The present invention provides a magneto-resistance effect type head for reproducing, with a high sensitivity, information recorded at a high recording density on a recording medium while inhibiting occurrence of the Barkhausen noise, including a magneto-resistance effect element comprised of a multi-layer film containing a free magnetic layer having its magnetization direction changing in correspondence with an external magnetic field, an insulating film, a non-magnetic underlying layer formed on the insulating film, and one pair of magnetic domain-wall control layers formed on the underlying layer in its in-face direction with a predetermined spacing therebetween, for inhibiting movement of magnetic domain wall of the free magnetic layer, in such a configuration that the free magnetic layer has its both ends directly stacked on the pair of the magnetic domain-wall control layers and also has its middle part directly stacked on the underlying layer.

The present invention relates to a magneto-resistance effect type head for detecting an intensity of a magnetic field based on a resistance change corresponding to this intensity and an information reproducing apparatus for reproducing information stored on a storage medium.
Recently, with prevalence of computers in the society, an enormous amount of information is handled daily. To store such information is there available a magnetic disk. The magnetic disk has its surface made of a magnetic material, which is divided into many minute 1-bit segments, according to a magnetization direction of each 1-bit segment the information can be stored at a high storage density. To reproduce such information is there available a hard disk drive, which has a magnetic head for detecting an intensity of a magnetic field generated by the magnetization of the magnetic disk. The magnetic head sequentially reads out a magnetization direction of each 1-bit segment of the magnetic disk to generate an electric reproduced signal corresponding to the magnetization direction, thus reproducing the information born by use of that magnetization.
The recording density of the information stored on a magnetic disk has been increasing year by year with an accompanying decrease in the area occupied by each 1-bit segment of the magnetic disk. To detect a direction of the magnetization of such a small-area 1-bit segment, it is necessary to use a reproducing magnetic head with a high sensitivity.
As the high-sensitivity reproducing magnetic head is available a magneto-resistance effect type head (hereinafter called MR head) utilizing the magneto-resistance effect of a changing resistance in correspondence with an external magnetic field, especially a spin-valve type MR head well known for its very high sensitivity. This spin-valve type MR head is comprised of a multi-layer film including a soft-magnetism free-magnetic layer which changes in orientation of magnetization corresponding to an external magnetic field, in which the resistance changes greatly with a change in that magnetization orientation. This spin-valve type MR head comes in contact or in near contact with each 1-bit segment of the magnetic disk at a read-out portion of its surface perpendicular to the multi-layer film to thereby detect a magnetic field generated by magnetization of that 1-bit segment, thus generating an electric reproduced signal based on a change in resistance corresponding to that magnetic field.
The free-magnetic layer of the multi-layer film is liable to have a magnetic domain wall occurring at the end, so that if this magnetic domain wall moves due to a change in an external magnetic field, the reproduced signal contains Barkhausen noise. To inhibit the generation of the Barkhausen noise, a magnetic domain-wall control layer made of, e.g., a hard-magnetism ferromagnetic material is arranged as one layer of the multi-layer film, so that the free magnetic layer has the magnetic domain wall fixed due to a static magnetic field and switched connection brought about by that magnetic domain-wall control layer. Although this magnetic domain-wall control layer is preferably thinned in order to realize a small read-out portion fitted to reproduction of information recorded on a magnetic disk at a high recording density, it needs to have a predetermined thickness in order to control the electric domain wall in a stable manner by applying a strong static magnetic field on the free magnetic layer. By utilizing switched connection brought about when the free magnetic layer and the magnetic domain-wall control layer come in direction contact with each other, however, it is possible to compensate for a decrease in the intensity of the static magnetic field caused by the thinning of the layer.
Conventionally, such a spin-valve type MR head with a construction having a very small junction called an abutted junction has been well known that the magnetic domain-wall control layer attached to a tapered layer cross section of the free magnetic layer. That junction has switched connection occurring thereat but can hardly preserve stable connection because it has a small junction area.
Therefore, such a construction has been worked out that is of a so-called vertical-bias underlay type, in which part of the free magnetic layer is stacked on, as covering, the magnetic domain-wall control layer directly or with an underlying layer therebetween. By this construction, when the free magnetic layer is directly stacked on the magnetic domain-wall control layer, an area of the junction between these layers is very large as compared to a junction area of the abutted junction, so that stable switched connection can be preserved always, thus effectively inhibiting the occurrence of the Barkhausen noise.
Generally, however, preferably the free magnetic layer is formed on a predetermined non-magnetic underlying layer so that the existence of the underlying layer assures good crystallinity of the free magnetic layer. Good crystallinity improves the soft-magnetization properties of the free magnetic layer, which in turn improves the sensitivity of the spin-valve type MR head.
The spin-valve type MR head having a vertical-bias underlay type construction in which this free magnetic layer is formed on one pair of magnetic domain-wall control layers with a non-magnetic underlying layer therebetween is disclosed in Japan Patent Publication Hei 10-312515. Although, in this spin-valve type MR head, the non-magnetic underlying layer weakens or eliminates the switched connection between the magnetic domain-wall control layer and the free magnetic layer, this weakness in switched connection can be compensated for by enhancing, in adjustment, the intensity of a static magnetic field of the magnetic domain-wall control layer given to the free magnetic layer.
However, the spin-valve type MR head that has such a vertical-bias underlay type construction that the free magnetic layer is formed on the non-magnetic underlying layer cannot effectuate a feature of the structure held by the spin-valve type MR head that stable switched connection can be obtained by direct junction of the magnetic domain-wall control layer and the free magnetic layer. Therefore, there is desired such a spin-valve type MR head that has good crystallinity as well as high sensitivity, and effectively inhibits the occurrence of the Barkhausen noise by utilizing the feature of the vertical-bias underlay type construction of obtaining stable switched connection between the free magnetic layer and the magnetic domain-wall control layer.
In view of the above, it is an object of the present invention to provide a spin-valve type magneto-resistance effect type head and information reproducing apparatus which can well reproduce information recorded on a recording medium at a high recording density while inhibiting occurrence of the Barkhausen noise.
To the above-mentioned end, a first magneto-resistance effect type head according to the present invention includes:
a magneto-resistance effect element exhibiting a change in resistance in correspondence with an intensity of an external magnetic field, to detect the magnitude of the resistance of the magneto-resistance effect element, thus detecting the intensity of the magnetic field, in such a configuration that:
the magneto-resistance effect element is comprised of a multi-layer film including a free magnetic layer which has a magnetization direction changing in correspondence with the external magnetic field, the magneto-resistance effect type head having:
an insulating layer made of an insulating material;
a non-magnetic underlying layer formed on the insulating layer; and
one pair of magnetic domain-wall control layers formed on the underlying layer in its in-face direction with a predetermined spacing therebetween, for controlling the movement of the magnetic domain wall of the free magnetic layer,
in which the free magnetic layer is formed in such a manner as to have its both ends directly stacked on the pair of the magnetic domain-wall control layers respectively and also have its middle portion directly stacked on the underlying layer.
When the free magnetic layer is directly stacked on the magnetic domain-wall control layers, switched connection occurs in a large area therebetween to effectively inhibit the movement of the magnetic domain wall of the free magnetic layer, and further, when the free magnetic later is directly stacked on the underlying layer, the free magnetic layer is improved in crystallinity, which in turn improves the soft magnetism properties. So far, however, there is provided no magnetic head having such a construction that satisfies both requirements of the free magnetic layer that effective inhibiting of the magnetic domain wall movement and improvement in the soft magnetism properties.
Since in the above-mentioned magneto-resistance effect type head, the free magnetic layer is formed in such a manner as to have its both ends directly stacked on one pair of the magnetic domain-wall control layers and have its middle portion directly stacked on the underlying layer, the movement of the magnetic domain wall of the free magnetic layer at both ends of thereof can be effectively inhibited to thereby suppress the occurrence of the Barkhausen noise in a stable manner, and further, improved soft magnetism properties can be obtained at the middle portion of the free magnetic layer to thereby detect the intensity of the magnetic field with a high sensitivity.
Furthermore, if switched connection thus occurs, the magnetic domain-wall control layer can be thinned without generating the Barkhausen noise, thus qualifying the magneto-resistance effect type head for use in the reproduction of information recorded at a high recording density on a magnetic disk.
Preferably the first magneto-resistance effect type head of the present invention has the underlying layer made of Ta.
Since the underlying layer is made of Ta, the free magnetic layer directly stacked on the underlying layer can have especially good crystallinity and so good soft magnetism properties and, moreover, a current through the above-mentioned magneto-resistance effect element is little shunted to the underlying layer made of Ta having a large specific resistance and so effectively flows to this magneto-resistance effect element, thus permitting this magneto-resistance effect type head to detect the intensity of the magnetic field at a particularly high sensitivity.
To the above-mentioned end, a second magneto-resistance effect type head according to the present invention includes:
a magneto-resistance effect element exhibiting a change in resistance in correspondence with an intensity of an external magnetic field, to detect the magnitude of the resistance of the magneto-resistance effect element, thus detecting the intensity of the magnetic field, in such a configuration that:
the magneto-resistance effect element is comprised of a multi-layer film including a free magnetic layer which has a magnetization direction changing in correspondence with the external magnetic field, the magneto-resistance effect type head having:
an insulating layer made of an insulating material;
a non-magnetic underlying layer formed on the insulating layer;
one pair of electrodes formed on the underlying layer in its in-face direction with a predetermined spacing therebetween, for flowing a current to the magneto-resistance effect element; and
one pair of magnetic domain-wall control layers stacked on one pair of the electrode respectively on the underlying layer in its in-face direction with a predetermined spacing therebetween, for controlling the movement of the magnetic domain wall of the free magnetic layer,
in which the free magnetic layer is formed in such a manner as to have its both ends directly stacked on the pair of the magnetic domain-wall control layers respectively and also have its middle portion directly stacked on the underlying layer.
Since the free magnetic layer is formed in such a manner as to have its both ends directly stacked on one pair of the magnetic domain-wall control layers and have its middle portion directly stacked on the underlying layer, like the above-mentioned first magneto-resistance effect type head, this magneto-resistance effect type head can detect the magnetic field with a high sensitivity while inhibiting occurrence of the Barkhausen noise in a stable manner, thus qualifying itself for use as a head for reproducing information recorded at a high recording density on a magnetic disk.
Further, in the construction that one pair of the magnetic domain-wall control layers are stacked on one pair of the electrode respectively on the underlying layer, the electrodes and the magnetic domain-wall control layers are formed at a high alignment accuracy by a self-alignment method, so that from this viewpoint of a high alignment accuracy in formation besides the above-mentioned thinning of the magnetic domain-wall control layers this magnetic head is suitable for reproducing the information recorded at a high recording density on a magnetic disk. Moreover, no contaminated layer is produced between the electrode and the magnetic domain-wall control layer thus formed by the self-alignment method and, a contaminated layer, if any, between the magnetic domain-wall control layer and the free magnetic layer can be eliminated by cleaning the surface of the magnetic domain-wall control layer. Since there is no such interposition of contaminated layer, the resistance between the electrode and the free magnetic layer can be reduced to easily flow a current therebetween, thus permitting this magneto-resistance effect type head to detect a magnetic field with a high sensitivity.
Preferably the second magneto-resistance effect type head of the present invention has the underlying layer made of Ta.
Since the underlying layer is made of Ta, this magneto-resistance effect type head can detect an intensity of a magnetic field with an especially high sensitivity like the first magneto-resistance effect type head likewise having the underlying layer made of Ta.
Furthermore, in the second magneto-resistance effect type head of the present invention has the above-mentioned electrode, preferably the above-mentioned electrode is made of at least one layer, having a layer made of Ta as its top layer.
Since the electrode has a Ta-made layer at its top in layer, the above-mentioned magnetic domain-wall control layer is formed on this Ta-made layer to improve the crystallinity of this magnetic domain-wall control layer, so that magnetization of the magnetic domain-wall control layer is deflected in the in-face direction of the magnetic domain-wall control layer, thus enabling further effective control on the magnetic domain wall of the free magnetic layer. The magnetic domain wall can thus be conducted effectively, to permit more stable inhibition of occurrence of the Barkhausen noise at this magneto-resistance effect type head.
Furthermore, preferably the second magneto-resistance effect type head of the present invention has the above-mentioned magnetic domain-wall control layer provided with a hard magnetic layer made of a CoPt-based alloy.
Generally, CoPt-based alloys have magnetic anisotropy and a high coersive force. The above-mentioned magnetic domain-wall control layer includes the hard magnetic layer made of a CoPt-based alloy and so has a strong static magnetic field on the free magnetic layer to thereby control the magnetic domain wall of the free magnetic layer by switched connection with the free magnetic layer, thus enabling further stable inhibition of occurrence of the Barkhausen noise at this magneto-resistance effect type head.
To the above-mentioned end, a first information reproducing apparatus according to the present invention includes:
a magnetic head arranged in contact or in near contact with a magnetic recording medium in which information is recorded by magnetization, for detecting magnetization at each point on the magnetic recording medium, to reproduce information corresponding to the magnetization detected at each point of the magnetic recording medium by the magnetic head, in such a configuration that:
the magnetic head is provided with a magneto-resistance effect element exhibiting a change in resistance in correspondence with an intensity of an external magnetic field comprised of a multi-layer film including a free magnetic layer having a magnetization direction changing in correspondence with the external magnetic field, so that the magnitude of the resistance of the magneto-resistance effect element can be detected to thereby detect the intensity of the magnetic field, the magnetic head having:
an insulating layer made of an insulating material;
a non-magnetic underlying layer formed on the insulating layer; and
one pair of magnetic domain-wall control layers stacked on the underlying layer in its in-face direction with a predetermined spacing therebetween, for controlling the movement of the magnetic domain wall of the free magnetic layer,
in which the free magnetic layer is formed in such a manner as to have its both ends directly stacked on the pair of the magnetic domain-wall control layers respectively and also have its middle portion directly stacked on the underlying layer.
Since in this information reproducing apparatus the magnetic head has the same construction as that of the above-mentioned first magneto-resistance effect type head, it can likewise detect an intensity of the magnetic field with a high sensitivity while inhibiting occurrence of the Barkhausen noise in a stable manner, thus qualifying this reproducing apparatus for use in reproducing the information recorded with a high recording density.
To the above-mentioned end, a second information reproducing apparatus according to the present invention includes:
a magnetic head arranged in contact or in near contact with a magnetic recording medium in which information is recorded by magnetization, for detecting magnetization at each point on the magnetic recording medium, to reproduce information corresponding to the magnetization detected at each point of the magnetic recording medium by the magnetic head, in such a configuration that:
the magnetic head is provided with a magneto-resistance effect element exhibiting a change in resistance in correspondence with an intensity of an external magnetic field comprised of a multi-layer film including a free magnetic layer having a magnetization direction changing in correspondence with the external magnetic field, so that the magnitude of the resistance of the magneto-resistance effect element can be detected to thereby detect the intensity of the magnetic field, the magnetic head having:
an insulating layer made of an insulating material;
a non-magnetic underlying layer formed on the insulating layer;
one pair of electrodes formed on the underlying layer in its in-face direction with a predetermined spacing therebetween, for flowing a current to the magneto-resistance effect element; and
one pair of magnetic domain-wall control layers stacked on one pair of the electrodes respectively on the underlying layer in its in-face direction with a predetermined spacing therebetween, for controlling the movement of the magnetic domain wall of the free magnetic layer,
in which the free magnetic layer is formed in such a manner as to have its both ends directly stacked on the pair of the magnetic domain-wall control layers respectively and also have its middle portion directly stacked on the underlying layer.
Since in this information reproducing apparatus the magnetic head has the same construction as that of the above-mentioned second magneto-resistance effect type head, it can likewise detect an intensity of the magnetic field with a high sensitivity while inhibiting occurrence of the Barkhausen noise in a stable manner, thus qualifying this reproducing apparatus for use in reproducing the information recorded with a high recording density.
As described above, the present invention provides a magneto-resistance effect type head and an information reproducing apparatus which can properly reproduce information recorded at a high recording density on a recording medium with a high sensitivity while inhibiting the occurrence of the Barkhausen noise.

Magneto-resistance effect type head and information reproducing apparatus


A liquid crystal display device for minimizing the number of data lines and reducing a line resistance is disclosed. In the device, liquid crystal cells are provided at intersections between gate lines and data lines. At least one thin film transistor is provided at each liquid crystal cell to drive the liquid crystal cells. A source protrusion is provided at an ith horizontal line (wherein i is an integer) and is extended from any one of the thin film transistors. The source protrusion is connected, via at least one gate line, an other horizontal gate line excluding the ith horizontal line. A gate protrusion is extended from the other horizontal gate line in such a manner to be connected with the source protrusion.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a liquid crystal display, and more particularly to a liquid crystal display that is adaptive for minimizing the number of data lines as well as reducing a line resistance.
2. Description of the Related Art
Generally, a liquid crystal display (LCD) controls a light transmittance of a liquid crystal using an electric field to thereby display a picture. To this end, the LCD includes a liquid crystal display panel having a pixel matrix, and a driving circuit for driving the liquid crystal display panel. The driving circuit drives the pixel matrix such that picture information can be displayed on the display panel.
FIG. 1 shows a related liquid crystal display device.
Referring to FIG. 1, the related LCD includes a liquid crystal display panel 2, a data driver 4 for driving data lines DL1 to DLm of the liquid crystal display panel 2, and a gate driver 6 for driving gate lines GL1 to GLn of the liquid crystal display panel 2.
The liquid crystal display panel 2 is comprised of thin film transistors TFT each of which is provided at each intersection between the gate lines GL1 to GLn and the data lines DL1 to DLm, and liquid crystal cells connected to the thin film transistors TFT and arranged in a matrix type.
The gate driver 6 sequentially applies a gate signal to each gate line GL1 to GLn in response to a control signal from a timing controller (not shown). The data driver 4 converts data R, G and B from the timing controller into analog video signals to thereby apply video signals to the data lines DL1 to DLm when a gate signal is applied to each gate line GL1 to GLn.
The thin film transistor TFT applies a data from the data lines DL1 to DLm to the liquid crystal cell in response to a control signal from the gate lines GL1 to GLn. The liquid crystal cell can be equivalently expressed as a liquid crystal capacitor Clc because it is comprised of a common electrode opposed to each other with having a liquid crystal therebetween and a pixel electrode connected to the thin film transistor TFT. Such a liquid crystal cell includes a storage capacitor (not shown) connected to a pre-stage gate line in order to keep a data voltage charged in the liquid crystal capacitor Clc until the next data voltage is charged therein.
The liquid crystal cells of such a related LCD forms vertical lines equal to the number (i.e., m) of the data lines DL1 to DLm because they are provided at intersections between the gate lines GL1 to GLn and the data lines DL1 to DLm. In other words, the liquid crystal cells are arranged in a matrix type in such a manner to make m vertical lines and n horizontal lines.
The related LCD requires m data lines DL1 to DLm so as to drive the liquid crystal cells having m vertical lines. Therefore, the related LCD has a drawback in that a number of data lines DL1 to DLm should be provided to drive the liquid crystal display panel 2 and hence a process time and a manufacturing cost are increased. Furthermore, the related LCD has a problem in that, since a large number of data driving integrated circuits (IC's) are included in the data driver 4 so as to drive the m data lines DL1 to DLm, a large manufacture cost results.


In embodiments, a method of forming a membrane electrode assembly comprises pressing a stack comprising a cathode, an anode, a proton exchange membrane between the cathode and the anode, and a porous catalyst layer in contact with the proton exchange membrane, the porous catalyst layer comprising an ionomer, the ionomer coating internal surfaces of pores of the porous catalyst layer, thereby providing internal ionomer-gas interfaces within the porous catalyst layer; for a time, a pressure, and a temperature to bind the ionomer to the proton exchange membrane, whereby steam is generated within the porous catalyst layer. The steam is removed via pores of the porous catalyst layer to increase the hydrophobicity of the internal ionomer-gas interfaces within the porous catalyst layer.

The cathode catalyst layer of a polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) exhibits high water saturation levels (i.e. flooding conditions) during high current density operations. Water flooding of the cathode results in reduced fuel cell performance due to lower mass transport rate of oxygen to the catalyst reaction site. Various advances have been developed to overcome water management issues related to PEMFCs. A few of these discoveries include the development of the interdigitated flow field [1], integration of hydrophobic polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) nanoparticles into the catalyst layer [2, 3], and gas diffusion layer fabrication from various types of non-wetting materials [4, 5]. Each of these advances led to improved mass transport performance during high current density operations.

Methods for forming membrane electrode assemblies


In one instance, a semiconductor package includes a metal leadframe having a first plurality of openings extending partially into the leadframe from the first side and a second plurality of openings extending partially into the leadframe from the second side together forming a plurality of leads. A pre-mold compound is positioned in the second plurality of openings that at least partially supports the plurality of leads. The semiconductor package has a plurality of bumps extending from the landing sites to a semiconductor die and a molding compounding at least partially covering the plurality of bumps and the metal leadframe. Other packages and methods are disclosed.

This relates generally to semiconductor devices, and more particularly to pre-molded leadframes in semiconductor packages.
In some types of semiconductor packages, a semiconductor die is directly mounted to a leadframe via a plurality of interconnect bumps or posts. The plurality of interconnect bumps electrically connects the semiconductor die to the leadframe. Each interconnect bump's contact surface area at the semiconductor die is often the same size as the interconnect bump's contact surface area at the leadframe.

Pre-molded leadframes in semiconductor devices


The temperature-compensated film bulk acoustic resonator (FBAR) device comprises an FBAR stack. The FBAR stack comprises an FBAR and a temperature-compensating element. The FBAR is characterized by a resonant frequency having a temperature coefficient, and comprises opposed planar electrodes and a piezoelectric element between the electrodes. The piezoelectric element has a temperature coefficient on which the temperature coefficient of the resonant frequency depends at least in part. The temperature-compensating element has a temperature coefficient opposite in sign to the temperature coefficient of the piezoelectric element.

FBAR devices that incorporate one or more film bulk acoustic resonators (FBARs) form part of an ever-widening variety of electronic products, especially wireless products. For example, modern cellular telephones incorporate a duplexer in which each of the band-pass filters includes a ladder circuit in which each element of the ladder circuit is an FBAR. A duplexer incorporating FBARs is disclosed by Bradley et al. in U.S. Pat. No. 6,262,637 entitled Duplexer Incorporating Thin-film Bulk Acoustic Resonators (FBARs), assigned to the assignee of this disclosure and incorporated into this disclosure by reference. Such duplexer is composed of a transmitter band-pass filter connected in series between the output of the transmitter and the antenna and a receiver band-pass filter connected in series with 90° phase-shifter between the antenna and the input of the receiver. The center frequencies of the pass-bands of the transmitter band-pass filter and the receiver band-pass filter are offset from one another. Ladder filters based on FBARs are also used in other applications.
FIG. 1 shows an exemplary embodiment of an FBAR-based band-pass filter 10 suitable for use as the transmitter band-pass filter of a duplexer. The transmitter band-pass filter is composed of series FBARs 12 and shunt FBARs 14 connected in a ladder circuit. Series FBARs 12 have a higher resonant frequency than shunt FBARs 14.
FIG. 2 shows an exemplary embodiment 30 of an FBAR. FBAR 30 is composed a pair of electrodes 32 and 34 and a piezoelectric element 36 between the electrodes. The piezoelectric element and electrodes are suspended over a cavity 44 defined in a substrate 42. This way of suspending the FBAR allows the FBAR to resonate mechanically in response to an electrical signal applied between the electrodes.
Above-mentioned U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/699,289, of which this application is a Continuation-in-Part discloses a band-pass filter that incorporates a decoupled stacked bulk acoustic resonator (DSBAR) composed of a lower FBAR, an upper FBAR stacked on lower FBAR and an acoustic decoupler between the FBARs. Each of the FBARs is composed of a pair of electrodes and a piezoelectric element between the electrodes. An electrical input signal is applied between electrodes of the lower FBAR and the upper FBAR provides a band-pass filtered electrical output signal between its electrodes. The electrical input signal may alternatively be applied between the electrodes of the upper FBAR, in which case, the electrical output signal is taken from the electrodes of the lower FBAR.
Above-mentioned U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/699,481, of which this disclosure is a Continuation-in-Part, discloses a film acoustically-coupled transformer (FACT) composed of two decoupled stacked bulk acoustic resonators (DSBARs). A first electrical circuit interconnects the lower FBARs of the DSBARs in series or in parallel. A second electrical circuit interconnects the upper FBARs of the DSBARs in series or in parallel. Balanced or unbalanced FACT embodiments having impedance transformation ratios of 1:1 or 1:4 can be obtained, depending on the configurations of the electrical circuits. Such FACTs also provide galvanic isolation between the first electrical circuit and the second electrical circuit.
The FBAR described above with reference to FIG. 2 and devices, such as ladder filters, DSBARs and FACTs, incorporating one or more FBARs will be referred to generically in this disclosure as FBAR devices.
Most FBAR devices have a frequency response having a band pass characteristic characterized by a center frequency. The constituent FBARs have a frequency response characteristic characterized by a resonant frequency. In practical embodiments of current FBAR devices in which the material of the piezoelectric element is aluminum nitride (AlN) and the material of the electrodes is molybdenum (Mo), the resonant frequency of the FBAR(s) has a temperature coefficient from about −20 ppm/° C. to about −35 ppm/° C. Such temperature coefficients reduce the temperature range over which the FBAR device incorporating the FBARs can meet its pass bandwidth specification. Such temperature coefficients additionally reduce manufacturing yield, because the bandwidth limits to which the FBAR devices are tested have to be inset to ensure that the FBAR device will meet its bandwidth specification over its entire operating temperature range.
What is needed, therefore, is an FBAR whose resonant frequency has a reduced temperature coefficient.

Temperature-compensated film bulk acoustic resonator (FBAR) devices

Avago Technologies Wireless IP (Singapore) Pte. Ltd.


Systems and methods for event reporting are provided. In a method for event reporting in a system that includes an event source and a plurality of event consumers, notifications from the event source are received at an event reporter. The notifications are received at a first rate. The event reporter receives a plurality of desired sampling rates from the plurality of event consumers, where each of the desired the sampling rates indicates a rate at which an event consumer desires reporting of notifications from the event reporter. The notifications are filtered based on the first rate and the plurality of desired sampling rates. The filtering selects one or more of the notifications to be reported to one or more event consumers of the plurality of event consumers. The selected one or more of the notifications are reported.

Mobile devices such as smart phones are rapidly evolving and maturing as a platform to serve the computational and communication needs of users. A growing number of mobile phones have embedded sensors which can sense aspects of a user's environment. For example, many smart phones include built-in accelerometers, global positioning system (GPS) functionality, light sensors, microphones, proximity sensors, cameras, compasses, and gyroscopes. Additionally, there are sensors available that can communicate using low power RF communication technology and push data to mobile devices. These sensors, along with the local computational power and the communication capability built into the mobile devices, enable applications in fields such as location-based tracking, healthcare, remote monitoring, and environmental monitoring.

System and method for asynchronous event reporting


A power generation system and a fuel processor for use within a power generation system. A common hydrocarbon fuel is introduced into the heated reaction chamber along with water vapor. The hydrocarbon fuel and water react, producing less complex resultant gases. The resultant gases are passed into a hydrogen separator. The hydrogen separator separates hydrogen from the resultant gases. The separated hydrogen is used to power a fuel cell. The fuel cell produces electricity and water that can be recycled back into the system. A standard hydrocarbon fuel can therefore be used to power a fuel cell in a highly efficient, singe-step process.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to systems and methods that are used to separate molecular hydrogen from a volume of gas. More particularly, the present invention is related to systems and methods that separate hydrogen from a volume of mixed gas and utilize the hydrogen as fuel for a fuel cell.
2. Prior Art Description
In industry, there are many applications for the use of ultra pure molecular hydrogen. For instance, there are many fuel cells that operate using hydrogen. The hydrogen, however, must be ultra pure. Any molecules of carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide or other contaminant gases that are received by the fuel cell either reduces its efficiency or causes damage to the fuel cell.
Hydrogen gas does not exist naturally on earth to any significant extent because it reacts with many elements and readily combines to form compounds. Hydrogen gas must therefore be manufactured. Hydrogen gas can be manufactured in a number of ways. For instance, hydrogen gas can be created by splitting water molecules through electrolysis. However, the power needed for electrolysis is always greater than the powered available from a fuel cell that utilizes the output hydrogen gas from the electrolysis. Any fuel cell system that obtains hydrogen gas from electrolysis therefore results in a net power loss.
Most commonly, the purified hydrogen that is used by a fuel cell is generated by obtaining hydrogen gas from a hydrocarbon, using a multi-stage process. In industry, hydrogen gas is most often obtained by breaking down either fossil or biofuels, both of which are in the general class of hydrocarbons. In a first stage, a hydrocarbon such as gasoline, methane, diesel or other hydrocarbons which have the form CnH(2n+2) is broken down to less complex molecules. When such hydrocarbons are broken down, hydrogen gas is liberated from the hydrocarbon. The breaking down the hydrocarbons to generate hydrogen has been done for approximately 100 years. During this time frame the general process has remained the same and it is based on equilibrium reactions. The general process for breaking down hydrocarbons involves a high temperature cracking of the hydrocarbon fuel, a lower temperature water gas shift reaction to increase the concentration of hydrogen and then a separation of the hydrogen. The hydrogen must then be purified in a secondary process to achieve the desired level of purity. Such prior art industrial processes typically require millions of dollars in equipment and building sized facilities. It is therefore expensive to create extremely pure hydrogen gas. Accordingly, if hydrogen gas is used as a direct source of energy, it is one of the most uneconomical fuels that can be used without the invention described in this patent application.
One of the few places that hydrogen gas is used as a fuel is in a proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cell. A PEM fuel cell only utilizes hydrogen gas that has been processed to extreme levels of purity. In many common processes that produce hydrogen, the hydrogen gas produced by that process is not pure enough to be used directly by the PEM fuel cell. Rather, when hydrogen is produced, the resultant gas is often contaminated with water vapor, hydrocarbons and/or other contaminants. It is for this reason that once hydrogen gas is generated, it must be purified in a second processing stage. The cost of this processing depends on the level of purity required. The purer the hydrogen gas, the greater the time, money and energy are required.
In the art, ultra pure hydrogen is commonly considered to be hydrogen having purity levels of at least 99.999%. In the prior art, one of the most common ways to purify contaminated hydrogen gas is to pass the gas through a conduit made of a hydrogen permeable material, such as palladium or a palladium alloy. As the contaminated hydrogen gas passes through the conduit, atomic hydrogen permeates through the walls of the conduit, thereby separating from the contaminants. In such prior art processes, the conduit is kept internally pressurized and is typically heated to at least three hundred degrees centigrade. Within the conduit, molecular hydrogen disassociates into atomic hydrogen on the surface of the conduit and the conduit absorbs the atomic hydrogen. The atomic hydrogen permeates through the conduit from a high pressure side of the conduit to a low pressure side of the conduit. Once at the low pressure side of the conduit, the atomic hydrogen recombines to form molecular hydrogen. The molecular hydrogen that passes through the walls of the conduit can then be collected for use. Such prior art systems are exemplified by U.S. Pat. No. 5,614,001 to Kosaka et al., entitled Hydrogen Separator, Hydrogen Separating Apparatus And Method For Manufacturing Hydrogen Separator.
In the past, fuel cells have mostly been used to power exotic devices, such as spacecraft. Accordingly, the cost of operating a two stage system for obtaining purified hydrogen is of little concern. However, if fuel cells are to be used to power more traditional devices, such as automobiles, cost is one of the most important design criteria. It is primarily the cost associated with using hydrogen that have prevented fuel cell technology from spreading into traditional consumer products.
Consider an automobile. In order to use a fuel cell in an automobile, hydrogen gas would have to be separated from a source gas at some processing plant. The hydrogen gas would then be purified in an expensive secondary process. The purified hydrogen, as a gas or liquid, would then be shipped under some pressure to gas stations for storage. The high pressure hydrogen would then have to be pumped at even high pressures into the automobile for storage. Within the automobile, the high pressure hydrogen would then have to be dropped to near atmospheric levels prior to its use by the fuel cell. This fueling scenario requires pressurized tanks to be maintained both at the gas station and within the automobile. It also requires pumping lines and couplings for fueling the automobile that can hold hydrogen gas under immense pressure. The dangers and cost of refueling alone have long been deterrents to producing any vehicle that runs on hydrogen.
A long-standing need, therefore, exists for an integrated compact fuel processing system, wherein a traditional fuel, such as diesel or gasoline, can be pumped into the gas tank of an automobile or a ship in the ordinary manner. A fuel processing system carried within the automobile or ship will then obtain ultra pure hydrogen from that traditional fuel using an integrated process that operates on an as-needed basis. The ultra pure hydrogen can then be used to power a fuel cell for the production of electricity.
This need is met by the present invention as described and claimed below.

System and method for processing fuel for use by a fuel cell using a micro-channel catalytic hydrogen separator


A vehicle braking system includes a primary system including at least one pneumatic brake pipe control valve, and a secondary back-up system configured to facilitate vehicle braking without human intervention. The secondary back-up system includes a first air reservoir coupled to supply pressurized air to the at least one pneumatic brake pipe control valve, a second air reservoir, a choke adapted to allow airflow at a specified airflow rate, and a solenoid valve adapted to selectively couple and decouple the first air reservoir and the second air reservoir via the choke, according to an energization state of the solenoid valve.

This section provides background information related to the present disclosure which is not necessarily prior art.
In some vehicles, such as a remotely controlled locomotive (RCL) for example, there may not be an operator on-board to control a braking system of the vehicle. Without an operator (e.g., a locomotive engineer, etc.) on-board, the RCL system is responsible for proper operation and movement of the locomotive.
If the RCL system detects an operating anomaly or failure, the RCL system should ensure that the locomotive can be brought to a safe stop regardless of the nature of the anomaly or failure. A particularly critical situation is if a braking system fails. In that case, an alternative (e.g., diverse) braking mechanism should be implemented.
Under normal (e.g., non-fault) conditions, an independent brake may be used by a speed controller of the RCL system. In some situations, a remote control operator (RCO) may be required to use the train brake to maintain a speed commanded by the RCL system. However, when an anomaly or failure is detected (e.g. non-normal operation), the RCL system may engage an available safety brake channel, such as a full service train brake (FSTB). When a full service train brake state is declared, a diverse (e.g., backup) braking system may be used in conjunction with or instead of the primary train brake control.
Corresponding reference numerals indicate corresponding parts (although not necessarily identical) parts throughout the several views of the drawings

Systems and methods for vehicle braking control


A data and phase locking buffer design in a two-way handshake system is provided and may comprise sequentially locking pipelining of data in a synchronized pipeline and draining the synchronized pipeline of the data. The data may be synchronously accepted at a substantially similar time by contiguous pipeline stages that have data to be accepted. A ready signal, which may be processed after being generated by a present pipeline stage of the synchronized pipeline, may be communicated to a subsequent pipeline stage of the synchronized pipeline. An accept signal may be communicated from a present pipeline stage to a previous pipeline stage. A drain signal may be generated for draining the data from the synchronized pipeline. The drain signal may be asserted and deasserted based on end of line information in the data.

Advances in compression techniques for audio-visual information have resulted in cost effective and widespread recording, storage, and/or transfer of movies, video, and/or music content over a wide range of media. The Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG) family of standards is among the most commonly used digital compressed formats. A major advantage of MPEG compared to other video and audio coding formats is that MPEG-generated files tend to be much smaller for the same quality. This is because MPEG uses sophisticated compression techniques. However, MPEG compression may be lossy and, in some instances, it may distort the video content. In this regard, the more the video is compressed, that is, the higher the compression ratio, the less the reconstructed video retains the original information. Some examples of MPEG video distortion are loss of textures, details, and/or edges. MPEG compression may also result in ringing on sharper edges and/or discontinuities on block edges. Because MPEG compression techniques are based on defining blocks of video image samples for processing, MPEG compression may also result in visible "macroblocking" that may result due to bit errors. In MPEG, a macroblock is an area covered by a 16×16 array of luma samples in a video image. Luma may refer to a component of the video image that represents brightness. Moreover, noise due to quantization operations, as well as aliasing and/or temporal effects may all result from the use of MPEG compression operations.
When MPEG video compression results in loss of detail in the video image it is said to "blur" the video image. In this regard, operations that are utilized to reduce compression-based blur are generally called image enhancement operations. When MPEG video compression results in added distortion on the video image it is said to produce "artifacts" on the video image. For example, the term "mosquito noise" may refer to MPEG artifacts that may be caused by the quantization of high spatial frequency components in the image. In another example, the term "block noise" may refer to MPEG artifacts that may be caused by the quantization of low spatial frequency information in the image. Block noise may appear as edges on 8×8 blocks and may give the appearance of a mosaic or tiling pattern on the video image.
There may be some systems that attempt to remove video noise. However, the systems may comprise a data buffer for each of the clients that may be processing the video data. The redundancy of the video buffers may be expensive in terms of chip layout area and power consumed. The various clients may produce processed video data that may be used by other clients and/or combined to create a single output. In order to blend the video data, all of the various video data must be synchronized. Decentralized synchronization may be complex and require much coordination. As the video processing systems get larger, the problems related with chip layout area, power required, and synchronization of the various video streams may be exacerbated.
Further limitations and disadvantages of conventional and traditional approaches will become apparent to one of skill in the art, through comparison of such systems with some aspects of the present invention as set forth in the remainder of the present application with reference to the drawings.

Data and phase locking buffer design in a two-way handshake system


In one of the die structures provided herein, there includes first and second housing structures defined to secure to each other to form a plurality of sides. An internal wheel is provided with an aperture for receiving a peg extending from the first housing structure, such that the internal wheel is rotatably secured thereto. The internal wheel has a perimeter edge defined with spaced apart curved grooves positioned on the periphery thereof. A portion of the perimeter edge is accessible through the first housing structure. Lastly, there is a plurality of labels having indicia printed thereon and separately affixed to the plurality of sides. One of the plurality of labels is defined as an internal wheel label affixed to the internal wheel such that the indicia is visible through a window defined on the first housing structure.

While die are well known and well developed there is always a continual need for improvements. The present invention improves upon the typical dice structure by adding features that can be used to enhance the enjoyment and increase the game play and activities available with the use of the improved dice structure.


An arrangement for cylinder detection in a four-stroke internal combustion engine is disclosed. The arrangement comprises a first disc connected to a crankshaft, the first disc comprising a first mark (M11-M13) within each an interspace angle (α), and a second disc connected to a camshaft and comprising one second mark (M21-M26) per number of cylinders. The first mark (M11-M13) is arranged on a first disc, or the plurality of first marks (M11-M13) are arranged in relation to each other on the first disc, and the second marks (M21-M26) are arranged in relation to each other on the second disc such that for each interspace angle (α) the relevant first mark (M11-M13) is detectable by a first sensor and the relevant second mark (M21-M26) is detectable by a second sensor at different relative rotational positions between the first disc and the second disc.

An internal combustion engine comprises cylinders, each with a piston arranged to reciprocate in a cylinder bore of the relevant cylinder. A control system of the internal combustion engine is configured to control various functions of the internal combustion engine, such as e.g. fuel injection into a cylinder when the relevant piston is near an ignition top dead center. Accordingly, the control system requires an indication of when a particular piston reaches its ignition top dead center, or at least an indication of which particular piston is about to reach its ignition top dead center. For this purpose, a flywheel of the internal combustion engine may be provided with one mark for determining a particular position of a crankshaft of the internal combustion engine. The relevant ignition top dead center positions of the pistons for each revolution of the crankshaft are counted, or calculated, from the one mark. If count is lost, or when the engine is to be started, the crankshaft has to be rotated until the one mark is detected before the engine control system can adequately control fuel injection into the respective cylinders of the engine.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,469,823 discloses a sensor arrangement for cylinder detection in a multi-cylinder internal combustion engine. The combustion engine has a crankshaft sensor with an increment disc with reference mark and a camshaft sensor with long and short segments as well as short and long intermediate spaces between the segments. By means of common evaluation of the pulse sequences supplied by the two sensors, the length of high phases and low phases can be determined. Since the reference mark is taken into account during the evaluation, the number of different segment lengths on the camshaft sensor disc is reduced and unambiguous cylinder detection can be achieved. The evaluation of the crankshaft signal and camshaft signal permits control of the internal combustion engine. In the event of failure of the crankshaft sensor, emergency running of the internal combustion engine can be realized solely with the aid of the camshaft sensor.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,329,904 discloses an engine control apparatus for distinguishing each cylinder of an engine and comprises a crank angle rotor having a configuration representing a crankshaft angle of an engine, and a crank angle sensor operatively associated with the crank angle rotor to generate a crank angle signal in accordance with the configuration of the crank angle rotor. The configuration of the crank angle rotor includes first and second silent sections. The first silent section is cooperative with the crank angle sensor to constitute a part for generating a first level non-pulsation component of the crank angle signal. The second silent section being cooperative with said crank angle sensor to constitute a part for generating a second level non-pulsation component of the crank angle signal. There is further provided a cam angle rotor having a configuration representing a camshaft angle, which is operatively associated with a cam angle sensor for generating a cam angle signal to provide a plurality of different kinds of signal level sequences with respect to the first and second silent sections of the crank angle rotor. A cylinder discriminating device distinguishes each cylinder of the engine on the basis of the level of the non-pulsation component of the crank angle signal and the signal level sequences of the cam angle signal.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,575,136 discloses an apparatus for detecting crank angle position in an internal combustion engine, in which a first rotator, which is interlocked with the crankshaft, has a plurality of detectable parts in the rotation direction. The detectable parts on the first rotator are provided so that adjoining spaces are nearly equal to each other. A second rotator which is interlocked with the camshaft has a plurality of detectable parts in the rotation direction. The detectable parts on the second rotator are provided so that permutations each consisting of at least two of consecutive angle intervals in one rotation direction differ from each other. With this configuration, the stroke of an internal combustion engine can be determined.

Cylinder detection in a four-stroke internal combustion engine


In some embodiments, a computing system maintains, in a memory, information on one or more terminal devices, a dictionary of beams and information on a spatial grid. The computing system maps each terminal device to the spatial grid based on up-to-date results of radio measurements and calculates, for each spatial element, a load caused by the one or more terminal devices based on the mapping. The computing system evaluates, for each combination of a beam and a terminal device, a reference signal received power, RSRP, based on results of the radio measurements. The computing system calculates a first map of expected spatial distribution of traffic based on the calculated loads and beam-specific second maps of expected RSRP based on the values of the RSRP. Finally, the computing system causes performing beamforming optimization based on the first map and second maps.

In beamforming systems based on Grid of Beams (GoB) such as 5G systems, an accurate design of the GoB is critical in order to ensure optimized performances, in terms of coverage and/or capacity, and to maximize spectral efficiency in regions with high traffic density. The basic idea is to steer more narrow beams to regions of high traffic density and favor coarse and wider beams in the regions of lower traffic density in order to ensure coverage and to maximize the beamforming gain and received power. The real radio environment is also accounted for, by exploiting beam measurements. However, how to select the optimal beams from all available beams for a given communication scenario is a very complex problem which has been tackled, for example, using machine learning. Conventionally, methods for beam optimization require performing a large number of radio and traffic related measurements which places a heavy burden on the resources of the cell. Thus, there is a need for a solution which would enable reducing this burden by facilitating the collection of data required for beam optimization.
US 2014003240 A1 discloses solutions for supporting wireless communication paths from an antenna array with a vertical directional component. Some of said solutions reduce training feedback for increased numbers of communication paths by only reporting on a subset of reference signals provided for various vertical beam configurations. Other solutions reduce feedback with virtual measurements based on a difference between reference signal measurements.

Efficient data generation for beam pattern optimization


The process for preparing compound 2 by reacting the compound 1, each as described in the specification hereof, with a tetraalkyl ammonium hydroxide having the formula R.sub.1 R.sub.2 R.sub.3 R.sub.4 N.sup.+ OH.sup.-, wherein R.sub.1, R.sub.2, R.sub.3 and R.sub.4 are each independently a C.sub.1 -C.sub.10 alkyl group or a (C.sub.6 -C.sub.10) aryl (C.sub.1 -C.sub.10) alkyl group, to obtain an triol carboxylate thereof, acidifying the triol carboxylate, then lactonizing the product to obtain diol lactone, a key intermediate for production of antihypercholesterolemia agents.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention in general relates to a process for preparing an intermediate of an antihypercholestero-lemia agent, and in particular to a process for preparing compound 2 from compound 1, each as described below, by using tetraalkyl ammonium hydroxide as a hydrolytic reagent.
2. Description of the Related Art
Antihypercholesterolemia agents such as Simvastatin (compound 6), 6(R)-{2-8'(S)-2",2"-dimethylbutyryloxy-2'(S)-6'(R)-dimethyl-1',2',6',7',8' 8'a(R)-hexahydronapthyl-1'(S)-ethyl}-4(R)-hydroxy-3,4,5,6-tetrahydro-2H-pyr an-2-one are strong inhibitors of the biosynthesis of cholesterol. Simvastatin is prepared from the starting material lovastatin (compound 1). The 8'-ester group on the polyhydronaphthyl ring of the starting material, lovastatin 1, is first hydrolyzed to form 8'-hydroxy compound 2. The 4-hydroxyl group on the lactone ring of the 8'-hydroxy compound 2 is then protected with t-butyldimethylchlorosilane in an inert atmosphere at room temperature (about 20-30.degree. C.) in the presence of an acid acceptor such as imidazole to form a .beta.-hydroxy protected derivative 3. The 8'-hydroxy on the polyhydronaphthyl ring of the compound 3 is then acylated in one of two methods. The first method comprises treatment with the acid chloride of the desired acyl group in pyridine with 4,4-dimethylaminopyridine as catalyst. The second method comprises treatment of the 8'-polyhydronaphthol with the free acid of the desired acyl group and an N',N'-dicyclohexylcarbodimide with 4-pyrrolidinopyridine as a catalyst in dichloromethane. These procedures give the protected ester, compound 4. The removal of the silyl protecting group from the 4-hydroxy group of the lactone ring is then carried out, using three equivalents of tetrabutylammonium fluoride and four equivalents of acetic acid per equivalent of the ester to give the desired compound 6, simvastatin. The reaction scheme of the above process is indicated below. ##STR1##
U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,293,496 and 4,444,784 disclose a process for preparing compound 2 from compound 1. The process includes heating lovastatin with an alkali metal hydroxide, such as lithium hydroxide, potassium hydroxide or sodium hydroxide, in a protoic solvent such as water or an alcohol followed by acidification and lactonization. Although the .alpha.-methylbutyryl ester of lovastatin is highly sterically hindered, employing strong base such as sodium hydroxide or potassium hydroxide for hydrolysis is disadvantageous because the base-sensitive .beta.-hydroxy lactone group tends to form eliminated side product extensively under this condition. Thus, in industrial applications, the weak nucleophilic base, lithium hydroxide, is used for the hydrolysis process. However, when lithium hydroxide is used, the hydrolysis process must be performed at an elevated temperature, for example 120.degree. C.-180.degree. C., for an extended period, (longer than 72 hours), and the yield after acidification and lactonization is not high, i.e. less than 80%. Moreover, lithium hydroxide can easily react with trace amounts of carbon dioxide in the reaction system and precipitate out as lithium carbonate. The precipitate will hinder the further work-up process.

Process for preparing 6(R)-2 (8-hydroxy-2,6-dimethyl-polyhydro-naphthyl-1)-4-(R)-hydroxy-3,4,5,6-tetr ahydro-2H-pyran-2-one

Industrial Technology Research Institute


A method for producing a high-strength magnesium alloy material includes (a) a step of preparing a magnesium alloy workpiece having a top face and a side face; and (b) a step of applying a compressive load σp (MPa) from the top face side of the workpiece and performing a uniaxial forging process on the workpiece. Step (b) is performed while suppressing deformation of the workpiece widening outward and under conditions including (i) σp>σf (where σf is the compressive breaking stress (MPa) of the workpiece); (ii) a plastic deformation rate is less than or equal to 10%, and (iii) a strain rate is less than or equal to 0.1/sec.

Magnesium alloys (including magnesium metal) are lightweight and have high specific strength. As such, they are expected to be widely used as next-generation lightweight structural materials.
On the other hand, magnesium alloys are hard-to-work materials that are known to easily crack or produce defects in the case where conventional processes such as a rolling process or forging are used. Thus, improving the strength of a magnesium alloy material through a work hardening process has been a challenge, and application fields of magnesium alloy materials have been limited to small electronic equipment components and similar applications in which material strength is not such an important factor.
In recent years, techniques have been disclosed for improving the strength of magnesium alloys by adding transition metals and certain rare earth metals to magnesium (see e.g., Non-Patent Documents 1 and 2).

Method for producing high-strength magnesium alloy material and magnesium alloy rod

The University of Electro-Communications


A powder inhalator comprising: a housing; a supply member for holding a powdered drug for a large number of doses and having a drug discharge aperture at its bottom surface; a drug carrier, to which the powdered drug is supplied from the drug discharge aperture of the supply member, and having on its upper surface a measuring recess that has a volume equivalent to one dose of the drug; and an operation member disposed so as to move freely back and forth, and operate the drug carrier; the drug carrier moving in contact with the bottom surface of the supply member to carry the powdered drug loaded into the measuring recess from the position of the drug discharge aperture to an air inhalation channel, wherein the drug carrier is disposed slidably so that the measuring recess moves in a circular manner by sliding the drug carrier.

Powder inhalators of this type are provided with a supply member for containing powdered pharmaceutical drug for a large number of doses, a drug carrier with a measuring recess having a volume equivalent to one dose and an operation member for operating the drug carrier.
To inhale a powdered drug, the drug is loaded into the measuring recess from the drug discharge aperture of the supply member, and the drug carrier is then slid away from the supply member to move the measuring recess in a straight line.
During this movement, the powdered drug loaded into the measuring recess is scraped by one edge of the drug discharge aperture by the sliding action of the drug carrier, and a predetermined quantity of the powdered drug is conveyed into the inhalation channel (Japanese Patent Publication No. 2000-501013).
Such a configuration results in the following two problems.
First, when the powdered drug is scraped, a measuring recess 100 moves in a straight line as shown by the arrow in FIG. 42. As a result, the powdered drug accumulates in the illustrated shaded-area near the edge of a drug discharge aperture 101. As a result, the powdered drug becomes clogged between the supply member of the powdered drug and the drug carrier, which reduces the ability to measure the powdered drug and lowers the operating performance of the drug carrier.
Secondly, static electricity is generated due to friction when the drug carrier slides, and thus the powdered drug adheres to the inside of the powder inhalator. Consequently, the quantitative accuracy and particle containing ratio of the powdered drug is lowered.
The second problem may be solved by shortening the stroke of the measuring recess to reduce the amount of static electricity. However, it is difficult to reduce the amount of static electricity in the above-described conventional powder inhalator due to its configuration, as described below. More specifically, the conventional powder inhalator is configured so that a protecting cap also serves as the operation member and that the measuring recess moves by a distance equivalent to the stroke of the protecting cap in order to expose the mouthpiece. Thus, the measuring recess needs to move the distance that is required to remove the protecting cap from the mouthpiece of the powder inhalator.
Moreover, the operation member is required to move by a certain distance so as to give the user an appropriate feeling of operating the operation member even when a separate operation member is provided for operating the drug carrier. More specifically, the powder inhalator should be configured so as to indicate to the user that the powder inhalator is ready for inhalation through a recognizable operation feeling from the operation member because he/she cannot visually confirm that the measuring recess has moved into an inhalation channel to prepare the powder inhalator for inhalation.
As described above, it is difficult to reduce the amount of friction in a conventional powder inhalator by moving the operation member only a short distance due to its configuration.
The conventional powder inhalator is configured so that the drug carrier is operated by the operation member to convey the powdered drug loaded into the measuring recess toward the mouthpiece (Japanese Published Application No. 5(1993)-237189).
The conventional powder inhalator contains the supply member, the drug carrier, and other members in a housing. The operation member protrudes from the aperture of the housing to the outside to allow the user to manually operate the operation member. Therefore, a gap is created between the operation member and the aperture, and thus, the pharmaceutical drug becomes moistened due to external air flowing from the created gap.
The pharmaceutical drug can be protected against humidity by carrying the powder inhalator in a moisture-proof case, but this creates a need for the user to remove the powder inhalator from the moisture-proof case for every use. Thus, a considerable amount of time is required for the user to inhale the powdered drug. Moreover, portability is lowered by containing the powder inhalator in a moisture-proof case that is necessarily larger than the powder inhalator.
The present invention has been achieved in view of the above-described problems, and provides a powder inhalator which can prevent the powdered drug from becoming clogged between the supply member and the drug carrier, and further can reduce the amount of electrostatic charge without shortening the stroke of the operation member.
In addition thereto, the present invention provides a powder inhalator that has a high moisture-proof effect without employing a separate moist-proof case.


The present invention provides pharmaceutical compositions which include (xe2x88x92)-pseudoephedrine and a pharmaceutically acceptable carrier, wherein the (xe2x88x92)-pseudoephedrine is substantially-free of (+)-pseudoephedrine. In another embodiment, the present invention provides methods of relieving nasal and bronchial congestion and of inducing pupil dilation which include administering a pharmaceutically effective amount of (xe2x88x92)-pseudoephedrine to a mammal. The (xe2x88x92)-pseudoephedrine used in the present methods is substantially free of (+)-pseudoephedrine and also substantially free of side effects caused by administration of (+)-pseudoephedrine.

The present application provides pharmaceutical compositions and methods of using the sympathomimetic composition of (xe2x88x92)-pseudoephedrine as a decongestant, bronchodilator, and the like. The present compositions of (xe2x88x92)-pseudoephedrine are substantially-free of (+)-pseudoephedrine. According to the present invention, at similar doses, (xe2x88x92)-pseudoephedrine binds xcex11- and xcex12 adrenergic receptors better than (+)-pseudoephedrine and yet has less adverse effects upon blood pressure and fewer drug interactions.
Sympathomimetic drugs are structurally and pharmacologically related to amphetamine. They generally act by binding to or activating xcex1- and xcex2-adrenergic receptors, resulting in vascular constriction, reduced blood flow and/or reduced secretion of fluids into the surrounding tissues. Such receptor binding generally decreases swelling of nasal membranes and the amount of mucous secreted into nasal passages. Sympathomimetic drugs are therefore used to treat nasal congestion, allergies and colds. In addition, they are used as appetite suppressants and mydriatic agents.
At the present time, some drugs are sold as racemic mixtures. Alternatively, the most easily isolated stereoisomer is sold, even though another stereoisomer may have greater activity or fewer side effects because that stereoisomer interacts more selectively with the receptors involved in sympathomimetic action. Isolation and use of the more selective stereoisomer may therefore reduce not only the required dosage, but many unwanted side effects.
Many organic compounds exist in optically active forms. This means that they have the ability to rotate the plane of plane-polarized light. An optically active compound is often described as a chiral compound. Such a chiral compound has at least one asymmetric carbon which can exist in two different, mirror image configurations. Compounds which have the same composition but are mirror images of each other are called enantiomer. The prefixes d and l, or (+) and (xe2x88x92), identify the direction in which an enantiomer rotates light. The d or (+) steroisomer, or enantiomer, is dextrorotatory. In contrast, the l or (xe2x88x92) enantiomer is levorotatory. A mixture of (+) and (xe2x88x92) enantiomers is called a racemic mixture.
An alternative classification system for stereoisomers exists where prefixes (S) and (R) are used. This classification system is based on the structure of the compound.
(+)-Pseudoephedrine is known to be sympathomimetic amine which binds to xcex1-adrenergic receptors. It is sold under the tradename SUDAFED(copyright). However, (+)-pseudoephedrine has undesirable side effects, including central nervous system stimulation, lightheadedness, nervousness, anxiety, paranoia, heart arrhythmia, atrial fibrillations and premature ventricular contractions. 95 American Hospital Formulatory Service 847-48. Moreover, (+)-pseudoephedrine can easily be converted into the controlled drug, (S)-methamphetamine, by simply converting the hydroxyl in (+)-pseudoephedrine to a hydrogen.
Hence, a need exsists for a compsition having the beneficial decongestant activities of (+)-pseudoephedrine, without its adverse side effects, and without its (S)-methamphetamine-conversion problem.
The present invention is directed to a pharmaceutical composition containing (xe2x88x92)-pseudoephedrine and a pharmaceutically acceptable carrier, wherein the pharmaceutical composition is substantially-free of (+)-pseudoephedrine. Suprisingly, the present (xe2x88x92)-pseudoephedrine compositions bind to xcex1-adrenergic receptors with greater affinity than do (+)-pseudoephedrine compositions while causing less adverse effects on blood pressure. Moreover, (xe2x88x92)-pseudoephedrine has decongestant activity which is similar to several known decongestants. The pharmaceutical composition has (xe2x88x92)-pseudoephedrine in a therapeutic dosage suitable for treating nasal or broncial congestion, counteracting the physiological effects of histamine, dilating the pupil, suppressing the appetite, treating attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and treating other conditions typically treated with sympathomimetic drugs. Upon administration to a mammal in a therapeutically effect amount, the present compositions may have reduced side effects relative to administration of (+)-pseudoephedrine, for example, interactions with drugs such as antihistamines. Moreover, (xe2x88x92)-pseudoephedrine reduces the (S)-methamphetamine conversion problem of (+)-pseudoephedrine, because reduction of the hydroxyl in (xe2x88x92)-pseudoephedrine results in (R)-methamphetamine with substantially less psychoactivity than (S)-methamphetamine.
The present invention is also directed to a method of relieving nasal and bronchial congestion which includes administering a therapeutically effective amount of (xe2x88x92)-pseudoephedrine to a mammal, wherein such (xe2x88x92)-pseudoephedrine is substantially-free of (+)-pseudoephedrine. This method has less side effects than a method which includes administration of a racemic pseudoephedrine mixture or a composition of (+)-pseudoephedrine. In this embodiment, a therapeutically effective amount of (xe2x88x92)-pseudoephedrine is a dosage suitable for treating nasal and/or bronchial congestion.
The present invention is also directed to a method of antagonizing the physiological effects of histamine which includes administering a therapeutically effective amount of (xe2x88x92)-pseudoephedrine to a mammal, wherein such (xe2x88x92)-pseudoephedrine is substantially-free of (+)-pseudoephedrine. According to the present invention, (xe2x88x92)-pseudoephedrine surprisingly is a physiological antagonist of histamine. This method has fewer side effects than a method which includes administration of a composition including (+)-pseudoephedrine. It is also believed that this method has less side effects than administration of a racemic mixture of (+)- and (xe2x88x92)-pseudoephedrine. In this embodiment, a therapeutically effective amount of (xe2x88x92)-pseudoephedrine is a dosage suitable for relieving the physiological effects of histamine, for example, nasal congestion, inflammation, and other allergic responses.
The present invention is also directed to a method of treating conditions typically treated with sympathomimetic drugs, which includes administering a therapeutically effective amount of (xe2x88x92)-pseudoephedrine to a mammal, wherein such (xe2x88x92)-pseudoephedrine is substantially-free of (+)-pseudoephedrine. This method may have fewer side effects than a method which includes administration of a composition of (+)-pseudoephedrine alone. It is also believed to have fewer side effects than administration of a racemic mixture of (+)- and (xe2x88x92)-pseudoephedrine. In this embodiment, a therapeutically effective amount of (+)-phenylephrine is a dosage suitable for treating the condition typically treated with a sympathomimetic drug.

(xe2x88x92)-Pseudoephedrine as a sympathomimetic drug


A transactional memory implementation has been developed that is capable of coordinating concurrent hardware transactional memory (HTM) and software transactional memory (STM) transactions over a unified transactional memory space. Some implementations employ hardware transactional memory, if available or suitable, to improve performance. Some exploitations include a hardware transactional memory in which, or for which, hardware-mediated transactions are augmented to include within their transactional scope (or mechanism) one or more additional transactional locations that facilitate coordination with concurrently executing software-mediated transactions (if any).

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to coordination amongst execution sequences in a multiprocessor, and more particularly, to techniques for coordinating access to a transactional memory space.
2. Description of the Related Art
In concurrent software designs and implementations, it is often important to ensure that one thread does not observe partial results of an operation that is concurrently being executed by another thread. Such assurances are important for practical and productive software development because, without them, it can be extremely difficult to reason about the interactions of concurrent threads.
Such assurances have often been provided by using locks to prevent other threads from accessing the data affected by an ongoing operation. Unfortunately, the use of locks gives rise to a number of well known problems, both in terms of software engineering and in terms of performance. First, the right "balance" of locking must be achieved, so that correctness can be maintained, but the use of a particular lock does not prevent access to an unnecessary amount of unrelated data (thereby causing other threads to wait when they do not have to). Furthermore, if not used carefully, locks can result in deadlock, causing software to freeze up. While well documented, these and other problems are pervasive in concurrent programming, and addressing them often results in code that is complicated and expensive.
A further limitation exhibited by software that employs locks as a coordination mechanism is that, no matter how carefully used, lock implementations typically have the problem that if a thread is delayed (e.g., preempted) while holding a lock, then other threads must wait for at least the duration of that delay before being able to acquire that lock. In general, operating systems and other runtime environments cannot avoid this problem because they cannot accurately predict how long a particular lock will be held, and they cannot revoke the lock without jeopardizing correctness.
Transactional memory is a paradigm that allows the programmer to design code as if multiple memory locations can be accessed and/or modified in a single atomic step. As typically defined, a transactional memory interface allows a programmer to designate certain sequences of operations as "transactions," which are guaranteed by the transactional memory implementation to either take effect atomically and in their entirety (in which case we say they succeed), or have no externally visible effect (in which case we say that they fail). Thus, in many cases, it is possible to complete a multi-target operation with no possibility of another thread observing partial results, even without holding any locks. The transactional paradigm can significantly simplify the design of concurrent programs.
Transactional memory is widely recognized as a promising paradigm for allowing a programmer to make updates to multiple locations in a manner that is apparently atomic, while addressing many of the problems associated with the use of locks. In general, transactional memory can be implemented in hardware, with the hardware directly ensuring that a transaction is atomic, or in software that provides the "illusion" that the transaction is atomic, even though in fact it is executed in smaller atomic steps by the underlying hardware. See e.g., M. Herlihy and J. Moss, Transactional Memory: Architectural Support for Lock-Free Data Structures, In Proceedings of the 20th International Symposium in Computer Architecture, pp. 289-300 (1993); N. Shavit and D. Touitou, Software Transactional Memory, Distributed Computing, Special Issue (10):99-116 (1997). Unfortunately, neither hardware transactional memory nor software transactional memory techniques have been widely deployed in practice.

Hybrid software/hardware transactional memory


A process for making a selectively branched alcohol composition contacting a lower olefin feed comprising linear olefins having at least 3 carbon atoms and a concentration of phosphorous-containing compounds with a sorbent comprising a metal or metal oxide on a support, thereby substantially reducing the concentration of phosphorous-containing compounds and producing a purified lower olefin feed. The purified lower olefin feed is skeletally isomerized and then treated to selectively hydrogenate dienes before hydroformylation to produce selectively branched alcohols.

Depending upon the method of their production, olefin feedstocks may comprise a variety of impurities which have a negative impact upon the catalysts later contacted by the olefin feedstock. Impurities found in olefins that are produced by oligomerization of ethylene units can include phosphorous-containing impurities, including but not necessarily limited to organophosphines and organophosphine oxides. These phosphorous-containing compounds are largely removed from many olefin streams during the process of distillation to separate various "cuts" of olefins. Unfortunately, the organophosphines and organophosphine oxides found in C14-C18 streams tend to co-distill with the C14-C18 olefins in the product, making it difficult, if not impossible to remove these phosphine impurities by simple distillation.
C6-C36 olefins have utility in the fields of paper and pulp processing, drilling fluids, and machine or metal working oils. Alcohols of such olefins have commercial importance in a variety of applications, including detergents, soaps, surfactants, and freeze point depressants in lubricating oils. These alcohols are produced by a number of commercial processes, such as by oxo or hydroformylation of long chain olefins. In many of these applications, the olefin feedstocks are treated using acid catalysts.
Unfortunately, any basic phosphorus-containing compounds in these olefin feedstocks will negatively affect acid catalysts. The phosphorous-containing moieties that are basic in nature and will neutralize the active acid sites of the catalyst, which lowers catalyst activity and performance. The organophosphine moieties may even cause the olefins to oligomerize into undesirable forms.
Dienes are another impurity that negatively impact certain catalysts, in particular, hydroformylation catalysts comprising noble metals, such as palladium. Methods are needed to reduce the phosphorous-content, and the diene content, if desired, of olefin feedstocks.

Phosphorous removal and diene removal, when using diene sensitive catalyst, during conversion of olefins to branched primary alcohols


This device for triggering the destruction of a selected portion (1 or 11) of a hydraulic structure such as an embankment dam, dike, or levee built out of erodible material so as to be destroyable by hydraulic erosion is constituted by at least one massive element (5) which is disposed on the top of the selected portion (1, 11) of the structure and which is held there by gravity, the massive element (5) being dimensioned in size and in weight in such a manner as to be expelled by the water when it reaches a predefined level (N), the vertical dimension of the massive element measured beneath said predefined level (N) being selected in such a manner that the nappe which is released after the massive element has been expelled is of a thickness (z) suitable for causing reliable and rapid destruction of the selected portion (1, 11) of the hydraulic structure.

The present invention relates to a device for triggering the destruction of a selected portion of a hydraulic structure, and to a hydraulic structure including such a devices
The invention applies in particular to an earthfill or rockfill embankment dam, dike, or levee, or to a composite dam or dike built in part as an embankment and in part out of concrete or masonry. The dike may be a front dike (across a water course) or a side dike (along a water course, to protect surrounding land from flooding). If the structure is a dam, it may be any kind of embankment or composite dam that creates a reservoir of water, or a saddle dam associated with the above-specified dam.
In numerous hydraulic structures of the above-indicated kind, it is known to provide privileged break points which, under exceptional flooding that is in danger of destroying the structure, give way at predetermined locations of the structure which are selected so as to minimize damage caused to the structure itself and/or to people or property flooded by the structure breaking. One of the major problems associated with such a system is that of satisfying the following criteria:
it must be very stable and reliable during normal operation of the hydraulic structure; and
it must be very unstable when exceptional events occur that threaten the survival of the hydraulic structure.
The system that is presently in most widespread use for this function is known as a "fuseplug dike". It comprises either a portion of the hydraulic structure itself or else a dike built at a distance from the hydraulic structure at some other point on the periphery of the reservoir, e.g. in a saddle. The top of the fuse-plug dike is positioned or levelled at a level such that water spills over it only during exceptional flooding. This level is higher than the normal operating level (RN) of the hydraulic structure in which the fuseplug dike is integrated or with which it is associated, but it is lower than the maximum water level (RM) that the structure is designed to withstand. The fuseplug dike is built of materials suitable for ensuring that it is destroyed by hydraulic erosion in the event of water spilling over its top. The principle on which such a fuseplug dike operates is simple, but it suffers from uncertainty concerning the water level at which the erosion phenomenon will begin and as to the speed with which said fuseplug will be destroyed.
The resistance to erosion of an embankment dam or dike depends on numerous parameters, and in particular:
the thickness of the nappe passing over the top of the dike; PA1 the duration of the spillage; PA1 the nature of the materials constituting the embankment of the dike and the density thereof (and thus in particular the extent to which the embankment is compacted in an earthfill dam); PA1 the standard cross-section of the dike; PA1 the gradient of the downstream slope which, together with the thickness of the nappe, determines the speed water flows over the downstream slope; and PA1 the presence or absence of protection on the downstream slope; for example the presence of grass or other vegetation on the downstream slope increases the resistance of the dike to erosion.
Since fuseplug dikes must destruct only for flooding of very low probability, in particular exceptional floods of the kind that occur once in 100 years or in 1,000 or more years, there is uncertainty concerning how some of the above-mentioned parameters will vary over time (e.g. the plant cover on the downstream slope).
Tests on scale models and real-life experience on embankment dams or dikes that have suffered spillage over their tops have shown that they are sometimes capable of withstanding nappes that are several tens of centimeters thick (i.e. the height of the nappe is several tens of centimeters) for several hours (see the report of the 16th International Congress on Large Dams, Q.63-R.35, 13-17 Jun. 1988, pages 560 to 569, and in particular Table 1 on page 563). As a result, in the event of an exceptional flood, if the fuseplug dike is not destroyed rapidly, water can continue to accumulate upstream of the dike and can rise to a level that presents a danger for the remainder of the hydraulic structure before the fuse-plug dike has been destroyed.
In an attempt to remedy this drawback, proposals have been made to create at least one pilot channel or breach in the top of the fuseplug dike with the bottom thereof being at a level that is lower than the level of the top of the fuseplug dike, so that water passing over the bottom of the pilot breach also attacks the flanks thereof and thus destroys the fuseplug dike more quickly (see the report of International Symposium on Dams and Exceptional Floods, Grenada, 16 Sep. 1992, Volume III, article by Nelson L. de S. PINTO, pages 34 to 39, and article by Dr. Chonggang SHEN, pages 71 to 83, FIG. 1b). However, it has been observed that in the event of spillage, erosion does not begin at the bottom of the pilot breach but begins lower down, at the foot of the downstream slope of the dike, and the flanks of the pilot breach are eroded to a significant extent only after the portion of the downstream slope situated beneath the bottom of the pilot breach has itself been destroyed. From the point of accuracy concerning the water level at which destruction of said fuseplug begins and from the point of view of speed of such destruction, a fuseplug dike with a pilot breach therefore provides little improvement over a fuseplug dike without a pilot breach.
Proposals have also been made to place a cylinder having a diameter of 4 feet (about 1.2 m) at the top of the impervious core of the fuseplug dike, immediately beneath the bottom of the pilot breach, which cylinder is embedded in the embankment of the dike (see the report of the U.S. Committee on Large Dams, Modification of Dams to Allow Large Floods to Pass, 12th Series of USCOLD Annual Conferences, Forth Worth, Tex., April 1992, article by Paul F. Bluhm et al., pages 1 to 25, FIG. 7). In the event of exceptional flood, the water pouring through the pilot breach erodes the sand that is to be found in front of the cylinder. After a certain length of time, once the sand has been expelled in front of the cylinder, the cylinder itself is expelled by the water, thereby releasing a rush of water whose thickness corresponds to the diameter of the cylinder. The rush of water released in this way accelerates the erosion of the pilot breach. Although such a known system does indeed make it possible to obtain rapid erosion of the pilot breach once the cylinder has been expelled by the water, the time at which the cylinder is expelled and the level that had been reached at that time by the water upstream from the fuseplug dike cannot be determined accurately in advance. The time and the level depend, in particular, on the speed with which erosion takes place in front of the cylinder. The speed of such erosion itself depends on numerous parameters such as those mentioned above concerning erosion of the dike, and some of the parameters can change over time between the time at which the dike was built and the time at which it needs to be destroyed by an exceptional flood. In addition, it has been observed that because of its weight the cylinder sinks partially into the impervious core of the dike and the core tends to retain the cylinder prior to it being expelled by the water. Here again, with the known system, it therefore remains uncertain as to how quickly the fuseplug dike will be destroyed and as to the level which the water will have reached immediately before the dike is destroyed.
An object of the present invention is thus to provide a device enabling destruction of a selected portion of a hydraulic -structure such as an embankment dam, dike, or levee confining a water reservoir or a water course to be triggered reliably and quickly when the water level reaches a predefined level, and in particular enabling the destruction of a fuseplug dike or of any other selected portion of a structure that is built out of erodible materials so as to enable it to be destroyed by hydraulic erosion.

Device and method for triggering the destruction of a selected part of a hydraulic structure, such as a levee, a dike or a backfilled dam, and hydraulic structure comprising such a device


A method to write information to an information storage medium. The method creates one or more objects comprising information and provides a first one of those one or more objects. The method writes a header label to an information storage medium, where the header label comprises an object processing indicator. The method assigns a first sequence number to the first object and writes that first object to the information storage medium beginning at a first blockid and ending at a second blockid. The method writes a trailer label to the information storage medium, where that trailer label comprises an embedded object field count. The method writes an object information block to the information storage medium, where that object information block comprises the first sequence number, the first blockid, and the second blockid.

Automated media storage libraries are known for providing cost effective access to large quantities of stored media. Generally, media storage libraries include a large number of storage slots in which are stored portable information storage media. The portable information storage media are typically housed in a portable container, such as a tape cartridge, an optical cartridge, and the like. One (or more) accessors typically access the information storage media from the storage slots and deliver the accessed media to an information storage drive for reading and/or writing data on the accessed media. Suitable electronics operate the accessor(s) and operate the data storage drive(s) to transmit to, and/or to receive data from, an attached on-line host computer system.
In a conventional automated media storage library, the storage slots are arranged in a planar orthogonal arrangement forming a "wall" of storage slots for holding data storage media. The plane may be a flat plane, or may be a cylindrical plane. To double the storage capacity, two "walls" of storage slots may be provided on either side of the accessor.
A number of different companies manufacture automated media storage libraries today, each model displaying various different features. One example is the IBM TotalStorage® 3494 Enterprise Tape Library. What is needed, however, is a method and apparatus and method to expedite the writing of information to an information storage medium, and the subsequent reading of that information from the information storage medium, particularly where the information comprises a plurality of individual files. Applicants' method can be used to read/write information from/to serial storage devices, where those serial storage devices may, or may not, be disposed within in an automated media library.

Apparatus and method to write information to and/or read information from an information storage medium

International Business Machines Corporation