A noise damping device for a rotating body and a disk player is disclosed. The noise damping device for a rotating body is characterized in that inner surfaces of a housing in which the rotating body is installed are provided with an intaglio and/or cameo pattern of a predetermined shape. The pattern guides the air flow within the housing smoothly, and damps noise. Also, the noise damping device for a disk player is characterized in that an intaglio and/or cameo pattern of a predetermined shape is formed on surfaces of a disk tray and/or a clamping member.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a noise damping device for a rotating body and a disk player, and more particularly, to a noise damping device which has an improved structure so as to dampen noise generated by the flow of ambient air when a rotating body or a disk, disposed in a housing, rotates.
2. Description of the Related Art
In general, in a disk player such as a DVD player, a CD-ROM player, or a hard disk drive, a rotating body such as a hard disk or a compact disk is placed in a housing thereof. While rotating at high speed, such a rotating body generates noise due to fluctuation in the air surrounding the rotating body. Therefore, in the above apparatus, a noise dampening device for damping rotation noise of the rotating body is provided.
FIG. 1 is a partially cut away perspective view schematically illustrating a hard disk drive used as an auxiliary memory device of a computer.
Referring to FIG. 1, a hard disk drive is provided with a housing 10, a hard disk 18 installed in the housing 10 and a noise damping device.
The housing 10 is installed in a computer main body (not shown), and comprises a base frame 12 supporting hard disks 18 and a cover frame 14 attached on the base frame 12 for protecting the hard disks 18.
While the hard disks 18 are rotated by a driving source such as a spindle motor installed in the housing 10, data are written to the hard disks 18 or written data are read from the hard disks 18 by a predetermined data writing/reading means (not shown). In addition, there are several hard disks 18 for increased storage capacity.
The noise damping device is attached to the outer surface of the cover frame 14 by an adhesive such as a bond or a double-sided bonding tape, and comprises a damper member 16 usually manufactured in a thin plate structure using stainless steel. The damper member 16 is specifically designed to mainly damp noise in a predetermined frequency range considering the rotation speed of the hard disks 18. For example, when the hard disks 18 rotate at a rotation speed of about 12 m/s, the damper member 16 is designed to mainly damp noise in the range of around 1,500 Hz corresponding to the rotation speed.
In the hard disk drive having the above structure, when the hard disks 18 are rotated by the spindle motor so as to write data to or read written data from the hard disks 18, as shown in FIG. 2, most of the air within the housing 10 tends to flow in xcex8 and R directions. Here, the air flowing in xcex8 direction is distributed at irregular pressures with respect to R directions, and the air in itself flows irregularly. When the irregular air flow impacts the inner walls of the housing 10, the housing 10 is vibrated by the impact, and consequently, undesirable noise is generated. Further, when the air flowing in the R directions reaches the inner walls of the housing 10, the air flow direction is changed to an r direction and the air is mixed with the air flowing in the xcex8 direction. Therefore, the air flow in the xcex8 direction becomes more irregular, and consequently, the noise is increased. Such noise is damped to some extent by the damper member 16 absorbing the vibration of the housing 10.
However, in the above conventional art, since the damper member 16 for damping noise must be separately attached to the outer surface of the housing 10, there are problems in that the manufacturing cost is high and more assembling operations are required. In addition, when the temperature within a computer main body and/or the housing 10 rises, the bonding force of the adhesive deteriorates due to the heat generated in the computer main body. Further, the damper member 16 can only control a predetermined frequency band. Thus, noise with various frequency bands, when the rotation speed of the hard disks 18 varies, cannot be effectively dampened.
The present invention provides a noise damping device for a rotating body capable of effectively dampening noise generated by the rotating body by modifying the structure of a housing.
Also, the present invention provides a noise damping device for a disk player capable of damping noise generated when a disk rotates by modifying the structure of parts installed in a housing.
Accordingly, to achieve the first objective, there is provided a noise damping device for a rotating body for dampening noise due to the air flow within a housing caused by the rotation of a rotating body, wherein an intaglio and/or cameo pattern of a predetermined shape is formed on inner surfaces of the housing.
Here, it is preferable that the housing includes a base on which the rotating body is placed, and a cover frame assembled to the base for covering the rotating body, and the pattern is formed on the upper surface of the base and the inner surface of the cover frame facing the rotating body.
In addition, it is preferable that the pattern is formed on the inner side surfaces of the housing.
In addition, it is preferable that the pattern has a starting point on the rotation axis of the rotating body, and is composed of a plurality of coaxial circles each having a predetermined width, the distances between neighboring circles are the same, and the coaxial circles have respective widths different from each other.
In addition, it is preferable that the pattern has a starting point on the rotation axis of the rotating body, is composed of a spiral having a predetermined width and is capable of guiding the air flow in radial directions from the starting point.
In addition, it is preferable that the pattern has a starting point on the rotation axis of the rotating body, is composed of radially disposed elements each having a predetermined width and is capable of guiding the air flow in radial directions from the starting point, and each of the radially disposed elements has a curved form.
In addition, it is preferable that the pattern is composed of a plurality of circles having a predetermined width and respective radii different from each other. The circles which touch neighboring circles guide the air flow guided by an inner circle toward an outer circle with respect to the rotation axis of the rotating body.
In addition, it is preferable that the pattern is composed of a plurality of dimples having a predetermined width and depth.
In addition, it is preferable that the device includes a vibration absorbing damper member installed on the outer surface of the housing.
To achieve the second objective, there is provided a noise damping device for a disk player for dampening noise due to the air flow within a housing caused by the rotation of a disk, wherein the device includes a disk tray which is movably installed to carry the disk into or out of the housing and is provided with a cameo and/or intaglio pattern of a predetermined shape formed on the surface of the disk tray facing the disk.
Here, it is preferable that the device further includes a clamping member which is installed within the housing for clamping the disk and is provided with a cameo and/or intaglio pattern of a predetermined shape formed on the surface of the clamping member facing the disk.
In addition, it is preferable that the device includes a noise absorbing member installed at the housing.

Noise damping device for rotating body and disk player


A translated wafer stand-in tester, being a hybrid apparatus capable of emulating the form factor and some or all behaviors of a translated wafer under test, which is operable to store, quantify, encode and convey, either directly or remotely, data from a testing system, including but not limited to pad pressure, electrical contact and temperature. The translated wafer stand-in tester may include several stacked and attached layers, at least one internal layer including electronic components operable to interact with a test system.

Advances in semiconductor manufacturing technology have resulted in, among other things, reducing the cost of sophisticated electronics to the extent that integrated circuits have become ubiquitous in the modern environment.
As is well-known, integrated circuits are typically manufactured in batches, and these batches usually contain a plurality of semiconductor wafers within and upon which integrated circuits are formed through a variety of semiconductor manufacturing steps, including, for example, depositing, masking, patterning, implanting, etching, and so on.
Completed wafers are tested to determine which die, or integrated circuits, on the wafer are capable of operating according to predetermined specifications. In this way, integrated circuits that cannot perform as desired are not packaged, or otherwise incorporated into finished products.
It is a common practice to use several different test system set-ups in order to test the wafers. Sometimes different test environments are required for low temperature, room temperature, and high temperature testing of the circuits on a wafer. Additionally, different test systems may be used for Built-In Self Test (BIST) style testing, and for application of conventional functional test patterns. Consequently, there is a variety of test equipment for wafer level testing which must be calibrated and verified.
Presently, a number of individual analytical and/or repair tools are required to evaluate the performance, of the various constituent apparatus of wafer sort and wafer burn-in systems. None of these analytical or repair tools emulate closely the actual production configuration of the wafer-level test apparatus.
What is needed are methods and apparatus for calibrating and verifying various wafer level test systems while these test systems are configured closely to their actual production usage configurations.

Methods and apparatus for translated wafer stand-in tester


A cartridge includes a case that accommodates a consumable therein, a land area that protrudes from a surface of the case, and a recess that is formed on a reverse side of the surface at a position corresponding to the land area, a reverse side of a deepest portion of the recess being the land area, wherein the deepest portion of the recess is toward the land area with respect to the surface.

1. Field of Invention
The invention relates to a cartridge that is exchangeably mounted on image forming apparatuses, such as printers, facsimile machines, and copiers and that fills thereinto a consumable such as toner and ink.
2. Description of Related Art
In recent years, a cartridge filled with toner as a developing medium has been used for printers, facsimile machines, and copiers. A certain amount of toner is filled into the cartridge at the time of production. The cartridge is exchangeably set in, for example, a printer. As the toner in the cartridge is used and the remaining amount of the toner is reduced, the printing quality begins to fade. The cartridge thus needs to be replaced. At this time, the cartridge may also be replenished with the toner so that the cartridge can be reused.
A method for reusing a cartridge is disclosed in, for example, paragraphs 0029 to 0031, as well as FIG. 4 of Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2001-122361. First, a toner filling port is formed in a part of a top of the used cartridge using a tool such as a drill and a driver. Then, toner is filled through the toner filling port into the cartridge. The toner filling port is then sealed with tape. Thus, reuse of the cartridge leads to cost reductions, as well as resource savings.
The cartridge into which the toner is filled is provided with an agitator that agitates the toner in the cartridge. The agitator is rotatably disposed in the cartridge with a shaft of the agitator supported in a case of the cartridge. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,884,130 discloses a structure that supports a shaft of an agitator using-bearings protruding from a case.
As shown in FIG. 25, a substantially V-shaped groove 202 is formed on an inner wall 201 of a case 207. With an agitator shaft 204 disposed in a deepest portion 203 of the groove 202, the groove 202 fits therein a substantially inverted trapezoidal side plate 205 provided with an upper cover 206, which is separately provided from the case 207. The shaft 204 is fixedly sandwiched between a bottom surface of the deepest portion 203 and a lower end of the side plate 205.

Cartridge and method for filling a consumable into the cartridge


Disclosed is a wind turbine with a nacelle and a rotor. The rotor includes a number of blades and a hub, the nacelle and the hub being connected with each other in an interface region so that a drive train extends from the hub into the nacelle. The wind turbine further includes a transport system for transporting hydraulic and/or pneumatic fluid from the nacelle into the hub. The transport system includes a rotary unit as a connection through which the fluid passes a part of which rotary unit rotates in operation together with the hub which rotary unit is positioned in the interface region. Further disclosed is a transport system and methods of operating, maintenance and construction of such wind turbine.

Today's wind turbines, in particular large scale wind turbines with power outputs in the scale of above 1 MW, are very complex systems. Despite their large size, their operational state needs to be adaptable to current weather conditions, in particular wind conditions. For that purpose, the position of the rotor blades of the rotors of such wind turbines can be adapted. A so-called pitch control system allows for positioning the rotor blades against the wind by rotating the blades around their longitudinal axis. Thus, the rotational speed of the rotor can be controlled and a maximum power output can be achieved.
The usual way of pitch control of the rotor blades is by using an electric pitch control system in which electric engines control the pitch of the blades. However, it has been wished for to use hydraulic pitch systems (or pneumatic pitch systems—which are also summarized under the expression "hydraulic pitch system" in the context of this application) rather than electric ones. Such hydraulic systems are often easier to control and they also still function in the case of an interruption of power output of the generator of the wind turbine because they are not directly dependent on electric power supply by the wind turbine itself. In order to drive such hydraulic pitch systems it is necessary to have a transport system which transports a hydraulic and/or pneumatic fluid (such as hydraulic oil, water or any other liquid or gas) into the pitch control system in the hub under a certain pressure. In other words, the hydraulic and/or pneumatic fluid is put under a certain pressure by means of a pump and lead to a distribution block, to blade blocks and accumulator blocks which are all located inside the hub in close proximity to the rotor blades.
The transport of this pressurised hydraulic and/or pneumatic fluid, however, has proven to be quite complicated. This is due to the fact that the hub rotates in operation of the wind turbine so that a solution has to be found of how the pipes of the transport system are not rotated together with the hub in such a way that they will be damaged due to torsions.


An end mounting for supporting the roller of a cover for an architectural opening, the end mounting including a main body of substantially constant cross-section extending axially from a proximal end for mounting adjacent an architectural opening to a distal end for insertion into an end opening of a roller. A slider is mounted in the main body at an axial location towards the proximal end of the main body and is movable between a retracted position wholly within the cross-section of the main body and an extended position in which at least part of the slider protrudes outside the cross-section of the main body. With the slider in the retracted position, substantially all of the main body can be inserted into the end opening of the roller and, with the slider in the extended position, the main body is prevented by the slider from being inserted into the end opening of the roller beyond the slider.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an end mounting for supporting a roller, in particular the roller of a cover for an architectural opening.
2. Description of the Relevant Art
Various blinds are known for selectively covering architectural openings. Many of these include rollers that are rotatably mounted, usually in a horizontal orientation, for instance across the top of the architectural opening. To facilitate installation of the roller, an arrangement may be provided whereby an end mounting, for instance as part of a bracket, is mounted adjacent the architectural opening for each end of the roller and then the roller is fitted between the two end mountings. The ends of the roller may be provided with axial holes for receiving support shafts which extend from the end mountings. However, it will be appreciated that, for the roller to be secured in place, the distance between the ends of the roller must be greater than the distance between the inwardly facing ends of the support shafts. This makes mounting of the roller extremely difficult. Of course, support shafts can be provided on the ends of the rollers with corresponding holes provided in the end mountings, but the same problem exists.
Previously, it has been proposed to provide some form of sprung telescoping action. In particular, the roller can be formed so as to be partly collapsible in length by means of some telescoping action, with a spring force biasing the roller to an extended length. Alternatively, support shafts in the roller or end mountings may be sprung to an extended position, but collapsible against that spring force to a retracted position. In this way, for installation, the roller or support shafts can be compressed against their resilient restoring forces to allow insertion of the roller between the end mountings. Various documents consider such arrangements, for instance GB 588,698, EP 0 046 948, EP 0 672 814, U.S. Pat. No. 3,099,916, U.S. Pat. No. 4,373,569 and GB 2 339 820.
A problem with these previous arrangements is that they rely on the spring force of the telescoping roller or end pin to ensure that the roller is held in place. In some arrangements, the axial spring force may have a negative impact on the frictional resistance to rotation of the roller. In time, also, the spring force may diminish such that there is a danger that the roller will fall from its installation. These problems become even more significant as the roller becomes larger. With larger rollers, once mounted, the operating forces can sometimes overcome the spring force of the telescoping roller or end pin with the risk that the roller drops from its mounting. Increasing the spring force hampers mounting. Furthermore, because of the need to build components that can sustain the increased force, costs will be increased and the size of the mounting may also be increased. For instance, it may be possible to provide easily a relatively small bracket for supporting the weight of a roller, but the size and strength of that bracket may need to be increased significantly in order to withstand the outward axial forces of the telescoping action.


A battery charging apparatus for use with batteries that require charging in a constant current mode and/or constant voltage mode. The charging apparatus includes a constant current charging control circuit converting the charging current supplied with the battery into a voltage signal and applying the voltage signal to a feedback input terminal of a switching regulator in response to a charging speed control signal F.sub.-- Q, and a constant voltage charging control circuit providing a control signal to the feedback input terminal for controlling constant voltage charging if the battery voltage level has reached a preset voltage level, whereby a constant voltage charging is possible during the charging operation in response to a charging mode selection signal CHG.sub.-- MOD. A microcomputer produces the charging mode selection signal CHG.sub.-- MOD when it is detected the charging voltage of the battery in the constant current mode and the detected voltage reached to a preset level in order to convert the charging mode into the constant voltage mode. Further, a charging speed control signal F.sub.-- Q is produced to enable the switching regulator to perform quick charging operation. With this arrangement, the constant voltage (CV) charging mode can be performed when the battery is in the preset condition, regardless of type of batteries. In addition, by provision of a protection circuit, possible damage of the CV charging control circuit due to the excessive static or surge is effectively prevented.

Recently, rechargeable batteries, i.e., secondary batteries, have been widely used to provide electrical power for driving battery powered electronic appliances such as, by way of example, portable radio cassette players, portable computers, camcorders, cellular telephones and other devices. Alkaline batteries such as nickel cadmium (Ni--Cd) or nickel metal hydride (Ni--MH) batteries have been generally used as the secondary battery. Recently, lithium ion (Li-ion) batteries with an organic electrolytic cell have gained popularity in high-end portable electronic devices because they exhibit high energy density, low temperature characteristics, and stable storage capability.
Rechargeable batteries require an electronic charger for recharging depleted batteries. A charger should include an internal charger circuit incorporated into the battery powered appliance. A charger will begin charging the battery whenever the device is powered by alternating current (i.e., AC) power. External battery chargers accepting one or more batteries to be charged, are equipped with an independent power supply and connectors.
Although rechargeable batteries have various types of battery chemistry, battery pack voltage, and battery pack capacity, there have been few methods of charging the batteries adopted in battery chargers. Generally, the charging method is either a constant voltage charging process or a constant current charging process. Constant voltage charging applies a constant voltage that is higher in amplitude than the nominal voltage of the battery across the terminals of a battery. Constant voltage charging process is typically used for charging a backup battery where frequent charging and discharging is not occurring. The charging voltage is continuously applied to the battery. On the other hand, the constant current charging process applies a constant current to the battery irrespective of any increase in the voltage across the terminals occurring as the charging progresses. Constant current charging is useful for rapidly charging a battery. Constant current charging however, requires a time limit in order to avoid damage of the battery due to overcharging.
Except those used in the portable radio cassette players, most battery chargers use a constant voltage charging process because it is simple in construction and is relatively inexpensive. This charging process requires relative long time, approximately about ten hours. Thus, constant voltage charging processes can be ineffective for portable use of the appliance powered by batteries.
In an effort to provide a more rapid charging process with battery protection, a charging mode convertible type charger has been developed. This charger performs charging operations in the both constant current mode and in the constant voltage mode. This type of charger starts charging the battery in a constant current mode when the battery is discharged in order to provide a fast charging operation, and automatically converts to a constant voltage mode at a predetermined charging level in order to complete a typical charging operation. Thus, rapid charging is provided while avoiding damage to the battery due by allowing the battery to remain connected to the charger for an excessively long time.
Some circuit designs such as the Apparatus For Controlling Charging Of A Storage Battery of Yeong J. Joo, U.S. Pat. No. 5,175,485 seek to initially apply a constant current, and then a constant voltage when the voltage across the terminals of a battery reach a desired value. Recent circuit designs such as the Rechargeable Battery Charging Method of M. Tamai, U.S. Pat. No. 5,442,274, have used hysteresis charging to a set value, followed by constant voltage charging. Other recent efforts in the art include the Method For Charging Secondary Battery And Charger Used Therefor by T. Nagai, et alii, U.S. Pat. No. 5,576,608 and the Method For Charging A Secondary Battery And Charger Used Therefor Using Constant Current And Constant Voltage by T. Nagai, et alii, U.S. Pat. No. 5,637,981, for converting after detection of various characteristics from a constant current to a constant voltage that is equal to the fully charged voltage.
In a constant current charging process, rapid and full charging is possible within a time limit during which a constant current is applied to the battery. In the mode convertible type charging process, initial charging is performed in the constant current mode for a predetermined time period, and then the charging operation is switched to the constant voltage mode, so that a full charge of the battery is achieved with the charging voltage being constantly maintained.
Ni--Cd and Ni--MH batteries can require the constant current charging mode, while Li-ion batteries require both the constant charging mode and the constant voltage charging mode. In the constant current charging mode, the end point of time at which the battery must cease its charging is determined by detecting an increase in the terminal voltage of the battery when the battery is fully charged. There is some difficulty in detecting the exact charge end point, because the full charge time varies with the residual capacity of the battery.
In a specific rapid charger, the charge time is determined by detecting voltage drop across the battery terminals because some amount of current is discharged from the battery when charging begins. The charge time is determined in accordance with an internal charging program. This method is difficult because the full charging of a battery can not be assured during the preset charging time due to the fact that the preset charging time does not reflect aging of the battery. Moreover, unless the battery to be charged is made by the manufacturer of the charger, the full charge time necessary for the battery can not be uniformly provided to the battery. Consequently, the terminal voltage of the battery being charged varies with the residual capacity and degree of aging of the battery. The conventional battery charger has endeavored to provide a compromise between rapid full charging and protection of the batteries.
A conventional charger for charging a Li-ion battery by using both a constant voltage charging process and a constant voltage charging process supplies a charging current to the battery by controlling the current or voltages between the output of a switching regulator and the battery being charged. This mode convertible type of battery charger unnecessarily consumes power because it always performs a constant voltage charging operation. When a Li-ion battery is being charged, the constant voltage charging mode is only necessary for supplemental charging subsequent to the constant current charging. Moreover, the constant voltage control circuit of the charger is apt to be damaged by the occurrence of static, noise or surges when the battery pack is either mounted on or detached from the appliance.

Battery charging apparatus and method with charging mode convertible function


A metal vapor laser is disclosed that recycles condensed metal located at the terminal ends of a plasma tube back toward the center of the tube. A pair of arcuate wedges are incorporated on the bottom of the plasma tube near the terminal ends. The wedges slope downward toward the center so that condensed metal may be transported under the force of gravity away from the terminal ends. The wedges are curved to fit the plasma tube to thereby avoid forming any gaps within the tube interior.

This invention pertains to metal vapor lasers generally, and in particular to the plasma tube housing of the laser. The disclosed plasma tube is especially notable for its ability to recycle condensed metal vapor.
Plasma tubes are the components of a laser that house the lasing medium. In metal vapor lasers, this medium is a metal that has been vaporized. Although any metal will, in theory, support lasing, some are much more commonly used. To date, copper has been the most popular choice. Other common lasing media include lead and cadmium. When excited, the lasing medium can emit coherent laser light at a particular wavelength. Copper vapor lasers, for example, typically produce light in the green region of the visible spectrum. Lead vapor lasers generate light in the red region.
Conventional plasma tubes are simply cylindrical tubes. A solid piece of the lasing media is placed at the center of the plasma tube before it is put into operation. An electric discharge along the length of the plasma tube vaporizes and excites the metal atoms. During lasing, the center of the plasma tube becomes the hottest region and it is there that the metal most easily vaporizes. However, the metal vapor continuously diffuses throughout the entire volume of the plasma tube where the metal vapor cools and often condenses. The heat generated by the discharge causes most of the condensed metal drops to ultimately revaporize. However, since the ends of the tube are cooler than the center of the tube, some of the metal condensing at the ends is not revaporized and thus tends to accumulate there. Since the accumulated metal cannot readily be used to support lasing, this "migration" of the metal towards the ends of the plasma tube shortens the useful life of the laser before the lasing media must be recharged.
This accumulation also degrades the plasma tube performance in other ways. For example, the insulation of the plasma tube is compromised, necessitating an increased power input. Also, the accumulation of deposited material gradually decreases the inside diameter of the plasma tube end portions. Since a substantial percentage of the lasing energy generated in high energy lasers accumulates very close to the walls of the plasma tube, a decrease in tube diameter results in a corresponding decrease in laser output.
It has been recognized in the art that accumulation of the metal lasing media at the cool ends of plasma tubes creates some problems. A few preliminary attempts to rectify the problem have been made. Most of those disclosed are means for forcing the metal vapor back to the center of a plasma tube. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,710,938 discloses the use of anodes placed near the Brewster windows (at the ends of the laser tube) to "blow" the vapor back toward the center of the tube. However, this blowing actually causes some condensation on the end portions of the hollow tubes. This is the exact problem that the present invention seeks to avoid.
Wicks are also sometimes used to recycle condensed metal vapor. This approach is disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,442,523, 3,654,567, and 4,247,830. The wicks are typically porous materials which draw condensed metal vapor back toward the center of the tube by capillary action. Wicks, however, require sophisticated materials that must have both carefully controlled porosity and resistance to the high temperatures of lasing.
Japanese Application No. 59-219210 discloses a plasma tube with symmetrically tapered ends designed to direct solidified metal from the ends of a plasma tube back toward the center. Although this device will permit recycling of metal condensed at the ends, it suffers from incomplete utilization of the laser periphery. As mentioned above, most of the power produced within the plasma tube resides along the edges of the tube itself. Since this region is partially occluded by the tapering about the entire perimeter, significant power reduction will result. Thus, lasers built in accordance with the teachings of Japanese Application No. 59-219210 suffer from an unnecessary loss of efficiency.

Recirculating wedges for metal-vapor plasma tubes

The United States of America as represented by the United States Department of Energy


A method reconstructs or synthesizes heads from 3D models of heads and 2D silhouettes of heads. A 3D statistical model is generated from multiple real human heads. The 3D statistical model includes a model parameter in the form of basis vectors and corresponding coefficients. Multiple 2D silhouettes of a particular head are acquired using a camera for example. The 3D statistical model is fitted to multiple 2D silhouettes to determine a particular value of the model parameter corresponding to the plurality of 2D silhouettes. Then, the 3D statistical model is rendered according to the particular value of the model parameter to reconstruct the particular head.

In computer graphics, it is still a fundamental problem to synthetically construct realistic human heads, particularly the face portion. Hereinafter, when referring to 'head' or 'face', the invention is most interested in the portion of the head extending from chin-to-brow, and ear-to-ear. Most prior art methods require either extensive manual labor by a skilled artist, expensive active light 3D scanners, Lee et al., "Realistic Modeling for Facial Animations," Proceedings of SIGGRAPH 95, pages 55–62, August, 1995, or the availability of high quality of texture images as a substitute for exact face geometry, see Guenter et al., "Making Faces," Proceedings of SIGGRAPH 98, pages 55–66, July 1998, Lee et al., "Fast Head Modeling for Animation," Image and Vision Computing, Vol. 18, No. 4, pages 355–364, March 2000, Tarini et al., "Texturing Faces," Proceedings Graphics Interface 2002, pages 89–98, May 2002.
More recent efforts have focused on the availability of an underlying model for human faces, see Atick et al., "Statistical Approach to Shape from Shading: Reconstruction of 3D Face Surfaces from Single 2D Images," Neural Computation, Vol. 8, No. 6, pages 1321–1340, 1996, Blanz et al., "A Morphable Model for the Synthesis of 3D Faces," Proceedings of SIGGRAPH 99, July 1999, Pighin et al., "Synthesizing Realistic Facial Expressions from Photographs," Proceedings of SIGGRAPH 98, July 1998, and Shan et al., "Model-Based Bundle Adjustment with Application to Face Modeling," Proceedings of ICCV 01, pages 644–651, July 2001.
The model-based approaches make use of the fact that human faces do not vary much in their general characteristics from person to person. Blanz et al. derive an approximate textured 3D face from a single photograph. They require knowledge of rendering parameters, e.g., light direction, intensity, etc., which need to be specified by the user and adjusted by an optimization process. However, texture often increases the uncertainty in the process.
Blanz et al., formulate an optimization problem to reconstruct textured 3D face from photographs in the context of an inverse rendering paradigm. However, their method does not exploit point-to-point correspondence across many faces. Moreover, if the scale of their faces varies across samples, e.g., a baby's face vs. an adult face, only a partial set of points on the larger face is relevant.
A 3D variant of a gradient-based optical flow algorithm can be used to derive the necessary point-to-point correspondence, see Vetter et al., "Estimating Coloured 3D Face Models from Single Images: An Example Based Approach," Computer Vision—ECCV '98, Vol II, 1998. Their method also employs color and/or texture information acquired during the scanning process. That approach does not work well for faces of different races or in different illumination given the inherent problems of using static textures.
The application of statistical methods to 3D face geometry is relatively rare and not well explored. Atick et al. recover an eigenhead from a single image by leveraging knowledge of an object class, Modular eigenspaces can be used to recover 3D facial features and their correlation with texture. These can then be used to reconstruct the structure and pose of a human face in the live video sequences, see Jebara et al., "Mixtures of Eigenfeatures for Real-Time Structure from Texture," Proceedings of ICCV '98, January, 1998.
A number of methods are known for recovering 3D object shape from 2D object silhouettes that do not depend on color or texture information, see Lazebnik et al., "On Computing Exact Visual Hulls of Solids Bounded by Smooth Surfaces," Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR'01), Vol. I, pages 156–161, December 2001, Matusik et al., "Image-Based Visual Hulls," Proceedings of SIGGRAPH 00, July 2000, Potmesil," Generating Octree Models of 3D Objects from their Silhouettes in a Sequence of Images," CVGIP 40, pages 1–29, 1987, Szeliski, "Rapid Octree Construction from Image Sequences," CVGIP: Image Understanding, Vol. 58, No. 1, pages 23–32, 1993, and Zheng, "Acquiring 3D Models from Sequences of Contours," IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence, Vol. 16, No. 2, February 1994.
The reconstructed 3D shape is called a visual hull, which is a maximal approximation of the object consistent with the object's silhouettes. The accuracy of this approximate visual hull depends on the number and location of the cameras used to generate the input silhouettes. In general, a complex object such as human face does not yield a good shape when a small number of cameras are used to approximate the visual hull. Moreover, human faces possess numerous concavities, e.g., the eye sockets and the philtrum, which are impossible to reconstruct even in an exact visual hull due to its inherent limitation.
However, if there exists inherent knowledge of the object to be reconstructed, then this knowledge can be used to constrain the silhouette information to recover the shape of the object. For example, an optimal configuration of human motion parameters can be searched by applying a silhouette/contour likelihood term, see Sminchisescu, "Consistency and Coupling in Human Model Likelihoods," IEEE International Conference on Automatic Face and Gesture Recognition, May 2002. Internal and external camera parameters can be recovered using exact information of an object and its silhouette images, see Lensch et al., "Automated Texture Registration and Stitching for Real World Models," Proceedings of Pacific Graphics '00, October 2000.
Therefore, there is a need for a system and method that can reconstruct faces from 3D shape models and 2D images.

Constructing heads from 3D models and 2D silhouettes

Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories, Inc.


A process for fabricating a pendulous accelerometer, including the steps of: providing a first substrate having a top planar surface, etching a portion of the first substrate to a first predetermined depth from the top planar surface to form a plurality of first protrusions, providing a second substrate, etching a portion of the second substrate to a second predetermined depth to form a plurality of second protrusions, bonding planar surfaces of the first protrusions to planar surfaces of the second protrusions, and etching a portion of the first substrate from an opposite side of the first substrate to a third predetermined depth equal to or greater than the difference between the total thickness of the first substrate and the first predetermined depth to form a freely rotatable sensing plate that includes a substantially hollow proof mass.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to fabrication processes for accelerometers and other force sensing devices, and more particularly to a fabrication process for producing a capacitive pendulous MEMS accelerometer with a symmetric plate area having an asymmetric plate mass.
2. Description of Related Art
High performance accelerometers with near micro-gravity resolution, high sensitivity, high linearity, and low bias drift are needed for a wide variety of applications, especially aerospace applications such as inertial navigation systems, guidance systems, and air data measurement systems. The resolution of high-performance accelerometers has been limited by thermomechanical Brownian noise of the sensor, which is dictated by the damping coefficient and the mass of the structure, as well as by the readout electronics.
Fabrication technology plays a critical role in ensuring that large mass, large capacitance, and small damping are simultaneously obtained, and that micro-gravity resolution is achieved. Previously, a number of high performance silicon accelerometers have been reported. These devices utilize a large proof mass in conjunction with capacitive, resonant, or tunneling current sensing schemes to achieve high sensitivity. Among all these, silicon capacitive accelerometers have several advantages that make them very attractive for numerous applications ranging from low cost, large volume automotive accelerometers to high precision inertial grade micro-gravity devices. Silicon capacitive accelerometers have high sensitivity, good direct current response and noise performance, low drift, low temperature sensitivity, low power dissipation, and a simple structure.
Capacitive accelerometers are typically vertical and lateral structures. Some designs use a see-saw structure, with a proof mass such as a flat plate suspended by torsional beams. The structure is typically asymmetrically shaped so that one side has greater mass than the other, resulting in a center of mass that is offset from the axis of the torsion bars. When an acceleration force produces a moment about the torsion bar axis, the plate is free to rotate, constrained only by the spring constant of the torsion bars.
The sensitivity of these types of accelerometers is defined as the ratio of deflection to acceleration. The mass of the plate, the distance from the center of mass to the torsion bar axis, and the torsion bar stiffness determine sensitivity. To increase the offset of the center of mass, the plate structure is designed to have an asymmetric shape. For example, one side of the plate may have a width that is larger than the other side of the plate, or one side of the plate may have a greater length than the other side. However, increasing the center mass offset by the asymmetric shaping methods mentioned above may result in an increase in total mass of the plate, which leads to reduced resonant frequency and decreased sensitivity. Increasing the center mass offset by asymmetric shaping may also result in a sacrifice of some of the dynamic g-range, which is defined by the separation distance between a stationary sensing element and the pendulous acceleration sensing plate. Another method for increasing center mass offset involves lengthening a portion of the pendulous sensing plate. The center mass offset is proportional to the length of the extended portion of the plate. However, extending one side of the plate may lead to unbalanced gas damping, which results in performance degradation. Gas damping can be balanced by perforating portions of the extended plate. However, such perforations also reduce the center mass offset and so reduces the sensitivity. Additionally, extending one side of the plate may result in an increase of the overall chip size.
Other conventional structures have utilized a deeper gap underneath the extended plate portion to increase the maximum angle of rotation while maintaining balanced gas damping. Such a structure may increase the dynamic g-range to some extent. However, the extended portion of the plate increases the dimension of the overall chip size, leads to unbalanced gas damping, and reduces the resonant frequency of the rotational structure, which again results in a decrease in the performance of the accelerometer.
An asymmetric pendulous MEMS accelerometer was disclosed in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/978,090, filed in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on Oct. 26, 2007, the disclosure of which is herein incorporated by reference. A pendulous accelerometer having a hollow plate structure exhibits higher sensitivity than that of a pendulous accelerometer having a solid plate structure of the same dimensions and the same capacitance. However, fabricating a pendulous accelerometer with such a hollow plate structure can present challenges.
Accordingly, there is a need for an economical and efficient process for fabricating a capacitive pendulous MEMS accelerometer with a symmetric plate area having an asymmetric plate mass that includes a hollow plate structure.

Wafer process flow for a high performance MEMS accelerometer


A behavioral adaptation engine integrated with a voice application creation and deployment system has at least one data input port for receiving XML-based client interaction data including audio files attached to the data; at least one data port for sending data to and receiving data from external data systems and modules; a logic processing component including an XML reader, voice player, and analyzer for processing received data; and a decision logic component for processing result data against one or more constraints. The engine intercepts client data including dialog from client interaction with a served voice application in real time and processes the received data for behavioral patterns and if attached, voice characteristics of the audio files whereupon the engine according to the results and one or more valid constraints identifies one or a set of possible enterprise responses for return to the client during interaction.

A speech application is one of the most challenging applications to develop, deploy and maintain in a communications (typically telephony) environment. Expertise required for developing and deploying a viable application includes expertise in computer telephony integration (CTI) hardware and software, voice recognition software, text-to-speech software, and speech application logic.
With the relatively recent advent of voice extensive markup language (VXML) the expertise require to develop a speech solution has been reduced somewhat. VXML is a language that enables a software developer to focus on the application logic of the voice application without being required to configuring underlying telephony components. Typically, the developed voice application is run on a VXML interpreter that resides on and executes on the associated telephony system to deliver the solution.
As is shown in FIG. 1A (prior art) a typical architecture of a VXML-compliant telephony system comprises a voice application server (110) and a VXML-compliant telephony server (130). Typical steps for development and deployment of a VXML enabled IVR solutions are briefly described below using the elements of FIG. 1A.
Firstly, a new application database (113) is created or an existing one is modified to support VXML. Application logic 112 is designed in terms of workflow and adapted to handle the routing operations of the IVR system. VXML pages, which are results of functioning application logic, are rendered by a VXML rendering engine (111) based on a specified generation sequence.
Secondly, an object facade to server 130 is created comprising the corresponding VXML pages and is sent to server 130 over a network (120), which can be the Internet, an Intranet, or an Ethernet network. The VXML pages are integrated into rendering engine 111 such that they can be displayed according to set workflow at server 110.
Thirdly, the VXML-telephony server 130 is configured to enable proper retrieval of specific VXML pages from rendering engine 111 within server 110. A triggering mechanism is provided to server 110 so that when a triggering event occurs, an appropriate outbound call is placed from server 110.
A VXML interpreter (131), a voice recognition text-to-speech engine (132), and the telephony hardware/software (133) are provided within server 130 and comprise server function. In prior art, the telephony hardware/software 130 along with the VXML interpreter 131 are packaged as an off-the-shelf IVR-enabling technology. Arguably the most important feature, however, of the entire system is the application server 110. The application logic (112) is typically written in a programming language such as Java and packaged as an enterprise Java Bean archive. The presentation logic required is handled by rendering engine 111 and is written in JSP or PERL.
An enhanced voice application system is known to the inventor and disclosed in the U.S. patent application entitled "Method and Apparatus for Development and Deployment of a Voice Software Application for Distribution to one or more Application Consumers" to which this application claims priority. That system uses a voice application server that is connected to a data network for storing and serving voice applications. The voice application server has a data connection to a network communications server connected to a communications network such as the well-known PSTN network. The communication server routes the created voice applications to their intended recipients.
A computer station is provided as part of the system and is connected to the data network and has access to the voice application server. A client software application is hosted on the computer station for the purpose of enabling users to create applications and manage their states. In this system, the user operates the client software hosted on the computer station in order to create voice applications through object modeling and linking. The applications, once created, are then stored in the application server for deployment. The user can control and manage deployment and state of deployed applications including scheduled deployment and repeat deployments in terms of intended recipients.
In one embodiment, the system is adapted for developing and deploying a voice application using Web-based data as source data over a communications network to one or more recipients. The enhanced system has a voice application server capable through software and network connection of accessing a network server and Web site hosted therein and for pulling data from the site. The computer station running a voice application software has control access to at least the voice application server and is also capable of accessing the network server and Web site. An operator of the computer station creates and provides templates for the voice application server to use in data-to-voice rendering. In this aspect, Web data can be harvested from a Web-based data source and converted to voice for delivery as dialogue in a voice application.
In another embodiment, a method is available in the system described above for organizing, editing, and prioritizing the Web-based data before dialog creation is performed. The method includes harvesting the Web-based data source in the form of its original structure; generating an object tree representing the logical structure and content type of the harvested, Web-based data source; manipulating the object tree generated to a desired hierarchal structure and content; creating a voice application template in VXML and populating the template with the manipulated object tree; and creating a voice application capable of accessing the Web-based data source according to the constraints of the template. The method allows streamlining of voice application deployment and executed state and simplified development process of the voice application.
A security regimen is provided for the above-described system. The protocol provides transaction security between a Web server and data and a voice portal system accessible through a telephony network on the user end and through an XML gateway on the data source end. The regimen includes one of a private connection, a virtual private network, or a secure socket layer, set-up between the Web server and the Voice Portal system through the XML gateway. Transactions carried on between the portal and the server or servers enjoy the same security that is available between secure nodes on the data network. In one embodiment, the regimen further includes a voice translation system distributed at the outlet of the portal and at the telephone of the end user wherein the voice dialog is translated to an obscure language not that of the users language and then retranslated to the users language at the telephone of the user.
In such as system where templates are used to enable voice application dialog transactions, voice application rules and voice recognition data are consulted for the appropriate content interpretation and response protocol so that the synthesized voice presented as response dialog through the voice portal to the user is both appropriate in content and hopefully error free in expression. The database is therefore optimized with vocabulary words that enable a very wide range of speech covering many different vocabulary words akin to many differing business scenarios.
According to yet another aspect of the invention, vocabulary recognition is tailored for active voice applications according to client parameters. This is accomplished through a vocabulary management system adapted to constrain voice recognition processing associated with text-to-speech and speech-to-text rendering associated with use of an active voice application in progress between a user accessing a data source through a voice portal. The enhancement includes a vocabulary management server connected to a voice application server and to a telephony server, and an instance of vocabulary management software running on the management server for enabling vocabulary establishment and management for voice recognition software. In practice of the enhanced vocabulary management capability, an administrator accessing the vocabulary management server uses the vocabulary management software to create unique vocabulary sets or lists that are specific to selected portions of vocabulary associated with target data sources the vocabulary sets differing in content according to administrator direction.
It will be appreciated by one with skill in the art of voice application deployment architecture that many users vying to connect and interact with a voice portal may in some cases create a bottleneck wherein data lines connecting voice application components to Web-sources and other data sources become taxed to their capacities. This problem may occur especially at peak use periods as is common for many normal telephony environments. It has occurred to the inventor that still more streamlining in terms of traffic optimization is required to alleviate potential line-use issues described above.
A particular enhancement to the voice application distribution system known to the inventor addresses the traffic challenges described in the above paragraph. Application logics are provided for determining which portions (dialogs) of a voice application for deployment are cached at an application-receiving end system based on static and dynamic rules and in some cases (dynamic caching), statistical analysis results are used in the determination. The application logic utilizes a processor for processing the voice application according to sequential dialog files and rules of the application. Logic components include a static content optimizer connected to the processor for identifying files containing static content; and a dynamic content optimizer connected to the processor for identifying files containing dynamic content. The optimizers determine which files should be cached at which end-system facilities, tag the files accordingly, and prepare those files for distribution to selected end-system cache facilities for local retrieval during consumer interaction with the deployed application.
Being able to retrieve dialog portions of a voice application from a local cache facility increases response time at the voice portal by decreasing the load on the network connection to the voice application server. However, in addition to reduced traffic requirements, it is also important that text to speech recognition and speech to text renderings are clear and accurate. Accuracy of synthesized speech delivered to a caller is key to creating a successful voice application that can be interacted with in a dynamic fashion at both ends.
As voice application distribution architectures expand to cross regional boundaries and even cultural boundaries the prospect of standardizing speech recognition rules dealing with terms and phrases that are commonly spoken becomes increasingly difficult. For example, pronunciations of certain terms in a same language will vary significantly according to region. Common labels such as the way major roads and highways are written and spoken can also vary significantly. There are many examples of phrase and term variations that need to be addressed if voice application interaction is practiced on larger architectures spanning large geographic regions.
In yet another system enhancement known to the inventor, text-to speech preprocessing is used to render synthesized voice that is somewhat personalized to a caller according to pre-set constraints. The enhanced system is capable of preprocessing text strings for VXML view generation and subsequent voice rendering. The system has a text-to-speech preprocessing logic and a software table accessible to the preprocessing logic, the table adapted to serve text dialog options related to one or more text entities.
A rules base is provided and accessible to the preprocessing logic. The rules base is adapted to serve dialog selection constraints used to match specific dialog portions that are then used to annotate a text string. Dialog options and text entities are stored in an accessible data store. In a preferred embodiment the preprocessing logic accesses the software table during client interaction with a deployed voice application and selects a specific dialog option from more than one dialog option related to a single text entity, and inserts the selected option into the VXML page rendering process, the selection is made according to return of one or more of the served constraints.
While the enhanced system provides personalization of voice dialog to specific groups of callers depending upon pre-set constraints, which may cover a wide variety of industry specific, social, geographic and cultural considerations, the system is still largely robotic and does not respond to individual attitudes and behaviors. It has occurred to the inventor that instant attitudes moods and behaviors of callers interacting with a voice application, if understood at the time of interaction, could be leveraged to increase customer satisfaction, enterprise sales figures, and efficiency of the interaction process in general.
What is clearly needed is a method and apparatus for discerning, in real time, specific attitudes and behaviors of individual clients interacting with a voice application on a case-by-case basis, and for responding to such discernments during interaction by delivering selected dialog options, including provision of options not normally provided with the instant application and/or exclusion of certain options normally provided with the instant application. A system such as this could increase client satisfaction, enterprise success ratios, and efficiency of interaction, and could also improve conclusion ratios of interactions over time of deployment.

Behavioral adaptation engine for discerning behavioral characteristics of callers interacting with an VXML-compliant voice application


The Hypersonic Orbital Fighter and the methods of flying it are disclosed. The Hypersonic Orbital Fighter is characterized by a winged, modified lifting body shape with the forward ventral section comprising an X-30 type compressive air inlet, throttleable supersonic combustion ramjet array under the center of gravity and half-cone exhaust outlet at the back, fore mounted canards, cockpit/payload area top front and mid section and one or more tailplanes at the top back. Flight profile comprising runway takeoff, high subsonic climb up to 65,000 feet, alternatively full power climb from zero to 65,000 feet, with progressive acceleration from there up to Mach 24 @ required orbital altitude. Able to intercept missiles from early through post-boost phase from chosen orbit or suborbital arc, to intercept aircraft and to interdict surface targets. Winged dynamic soaring capability in reentry followed by powered runway landing.

1. Field of the Invention
The Invention relates to the field of aero/astronautics, specifically to the design and use of small spaceplanes from 50,000 up to 300,000 lbs. Gross Takeoff Weight, hereinafter referred to as GTW.
2. Brief Description of the Related Art
Until the present, access to suborbital and orbital flight has been limited to vertically launched or ascendant, generally unaerodynamically assisted rockets experiencing structural consumption or requiring extensive refit to repeat, lofting payloads at a $10,000/lb. cost. By employing low cost, routine runway takeoffs and powered landings, the efficiencies of hydrogen propulsion or simply of reusable-throttleable supersonic combustion ramjets, aerodynamic lift, reusable reentry ablatives and a titanium aluminide airframe ready for further flight upon return, even small spaceplanes can drop the cost per pound to suborbit and orbit an order of magnitude to under $1000 a pound. Further, this flight efficiency makes it possible to increase the military utility of spaceflight by dropping the cost and greatly increasing the flight reliability and probability of military payload flight placement and replacement, as well as opening suborbit and orbit to routine military (air) superiority flight and patrol.
Since the time efficient weapons were mounted in aircraft, the design of the pursuit/fighter type has been a search for the highest performance obtainable coupled with a predictable reliability. Despite the flight and program cancellations of the X-15B, the X-20 and the X-30 FIG. 1, with what these programs found and Space Shuttle flight the thread of design progress is able to continue to this day and now stands where a fighter type can be usefully derived from the X-30 titanium aluminide airframe winged lifting body, with air-compressing intake fore and half-cone exhaust aft, featuring mid-mounted supersonic combustion ramjets that burn JP-8 or better now and hydrogen and 50% solids slush hydrogen, in time. Because aerospace planes are large due to propulsion requirements, the fighter type necessarily goes from less than the fighter's current large 65,000 lbs. GTW to the start of the X-30's 300,000–1,000,000+GTW range. The X-30 design covered 1,000,000 to 300,000 lbs in the course of demonstrating cost effective cargo transport. Fighters have been found most effective as the smaller of the ascending classes of aircraft over time. In this weight range cargo carriage is possible and commercial flight thrives best using flight technologies formed by military usage, but unit costs go up as size decreases and the most cost effective carriage over suborbital long range or into orbit will always be found in the X-30's 300,000 to over 1,000,000 lb. GTW range.

High wing monoplane aerospace plane based fighter


An inventive apparatus and method provides for restricting movement from a collapsed or folded position of a pair of rails employed by a shoring assembly. The shoring assembly has a plurality of first pads each pivotally connected to one of the rails, a plurality of second pads each pivotally connected to the other of the rails, and a plurality of hydraulic jacks each being operatively connected between an opposing pair of the first and second pads. The pivoting movement of the plurality of first pads is restricted relative to the one rail when the rails are disposed in the collapsed position. In a particular embodiment, a pair of first pads and a pair of second pads—respectively known as cylinder pads and socket pads—are employed by the shoring assembly. Accordingly, a pair of hydraulic jacks are further employed in this embodiment of the shoring assembly.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to shoring assemblies, such as vertical shoring assemblies, that support the sides of an excavation and which are designed to prevent cave-ins.
2. Background of the Related Art
It is common practice to shore or support the walls of an excavation (i.e., a trench) with one or more shoring systems. It is well known in the art of shoring to employ collapsible hydraulic shoring systems which are adapted for repeated use. FIG. 1 depicts a plurality of typical shoring systems 10, commonly known in the art as a vertical shores, used in parallel to support the walls W of an excavation. Each of the shoring systems includes a pair of aluminum rails (also known in the art as uprights) 12 suitable for abutting the walls W of the excavation and providing the support desired. The rails 12 are shown spaced apart by a pair of hydraulic jacks (also known in the art as crossbraces) 14 which are pivotally attached to the rails so as to permit the system 10 to be selectively collapsed and expanded by pivoting the jacks and folding rails 12 towards each other.
Such folding action permits shoring systems 10 to be placed within an excavation, and removed therefrom, without the need for an operator to be inside the excavation. As shown in FIG. 2A, the placement sequence includes connecting the system 10 to a portable pumping unit 16 via a hydraulic line 18, and lowering the connected system 10 into the excavation between walls W (left diagram) using ropes 22. The shoring system 10 is then permitted to unfold under its own weight (center diagram), and the pumping unit 16 is activated to achieve a suitable operating pressure in the hydraulic jacks 14 (typically, 750-1500 psig) thereby generating the support force provided through the rails 12 against the walls W (right diagram).
The removal sequence is generally depicted in FIG. 2B, and includes discharging the hydraulic fluid, which is biodegradable, from the system 10 to depressurize the jacks 14, and retracting the system 10 using ropes 22 to fold the rails 12 towards one another (left and center diagrams). The shoring system 10 is then carried away by the operator (right diagram).
The hydraulic jacks 14 are pivotally attached to the rails using force-transmitting pads (also called blocks), as shown in FIG. 3. More particularly, pads 24, commonly known as cylinder pads, are affixed to hydraulic cylinders 28 of hydraulic jacks 14 and are pivotally connected to cylinder rail 12a using pins 30a. Pads 26, commonly known as socket pads, are operatively connected to hydraulic rams or piston rods 32, via an oversleeve 35, and are pivotally connected to socket rail 12b using pins 30b. The hydraulic cylinders are fluidly interconnected by hydraulic line 40 and couplings 34, 36 secured in respective complementing ports (not numbered) of the cylinder pads 24. This interconnection permits both of the hydraulic jacks 14 to be pressurized and/or discharged through a single valve, such as a quick-connect valve 38.
A notable shortcoming in conventional shoring systems is the absence of a means for securing the rails 12 when folded together for transport. This creates a risk that the rails will separate (under the weight of the "lower" rail and the jack assembly) while being carried, resulting in uncontrolled dropping of the lower rail and pivoting of the hydraulic jacks 14. Such uncontrolled movement presents a hazard to the operator carrying the shoring assembly—particularly in the "pinch zones" 200 (see FIG. 3)—that may result in serious injury. A need therefore exists for restricting movement of the rails of a shoring assembly from the closed or folded position.


At the time of migrating encrypted data into another storage apparatus, decrypt this data after migration is simplified, and security against tapping, falsification and the like is maintained when a calculation method of encrypted data is re-written into another calculation method, and also access performance is improved. In a storage system 100 which is provided with a storage apparatus having a volume 120 and which is accessible from a host computer, it is made possible to execute the data migration when a storage apparatus provided with a mechanism capable of decrypting the encrypted data is chosen as a migration destination of this data, and also to keep holding surely the encrypted data by updating and saving again an encryption method applied to a encryption of the encrypted data into another method by internal processing of the apparatus even when the apparatus and the encryption method become obsolete.

The present invention relates to a storage system in which it is possible to access a storage apparatus from a computer, and more particularly to a migration method of encrypted data and a management computer to perform management thereof.
First, a storage extent (volume) network which has been used from the past is explained.
A network which connects one or more external storage apparatuses and one or more computers is called a storage extent network (SAN) (for example, refer to Published Japanese Patent Application No. 2004-005370). This SAN has a characteristic of excellent scalability since a storage capacity and a computer can be easily added and deleted at a later date, though the SAN is often used especially when a plurality of computers share one large-scale storage apparatus.
Next, management of encrypted data in the storage extent network is explained.
There is a technology which is to prepare for tapping and falsification from the outside by encrypting data stored on a storage apparatus. There is a technology in which an encryption apparatus is installed in SAN, for example, and encryption and decryption are performed by having data once pass through this encryption apparatus at the time of input and output the data from a host computer to a storage system (refer to U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2004/153642A1).
Published Japanese Patent Application No. 2001-331380 discloses a technology in which encrypted data is saved and the encrypted data is decrypted appropriately when an apparatus of a receiving side receives the encrypted data at the time of performing a data copy between storage systems using a remote copy technology. Also, an encryption processor is installed on the storage system as shown in FIG. 5 so that the encryption and decryption of data can be performed on this apparatus.
In addition, Published Japanese Patent Application No. 2002-351747 discloses a method of encrypting a storage extent and saving in another storage extent in order to back up the storage extent within a disk array apparatus (equivalent to a logical storage extent of the present invention) into a tape drive. Furthermore, a method of decrypting the storage extent storing encrypted data and saving in another storage extent is also disclosed.
Next, management of a virtual storage extent of encrypted data is explained.
With respect to this virtual storage extent management technology a detailed explanation is described in Published Japanese Patent Application No. 2004-005370, and therefore only a mechanism of a system in which a virtual storage extent technology is installed is briefly described herein.
FIG. 2 is a diagram showing a configuration example of a virtual storage extent management system. In FIG. 2, a storage system 101, a storage system 102 and a host computer 200 are connected by a network connection apparatus 400 comprising a data I/O network 401. The network connection apparatus 400 mounts a plurality of data I/O network interfaces 440, and respective data I/O network interfaces 440 are connected with a data I/O network interface 240 which is mounted on the host computer 200 and a data I/O network interface 140 which is mounted on the storage system 101 and the storage system 102 through a data I/O network 402.
The above is a physical network configuration of the system in which the virtual storage extent technology is installed. On the other hand, it is assumed as a logical configuration of the network connection apparatus 400 that a communication path 411 is provided between the data I/O interfaces 440 which are connected with the host computer 200 and the storage system 101, and similarly a communication path 412 is provided between the data I/O interfaces 440 which are connected with the storage system 101 and the storage system 102. Mutual communications between the host computer 200 and the storage system 101, and also between the storage system 101 and the storage system 102 becomes possible by the logical network configuration described hereinabove.
It should be noted that the storage system 101 and the storage system 102 may be connected directly by the data I/O network 402 without passing through the network connection apparatus 400.
A configuration and an input/output procedure of a virtual storage extent (volume) 121 provided in this storage system 101 is described hereinafter.
The virtual storage extent 121 is created in the storage system 101, and is configured such that this virtual storage extent 121 is associated with a logical storage extent 120 which is mounted on the storage system 102. Storage extent configuration information, in which a relation of this association is written, is saved in storage extent configuration information 1107 held in the storage system 101. Further, in this configuration, the host computer 200 transmits a data input/output command making the virtual storage extent 121 which is mounted on the storage system 101 as a target. When the storage system 101 receives this data input/output command, a virtual storage extent management program 1106 refers to the storage extent configuration information 1107 to understand that a destination of the commanded data input/output is the virtual storage extent 121. Next, the storage system 101 transfers the data input/output command received from the host computer 200 making the logical storage extent 120, which is associated with this virtual storage extent and is mounted on the storage system 102, as a target. The storage system 102 executes the commanded data input/output to the logical storage extent 120 when this data input/output command is received.
However, there exist following problems in the prior-art technologies described hereinbefore.
More specifically, a first problem is that in a state where a storage system has a function to encrypt data to be stored and also stores data encrypted by this function, and at the time of migrating this encrypted data into another storage system when removing an apparatus thereof, for example, it has been necessary to choose an storage system apparatus having a function capable of decrypting and encrypting this encrypted data as a migration destination. In addition, it has been difficult to choose an appropriate apparatus as the migration destination because there has been no means for managing compatibility among a plurality of encryption methods and a mounting situation thereof. Due to this reason, there has occurred such a risk that the data can not be decrypted after transfer when an apparatus having a compatible encryption function mounted is not chosen as the migration destination.
Also, a second problem is that in a situation where a storage system stores encrypted data, it has been necessary in the past to have such a procedure that decrypted data is once read in a host computer and the data is written into another storage system having another encryption method after the data is encrypted again by this method in order to update an encryption method of this data into another encryption method. However, there has been a risk of tapping and falsification in this method since plaintext data once flows on a network and is processed by the host computer.
Moreover, it has been necessary to perform load-imposing and time-consuming processing such as migration processing on the network and computation processing by the host computer.
In addition, a third problem is that in a situation where encrypted data is stored on a storage system, there has been such a problem that it becomes not possible to decrypt this data when an encryption function and an apparatus necessary for decrypting this data is removed.
It should be noted that the invention described in Published Japanese Patent Application No. 2001-331380 is not for an object of saving encrypted data which is an object of the present invention but focuses on an object of realizing how to decrypt efficiently encrypted data to read out to a host. Explaining further details, the storage system in Published Japanese Patent Application No. 2001-331380 is not aiming at decrypting and storing the data to be saved on a disk drive like the present invention but Published Japanese Patent Application No. 2001-331380 is the one describing the opposite operation, more specifically how to decrypt at the time of saving the encrypted data (refer to Published Japanese Patent Application No. 2001-331380).

Storage system, data migration method and management computer


Hydrocarbon emissions from fuel reservoirs, particularly those associated with motor vehicles, are abated by contacting a vented hydrocarbon fuel vapor stream from the reservoirs with a polymeric adsorbent derived from a macroporous or macroreticular copolymer of at least one monovinylidene aromatic monomer and a crosslinking monomer. The macroporous copolymers are converted into suitable adsorbents by post-polymerization crosslinking in a swollen state in the presence of a Friedel-Crafts catalyst. The resulting adsorbent has improved hydrocarbon adsorption capacity relative to conventional activated carbon adsorbents.

The present invention concerns a method for reducing hydrocarbon emissions by use of adsorbent materials. In particular, the invention concerns the use of polymeric absorbents for reducing hydrocarbon emissions from fuel reservoirs.
The United States and other countries have enacted regulations requiring motor vehicle manufacturers to develop systems limiting emissions of hydrocarbon fuels to certain prescribed levels. Fuel storage tanks employed in motor vehicles inevitably develop elevated tank pressures due to vaporization of the fuel into a void space created between the surface of the fuel and top of the tank. The vapor formed is actually a mixture of air and hydrocarbon fuel vapors. Vaporization of the fuel occurs primarily due to heating of the fuel, such as when a motor vehicle is subjected to atmospheric temperature fluctuations during the course of a day. As a result of such pressure buildups, storage tanks are vented for safety purposes.
To reduce hydrocarbon emissions into the atmosphere, vehicles have been designed with systems that vent such storage tanks through a canister containing activated charcoal. The hydrocarbons contained in the air/fuel vapor mixture are then adsorbed to some extent onto the activated charcoal and, thus, are not expelled into the atmosphere. When the engine of the motor vehicle is subsequently operated vacuum pressure from the vehicle's engine manifold is used to draw air through the activated charcoal to desorb the hydrocarbons retained thereon. The desorbed hydrocarbons are then directed to the vehicle's engine where they are subsequently mixed with air and combusted. Examples of such systems are seen in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,093,124; 391919587; 3,352,294; and 3,393,669. U.S. Pat. No. 4,906,263 discloses use of a polyurethane foam support matrix impregnated with granules of adsorbent materials, such as activated charcoal, to remove pollutants and gases from fluid streams.
Due to enactment of more stringent environmental regulations requiring even greater reductions in fuel vapor emissions, the use of activated carbon in the above-described systems is becoming less desirable due to its low capacity for adsorbing fuel vapors. To meet the new regulatory standards, it may be necessary to employ larger amounts of activated charcoal in such canisters, in some cases as much as four times the amount presently employed. As the space available within motor vehicles for such canisters is limited, simply using more activated charcoal and a larger canister is not feasible. The use of larger amounts of adsorbent would increase vehicle weight, which undesirably reduces fuel economy. Any design changes associated with the use of a larger canister may also require expensive re-tooling of equipment used in the manufacturing process.
Certain types of polymeric adsorbents have been previously proposed for fuel vapor recovery systems, but the capacity of such adsorbents has been, at best, only comparable to that of activated carbon. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 3,844,739 discloses use of a dual-bed sorbent system wherein one bed is a styrene-divinylbenzene copolymer having from 17 to 75 weight percent divinylbenzene and the second bed is of activated carbon. U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,798,826 and 3,805,493 disclose use of adsorbents based on acrylic and nonpolar aromatic polymers. U.S. Pat. No. 4,863,494 discloses the use of porous divinylbenzene polymers.
In addition to emissions of fuel vapors from motor vehicles, the above-described problem is similarly applicable to fuel storage tanks or reservoirs used to hold or transport fuels. Such reservoirs are typically vented, which also presents the possibility for release of fuel vapors. It would be desirable to employ an improved adsorbent for reducing emissions of fuel vapors from these reservoirs as well.
As can be seen, what is needed is a method to reduce fuel vapors that employs an adsorbent material having a relatively high capacity for retaining hydrocarbons. Such an adsorbent would be a suitable replacement material for activated carbon in a wide variety of systems designed to reduce fuel vapor emissions, and in particular, fuel vapor emissions associated with motor vehicles.


A transmitter for use in a process control setting includes a sensor adapted to couple to a process and provide a sensor output related to a parameter of the process. A modulator coupled to the sensor output responsively provides a digital bit stream output representative of the sensor output. A filter provides a current decimation output. A comparator compares a previous decimation output with the current decimation output. Circuitry is provided for transmitting an output related to the parameter based upon the current decimation.

The present invention relates to transmitters of the type used in the process control industry. More specifically, the present invention relates to a transmitter having an analog-to-digital converter with adaptive resolution, update rate or resolution and update rate.
Transmitters in the process control industry typically communicate with a controller over the same two wires over which they receive power. A transmitter receives commands from a controller and sends output signals representative of a sensed process variable back to the controller. A commonly used method is a current loop where the sensed parameter is represented by a current varying in magnitude between 4 and 20 mA.
A transmitter includes a sensor for sensing a process variable which is controlled by a process. The sensor outputs an analog signal which is representative of one of several variables, depending on the nature of the process to be controlled: pressure, temperature, flow pH, turbidity, gas concentration, etc. Some of the variables to be controlled have a large dynamic range, such as in a flowmeter, where amplitude of the analog signal changes by a factor of 10,000.
An analog-to-digital converter in the transmitter converts the analog sensor signal to a digital representation of the sensed process variable for subsequent analysis in the transmitter or for transmission to a remote location. A microprocessor typically compensates the sensed and digitized sensor signal and an output circuit in the transmitter sends an output representative of the compensated process variable to a remote location.
Frequently, transmitters use a sigma-delta analog-to-digital converter in which the analog sensor output is connected to a high speed sigma-delta modulator. The sigma-delta modulator provides a high speed digital bit stream output representative of the polarity and magnitude of the sensor output. This bit stream is applied to a digital filter such as a decimating filter which generally performs a filtering or integration operation and provides a multi-bit output (i.e., a data byte or a data word) at a slower rate.
Generally, there is a tradeoff between resolution and update rate (or bandwidth) in analog-to-digital converters. The resolution of the analog-to-digital converter is inversely related to the conversion rate (or bandwidth) of the converter.

Process control transmitter with adaptive analog-to-digital converter


An electronic apparatus includes a panel, a touch sensor, a plurality of the actuators, and a controller. The touch sensor is configured to detect a contact position on the panel. The plurality of the actuators are configured to vibrate the panel. The controller is configured to control such that accelerations of vibrations transmitted to the panel from the plurality of the actuators become maximum at the contact position at the same timing.

A technique for presenting a realistic tactile sensation to a contact object such as an operator's finger or the like on a panel such as a touch panel is disclosed. For example, a tactile sensation presenting apparatus disclosed in PTL 1 set forth below provides an operator with an operation feeling accompanied by a "pushing" sensation by vibrating the panel in a thickness direction.


A composition for passivating metal contaminants in catalytic cracking of hydrocarbons includes a non-layered, ultra-large pore crystalline material with at least one peak at a position greater than about 18 Angstrom Units d-spacing with a relative intensity of 100, and a benzene adsorption capacity of greater than about 15 grams benzene per 100 grams anhydrous crystal at 50 torr and 25.degree. C., and a metal passivator incorporated within the crystalline material. A method for passivating contaminating metals uses the composition during catalytic cracking as an additive or as a component of the catalyst.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to deactivation of metal contaminants in catalytic cracking of hydrocarbons using an ultra large pore crystalline material and a metal passivator incorporated in the material.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Conversion of heavy petroleum fractions to lighter products by catalytic cracking is well known in the refining industry. Fluidized Catalytic Cracking (FCC) is particularly advantageous for that purpose. The heavy feed contacts hot regenerated catalyst and is cracked to lighter products. Carbonaceous deposits form on the catalyst, thereby deactivating it. The deactivated (spent) catalyst is separated from cracked products, stripped of strippable hydrocarbons and charged to a regenerator, where coke is burned off the catalyst with air, thereby regenerating the catalyst. The regenerated catalyst is then recycled to the reactor. The reactor-regenerator assembly are usually maintained in heat balance. Heat generated by burning the coke in the regenerator provides sufficient thermal energy for catalytic cracking in the reactor. Control of reactor conversion is usually achieved by controlling the flow of hot regenerated catalyst to the reactor to maintain the desired reactor temperature.
In most modern FCC units, hot regenerated catalyst is added to the feed at the base of a rise reactor. The fluidization of the solid catalyst particles may be promoted with a lift gas. Mixing and atomization of the feedstock may be promoted with steam, equal to 1-5 wt % of the hydrocarbon feed. Hot catalyst (above 650.degree. C.) from the regenerator is mixed with preheated (150.degree.-375.degree. C.) charge stock. The catalyst vaporizes and superheats the feed to the desired cracking temperature usually 450.degree.-600.degree. C. During the upward passage of the catalyst and feed, the feed is cracked, and coke deposits on the catalyst. The coked catalyst and the cracked products exit the riser and enter a solid-gas separation system, e.g., a series of cyclones, at the top of the reactor vessel. The cracked products are fractionated into a series of products, including gas, gasoline, light gas oil, and heavy cycle gas oil. Some heavy cycle gas oil may be recycled to the reactor. The bottoms product, a "slurry oil", is conventionally allowed to settle. The catalyst-rich solids portion of the settled product may be recycled to the reactor. The clarified slurry oil is a heavy product.
The "reactor vessel" into which the riser discharges primarily separates catalyst from cracked products and unreacted hydrocarbons and permits catalyst stripping.
Older FCC units use some or all dense bed cracking. Down flow operation is also possible, in which case catalyst and oil are added to the top of a vertical tube, or "downer", with cracked products removed from the bottom of the downer. Moving bed analogs of the FCC process, such as Thermofor Catalytic Cracking (TCC) are also known.
Further details on FCC can be found in U.S. Pat. No. 3,152,065 (Sharp et al); U.S. Pat. No. 3,261,776 (Banman et al); U.S. Pat. No. 3,654,140 (Griffel et al.); U.S. Pat. No. 3,812,029 (Snyder); U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,093,537, 4,118,337, 4,118,338, 4,218,306 (Gross et al); U.S. Pat. No. 4,444,722 (Owen); U.S. Pat. No. 4,459,203 (Beech et al.); U.S. Pat. No. 4,639,308 (Lee); U.S. Pat Nos. 4,675,099, 4,681,743 (Skraba) as well as in Venuto et al, Fluid Catalytic Cracking With Zeolite Catalysts, Marcel Dekker, Inc. (1979). These patents and publication are incorporated herein by reference.
Conventional FCC catalysts usually contain finely divided acidic zeolites comprising e.g., faujasites, such as Rare Earth Y (REY), Dealuminized Y (DAY), Ultrastable Y (USY), Rare Earth Ultrastable Y (RE-USY), silicon enriched dealuminized Y and Ultrahydrophobic Y (UBP-Y).
Typically, FCC catalysts are fine particles having particle diameters ranging from about 20 to 150 microns and an average diameter around 60-80 microns.
Catalyst for use in moving bed catalytic cracking units (e.g., TCC units) can be in the form of spheres, pills, beads, or extrudates, and can have a diameter ranging from 1 to 6 mm.
A process for catalytic cracking over an ultra large pore crystalline material catalyst has been described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,258,114. U.S. Pat. No. 5,258,114 describes a process particularly suited to converting "bottom of the barrel" or resid fractions into lighter components via catalytic cracking.
Although many advances have been made in catalytic cracking, and in cracking catalysts, some problem areas remain.
Heavy feeds available for processing, such as vacuum residua, contain contaminating metals which can include nickel, vanadium, iron, copper and molybdenum. These metals may be present in the hydrocarbon feed as free metals or as components of inorganic and organic compounds such as porphyrins and asphaltenes. Deposition of contaminating metals on cracking catalysts causes a gradual deterioration of the catalyst and unwanted side reactions, for example, producing hydrogen, light gases such as methane and ethane, and coke, at the expense of more valuable products.
Various methods have been described for trapping or passivating contaminating metals. In U.S. Pat. No. 5,258,114, metal getters or sinks such as alkaline and/or rare earth compounds may be present as part of the matrix or as separate additives of the metal getter alone.
In U.S. Pat. No. 4,921,824, discrete particles of lanthanum oxide or other rare earth oxides are added to the catalyst and hydrocarbon to passivate metal contaminants during catalytic cracking.
Problems caused by metal contaminants still remain.

FCC metal traps based on ultra large pore crystalline material


A method is provided for designing and fabricating a removable partial denture (RPD) framework including clasp retainers configured for removable engagement with abutment teeth of a patient. The method includes obtaining an initial digital model of the RPD framework based on patient image data. For each clasp retainer, a set of relevant geometric parameters is identified, each relevant geometric parameter being provided with a nominal value, and a target value of dislodging force is provided. The method further includes performing a force analysis on the initial digital model to determine corrected values for the relevant geometric parameters of each clasp retainer such that when the corrected values are assigned to the relevant geometric parameters, the dislodging force matches its target value. The method also includes obtaining a corrected digital model based on the corrected values, and fabricating the RPD framework based on the corrected digital model.

Dental prostheses are appliances and devices used to repair or correct, wholly or partially, intraoral defects such as, for example, missing teeth, missing parts of teeth and other missing or defective anatomical oral structures. Dental prostheses aim to restore a patient's dentition to its natural form including, without limitation, the rehabilitation of oral functions (e.g., mastication and swallowing), the correction of speech defects and the improvement of facial aesthetics. Various types of dental prostheses exist, including permanently fixed prostheses (e.g., crowns and bridges) and removable prostheses (e.g., removable partial dentures and plates).
Removable partial dentures (RPDs) are dental prostheses that allow for the restoration of one or more but not all of the natural teeth of a patient. RPDs are designed for convenient and repeated insertion in and removal from a patient's mouth. RPDs are generally indicated for in partially edentulous patients who cannot have fixed prostheses due to, for example, health conditions, cost or aesthetics considerations, the extent and position of the edentulous span. RPDs are supported and retained by remaining natural teeth (referred to as "abutment teeth"), tissue and/or implants.
Traditionally, RPDs have been made of casted metals and alloys (e.g., cobalt-chromium alloys, titanium and titanium alloys, and gold alloys) using the lost-wax technique. The lost-wax technique is a laborious and inherently imprecise manual process that has remained more or less unchanged for more than fifty years. The lost-wax technique poses many challenges to the design and engineering of RPDs. In particular, RPDs fabricated using the lost-wax technique often tend to be under-engineered and to have a design that is not or hardly customizable. As a result, conventional RPDs are generally more likely to deform, wear out or break under prolonged and/or excessive masticatory loads.
In recent years, computer-aided design and computer-aided manufacturing (CAD/CAM) techniques and processes have begun to be applied to the design and fabrication of RPD metallic frameworks. These techniques generally involve steps of acquiring three-dimensional (3D) digital image data of a patient's oral cavity and dentition (e.g., jaw and tooth anatomy); creating a 3D digital model of the RPD framework to be fabricated from the digital image data; and fabricating a physical model of RPD framework using CAM processes. CAD/CAM technologies have shown the potential to improve the precision, reliability, lifetime and overall quality of RPDs, while reducing human errors and patient chair time associated with conventional hand-made RPDs.
However, despite current and anticipated benefits, numerous challenges remain in the development of CAD/CAM techniques for the design and fabrication of RDPs and other dental prostheses.

Computer-aided design and manufacturing of removable partial denture frameworks with enhanced biomechanical properties


A device for reducing losses relating to the start-up of an industrial production line for ice cream provided with a traditional freezer. The invention relates to a device enabling the tubing used to convey the ice cream from the freezer to the dosing machine. Said device comprises a protector disposed around said tubing and a refrigerating fluid which can circulate therewithin with the aid of a pump which is actuated by a control.

This operation is performed as follows in the current state of the art: the line is composed of a freezer (machine designed to cool a mix made in advance after having added a variable quantity of air depending on the recipe at a temperature called the proportioning temperature), tubing between this freezer and the proportioning machine, and therefore a proportioning machine that itself usually precedes a setting tunnel and packaging machines.
The freezer is started so as to work (freeze) the first mix quantities made in advance and these mixes are then sent to the proportioning machine through the tubing.
The first quantities cannot be proportioned because they are too soft and too liquid and they form a loss; attempts are made to recycle this loss later on in other installations under conditions that are not always satisfactory and often partial.
The purpose of this invention is to provide a means of reducing these start up losses.
An analysis of the phenomena involved during this start up operation shows that the main cause of losses is the quantity of product that has to be used to cool the tubing located between the freezer and the proportioning machine until the metal from which this tubing is made is cold enough so that bond conditions between the product and the tubing wall are such that proportioning is possible.
As it exits from the freezer, the temperature of the product is between −8° C. to −9° C. and 0° C. depending on the planned use of the product. The temperature of the tubing at the beginning of the operations is ambient temperature (18° C. or more). Therefore the solid mix melts as it comes into contact with the metal and flows too quickly, losing its consistency and making proportioning impossible until the tubing becomes sufficiently cold so that a bond is formed between the solid product mix and the metal, after a certain quantity of product has passed. The product can then be proportioned, but large losses have occurred.

Loss reduction device for the production of ice cream