (AC_BK); and then, on the basis of this, different services are assigned different contention windows CW[AC], and delays before contention of different services are different. In this way, on a premise of ensuring that all have access opportunities, priorities of the video and voice are improved and priorities of the other two types of services are relatively reduced from the angle of statistics, that is, the video and the voice have the higher priorities and the best effect data and the background stream have the lower priorities.
In an Enhanced Distribution Coordinate Access (EDCA) mode, 4 ACs of each QoS STA are all similar to non-QoS STAs, they not only need to contend with ACs of other STAs or other QoS STAs for a right to use the channel, but also contend with ACs of the present STA for the right to use the channel. For a certain AC, various possible situations are inevitable to trigger a backoff process (that is, adjust the contention window, take a value randomly in the contention window, decrease progressively along with time according to the value, and resend its contention channel after decreasing to zero).
If the AC and another AC of the same STA obtain a transmission opportunity (TXOP) at the same time, it is referred that the AC and the another AC (generally an AC of a higher priority) have an internal collision.
When contention occurs, the higher priority AC obtains channel access, and initiates data transmission.
However, if the higher priority AC obtains the channel access when contention occurs, the lower priority AC triggers the backoff process. Frequently triggering the backoff process will greatly affect fairness of the lower priority AC, and limit a service of the lower priority AC.

Backoff method and device used for wireless communication system


It is provided an extruder for a system for the additive manufacture of freely formable metal parts with or without a supporting structure by means of an extrusion method from a composite material, which is arranged on a three-dimensionally movable kinematic mechanism, with a building platform. The extruder consists of a housing and a screw arranged in the housing. The extruder is provided with a mechanical drive for the composite material to be extruded, with an exchangeable nozzle, arranged on the housing, and the housing is connected to the mechanical drive by way of suitable means for transporting the composite material.

In the area of additive manufacturing methods, various methods have become established in the past 30 years, distinguishable especially by the manner in which the layers are generated in conjunction with the starting material: the curing of a UV-sensitive resin; the fusing together of a powder bed by binders; the melting and solidifying of a powder bed by laser or electron beams the melting and solidifying of a plastic wire by a heated nozzle.
The most important additive manufacturing methods are stereolithography (STL), 3D printing (3DP), selective laser sintering (SLS), electron beam melting (EBM) and fused deposition modeling (FDM).
Stereolithography was disclosed for the first time in U.S. Pat. No. 4,575,330 A. In the case of this method, a building platform is immersed by a certain layer thickness into a bath of liquid UV-curable resin. By means of a UV laser, the first layer of the component is fused together on the building platform. The steps of lowering and fusing together the component are subsequently repeated and thus the component "grows" from the bottom up on the building platform. The method has very good detailing and surface qualities but, because of the resins used, is mainly suitable for display models and specimens.
The actual 3D printing describes a method in which a layer of a starting material in powder form (polymers, ceramic, metal, sand) is applied to a building platform by a doctor blade. Subsequently, a printhead, similar to that of an inkjet printer, travels over the powder and selectively sprays a binder into the powder in order to fuse together the contour and filling of the component. These two processes are repeated until the component is completed.
Further powder-processing methods are the sintering and melting methods, which fuse together the contours of the components in the powder bed either with a laser (SLS, SLM) or else with an electron beam (EBM). The layered application of the metallic powder in this case takes place in a way similar to 3D printing in an enclosed building space, which is under a vacuum and contains a shielding gas. The high-energy beams are moved along on the powder bed either by means of mirror mechanisms or by means of electromagnets. In this case, the powder bed is locally melted and subsequently solidifies again. In the case of the SLM and EBM methods, the energy input is in this case so great that very dense components, with up to 99% of the density of the solid material, are produced. In the case of the SLS method, the individual powder particles are only sintered, which leads to a more porous component.
The components of the melting methods have very good mechanical properties but, owing to the high procurement costs (lasers and mirror mechanisms) and material prices and the high-maintenance technology, the methods are among the most expensive methods. Moreover, the systems are often up to 200 times larger than the actual building space and, in the case of work with metal powders, there is in principle the risk of dust explosions and metal fires.
A further thermal method is the fused deposition modeling method. It is described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,121,329 A. In the case of this method, a thermoplastic wire is forced through a heated nozzle and, by moving the building platform and/or the extruder, replicates the individual layers of the component on the building platform. The second and all further layers are in this case respectively printed onto the structure lying thereunder. By contrast with the other methods, components are produced here in a freely formed state and are not surrounded by material that is not fused together.
The methods that are suitable for the manufacture of metal and ceramic parts work with metal powders, are expensive and require special protective measures. It must be ensured that at no time is the powder blown, and can thereby cause a dust explosion and a metal fire. The building space must be freed of loose powder after a printing process, and even the component itself is encrusted with powder that has to be removed by additional equipment. Owing to the buildup of layers, the entire building space around the actual component and also hollow structures in the component are filled with loose powder.
There are already proposals for establishing new additive manufacturing methods for the processing of metallic or ceramic components. WO 2000 051 809 A1 discloses the so-called paste polarization method. This is similar in the way in which it operates to stereolithography, with the difference that paste is used instead of a liquid UV-sensitive resin as the starting material. The paste consists of 35-60% metal or ceramic particles and a UV-sensitive resin. The resin serves as a binder and provides the strength of the component after the printing process. However, the method has not been commercialized.
A further hybrid method, which allows the generation of metal parts by means of known additive manufacturing methods, is described in DE 10 2005 056 260 B4. In this case, the 3D printing method is used to inject binder into metallic or ceramic powder. The buildup of layers takes place in the same way as in 3D printing. After the printing process, the cured binder provides the strength in the so-called green blank, while a solid metal part, which however has a low density because of the high binder content, is produced by subsequent burning out of the binder in an oven and sintering of the metal or ceramic particles. The method can likewise be used for generating sand molds and casting cores. The method still has the disadvantage of high procurement costs, which inhibit wider use.
The methods mentioned also have the disadvantage that closed hollow structures cannot be generated, and material that is not fused together has to be removed manually from the interior of the component and the area surrounding the component. Furthermore, in the manufacture of metal and ceramic parts by means of 3DP, it must still be remembered that the starting material in powder form is difficult to handle.
A further method for producing shaped parts from metal and/or ceramic particles bound in a binder is powder injection molding. In this case, shaped parts are produced from powder-containing material by means of injection molding. A so-called feedstock is melted in a plasticizing unit with a screw by thermal conduction from outside by means of heater bands attached to the plasticizing cylinder and as a result of dissipation in the melt during the mixing in the screw barrel. The feedstock consists of a defined proportion by volume of powder and a proportion by volume of the binder component. The ratio of the powder component to the binder component influences the flow properties and determines the shrinkage of the component during sintering.
DE 10 2007 019 100 A1 relates to a method for injection molding an injection-moldable compound in an injection molding machine, which has a plasticizing unit provided with a screw, an injection unit, a machine control and a mold with a cavity, wherein injection-moldable compound can be injected into the cavity and wherein the injection-moldable compound consists of at least one powder component and at least one binder component. This document also relates to an injection molding machine. The binder component becomes molten in the plasticizing cylinder, while the powder component remains in the solid state of aggregation. After the injection-molding process, the molded parts are sintered. The feedstock is homogenized in compounding devices before the processing in the injection molding machine.
The disadvantage in the case of this method is the use of molds into which feedstock material is injected and in which it also cures. It is not possible with this method to produce freely formable components, since it is not an additive manufacturing method.
Furthermore, an FDM method for producing green blanks from ceramic materials is described in the Keramische Zeitschrift [ceramic journal] April 2014, page 235, wherein a ceramic compound is filled into an injector and the injector is moved over x, y and z axes while the plunger of the injector discharges the compound out of the nozzle of the injector. In this case, it is not a molten filament but a cold plastic compound that is extruded by means of a nozzle and deposited.
This method is used for producing green blanks from ceramic compounds, but not for producing components. The surfaces are too uneven for this. With the method, only near-net-shape semifinished products can be produced for subsequent green or biscuit machining.
JP 2000 144 205 A describes a method for producing three-dimensional structures from metal or ceramic powder, wherein the powder bound in a thermoplastic resin is applied three-dimensionally to a building platform by means of an extruder and, after completion of the structure, the binder is removed. It is not planned for this to be used on an industrial scale, since the processing of standard MIM materials in an additive process involves technical difficulties. Here, a classic MIM extruder is used and the movable bed makes the process unsuitable for relatively large parts, because the component becomes increasingly heavy. The use of granules is intended for much larger systems, the classic three-zone extruder operates horizontally and is of a much larger design.
DE 10 2012 217 182 A1 describes a method for producing a refractory metal component, wherein the method comprises the following steps
providing a starting material, which comprises a refractory metal powder of at least one refractory metal and/or a compound thereof and also at least one binder; and
molding the starting material into at least one green body, wherein the starting material comprises a ceramic powder.
The refractory metal component is produced by means of extruding, wherein the starting material represents an extrusion compound.
DE 10 2011 005 929 A1 discloses a carrier structure, in particular for a device for producing a component by a layer building method, with a surface, wherein the carrier structure is mounted displaceably in a vertical direction, which is aligned substantially perpendicular to the surface. In this case, the carrier structure comprises a plurality of individual stampers, which can in each case be moved in the vertical direction. This document also relates to a device with such a carrier structure and also to a method for producing components. The device for producing a component, in particular by a layer building method, consists of a container, which comprises a building space for receiving a starting material in powder form, a beam generating device for generating an energy beam with which the starting material in powder form can be fused together to form at least a portion of a supporting structure, wherein the bottom of the building space is formed by a carrier structure.
DE 10 2007 019 100 A1 presents a method for injection molding an injection-moldable compound in an injection-molding plasticizing unit, which comprises an injection unit, a machine control and a mold with a cavity, wherein injection-moldable compound can be injected into the cavity and wherein the injection-moldable compound consists of at least one powder component and at least one binder component. In order to improve the processing of the powder-containing injection-molding compound, the method provides the steps of: a) ascertaining the injection work (WE); b) ascertaining the metering work (WD); c) if there is a rise or fall in the injection work (WE) ascertained according to step a) out of a tolerance range and the metering work (WD) ascertained according to step b) remains within a tolerance range: not initiating a measure for influencing the homogeneity of the mixture of the injection-moldable compound; d) if there is a rise or fall in the injection work (WE) ascertained according to step a) out of a tolerance range and a rise or fall of the metering work (WD) ascertained according to step b) out of a tolerance range: initiating a measure for influencing the homogeneity of the mixture of the injection-moldable compound.
In the patent application of the applicant with the file application number DE 10 2014 018 081, a system for the additive manufacture of metal parts using the composite extrusion modeling (CEM) method is described, consisting of one or more extruders, which are rigidly mounted freely selectably on a kinematic mechanism of the system for generating the three-dimensional component structure that is movable in the x, y or z axis and is connected to the control of a 3D printer. The movements of the extruder are performed over the x, y and z axes of the kinematic mechanism, wherein the building platform is designed as immovable, or by a combination of the movement of the extruder with the movement of the building platform in the corresponding axes. The extruder consists of a mechanical drive, a heated housing and an exchangeable nozzle fastened to the heated housing, wherein the heated housing is provided with the mechanical drive by way of suitable means for transporting the composite material from the mechanical drive to the heated housing. The mechanical drive is formed as a stuffing screw or as a star wheel or as drive wheels.
The composite material in the form of granules, coarse-grained powder or sticks is transported by means of the mechanical drive into the heated housing, compressed and plasticated and extruded through an exchangeable nozzle. The charging of the mechanical drive may in this case be performed by way of a loose fill, through a positive-pressure line or a corresponding metering device. However, the design of the extruder with a completely heated housing presents difficulties in the additive manufacture of metallic components by so-called composite extrusion modeling, and the method with the extruder that is used in this system described keeps having system failures when producing the metallic components.
DE 199 43 738 C1 relates to an extruder system for processing rubber compounds or thermoplastics which comprises a feed zone, a plasticating zone and a pressure buildup zone, with a screw extruder and a gearwheel extruder, which is connected thereto downstream in the direction of extrusion and to which an extruding nozzle can be connected. In this case, the screw extruder is an extruder of a shortened overall length (short extruder), which just comprises a feed zone, and that the gearwheel extruder forms the plasticating and pressure buildup zone. The metering device may also be formed as a star wheel feeder.
DE 199 29 824 C2 describes an extruder for plasticating thermoplastic media which is provided in an inlet region with a granules inlet (E) and at the opposite end with an outlet bore (A), with a motor-driven threaded spindle (S) which is arranged in a jacket (M) with an opposite jacket thread (MG), wherein, over a melting region of the spindle length, the length-specific free total cross section (GS+QM) of the spindle thread (SG) and the jacket thread (MG) is approximately constant and the free spindle thread cross section (QS) and the free jacket thread cross section (QM) change linearly there in a complementary manner.
With the solutions known from the prior art, it has not been possible so far to manufacture metallic, freely formable components with a high density or closed hollow structures of metal, low shrinkage and consequently with great strength by means of additive thermoplastic methods, such as the FDM method. High procurement and material costs, maintenance costs, the size of the systems and the complexity of the methods represents a further disadvantage of the technical solutions of additive manufacture disclosed so far. Furthermore, it has not been possible with the known technical solutions to produce freely formable components by FDM methods, the starting material of which is a composite material comprising a thermoplastic binder and a high proportion of metal particles, for example commercially available feedstock materials. Furthermore, the systems known from the prior art keep failing when producing metallic components by means of composite extrusion modeling methods.

Extruder for a system for the additive manufacture of metal parts using the composite extrusion modeling (CEM) method


The present invention relates to a method for the removal of polyphenols and proteins simultaneously from a beverage by contacting the beverage with an ion exchanger that is capable of adsorbing both types of substances. The characteristic feature of the ion exchanger to be used is that it is a water-insoluble porous hydrophilic matrix to which ion exchanging groups are covalently bound.

The quality of beverages is measured by different parameters, such as flavour stability, biological purity and physico-chemical stability, wherein the latter is one of the most important for beer. The physico-chemical or colloidal stability describes the occurrence of non-biological haze in bottled beverages, such as beer. This haze is mainly caused by polyphenols and proteins, which are able to react to larger molecules via hydrogen bridges. The haze-forming proteins are believed to have Mw within the range of 30-60 kDa, although the range may differ depending on the source. When removing proteins with Mw above 120 kDa, the head retention of the beer decreases. Members of the polyphenol group are, inter alia, tannins and anthocyanogens which measured separately can be used as indicators for beer stabilization. To increase the beer's stability it is usual to partially remove the polyphenols, the proteins or both by using various agents and methods. The normally desired shelf life for stabilized beer is about 6 months, with variations for different countries and/or kinds of beer.
Stabilization and clarification of beverages are two terms that sometimes are used interchangeably and sometimes are used distinct concepts. In a strict sense clarification refers to the removal of haze and particulate matter that are at hand in a given beverage while stabilization refers to the removal of potentially haze-forming substances in order to render haze formation more difficult. In the context of the present invention the two terms shall be interpreted in a strict sense.
The amount of haze-forming substances and their tendency to form haze depends on several factors. See the experimental part. Each beer, for instance, is unique in composition depending on the brewery's selection of process variables, quality of hop and barley etc. This means that an acceptable level of stability/stabilization as measured by commonly accepted tests may vary between type of beer and/or brewery. In connection with the invention fixed limits for stabilization are therefore difficult to set. As a general guideline it can be said that stabilization has occurred when a value for a test measuring both haze-forming proteins and polyphenols has been changed at least 10% towards stabilization as a consequence of employing the invention. This means that a similar change or even lower change may apply to tests measuring proteins and polyphenols separately. The goal with stabilization is not to remove all haze forming proteins and/or polyphenols, because this might easily also affect the character of a specific beverage.
Background Publications
The problems with haze-causing substances in beverages have been known for several years and a number of solutions for removal thereof have been suggested.
The most common way to remove polyphenols from beverages is to use polyvinyl pyrrolidone, PVPP. Before addition to the beverage, PVPP has to be mixed with water to form a slurry. PVPP is added to the storage tank or dosed into the beer stream before the beer filter and filtered out with other haze particles. PVPP is available in two qualities: single use and re-usable differing in particle size.
From SU 1 451 159 a process is known for beer stabilization using an ion exchange sorbent for removing polyphenols. In this process, the beer is warmed to 65-75.degree. C., and a strongly basic macro crosslinked sorbent (anion exchanger) based on copolymers of styrene and 4% divinyl compound containing functional quaternary trimethylamine groups is added. This hydrophobic sorbent is added to beer in amounts ensuring the removal of 25-30% of the polyphenols, stirred, left to stand 2-3 min., and the beer is decanted. The sorbent has a polyphenol sorption capacity of 18-19 mg/g, can be reused for at least ten times, and is regenerated with 5 parts per volume water at 45-50.degree. C.
From Rep. Res. Lab. Kirin Brew. Co. (1972), No. 15, 17-24 an anion exchanger (Dowex 1.times.4 resin) is used for fractionation of polyphenols in beer. First the polyphenols are extracted from beer, such as by ethyl acetate, then this extract is subjected to anion exchange chromatography for the purpose of fractionating the polyphenols into several groups for further studies. Thus, the anion exchanger is not used for the stabilization of beverages.
In Europe, one of the most common ways to remove proteins from beer is by using silica which has in be prepared to a slurry with water. The silica gel is added to the storage tank or is constantly dosed into the beer stream before the beer filter. The silica gel is filtered out with other haze particles and is discarded after use.
Another widely used method to remove proteins is by using tannic acid. After preparing a solution of tannin and water, the tannin is added to the storage tank or is constantly dosed into the beer stream before the beer filter. The tannin is filtered out with other haze particles and is wasted after use.
Also, there exists alternative methods for removing proteins from beverages containing haze-forming substances, such as by using proteolytic enzymes or bentonite.
The fact that the widely used silica gel and tannins are not re-usable, makes them substantial contributors to environmental pollution.
During the priority year the Swedish Patent Office has issued an International Search Report citing the following publications:
a. U.S. Pat. No. 4,100,149 that deals with the removal of proteins from beer and other beverages in order to accomplish, for instance, a clarified beer. The adsorbent used is built up of polymer coated inorganic particles. The polymer carries ion exchange groups. The experimental part focuses on coated silica particles, and it is not clear if the effect achieved is due to the silica, polymer coat or charged groups. PA1 b. EP-A-166,238 deals with neutralizing the bacteriostatic activity of polyphenols in fruit juices by addition of an agent that may or may not have ion exchange groups. PA1 c. Hughes, Food Technology in New Zealand, 10(30) (1985) suggests that cellulosic ion exchangers could be used to stabilize beer because they are known to adsorb proteins. PA1 d. U.S. Pat. No. 4,288,462 suggests that a filter element charged with anionic colloidal silica can be used for removing haze and haze-forming proteinaceous substances in beverages, such as beer. PA1 e. U.S. Pat. No. 3,623,955 concerns removal a certain enzyme from beer. PA1 f. U.S. Pat. No. 3,940,498 suggests to use an acid treated synthetic magnesium silicate for the simultaneous removal of undesireable proteins and polyphenols from beverages such as beer. PA1 g. WPI acc. no. 89-212564/29 is the same as SU 1,451,159 which has been discussed above. PA1 h. WPI acc. no 81-81725D (=DD-A-150,078) suggests the use of particulate hydrophobic material exhibiting groups capable of H bridge formation, ion exchange, chemisorption or chelation for the removal of turbity-forming materials from drinks, including beer. PA1 i. WPI acc. no. 81-15897D (GB-A-2,056,485) suggests using positively charged particles for removing substances causing cloudiness in beverages (wine, beer, fruit juices etc). The charge has been introduced by treating the particles with a cationic polyamide-polyamine epichlorohydrin synthetic material. When contacted with the beverage the particles provoke precipitation that later can be removed by filtration. PA1 j. WPI acc. no. 77-09751Y (=GB-A-1,499,849) suggests to remove haze precursors in beverages by the use of cation exchangers based on hydrophobic matrixes.
Some additional publications are:

Method for stabilizing a beverage containing haze causing substances


Embodiments of the invention are directed to a centralized trusted service manager system in the form of a trusted service manager interconnectivity service hub, which facilitates and provides communications between entities involved in mobile contactless provisioning and payment systems. One embodiment of the present invention is directed to a method for processing a wallet request from a wallet provider associated with mobile communication device including a secure element through an interconnectivity hub. The method comprises receiving a wallet request in first protocol, determining an issuer associated with the account identifier, and obtaining application data. The method further comprises determining a trusted service manager associated with the secure element from among a plurality of trusted service manager computers using a routing table. Additionally, the method includes determining a second protocol and obtaining a secure element key for completing a request from a secure element trusted service manager using the second protocol.

In current mobile contactless transaction environments, each financial institution (e.g., an issuer) of a payment device associated with a mobile communication device or mobile wallet has its own trusted service manager (TSM) in order to communicate with a secure element (SE) trusted service manager for that mobile communication device. The secure element (SE) allows the mobile communication device to gain benefit of a contactless (e.g., near-field communication (NFC)) reader, which are located at merchant locations for conducting contactless transactions. In the current mobile transaction industry, the trusted service manager (TSM) providers provide end-to-end solutions by connecting individual entities, each of which communicates in a particular protocol.
However, as mobile transaction processing become more popular and as more entities enter the mobile contactless transaction ecosystem, incompatibilities between protocols of various trusted service managers and incompatibilities between configuration options of issuers or other service providers will grow and the complexity of provisioning will increase. Furthermore, some trusted service managers may not be compatible with other trusted service managers or issuers/service providers. As such, there is a need to manage the incompatibilities between entities in the mobile contactless provisioning environment.
Additionally, as the mobile transaction provisioning ecosystem increases in complexity, issuers and other service providers will find it difficult to maintain the large volume of provisioning requests and account management requests associated with mobile payment systems. Accordingly, there is a need to simplify and manage mobile payment account generation and provisioning on behalf of issuers while maintaining issuers ability to control the authentication, account generation, and account information of the mobile payment applications.
Embodiments of the present invention address these problems and other problems individually and collectively.

Integrated mobile trusted service manager


A continuous film that includes ethylene copolymer selected from the group consisting of ethylene vinyl acetate, ethylene n-butylacrylate carbon monoxide, ethylene vinyl acetate carbon monoxide, and combinations thereof. The film exhibits a moisture vapor transmission rate of at least 100 g/m2/day when measured according to MVTR Test Method I.

The invention is directed to preparing moisture vapor permeable ethylene copolymer films and articles.
Breathable films that are permeable to water vapor and impermeable to liquid are useful in a variety applications and are particularly well suited for use in disposable personal care and health care articles such as disposable diapers, adult incontinence products, feminine care absorbent products, training pants, garments and as coverings for a variety of articles. These films often provide the function of a breathable liquid impermeable barrier layer.
Breathable films exist in various forms. In one form, a breathable film includes micropores that form tortuous pathways through the film such that liquid placed in contact with one side of the film does not have a direct passage through the film to the opposite side of the film. The network of microporous channels in the film prevents liquids from passing through the film, but allows gases and water vapor to pass through the film.
In another form, a breathable film includes micropores that result from incorporating a filler, e.g., calcium carbonate, in the polymer melt, forming the polymer melt into a film, and then stretching the film. Stretching the film causes the polymer to break away from the particulate filler, which creates microporous passageways in the film. The additional processing steps required to make microporous films can increase the complexity and cost of the making the breathable film.
Breathable films can also result from the molecular structure of the polymer(s) of the film. Breathable polymers tend to have polar groups, e.g., hydrophilic groups. The polar groups of the polymer facilitate transfer of gas molecules or moisture vapor through the polymer film prepared from the breathable polymer. Breathable films have been prepared from various polymers including poly(vinyl alcohol), polyvinyl acetate, ethylene vinyl alcohol, polyurethane, ethylene methyl acrylate, ethylene methyl acrylic acid, block copolyester-copolyether, block copolyamide copolyether, and thermoplastic polyurethane.
Polymers that do not have hydrophilic groups or polar groups are considered to be non-breathable. In addition, polymers with relatively high amounts of hydrophobic groups and very small amounts of polar groups are also considered to be non-breathable. Copolymers such as ethylene vinyl acetate, ethylene n-butylacrylate carbon monoxide, and ethylene vinyl acetate carbon monoxide traditionally have been viewed as non-breathable.
Known breathable polymers tend to be more expensive than non-breathable polymers.

Moisture vapor permeable film including ethylene copolymer and articles including the same


A method for effectively cleaning the slurry remnants left on a polishing pad after the completion of a chemical mechanical polish (CMP) process is provided. This method is able to substantially thoroughly clean away all of the slurry remnants left on the polishing pad. In the method of the invention, the first step is to prepare a cleaning agent which is a mixture of H.sub.2 O.sub.2, deionized water, an acid solution, and an alkaline solution mixed to a predetermined ratio. The cleaning agent is subsequently directed to a nozzle formed in the pad dresser. This allows the cleaning agent to be jetted forcibly onto the slurry remnants on the polishing pad so as to clean the slurry remnants away from the polishing pad. The cleaning agent can be provided with predetermined ratios for various kinds of slurries so that the cleaning agent can be adjusted to be either acid or alkaline in nature. This can allow an increase in the repellent force between the particles of the slurry remnants and the underlying polishing pad that is caused by the so-called zeta potential, thus allowing the slurry remnants to be more easily removed from the polishing pad.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to semiconductor fabrication processes, and more particularly, to a method for cleaning the slurry remnants left on a polishing pad after the completion of a chemical-mechanical polish (CMP) process conducted for global planarization of a semiconductor wafer.
2. Description of Related Art
In the fabrication of semiconductor products, such as CPUs and various memory devices, the CMP technique is a global planarization process which can a provide flat and polished surface for a semiconductor wafer. It is currently the only semiconductor technology that can provide a global planarization of semiconductor wafers.
In a CMP process, the surface of the wafer that is to be polished (hereinafter referred to as the process surface of the wafer) is placed upside down on a polishing pad on a CMP machine. The polishing pad can be rotated so as to rub against the process surface of the wafer. During the CMP process, a chemical agent, which is customarily referred to as a slurry, is applied on the wafer to assist the polishing pad in polishing the process surface of the wafer.
The slurry can be a mixture of colloidal silica, dispersed alumina, and an alkaline solution, such as KOH or NH.sub.4 OH or CeO.sub.2 base slurry. The colloidal silica and dispersed alumina particles, which are highly abrasive in nature can help to polish the process surface of the wafer on the polishing pad.
After the completion of each CMP process, the slurry remnants left on the polishing pad should be cleaned away prior to conducting a subsequent CMP process on another wafer. One conventional method of cleaning the slurry remnants left on the polishing pad after the completion of a CMP process is depicted in detail in the following with reference to FIGS. 1A and 1B.
Referring to FIG. 1A, there is shown a polishing pad 10 after the completion of a CMP process. This polishing pad 10 has been treated by a pad dresser (not shown). After the CMP process, a large amount of slurry remnants 12 are left on the polishing pad 10, which should be cleaned away before another wafer can be placed and polished on the polishing pad 10. To remove the slurry remnants 12, a stream of deionized water 14 is jetted on the polishing pad 10 so as to clean away the slurry remnants 12 left on the polishing pad 10.
One drawback to the foregoing method, however, is that it is not effective at thoroughly cleaning away all of the slurry remnants 12 left on the polishing pad 10. As shown in FIG. 1B, a small amount of the slurry remnants 12 may still remain on the polishing pad 10. When these uncleaned slurry remnants 12 dry out, they could cause scratches to the subsequent wafers that are placed on the polishing pad 10 to undergo a CMP process. This will significantly affect the wafer yield rate.

Method of cleaning slurry remnants after the completion of a chemical-mechanical polish process


An assay method for determining transcobalamin saturation wherein a transcobalamin containing liquid sample is contacted with a porous substrate with immobilized thereon a transcobalamin immobilizing ligand and with a reporter-labelled transcobalamin binding partner and wherein signals from reporter labels which become immobilized on said substrate are detected, characterized in that one of said ligand or said binding partner comprises a first ligand or binding partner capable of specific binding to holo transcobalamin and a second ligand or binding partner capable of binding to apo transcobalamin or to holo and apo transcobalamin.

Cobalamin or vitamin B12 is a water-soluble vitamin which forms part of the vitamin B complex found in foods. The core molecule consists of a corrin ring of four pyrole units which surround the essential cobalt atom. Cobalamin is the only vitamin which cannot be synthesised by animals or plants and must be absorbed from food in the gut. It can however be stored in the liver. It is synthesised by micro-organisms, in particular by anaerobic bacteria and yeasts.
Cobalamin functions in vivo as a co-enzyme and cobalamin enzymes catalyse three types of reaction: (i) intra-molecular rearrangements, for example, the formation of succinyl CoA from L-methylmalonyl CoA; (ii) methylations, for example, the formation of methionine by methylation of homocysteine; and (iii) reduction of ribonucleotides to deoxyribonucleotides in some micro-organisms. In mammals, only two enzymic reactions, those specifically mentioned in (i) and (ii) above, are known to require cobalamin as a co-enzyme.
In the process of digestion, a salivary protein called haptocorrin, hereinafter referred to as HC (which is also referred to in the art as R-binder or transcobalamins I and III collectively), binds cobalamin in the upper gastrointestinal tract forming a complex which passes through the stomach. Pancreatic enzymes digest the cobalamin-haptocorrin (holo-HC) complex in the ileum, liberating cobalamin which is then bound to a protein called intrinsic factor, which is secreted by the gastric mucosa, to form a further complex. The cobalamin-intrinsic factor complex binds to a specific receptor in the lining of the terminal ileum, whereupon it is dissociated by a releasing factor and the cobalamin transported actively across the membrane of the ileum into the blood stream.
Cobalamin does not circulate in the body in a free form in an appreciable amount. Probably 99% or so of cobalamin is bound by haptocorrin, transcobalamin or albumin.
The protein believed to be responsible for transporting cobalamin to target tissues is transcobalamin II (hereinafter simply referred to as transcobalamin or TC), a critical trace protein without which cobalamin cannot cross cell membranes. Despite this important metabolic function, only about 6-25% of cobalamin in the serum is bound to TC and most is carried by HC. TC is a single chain polypeptide of 45 kDa found primarily in serum, seminal fluid and cerebro-spinal fluid. Cobalamin bound TC or holo-TC, attaches to specific receptors on cell membranes and once bound, the holo-TC complex is taken into cells by pinocytosis.
TC is synthesised by the liver, vascular endothelium, enterocytes, macrophages and fibroblasts and circulates predominantly as apo-TC, i.e. lacking bound cobalamin. It has a short half life of approximately 90 minutes.
Less than a quarter of the total plasma cobalamin is associated with TC. The rest is bound to HC or albumin as mentioned above. Since cobalamin must be absorbed from food, any conditions which result in impaired gastric function, for example, gastroenteritis or conditions resulting in gastric atrophy, or an inability to produce functional haptocorrin, intrinsic factor, releasing factor, TC or TC receptors, can result in impaired uptake of cobalamin and resultant deficiency.
Certain population sub-groups, for example the aged, pregnant women, patients with chronic or acute gastrointestinal disease, those suffering from certain autoimmune diseases, those with a family history of pernicious anaemia and AIDS sufferers, are particularly prone to cobalamin deficiency.
The clinical manifestations of cobalamin deficiency are varied and numerous but primarily involve anaemia, megaloblastic haematopoiesis and functional and structural disorders of the nervous system. Around 60% of individuals diagnosed as being deficient in cobalamin are anaemic, but in many neurological symptoms are the only clinical signs observed. Around 10% of patients exhibit psychiatric symptoms and around 40% exhibit both neurological and psychiatric symptoms.
Early diagnosis of cobalamin deficiency is crucial to ensure a good prognosis for patients, since some of the manifestations of cobalamin deficiency, particularly the neuropsychiatric effects, are irreversible if not detected and alleviated by cobalamin therapy quickly.
It is desirable therefore to accurately assess the cobalamin level of an individual in an expedient and efficient manner, with a view to establishing whether or not the individual may be suffering from cobalamin deficiency.
Measurement of total plasma cobalamin, i.e. cobalamin (and cobalamin like substances) bound to HC or TC, has been used in attempts to assess cobalamin deficiency. This technique results in a broad based concentration distribution within a population which is considered to be normal and hence produces a wide reference range. Within individuals however, the range of available cobalamin considered to be normal for that individual, is very narrow. It has been observed that although an individual's metabolically active cobalamin concentration has moved outside their own reference range, their total plasma cobalamin content remains within the range considered to be normal for the population. Under such circumstances, cobalamin deficiency can go undetected. Such an unreliable method is clearly undesirable and it is well recognised that such serum or plasma cobalamin measurements have low diagnostic sensitivity and specificity.
Microbial assays involving micro-organisms dependent upon cobalamin for growth, have been developed and used in measuring plasma cobalamin concentration, but in addition to the difficulty of estimating the appropriate reference range, these methods require extraction and conversion of the cobalamins which is very time consuming, troublesome and wholly unsuited for rapid laboratory screening.
Alternative methods for assessing cobalamin deficiency involve measuring the accumulation of metabolites in the plasma which require cobalamin for their conversion. Plasma methylmalonate and plasma homocysteine levels increase in cobalamin deficient individuals and make good candidate molecules for correlation with vitamin B12 deficiency. Methods based on homocysteine assessment have been shown, however, to be complicated, impractical and show poor specificity and sensitivity. Whilst methods based on methylmalonate measurement are accurate and reliable, they are cumbersome and require analysis by combined gas-chromatography/mass-spectrometry and are hence expensive and again unsuitable for routine clinical screening.
It has also been suggested that measurement of TC bound cobalamin as opposed to total plasma cobalamin may provide a reliable clinical indictor of the likelihood of cobalamin deficiency (Herbert et al. (1990) Am. J. Hematol. 34:132-139; Wickramasinghe and Fida (1993) J. Clin. Pathol. 46:537-539; U.S. Pat. No. 4,680,273). Such efforts to determine holo-TC concentration were mostly indirect, estimating holo-TC concentration as the difference between total plasma cobalamin and the cobalamin concentration of TC depleted plasma.
Such TC depletion may be accomplished by adsorption to ammonium sulphate (Carmel (1974) Am. J. Clin. Pathol. 62:367-372), microsilica (Herzlich & Hubert (1988) Lab. Invest. 58:332-337; Wickramasinghe & Fida (1993) J. Clin. Pathol. 46:537-539), microfine glass (Vu et al. (1993) Am. J. Hematol. 42:202-211) or immobilized anti-TC polyclonal antibodies (Lindemans et al. (1983) Clin. Chim. Acta 132:53-61). The concentration of cobalamin in total plasma and the depleted fraction is performed by methods well known in the art such as radio or enzyme immunoassay techniques. These methods are unsuitable for routine screening whether automated or not automated because they are complex and time consuming and because the low degree of specificity of the adsorptive materials used results in insufficient separation of holo-TC and holo-HC resulting in an overestimation of holo-TC. Lot-to-lot variation of the adsorptive material introduces further errors and most importantly, the subtraction of one large volume from another large volume results in unacceptable inaccuracies and unreliability.
Other attempts to assess TC have involved separating TC from other serum components, including HC, using its lipophilicity. Thus Kapel et al. (1988) Clin. Chim. Acta 172:297-310, Benhayoun et al. (1993) Acta Haematol. 89:195-199 and Toft et al. (1994) Scand. J. Clin. Lab. Invest. 54:62 disclose methods for separating TC from HC using heparin sepharose, silica gel or cellulose respectively. These methods however suffer from the same disadvantages as the indirect methods since they rely on the same adsorptive materials. Also, the low plasma concentration of holo-TC renders these methods unsuitable for combination with existing methods of cobalamin quantification. The normal range of holo-TC is 35-160 pM and values below 35 pM would generally be considered as indicative of cobalamin deficiency. The reported analytical sensitivity of most routine methods for plasma cobalamin is about 40 pM but in practice it is often much higher, typically around 90 pM. Hence, normal plasma levels of holo-TC are below or near the sensitivity limit of the routine methods for cobalamin quantification.
Possibly the most accurate method currently recognised for determining TC bound cobalamin involves adsorbing TC to silica and then assaying the bound fraction for cobalamin content using either an immunoassay as described for example by Kuemmerle et al. (1992) Clin. Chem. 38/10: 2073-2077, or a microbiological assay, the latter apparently producing the best results. This method requires an entire working day to perform only twenty assays. It is very expensive and impractical and poorly suited to routine clinical diagnostic laboratory investigations.
In WO 00/17659, an alternative method for determining holo-TC concentration in which, for example, a cell-free sample is contacted with an antibody specific for TC immobilized on magnetizable particles and with a non-overlapping, non-immobilized, radiolabelled antibody specific for holo-TC. The particles are separated out using a magnetic field and washed and their radioactivity is measured so providing a measurement of the holo-TC content of the sample. This method however requires calibration and is more suited for performance in a clinical laboratory than by a physician or physician's assistant at the point of care for the patient.
There thus still exists a need for an assay for holo-TC which is simple and operable at the point of care.


Styrene-based resin composition containing as main components (A) 100 parts by weight of a styrene-based polymer having mainly a syndiotactic configuration and (B) 0.01 to 25 parts by weight of one or more nucleating agents selected from the group consisting of (1) metal salts of organic acids having an average particle diameter of not more than 50 .mu.m, (2) inorganic compounds having an average particle diameter of not more than 50 .mu.m, (3) organophosphorus compounds having an average particle diameter of not more than 50 .mu.m, and (4) metal salts of ionic hydrocarbon copolymer, and a process for producing styrene-based resin moldings by molding the above styrene-based resin composition at a temperature between room temperature and 200.degree. C. The resin composition of the present invention is suitable for injection molding and extrusion molding, and provides moldings which are of high crystallinity and are excellent in heat resistance, solvent resistance, chemical resistance and so forth.

Styrene-based polymers produced by radical polymerization and so forth have atactic configuration and are widely used in home electrical appliances, office appliances, home tools, wrapping containers, furniture, synthetic paper, and other industrial materials by molding using techniques such as injection molding, extrusion molding, blow molding, vacuum molding and casting molding.
The styrene-base polymers having atactic configulation, however, have the disadvantages of being poor in mechanical strength, heat resistance and chemical resistance, because the styrene-based polymers do not undergo crystallization.
The present inventors' group have succeeded in producing styrene-based polymers of high syndiotacticity and developed compositions containing these high syndiotacticity styrene-based polymers (see U.S. Pat. No. 4,680,353 and Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Nos. 104818/1987, 257948/1987 and 257950/1987). These syndiotactic styrene-based polymers or their compositions are excellent in mechanical strength, heat resistance, solvent resistance, electrical characteristics and so forth as compared with atactic styrene-based polymers or their compositions. In molding the syndiotactic styrene-based polymers or their compositions, however, a high molding temperature is needed to crystallize the syndiotactic styrene-based polymers. Moreover, the syndiotactic styrene-based polymers have a low crystallization rate at low temperatures and thus suffer from the disadvantages that the molding cycle is long and flash is readily formed, even if the molding is in a mold maintained at a high temperature.

Styrene-based resin composition and process for production of moldings


On an information record medium (1), information is optically recorded and reproduced while a servo control is performed with respect to the information record medium by a push-pull method. The information record medium is provided with: a record/reproduction area (DA) having a groove track (2), which is wobbled and continuously formed and on which the information is recorded and reproduced by a phase changing method by use of a light beam (B) having a wavelength of not less than 630 nm (nanometer) and not more than 680 nm; and a reproduction-dedicated area (RA) where a plurality of phase pits (PI) are wobbled and formed in advance, each having a depth of not less than 60 nm and not more than 90 nm and where only an information reproduction is possible by the light beam.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to an information record medium, and more particularly to an information record medium on which information can be optically recorded and reproduced in accompaniment with a tracking servo control of a so-called push-pull method.
2. Description of the Related Art
There is a DVD as an information record medium, whose record capacity is improved to be as high as several times of that of a conventional CD (Compact Disc), and on which video information and audio information in an information amount of one full move or the like can be recorded.
Other than the DVD dedicated for reproduction such as a DVD-ROM (DVD-Read Only), there is a so-called DVD-RW (DVD Re-recordable) as a DVD standard, on which the information can be reproduced and recorded at a plurality of times, and on which the information can be reproduced by an information reproducing apparatus for reproducing the DVD dedicated for reproduction.
Here, on an information record medium based on the DVD-RW standard, there is formed a groove track, which has a width of about 0.3 μm and a depth of about 20 nm (nanometer) and which is wobbled at a constant frequency, as an information track on which the optical information recording and reproduction is performed. At this time, the reason why the groove track is wobbled is to generate a record standard clock signal having an accurate frequency synchronous with the rotation of the DVD-RW, by detecting the frequency of the wobbling at the time of information recording.
On the other hand, the DVD-RW basically has a record capacity substantially same as that of the DVD dedicated for reproduction. Thus, the video information etc., recorded on the DVD dedicated for reproduction may be illegally copied onto the DVD-RW. At this time, the video information or the like recorded on the DVD dedicated for reproduction is generally protected by a copy right, so that the copy right holder drastically suffers losses if the above mentioned illegal copy is often performed.
Therefore, there is a countermeasure against such an illegal copy according to the DVD-RW standard that the area on the DVD-RW, which corresponds to the area where control information for controlling the reproduction is recorded on the DVD dedicated for reproduction, is set as an area where recording is impossible on the DVD-RW, to thereby prevent the illegal copy.
In addition to this, according to the DVD-RW standard, it is permitted to prepare an area dedicated for reproduction on the above mentioned area where recording is impossible, and to record the predetermined reproduction control information etc., in advance in this area. Further, according to the DVD-RW standard, the phase pit, which is used in the DVD dedicated for reproduction, is also used to record this predetermined reproduction control information etc., in the area dedicated for reproduction of the DVD-RW.
On the other hand, according to the DVD-RW standard, at the time of optically recording and/or reproducing the information by use of the light beam such as a laser light with respect to the DVD-RW, the tracking servo control is performed by means of the so-called push-pull method.
However, if it is attempted to obtain the tracking error signal by the push-pull method at the time of reproducing the reproduction control information, which is recorded in the area dedicated for reproduction by forming the phase pit, it may be difficult to obtain the tracking error signal and a detection signal corresponding to the reproduction control information at an adequate signal quality, because of an influence of an interference with a pre-pit formed in the area dedicated for reproduction in advance (i.e., a pre-pit, which is formed within a land track formed adjacent to the groove track and is to record address information (i.e., address information indicating a record position on the DVD-RW) which is used when recording the information onto the groove track other than the area dedicated for reproduction), which is a problem.

Information record medium having two phase pit areas of mutually different depths and groove track area


A receiver includes a single infrared (IR) sensor, which is coupled to sense an IR signal carrying data and to produce an electrical signal responsively to the IR signal. The receiver further includes multiple receiver channels arranged to accept the electrical signal from the single IR sensor, each receiver channel configured to process the electrical signal in accordance with a different, respective IR remote control protocol so as to extract the data, and to output the extracted data to a host system.

Consumer electronic systems commonly use infrared (IR) remote control to receive input from a user. In such systems, the user operates a remote control device, which transmits a modulated IR signal that carries data in accordance with a certain IR remote control protocol. The data may comprise commands for controlling the system and/or other information. The controlled system comprises an IR receiver, which extracts the data from the IR signal in order to carry out the desired commands.
Many different IR remote control protocols have been developed, and different manufacturers often use different protocols and different data rates for transmission. Common protocols include the RC-5 and RC-6 protocols (developed by Philips) and the NEC protocol (developed by Nippon Electric Corporation). These protocols are collectively referred to as Commercial Infrared (CIR) protocols.
Some systems and applications support more than a single IR protocol. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,917,631, whose disclosure is incorporated herein by reference, describes dual-protocol remote control methods and apparatus, which provide power-saving modes of operation and enable remote control of high data generating devices, such as a trackball. The patent describes a pulse position modulation protocol in which the position of a single pulse, such as an infrared pulse, is located in time in one of three or more locations. Dual-protocol remote control devices may be provided, wherein a first protocol is utilized in conjunction with a second protocol comprising the pulse position modulated system.
U.S. Patent Application Publication 2004/0153699, whose disclosure is incorporated herein by reference, describes a system and method for supporting two infrared signaling protocols in a single computing device. The computing device operates in a default signaling protocol, unless a priority signaling request is generated by an application program. Typically, the signaling protocols comprise an Infrared Data Association (IrDA) protocol and a CIR protocol, which are generally incompatible and may cause interference to one another. The disclosed methods ensure that the two protocols do not operate at the same time.


In example methods and algorithms, a node in a wireless mesh network calculates an estimated cost for a packet flow through the node. The estimation may be based on the back-log at the node and the cost of downstream neighbor nodes for the flow. Further, selection of a downstream flow and a downstream neighbor node may be based on the estimation. A packet re-ordering algorithm is also described which intercepts packets received at a node and delays delivery of the packet to the IP layer if an earlier packet in the sequence of packets has not been received.

In a wireless mesh network, traffic may be routed by a number of different routes between a source node and a destination node. This means that if a particular link between two nodes in the network is congested or has low performance, the traffic can be routed via an alternative route. This results in a wireless mesh network being both flexible and resilient. It is, however, difficult to achieve high performance in a wireless mesh network because of the variability in performance of any particular link (e.g. due to interference or changes in environment) and the difficulties in scheduling and routing packets. The problems are increased where packets are routed via one or more intermediate nodes (multi-hop routing).
Many existing methods for multi-hop routing rely upon back-pressure in the network to enable routing decisions. For example, routing decisions may be made based on the relative sizes of queues at a node and at the node's neighbor nodes. Such a method, however, results in large numbers of data packets being stored in the network as queues build up ahead of any congested link. These large queues result in delays and packet loss. Additionally, if there are not enough packets available such methods can be highly inefficient.
The embodiments described below are not limited to implementations which solve any or all of the disadvantages of known multi-hop transmission schemes.

Path estimation in a wireless mesh network


The invention relates to a real time-capable analysis of a sequence of electronic images for estimating the pose of a movable object captured by means of the images. The invention further relates to implementing the invention in software and, in this connection, to a computer-readable medium that stores commands, the execution of which causes the method according to the invention to be carried out. The invention proceeds from a skeleton model, which is described by a small number of nodes in 3D space and permits a good data compression of the image information when the co-ordinates of the nodes describe at any time the position of predetermined parts of the moving object. The skeleton model simultaneously represents previous knowledge of the object, by defining e.g. node pairs and optionally also node triplets in the skeleton model that describe cohesive object parts or optionally object surfaces, which are contained in the measured 2½-D image information, i.e. are visible to the camera. The skeleton model is to be fitted quickly and accurately into the image information. The fitting is effected between two images of an image sequence by the continuous displacement of the nodes and the continuous updating of the skeleton model.

Estimating human poses by a computer is the basis of a gesture-controlled human-machine interaction. Body or hand gestures are captured by cameras, the captured digital images are processed in the computer and interpreted as commands that are eventually carried out by the computer or by equipment controlled by it. The human user no longer requires separate input equipment if he masters the commanding gestures.
Among particularly interesting areas of application of gesture control are on the one hand the field of medical surgery where the operating physician would like to have direct control of auxiliary equipment (e.g. imaging devices such as ultrasound or MRT), but cannot touch any control devices with his hands in order to safeguard sterility, and on the other hand the field of public information terminals or ticket machines that at present are still equipped with the rather unhygienic touch pads. A further field of application that has already been opened up commercially is the computer game sector.
The purpose of a gesture-control method is to give the optical image of a person a machine-interpretable meaning. This requires an apparatus that images the person such that it can be evaluated electronically, compresses this image in terms of its information content and finally translates the compressed image of the person into a machine-interpretable output. The output of the apparatus can consist of control commands for downstream apparatuses to be controlled. However, it is also possible that it comprises only the compressed image information that is fed to a downstream unit for interpreting this information.
An example for compressed image information is for example the continuous output of the position coordinates of the right hand of the person in a 3D coordinate system. In the process it is often sufficient to output only coordinates of a single point for the hand position, e.g. if the entire body of the person is imaged. If the motion of the person is imaged by an image sequence, the apparatus mentioned for example provides the 3D coordinates of predetermined body parts that change over time—during the motion. The coordinates can serve as variable inputs into a program that e.g. accordingly controls a cursor position on a screen.
During image segmentation, all recorded image data (measurement values) that cannot be assigned to the imaged person are removed, that is in particular image elements that concern the background. Such image elements have to be excluded from further evaluation.
Image segmentation using two-dimensional data is difficult above all if the user is imaged in front of a complex background—for example further persons move in the background—or if he makes gestures where he moves extremities towards the camera such that they conceal part of his torso. Since gesture control is to take place in real time and pose estimation usually is to be possible at a video frame rate of 25 Hz or above, it is necessary that image segmentation can take place within a few milliseconds. For this purpose, depth sensor cameras can be used that cannot only measure, as conventional cameras, a brightness image, but also the distance of the camera from the object.
A known depth sensor camera is called time-of-flight camera (TOF). It emits infrared light whose intensity is modulated sinusoidally. The phase displacement between the emitted light and the light reflected by the object is measured in each pixel. From this phase displacement, the propagation time ("time of flight") of the light and thus the distance of the camera from the object point can be calculated. A TOF camera provides a depth map that is in registry with a brightness image (in TOF nomenclature often called amplitude image).
A further method for simultaneously obtaining image and distance measurement values is based on structured light that is irradiated onto the object to be measured and reflected by it. A camera detects the reflected light—usually at a different angle than the angle of arrival—and registers the change of the structure of a projected pattern due to the position or extent of the reflected object surface. For example it is possible to calculate from the curvature of a reflected line captured by the camera that was originally projected onto the object as a straight line, a doming of the reflected surface, that is a distance variable relative to the projector and/or camera. In a similar way, a spatially divergent beam bundle is suitable that projects points in a three-dimensional scene, by detecting the point reflections and determining the distances between these. On a face located closer to the projector, the point distances are less than on a face in the image background. This is used for measuring the distances of faces or face areas from the projector.
According to this, a depth sensor camera is an apparatus that also provides distance information for each imaged object point in addition to a two-dimensional brightness image, so that in addition the position of all imaged object points along a depth axis—that usually coincides with the optical axis of the camera—is measured. The electronic image having distance information recorded using a depth sensor camera is also termed a two and a half dimensional image (2½ D) of the scene. The apparatuses mentioned above are only examples how 2½ D images can be produced and do not necessarily represent a final list.
Among others, it can be gathered from the printed publication WO 2010/130245 A1 how image segmentation of 2½ D images can take place correctly. Image segmentation orders the brightness values detected by the camera pixels according to the distance values measured simultaneously and registered by the pixels. Only brightness values of the foreground remain in the further evaluation, it being assumed that for the purpose of improved visibility, the person to be observed is closest to the camera. The brightness values of the foreground thus result from imaging the body surface of the person. By means of the camera projection parameters known per se, the imaged object points can then each be assigned a set of 3D coordinates. A list of 3D coordinates is then obtained that comprises all the points of the person that are directly visible for the camera. Inside this "cloud" of points in the 3D space there is the actual person, and inside the 3D point cloud there are also the relevant coordinates of the predetermined body parts that are desired to be determined for the purpose of gesture control.
The second part step of information compression can thus be seen in determining from the 3D point cloud, determined by image segmentation and representing the person, a reduced set of point coordinates that describes as best as possible an entire pose of the person and is suitable for machine interpretation. This step is also called pose estimation. One aim of pose estimation is here the robustness of the reduced data set, i.e. small changes of the human pose shall also lead only to small changes in the data sets describing the pose. In particular the coordinates describing the human body parts shall, as far as possible, move on temporally continuous trajectories so that an unambiguous correlation of the coordinates with these body parts is given at any time.
A known and generally accepted approach is the definition of a skeleton model of the person that is to be fitted as fast as possible into the 3D point cloud.
WO 2010/130245 A1 discloses a method for real time-capable pose estimation from sequences of 2½ D images, where a skeleton model is proposed that is explained as a topology of nodes and edges. The edges that can be described as pairs of nodes code a neighborhood structure between the nodes. The nodes are fitted into the previously determined point cloud by applying a learning rule for training a self-organizing map ("SOM").
In the exemplary embodiment of WO 2010/130245 A1, the upper part of the human body is modelled using a topology from 44 nodes and 61 edges. The 3D point cloud representing the person comprises approximately 6500 data points (depicted in the real 3D space in which the person observed exhibits a defined size independently from his distance from the camera), of which approximately 10% are used for training an SOM. All nodes of the topology can be directly regarded as an SOM, while specifying the edges can be regarded as a special requirement or limitation for the learning rule.
The topology is trained separately for each frame of a video sequence, the training result of a frame at the same time serving to initialize the training of the following frame of the sequence. During initialization of the first frame of a sequence the size of the topology is preferably matched to the size of the person in front of the camera by a one-off scaling, and its centre of gravity is displaced into the centre of gravity of the 3D point cloud. If the size of the topology has once been selected correctly, it does not require further adapting during the on-going method, since the method functions scale-invariantly. Training the frames takes place by applying a pattern-by-pattern learning rule having the following steps:    a. randomly selecting a data point X of the 3D point cloud;    b. determining that node of the topology that exhibits the minimum distance from X;    c. determining all neighbouring nodes of the node determined under b. according to the edge specification of the topology;    d. displacing the nodes determined under b. and c. in the direction of X (see in this respect the equations (2) and (3) of WO 2010/130245 A1),    e. the displacement vectors being multiplied by learning rates that exhibit precisely half the size for the nodes determined under c. as for the nodes determined under b. (see in this respect WO 2010/130245 A1, p. 13, paragraph 4);    f. repeating the steps a. to e. for a predetermined number of learning steps while gradually reducing the learning rates.
It is convenient to specify a maximum number of learning steps for each frame for carrying out the pose estimation—i.e. in this case fitting the skeleton model into the 3D point cloud and reading out all relevant nodes positions—during a predetermined time interval. In this way, image sequences can also be analysed at the video frame rate or even faster.
Although the algorithm of WO 2010/130245 A1 fulfils well the object of real-time pose estimation, it still does exhibit a few weaknesses that are partly mentioned in the printed publication itself. In particular when analysing scenes where the person brings his arms together or crossed them in front of the body, the learning rule can lead to misinterpretations—that can be corrected during the course of further iterations—if individual nodes are pulled away far from their actual neighbours in the topology. This effect is countered in WO 2010/130245 A1 with an anchoring point in the model torso and a secondary condition of the learning rule that inhibits nodes displacements away from the anchoring point beyond a predetermined threshold.
The teaching of WO 2010/130245 A1 further also shows difficulties with the precise position determination of human joints, shoulders, and hips, that can in each case be represented by several different nodes. The skeleton model outlined in WO 2010/130245 A1 exhibits relatively many nodes, whose number cannot be readily reduced to 20 or less without accepting considerable errors in the pose estimation. Systems that are available on the market for gesture control by means of depth sensor cameras already operate using skeleton models having 15-20 nodes rather designed according to the human anatomy. By reducing the node count, a higher processing speed of the camera images can also be obtained.
Anatomically motivated skeleton models are additionally suited for falling back on stored movement patterns (templates) for detecting fast and complex movements (e.g. swinging a golf club). In these cases, the gesture-control software looks for the most likely match of the detected pose change to a previously stored movement sequence and uses this known template for the actual control. This technology is already used in computer games, but it is resource intensive. Last but not least, producing the stored movement data already gives rise to considerable costs.
Gesture control by means of SOM training on the other hand completely dispenses with templates and is rather solely based on the real time-capable detectability of the movement continuity. Due to learning rules that can be implemented efficiently, it has the potential to reliably detect even fast human movements and at the same time maintains the universal applicability so that possibly complex matching of the software to the measurement task is omitted.

Method and apparatus for estimating a pose