A centrifugal pump pumps well fluid with a high gaseous content by conditioning the well fluid with a conditioning impeller and conditioning diffuser design for use with gaseous well fluid. The conditioning impellers have vanes that are curved with a leading edge that is rotationally forward and axially below, or upstream, of a trailing edge. The outer end of the leading edge is rotationally forward of the inner end of the leading edge, which forces the well fluid radially inward and mixes the gas and liquids in the well fluid. The conditioning diffusers have blades that are curved with a leading edge that is rotationarily rearward and axially below a trailing edge. The blades are portions of a sphere, with a concaved side receiving well fluid from the conditioning impellers. The spherical shape forces the well fluid radially inward and axially upward.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates in general to conditioning well fluid that is pumped to the surface from a subsea well. More specifically, this invention relates to an impeller configuration designed for fluids with a high gas content entrained within the fluids.
2. Background of the Invention
Centrifugal pumps have been used for pumping well fluids for many years. Centrifugal pumps are designed to handle fluids that are essentially all liquid. Free gas frequently gets entrained within well fluids that are required to be pumped. The free gas within the well fluids can cause trouble in centrifugal pumps. As long as the gas remains entrained within the fluid solution, then the pump behaves normally as if pumping a fluid that has a low density. However, the gas frequently separates from the liquids.
The performance of a centrifugal pump is considerably affected by the gas due to the separation of the liquid and gas phases within the fluid stream. Such problems include a reduction in the pump head, capacity, and efficiency of the pump as a result of the increased gas content within the well fluid. The pump starts producing lower than normal head as the gas-to-liquid ratio increases beyond a certain critical value, which is typically about 10-15% by volume. When the gas content gets too high, the gas blocks all fluid flow within the pump, which causes the pump to become "gas locked." Separation of the liquid and gas in the pump stage causes slipping between the liquid and gas phases, which causes the pump to experience lower than normal head. Submersible pumps are generally selected by assuming that there is no slippage between the two phases or by correcting stage performance based upon actual field test data and past experience.
Many of the problems associated with two phase flow in centrifugal pumps would be eliminated if the wells could be produced with a submergence pressure above the bubble point pressure to keep any entrained gas in the solution at the pump. However, this is typically not possible. To help alleviate the problem, gases are usually separated from the other fluids prior to the pump intake to achieve maximum system efficiency, typically by installing a gas separator upstream of the pump. Problems still exist with using a separator upstream of a pump since it is necessary to determine the effect of the gas on the fluid volume in order to select the proper pump and separator. Many times, gas separators are not capable of removing enough gas to overcome the inherent limitations in centrifugal pumps.
A typical centrifugal pump impeller designed for gas containing liquids consists of a set of one-piece rotating vanes, situated between two disk type shrouds with a balance hole that extends into each of the flow passage channels formed by the shrouds and two vanes adjacent to each other. The size of the balance holes vary between pump designs. Deviations from the typical pump configurations have been attempted in an effort to minimize the detrimental effects of gaseous fluids on centrifugal pumps. However, even using these design changes in the impellers of the centrifugal pumps is not enough. There are still problems with pump efficiency, capacity, head, and gas lock in wells producing well fluids with a high gas content.

Two phase flow conditioner for pumping gassy well fluid


A virtual conferencing system is described which evaluates and selects participants for active participation based on one or more criteria. For example, one embodiment of virtual conferencing system comprises: a plurality of clients operated by participants and at least one moderator of a virtual conference, each of the clients comprising state management logic to maintain a current state of the virtual conference; a virtual conferencing service to establish audio and/or video connections between the plurality of clients during the virtual conference, the virtual conferencing service further including a state synchronization service communicatively coupled to the state management logic on each client to ensure that the current state of the virtual conference is consistent on each client; a virtual conferencing graphical user interface (GUI) to be rendered on the plurality of clients, the virtual conferencing GUI configured, via signals sent from the state synchronization service, to display a video stream of one or more current speakers during the virtual conference utilizing the established video connections; and a decision support module to evaluate the participants according to one or more criteria in the virtual conference and to select a subset of the set of participants as candidates to actively participate in the virtual conference based on the evaluation.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to the field of computer systems. More particularly, the invention relates to a system and method for decision support in a virtual conference.
2. Description of the Related Art
"Web conferencing" or "virtual conferencing" refers to various forms of online collaborative services including web seminars, webcasts, and peer-level web meetings. Web conferencing systems today support real-time audio and video streaming between participants, typically under the coordination of a central web conferencing server. Applications for web conferencing include online classrooms, meetings, training sessions, lectures, and seminars, to name a few.
In some virtual conferencing systems, the meeting organizer or moderator is provided with control over the current state of the virtual conferencing system via a graphical control panel. For example, in a virtual classroom environment, the instructor is provided with the ability to choose the current speaker or group of speakers. Once selected, video of the current speaker or group of speakers may be displayed within a central speaker region of the virtual conferencing GUI.
When an instructor (e.g., professor, teacher) chooses to call on a student during in-class instructions, the choice of student to benefit from this learning opportunity may be unfair or inefficient. A choice may be perceived to be unfair because humans are prone to various cognitive biases (e.g., gender, or "availability" effects), which may affect a professor's decision in selecting a student to answer a question. An instructor's choice of a student may be inefficient because the educational value associated with calling on a student to answer a question varies and different students benefit to different degrees from attempting to respond to the same question.
Web conferences outside of the context of a synchronous classroom environment suffer from a generalized form of this problem; conference leaders often intend to be fair and efficient in how they engage other conference participants, but their attempts are impaired by various human biases and inefficient choices. Furthermore, to the extent an instructor or other moderator wants to be fair or efficient, he or she needs to expend both significant cognitive effort during the class/meeting to track as well as time pre- and post-class/meeting to prepare.
As a result of these limitations, some students (or participants) are afforded fewer learning (or speaking) opportunities than others and valuable learning opportunities are missed.

System and method for decision support in a virtual conference


A wireless LAN apparatus includes a reception section which receives frames including fragments respectively, a reading section which reads a total number of fragments based on the first data, a queue that stores the received frames for each fragment, a free-area detecting section which detects free areas in the queue, a determining section which determines whether the amount of the first data based on the total number of fragments in the first data is larger than the amount of free areas in the queue or is equal to or smaller than the amount of free areas in the queue, and a control section having a function of inserting fragments based on the first data into the queue if the determining section determines that the amount of the first data is equal to or smaller than the amount of free areas in the queue.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a wireless LAN (Local Area Network) apparatus for use in a wireless LAN system.
2. Description of the Related Art
It has been possible to construct a wireless LAN system in a limited area so that data can be transmitted between a plurality of apparatuses via a wireless medium.
A system in an infrastructure mode which is essential according to the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) 802.11 standard is composed of a wireless LAN access point (hereinafter referred to as an "AP") and a plurality of wireless LAN apparatuses (stations: hereinafter referred to as "STAs") residing within the radio wave range of the wireless LAN access point.
The STA handles data for each MAC service data unit (MSDU) or MAC management protocol data unit (MMPDU), which is a predetermined data unit. If the STA transmits a MAC service data unit (MSDU) or a MAC management protocol data unit (MMPDU) to a receiving apparatus, the transmission is carried out by fragmenting this data unit into MAC protocol data units (MPDU) that are MAC level frames each having a shorter data structure than the MSDU or MMPDU. This fragmentation is effective in improving the reliability of data transmission if channel characteristics are such that the transmission of long frames degrades the reliability of data transmission.
On receiving the fragments generated by the fragmentation, the STA inserts them into a queue. The queue temporarily stores data, process requests, and the like. Then, the plurality of fragments are reconstructed (defragmented) into the MSDU or MMPDU.
The STA supports the simultaneous reception of at least three data units (MSDUs or MMPDUs). Further, the STA comprises at least three reception counters for the respective data units being received. If the STA receives fragments constituting a data unit not managed by any reception counters, it discards all the fragments.
Each data unit is managed on the basis of a max receive lifetime indicative of the maximum allowable time required to receive one data unit. The reception counter starts counting on receiving the first fragment of the data unit. Then, if a reception timer exceeds the max receive time, the STA discards all the fragments of this data unit. If fragments succeeding this data unit are received after the max receive lifetime has been exceeded, the STA transmits an acknowledge (ACK) signal to the source apparatus to discard these succeeding fragments.
However, if a new data unit is received when the queue contains only a small amount of free areas, the free areas in the queue may be used up before all the fragments of this data unit are received. This may result in an overflow error.
On the other hand, the receiving STA uniformly discards the fragments of data units that have exceeded the max receive lifetime. Consequently, even the fragments of data units that have been almost completely defragmented may be discarded.


Disclosed are alloy nano-particles having a fluctuation coefficient of particle size of 20% or less and a fluctuation coefficient of composition of 20% or less. The alloy nano-particles have a low transformation point and hardly aggregate and which can form a flat magnetic film having high coercive force.

1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to alloy nano-particles having high coercive force, more precisely to those which have a low transformation point and hardly aggregate and which can form a flat magnetic film having high coercive force.
2. Background Art
It is important to reduce the particle size of the magnetic matter in a magnetic layer for increasing the magnetic recording density of the layer. For example, in magnetic recording media that are widely used for video tapes, computer tapes, discs and others, ferromagnetic particles having a smaller particle size are better for noise reduction than larger ones having the same mass.
Recently, CuAu-type or Cu3Au-type hard-magnetic ordered alloys have been developed as materials that are hopeful for increasing the magnetic recording density in recoding media. Such CuAu-type and Cu3Au-type alloys all have high magnetocrystalline anisotropy owing to the strain that occurs therein when they are ordered, and they exhibit good hard magnetism even when their particle size is reduced to a level of nano-particles.
Methods for producing nano-particles capable of forming those CuAu-type or Cu3Au-type alloys are known, and based on a mode of precipitation, they are grouped into an alcohol reduction method of using a primary alcohol; a polyol reduction method of using a secondary alcohol, a tertiary alcohol, or a polyalcohol such as diol or triol; a thermal decomposition method; an ultrasonic decomposition method; and a super-reduction method of using a strong reducing agent. Based on a mode of reaction system, the methods are grouped into a polymer-in-site method, a high-boiling-point solvent method, a normal micellation method, and a reversed micellation method.
In the alcohol reduction method, the reducing power of the alcohol used is weak, and therefore the method is problematic in that, when a noble metal and a base metal are simultaneously reduced, core/shell structured particles are often formed and uniform alloys are difficult to produce. The polyol reduction method and the thermal decomposition method indispensably require high-temperature reaction and are therefore problematic in that they lack production latitude in point of the production costs, etc. The ultrasonic decomposition method and the super-reduction method are relatively simple methods, in which, however, aggregates and precipitates are readily formed and therefore monodispersed fine nano-particles are difficult to produce if the reaction system is not specifically designed for producing them.
As a combined system of the alcohol reduction method and the polymer-in-site method, known is an ethanol reduction method to be effected in polyvinylpyrrolidone. In this, however, the polymer amount after the alloy production is extremely large, and therefore the method is problematic in that it is difficult to reduce the polymer amount to the necessary one. As a combined system of the polyol reduction method, the thermal decomposition method and the high-boiling-point solvent method, for example, known are the methods described in JP-A 2000-54012 and U.S. Pat. No. 6,254,662. In these methods, however, highly-toxic substances must be used and they are extremely dangerous, and, in addition, the reaction must be effected in an inert gas at a high temperature of around 300° C. Therefore, these methods are problematic in that the constitution of the apparatus for them is complicated and they lack production latitude. A combined system of the super-reduction method and the polymer-in-site method, and a combined system of the super-reduction method and the reversed micellation method are general methods, for which, however, detailed conditions are not as yet found for obtaining metal nano-particles that have an intended composition and an intended particle size.
The nano-particles produced according to the above-mentioned methods have a face-centered cubic crystal structure. Face-centered cubic crystals are generally soft magnetic or paramagnetic, and they are unsuitable for magnetic recording media. Therefore, for obtaining hard-magnetic ordered alloys that have a coercive force of at least 110 kA/m (1382 Oe) necessary for magnetic recording media, the nano-particles must be annealed at a temperature not lower than the transformation point thereof at which their disordered phase is transformed into an ordered phase.
However, when the nano-particles produced according to the above-mentioned methods are applied onto a support and annealed to fabricate magnetic recording media, they readily aggregate together, and therefore they are problematic in that their coatability is poor and their magnetic properties are not good. In addition, they are still problematic in that, even when they are annealed, their phase could not be completely transformed into an ordered phase and they could not have the intended hard-magnetic property. Further, the transformation point of the nano-particles in the magnetic recoding media is generally at least 500° C. and is high, and ordinary organic supports are not resistant to such high temperatures. To that effect, there is still another problem with the nano-particles in that it is difficult to form a magnetic layer on such an organic support by applying the nano-particles onto it followed by annealing them thereon.
The present invention has been made for solving the above-mentioned problems, and an object of the invention is to provide nano-particles having high coercive force, especially those which have a low transformation point and hardly aggregate and which can form a flat magnetic film.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.


A hydrocarbon application hose to avoid substantial compression and blow-out resulting from high pressurization differentials therethrough. The hose is formed from an inner tube that has a layer of material with electromagnetic target, such as carbon fiber, disbursed therethrough. In this manner, the material, generally a polymer, may be electromagnetically heated once the layer has been wrapped with a metallic reinforcing member. Thus, the layer of material may transform into surrounding relation relative to the reinforcing member. A substantially unitary inner tube may thereby be provided that includes a reinforcing member for blowout resistance and is of unitary character for compression resistance.

A variety of hydrocarbon exploration and other applications involve the use of cables and hoses. The cables and hoses may be employed to provide a link between an underwater or subterranean hydrocarbon environment and a surface location. Operators of hydrocarbon application equipment may be positioned at the surface location. From this location, hydrocarbon tools therebelow may be directed and serviced through the noted hydrocarbon application cables and hoses. Examples of hydrocarbon application hoses in particular may include seismic gun hoses for carrying pressurized air, drilling hoses for transfer of cuttings and drilling fluid, and even coiled tubing for delivering pressurized fluid and tools to a downhole environment.
Hydrocarbon application hoses such as those noted above generally include an inner core of a polymer such as nylon or polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) that is surrounded by a reinforcing braided or served stress member, that is, one which is cabled or wrapped. A jacket will also generally be employed encasing such hose components and providing the outer surface of the hose. The reinforcing stress member may be an aramid fiber such as Kevlar™ or other suitable material constructed to help prevent blowout of the hose. That is, for many hydrocarbon applications, pressurized fluid or air may be driven through the hose. Thus, a reinforcing stress member may be employed to help ensure that the pressure driven through the hose does not lead to blowout of the hose which could render it ineffective. Blowout may also render any hydrocarbon equipment or tools coupled to the hose susceptible to damaging environmental conditions surrounding the hose. Thus, effective reinforcement may be critical to the operation of a hydrocarbon hose.
As indicated, the reinforcing member is often a Kevlar™ braid surrounding the core of the hose. Kevlar™ is a fairly lightweight and flexible material. It is also a strong material with a strength-to-weight ratio that is about 5 times stronger than steel on an equal weight basis. Thus, while providing a degree of flexibility it is also particularly well suited to help avoid blowout of a hydrocarbon application hose when extreme pressures are driven through the core of the hose. While the reinforcing member may adequately avoid blowout of the hose, its flexible nature fails to help avoid compression of the hose, for example when directed through a high pressure differential environment. Therefore, the jacket of the hydrocarbon application hose is often of a stiffer material able to withstand high differential pressures while better avoiding collapse and deformation.
Where the hydrocarbon application is a coiled tubing application, a stainless steel outermost jacket may be employed to ensure that the coiled tubing hose is able to adequately withstand high downhole differential pressures without significant collapse or deformation. However, such a stainless steel jacket leaves the coiled tubing hose prone to fatigue over time as it is repeatedly spooled into and out of a well, undergoing plastic deformation as it is straightened and wound over and over. The likelihood of this fatigue resulting in rupture of the hose increases as the amount of deformation increases, for example as the overall size of the hose increases in terms of its diameter. Thus, the outer diameter of the coiled tubing hose may be limited, generally, to less than about 1.5 inches.
In addition to concern over fatigue from the employment of a metal or other relatively inflexible jacket, there are drawbacks to the use of aramid and other porous material fibers to make up the reinforcing member. For example, a Kevlar yarn, comprised of many thousands of small circular fibers, in particular is a very porous element. Therefore, a significant amount of air is generally trapped within the layer of Kevlar reinforcing member. As a result, any breakdown in the jacket material leaves the entire hose immediately vulnerable to collapse when present within a high pressure differential environment. That is, once leakage of high differential pressure fluid or air traverses the jacket, a conventional porous aramid fiber reinforcing member is unable to withstand compressive forces exerted thereon. The hydrocarbon application hose thus collapses.
Unfortunately, there is presently no adequate manner of eliminating the porosity of aramid fiber bundles in order to provide an added or alternate line of defense to the hose when subjected to a high pressure differential environment. Kevlar™, for example, is a highly finished material that generally includes slick and oily filament surfaces rendering it difficult to fill or otherwise eliminate its porosity. Alternatively, where metal armor or wire material is employed as a reinforcing member it is subjected to processing conditions that render it brittle and often of reduced effectiveness in preventing hose blowout. That is, the metal reinforcing member may be integrated into the core material of the hose to eliminate porosity. However, conditions under which the metal is subjected in order to achieve this integration are likely to leave the metal brittle and ineffective.


A power supply system including an element connected to a remote power supply source or power consumer through an electric power supply device. The element is movably arranged in relation the source or consumer in an environment in which at least a part of the power supply device is subjected to water and water vapor and to repeated bending motion due to the movement of the element. The electric power supply device includes an electric cable that includes a conductor and at least one layer of an electrically insulating material applied on the outside of the conductor. The device includes a member for preventing water and vapor intrusion into the layer. The member includes a flexible, watertight, vapor impermeable, fatigue resistant, separate tubing that surrounds the electric cable.

Off shore vessels such as platforms, for example intended for oil or gas exploitation, ships or buoys often need to be connected to a remote electric energy supply source in order to be supplied with the energy needed for the operation thereof. Alternatively, they may themselves form the energy supply source, and thus be connected to a remote energy consumer. The remote energy supply source or consumer may either be located on shore or off shore.
Oil platforms standing on the sea bottom have been supplied with electric energy through an electric cable extending fixedly from an on shore installation along the bottom to the legs of the oil platform.
However, the electric insulation is sensitive to intrusion of water and water vapour. For the purpose of preventing intrusion of sea water and vapour into an electrical insulation surrounding the electrically conducting part of the cable the cable has been provided with a lead sheath, provided as a layer of lead embedded in or located between one or more layers of a polymer that surrounds the electric insulation. The need of said sheath is, in particular, due the fact that contemporary polymers used for the purpose of preventing intrusion of water and for protecting the core part of HV-cables do not present a sufficient shield against vapour intrusion over time.
A problem arises for those applications by which the vessel is floating on the surface, and hence is moving with the heaving of the sea. Then, at least a part of the electric cable, normally the one extending from the sea bottom region to the top side region, must be let freely move in the sea. In this case the lead sheath on the cable insulation which prevent water and vapour intrusion into the electrical insulation will be subjected to fatigue and will eventually crack as a result thereof and will, accordingly, loose its functionality as a water and vapour intrusion preventing means. The invention aims at solving this problem.

Electric power supply and a method of production thereof


Methods for forming openings in damascene structures, such as dual damascene structures are provided, using plug materials having varied etching rates. In one embodiment, a semiconductor substrate is provided with a low-k material layer formed thereabove, the low-k material layer having an upper surface and at least one via opening formed therethrough. A first plug material layer is formed over the low-k material layer and filled in the via opening, the first plug material layer having a first etching rate. The first plug material layer is etched back to form a first plug partially filling the via opening. A second plug material layer is formed over the low-k material layer and the first plug. The second plug material layer is etched back to form a second plug partially below the upper surface of the low-k material layer, the second plug material layer having a second etching rate higher than the first etching rate.

The present invention relates generally to the formation of integrated circuit structures, and particularly, but not by way of limitation, to methods for forming openings in damascene structures. More particularly, the present invention relates to methods for forming openings in dual damascene structures using plug materials having varied etching rates.
As semiconductor wafers continually progress to higher density chips with shrinking geometries of 0.13 μm and below, the materials and processes used in wafer fabrication are undergoing dramatic changes. There is a concurrent scaling of all device features to maintain electrical performance. This trend is made possible by the development of new manufacturing techniques as well as innovative improvements of existing procedures thereby extending their utility further towards miniaturization and higher density. One area where the limits of technology are constantly tested is the formation of via, trench, and contact openings in low-k material or dielectric layers on semiconductor substrates and these openings having submicron geometries represent one of the smallest microlithographically defined features on the integrated circuit. These openings pass through the various dielectric layers and are filled with conductive material to form interconnections. One such process for forming interconnections is the ubiquitous dual damascene process.
While dual damascene methods are desirable in semiconductor device fabrication, dual damascene methods are nonetheless not entirely without problems. The type of plug materials used in dual-damascene processes often determine the final trench and via opening profiles. FIG. 1a illustrates a cross-sectional view of a portion of a prior art method of forming a dual damascene structure and where use of a low-etching rate plug material typically produces undesirable trench and via opening profiles. A semiconductor substrate (not shown) is provided with a etch stop layer 10 and a low-k material layer 20 formed thereabove and a plug 30 having a low etching rate is formed in a via opening of the dual damascene structure. A patterned photoresist layer 50 and an anti-reflective coating layer 40 are formed above the plug 30. As shown in FIG. 1b, in the formation of the trench of the dual damascene structure, it is typically observed that an undesirable fence profile 60 is produced as a result of the higher etching rate of low-k material layer 20 with respect to plug 30 such that low-k material layer 20 is etched faster. In forming the trench opening, the trench opening is incompletely etched leaving a fence of unetched material around the via opening and a layer of unetched material overlying the plug 30. As a result, improperly formed dual damascene structures lead to a deterioration of electrical properties, electrical opens, and/or lowering of yield for the semiconductor devices.
FIG. 2a illustrates a cross-sectional view of a portion of a prior art method of forming a dual damascene structure and how use of a high-etching rate plug material produces undesirable trench and via opening profiles. A semiconductor substrate (not shown) is provided with an etch stop layer 10 and a low-k material layer 20 formed thereabove and a plug 30 having a high-etching rate is formed in a via opening of the dual damascene structure. A patterned photoresist layer 50 and an anti-reflective coating layer 40 are formed above the plug 30. As shown in FIG. 2b, undesirable facet profile 70 and etch stop layer break 80 are typically produced as a result of the higher etching rate of plug 30 with respect to low-k material layer 20 such that low-k material layer 20 is etched slower. Dual damascene structures having these fence and facet profiles and etch stop layer breaks exhibit increased RC delay which in turn degrade circuit performance and contribute to low yield for the semiconductor devices.
For these reasons and other reasons that will become apparent upon reading the following detailed description, there is a need for improved methods of forming damascene structures that do not have the fence/facet profiles or etch stop layer breaks that contribute to increased RC delay characteristics and reliability and IC performance problems associated with conventional methods of forming dual damascene structures.

Method for damascene formation using plug materials having varied etching rates

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., Ltd.


A protection mechanism includes means for taking an input binary value and generating a unique key value as well as performing the reverse operation of taking a key value and generating an input binary value. The mechanism includes a scrambler which includes an array having a number of multibit container locations for storing a unique sequence of random numbers. The scrambler forms another binary value by rearranging the bits of the input binary value as a function of the random number values in addition to altering the states of such bits as a function of the random number values and the numeric bit position values of sources of the input binary bits. The resulting binary value is applied to an alphanumeric encoder which converts the binary value into a series of alphanumeric characters containing a valid key value.

1. Field of Use
The present invention pertains to data protection systems and, more particularly, to systems useful in performing software licensing verification.
2. Prior Art
Software is viewed as an important valuable asset whose use must be protected to the extent possible from unauthorized copying and distribution. Many companies protect software through the use of license agreements. In certain instances, locking mechanisms have been incorporated into software packages distributed to end users which prevent the making of copies of such software after the software is installed into a system. However, this type of approach has been found inconvenient to users since it does not allow users to make necessary copies (e.g. archival copies) to prevent interruptions in normal business operations. Others have employed encryption and decryption techniques to protect unauthorized copying. The overhead in performing such operations is substantial which reduces processing system efficiency.
Still others have utilized programmed algorithms to protect against unauthorized access. Such algorithms can be ascertained from an examination of the program's source code. Also, decompiler products are available on the market which can be used to extract the algorithms from the object code version of the program. Thus, it has become difficult to ensure the security of such algorithms in such cases. Further, the above approaches have been found to be costly to implement, complex or complicated to use or inconvenient to end users.
Accordingly, it is a primary object of the present invention to provide a mechanism for generating key values that cannot be easily counterfeited which control the use of software packages.
It is a further object to provide a mechanism whose documentation and source code can be distributed to end users without requiring extensive security measures.


A central vacuum system includes a motor-cooling airflow path that provides sufficient cooling for the motor and its drive components even though the cooling air is partially restricted by a downstream filter that captures airborne carbon dust emitted from the motor's commutator brushes. A divider system creates multiple chambers within the vacuum system's canister, and in some embodiments, air passageways in the canister and in the divider system direct the cooling air through the chambers in a flow pattern that avoids contaminating the drive components with carbon dust.

1. Field of the Invention
The subject invention generally pertains to central vacuum systems and more particularly to a motor-cooling airflow path for such a system.
2. Description of Related Art
Typical central vacuum systems comprise a blower or vacuum motor that creates a vacuum within a stationary canister. A network of tubing usually connects the canister to several wall-mounted inlet ports that are installed at various locations throughout a house or building. A flexible hose can connect a portable vacuum tool to any of the inlet ports, so the tool can be used for vacuuming a floor or other surface. The vacuum motor draws dust-laden air in series through the tool, through the hose, through the tubing network and into the canister where the dust collects. The canister can be manually opened to empty it periodically.
There are two main types of central vacuum system: cyclonic and filtered. With a cyclonic system, structure within the canister directs the dust-laden air to circulate in a vortex, which employs centrifugal force to help separate the heavier dust particles from the air. A chute directs the separated dust particles to the bottom of the canister where they accumulate for later disposal. The vacuum motor draws the lighter clean air out from within the center of the vortex and discharges the air to atmosphere. Some cyclonic vacuum systems also include a filter.
In comparison, a filtered system includes a main filter instead of the vortex-generating structure. The filter blocks the dust particles while allowing clean air to be discharged to atmosphere. If the filter is in the form of a bag, the dust collects in the bag. Otherwise, the dust may simply drop from the filter onto the bottom of the canister for later disposal.
Many vacuum cleaners direct air across its motor to help cool the motor. The cooling air, unfortunately, may entrain carbon dust from the motor's commutator brushes and deposit a carbon residue on the exterior of the machine. To avoid this problem, some vacuum cleaners have a separate filter to help keep the carbon dust inside the machine. Examples of vacuum cleaners with a filter for carbon dust are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,685,894 and 5,412,837. Although such filters help keep the machine clean, they also create an airflow restriction that may lead to overheating.
Consequently, there is a need for a vacuum cleaner having a cooling airflow pattern that is suitable for use with a carbon dust filter.

Central vacuum system with secondary airflow path


In a composite pane having a film laminate which adhesively connects two rigid panes to one another to form a pane assembly and comprises at least one colored adhesive film and at least one uncolored adhesive film which can be fused on during production of the pane assembly, according to the invention, at least one intermediate layer is provided between the two differently colored fused-on adhesive films and results in a uniform flattening of the mutually facing surfaces of the two adhesive films while being fused on. This results in the finished product being homogeneously colored when being looked through.

1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a composite pane having a film laminate with the features of the disclosed composite pane.
2. Description of the Background
Composite panes which are intended for installation in vehicle sliding and lifting roofs or else as rear side windows and windscreens for vehicles are known, which are composed essentially of two rigid panes of glass or plastic, and of adhesive films which adhesively connect these two rigid panes to one another. An adhesive film whose bulk is coloured is often used in order to absorb a portion of the light which passes through the composite pane when in the installed state. The acoustic behaviour (silencing) as well as the UV resistance of the final assembly are improved by combination with an uncoloured adhesive film which is clearly transparent in its own right in the final stages. For the latter purpose, the untoned adhesive film faces the incident light or solar radiation (located on the outside) when the composite pane is in the installed state. It absorbs the majority of the incident UV radiation, which could change the colour of the coloured adhesive film in the long term.
The two adhesive films are fused on virtually completely during the final connection of the layers for this composite pane in an autoclave process at about 130 to 150° C. The finished composite pane exhibits a clearly perceptible inhomogeneous cloudy colouring when it is looked through, however, so-called "orange skin". It has been found that the rough and wavy surfaces of the films on the boundary surface between the clear and the coloured adhesive film leads to non-uniform flow phenomena in the autoclave, and to thickness fluctuations, resulting from this, in the films, whose thickness was approximately uniform before being fused, to be precise, irrespective of whether the two films which had been laminated on to one another were originally of the same thickness, or of different thicknesses.
The roughness and corrugation of the film surfaces are on the one hand unavoidable during production, but on the other hand, they contribute to reliable venting of the initial assembly when a reduced pressure is applied. Air which is enclosed between the layers has to be removed, as is known, and in the process flows away through the channels formed by the surface structures.
Composite panes are also known in which a further thermoplastic film, generally composed of PET (polyethyleneterphthalate) is laminated in between two adhesive films in order to increase the thermal insulation, and is itself provided with a coating (which contains metal) which reflects infrared waves. A film composed of a PET-PMMA co-extrudate or co-laminate can also be used without any metal components for the same function (known by the product name 3M® SRF "solar reflecting film").
The problem of different colouring and mixing of the adhesive films does not, of course, occur with these film laminates—with adhesive films of the same colour.

Laminated glass sheet with a laminated film


Methods and systems for applying visual effects to active content, such as buttons, comboboxes, video, edit fields, etc., wherein interactivity of the active content are retained thereafter. Also, the present disclosure provides a mechanism for developers to build new visual effects and have them applied to active content.

Sometimes, application developers desire to implement user interfaces that contain unique elements that distinguish the user interface over other user interfaces and/or to enhance a user's experience when the user is working with the application via the user interface. One way in which a developer may want to customize a user interface is to create visual effects that occur to signal a user interface change or to modify an element of a user interface. However, current platforms do not support applying a visual effect on content that is used as part of a user interface.

Extensible visual effects on active content in user interfaces


Methods for the preparation of fluorenyl-type ligand structures and substituted fluorenyl groups which may be employed in metallocene-type olefin polymerization catalysts. There is provided a 2,2′-dihalogen-diphenylmethylene having a methylene bridge connecting a pair of phenyl groups. Each phenyl group has a halogen on a proximal carbon atom relative to the methylene bridge. The halogenated diphenylmethylene is reacted with a coupling agent comprising a Group 2 or 12 transition metal in the presence of a nickel or palladium-based catalyst to remove the halogen atoms from the phenyl groups and couple the phenyl groups at the proximal carbon atoms to produce a fluorene ligand structure. The coupling agent may be zinc, cadmium or magnesium and the catalyst may be a monophosphene nickel complex. The halogenated diphenylmethylene may be an unsubstituted ligand structure or a monosubstituted or disubstituted ligand structure. The halogenated diphenylmethylene may be monosubstituted with a tertiary butyl group or may be a dialkyl diphenylmethylene having alkyl substituents at the directly distal positions of the phenyl groups relative to the methylene bridge.

Fluorenyl based metallocene catalysts are effective catalysts in the polymerization, including homopolymerization or copolymerization of olefin polymers such as ethylene, propylene and higher olefins or other ethylenically unsaturated monomers.
Fluorenyl-type metallocenes are characteristically in the form of metallocene ligand structures characterized by bridged cyclopentadienyl and fluorenyl groups. An example is isopropylidene (cyclopentadienyl)(fluorenyl) zirconium dichloride. The cyclopentadienyl group or the fluorenyl group can be modified by the inclusion of substituent groups in the cyclopentadienyl ring or the fluorenyl group which modifies the structure of the catalyst and ultimately the characteristics of the polymers produced. Thus, olefin polymers such as polyethylene, polypropylene, which may be atactic or stereospecific such as isotactic or syndiotactic, and ethylene-higher alpha olefin copolymers such as ethylene propylene copolymers, can be produced under various polymerization conditions and employing various polymerization catalysts.
The metallocene catalyst based upon a bridged cyclopentadienylfluorenyl ligand structure can be produced by the reaction of 6,6-dimethyl fulvene, which may be substituted or unsubstituted, with a fluorene, which in turn may be substituted or unsubstituted, to produce the bridged isopropylidene cyclopentadienylfluorenyl ligand structure. This ligand is, in turn, reacted with a transition metal halide such as zirconium tetrachloride to produce the bridged zirconium dichloride.
Fluorenyl ligands may be characterized by the following numbering scheme for the fluorenyl ligand as indicated in Formula (1):
In this numbering scheme, 9 indicates the bridgehead carbon atom. The remaining carbon atoms available to accept substituents are indicated by numbers 1–4, one phenyl group of the ligand, and numbers 5–8 of the other phenyl group of the fluorenyl ligand.
Alpha olefin homopolymers or copolymers may be produced using metallocene catalysts under various conditions in polymerization reactors which may be batch type reactors or continuous reactors. Continuous polymerization reactors typically take the form of loop-type reactors in which the monomer stream is continuously introduced and a polymer product is continuously withdrawn. For example, polymers such as polypropylene, polyethylene or ethylene-propylene copolymers involve the introduction of the monomer stream into the continuous loop-type reactor along with an appropriate catalyst system to produce the desired olefin homopolymer or copolymer. The resulting polymer is withdrawn from the loop-type reactor in the form of a "fluff" which is then processed to produce the polymer as a raw material in particulate form as pellets or granules. In the case of C3+ alpha olefins, such as propylene, or substituted ethylenically unsaturated monomers such as styrene or vinyl chloride, the resulting polymer product may be characterized in terms of stereoregularity, for example, isotactic polypropylene or syndiotactic polypropylene.
The structure of isotactic polypropylene can be described as one having the methyl groups attached to the tertiary carbon atoms of successive monomeric units falling on the same side of a hypothetical plane through the main chain of the polymer, e.g., the methyl groups are all above or below the plane. Using the Fischer projection formula, the stereochemical sequence of isotactic polypropylene is described as follows:
In Formula (2), each vertical segment indicates a methyl group on the same side of the polymer backbone. Another way of describing the structure is through the use of NMR. Bovey's NMR nomenclature for an isotactic pentad as shown above is . . . mmmm . . . with each "m" representing a "meso" dyad, or successive pairs of methyl groups on the same said of the plane of the polymer chain. As is known in the art, any deviation or inversion in the structure of the chain lowers the degree of isotacticity and crystallinity of the polymer.
In contrast to the isotactic structure, syndiotactic propylene polymers are those in which the methyl groups attached to the tertiary carbon atoms of successive monomeric units in the chain lie on alternate sides of the plane of the polymer. Syndiotactic polypropylene using the Fisher projection formula can be indicated by racemic dyads with the syndiotactic pentad rrrr as shown by Formula (3):
In Formula (3), the vertical segments indicate methyl groups in the case of syndiotactic polypropylene, or other terminal groups, e.g. chloride, in the case of syndiotactic polyvinyl chloride, or phenyl groups in the case of syndiotactic polystyrene.
Other unsaturated hydrocarbons which can be polymerized or copolymerized with relatively short chain alpha olefins, such as ethylene and propylene include dienes, such as 1,3-butadiene or 1,4-hexadiene or acetylenically unsaturated compounds, such as methylacetylene.
Procedures for the synthesis of substituted fluorenes used to produce metallocene polymerization catalysts are influenced by specific features of the fluorene ligand. The direct electrophilic substitutions of fluorene occur predominantly at the 2- or 2,7-positions having the highest electron density. For example, 2,7-di-t-butylfluorene can be prepared from the reaction of fluorene with t-butyl chloride in the presence of AlCl3:
As another example, as disclosed in EP1138687, 3,6-di-t-butyl fluorene can be prepared by the reaction of 2,2′-diiodo-4,4′-di-t-butyldiphenylmethane with copper as shown in the following reaction:
This reaction, which occurs at a high temperature (230–250° C.), results in a mixture of products. When using this method, several purification steps are needed in order to obtain the pure 3,6-di-tert-butyl-fluorene.

Process for the preparation of substituted fluorenes


An image lift tunnel scanner uses extended depth of field cameras in order to view objects of various shapes and sizes on a conveyor system. The image lift tunnel scanner operates by passing a package first through a dimensioning device, such light curtain that determines the package""s height, width, length, orientation and position on the conveyor belt. A bottom scan camera takes a fixed focus image and requires only a trigger and length information from the light curtain. The length information determines the duration of the scan after the camera receives the trigger signal. A top scan camera also requires a trigger and the length information along with the height information so that it can set its focus. Each of two side cameras also receives trigger and length information. If the package is registered on the conveyor belt, the only additional information required is the package width and the package position on the conveyor belt so that the start and stop of the image scan can be calculated. A first side camera scans the front of the package as the package approaches the camera. The first side camera views the front side of the package at a 45 degree angle. After sweeping the front of the package, the scan line of the first side camera continues sweeping along the side of the package, again at a 45 degree angle, but shifted 90 degrees relative to the angle at which the front side of the package was scanned. A second camera views the back and the other side of the package.

This invention relates generally to the conveying and sorting art and, more particularly, to the imaging of all sides of an object on a conveyor belt as the object passes by a camera for further processing of the object, such as reading an address label.
Machine vision can replace human vision for a variety of tasks such as inspection and target tracking and can do a better job than human vision when precise information must be quickly and/or repetitively extracted from an image. An example of a task where machine vision inspection is needed is package handling for a package delivery service. A delivery service such as the U.S. Postal Service typically handles millions of items each year. Package handling requires some automation, such as using machine vision to read addresses, a necessity in order to deliver all the items to their proper destinations quickly.
Machine vision inspection of moving objects can be accomplished using a line scan camera. A line scan camera has a linear array of photosensors and can generate a two-dimensional image of an object as the object moves past the camera.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,249,035 discloses a method of measuring three dimensional shape objects using multiple cameras to gather images.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,543,103 discloses a process of surface shaping by creating a three dimensional depiction of an object and then incorporating a selected portion as an integral part of a wall surface.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,852,672 discloses an image system for three dimensional, 360 degree, time sequence surface mapping of moving objects.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,877,963 discloses an intelligent document recognition and handling arrangement for analyzing an image and comparing it to a data base of previously acquired images.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,864,640 discloses a method and apparatus for optically scanning three dimensional objects using color information in trackable patches and is concerned with using color information from a series of two dimensional color images to derive a three dimensional location in space of the surface points which produced the color images.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,838,573 discloses a process and apparatus for spotting labels using a camera for each side of an object and the images are used for the determination of the coordinates so that wraps on one conveyor may be mated with the containers which are located on another conveyor.
One problem presented in automatic inspection systems is the inability to image all sides of a package on a conveyor belt as the package passes by a camera. The top and bottom of the package can be imaged using current technology. The two sides of the package parallel to the direction of travel may also be imaged using current technology if the package is oriented squarely on the conveyor belt. Using a line scan camera, however, which is the economical method of imaging moving objects on a conveyor system, it is very difficult to obtain a high quality of image of those sides of the package that change their distance from the camera as the package passes through the camera viewing area. In the case of a package that is registered squarely on the conveyor belt, the leading and trailing sides would significantly change focal distance of the camera""s scan line as it sweeps across the surface. It is even more difficult with an unregistered (i.e. skewed) package because none of the four vertical sides of the package maintain a constant focal distance as the package passes by the camera.
A device that is currently used in industry is a bar code reader tunnel scanner. This device will read bar codes on any side of a package on a conveyor belt as the package passes by the camera. A bar code reader, however, only examines the pulse stream of a reflected laser beam and looks for the specific pulse pattern produced when the beam sweeps over a bar code. It is not possible to use this information to build an image of the surface being viewed that is of adequate quality for an optical character recognition (OCR) process.
The shortcomings of current imaging technology require either a manual operation that orients the package so that the camera views the side of interest, or a complicated mechanism that reorients the package until all the sides have been scanned. The manual operation is slow and has variable reliability and added expense of human intervention. The reorientation mechanism is a more consistent capital expense than the manual operation, but is complicated due to the range of size, weight, shape and texture of the packages in the mail stream, which it must be capable processing.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a way of imaging all sides of the package quickly and accurately.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a method and system capable of acquiring images from all visible exterior surfaces of an object, for example, in a machine vision inspection operation.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a method and system which is capable of incorporating therein extended depth of field technology during machine vision inspection.
These objects as well as others objects and advantages of the present invention are achieved by the embodiments of the invention.
The present invention uses cameras with extended depths of field to view objects angularly so that at least two sides of a six sided box, for example, can be viewed by a single camera, and in some cases three sides may be scanned by a single camera. For example, the top and a side may be scanned simultaneously with the near and far portions of each surface remaining in focus. In this case the camera scans a line from the bottom of a side to the top of the side and then bends over onto the top of the box and extends to the far edge on the top of the box.
Typically there are scan of 200 of these lines for every inch that the box moves past the camera on the conveyer. The result of placing these scanned lines side by side is an image of two sides of the box with every portion of each surface being in focus. Alternatively the front and then the side would be scanned with vertical scan lines as the box moved past the camera. Thus, xe2x80x9ctunnel scanningxe2x80x9d may be used to collect images for various purposes, such as, for an OCR system. A conventional camera would have to continually change focus, as the parcel passes the camera on a conveyor in order to capture an image of the front of the box as it approached or of the back of the box as it moved away from the camera. If the box is not aligned to the camera""s line of sight, then even refocusing would not allow the entire scan line to be in focus.
The tunnel scanning system, using the extended depth of field technology can provide images of all six sides of a box on a conveyor passing a camera with as few as two line scanning cameras, each collecting images of three sides of the box.
An extended depth of field imaging system is used in an image lift tunnel scanner capable of simultaneously focusing on objects of different heights. A typical optical system, in inspection applications, has a limited depth of focus of about +/xe2x88x921 inch, and must adjust its focus to view objects of more widely varying heights separately. The extended depth of field imaging system is capable of simultaneously viewing packages that have as much as a 30 inch height differential. The application places a camera above the conveyor belt, where the camera scans a mixed stream of non-singulated packages. Short and tall packages that are side by side are scanned with the same focal quality.
The image lift tunnel scanner operates by passing a package first through a dimensioning device, such as light curtain, that determines the package""s height, width, length, orientation and position on the conveyor belt. A bottom scan camera takes a fixed focus image and requires only a trigger and length information from the light curtain. The length information determines the duration of the scan after the camera receives the trigger signal. A top scan camera also requires a trigger and the length information along with the height information so that it can set its focus. Each of two side cameras also receives trigger and length information. If the package is registered on the conveyor belt, the only additional information required is the package width and the package position on the conveyor belt so that the start and stop of the image scan can be calculated. A first side camera scans the front of the package as the package approaches the camera. The first side camera views the front side of the package at a 45 degree angle. After sweeping the front of the package, the scan line of the first side camera continues sweeping along the side of the package, again at a 45 degree angle, but shifted 90 degrees relative to the angle at which the front side of the package was scanned. Due to the extended depth of focus capability, the system has only to track the start and stop times of the scan. The task of tracking the surface in real time and refocusing the system is not necessary. The second camera scans the side of the package and the back of the package as the package moves along the conveyor belt.
In a second mode of the invention, the package is unregistered (skewed) on the conveyor belt. The unregistered package configuration uses an additional mirror element for each side viewing camera. The mirror is servo controlled and moves based upon the package orientation information received from the light curtain system. The servo mirror system maintains a 45 degree incident scanning angle for each side camera regardless of the package orientation. Each side camera is capable of scanning the front and then a first side of a package or a second side of the package and then the back of the package. The control system must ensure that the two side cameras do not duplicate the scanning of one side while omitting the scan of the opposite side.
Additionally, there is an optimal orientation range for each side camera. Only the sides of the package that are angled towards the side of the belt where the camera is located are viewed by that camera. This is due to the fact that the viewing distance increases significantly when the required 45 degree angle is maintained as the side increases in angle away from the camera. A registered package is considered to have its front side at 90 degrees relative to the side of the conveyor and the right side at 0 degrees relative to the side of the conveyor. Only packages with the front side orientations from 45 degrees will have the front side imaged by the camera on the first side. Otherwise, when the front side is oriented at more than 45 degrees, the camera on the second side will capture the front side image and the first camera will captures the back side image of the package.
The extended depth of field creates a tunnel scanning system that is more robust than the dynamic focus system of the prior system. Moreover, there are no moving parts in the focusing mechanism, that are no timing dependencies which could affect image quality and the system is capable of scanning irregular surfaces.
The present invention together with the above and other advantages may best be understood from the following detailed description of the embodiments of the invention illustrated in the drawings.

Image life tunnel scanner inspection system using extended depth of field technology


A method for multivariate adulteration detection on an edible oil includes (1) construction of a model: S1, acquiring near-infrared spectra of edible oils; S2, establishing a near-infrared spectral database of the edible oils; S3, establishing a multivariate adulteration detection model for a type of edible oil; and (2) application of the model: acquiring spectra of a sample to be tested according to the near-infrared spectral signal acquisition method in step S1, preprocessing the obtained near-infrared spectra by using the method in step S2 to obtain near-infrared spectral data of the sample, and determining the authenticity of the sample to be tested by using the multivariate adulteration detection model for the edible oil established in step S3. The method is simple and rapid in operation, can effectively and rapidly screen the authenticity of an edible vegetable oil, and has strong practicability.

The background description provided herein is for the purpose of generally presenting the context of the present invention. The subject matter discussed in the background of the invention section should not be assumed to be prior art merely as a result of its mention in the background of the invention section. Similarly, a problem mentioned in the background of the invention section or associated with the subject matter of the background of the invention section should not be assumed to have been previously recognized in the prior art. The subject matter in the background of the invention section merely represents different approaches, which in and of themselves may also be inventions.
Edible oils are important food, providing energy, essential fatty acids, and rich nutrient and functional ingredients such as phytosterols, vitamin E, phenols and lignans for human beings. Linseed oil, olive oil and peanut oil are favored by consumers because of their high nutritional and medicinal values as a kind of high-grade edible vegetable oil, and their market selling prices are often higher than those of ordinary edible oils. Due to the prevalence of edible oil adulteration driven by financial interests, the issue of authentication of edible vegetable oils has become a difficult issue highly concerned by consumers and industry. Therefore, it is of great significance to establish an effective method for detecting authentication of edible oil.
The existing national or industrial standards for edible vegetable oils provide various quality indicators that need to be met by edible vegetable oils, and clearly provide that edible vegetable oils should not be blended with other edible oils and non-edible oils, should not be added with flavors or fragrances, and should be marked with processing methods, corresponding quality grades and countries of production of raw materials. The characteristic indicators provided in the standards, such as refractive index, relative density, iodine value, saponification value, and low characteristics of unsaponifiable matters, are greatly affected by variety, and processing and storage time, while for the fatty acid composition, only the relative content range of each fatty acid instead of a characteristic composition is provided, so adulterated edible vegetable oils cannot be effectively distinguished from authentic ones. Thus, it is necessary to establish a rapid, simple and non-destructive authentication technology for edible vegetable oils.
At present, the rapid identification methods for the authenticity of edible vegetable oils include Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, near infrared spectroscopy, electronic noses, electronic tongues, nuclear magnetic resonance, etc., which are rapid, simple and non-destructive.
However, all of the above methods need to be combined with a chemometric method to establish an edible oil authenticity identification model for determining unknown samples. In the modeling process of the conventional chemometric method, a sufficient amount of edible vegetable oil and edible vegetable oil samples correspondingly blended with cheap oils or fats are required. However, since it is very hard to determine the types and numbers of adulterants in edible oils, more than one kind of cheaper oils were adulterated into expensive edible oil to mask existing adulteration detection methods. The number of combinatorial adulterations of different proportions of several cheap oils can circumvent detection. Considering the cost and operability, the conventional methods often only enable effective identification on one or two known cheap fats added to the edible vegetable oil. Obviously, these technologies have great limitations. Unscrupulous traders can avoid the above technology by simultaneously adding two or more cheap fats or directly adding mixed fats (such as recycled cooking oil). Therefore, a multivariate adulteration detection technology for edible vegetable oils is urgently required to be developed.

Method for detecting multivariate adulteration of edible oil based on near-infrared spectroscopy

OIL CROPS RESEARCH INSTITUTE, CHINESE ACADAMY OF AGRICULTURAL SCIENCES


A method for magnetic resonance (MR) imaging or spectroscopy on a MR scanner to detect tissue physiological parameters in one or more tissue areas in a human or non-human subject includes administering to the subject a contrast enhancing physiologically tolerable amount of a sugar that is non-labeled, subjecting the subject to an MR procedure capable of generating MR signals encoding at least one tissue area in the subject in which the sugar either passes or is taken up, detecting a temporal variation in the MR signals in the at least one tissue area after the administering the sugar, determining at least one tissue-related parameter from the temporal variation, and ascertaining whether the at least one tissue-related parameter is abnormal.

1. Field of Invention
This patent application relates to methods for magnetic resonance imaging and spectroscopy, and more specifically relates to magnetic resonance (MR) methods for assessing tissue metabolism and perfusion using injection of non-toxic and non-labeled substances
2. Discussion of Related Art
Increased glucose uptake is a well-accepted marker of tumor aggression. In general, tumors tend to have higher glucose utilization and uptake than normal tissue. Following malignancy, glucose uptake in tumors increases dramatically. Glucose uptake, as a biomarker, can be measured by Fluorodeoxyglucose Positron Emission Tomography (18FDG-PET), which has become the radiological modality of choice for detecting tumor malignancy. For example, FDG-PET has been proven suitable for detecting and staging primary breast carcinomas and for monitoring response to chemotherapy, as well as many other cancers. However, 18FDG is a radioactive substance with a half-life of 110 minutes, thus requiring a fresh supply. The use of radioactivity limits repeated frequent use in the same person. In addition PET has low spatial resolution compared to CT and MRI and negligible inherent tissue contrast, leading to the need for anatomical co-registration using CT or MRI.
Other important biomarkers of malignancy include increased permeability of the vascular bed and increased microvessel density, which can be assessed using dynamic contrast-enhanced MRI (DCE-MRI). So far, DCE-MRI has been used to determine tumor grade, extent of disease, and treatment response. For example, recent multi-center results from the International Breast MR Consortium trial concluded that the combined use of architectural (shape) and dynamic contrast features increased specificity for breast MRI. DCE-MRI has been used clinically to image tumor perfusion parameters such as vascular volume and permeability from kinetic modeling of the DCE signal intensity curve as a function of time after bolus injection. However, DCE-MRI relies on the injection of paramagnetic agents such as Gadolinium-DiethyleneTriaminePentaacetic Acid (GdDTPA) that affect relaxation contrast. Such agents have recently been criticized for safety issues in persons with kidney disease (Thomsen, H. S. Nephrogenic systemic fibrosis: A serious late adverse reaction to gadodiamide. Eur Radiol 16, 2619-2621, (2006)).
Thus, there is a need in the art for a methodology to measure abnormalities in tissue metabolism, tissue perfusion and tissue pH that does not use potentially toxic or radioactive exogenous agents and yet is capable of generating sufficient contrast to probe such metabolic and vascular and chemical properties of tissue. This would be especially important for studying tumor malignancy and for monitoring the effects of cancer treatment. If developed, this methodology may reduce false-positive detection rates for cancer by functioning as an add-on for current high-volume screening approaches and to improve treatment monitoring. Another application is for assessing cardiovascular disease, where changes in tissue perfusion parameters and pH may occur during ischemia.

Use of non-labeled sugars and detection by MRI for assessing tissue perfusion and metabolism


The present disclosure relates to a location determination system that includes acoustic transmitting devices (104), location tags (112), and a wireless mesh network (106), where the wireless mesh network uses battery-powered devices. A location tag receives acoustic signals (e.g., ultrasound signals) from an acoustic transmitting device. Clocks from members of the wireless mesh network are synchronized by observation of clock pairings, each clock pair formed by respective clocks in a transmitting device that transmits a message and a receiving device that receives the message. By analyzing the observed clock pairings, a best fit between the clock pairings may be determined. After selecting a reference clock, an acoustic transmission schedule may be propagated to the respective acoustic transmitting device.

Modern businesses and organizations face a common challenge in tracking the location of important resources in a building or campus environment. Such resources include key personnel, critical pieces of equipment, vital records, or other useful devices. These resources often relocate throughout the day according to organizational needs, and locating these important resources can prove difficult and time consuming. In order to avoid the inherent productivity loss in devoting time and energy towards manually locating these resources, it is desirable to develop an approach that tracks, catalogues, and reports the location of these important resources in real-time.

Location determination system having mesh infrastructure to reduce power consumption


An organic, positive-charging photoconductor for laser printers is disclosed. The photoconductor has a conductive substrate, a hydroxy-containing binder which forms a layer greater than or equal to about 1 micron thick on the substrate, a phthalocyanine pigment uniformly distributed throughout said binder, and a reactive stabilizer containing silicon, also uniformly distributed throughout said binder. The silicon-containing stabilizer reacts with the hydroxy group in the binder, the effect of which is to improve the electrical stability of the photoconductor in the severe laser printing electrophotographic environment, and to improve surface release characteristics of the photoconductor for more efficient toner image transfer.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to image transfer technology and more specifically to electrophotography. The invention is a positive charging, organic photoconductor material with superior surface release characteristics for dry and liquid toner electrophotography.
2. Related Art
In electrophotography, a latent image is created on the surface of an insulating, photoconducting material by selectively exposing areas of the surface to light. A difference in electrostatic charge density is created between the areas on the surface exposed and unexposed to light. The visible image is developed by electrostatic toners containing pigment components and thermoplastic components. The toners are selectively attracted to the photoconductor surface either exposed or unexposed to light, depending on the relative electrostatic charges of the photoconductor surface, development electrode and the toner. The photoconductor may be either positively or negatively charged, and the toner system similarly may contain negatively or positively charged particles. For laser printers, the preferred embodiment is that the photoconductor and toner have the same polarity, but different levels of charge.
A sheet of paper or intermediate transfer medium is given an electrostatic charge opposite that of the toner and passed close to the photoconductor surface, pulling the toner from the photoconductor surface onto the paper or intermediate medium still in the pattern of the image developed from the photoconductor surface. A set of fuser rollers melts and fixes the toner in the paper, subsequent to direct transfer, or indirect transfer when using an intermediate transfer medium, producing the printed image.
There is a demand in the laser printer industry for multi-colored images. Responding to this demand, designers have turned to liquid toners, with pigment components and thermoplastic components dispersed in a liquid carrier medium, usually special hydrocarbon liquids. With liquid toners, it has been discovered, the basic printing colors --yellow, magenta, cyan and black, may be applied sequentially to a photoconductor surface, and from there to a sheet of paper or intermediate medium to produce a multicolored image.
The important photoconductor surface, therefore, has been the subject of much research and development in the electrophotography art. A large number of photoconductor materials have been disclosed as being suitable for the electrophotographic photoconductor surface. For example, inorganic compounds such as amorphous silica (SiO.sub.2), arsenic selenite (As.sub.2 Se.sub.3), cadmium sulfide (CdS), selenium (Se), titanium oxide (TiO.sub.2) and zinc oxide (ZnO) function as photoconductors. However, these inorganic materials do not satisfy modern requirements in the electro-photography art of low production costs, high-speed response to laser diode or other light-emitting-diode (LED) and safety from non-toxicity.
Therefore, recent progress in the electrophotoqraphy art with the photoconductor surface has been made with organic materials as organic photoconductors (OPC). Typically, the OPC's in the current market are of the negative charging type with a thin charge generation material layer beneath a thicker charge transport material layer deposited on top of the charge generation layer. The negative charging OPC's perform well for xerographic copiers and printers in the following applications:
a. Low end (4-10 copies per minute) and high end (more than 50 copies per minute) xerographic systems using dry powder developers of one or two colors, or using liquid developers for black and white copies only; and,
b. High image quality (above 1800 DPI) color proofing, lithographic plate printing and master xero-printing systems with life expectancies of less than 100 cycles.
However, prior art negative charging OPC's also have several drawbacks, namely:
1. Large amounts of ozone are generated in the negative corona charging process, creating environmental concerns. This problem has been addressed by installing ozone absorbers like activated carbon filters, and by using contact negative charging instead of corona charging. These ozone remediation approaches, however, have drawbacks of their own and are not attractive commercial solutions.
2. Negative corona charging generally results in less charge pattern uniformity compared to positive corona charging. Lower charge pattern uniformity in turn results in more noise and less definition in the final image.
3. In small particle toner processes, including fine dry powder and liquid toner processes, designers have been able to develop more charge stability in positively charged toners than in negatively charged toners. Therefore, positive charging OPC's are preferred for a discharged area developed image as in laser printers.
Specific morphologies of phthalocyanine pigment powder have been known to exhibit excellent photoconductivity. These phthalocyanine pigments have been used as a mixture in polymeric binder matrices in electrophotographic photoconductors, deposited on a conductive substrate. In these phthalocyanine/binder photoconductors, the photo-generation of charge and the charge transport occur in the particles of the phthalocyanine pigment while the binder is inert. Therefore, the photoconductor may be made of a single layer of phthalocyanine/binder. These single-layer photoconductors are known to be very good positive charging OPC's due to the hole (positive charge) transportability of the phthalocyanine pigment.
In these single-layer photoconductors, then, there is no need to add charge transport molecules, nor to have a separate charge transport layer. The phthalocyanine pigment content may be in the range of about 10-30 wt. %, high enough to perform both charge generation and charge transport functions, with the binder content being in the range of about 90-70 wt. %. The single photoconductor layer is usually more than about 3 microns (um) thick in order to achieve the required charge acceptance and resulting image contrast.
Also, it is known to use phthalocyanine pigment as a charge generation component in a multi-layer photoconductor. Today, the commercially available OPC for digital electrophotography, wherein the writing head is LED array or laser diode, uses such a multi-layer photoconductor. The charge generation layer containing the phthalocyanine pigment is usually less than 1 micron (um) thick. A charge transport layer about 20-30 microns (um) thick and containing transport molecules other than the phthalocyanine pigment, is overcoated on top of the charge generation layer.
These types of multi-layer OPC's, however, are only used as negative charging ones, so they have all the drawbacks of negative charging OPC's discussed above. So, there remains a strong incentive for the development of a phthalocyanine pigment positive charging OPC.
One response by the industry to this incentive has been to investigate a positive-charging, multi-layer OPC with an electron transport molecule in the upper layer which must be an electron acceptor molecule and an electron transporter molecule under the application of a positive electric field. See, for example, the disclosure of U.S. Pat. No. 4,559,287 (McAneney, et al.). These types of OPC's use derivatives of fluorenylidene methane, for example, as the electron acceptor and transport molecule. These types of molecules, however, exhibit poor solubility, resulting in recrystallization in the OPC forming mixture during coating, poor compatibility with popular binders, and poor reaction yield resulting in high production costs. Also, these types of molecules tend to be highly carcinogenic, resulting in safety risks to workers and users and therefore, low market receptivity.
Also, U.S. Pat. No. 5,087,540 (Murakami et al.) discloses a positive charging, single-layer photoconductor for electrophotography which has X-type and/or T-type phthalocyanine compound dispersed partly in a molecular state and partly in a particulate state in a binder resin. To make the dispersion, the phthalocyanine compound is agitated in a solvent with the binder resin for from several hours to several days. This approach, therefore, has manufacturing drawbacks.
Another response by the industry to the incentive for the development of a phthalocyanine type positive charging OPC has been to investigate a multi-layer OPC wherein the relative positions of the charge generation and transport layers are reversed. See, for example, the disclosure of U.S. Pat. No. 4,891,288 (Fujimaki et al.). These types of OPC's, however, require a protective overcoat to avoid mechanical damage to the OPC because the upper pigment-containing layer is very vulnerable to the development component, the transfer medium component and the cleaning component in the electrophotographic system. These overcoat layers have problems of their own, increasing the residual voltage of the photoconductor and increasing its electrical instability. See, for example, the disclosures of U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,923,775 (Schank) and 5,069,993 (Robinette, et al.).
Therefore, it is an object of this invention to provide a phthalocyanine type positive-charging OPC which exhibits stable electrical properties, including charge acceptance, dark decay and photodischarge, in a high cycle, high severity electrophotographic process. Modern digital imaging systems wherein the writing head is LED array or laser diode, have very high light intensities (about 100 ergs/cm.sup.2) over very short exposure time spans (less than 50 nano seconds), resulting in severe conditions for the OPC compared to optical input copiers with light intensities between about 10-30 ergs/cm.sup.2 and exposure times between about several hundred micro-seconds to mili-seconds.
Unfortunately, there is no product on the market today which provides such stable electrical properties. This is because the phthalocyanine type positive-charging OPC exhibits instability when it is frequently exposed to the corona charger and the intense light source in the electrophotographic process. I have discovered this instability to be more pronounced at the strong absorption, high light intensity, short exposure time conditions required for the laser printing process. The instability is exhibited in the significant increase of the dark decay after a small number of repeat cycles of laser printing. Also, the instability is exhibited in the decrease in surface potential. These instabilities cause deleterious changes in image contrast, and raise the issue of the reliability of image quality.
Also, I have discovered that these instabilities in the phthalocyanine/binder photoconductor seem to be independent of the chemical structure or morphology of the pigment. Instead, they appear to be dependent on the nature of the contact between individual pigment particles. These observations of mine have been made only recently, and there is no report or suggestion in the prior art about how to effectively address and solve the problem of photoconductor instability in the high cycle, high severity electrophotographic process.
Preferably, desirable electrophotographic performance may be defined as high charge acceptance of about 30-100 V/um.sup.2, low dark decay of less than about 5 V/sec., and photodischarge of at least 70% of surface charge with the laser diode beam of 780 nm or 830 nm frequency, through the optical system including beam scanner and focus lenses, synchronized at 0.05 micro seconds for each beam.
When conventional binders for the phthalocyanine pigment, such as acrylic resins, phenoxy resins, vinyl polymers including polyvinylacetate and polyvinyl butyryl, polystyrene, polyesters, polyamides, polyimides, polycarbonates, methylmethacrylates, polyurethanes, polyureas, melamine resins, polysulfones, polyarylates, diallylphthalate resins, polyethylenes and halogenated polymers, including polyvinylchloride, polyfluorocarbon, etc., are used, acceptable charge acceptance and photodischarge are obtained, provided a good dispersion of the pigment in the binder is obtained. However, among these polymers which result in good performance for charge acceptance and photodischarge, none of them exhibit the desirable stability under the LED array or laser diode exposure conditions. Also, any binders, and accompanying solvents, which do not form a stable dispersion with the phthalocyanine pigment usually exhibit very slow charge acceptance, high residual voltage, or high dark decay, and are therefore unacceptable.
Another important object of the present invention is to provide a positive-charging OPC having superior surface release characteristics. In the context of this invention, superior surface release characteristics means that the photoconductor surface has low adhesion which permits easier transfer of the toner particles image off the photoconductor surface onto the plain paper or intermediate transfer medium. The current electrophotography requires the plain paper as the final medium for the image, i.e. the toner image on the photoreceptor must be well transferred to the plain paper by known arts such as electrostatic charge or non-electrostatic thermally assisted transfer. The high transfer efficiency toning systems have the benefit of high image density on the plain paper, with the high image quality being due to a completely transferred image which results in reduced efforts for cleaning the photoreceptor surface. The requirement of superior surface release characteristics also is crucial for high speed printing systems, especially for small particle developers such as dry microtoner (particle size less than 5um) and liquid toner (particle size in the submicron range).
In the last decade, there have been a lot of efforts to enhance image transfer efficiency in the electrophotographic systems, such as release surface coated toner, intermediate transfer concepts and systems and temporary release coating on the surface of the photoconductor.
Even so, the image transfer problems have not been completely solved as the above-proposed solutions give rise to other problems. For example, higher cost and reduced printing speed are encountered with the intermediate transfer approach. Also, the release surface coated toner technologies encounter the difficulty of controlling particle size and poor fusing effect as the release coating materials are highly crosslinking polymers. Also, the temporary release coating of the photoreceptor approach is not a suitable one from the service-free perspective.
The photoconductor of this invention aims at a solution for a permanent, reusable organic photoconductor having superior surface release characteristics, and therefore, high efficiency toner particle transfer. This approach is found to be very effective in the simplification of the plain paper imaging process at low cost.

Reusable, positive-charging organic photoconductor containing phthalocyanine pigment, hydroxy binder and silicon stabilizer


A microencapsulated composition containing lipophilic compounds is prepared by reducing the particle size of the lipophilic compound in the presence of a surface active agent to form a first solution; preparing a solution of alkali metal alginate to form a second solution; combining the first and second solutions to form a third solution; adding the third solution dropwise to a fourth solution containing calcium ion, obtaining beadlets, and removing the formed beadlets from the fourth solution; rinsing the beadlets with an acidic solution and drying the beadlets; and coating the beadlets to obtain microcapsules.

Processes for encapsulating oils and oil soluble substances are well known in the art.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,389,419, for example, which is incorporated herein by reference, relates to a process for encapsulating oils and oil-soluble substances in multi-compartmentalized, mechanically stable microcapsules. The process comprises the steps of first forming an emulsion consisting of a continuous phase comprising an aqueous solution of an alkali metal alginate and optionally a water-soluble, alcohol-insoluble filler such as a polysaccharide, and a dispersed phase of an oleophilic substance such as one or more vitamins dissolved in an oil. The emulsion is then formed into droplets which are thereafter immersed in an alcoholic solution of multivalent cations, to produce a shape-retaining alginate matrix filled with precipitated polysaccharide and enclosing plural oil droplets. The vitamins are thereby protected from oxidative degradation and can be handled like conventional crystalline solids.
Algin is a polysaccharide found in brown algae. Alginates and their derivatives have become significantly important hydrocolloids and are applied in a wide variety of industrial fields.
Algin is a polysaccharide that contains β-(1→4)-D-mannuroic acid of structure I: and α-(1→4)-L-guluronic acid of the structure II:
Algin is a heterogeneous polymer consisting of the following three types of molecular blocks:    i) M-block, consisting of only M—M linking;    ii) G-block, consisting of only G—G linking; and    iii) Random block, M and G randomly linked.
Calcium alginate gel beads are used to entrap a wide variety of substances. The entrapment with calcium alginate is particularly favored because of the mild conditions employed add the nontoxicity of the reactants. Typically, the procedure simply involves dropping a 1-2% solution of sodium alginate into a 1-2% solution of calcium chloride. The alginate solution may be pumped through a small orifice, such as a needle, or rotating plate or vibrating droplets feeder and allowed to free-fall, producing a spherical bead, which gels upon contact with the calcium source. The beads then remain in the calcium bath until hardened.
Islets of Langerhans, the cells producing the insulin in the pancreas, may be entrapped in an alginate polycation microcapsule to allow small molecules such as glucose and other nutrients to diffuse freely, while preventing the passage of large molecules and cells. Physico-chemical properties of the microcapsules, such as shape, size and permeability, can be controlled (Goosen et al., Applied Biotechnology and Bioengineering, 10, 87-98, 1984).
According to U.S. Pat. No. 4,389,419, ". . . the amount of oil used may range broadly between 1% and close to 30%. However, at the higher end of the range, the stability of the oil-in-water emulsion is decreased, and the quality of the microcapsule is reduced." (column 3 lies 5-9).
BASF Health and Nutrition publication dated October 1997 reports a process for microencapsulation using gelatin. In this report, the mean particle size of the final product is approx. 250μ and the concentration of the active ingredient is up to 50%. However, the BASF process involves the use of gelatin, which is an undesirable limitation. Gelatin is purified mainly from pigs and cows which are susceptible to The Mad Cow disease and the Foot and Mouth disease.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,146,671 discloses a method for protecting a heat and/or oxygen-labile compound by encapsulation in a protective matrix of alginate and an additional polymeric material, which provides a single layer coating system. U.S. Pat. No. 6,146,671 further suggests the use of gelatin as a preferred protective polymer. Recently, the market is looking for materials which are not derived from animals which are susceptible to Mad Cow Disease.
In view of the above, the need for a stable, GMO-free, vegetable source alginate microcapsule having a high lipophilic compound content, small particle size with improved bioavailability, remains.
It is therefore the objective of the present invention to provide a microencapsulated formulation of lipophilic compounds which contains a relatively high lipophilic compound content with improved bioavailability and stability.