An active implantable medical device comprising circuits for right ventricular, left ventricular, right atrial and eventually left atrial detection, as well as circuits for right and left ventricular stimulation. The device can operate in mode of resynchronization of the ventricular contractions, with an adjustable delay of inter-ventricular stimulation. It includes moreover: circuits for atrial stimulation; circuits able to operate the device in AAI mode with right atrial stimulation and right ventricular detection; circuits for detection of ventricular capture, to determine the detection or the loss of capture after a right ventricular stimulation and a left ventricular stimulation; and of the circuits for mode switching, able to control a switching of mode, from the mode of resynchronization towards AAI mode, in response to the detection of a loss of capture after a right ventricular stimulation or a left ventricular stimulation.

The invention more particularly relates to "multi-site" prostheses, in which electrodes are placed in a plurality of distinct respective sites comprising the two ventricular sites, right and left, and at least one atrial site. It can be a prosthesis of the "triple chamber" type (double ventricular stimulation and right atrial detection/stimulation) or the "quadruple chamber" type (double ventricular stimulation and double atrial detection/stimulation).
The majority of patients receiving such an implanted multi-site device are patients who usually present a normal atrio-ventricular conduction (each atrial event is followed by an associated ventricular depolarization) and who thus do not have a standard indication for implantation of a permanent pacemaker. The multi-site device is then indicated to treat the cardiac insufficiency so as to improve the general hemodynamic state of these patients, by joint and permanent stimulation of the left and right ventricles in order to re-synchronize them. This therapy makes it possible to observe often spectacular results for patients in class III cardiac insufficiency not improved by traditional treatments. These devices can operate in synchronous stimulation, i.e., the two ventricular sites of stimulation receive at the same time the depolarization impulse (no inter-ventricular delay), or as described in EP-A-1 108 446 and its counterpart, U.S. Pat. No. 6,556,866 (incorporated herein by reference), commonly assigned herewith to ELA Medical, with, between two ventricular stimulations, an inter-ventricular delay adjusted so as to re-synchronize contraction of the ventricles with a fine optimization of the hemodynamic state of the patient.
The starting point of the invention results from clinical observations carried out on patients having received such a device when a loss of capture appears on one of the two ventricular probes. The loss of capture is a situation in which the stimulation impulse applied to the electrode of the probe has an insufficient amplitude to cause depolarization of the ventricle. Such a loss of capture often follows a natural increase, over the long term, of the stimulation threshold. Because of this loss of capture, the stimulation of one of the ventricles will be without effect, and the patient will be in a state with a stimulation of only one of the two ventricles, either right or left. This stimulation of only one ventricle can be extremely noxious, if prolonged, because it can involve an increase in the inter-ventricular desynchronization. The inventors of the present invention noted that, in such a situation, to let express the spontaneous rhythm of the patient can prove to be an alternative less heavy in consequences than to continue stimulation of only one of the ventricles.

Multi-site active implantable medical device including a mode of resynchronization of the ventricles


Recycled pulp that derives from a used sanitary article includes an antibacterial activity value of 2.0 or more and an acid. Recycled pulp that derives from a used sanitary article includes an antibacterial activity value of 2.0 or more and an ash content of 0.65% by weight or less, and further includes an acid. The acid is a citric acid. The recycled pulp further includes a cationic antibacterial agent. The cationic antibacterial agent is a quaternary ammonium salt. The cationic antibacterial agent is a benzalkonium chloride or a cetylpyridinium chloride. At least a portion of the cationic antibacterial agent is adsorbed on the recycled pulp.

Efforts are currently being made to recycle used disposable diapers and other sanitary articles. For example, Patent Document 1 discloses a method for treating used disposable diapers comprising efficiently separating a used disposable diaper and washing with water while sequentially transferring the used diaper from a first-stage washing tub to a second-stage washing tub using a continuous washing machine having a plurality of washing tubs arranged in series to enable constituent materials thereof to be reused. According to the method described in Patent Document 1, in addition to using hypochlorous acid for primary disinfection of the used diaper (Paragraph [0044]), superabsorbent polymer present in the disposable diaper is dehydrated using lime (Paragraph [0047]), and the chlorine component of the hypochlorous acid is removed from the used diaper in a rinsing step (Paragraph [0046]).    Patent Literature 1: Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2009-183893
Hypochlorous acid is used for primary disinfection in the method described in Patent Document 1. However, the use of sanitary products made of materials using hypochlorous acid is prohibited by sanitary material industry standards, thereby preventing the resulting recycled pulp from being reused in sanitary products. In addition, since the chlorine component is removed in a rinsing step and is not allowed to remain in the pulp, the resulting recycled pulp lacks antibacterial properties, and ends up rotting unless dried. In addition, the superabsorbent polymer dehydrated using lime is transformed into a solid powder having a particle size of several micrometers to several hundred micrometers, and these fine particles easily become trapped between the pulp fibers, thereby preventing them from being completely removed by physical washing alone. When attempting to reuse recycled pulp recovered in this manner, not only does residual superabsorbent polymer end up becoming a contaminant, but since it is in the form of a calcium salt, there is increased likelihood of ash being detected in the recovered pulp fiber at a level that exceeds sanitary article standards. In addition, since the use of ash results in strong alkalinity, ozone is easily deactivated in the case of subjecting the recycled pulp to ozone treatment.

Recycled pulp, absorbent, non-woven fabric, and sanitary article


A porous carbon that has an extremely high specific surface area while being crystalline, and a method of manufacturing the porous carbon are provided.

It has been well known that a porous carbon may be fabricated by a method in which a source material is heated and carbonized under a non-oxidizing atmosphere. Examples of the source material include: plant-originating source materials such as lignin, cellulosic substances including wool pulp, saw dust, coconut husk, cottonseed hull, and chaff, starchy substances including foxtail millet, Japanese barnyard millet, and con; mineral-originating source materials such as coal, tar, and petroleum pitch; and synthetic resins such as phenolic resin and polyacrylonitrile. The techniques for treating the carbonized substances (activated carbon) of these source materials with a chemical agent to activate the carbonized substances are also well known.
Recently, it has been confirmed that activated carbon having a specific surface area as high as 3000 m2/g can be obtained by using potassium hydroxide as an activator agent, mixing an organic resin with the activator agent, and heating it under a non-oxidizing atmosphere, which has drawn attention (see Patent Document 1).
However, for commercial use on an industrial scale, this method still has many problems as follows. For example, it requires an activator agent in an amount four times or more the amount of the organic resin. For that reason, the recovery and recycling of potassium is attempted, but the recovery rate is low, increasing the cost. Moreover, alkali metal evaporates during the heating process for the activation, contaminating or damaging the heating furnace, and it also can be a cause of erosion when used for various industrial materials. Furthermore, activated carbon treated with an alkali metal compound is highly flammable and therefore easily catches fire.
In view of such problems, there has been proposed a method of fabricating activated carbon that includes a step of mixing an organic resin with at least one alkaline-earth metal compound selected from an oxide, a hydroxide, a carbonate, and an organic salt of an alkaline-earth metal, and carbonizing the mixture in a non-oxidizing atmosphere (see Patent Document 2).

Porous carbon and method of manufacturing same

Abstract: A porous carbon has mesopores 4 and a carbonaceous wall 3 constituting an outer wall of the mesopores 4, wherein the carbonaceous wall 3 has a portion forming a layered structure. The porous carbon is fabricated by mixing a polyamic acid resin 1 as a carbon precursor with magnesium oxide 2 as template particles; heat-treating the mixture in a nitrogen atmosphere at 1000° C. for 1 hour to cause the polyamic acid resin to undergo heat decomposition; washing the resultant sample with a sulfuric acid solution at a concentration of 1 mol/L to dissolve MgO away; and heat-treating the noncrystalline porous carbon in a nitrogen atmosphere at 2500° C.


A container assembly comprises a container and a base and is configured to be transported horizontally to a work site where it is raised to a vertical working orientation. A hoppered container floor directs material to a discharge opening in a center of the floor of the container. A plurality of chutes is fixed to the container assembly and each slopes downward and outward from a chute input, located under a central portion of the hoppered floor, to a corresponding chute output. A distributor assembly mounted under the discharge opening receives granular material from the discharge opening and directs same into any one of the chute inputs. When loaded on a gooseneck trailer the container extends over the hitch assembly providing increased volume and capacity.

In many industries it is required to set up an array of equipment at a temporary work site, and then disassemble the installation, move it to another work site, and re-assemble it. For example asphalt and concrete plants are often set up in locations where large quantities of material are required for mad or building construction. Similarly well drilling rigs, such as those drilling for oil and gas, are set up at a drilling location, then taken down and moved to a different drilling location.
These portable plants and rigs typically require temporary storage for water, asphalt, sand, cement, and other materials such as might be required at any particular work site. Thus various tanks, bins, silos, and like containers are transported to the work site, commonly in a lowered horizontal transport orientation, and then raised to a vertical working orientation at the work site.
This vertical orientation reduces the ground area, or footprint, occupied by the installation. Also bins containing dry granular material especially are often elongated vertically when in a working position to maximize the quantity of material stored above a hoppered bottom such that the granular material will flow out by gravity. Containers holding granular material typically have a hoppered bottom with walls sloping toward an outlet port at the bottom of one side of the container so that all the material inside will flow out through the outlet port, leaving the container empty.
These containers are typically transported to the work site by flat-bed trucks or trailers in a lowered horizontal transport orientation. The trailer is maneuvered into position, and then the container is raised from the horizontal transport position to a vertical working position resting on the ground, and the trailer is moved away from the site. Such work sites are often crowded with such containers in order to place the maximum amount of material in the desired accessible location. The trailers carrying the required containers must be maneuvered along sometimes limited access routes into positions where the containers will be in a desired orientation when moved to the working position.
U.S. Pat. No. 8,939,697 to the present inventor Herman provides a transportable container with increased flexibility of positioning the container at a crowded work site. The container has a single output port in a lower side wall thereof however is attachable to the transporting trailer on three sides. Thus, with knowledge of the desired orientation of the output port at the work site and of the available routes to the container location, the container can be mounted to the trailer on a side thereof selected so that when unloaded and moved to the vertical operating position the outlet port is in a desired location.
Commonly the container includes a chute under the outlet port to direct granular material flowing from the port onto a conveyor belt or the like. The chute may be pivotally mounted to the container and/or telescoping to provide some flexibility to the discharge location and thus to the positioning of the container. The discharge location also must be at a sufficiently high vertical location that the receiving apparatus, such as a conveyor, blender, or the like can be positioned under the discharge.
Such containers are also known that have a center outlet port in the bottom, however a conveyor or the like is then required to receive the material and carry it to a location outside the container. Alternatively the container can be mounted on legs and a chute can receive the material and direct it to a location beside the container, however this makes containers of the same capacity somewhat higher and less stable.
U.S. Pat. No. 9,315,294, also to the present inventor Herman, addresses a stability problem with such vertical containers with an outlet port on one side. As granular material flows out of the outlet port, the material above the port inside the container flows out first and the level of granular material inside the container on the port side thereof above the fixed outlet port falls until the angle of repose of the particular material is reached, and material from the opposite side of the container begins to flow. Thus the loaded container is unbalanced, with more weight on the side opposite the port, making the container less stable, as the wind force necessary to be exerted on the port side of the container to tip the container over is reduced.
The Herman '294 container system has a lower section with a reduced diameter and the outlet port is in a sidewall of the lower section so that the center of gravity when the tank is partially full is closer to the center of the container, and stability is improved. Reducing the diameter of the lower section however reduces volume and capacity compared to a conventional container with a constant diameter from top to bottom.
In order to maximize capacity, the diameter of such transportable containers is typically the maximum allowable for movement along public roads. In order to keep within height restrictions the trailers used for transporting them are of the type commonly referred to as gooseneck trailers where the load bed is lower than the fifth wheel hitch of the highway tractors towing them, and a hitch assembly extends upward from the front end of the load bed and then forward over the fifth wheel hitch on the tractor.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

High capacity container with multiple discharge locations


A lineless rigid-rod-anchor-weight assembly provides for anchoring, throwing, and retrieving a decoy or a set of decoys without any tangling of the members of the set. The assembly is attachable to floating object and includes a rigid-rod permanently molded into an environmentally safe, hermetically encapsulated, lead weight. The impermeable encapsulate may be a polyvinylchloride. The rod may be fiberglass or a naturally-occurring material exhibiting rigidity with limited flexure. The floating object may be a decoy, such as a puddle duck decoy with a keel having a receiver aperture for receiving the anchor-weight attachment means. One end of the attachment may be a clip connector means for fastening the attachment means to the floatable object and may also be attached to the rod. Alternatively, if the decoy has a receiver aperture above the keel, the anchor-weight attachment means comprises an adapter to provide for such attachment.

The present invention relates generally to anchors, and more particularly, to environmentally safe anchor assemblies for anchoring floating objects that prevent tangling of the anchored floating objects with each other or with aquatic plants.
The background information discussed below is presented to better illustrate the novelty and usefulness of the present invention. This background information is not admitted prior art.
It is common for hunters when hunting water fowl such as ducks and geese to place decoys on the water to encourage ducks and geese flying overhead to land. The two major classes of ducks hunted are puddle ducks and diving ducks. Puddle ducks, also referred to as dipping, surface-feeding, pond, river, or freshwater ducks are physically and behaviorally different from diving ducks. Physically, puddle ducks differ from diving ducks, in that puddle ducks have unlobed hind feet that are also smaller than the hind feet of diving ducks. This accounts for the fact that puddle ducks rarely dive for their food and, therefore, are most often found feeding in shallow water. Puddle ducks, such as mallards, black ducks, mottled ducks, Mexican ducks, pintails, gadwalls, American wigeons, shovelers, wood ducks, green-winged teal, blue-winged teal, cinnamon teal, fulvous tree duck, black-bellied tree ducks, and American coots, mainly feed on water plants that they obtain by tipping tail-end up in shallow water. In addition to eating water plants, puddle ducks often forage near shore for seeds and insects.
A typical puddle duck decoy mimics the shape and color of shallow water ducks and frequently is equipped with a weighted keel extending lengthwise from along the decoy's bottom centerline to help maintain the stability of the decoy as it floats on the shallow surface part of a lake, stream, or marsh pond. In order for the decoys to be kept in a desired position, the decoys must be attached to an anchor weight that will anchor the decoy on the bottom of the lake, stream, or marsh pond. The weight helps to keep the decoy relatively stationary against the effects of wind or water movement that may be caused by changes in the tide level or by a river current. In currently available decoys and anchors, whenever the decoy has a keel, one end of a length of flexible line is tied to a tying aperture in the keel and the other end of the flexible line is attached to the anchor weight.


An optical disc reproducing apparatus in which the type of the optical discs 2 is discriminated by a disc type discriminating device, the function of a pointing device 74 is displayed by a plurality of light emitting diodes 77 provided in the pointing device and in which a controller performs a switching control of the function display by the light emitting diodes 77 depending on the type of the optical disc 2 indicated by a discriminating output of the disc type discriminating device so that the operability of the CD-I player may be improved because the functions of the pointing device associated with the types of the optical discs to be reproduced are displayed by a display device provided in the pointing device.

This invention relates to an optical disc reproducing apparatus for reproducing a so-called compact disc interactive (CD-I) on which the video information, such as picture or letter information, computer data, application programs etc., are recorded besides the audio information.
There is currently proposed a system, known as a CD-I system, in which video data, such as natural picture, RGB graphics, color lookup table graphics, animation etc., computer data, or application programs, abbreviated hereinafter to programs, are recorded on a compact disc, in addition to audio data, and in which a user may use these data interactively. Inasmuch as this CD-I system has the functions of reproducing the voice, letters or pictures, and executing program(s), and may be used in connection with AV devices for mainly audio and video information and electronic publication mainly of letter or character information, as well as educational or amusement devices, which rely upon program execution, it is thought to be a promising new type media system.
The CD-I system is made up of an optical disc on which audio data, video data or the like are recorded, referred to hereinafter as a CD-I disc, and a player for reproducing a CD-I disc, referred to hereinafter as a CD-I Player. Various specifications have been prescribed in connection with the CD-I system with a view to maintenance of interchangeability and extensive propagation for domestic use.
For example, in a CD-I disc, audio and video data, for which high accuracy is not a particular requirement, are recorded in accordance with a so-called form 2 of the CD-I data format, whilst computer data or programs, which are in need of error detection and correction, are recorded in accordance with a so-called form 1 of the CD-I data format.
With the CD-I system, four sound quality levels may be used, so that the audio data are processed with four-level data compression or coding, depending on the desired sound quality level, before being recorded on the CD-I disc. Thus the recorded data may be 16-bit PCM (Pulse Code Modulation) audio data for a conventional compact disc (PCM Audio Data), 8- or 4-bit ADPCM (Adaptive Differential Pulse Code Modulation) audio data, or so-called A-level, B-level or C-level audio data (ADPCM Audio Data).
On the other hand, four picture quality types, namely the picture quality for natural pictures, e.g. color photographs, that for RGB graphics, that for color lookup table graphics (CLUT graphics) and that for animation, may be used with the CD-I system, so that the video data are processed with data compression or encoding in accordance with the desired picture quality before being recorded on the CD-I disc. That is, with the picture quality for a natural picture, the video data are encoded with 8 bits per pixel and processed with non-interlaced DYUV encoding for recording. With the picture quality for RGB graphics, three color signals (RGB signals) for each pixel are encoded with 5 bits for encoding and, with the picture quality for CLUT graphics, the video data are recorded so that 256 colors may be displayed simultaneously by allocating 8 bits for each Pixel. Finally, with the picture quality for animation, the video data for the CLUT graphics are processed with data compression by the so-called run-length coding for recording.
A 68000 series microcomputer, which is a 16-bit CPU developed by MOTOROLLA Inc. is preferentially employed as a microcomputer making up a CD-I player (CPU). A so-called compact disc real-time operating system (CD-RTOS), corresponding to the existing OS-9, an operating system developed by MICROWEAR Inc. but added to by input/output managers and drivers for graphics/visual, pointer and audio processing operations, is preferentially employed as an operating system (OS), in consideration of program interchangeability and execution efficiency on the CD-I disc. In addition, and X-Y device, which may be accessed on the pixel-by-pixel basis, and a trigger button (for execute/stop), are preferentially employed as input devices. A compact disc (CD), on which only music has been recorded, may also be reproduced with the CD-I system.
It is noted that the disc on which only the PCM audio data are pre-recorded is termed a CD-DA disc, while the disc on which ADPCM audio data other than the PCM audio data, video data and the program(s) etc. are pre-recorded, is termed a CD-I disc and the disc on which the PCM audio data, ADPCM audio data, video data, programs etc. are pre-recorded, is termed a CD-I/CD-DA disc.
In the case of the CD-I disc and the CD-I/CD-DA disc, the mechanical sizes, such as the outside diameter, diameter of the central aperture or thickness, optical parameters, such as refractive index or reflectivity, recording parameters, such as the recording line density, track shape or track pitch, and the operating environment, are selected to be the same as those of the usual compact disc, that is the CD-DA disc.
The CD-I disc, the CD-I/CD-DA disc and the CD-DA disc may be distinguished from one another based on the table-of-contents (TOC) data.
That is, the PSEC information for POINT=A0 is [10] for the CD-I disc and the CD-I/CD-DA disc, whilst the PSEC information for POINT=A0 for the CD-DA disc is [00], so that the CD-I disc and the CD-I/CD-DA disc may be distinguished from the CD-DA disc based on the PSEC information for the POINT=A0. On the other hand, the control fields for POINT=A0, A1 and A2 for the CD-I disc are all [01X0], while the control field for POINT=A0 is [01X0] and the control field for POINT=A1 and A2 for the CD-I/CD-DA disc are [00X0], so that the CD-I disc may be distinguished from the CD-I/CD-DA disc based on the control field information for POINT=A1 and A2.
With, with the CD-I player, it is mandatory that various operations can be set by a pointing device including the X-Y device and a trigger button.
Since the setting operation by the pointing device is performed by picture display means for displaying a picture reproduced by the CD-I player, it is necessary with the conventional CD-I player to actuate the picture display means even when the CD-DA disc dedicated for music reproduction is to be reproduced. Besides, the contents of the picture displayed by the picture display means need to be checked, resulting in poor operability.
If, for overcoming the drawback, special operating means is provided for reproduction of the CD-DA disc, not only the degree of freedom in construction and designing is lowered due to the annexed operating means, but there arises the risk of mistaken operations.

Optical disc reproducing apparatus having displayed mode control key functions which are controlled by detection of the type of disc being reproduced


A production method of a magnesium hydroxide solid solution, Mg.sub.1-x M.sup.2+ .sub.x (OH).sub.2 or a resin and/or rubber material having as its effective elements containing said solid solution as its flame retardant, characterized by having M.sup.2+ distributed unevenly in a high concentration in the vicinity of the surface of each crystal, in the magnesium solid represented by the formula Mg.sub.1-x M.sup.2+ .sub.x (OH).sub.2 wherein M.sup.2+ is at least one divalent metal ion selected from the group consisting of Mn.sup.2+, Fe.sup.2+, Ni.sup.2+, Cu.sup.2+, Zn.sup.2+ and x indicates a range of 0.001.ltoreq.x<0.5.

There has been a growing strong demand for flame retardant resin and rubber. However, there is a strong request to limit to a safe method by employing metallic hydroxide material as a means of making them flame retardant rather than using the current common method by a halogen type flame retardant material which simultaneously uses halogen and antimony trioxide. However, even magnesium hydroxide which has the fewest drawbacks among the metallic hydroxide materials requires a rather large amount of combination of about 70 weight % with respect to about 30 weight % of the resin and/or rubber to reach the targeted level of flame retardancy. Therefore, there is a problem caused in that an unacceptable degree of loss in some characteristics of the resin and rubber.
At this point, one of the inventors proposed a magnesium hydroxide solid solution having divalent transition metal represented as the general formula (1); EQU Mg.sub.1-x M.sup.2+ .sub.x (OH).sub.2 ( 1)
wherein M.sup.2+ denotes at least one type of divalent metal selected from the group consisting of Mn.sup.2+, Fe.sup.2+, Co.sup.2+, Ni.sup.2+, Cu.sup.2+ and Zn.sup.2+, and x indicates a range of 0.001.ltoreq.x.ltoreq.0.9. When this magnesium hydroxide solid solutions is compounded in the resin and/or rubber, flame retardancy and acid resistance are greatly improved, and as a result, the targeted level of flame retardancy can be reached with a minimum amount smaller than that of conventional magnesium hydroxide.
However, as a result of further research, several problems to be solved for the magnesium hydroxide solid solution shown by the general formula (1) were found. The first problem was that compared with the magnesium raw material, the M.sup.2+ material is expensive, in particular, there is a problem of Co and Ni being expensive. For example, for the Mg.sub.1-x Ni.sub.x (OH).sub.2 type magnesium hydroxide solid solution with a range of x being 0.2.ltoreq.x.ltoreq.0.6, the flame retardancy and the acid resistance clearly show improvement compared with magnesium hydroxide. However, the solid solution containing just that amount of Ni, is very expensive compared with magnesium hydroxide. The second problem was that along with the increase of the M.sup.2+ contained, the crystal growth of the magnesium hydroxide solid solution and the dispersibility become worse. However, such a level differs according to the type of the M.sup.2+ contained.
The present inventors carefully conducted research to resolve the above mentioned issues. As a result, the reason that the magnesium hydroxide solid solution showed superior flame retardancy compared with magnesium hydroxide was discovered. This is due to the catalytic effects of the M.sup.2+ contained and the lower starting temperature of the dehydration compared with that of the magnesium hydroxide. Further, it was found out that the catalytic effects contribute to improvement in flame retardancy compared with the lower starting temperature of dehydration.
At this point, at least for the catalytic effects of the M.sup.2+, it was surmised that just the M.sup.2+ exposed on the surface of the magnesium hydroxide solid solution in contact with the resin or the rubber of having the possibility to contact this, contributed to this effect. Therefore, if it were possible to place M.sup.2+ selectively in the vicinity of the surface of the magnesium hydroxide crystals, compared with when the M.sup.2+ is distributed homogeneously in the magnesium hydroxide crystals, it was thought that it would be possible to work the same catalytic effect with an extremely smaller amount of M.sup.2+ compared to when the M.sup.2+ is distributed homogeneously. Furthermore, in the vicinity of the surface of the crystals of the magnesium hydroxide solid solution wherein the M.sup.2+ is unevenly distributed with a high concentration in the vicinity of the surface of the magnesium hydroxide, the amount of the crystal water dehydrating at a low temperature is said to be smaller than in the case when the M.sup.2+ is distributed evenly over the entire surface of the crystals in a high concentration because a dehydration of the crystal water is supposed to take place at a temperature lower than that for the magnesium hydroxide. However, this effect is supposed to contribute to flame retardancy to some degree.

Magnesium hydroxide solid solutions, their production method and use


The present subject matter includes a capacitor stack disposed in a case, the capacitor stack including one or more substantially planar electrode layers. The one or more substantially planar electrode layers have an etched surface, an unetched surface, and a grade bordering the etched surface and the unetched surface. Also, the present subject matter includes a lid conforming sealingly connected to the material defining the first aperture. Additionally, the present subject matter includes a feedthrough assembly connected to the capacitor stack and passing through the feedthrough hole and sealingly connected to the material defining the feedthrough hole. In the present subject matter, the one or more substantially planar electrode layers are made by printing a curable resin mask onto the one or more substantially planar electrode layers and etching the layers, the curable resin mask defining the grade and adapted to resist etching.

As technology progresses, the sizes of electrical interconnections become smaller. Concurrent and related to these size reductions, electronic components are becoming more compact, occupying new, smaller shapes. Electronic components of reduced size, having new shapes, require new methods and structures.
One electronic component having electrical interconnections is the capacitor. To promote size reductions, new shapes, and robust manufacturing, new electrical connections for capacitors are needed. These new interconnections should not damage capacitors or their subcomponents.

Method and apparatus for providing flexible partially etched capacitor electrode interconnect


A method and apparatus are provided for storing parameters of a deleted interpolation language model as parameters of a backoff language model. In particular, the parameters of the deleted interpolation language model are stored in the standard ARPA format. Under one embodiment, the deleted interpolation language model parameters are formed using fractional counts.

The present invention relates to language models. In particular, the present invention relates to storage formats for storing language models.
Language models provide probabilities for sequences of words. Such models are trained from a set of training data by counting the frequencies of sequences of words in the training data. One problem with training language models in this way is that sequences of words that are not observed in the training data will have zero probability in the language model, even though they may occur in the language.
To overcome this, back-off modeling techniques have been developed. Under a back-off technique, if a sequence of n words is not found in the training data, the probability for the sequence of words is estimated using a probability for a sequence of n−1 words and a back-off weight. For example, if a trigram (wn−2 wn−1 wn) is not observed in the training data, its probability is estimated using the probability of the bigram (wn−1 wn) and a back-off weight associated with the context (wn−2 wn−1).
N-gram language models that use back-off techniques are typically stored in a standard format referred to as the ARPA standard format. Because of the popularity of back-off language models, the ARPA format has become a recognized standard for transmitting language models. However, not all language models have back-off weights. In particular, deleted interpolation N-gram models do not have back-off weights because they use a different technique for handling the data sparseness problem associated with language models. As a result, deleted interpolation language models have not been stored in the standard ARPA format. Because of this, it has not been easy to integrate deleted interpolation language models into language systems that expect to receive the language model in the ARPA format.

Representation of a deleted interpolation N-gram language model in ARPA standard format


A control circuit for a piezoelectric buzzer, notably for automobiles, comprises a circuit for generating alternately two different frequencies and features two input supply terminals (1, 2) and two output terminals (4, 5) for buzzer activation. The control circuit includes a first flip-flop with a first and a second output, of which one carries positive and the other negative voltage. Also provided is a second flip-flop with a first input and an output, the first input connecting to the first and second outputs of the first flip-flop, each via a resistor (R4, R3). The second flip-flop consists of a parallel wiring of a first series connection of a capacitor (C2) and an inverter with Schmitt trigger input (IC1C), and a second series connection of a resistor (R5) and an inverter with Schmitt trigger input (IC1D), while a resistor is wired in parallel with the second series connection. Once a positive supply voltage is applied and grounding established, the buzzer sounds, generating alternately different frequencies f1 and f2.

The invention relates to a control circuit for a piezoelectric buzzer, notably for automobiles, comprising a circuit for generating alternately two different frequencies, comprising two supply input terminals and two output terminals for buzzer activation.
It happens again and again that the lights are not being turned off and safety devices not turned on and/or locked. To bring the omission to the user's attention, buzzers are used, notably in the automotive field. Such buzzers are preferably equipped to produce two sounds of different pitch, so as to attract the user's attention with certainty.


The invention relates to a system which is used to cool at least one piece of motor vehicle equipment to a low temperature, comprising a heat transfer fluid circulation loop. According to the invention, a low-temperature heat exchanger (60) and at least one equipment exchanger (102) are mounted to the aforementioned circulation loop. The heat exchange surface of the equipment exchanger (102) is divided into at least first and second heat exchange sections (104, 106). A first flow (Q<SB>1</SB>) of heat-transfer fluid passes through the first heat exchange section (104), while a second smaller flow (Q2) passes through the second section. The invention is suitable for motor vehicle heat exchangers.

The invention relates to a system for cooling to a low temperature at least one piece of equipment, particularly a piece of motor vehicle equipment, comprising a circulation loop for heat-transfer fluid on which loop are mounted a low-temperature heat exchanger and at least an equipment exchanger comprising a heat-exchange surface. It also relates to a low-temperature heat exchanger and to an equipment exchanger that form part of the cooling system of the invention.
Present-day motor vehicles comprise an increasingly high number of pieces of equipment which exchange heat with their external surroundings. Some of these pieces of equipment need to be heated up, for example the fuel heater. However, most of these pieces of equipment need to be cooled. This is the case, in particular, of the condenser which forms part of the motor vehicle cabin air-conditioning circuit, and is also true of the oil cooling radiator and the intercooler radiator. Increasingly often, also, the exhaust gases are cooled in order to reduce pollution.
Some of these pieces of equipment, such as the oil cooling radiator or the radiator that cools the exhaust gases, do not need to be cooled to a low temperature. They can therefore be placed without disadvantage in the cooling circuit of the vehicle combustion engine through which circuit there circulates a heat-transfer fluid the temperature of which generally ranges between 85° C. and 100° C. However, other pieces of equipment need to operate at the lowest possible temperature so as to improve their efficiency. This is the case in particular of the condenser of the air-conditioning circuit and the intercooler.
This is why provision is made for currently known vehicles to be equipped with a low-temperature cooling circuit through which a heat-transfer fluid circulates at a temperature below that of the high-temperature circuit. The condenser of the air-conditioning circuit or the intercooler may thus be cooled more effectively down to a lower temperature.
However, in currently known vehicles, the low-temperature cooling circuit is equipped with a low-temperature heat exchanger which has just one inlet nozzle and just one outlet nozzle, the heat-transfer fluid circulating in one or several passes. The low-temperature heat exchanger delivers just one temperature level and the fluid that is to be cooled, for example the air in the intercooler, is cooled to just one level of heat exchange.
In currently known vehicles, the coolant fluid is condensed by the ambient air but it is possible, by using a low-temperature circuit, to condense it using the same heat-transfer fluid as is used to cool the engine.
The cooling of these fluids is therefore often insufficient to guarantee an optimum reduction in temperature. For example, the temperature of the charge air is too high on the intake side at critical points in the event of high load on the engine, or alternatively the condensation of the coolant fluid is insufficient, which results in degraded performance of the air-conditioning circuit.

System for cooling equipment on a motor vehicle with a split heat exchanger


A power component of a transmission modulated wave generated by synthesizing a plurality of digital-modulated multi-carriers is calculated. Then, the envelope control unit of the present invention controls an envelope of the transmission modulated wave by outputting the transmission modulated wave as it is when the power component is smaller than a square value of a preset amplitude level, or suppressing the envelope of the transmission modulated wave at a preset suppression value in an amplitude direction.

This invention relates to a modulation technology used in digital modulation communication system using a plurality of multi-carriers and, more particularly to the art of controlling an envelope of a transmission modulated wave.
A conventional power amplifier connected to a rear step of a multi-carrier digital modulator has a saturation level. With the above power amplifier, it is well-known that excessive increase in the input level may widen spectrum of the output signal due to clipping distortion.
With a communication system in which a plurality of multi-carriers are digitally modulated with transmission data for transmission, a peak power value is likely to be excessively great to an average power of transmission signals. Such system needs to operate the power amplifier at a working point at sufficiently lower than its saturation level.
This may cause the output power to be decreased simultaneously, requiring to enlarge the power amplifier for obtaining required output power.
The Japanese Patent Laid-Open No.13156(1990) has disclosed the art to solve the aforementioned problem. The disclosed radio communication unit is described referring to FIG. 4.
Two transmission data (DATA1 and DATA2) synchronized with a clock signal CLK are so set to locate each data variation point shifted by a half clock cycle in a timing circuit 801, which are output as X1 and X2, respectively.
The outputs X1 and X2 of the timing circuit 801 are subjected to band-limit through low pass filters 802 and 803 to become Y1 and Y2, respectively. The Y1 and Y2 output from the low pass filters 802 and 803 are input to PSK modulators 804 and 805, respectively. The PSK modulators 804 and 805 serve to produce two PSK waves through phase shift-keying modulation of carriers from carrier generators 806 and 807 with the input signals Y1 and Y2, respectively.
The two PSK waves are synthesized in a synthesizer 808. The band-limited PSK modulated waves produced by the PSK modulators 804 and 805 have the respective data variation points shifted by a half clock cycle. That is, each maximum amplitude position of the two PSK modulated waves is located so as not to interlock with each other.
As a result, the disclosed communication unit allows the maximum amplitude output from the synthesizer 808 to be smoothed to output signals at almost uniform amplitude level.
Assuming that the multi-carrier is designated as "n waves" in the above prior art, it may allow each data variation point to be shifted by 1/n of the clock cycle.
With this prior art, in order to synthesize a plurality of multi-carriers modulated through digital modulation system, for example, 2-value digital modulation system as a PSK modulation system, which causes a modulated wave to always get through the origin (amplitude:0) on IQ plane when it is between one signal point and another, each modulated wave is expected to be located so as to prevent interlocking of maximum amplitude positions. The prior art is effective for obtaining signals at almost uniform amplitude level.
While using other modulation system, for example, 8-phase PSK, .pi./4 shift QPSK, and 16QAM, as multi values (three values or more) digital modulation system, the modulated wave does not always get through the origin even when it is between one signal point and another.
Although each variation point of the data is shifted by 1/n of the clock cycle, the modulated wave of n wave may be located at the position where each maximum amplitude is interlocking. Accordingly the effect of "smoothing the maximum amplitude of the output to cause the signal at almost uniform amplitude level" cannot be always anticipated. This prior art, therefore, has failed to improve power efficiency of the power amplifier connected to the rear step.

Envelope control unit and digital modulator using the envelope control unit and digital modulation method


A drive shaft containment bracket adapted for attachment to a stationary vehicle support surface, the bracket including an elongated body having a mounting flange at one end and a drive shaft containment device at an opposite end. The elongated body has a length dimension sufficient to extend from a vehicle cross frame member supporting the transmission of the vehicle where said mounting flange is utilized to secure said bracket to the cross frame member and transmission casing, rearwardly beyond a universal joint connecting the drive shaft to the transmission to a location along the drive shaft where said containment device at least partially encloses said drive shaft.

It is known to provide shields or guards for protecting critical or sensitive vehicle components from damage due to rocks, debris, etc. This is especially true for agricultural equipment and other "off-road" vehicles. Examples of covers or guards for transmission gears, universal joints, drive shafts and the like may be found in U.S. Pat. Nos. 926,800; 3,091,101; 3,111,821, 3,981,376; 4,308,931; 4,663,984; and 4,696,660.
In U.S. Pat. No. 5,481,943 there is disclosed a U-shaped enclosure designed to prevent broken portions of a shaft itself from falling to the ground, and for limiting rotation of the broken shaft after it has engaged the enclosure.
There remains a need, however, for a simple, low cost and easy to install drive shaft support, adaptable for use with many different vehicle types and models, for preventing the drive shaft from falling to the ground in the event of a failure of the universal joint which connects the drive shaft to the vehicle transmission.


Establishing the likely duration and precision with which the post was written is disclosed. An analysis may be used to infer how confident the user is of the subject matter they are writing. A user's post (e.g., response, comment for, but not limited to, a thread, blog, community) may be monitored and its subject matter analyzed to determine benchmark style and speed with which a user can comment.

When one looks at hand written letters or post-its of people one is familiar with, more than likely one can determine the following: How long the message took to create, the time taken to craft said message taking into account such variables as deviation from an authors expected style, word choice, grammar and so forth. However, when one sees online content on forums, wiki's and other social platforms, one often only sees a post with a timestamp which shows the time at which the post was created. In its current form, it is not easy to ascertain how long the message took to write and the due diligence employed by the author when creating the content.

International Business Machines Corporation


A solid-state image sensor capable of suppressing blooming and increase of a dark current also when an n-type impurity concentration in a transfer channel region is increased is obtained. In this solid-state image sensor, gate electrodes of a prescribed pixel and another pixel adjacent to the prescribed pixel are provided at a first space, and a larger quantity of second conductivity type impurity is introduced into a region of a first conductivity type transfer channel region, located on the main surface of a substrate, corresponding to the first space as compared with a second conductivity type impurity contained in the remaining region of the transfer channel region other than the region corresponding to the first space.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a solid-state image sensor, and more particularly, it relates to a solid-state image sensor comprising gate electrodes transferring charge.
2. Description of the Background Art
A solid-state image sensor comprising gate electrodes transferring charge is known in general, as disclosed in Japanese Patent Laying-Open No. 2001-53263, for example.
FIG. 10 is a sectional view for illustrating the structure of an exemplary conventional solid-state image sensor having a structure similar to that of the solid-state image sensor disclosed in the aforementioned Japanese Patent Laying-Open No. 2001-53263. Referring to FIG. 10, a plurality of pixels 101 are adjacently arranged in the exemplary conventional solid-state image sensor. This exemplary conventional solid-state image sensor comprises an n-type substrate 102. A p-type well region 103 is formed on a region of a prescribed depth from the upper surface of the n-type substrate 102. A plurality of n-type high-concentration impurity regions 104 are formed on prescribed regions of the surface of the n-type substrate 102 at prescribed intervals. The n-type high-concentration impurity regions 104 are formed on regions shallower than the p-type well region 103.
P-type impurity regions 105 are formed on the surfaces of the n-type high-concentration impurity regions 104. These p-type impurity regions 105, the aforementioned n-type high-concentration impurity regions 104 and the p-type well region 103 constitute photoelectric conversion portions 106. These photoelectric conversion portions 106 are provided in one-to-one correspondence to the pixels 101 respectively. N-type transfer channel regions 107 are formed on regions of the surface of the n-type substrate 102 located between adjacent pairs of photoelectric conversion portions 106 respectively. These transfer channel regions 107 function as paths for transferring charge generated in the photoelectric conversion portions 106.
A gate insulating film 108 is formed to cover the overall surface of the n-type substrate 102. Gate electrodes 109a and 109b transferring charge are formed on regions of the gate insulating film 108 corresponding to the transfer channel regions 107. Each pair of gate electrodes 109a and 109b are provided in one-to-one correspondence to each pixel 101. The gate electrodes 109a and 109b included in each pixel 101 are arranged at a prescribed space, to hold the corresponding photoelectric conversion portion 106 therebetween. The gate electrode 109a of a prescribed pixel 101 and the gate electrode 109b of another pixel 101 adjacent to the prescribed pixel 101 are arranged through an insulating film 110. The gate electrode 109b of the prescribed pixel 101 partially overlaps on the gate electrode 109a of the adjacent pixel 101.
In imaging, a low-level voltage is applied to the gate electrodes 109a and 109b, so that the potentials of the transfer channel regions 107 located under the gate electrodes 109a and 109b are higher than those of the photoelectric conversion portions 106. Thus, potential wells are formed in the photoelectric conversion portions 106 for storing charge generated by photoelectric conversion in imaging. At this time, potential barriers are formed on the transfer channel regions 107 for separating the potential wells formed in pairs of photoelectric conversion portions 106 adjacent to each other through the transfer channel regions 107.
In the exemplary conventional solid-state image sensor shown in FIG. 10, however, the potentials of the transfer channel regions 107 are disadvantageously reduced when n-type impurity concentrations in the transfer channel regions 107 are increased in order to increase the quantity of charge transfer. Thus, the height of the potential barriers formed on the transfer channel regions 107 in imaging is so reduced that the charge may flow out from the potential well of a prescribed photoelectric conversion portion 106 into the potential well of another photoelectric conversion portion 106 adjacent to the prescribed photoelectric conversion portion 106 through the corresponding transfer channel region 107. This outflow of the charge disadvantageously results in blooming, a phenomenon brightly displaying unirradiated portions. When the n-type impurity concentrations in the transfer channel regions 107 are increased, further, hole concentrations are disadvantageously reduced in the transfer channel regions 107. If unintentional charge is resulting from thermal excitation or the like in the transfer channel regions 107 located under OFF-state gate electrodes 109a and 109b in this case, the quantity of unintentional charge not captured by holes is disadvantageously increased. Thus, a dark current resulting from such unintentional charge is disadvantageously increased.


In the non-Cartesian measurement, image quality is improved while the advantages of non-Cartesian measurement are maintained. To realize the aforementioned, in the non-Cartesian measurement, artifacts caused by non-uniform data density in k-space are reduced. Therefore, each unit k-space is imaged by an inverse Fourier transform, the field of view of the image is enlarged in a direction in which data density is to be increased, and the image after the enlargement of the field of view is Fourier transformed and gridded as unit k-space that has a small k-space pitch in the direction in which the field of view has been enlarged and has an increased amount of data. This processing is repeated for all blades.

An MRI apparatus is an apparatus that measures an NMR signal (echo signal) generated by an object, especially, the nuclear spins that form human tissue, and images the shapes or functions of the head, abdomen, limbs, and the like in a two-dimensional manner or in a three-dimensional manner. In the imaging, different phase encoding and different frequency encoding are given to NMR signals by the gradient magnetic field. The measured NMR signals are reconstructed as an image by a two-dimensional or three-dimensional Fourier transform.
The measured NMR signals are disposed in k-space (data space). In this case, the scanning trajectory of k-space is largely divided into two scanning trajectories of the Cartesian coordinate system and the non-Cartesian coordinate system according to the gradient magnetic field pattern to be applied. The Cartesian coordinate system k-space is data space defined by two or three coordinate axes perpendicular to each other. On the other hand, the non-Cartesian coordinate system k-space is data space defined by the size and the angle of deviation. Hereinafter, a measurement to acquire the scanning trajectory of the Cartesian coordinate system is referred to as a Cartesian measurement, and a measurement to acquire the scanning trajectory of the non-Cartesian coordinate system is referred to as a non-Cartesian measurement.
In the non-Cartesian measurement, k-space of a predetermined unit (unit k-space) is measured while changing the angle of deviation, and is converted into Cartesian coordinate system k-space by interpolation processing called gridding. In this case, since a scan is repeatedly performed near the center of k-space for each unit k-space, the influence of the motion, such as breathing, is averaged. For this reason, in the non-Cartesian measurement result, there is a feature that artifacts in a specific direction due to the movement of an object are not likely to occur.
For the non-Cartesian measurement, there is a method called a hybrid radial method. In measurement using the hybrid radial method, the shape of each unit k-space is generally a rectangle, and is called a blade (for example, refer to NPL 1). By applying the gradient magnetic field under the conditions in which the long axis direction of the blade is a frequency encoding direction and the short axis direction of the blade is a phase encoding direction, an echo signal is acquired.
In the hybrid radial method, in order to obtain a spatial resolution equivalent to the Cartesian measurement, echo signals of (π/2) times are required. Accordingly, the measurement time is increased. For this reason, there is a technique of applying parallel imaging to each blade in order to shorten the measurement time (for example, refer to PTL 1 and PTL 2). In this case, in the hybrid radial method, the parallel imaging operation is performed for each blade. Accordingly, since the amount of processing is small compared with so-called general parallel imaging to expand folds having arbitrary shapes, the reconstruction time is also reduced.

Magnetic resonance imaging apparatus and magnetic resonance imaging method


A gas delivery system for a ceramic showerhead includes gas connection blocks and a gas ring, the gas connection blocks mounted on the gas ring such that gas outlets in the blocks deliver process gas to gas inlets in an outer periphery of the showerhead. The gas ring includes a bottom ring with channels therein and a welded cover plate enclosing the channels. The gas ring can include a first channel extending ½ the length of the gas ring, two second channels connected at midpoints thereof to downstream ends of the first channel, and four third channels connected at midpoints thereof to downstream ends of the second channels. the cover plate can include a first section enclosing the first channel, two second sections connected at midpoints thereof to ends of the first section, and third sections connected at midpoints thereof to ends of the second sections. The channels are arranged such that the process gas travels equal distances for a single gas inlet in the gas ring to eight outlets in the cover ring allowing equal gas flow.

The Bosch process is a plasma etch process that has been widely used to fabricate deep vertical (high aspect ratio) features (with depth such as tens to hundreds of micrometers), such as trenches and vias, in the semiconductor industry. The Bosch process comprises cycles of alternating etching steps and deposition steps. Details of the Bosch process can be found in U.S. Pat. No. 5,501,893, which is hereby incorporated by reference. The Bosch process can be carried out in a plasma processing apparatus configured with a high-density plasma source, such as an inductively coupled plasma (ICP) source, in conjunction with a radio frequency (RF) biased substrate electrode. Process gases used in the Bosch process for etching silicon can be sulfur hexafluoride (SF6) in an etching step and octofluorocyclobutane (C4F8) in a deposition step. The process gas used in the etching step and the process gas used in the deposition step are respectively referred to as "etch gas" and "deposition gas" hereinbelow. During an etching step, SF6 facilitates spontaneous and isotropic etching of silicon (Si); during a deposition step, C4F8 facilitates the deposition of a protective polymer layer onto sidewalls as well as bottoms of the etched structures. The Bosch process cyclically alternates between etch and deposition steps enabling deep structures to be defined into a masked silicon substrate. Upon energetic and directional ion bombardment, which is present in the etching steps, any polymer film coated in the bottoms of etched structures from the previous deposition step will be removed to expose the silicon surface for further etching. The polymer film on the sidewall will remain because it is not subjected to direct ion bombardment, thereby, inhibiting lateral etching.
One limitation of the Bosch process is roughened sidewalls of etched deep features. This limitation is due to the periodic etch/deposition scheme used in the Bosch process and is known in the art as sidewall "scalloping". For many device applications, it is desirable to minimize this sidewall roughness or scalloping. The extent of scalloping is typically measured as a scallop length and depth. The scallop length is the peak-to-peak distance of the sidewall roughness and is directly correlated to the etch depth achieved during a single etch cycle. The scallop depth is the peak to valley distance of sidewall roughness and is correlated to the degree of anisotropy of an individual etching step. The extent of scallop formation can be minimized by shortening the duration of each etch/deposition step (i.e. shorter etch/deposition steps repeated at a higher frequency).
In addition to smoother feature sidewalls it is also desirable to achieve a higher overall etch rate. The overall etch rate is defined as a total depth etched in a process divided by a total duration of the process. The overall etch rate can be increased by increasing efficiency within a process step (i.e. decreasing dead time).
FIG. 1 illustrates a conventional plasma processing apparatus 100 for processing a substrate 120 comprises a substrate support 130 and a processing chamber 140 enclosing the substrate support 130. The substrate 120 may be, for example, a semiconductor wafer having diameters such as 4″, 6″, 8″, 12″, etc. The substrate support 130 may comprise, for example, a radio frequency (RF) powered electrode. The substrate support 130 may be supported from a lower endwall of the chamber 140 or may be cantilevered, e.g., extending from a sidewall of the chamber 140. The substrate 120 may be clamped to the electrode 130 either mechanically or electrostatically. The processing chamber 140 may, for example, be a vacuum chamber.
The substrate 120 is processed in the processing chamber 140 by energizing a process gas in the processing chamber 140 into a high density plasma. A source of energy maintains a high density (e.g., 1011-1012 ions/cm3) plasma in the chamber 140. For example, an antenna 150, such as the planar multiturn spiral coil shown in FIG. 1, a non-planar multiturn coil, or an antenna having another shape, powered by a suitable RF source and suitable RF impedance matching circuitry inductively couples RF energy into the chamber to generate a high density plasma. The RF power applied to the antenna 150 can be varied according to different process gases used in the chamber 140 (e.g. etch gas containing SF6 and deposition gas containing C4F8). The chamber 140 may include a suitable vacuum pumping apparatus for maintaining the interior of the chamber 140 at a desired pressure (e.g., below 5 Torr, preferably 1-100 mTorr). A dielectric window, such as the planar dielectric window 155 of uniform thickness shown in FIG. 1, or a non-planar dielectric window (not shown) is provided between the antenna 150 and the interior of the processing chamber 140 and forms a vacuum wall at the top of the processing chamber 140. A gas delivery system 110 can be used to supply process gases into the chamber 140 through a primary gas ring 170 or center injector 180 below the dielectric window 155. Details of the plasma processing apparatus 100 in FIG. 1 are disclosed in commonly-owned U.S. Patent Application Publication Nos. 2001/0010257, 2003/0070620, U.S. Pat. No. 6,013,155, or U.S. Pat. No. 6,270,862, each of which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.
Gas delivery systems designed for fast gas switching are disclosed in commonly-owned U.S. Pat. Nos. 7,459,100 and 7,708,859 and U.S. Patent Publication Nos. 2007/0158025 and 2007/0066038, the disclosures of which are hereby incorporated by reference.
The substrate 120 preferably comprises a silicon material such as a silicon wafer and/or polysilicon. Various features such as holes, vias and/or trenches are to be etched into the silicon material. A patterned masking layer (e.g. photoresist, silicon oxide, and/or silicon nitride) having an opening pattern for etching desired features is disposed on the substrate 120.
One problem of the apparatus 100 of FIG. 1 is that the primary gas ring 170 is located closer to the periphery of the substrate 120 than to the center, which increases etch rate due to the time needed for complete replacement of one process gas to another process gas over the surface of the substrate 120 and can lead to process non-uniformity due to gas pressure non-uniformity across the substrate during processing.

Gas distribution system for ceramic showerhead of plasma etch reactor


A spectrophotometer capable of high spectral resolution (e.g., in the GHz range) is presented. The spectrophotometer includes a container for holding a sample, an arrayed-waveguide grating coupled to the sample holder, and a detector array coupled to the arrayed-waveguide grating. The arrayed-waveguide grating may be a monolithic chip, and the container may be integrated into the chip. An integrated container may be a microfluidic channel formed through the layers in the chip and positioned in such a way that light is transferable from the microfluidic channel to the waveguides of the arrayed-waveguide grating.

1. Field of Invention
This invention pertains to spectrophotometers in general and particularly to high-resolution spectrophotometers.
2. Related Art
Spectroscopy is a widely used technique for analyzing various substances based on the fact that different substances show different absorption and emission bands.
FIG. 1 is an energy-level diagram for the hydrogen atom, showing origin of spectral lines for the Lyman, Balmer, and Paschen series. The quantum number n that labels the orbit radii also labels the energy levels. The lowest energy level, or the lowest "state," is often referred to as the ground state (n=1). The higher states (n>1) are referred to as excited states. When an electron in an excited state jumps down to a lower state, it may give off energy in the form of radiation (e.g., a photon). Since the energy levels are quantized, the states that are involved in the jump can be determined based on the wavelength of the radiation that is emitted. For example, an electron jumping from n=3 to n=2 in the hydrogen atom give rise to a 656-nm line in the Balmer series, while an electron jumping from n=4 to n=2 would give rise to the 486-nm line. The emission is termed fluorescence and the transition between to states is said to be spin allowed if the states have the same spin multiplicity (i.e., both are singlets or both are triplets). If the spin multiplicity changes in the transition, the emission is termed phosphorescence.
Spectroscopy usually entails exciting a sample, for example by passing radiation through it, and determining the wavelengths that are released by the sample. The released emission band includes a pattern of varying intensities at different wavelengths, indicating the wavelengths where emission occurred.
Emission occurs following an absorption event if the upper state is not relaxed by a nonradiative collisional process (called "quenching"). In some cases, absorption, rather than emission, spectra is used in spectroscopy. To use absorption spectroscopy, radiation of known wavelength is passed through a sample. The radiation excites at least some of the electrons in the orbitals of the sample, which absorb energy to rise to a higher energy state. Due to some of the radiation being absorbed, the energy level of the radiation is lower at certain wavelengths after passing through the sample. The intensity pattern across the predetermined wavelength range is referred to as an absorption band, which shows the wavelengths at which absorption occurred.
The absorption band of a substance generally consists of several absorption bands arising from different vibrational motions of the molecule. Within each vibrational energy level are rotational energy levels. Since rotational energy levels are spaced closer together than the vibrational energy levels, a higher resolution is needed to observe the rotational energy levels.
Currently, the emission/absorption bands are determined by using a spectrophotometer that includes a grating and one or more detectors. Sometimes, a prism is used instead of the grating. The grating/prism separates the radiation from the sample into multiple rays based on wavelength, and each of the wavelength-specific rays is directed to a radiation sensor/detector. Various mirrors and other optical components are used to properly direct each radiation beam to the sensor/detector.
One of the disadvantages of the grating-based spectroscopy is that it is inconvenient to use when a high resolution is desired. To split the radiation from the sample into high-resolution wavelengths, multiple layers of grating/prism may be necessary. The increase in the number of gratings undesirably leads to a bulkier equipment and creates greater chances of inaccuracy. A compact spectrophotometer that can achieve a high resolution is desired.

Integrated optics based high-resolution spectrophotometer

Abstract: The invention is also a method of making the spectrophotometer. The method entails providing an arrayed-waveguide grating having an input end and an output end, coupling a container to the input end, wherein the container is capable of holding a sample, and coupling a detector array to the output end of the arrayed-waveguide grating.


Mechanism and means for enclosing a package in a wrap. The external dimensions of the package are first determined and sufficient wrap is fed with which to enclose the package. Depending on the external dimensions of the package, the amount of wrap fed is adjusted and thereafter the package is enclosed in the wrap.

The present invention relates to a packaging mechanism and method and more particularly to a packaging mechanism and method which is adapted to be used for form a shrink wrap package which will shrink wrap stacks of paper of different sizes.
In the prior art, a number of shrink wrapping machines have been in use which are adapted to be adjusted to shrink wrap packages of different sizes. In doing this, a shrink wrapping machine is adjusted to shrink wrap packages of the same size for a particularly run of same sized packages to be wrapped. If a different size package is to be wrapped, the machine is adjusted so that the machine will now package a series of packages all having the same size but different than the original size batch. If a third series of packages having different sizes to be wrapped, the machine is again adjusted to wrap a number of packages of the same size but different than the other two sizes. The adjustment of the machine can be manual or by some automatic means.
There is no shrink wrap machine that will take various sizes of packages dynamically and apply the proper amount of plastic film for that package, be it large or small, nor is there any mechanism for automatically adjusting the machine for that particular size package and dispense the film so that the shrink wrapping will be proper. In other words, existing machines do not have the capability of packaging bundles of documents of different sizes as each different size is presented to the wrapping machines. In some industries, such as the insurance industry, insurance contracts are of different thicknesses depending on the types of papers in each insurance contract. Hence, for example, one insurance policy may be about 1,000 pages and the very next policy may be 50 pages and the one after that may be about 750 pages. As another example, the packages being shrink wrapped may vary from one inch to three inches one after the other. In addition, the packages being processed may vary in width and/or length as well as in height. If all these are to be shrink wrapped and are presented to the shrink wrapping machine one after the other, the machine would have to be stopped and adjusted for each package. It will be appreciated that this would be time consuming, expensive and impractical.
Presently, shrink wrapping machines are adjustable to handle various size packages. However, manual adjustments must be made for each size package that is to be shrink wrapped. This is only natural in that probably 99 percent of the shrink wrapping machines are packaging the same item over and over again. However, in the electronic publishing field it is possible to turn out a 3 page report followed by a 40 page report, etc., followed by a six page report. This is more the normal operation rather than the exception in non-impact computer printing. Since these printed reports must be sent to various offices or locations, it is necessary to wrap them in a package suitable for the size of the reports.


Described herein is a fixed-point piece-wise linear (FP PWL) approximation technique for computations of nonlinear functions. The technique results in circuit designs having relatively few and simple arithmetic operations, short arithmetic operands and small-sized look-up tables and the circuits resultant there from can be efficiently pipelined to run at multi-GSamples/s throughputs. In one exemplary embodiment, the FP PWL approximation technique was used in the design of an energy-efficient high-throughput and high-precision signal component separator (SCS) for use with in an asymmetric-multilevel-outphasing (AMO) power amplifier. The FP PWL approximation technique is appropriate for use in any application requiring high-throughput, area and power constrained hardware implementations of nonlinear functions.

As is known in the art, the availability of large portions of bandwidth coupled with the maturity of complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) process technology presents an opportunity to address applications having relatively high bandwidth demands including, but not limited to, communication applications. There has thus been a trend toward developing high-throughput wireless communication systems which operate in the millimeter-wave (mm-wave) frequency range (e.g. in the range of about 60 GHz to about 90 GHz).
As is also known, such mm-wave applications place great technical challenges on the design of a transceiver, due to factors such as power amplifier (PA) efficiency and linearity, high wireless channel loss and multipath, increasing parasitic effects for passive components, limited amplifier gain etc. In the development of state-of-the-art cellular base stations, for example, there is a drive toward providing base stations which include radios provided as integrated circuits (or "chips") which are compatible with multiple standards (so-called multi-standard radio chips). This further increases the need for high-precision, high-throughput and energy-efficient backend processing.
The desire to best leverage available portions of the frequency spectrum for these and other high-throughput applications, results in a need for power amplifiers (PAs) having high-efficiency and high-linearity operating characteristics. While these conflicting PA design requirements have been satisfied in the past at low system throughputs by designing smart digital back-ends, the multi-giga samples/second (GSamples/s) throughput required in state-of-the-art applications places a significant challenge on digital baseband system design to perform the necessary modulation and predistortion operations at negligible power overhead.
This need for high-throughput, energy-efficient digital baseband systems becomes particularly important for outphasing PAs designed to improve efficiency while at the same time satisfying high-linearity requirements needed for higher-order signal constellations. At low throughputs (e.g. throughputs in the range of about 10 MSamples/s to about 100 MSamples/s), outphasing PAs rely upon relatively complex digital signal processing to generate outphasing vectors and make it possible to use relatively simple, high-efficiency switching PAs on each amplifying signal path of the outphasing PA.
Examples of such outphasing PAs include so-called linear-amplification-by-nonlinear-component (LINC) PAs, and asymmetric-multilevel-outphasing (AMO) PAs. Outphasing PA systems include a signal component separator (SCS) which decomposes an original sample signal fed to an input thereof into two signals as required by the outphasing systems (e.g. LINC/AMO systems, for example). Such decomposition involves the computations of several nonlinear functions.
At relatively high throughputs (e.g. throughputs in the multi-GSamples/s range), however, a radical redesign of the signal component separator (SCS) digital signal processing implementations is needed to prevent degradation in net power efficiency due to significant increase of digital baseband power consumption.
Conventional LINC signal component separators (SCSs) have been implemented as both analog and digital circuits. The analog circuit versions of SCSs are not suitable for high-speed and high-precision applications leaving digital SCS implementations as a practical option for use in high throughput applications.
For digitally implemented SCS, a look-up-table (LUT) is the most common way to realize the nonlinear functions. Conventional signal separators operate primarily below the range of 100 MSamples/s with low to medium precision and thus, an LUT approach is a relatively simple and energy-efficient approach. Even for AMO architectures, an LUT approach is still a preferable choice for operations under 100 MSamples/s. However, a traditional LUT-based function map quickly becomes infeasible when the throughput and precision requirements rise to multi-GSamples/s and more than a 10-bit range. Indeed, LUT size becomes prohibitively large for on-chip implementations and thus the LUT approach falls to meet the needs of state-of-the-art systems both in terms of the amount of area required and speed characteristics.
Furthermore, the number of LUTs used in an AMO SCS is significantly larger than in a LINC SCS. Thus, LUT solutions that work for LINC systems render AMO implementations infeasible. And while a direct nonlinear function synthesis approach (e.g. via iterative algorithms such as a coordinate rotation digital computer (CORDIC) technique or nonlinear filters are possible and proves to be relatively area compact, at such high throughputs, these approaches suffer from a prohibitive power footprint for the overall power efficiency of the PA.

Hardware-efficient signal-component separator for outphasing power amplifiers


A method, apparatus and article of manufacture for manufacturing a balanced circuit obtains S-parameters for the balanced circuit and determines a delay value embedded at one of the single-ended terminals of the balanced circuit that reduces a differential to common mode conversion mixed-mode transmission S-parameter.

Digital circuit designers see increasing challenges due to an increase in clock speeds used in digital systems. Specifically, clock speeds of 1 GHz or more require higher signal integrity than systems with lower clock speeds, while traditional digital designs experience a degradation of signal integrity as clock speeds increase. Under current technologies, differential circuit topologies provide the fastest data transfer with lowest power consumption and reduced sensitivity to external interfering signals as compared to single-ended structures. Signal jitter is a significant source of signal degradation. Jitter is defined as the misalignment of the significant edges in a sequence of data bits from their ideal positions. Misalignments can result in data errors. There are two types of signal jitter. One type of jitter, nonsystematic jitter, is the result of random phenomenon and is non-repeatable. The other type of jitter, systematic jitter, is deterministic and repeatable, and can therefore, be controlled. Tracking data errors over some period of time determines the system stability. Characterization and minimization of systematic jitter can significantly improve system performance. Minimization of jitter ensures meeting a certain minimum bit error ratio (herein "BER") performance specification. Accordingly, it is prudent for digital designers to design hardware to minimize jitter. Differential circuit topologies are typically deployed to minimize jitter. For design optimization and troubleshooting, post-processed jitter calculations can quickly provide insight into the overall high frequency performance of the system design. There is a need, therefore, for a product and method to assess the presence and source of deterministic jitter in differential structures and to further assess how the effects of the deterministic jitter can be minimized.

Method, apparatus, and article of manufacture for manufacturing high frequency balanced circuits


Methods of cementing in well bores using cement compositions having elasticity or high compressive strength and low permeability are provided. The cement compositions basically include particulate acid-degradable glass, water, at least one water-soluble polymerizable alkenoic acid monomer, and a water-soluble free-radical initiator.

The present invention relates generally to methods and compositions for cementing in well bores.
Hydraulic cement compositions are commonly used in subterranean well completion and remedial operations. For example, hydraulic cement compositions are used in primary cementing operations whereby pipe strings such as casings and liners are cemented in well bores. In performing primary cementing, a hydraulic cement composition is pumped into the annular space between the walls of a well bore and the exterior surfaces of a pipe string disposed therein. The cement composition is permitted to set in the annular space thereby forming an annular sheath of hard substantially impermeable cement therein. The cement sheath physically supports and positions the pipe string in the well bore and bonds the exterior surfaces of the pipe string to the walls of the well bore, whereby the undesirable migration of fluids between zones or formations penetrated by the well bore is prevented.
Multi-lateral wells have been developed which include vertical or deviated principal well bores having one or more ancillary laterally extending well bores connected thereto. Drilling and completion equipment is available which allows multiple-laterals to be drilled from a principal cased and cemented well bore. Each of the lateral well bores can include a liner cemented therein which is tied into the principal well bore.
While conventional hydraulic cement compositions, which usually include a hydraulic cement (e.g., Portland cement), water, and various conventional cement additives, have been used successfully in primary cementing and other well cementing applications, in some well cementing applications, a cement composition that upon setting has a higher compressive strength and lower permeability than conventional hydraulic cement compositions is desirable. Examples of such well cement applications include, but are not limited to, cemented multi-lateral junctions; kick-off or whip-stock plugs that are placed in a well bore to deflect the drill bit of a drill string and start directional drilling; cement plugs set on top of mechanical bridge plugs used to shut-off lower zones; plugs set in well bores to seal the well bores when the wells are abandoned; and in remedial applications, such as squeeze cementing, where a cement composition is placed with sufficient pressure into cracks, holes or other openings in casings or liners, cement sheaths sealing the liners in the well bore, or the like.

Methods and compositions for cementing in well bores


A communication system for obtaining predetermined information from an underwater terminal via a sonobuoy is provided. The system includes an underwater terminal for transmitting and receiving sound wave signals, a base station apparatus for transmitting and receiving radio wave signals, and a plurality of sonobuoys for transmitting and receiving the sound wave signals to and from the underwater terminal, and for transmitting and receiving the radio wave signals to and from the base station apparatus.

A type of a communication system that a base station apparatus communicates with an underwater terminal via a sonobuoy is known. The base station apparatus is installed in flight vehicles moving in the air such as airplanes or helicopters, inside a building on land or in a vessel on the water. The underwater terminal is installed in an underwater movable body such as a submarine or installed on the bottom of the sea. The sonobuoy is installed on the water surface. The sonobuoy is a buoy having a sonar device. The sonobuoy communicates with the base station apparatus using a radio wave and communicates with the underwater terminal using a sound wave to relay communication between the base station apparatus and the underwater terminal.
Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2003-77087A discloses a technology related to the communication system.
This document discloses a system in which an apparatus arranged on the sea processes data on water temperature and water depth which are measured in water. As shown in FIG. 11, the system includes an underwater measuring unit 43, a buoy unit 44 and a signal processor 45.
The underwater measuring unit 43 is connected with the branched rope 47 in water. A main line 46 is arranged in water in parallel to the sea surface. One end of the branched rope 47 is tied to the main line 46 and the other end thereof is directed toward the bottom of the sea. The underwater measuring unit 43 measures water temperature and water depth, and transmits measured data to the buoy unit 44 using ultrasonic waves. The buoy unit 44 floating on the sea receives the data on the water temperature and the water depth from the underwater measuring unit 43 and transmits the data to the signal processor 45 using radio waves. The signal processor 45 installed in a vessel 48 receives the data on the water temperature and the water depth from the buoy unit 44 through radio waves and processes the data. As mentioned above, the underwater measuring unit 43 sends the data on the water temperature and the water depth to the signal processor 45 via one buoy unit 44. Here, the underwater measuring unit 43, the buoy unit 44 and the signal processor 45 correspond to the underwater terminal, the sonobuoy and the base station apparatus respectively.
And other technology related to the above-mentioned communication system is also disclosed in a document ("A SIMULATION AN ACOUSTIC DATA LINK BETWEEN UNDERWATER TRANSDUCER AND MOORED BUOY", James K. Thompson and Koorosh Naghshineh, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, La. 70803). In the technology disclosed by the document, as written in a summary thereof, a computer simulation of acoustic data transmission between underwater transducers and a buoy is being developed in a project sponsored by the NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) Data Buoy office. In the document, a communication with underwater transducers is performed using only one buoy. Here, the underwater transducer and the buoy correspond to the underwater terminal and the sonobuoy respectively.
Moreover, FIG. 10 shows a related communication system in which one sonobuoy 41 relays communication between an underwater terminal 40 installed in a movable body in water and a base station apparatus 42 installed in a flying vehicle in the air. The system includes the underwater terminal 40 installed in the movable body such as a submarine and a submersible research vehicle, the sonobuoy 41 arranged on the water surface and the base station apparatus 42 installed in the flight vehicle which moves in the air. The sonobuoy 41 communicates with the base station apparatus 42 using radio waves and communicates with the underwater terminals 40 using sound waves to relay communication between the base station apparatus 42 and the underwater terminal 40. The underwater terminal 40 carried in the movable body transmits a control signal including SOS as sound wave signals, when the movable body wrecks. In order to discover the wrecked movable body and obtain information therefrom, one sonobuoy 41 is thrown from vessel or the like in a sea area where the movable body is likely to exist.
Detecting the control signal from the underwater terminal 40, the sonobuoy 41 informs the base station apparatus 42 of detecting of the control signal by radio wave signals. Then, the base station apparatus 42 communicates with the underwater terminal 40 via the sonobuoy 41, and receives distress situation including information on underwater environment (such as water temperature, light quantity and sound pressure or the like) from an underwater terminal 40. However, when the sonobuoy 41 does not detect the control signal from the underwater terminal 40 (i.e. the base station apparatus 42 is not informed from the sonobuoy 41 because the control signal is not found) after a predetermined time (e.g. 10 minutes, for example) passes since throwing sonobuoy 41, the sonobuoy is pulled up and is thrown into a different sea area in order to investigate whether or not the sonobuoy 41 detects the control signal from the underwater terminal 40. The process is repeated until the sonobuoy 41 detects the control signal from the underwater terminal 40.
The sonobuoy 41 may fail to receive the control signal because of variation of quality of sound wave communication between the underwater terminal 40 and the sonobuoy 41. The quality of sound wave communication is changeable due to strength of ocean waves, salinity of sea water, sea water temperature and the like. Therefore, in order to look for an optimal sound wave communication path, the operation of trial and error above-mentioned is necessary.
Moreover, in another technology related to the above-mentioned communication system, location of an underwater terminal 40 is already known. For example, the underwater terminal 40 is fixed at a predetermined position on the bottom of the sea. Such system includes the underwater terminal 40 set to the predetermined underwater position in advance, a sonobuoy 41 installed on a surface of the water and a base station apparatus 42 installed in a flight vehicle. In order to relay communication between the base station apparatus 42 and the underwater terminal 40, the sonobuoy 41 communicates with the base station devices 42 using radio waves, and communicates with the underwater terminal 40 by sound waves. The underwater terminal 40 transmits a control signal including a signal which indicates the position thereof as sound wave signals. An operator of the system throws one sonobuoy 41 from a vessel into the sea area where the underwater terminal 40 exists.
Detecting the control signal from the underwater terminal 40, the sonobuoy 41 informs the base station apparatus 42 of detection thereof by radio signals. Then, the base station apparatus 42 communicates with the underwater terminal 40 via the sonobuoy 41, and receives measured underwater environmental information such as water temperature, light quantity and sound pressure from the underwater terminal 40. However, when the sonobuoy 41 does not detect the control signal from the underwater terminal 40 (i.e. the base station apparatus 42 is not informed from the sonobuoy 41 because the control signal is not found) after a predetermined time (e.g. 10 minutes) passes since throwing sonobuoy 41, the sonobuoy 41 is pulled up and is thrown into a different sea area in order to investigate whether or not the sonobuoy 41 detects the control signal from the underwater terminal 40. The operation is repeated until the sonobuoy 41 detects the control signal from the underwater terminal 40. In order to look for an optimal sound wave communication path, the operation of trial-and-error above-mentioned is also necessary in the communication system.

Communication system, information collecting method and base station apparatus