A dielectric resonator antenna includes a dielectric resonator element, a ground plane, and a conductive feeding arrangement. The ground plane is connected with the dielectric resonator element, and is operable to generate a first electromagnetic radiation. The conductive feeding arrangement is operable to generate a second electromagnetic radiation. During operation, simultaneous generation of the first electromagnetic radiation and the second electromagnetic radiation provides a unilateral electromagnetic radiation.

Laterally radiating antenna can direct radiation in the desired lateral direction and suppress radiation in the opposite direction. With relatively low backward radiation, laterally radiating antenna can desirably reduce power waste and diminish interference with other devices. Therefore, laterally radiating antennas are desirable for applications where the communication object or required coverage range is beside the antenna, such as cordless phones and Wi-Fi routers that are placed in front of a wall.
Problematically, however, existing laterally radiating antenna structures for unilateral radiation have complex designs, and so are rather bulky and difficult to make. There is a need to provide an improved laterally radiating antenna that is particularly adapted for use in modern wireless communication systems.


A photocatalytic reactor with a modular configuration, based on UV light sources and a catalyst, useful for purifying and disinfecting wastewater from confined aquaculture, using Advanced Oxidation Processes (AOP), wherein the catalyst is supported over glass sheets as fixed strips within the reactor, at an established distance from the UV light source, and wherein the wastewater is treated as “batches” being re-circulated and returned to the circuit. The wastewater is fed through the lower end of the reactor and submitted to a strong turbulence when passing through perforations or holes made on the supports forming the floors that separate the reaction chambers.

The present invention is related with a photocatalytic reactor based on UV light sources and a supported titanium dioxide (TiO2) based catalyst, and gas ozone for producing hydroxyl radicals, useful for purifying wastewater from confined aquaculture systems, mediated by an advanced oxidative process. The photocatalytic reactor uses a substrate comprising a supported catalyst, which allows the removal of ammonium, nitrite, as well as the removal of water soluble organic matter and water disinfection, it also refers to the method for using and the operation of the same.
A variety of treatments or methods for purifying water, for removing nitrogenous compounds, and for removing the dissolved organic matter, specifically in waste water from the culturing of hydrobiologic species, are known in the prior art, said methods comply independently or in combination of their functions. Among the better known of said methods are composed of the biologic filter purification water system, the foam fractionator's purification water system, the activated charcoal purification water system, the ozonification purification water system, the UV light purification water system, etc.
The following corresponds to a brief description of the above mentioned methods, which are used for wastewater purification, specifically waste water from fish farming.
Biologic Filter Purification Water System:
This system corresponds to an equipment and supplies set, which can have diverse configurations, including from simple gravel filter through complex filtration systems. The most used configuration on intensive aquaculture, is based on the use of nitrifying bacteria, which are duly supported over a specific substrate. Different dimensions and configurations from the bed and/or rotatory types can be found in this system. The system's main features are that the bacteria-supporting medium must allow the growth of microorganisms; that a rigid operation design, i.e. for an established configuration, standard operation variables, are required; and that the system sizing depends on many different variables, such as: dissolved oxygen amount, dissolved and suspended organic material concentration, the density of the hydrobiological specie culture, the biofilter entry and exit flux, the pH value, the dissolved oxygen and ammonia concentration, the water renewal rate, among others. Also, a permanent and continuous flux of the waste water to be treated, is required.
Foam Fractionator Purification Water System:
This system corresponds to a device, using air injection through a diffuser, wherein the air is admixed with the waste water. The oxygen from air oxides and coagulates part of the dissolved organic material, thus forming foam with the organic matter, which subsequently is removed. It is a simple equipment, usually it will be formed by a PVC pipe which, when a pressed air flux entry occurs, it produces turbulence and bubbles, which contact the dissolved organic matter dissolved of the waste water, producing a foam. The main features of this system are that it can have different configurations and designs; and that the system sizing is related, among others, to the inlet air flux, the size of the forming bubble (a mean bubbling caliber of 250 to 350 nm, is recommended), the kind of gas to be used (air, from oxygen to ozone), the air application way, the gas and water flux.
Activated Charcoal Purification Water System:
This system corresponds to a device, which contains a burned plant material bed, having a microcrystalline structure, similar to the graphite one. It is a simple equipment, usually comprising a strong plastic external structure, as a container, wherein the inner part of the container contains the activated charcoal. The waste water to be treated is passed by inside the container, in order to contact with the activated charcoal. The main features of this system are: that it can have different configurations and designs; that the design, depends on the material to be used for manufacturing the activated charcoal, (which finally affects activated charcoal porosity and granulometry); and that the design is established by the required specific surface of the activated charcoal.
Ozonization Purification Water System:
This system consists of a method of using an electrochemical reaction for producing triatomic oxygen molecules, which are formed by the an oxygen molecule excitation, through a high voltage discharge. In an Ozone generator (O3), through the interaction of air with a high voltage field. The system may exhibit different dimensions and configurations. The ozone amount produced is directly related with the generation and the electric discharge ability within the reaction chamber.
UV Light Purification Water System:
This system uses a device for disinfecting water by means of a UV light source. It occurs in a closed and airtight system equipment, wherein the waste water from a culture flows, contacting the UV radiation emitted by the UV lamp. It can have different configurations (number of UV lamps). The design depends on variables, such as: the waste water flux to be treated, the exposition time, the kind of bacteria, or fungus to be treated, the suspended solids concentration (turbidity), among others.
The closed and air-tight equipment, typically called a reactor, is general known and has been used and disclosed in the prior art.
The conventional way of removing the liquid pollulants produced by those intensive aquiculture processes in recirculating systems, considers the use of mechanical filtering for removing the organic material and biological filters for removing the nitrogenous compounds. The system comprising the use of UV light sources, has become the most used water desinfecting system, mainly by the low cost of the same, the treatment time and the absence of any effect over the hydrobiological cultured species. Nevertheless, its efficiency is limited by the presence of suspended solids, which causes a "shadow" or shield effect over bacteria and other microorganisms.
A good development has been achieved by these treatment systems, however, they exhibit some inconveniences, as the operation and maintenance complexity, and the non-efficient filtering, which maintains the hydrobiological species submitted to amonnium and carbon dioxide sub-lethal concentration levels.
In order to stabilize the removing ability, the biological filters require at least a 30 day period, due to the growth of the nitrosome and nitrobacter bacteria, which convert NH4+, and NH3 into NO2, and transform NO2 into NO3* respectively. Additionally, the bacteria must be kept at stable temperature levels, beginning from 24° C. and above the optimal temperature range for the nitrogenous compounds remotion, and a pH range value between 7 and 8. Further, these systems require a minimal dissolve ammonia concentration in water, for avoiding the bacteria inactivation or death, and its filtration efficiency is affected by the existence of the competitiveness for the environmental conditions, of other bacteria degrading organic matter. These facts can turn the biologic filter very unstable, requiring stabilization periods, which can be a risk for the continuity of the hydrobiological species production in the confined culture, causing lethal water quality levels. Likewise, the mechanical filtering systems require sieves for retaining the suspended and dissolved particles, which require constant maintenance of the retained particles removal, in order to maintain the filter's removing efficiency.
The prior art shows a variety of studies related to organic compounds photo-oxidation, mainly for phenolic type compounds (Beltrán y et al., 1995 a,b; Preis et al., 1995; Beltrán et al., 1996 a,b; Pichat et al., 1996), which are used as a model, with the purpose of studying the mechanisms involved in the degradation. Additionally, in said studies it has been demonstrated that the photo-oxidative systems are efficient upon mineralization. Some researchers have used model compounds for studying oxidation, specifically phenolic-chlorine compounds, such as 2,4-dichlorophenol, 2,4-dichloro-phenoxyacetic acid (2,4-D), in order to assess the subsequent application of the system in removing pesticides and herbicides contained in waste water or in the treatment of industrial waste water. The oxidation of these compounds is highly efficient, achieving the complete mineralization of the same, after short treatment periods. The decomposition of black liquor from the kraft pulp process was studied in photocatalytic oxidative systems, said liquor principally contains phenolic compounds derived from lignin high concentrations, wherein it is concluded that the mineralization of phenolic derivatives occurs between 95% and 96%, by means of photocatalytic processes and not by other routes.
The organic compound 4-chlorophenol was used as a model for comparing the efficiency of different AOP systems (Advanced Oxidation Processes), based on the degradation of said compound, demonstrating that an ozone treatment achieved between 59% and 60% of mineraization, during a 6 hour period, or a 4 hour period for an ozone/UV treatment was necessary, and a period of 2.5 hours for the photo Fenton system was necessary, while when the UV/Peroxide system was used, the decomposition was not achieved. On the other hand, regarding the reactivity upon organic compounds, it was demonstrated, that the degradative levels are highly dependent from the chemical structure of substrates, finding that phenol substrate is more reactive than chlorophenol substrate. It has been shown that an effluent with a high content of non biodegradable organic compounds, can be degraded by means of homogenous as well as heterogeneous photo oxidative systems, significantly raising the effluent biodegradability in few minutes of reaction, being the titanium dioxide (TiO2) semiconductor system the most efficient, removing 80% of TOC and diminishing the by 50% the effluent toxicity. On the other hand, a rotatory photocatalytic reactor was designed, which was used for degradating phenol. The degradation efficiency was compared using a mercury lamp with a UV light (wavelength >254 nm), and sunlight. The researchers demonstrated that phenol can be quickly degraded and mineralized in the reactor by the UV lamp, and also, that it can be degraded in relatively short time periods when sunlight is used. The TOC in solution diminishes slowly, nevertheless, the disappearance of phenol occurs faster, which could indicate, that phenol is possibly mineralized into CO2 through intermediate products, which could be useful as a carbon source for microorganisms in the case of a subsequent biologic treatment of the effluent, or simply if the effluent is poured over a water body after the oxidation.
During a textile effluent decomposition, using an immobilized catalyst, a 97-98% of the effluent color reduction was achieved, the total organic carbon (TOC), was reduced by 50%, and the effluent toxicity was reduced by 73%, on a 1 hour treatment period. When comparing the treatment with a suspended catalyst, the latter only achieved a 23% reduction of the total organic carbon (TOC) and a 28% reduction of the effluent toxicity, using the same immobilized catalyst, the decomposition continued using four coloring agents, selected from those that are most used for dyeing in the textile industry: Reactive Orange-16, Reactive Red-2, Reactive yellow-2 and Reactive Blue-19.
For a period of 30 minutes undergoing a photocatalytic treatment with each one of the coloring agents, between 48% and 50% of the organic matter was mineralized and the oxidation capability of the resting compounds, measured as DQO, shows a similar trend. The efficiency of the immobilized catalyst on the photocatalytic decompsition of a herbicide compound, Isoproturon (IP), one of the herbicides most used in Europe.
In collaboration with The Laboratory of Environmental Biotechnology, Institute of Environmental Engineering, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Lausanne, Switzerland and the Plataforma Solar de Almería-Espańa, the efficiency of the immobilized for the photocatalytic decomposition of Isoproturon, one of the most used herbicides in Europe, was tested. The herbicide was totally decomposed and the decomposition efficiency is compared with suspended catalyst efficiency. Further, it was once more demonstrated, that the catalyst efficiency is not reduced when the same is in an immobilized form, also it was established that after 300 hours of experimentation, the activity of the same is not affected.
Reactors applied for the treatment of atmospheres and effluents, are known, as the "Apparatus for High Flux Photocatalytic Pollution Control Using a Rotating Fluidized Bed Reactor" from the Florida Central University.
The U.S. Pat. No. 6,454,937, Horton et. al., the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference, describes an UV reactor for purifying water, which operational concept is similar. The reactor comprises UV light sources and ascending guide-pipes for leading the waste water entrance by the lower part of the reactor, wherein once treated the water returns to the exit at the lower part of the reactor by the outer side of the pipes, wherein said part does not operate as a catalyst.
On even an alternative embodiment of the present invention, the method for using the photocatalyst of the present invention further to the radicals produced by the Ozone degradation (TiO2/UV/O3) is disclosed. The state of the art exhibits a plurality of studies related with organic compounds photo-oxidation, principally for compounds of the phenolic type, (Beltrán y et al., 1995 a, b; Preis et al., 1995; Beltrán et al., 1996 a,b; Pichat et al., 1996); which are used as a model, with the purpose of studying the mechanisms involved in the decomposition, and where it has also been demonstrated, that the photo-oxidative systems are efficient regarding the mineralization process. Some researchers, as Prado et al., (1994) and Tang H. (1996), have used compounds as a model for the study of oxidation, specifically phenolic-chlorine compounds, such as 2,4-dichlorophenol, 2,4-dichlorophenoxy-acetic acid (2,4-D), in order to assess the subsequent application of the same in the removal of pesticides and herbicides from waste waters or in the treatment of industrial wastewaters. The oxidation of these compounds is so efficient, achieving the total mineralization, after a short treatment period. In photocatalytic oxidation systems, Mansilla et al., (1994), studied the decomposition of black liquor from the Kraft pulp process, the liquor principally comprises phenolic compounds derived from lignin in high concentrations, where it is concluded that a 96% mineralization of phenolic derivatives occurs due to photocatalysis and not through another route.
Bauer R. and Fallmann H. (1997), used 4-chlorophenol as the model for an organic compound, for comparing the efficiency of different AOP systems upon the decomposition, establishing that it achieves a 60% of mineralization on a 6 hour period during an ozone treatment, or a 4 hour period using the ozone/UV system and a 2.5 hour period for the Photo-Fenton system, while with a UV/Peroxide system no decomposition was achieved. On the other hand, referred to reactivity measures upon organic compounds, it was demonstrated that the decomposition levels are highly dependent from the substrates chemical structure, finding that the phenol substrate is more reactive than the chlorophenol substrate. Yeber et al., (1999), demonstrated that an effluent with a high content of non biodegradable organic compounds, can be decomposed through homogeneous as well as heterogeneous photo-oxidative systems, increasing significantly the effluent biodegradability in few minutes of reaction, being the system that uses semiconductor the titanium dioxide (TiO2), the most efficient, with a 80% removal of TOC and diminishing by 50% the effluent toxicity. On the other hand, Toyoda et al. (2000), designed a rotory photocatalytic reactor, which was used for decomposing phenol. They compared the decomposition efficiency using a UV lamp (wavelength >>254 nm), and sunlight. The authors showed that phenol can be quickly degraded and mineralized in the reactor comprising the UV lamp, and that also it can be degraded in relatively short periods when it is applied with sun light. The TOC value of the solution diminishes slowly, nevertheless, the phenol disappearance is faster, which could indicate that phenol is possibly mineralized into CO2 by means of intermediate products, which could serve as carbon source for the microorganisms in the case of a subsequent biologic treatment of the effluent, or simply if this one is poured in a water body after the oxidation.
On the decomposition of a textile effluent, using the immobiblized catalyst, was possible to reduce the effluent color in 98%, the Total Organic Carbon (TOC) in 50% and the effluent toxicity in 73%, for 1 hour period of treatment.
Comparing the treatment with a suspended catalyst, the latter only achieved a 23% of reduction of the TOC and 28% of the effluent toxicity reduction. Lizama et al., (2001) using the same immobilized catalyst continued the decomposition of four of the most used dyes in the industrial textile dyeing, Reactive Orange-16, Reactive Red-2, Reactive yellow-2 and Reactive Blue-19. After having passed 30 minutes of the photocatalytic treatment with each one of the dyes, the 50% of the organic matter was mineralized and the oxidability of the resting compounds measured as DQO, shows a similar trend. In collaboration with The Laboratory of Environmental Biotechnology, the Institute of Environmental Engineering, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Lausanne, Switzerland and the Plataforma Solar de Almería-España, was tested the immobilized catalyst efficiency on the photocatalytic decomposition of the herbicide Isoproturon (IP), one of the most used herbicides in Europe.
The herbicide was totally degraded and the decomposition efficiency is compared with the efficiency of the suspended catalyst, furthermore, once more, it was demonstrated that the efficiency of the catalyst is not reduced when this one is immobilized, being possible to establish that after 300 experimentation hours, the activity is not affected. These results were published by Parra et al.
On the other hand, the international literature comprises the addition of some substances which are capable of enhancing the production of radicals, and therefore the degradation of pollutants, is the addition of substances in the solution or the dopping of the catalyst with any compound. In 2002, Jaesang L. carried out these type of experiences, wherein he increased in about 20% the dissolved ammonium degradation with TiO2/UV plus 80% air using TiO2 doped with Platinum and injecting N2O during the process. Though, the ammonium degradation is increased, the economic viability (by the use of platinum) and the environmental viability (by the use of N2O, gas from the greenhouse effect) makes difficult its use in a massive way.
However, the use of Hydrogen Peroxide (H2O2) or Ozone (O3) is feasible as a producer of radical under UV light, which have demonstrated their efficiency for degrading organic aromatic compounds, among others (Hapeman-Somich et al., 1992 a,b, Paton et al., 1994, Mokrini et al., 1996).

Photocatalytic reactor and process for treating wastewater

Universidad Católica de la Santisima Concepción


Disclosed is a self-lubricating thrust bearing having a number of axially-aligned parts. The bearing is preferably in cartridge form and includes an internal circular spring. The spring is located between two adjacent disks and functions to force the disks apart when the bearing loading is below a predetermined amount. In this manner, when the bearing loading is low, the spring applies pressure to the bearing""s components and any attached structure. When the bearing loading exceeds a predetermined amount, the spring becomes compressed sufficiently to enable direct contact between the disks while not interfering with the rotational movement of any part of the bearing.

The invention is in the field of bearings. More particularly, the invention is a self-lubricating thrust bearing having a plurality of axially-aligned parts. The bearing is preferably in cartridge form and includes an internal circular spring. When the bearing loading is low, the spring expands and urges the bearing""s mating surfaces together, while also causing a positive contact between the bearing and the structure to which it is secured. Once the bearing loading exceeds a predetermined amount, the spring""s location and extent of compression prevent it from interfering with the rotational movement of any portion of the bearing.
Bearings are often employed in structures that are subject to variable loading. In some situations, the loading of the bearing will range from zero to an extreme amount. Throughout the entire load range, the bearing must maintain its structural integrity and preferably also maintain positive contact with adjacent structure. In addition, the amount of load acting on the bearing, in combination with the bearing""s design, can affect the performance characteristics of the structure in which the bearing is installed.
One example of a structure having a bearing subject to extreme variations in loading is found in the nose landing gear of an airplane. The nose landing gear, also herein referred to as the nose gear, includes the plane""s front wheel(s) and a strut assembly that attaches the wheel(s) to the plane. To facilitate turning of the wheel(s), the strut assembly includes a bearing having relatively rotatable portions. When the plane is on the ground, a significant loading of the bearing is normally present due to the portion of the plane""s weight carried by the nose gear. During and immediately after take off, the load applied to the bearing due to the wheel""s contact with the ground ranges from significant to essentially zero. During a landing, the bearing loading may also vary significantly. To enable precise wheel movements, the bearing must allow smooth rotation without a significant amount of play. The bearing must also be durable and capable of functioning in an environment subject to water, dust and/or other materials often found on the runways of any airport.
Vibration is a problem sometimes associated with structures subject to variable/cyclical loading. In an airplane, the nose gear may experience unwanted vibration during the final stages of a take-off. This occurs as the load due to the wheel""s contact with the runway becomes reduced to essentially zero immediately after lift-off. Any unbalance in the nose gear""s wheel(s), as well as forces applied by the air stream, may cause vibration in the structural elements of the nose gear that can be transmitted to the airframe and the plane""s occupants. A similar intermittent/reduced loading of the nose gear can occur during landings. Any vibration in the nose gear may be transmitted into the associated tire(s), and thereby cause an increased rate of wear while the tire is still in contact with the runway. The vibration may also be transmitted into the plane""s steering and suspension systems.
Another problem sometimes associated with structures subject to variable loading is that when the loading becomes reduced to essentially zero, any bearing in the structure may lose positive contact with the surfaces to which it is normally engaged. The lack of positive contact may produce openings into which contaminants may enter. These contaminants can adversely affect the bearing and any adjacent structure.
The invention is a self-lubricating thrust bearing having a plurality of axially-aligned parts. The bearing is preferably in cartridge form and includes first and second bearing surfaces separated by a disk of lubricating material. In the preferred embodiment, the first bearing surface forms a center portion of a first thrust member that extends outwardly of, and wraps about, the periphery of a second thrust member that includes the second bearing surface.
Unlike the bearings of the prior art, one of the bearing surfaces is incorporated into a multi-part thrust assembly that features a circular spring sandwiched between the second thrust member and a third thrust member. The spring functions to apply a load to the bearing surfaces irrespective of any exterior loading on the bearing. When the external loading is very low, the spring expands the bearing structure in a direction parallel to the bearing""s axis, thereby assuring positive contact with, and preferably applying a load to, any structure mated to the first and third thrust members of the bearing. As the bearing becomes loaded by external force(s), the spring becomes compressed to an extent whereby it no longer separates the thrust members of the thrust assembly. Once they contact each other, friction between the thrust assembly""s two thrust members is greater than between the first and second bearing surfaces, thereby causing the thrust assembly""s thrust members to essentially lock together in a substantially slippage-free engagement. The thrust assembly then acts as a single member and allows the bearing to operate in a conventional manner.
In the preferred embodiment, the spring is in the form of a circular wave washer. The washer is preferably at least partially received within an annular groove in one of the thrust members that sandwich the spring. By selecting a suitable spring rate for the spring, the spring will act to dampen unwanted vibrations created by connected structure, such as an unbalanced wheel of an aircraft""s nose gear.
The ability for low load conditions to create vibration in the bearing and/or the structure connected to the bearing is mitigated by the force applied by the bearing""s internal spring to the bearing""s components, and any attached structure. When the bearing is employed in an airplane""s nose gear, the bearing functions to minimize or dampen the vibrations that may occur during takeoffs and landings. In this manner, the life of the plane""s nose gear""s tire(s) may be increased, as well as possibly reducing vibration in the plane""s steering and suspension components.
As an option in the preferred embodiment, one or more o-rings may be employed within the bearing to prevent entry of foreign matter into the unit. As another option, the assembly may include exterior-viewable indicia that facilitates a user""s ability to determine the amount of preload acting on the bearing and/or bearing wear.


An optically active N-protected azetidine-2-carboxylic acid (5) can be produced by preparing an optically active 4-amino-2-halobutyric acid (3)                by halogenating an optically active 3-hydroxy-2-pyrrolidinone (1) with inversion of configuration to prepare an optically active 3-halo-2-pyrrolidinone (2) followed by hydrolysis or        by halogenating an optically active 4-amino-2-hydroxybutyric acid ester (6) with inversion of configuration to prepare an optically active 4-amino-2-halobutyric acid ester (7) followed by hydrolysis or        by halogenating the compound (6) with inversion of configuration to prepare the compound (7), cyclizing the same to prepare the compound (2) followed by hydrolysis,        further cyclizing the compound (3) followed by treating the reaction product with an amino group-protecting agent. The thus-obtained compound (5) can be improved its optical purity further by recrystallization

In the art, the following methods are known for the production method of optically active azetidine-2-carboxylic acid derivatives.
(1) The method which comprises reacting L-2,4-diaminobutyric acid with hydrochloric acid-nitric acid to prepare a L-4-amino-2-chlorobutyric acid and subjecting the same to heat treatment in an aqueous solution of barium hydroxide to give D-azetidine-2-carboxylic acid [Biochemical. Journal, vol. 64, page 323 (1956)].(2) The method which comprises reacting γ-butyrolactone with bromine in the presence of red phosphorus, treating the reaction product with hydrogen chloride gas-saturated benzyl alcohol to prepare benzyl DL-2,4-dibromobutyrate, reacting the obtained product with benzhydrylamine to prepare benzyl DL-N-diphenylmethylazetidine-2-carboxylate, reducing the reaction product with hydrogen in methanol in the presence of palladium carbon to prepare DL-azetidine-2-carboxylic acid, reacting the obtained product with benzyloxycarbonyl chloride to prepare DL-N-(benzyloxycarbonyl)azetidine-2-carboxylic acid, subjecting the reaction product to optical resolution using L-tyrosine hydrazide to prepare L-N-(benzyloxycarbonyl)-azetidine-2-carboxylic acid and finally reducing the same again with hydrogen in methanol in the presence of palladium carbon to give L-azetidine-2-carboxylic acid [Journal of Heterocyclic Chemistry, vol. 6, pages 435 and 993 (1969)].(3) The method which comprises S-alkylating L-N-(tosyl)methionine to prepare L-N-(tosyl)methionine sulfonium salt, converting the same to L-N-tosyl-α-amino-γ-butyrolactone by heating in an aqueous solution of sodium hydroxide, treating the lactone with a hydrogen halide gas in an alcohol to prepare alkyl L-N-tosyl-2-amino-4-halobutyrate, subjecting the reaction product to ring closure reaction in dimethylformamide with sodium hydride to prepare L-N-(tosyl)azetidine-2-carboxylic acid, and allowing the tosyl group to be eliminated from the reaction product in liquid ammonia using metallic sodium to give L-azetidine-2-carboxylic acid [Chemistry Letters, page 5 (1973)].(4) The method which comprises cyclizing an L-aspartic acid diester to prepare 4-oxo-2-azetidinecarboxylic acid derivative, reducing the same with lithium aluminum hydride to prepare L-azetidine-2-methanol, N-tert-butoxycarbonylating the reaction product to prepare N-(tert-butoxycarbonyl)-azetidine-2-methanol and oxidizing the reaction product to prepare L-N-(tert-butoxycarbonyl) azetidine-2-carboxylic acid, followed by deprotection to give L-azetidine-2-carboxylic acid (WO 9847867).
These methods, however, have problems such as mentioned below.
As for the method (1), L-2,4-diaminobutyric acid is expensive and, for obtaining the more useful L-form of azetidine-2-carboxylic acid, the more expensive D-form of 2,4-diaminobutyric acid is required. In addition, it is necessary to carry out the reaction procedure in the first step more strictly since the reaction temperature, reaction time and other conditions in that step influence the optical purity of the desired compound.
As for the method (2), the process is lengthy and, in addition, benzhydrylamine is expensive. Furthermore, the unrequited optically active substance obtained by optical resolution will be discarded unless an advantageous method of racemization thereof is found and it is economically disadvantageous.
As for the method (3), the process is lengthy and, in addition, the use of metallic sodium in liquid ammonia in the step of tosyl group elimination requires the use of a low-temperature apparatus and needs the caution in handling the same.
As for the method (4), lithium aluminum hydride, which needs caution in handling, is used as a reducing agent of azetidinone and this produces problems in industrialization.
Thus, as an industrial production method, each of the conventional production methods has problems to be solved.
Meanwhile, as methods for preparing optically active N-(alkoxycarbonyl)azetidine-2-carboxylic acids, the method comprising converting a mixture of optical isomers of azetidine-2-carboxylic acid to N-(benzyloxycarbonyl) azetidine-2-carboxylic acid by reacting with benzyloxycarbonyl chloride and optically resolving the resulting product using optically active tyrosine hydrazide (Journal of Heterocyclic Chemistry, page 993 (1969)) and the method comprising optically resolving a mixture of optical isomers of azetidine-2-carboxylic acid using optically active tartaric acid to prepare optically active azetidine-2-carboxylic acid (WO 9702241), followed by tert-butyloxycarbonylating the optical isomer obtained (Heterocylces, page 2539 (1986)) are known in the art.
However, in all of the above methods, it is necessary to use an expensive optically active resolving agent and, in addition, there is a problem that a number of multi-stage steps is required, such as the step of resolving agent separation.
In view of the above-mentioned state of the art, it is an object of the present invention to provide a production method of an optically active azetidine-2-carboxylic acid which method is efficient and economical and can be carried out in an industrially advantageous manner.
Further, in view of the above-mentioned state of the art, it is another object of the invention to provide a method for preparing an optically active N-(alkoxycarbonyl)azetidine-2-carboxylic acid with high optical purity in one stage step from a mixture of optical isomers of the N-(alkoxycarbonyl)-azetidine-2-carboxylic acid, without using any expensive optical resolution agent.

Process for producing optically active azetidine-2-carboxylic acids


A process comprising: generating a stabilizing moment, before the platform is secured and tensioned to the sea floor, wherein the generating vertically aligns the central axis of the TLP; and reducing the size of the TLP in the wave zone, after a tendon of the platform is secured to the sea floor. A device comprising: a generator of a stabilizing moment, before the platform is secured and tensioned to the sea floor, wherein the generator vertically aligns the central axis of the TLP; and a reducer of the size of the TLP in the wave zone, after a tendon of the platform is secured to the sea floor. A tension-leg platform (TLP) comprising: a buoyancy structure for floating the TLP at the sea surface; a platform for mineral production operations located above the sea surface; a support which connects at a lower end to the buoyancy structure and connects at an upper end to the platform; a tendon which fixes the TLP to the sea floor; a generator of a stabilizing moment, before the tendon is fixed to the sea floor, wherein the generator vertically aligns the central axis of the TLP; and a reducer of the size of the TLP in the wave zone. A process comprising: stabilizing the buoyancy-support with the float; ballasting the buoyancy-support until the buoyancy-support resides lower in the sea relative to the sea surface; and assembling the platform to the buoyancy-support.

Assembly of tension leg platforms ("TLP's") is a traditional problem in offshore exploration and production areas, one cause of which is the resonance action of waves on the float columns. As shown in FIGS. 1a1 and 1a2, a standing wave may act upon the TLP to generate resonant heave (vertical) motion in the TLP. When the trough of the wave passes the TLP, the sea provides a smaller buoyancy force because less water is displaced by the column. When the crest of the wave passes the TLP, a larger buoyancy force is provided because more water is displaced. The heave motion is detrimental to TLPs because they are secured to the sea floor by tendons and heave resonance causes the tendons to fail. Also, the action of the waves against the side of the column generate vibrations in the TLP system which, if they occur at a harmonic frequency of the TLP system, may cause the tendons to fail. Thus, TLP need to have effectively transparent cross-sections in the wave zone after being secured to the sea floor.
Thus, prior TLP configurations comprise a relatively transparent structures in the wave zone to reduce the effects of wave loading. The traditional TLP configuration comprises a horizontal submerged float that is connected to the platform by vertical supports. Monopods, such at that disclosed in Monopod TLP Improves Deepwater Economics, PETROLEUM ENGINEER INTERNATIONAL (January 1993), incorporated herein by reference, comprise a central monopod support attached to a plurality of submerged floats, such as corner columns. Other platform structures have been proposed which comprise a monopod, but instead of corner columns, they comprise a single column, as shown in FIGS. 1a1 and 1a2, from which the monopod extends. Hove while prior TLPs provide relatively transparent structures in the wave zone, they are unstable prior to attachment to the sea floor. These TLPs typically require assembly of the main production platform after being transported to the operation site. The TLP instability makes the platform assembly a difficult and costly procedure requiring a large derrick barge to stabilize the TLP. Disassembly is likewise difficult so that the TLPs are practically immobile so that they cannot be transported from one production site to another without reducing the TLP's topside weight.
Therefore, there is a need for a TLP which provides greater stability during assembly and transportation, without sacrificing a transparent wave zone structure which is required after the TLP is secured to the sea floor.

Method of and apparatus for stabilizing a tension-leg platform in deep water operations


A radio reception apparatus receives signals from all directions through a plurality of directivities, and generates a delay profile to each directivity. The apparatus selects a path having the largest received signal among a plurality of delay profiles generated by suppressing interference signals after thus narrowing down directions.

The present invention relates to a radio reception apparatus and a method for detecting reception timing, both being used in a digital radio communication system.
A propagation path in a digital radio communication system has a frequency characteristic as a transmission path, and then the propagation path has a transmission characteristic having selectivity to frequencies, since the propagation path is generally composed of multipath. Moreover, these characteristics vary with time as a communication terminal such as a mobile station moves, and a received signal consequently has fading different in its frequency band. The fading is called as selective fading.
As a measure against the selective fading, there is an adaptive array technique. The adaptive array technique is a technique in which a plurality of antenna elements are prepared and signals received by these antenna elements are weighted to be combined.
In such an adaptive array technique, reception timing is detected for receiving a desired signal correctly. An adaptive array antenna device having a reception timing detection function as a conventional radio reception apparatus is disclosed in Japanese laid-open patent publication HEI 10-51221. FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the schematic configuration of the adaptive array antenna device.
The adaptive array antenna device outputs signals received by antennas 1-1 to 1-n to weighting circuits 2-1 to 2-n, respectively. The weighting circuits 2-1 to 2-n weight each of the signals for controlling directivity, and output the weighted signals to a combining circuit 3 for combining the weighed signals.
The combined signal is output to a receiver 4 and a frame synchronization circuit 6. The receiver 4 demodulates the combined signal to output a demodulated output. Moreover, the receiver 4 detects the received signal strength indicator (RSSI) of the combined signal to output the detected result (RSSI signal) to a weighting controller 7.
Furthermore, the frame synchronization circuit 6 maintains the synchronization on the basis of the combined signal, and outputs the synchronization timing to the weighting controller 7. The weighting controller 7 controls respective weighting coefficients for outputting them to the weighting circuits 2-1 to 2-n so as to maintain the timing that the RSSI signal takes its maximum. The weighting coefficients are fittingly stored in a memory 8.
However, in the conventional adaptive array antenna device, a delay profile shown in FIG. 2 is generated. That is, if the device receives signals without isolating directivities in the case where a desired station and an interference station exist, signals from the desired station are received at the times xe2x80x9caxe2x80x9d and xe2x80x9cbxe2x80x9d. The signal at the time xe2x80x9caxe2x80x9d is a signal that arrives the device directly from a direction xe2x80x9cBxe2x80x9d. The signal at the time xe2x80x9cbxe2x80x9d is a signal that arrives the device from a direction xe2x80x9cAxe2x80x9d after being reflected by a far reflecting object such as a mountain. (See FIG. 5 about the directions xe2x80x9cAxe2x80x9d and xe2x80x9cBxe2x80x9d.) Consequently, the signal at the time xe2x80x9cbxe2x80x9d arrives the device later than the signal at the time xe2x80x9caxe2x80x9d. In this case, because signals from directions except for the direction of the desired station all become interference signals, there exist many interference signals in the case where the directivity is not isolated. When many interference signals exist, it becomes difficult to detect reception timing correctly.
Moreover, in the case where the directivity is not isolated, signals arrived from directions other than the directivity formed by the weighting circuits 2-1 to 2-n cannot be received. Furthermore, at the time of turning on its power or in case of detecting signals received from all directions, the weighting control takes very long time.
An object of the present invention is to provide a radio reception apparatus and a reception timing detection circuit, both capable of detecting the reception timing precisely at the time of detecting signals received from all directions such as a time when its power supply is turned on, and besides at the time of receiving a signal arrived from a direction different from a currently receiving direction during performing communication.
The inventor of the present invention paid attention to the fact that all the signals from directions except for the direction, to which the directivity was generated, became interference signals when directivity reception was performed, and the fact that the interference signals made the precise detection of the reception timing difficult. And the inventor found that the interference amount in each directivity could be decreased by dispersing the interference signals by providing a plurality of fixed directivities. Consequently, those facts led the present invention.
That is, the subject matter of the present invention is to narrow down directions from which interference signals reach by means of delay profiles generated for each fixed directivity to suppress the interference amount of the interference signals for performing the detection of reception timing or the selection of a path.

Radio reception apparatus and method for detecting reception timing

Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.


The invention relates to an apparatus and method for simultaneous extrarenal blood purification therapy and respiration support therapy. The apparatus includes a CO2 removing means having a first inlet for receiving a flow of blood for CO2 removal and a first outlet for expelling blood deprived of CO2. The apparatus also includes filtering means having a first inlet for receiving the flow of blood, a first outlet for expelling purified blood, and at least one drain channel. The drain channel directs a diluting liquid obtained from the blood expelled during purification of the blood. The drain channel is directly connected to the first inlet of the CO2 removing means to supply the diluting liquid to the CO2 removing means without submitting the diluting liquid to any filtering treatment during passage along the drain channel.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a method and apparatus for the treatment of blood and, more specifically, to a method and an apparatus which can be used for permitting respiration support therapy on a patient.
2. Description of Related Art
Extrarenal blood purification systems or so-called "haemofiltration systems" exist which provide for purifying the patient's blood of waste liquids and/or soluble substances which accumulate in the blood for pathological and/or surgical reasons, and/or as a result of substances administered to the patient. Such haemofiltration systems thus perform the functions normally carried out by healthy kidneys in correct working condition.
Haemofiltration systems of the above-type normally include a blood purification circuit, along which the patient's blood, is fed to add any necessary supplements and/or to purify it of any toxic solutes. The blood purification circuit is connected to the patient by two feed conduits or catheters: one for supplying the non-purified venous blood of the patient to the purification circuit, and the other for feeding the purified blood into the patient's vein.
The purification circuit normally includes a pump connected to a first catheter by a conduit for receiving the patient's blood, which pumps the patient's blood along the purification circuit. The purification circuit also includes a unit for adding an anticoagulant to the blood, and a heating and supplementing unit for adding a liquid supplement to the blood and heating the liquid supplement to a predetermined temperature. The purification circuit also includes a blood purifying filter, or so-called haemofilter, which is connected to the second catheter, and provides for eliminating any toxic elements in the blood before it is fed back to the patient's body.
In certain patients in particularly critical condition, extrarenal purification therapy must very often be accompanied by respiration support therapy, by which the oxygen concentration of the patient's blood is supplemented by removing excess carbon dioxide (CO2) from the blood. Although the above-described systems provide for highly effective extrarenal blood purification, they fail to provide for simultaneous respiration support therapy. Accordingly, the above-described systems require that the patient must be ventilated by non-physiological means during extrarenal purification therapy, with obvious drawbacks and discomfort to the patient.
United States Patent Application No. 2004/0143207 describes a blood treatment apparatus which can be used in a continuous renal replacement therapy (CRRT) capable of carrying out the so called "decapneization" of blood, in other words, of removing CO2 from the blood itself. This apparatus is provided with a blood deputation circuit through which the patient's blood passes, so that any substances to be reintegrated can be purified from any toxic solutes. It is connected to the patient by means of a first catheter which conveys the blood to be depurated, which flows inside the patient's vein into the blood deputation circuit, and a second catheter which conveys the depurated blood back into the patient's vein.
The deputation circuit consists of a pump which is disposed and acts downstream of the first catheter so that it receives the patient's blood and puts it into circulation inside the deputation circuit of a unit in order to add an anticoagulant to the blood. The circuit includes a heating and reintegration unit capable of adding a suitable reintegration liquid to the blood and to bring it to a predetermined temperature. The circuit also consists of a blood depuration filter (the "haemofilter") connected to the second catheter to eliminate the toxic elements present in the blood before it is introduced again into the patient's body. When inserted in the deputation system described above, the apparatus of United States Patent Application No. 2004/0143207 consists of a hoxygenator; in fact, for some patients whose health conditions are particularly serious, it is necessary to accompany the external renal depuration therapy with a respiratory support therapy and to remove the excessive amount of carbon dioxide from the blood itself. If the patient does not need a substitutive renal therapy, that is to say if the patient's renal functions are correct, the CRRT therapy is not necessary, and it even may be harmful.

Apparatus and method for the treatment of blood


A method for reconstructing at least one target signal comprises determining a first set of feature vectors from the input signal, the first set of feature vectors forming a non-negative input matrix; determining a second set of feature vectors, the second set of feature vectors forming a non-negative noise matrix; decomposing the input matrix into a sum of a first matrix and a second matrix, the first matrix representing a product of a non-negative bases matrix and a non-negative weight matrix, and the second matrix representing a combination of the noise matrix and a noise weight vector; and reconstructing the at least one target signal based on the non-negative bases matrix and the non-negative weight matrix.

Reduction of acoustic noise is important in different fields, in particular for speech communication. For example, noise suppression in telephonic communications can be very beneficial if the telephony system is used in a noisy environment such as a car cabin or in the street. Noise reduction is crucial in hands-free telephony systems, where the noise level is usually higher because of the distance between the microphone(s) and the speaker(s). Furthermore, speech recognition systems, in which a device or a service is controlled by vocal commands, suffer a decrease of recognition rate when operated in noisy environments. Hence, the reduction of the noise level is also useful in order to improve the reliability of such systems.
Noise suppression in spoken communication, also called "speech enhancement", has received a large interest for more than three decades and many methods have been proposed to reduce the noise level in speech recordings. Most of these systems rely on the on-line estimation of a "background noise" which is assumed to be stationary, i.e. to change slowly over time. However, this assumption is not always verified in the case of a real noisy environment. Indeed, the passing by of a truck, the closing of a door or the operation of some kinds of machines such as a printer, are examples of non-stationary noises which can frequently occur.
Another technique, called Non-negative Matrix Factorisation (NMF) has recently been applied to this problem. This method is based on a decomposition of the power spectrogram of the mixture into a non-negative combination of several spectral bases, belonging to either the speech or the interfering noise. NMF methods have been used in that context with relatively good results. The basic principle of NMF-based audio processing 100 as schematically illustrated in FIG. 1 is to find a locally optimal factorization of a short-time magnitude spectrogram V 103 of an audio signal 101 into two factors W and H, of which the first one W represents the spectra of the events occurring in the signal 101 and the second one H their activation over time. The first factor W describes the component spectra of the source model 109. The second factor H describes the activations 107 of the signal spectrogram 103 of the audio signal 101. The first factor W and the second factor H are matched with the short-time magnitude spectrogram V 103 of the audio signal 101 by an optimization procedure. The source model 109 is pre-defined when applying supervised NMF and a joint estimation is applied for the source model 109 when using unsupervised NMF. The source signal or signals 113 can be derived from the source spectrogram 111. This approach has the advantage of using no stationarity assumption and gives good results in general.
However, the estimation of the noise components from the signal can be computationally intensive with the NMF technique. Furthermore, systems based on NMF do not take into account the fact that the noise, or a part of it, can be stationary. Hence, conventional noise estimators are often superior to NMF for capturing the stationary component of the background noise, while being less complex.
Common methods for noise reduction, often denoted as "speech enhancement", include for example spectral subtraction as described by M. Berouti, R. Schwartz and J. Makhoul: "Enhancement of Speech Corrupted by Acoustic Noise", Proc. IEEE ICASSP 1979, vol. 4, pp. 208-211, Wiener filtering as described by E. Hänsler, G. Schmidt, "Acoustic Echo and Noise Control", Wiley, Hoboken, N.J., USA, 2004 or so-called Minimum Mean-Square Error Log-Spectral Amplitude as described by Y. Ephraim, D. Malah: "Speech Enhancement Using a Minimum Mean-Square Error Log-Spectral Amplitude Estimator", IEEE Trans. Acoust., Speech and Signal Process., vol. 33, pp. 443-445, 1985. These techniques are all based on a prior estimation of the background noise power spectrum, which is then "removed" from the original signal. However, they also assume that the background noise can be reliably predicted from the recent past of the signal. Hence, these approaches do not well handle highly non-stationary noise types.
Noise power spectrum estimation methods involve, for example, the averaging of the short-time power spectrum in times frames where speech is absent according to a voice activity detector as shown by M. Berouti, R. Schwartz and J. Makhould: "Enhancement of Speech Corrupted by Acoustic Noise", Proc. IEEE ICASSP 1979, vol. 4, pp. 208-211, or the smoothing of the minimum value in each considered spectral band as shown by R. Martin, "Noise Power Spectral Density Estimation Based on Optimal Smoothing and Minimum Statistics", IEEE Trans. On Speech and Audio Process., vol. 9, n. 5, Jul. 2001. Other methods include the so-called minima-controlled recursive averaging as described by N. Fan, J. Rosca, R. Balan, "Speech Noise Estimation Using Enhanced Minima Controlled Recursive Averaging", Proc. IEEE ICASSP 2007, vol. 4, pp. 581-584 or NMF as described by N. Mohammadiha, T. Gerkmann, A. Leijon, "A New Linear MMSE Filter for Single Channel Speech Enhancement Based on Nonnegative Matrix Factorization", Proc. of the 2011 IEEE Workshop on Application of Signal Process. to Audio and Acoustics, pp. 45-48.
Recently, the NMF technique has been introduced for the direct reduction of noise in speech recordings from single-channel input. The conventional formulation of NMF is defined as follows. V is defined as a m×n matrix of non-negative real values. The goal is to approximate this matrix by the product of two other non-negative matrices Wε+m×r and Hε+r×n, where r<<m, n. In mathematical terms, a cost function, measuring the "reconstruction error" between V and W·H, is minimized.
When processing sounds, the input matrix V is given by the succession of short-time magnitude (or power) spectra of the input signal, each column of the matrix containing the values of the spectrum computed at a specific instance in time. These features are given by a short-time Fourier transform (STFT) of the input signal, after some window function is applied to it. This matrix contains only non-negative values, because of the kind of features used.
The NMF decomposition is illustrated in FIG. 2 by a simple example. The figure represents a spectrogram 201 represented by the matrix V, a matrix of two spectral bases 202 represented by the matrix W and the corresponding temporal weights 203 represented by the matrix H. The greyscale of the spectrogram 201 represents the amplitude of the Fourier coefficients. The spectrogram defines an acoustic scene which can be described as the superposition of two so called "atomic sounds". By applying a two-component NMF to this spectrogram, the matrices W and H as defined in FIG. 2 can be obtained. Each column of W can be interpreted as a basis function for the spectra contained in V, when weighted with the corresponding values of H.
Since all of these bases and weights are non-negative, they can be used to build two different spectrograms, each of them describing one of the "atomic sounds". Thus these sounds can be separated from the mixture, even though they sometimes appear at the same time in the original signal. The example of FIG. 2 is simplistic; however the NMF method can provide satisfactory results in separating different sound sources from realistic recordings. In these cases, a larger value of the order of decomposition r is used. Then, each "component", i.e. the product of one spectral basis with the corresponding temporal weights, is assigned to a specific source. The estimated spectrogram of each source is finally obtained by the sum of all the components attributed to the source.
The above described method has been applied to the separation of speech from noise as shown by K. W. Wilson, B. Raj, P. Smaragdis and A. Divakaran: "Speech Denoising using non-negative matrix factorization with priors" in IEEE Intern. Conf. on Acoustics, Speech and Signal Process., pp. 4029-4032, 2008. One of the advantages of this approach is that it can theoretically cope with any type of environment, including non-stationary noise. However, NMF can be computationally expensive, since it involves matrix multiplications. Furthermore, in the case of stationary noises, the conventional methods for noise spectral power estimation can outperform NMF, often with a very low computational cost.

Method and device for reconstructing a target signal from a noisy input signal


An electric joystick mechanism for an ophthalmic apparatus which is capable of improving manipulation performance of a joystick and is simple in structure comprises a base, a joystick having a shaft, a driving unit having a motor for moving an ophthalmic examination unit horizontally, and a control unit for controlling the driving unit in response to tilting manipulation of the joystick by an examiner, wherein the control unit performs first control of finely moving the examination unit by controlling the driving unit based on a manipulation signal of the joystick, and second control of roughly moving the examination unit by controlling the driving unit when tilting condition of the joystick becomes a predetermined tilting condition, and in the second control, velocity of driving of the driving unit is controlled based on velocity of the tilting manipulation of the joystick in the first control.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electric joystick mechanism for an ophthalmic apparatus, which moves an ophthalmic examination unit horizontally.
2. Description of Related Art
In recent years, in an ophthalmic apparatus which requires alignment with respect to an examinee's eye (e.g., an auto refractometer, a fundus camera), such an apparatus that electrically detects manipulation of a joystick and a trackball by an examiner and electrically drives an ophthalmic examination unit having a measurement optical system and other elements based on a result of the detection is proposed (see Japanese Patent Application Unexamined Publication No. 2002-369799).
In the apparatus disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Unexamined Publication No. 2002-369799, driving and control of the examination unit is divided into positional control and velocity control in accordance with a tilting angle of the joystick. In addition, a technique of controlling the examination unit so that movement velocity increases with an increase of the tilting angle in a range of the tilting angle of the joystick (e.g., 20 degrees to 35 degrees) which is beyond a predetermined angle.
The joystick mechanism disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Unexamined Publication No. 2002-369799 is provided with a first rotation shaft which rotates together with tilting movement of the joystick in a back/forth direction, a first potentiometer which detects a rotation angle of the first rotation shaft, a second rotation shaft which rotates together with tilting movement of the joystick in a right/left direction and a second potentiometer which detects a rotation angle of the second rotation shaft, and is arranged to electrically detect the manipulation of the joystick by the examiner by converting the tilting movement of the joystick into rotation movement of the rotation shafts in the back/forth direction and in the right/left direction.
The above-described electric joystick mechanism is desired to reflect an intention of the examiner and to have high operability. However, in the apparatus disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Unexamined Publication No. 2002-369799, fine angle adjustment of the joystick is difficult to be performed, and the examination unit could unintentionally move at a speed which is against the examiner's intention when the velocity control is performed in the range of the tilting angle of the joystick which is beyond the predetermined angle. In addition, it is necessary to largely tilt (e.g., at 35 degrees) the joystick in order to move the examination unit quickly, which takes time and effort for the examiner. In addition, the joystick mechanism disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Unexamined Publication No. 2002-369799 is complicated in structure as a whole because the rotation shafts which are different in shape need to be prepared (in the vicinities of connections with the joystick) in order to convert the tilting movement of the joystick into the rotation movement of the rotation shafts in the back/forth direction and in the right/left direction.

Electric joystick mechanism for an ophthalmic apparatus


For every sampling period of a DSP 100, a timing generator 200 requests a CPU 300 to release a bus and provides a DSP 100 access time period to make an external memory 400 access the DSP 100 by occupying the bus released according to the request. In the DSP 100, during the DSP access time period, a memory interface section 11 executes read/write processing in which waveform data read from the external memory 400 is stored in an internal memory 12 and waveform data read from the internal memory 12 is written into the external memory 400 according to the command stored in an access command memory 10. At the same time, an operation section 13 executes operation processing by using the waveform data stored in the internal memory 12 independently of the read/write processing.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a signal processor suitably used as a sound generator of electronic musical instruments.
2. Description of the Related Art
A signal processor including a logic operation element which is called a digital signal processor (DSP) and processes multiplication-addition-calculation (MAC); product-sum-operation) at high speed under the control by the CPU has been known. In general, in the signal processor, data to be processed is stored in an external memory. According to a direction by the CPU, the data to be processed is sequentially captured from the external memory and provided with signal processing. For example, in a signal processor used as a sound generator of electronic musical instruments, waveform data stored in the external memory is read for each sampling period, the read waveform data is provided with delay feedback operation and filter operation (for example, FIR filter) to form musical sound with various overtone structures, the formed musical sound is provided with various effects such as delay, and the result is outputted.
As such a signal processor as above, for example, Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 10-260831 discloses a signal processor as follows. The signal processor is composed of a first processing section for performing signal processing under the control by the CPU and a second processing section for performing read/write processing in relation to the external memory independently of the first processing section. The first processing section performs the signal processing in preference to the read/write processing of the second processing section which synchronizes a time slot different from the time slot of the first processing section. Thereby, the external memory including the second processing section functions as an internal memory for the first processing memory. In result, wasteful time in accessing the external memory is omitted, and the processing speed is improved.
In a signal processor structured so that the CPU and the DSP share an external memory via the same bus, the CPU manages the bus fundamentally. In the signal processor structured as above, when the DSP occupies the bus, the DSP requests the CPU to release the bus, and the CPU correspondingly releases the bus. Therefore, the CPU receiving the bus release request needs latency variable to some extent from receiving the request from the DSP to actually releasing the bus. Further, the DSP side needs to wait until the request is received by the CPU every time when the DSP requests the CPU for memory access. Therefore, there is a problem that it causes lowering of the processing efficiency of the processor as a whole.


A process for controlling and a core drilling machine (1) having an electrical motor (2) for rotational drive of a core drill bit (3) having cutting edges (5) oriented axial to a work piece (4), a feeding means (6) for generating the feed of the core drill bit (3) against the work piece (4) and having a controller (7) for controlling, relative to a first one-to-one control parameter, detected by a sensor (8, 8′) for electrical power consumption (P) or torque (M). A force sensor (9, 9′) is connected to the controller (7) for detecting the contact pressing force (FN) of the core drill bit (3) as the second control parameter.

The invention relates to a feed-controlled core drill, in particular a pedestal-guided diamond core drill for reinforced concrete, and an associated control method.
When core drilling rock, ultra hard cutting edges or diamonds of the drill bit penetrated slightly into the substrate and carry it away. The high torque and feed pressures required for core drilling rock are usually applied against a machine pedestal, which is solidly connected with the substrate. If the control of the feed is effected manually by the operator using a lever wheel, a substrate-specific optimum penetration depth of the blades is not possible, by which early wear of the cutting edges results along with reduced drilling performance.
According to DE 19807899, an adaptive feed control for a pedestal-guided diamond core drilling machine is disclosed, which controls the feed using a PID controller depending on the current consumption of the electrical motor or a torque relative thereto. As a consequence of this type of power-based control, there is only one maximum torque available at a constant speed pre-defined by the gear reduction ratio. Changes in the substrate such as encountering reinforcement leads to non-optimum torque/speed-pairings.
In addition, as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,618,805, a drill machine has an electrical motor with a motor control, which can be pre-set to the motor characteristic curve of maximum power for different working points independent of each other and can be switched automatically between the working points.


A water-resistant combination blanket and coat is disclosed comprising a fabric sheet having a water-resistant outer surface. The fabric sheet may be spread on the ground as a blanket with the water-resistant outer surface down, thereby providing a place for a user to sit, even on wet, dirty, and/or muddy ground. Two points on the top edge of the fabric sheet may be reversibly connected to the right and left edges, thereby forming sleeves. A user may use the fabric sheet as a coat by placing his/her arms through the sleeves and wrapping the fabric sheet around him/herself. Reversibly connecting two points along the top edge of the fabric sheet to each other may further provide a hood while the fabric sheet is used as a coat. Alternatively, a detachable hood may be reversibly connected to the top edge of the fabric sheet while the fabric sheet is used as a coat. The detachable hood may comprise a pocket with two adjacent open sides. One open side may be pulled apart and reversibly connected to the top edge of the fabric sheet in a linear fashion, thereby forming a hood. The detachable hood may also function as a storage bag for the combination blanket and coat. The combination blanket and coat may be placed within the pocket and the two open sides reversibly closed to enclose the combination blanket and coat.

The growth of organized youth sports in America has been phenomenal. Each year millions of children participate in a variety of organized youth programs in a variety of sports, both indoor and outdoor. Parental involvement, particularly attendance at games, is a key positive aspect of these youth sports programs. Many of the outdoors sports are played on fields in municipal parks or at public schools. For the most part, such playing fields provide only the most rudimentary facilities for playing the game, and are not designed for the comfort of spectators. Seating is rarely provided, and if provided is exposed to the elements. Often the only access to a playing field is by walking across one or more other fields, making it difficult to bring along seating, such as a folding chair or the like. Sitting on the ground is frequently not an option, since fields are often wet, dirty, and/or muddy. It is therefore common to find groups of parents and/or spectators simply standing along the sidelines for the entire length of a game. Depending on the sport and age level of the participants, this may result in several hours of standing, a tiring and uncomfortable proposition at best. Depending on the season of the year, the temperature may be below the comfort level of the parents/spectators. In some cases games may be played in spite of inclement weather.
As described above, carrying one's own seating to a remote playing field may be problematic. Sitting on wet, dirty, and/or muddy ground may result in wet and/or soiled clothing. Cold and/or inclement weather may necessitate the wearing of bulky garments, making it even more difficult to carry seating over a substantial distance.
It is therefore desirable to provide a combination blanket and coat which: allows a user to keep warm and dry in inclement weather, allows a user to sit on wet and/or muddy ground without becoming wet and/or dirty, is light-weight and convenient to carry, may be worn as a coat, and may be spread on the ground as a blanket. Such a combination blanket and coat should preferably be readily and quickly convertible from a blanket to a coat and back again, allowing maximum flexibility to respond to rapidly changing weather conditions. The combination blanket and coat would also be useful in other situations, including but not limited to: outdoor concerts, hunting, outdoor spectator sporting events, swimming outdoors in cool weather, or as an emergency accessory for an automobile. In the latter situation, the combination blanket and coat may be used on the ground while a motorist attempts to effect repairs under a disabled vehicle, or worn by the motorist while waiting for assistance in cold weather.

Water-resistant combination blanket and coat


The present invention provides spherical rubber chemicals and the method for preparing the same. The spherical rubber chemicals of the present invention include spherical antioxidants, spherical vulcanization agents, spherical processing aids, spherical reinforcing agents, or spherical adhesive agents. With the spherical rubber chemicals of the present invention, the shortcomings of powdery or semi-spherical rubber chemicals are overcome, including eliminating the dust pollution during granulation procedure and avoiding the raw material loss and the environmental pollution, while solving the quality problem of lower melting point of product caused by the presence of fine powder crystal. Furthermore, the resultant rubber chemicals has an improved smoothness of surface, which is helpful to improve the flowing and mixing behaviors of the rubber chemicals in mixing or open milling process with rubbers.

Rubber chemicals are important chemical materials in the rubber industry, and they play an important role in improving the rubber performance, such as upgrading the rubber quality and increasing the rubber processing level. With the continuous progress in the rubber industry, there is a higher demand for the general quality of rubber chemicals. At present, the rubber chemicals provided in market are generally of powdery or semispherical shape. The dust of powder rubber chemicals are likely to fly in the air, thereby causing loss of the rubber chemicals and imparting adverse effects on the environment.
Currently, a common granulation method for rubber chemicals is the rotary belt condensation granulating process with the following operating principle: utilizing the low melting point (or softening point) characteristics of the material, the molten liquid material is distributed evenly on a steel belt moving at a uniform speed below a special distributing device depending on the viscosity range of the molten material. Meanwhile, under forced cooling of a continuously spraying device provided under the steel belt, the material is cooled and solidified during the movement and transportation procedure, thereby achieving the purpose of continuous granulation and formation. According to the material properties and the intended use, the distribution mode of intermittent drippling, continuous flowing and full-width overflowing may be employed to obtain semisphere, bar and sheet product, respectively. The method has the following defects: 1) the cooling medium removes heat from the molten liquid via the steel belt, and heat is transferred from the molten liquid to the steel belt and then to the cooling medium. So the heat transfer efficiency decreases significantly. Since the main heat transfer mode is heat conduction between the steel belt surface and the cooling medium, the length of steel belt must be prolonged to increase the throughput, resulting in larger facility bulk and lower space utilization efficiency. 2) Since the liquid drops are formed on the steel belt, the resultant granules show a semispherical or flat shape. Although they have some advantages over the powdery rubber chemicals, the semispherical or flat rubber chemicals still have defects. Specifically, some arris of sharp angle are formed at the boundary of spherical surface and flat surface in the granulation process, and they may be broken off by collision during packaging and transportation and the reproduced powders also pollute the environment. In addition, the formed granules are scraped away from the steel belt at the end of steel belt, in which process dust may fly in the air. The presence of fine powders may cause decrease of melting point in partial regions of the rubber chemicals. Also, the fine powders may join together, conglomerate and harden and the wholly or partially hardening of the rubber chemical products makes a large bulk which deteriorates the product quality seriously. Thus, there requires novel form of rubber chemicals which solve the above problems in the field of rubber chemical granulation.

Spherical rubber chemicals and the method for preparing the same


An on-site hot-melt quick connector for optical fibers comprises a plug housing, a ferrule, an optical fiber telescopic protective tube, a tail end cover, a pressure welding protective tail handle and a compression ring. A front baffle ring is mounted in the plug housing and a rear baffle ring is mounted in the tail end cover. The ferrule and the optical fiber telescopic protective tube are positioned between the front baffle ring and the rear baffle ring and can move in the axial direction. As the quick connector for optical fibers of the invention has a definite space for movement in the axial direction, the optical fibers themselves can move along with the plugging action during butting, avoiding the bending of the optical fibers caused as they are unable to move, thus guaranteeing the transmission quality of the optical signals. The service life of the quick connector is also guaranteed.

Generally, a quick connector for optical fibers is fixed in multiple layers in the prior art. Such fixation way protects the optical fibers during the pulling process and improves the tension-resistant property of the optical fiber. However, when butted, ferrules draw back due to the compression of springs, but the optical fibers are bent as they cannot draw back, thus leading to increased loss.

On-site hot-melt quick connector for optical fibers

SHENZHEN SDGI OPTICAL NETWORK TECHNOLOGIES CO., LTD.


According to the present invention a non-stick, microwaveable food wrap for crispening and browning of food is provided comprising a non-stick layer; a polymeric film layer; an unperforated susceptor layer; an adhesive layer; a paper layer and optionally containing at least one encapsulated flavor and/or fragrance incorporated into the laminated non-stick microwaveable food wrap and freshly released by microwave heating into the food item while being cooked, browned and crispened.

The use of microwave ovens for quickly and conveniently heating and cooking foods has become commonplace and continues to grow. The increased use of frozen microwaveable food propels that growth even further because of the lack of desire or time to spend in cooking food. The speed in the preparation and serving of complex frozen dishes; the ability to microwave ready-to-eat food; and the steady improvement in the quality and diversity of fast food, not only in the home, but also within the great fast food outlets, has led to considerable effort being expended to upgrade food compositions and products to make them more suitable for shipping, handling, packaging and cooking.
However, microwave cooking is known to be unsatisfactory for a variety of foods, especially those that require browning or crispening by surface heating. A number of methods and containers have been used; however, a variety of problems have not been adequately addressed such as the food adhering to the film or container, the need to flavor or add fragrance to the food, or the need to easily form a cooking package with food wrap.
There have been considerable improvements in microwave cooking and packaging technology in the past two decades. Microwave cooking is fast, efficient and economical in contrast to infra-red cooking; however, microwave cooking has several disadvantages. Primarily, it cannot crisp, brown and optionally add flavors or fragrances to food such as chicken, doughy products, frankfurters, hamburgers, steaks, pizza, etc. It is known that the fundamental reason for this is that microwaves cook food from the inside out whereas infra-red cooks from the outside in.
Various attempts have been made to correct for the inherent lack of browning and crispening such as physical modifications to the microwave oven, the addition of edible coatings to the food, and the use of a variety of preformed cooking packages, dishes and the like.
It is known that a thin metal film, such as, but not limited to, aluminum, can absorb substantial amounts of microwave energy and convert this energy into thermal energy for heating a variety of food products. These thin metal films, commonly called susceptors, are associated with conductive and infra-red heat transfer to the food product. The food still tends to stick to these containers.
Some of the prior art patents pertaining to microwave cooking include the following patents:
U.S. Pat. No. 5,231,268 discloses a four layered paperboard, semirigid packing material for use in manufacturing containers. In this instance, a paperboard substrate was coated with a thermal insulator, e.g., sodium silicate, followed by a printable, aqueous susceptor-ink layer (graphite in a sodium silicate vehicle), and a thermal barrier layer to facilitate release of water vapor from the layers. Neither the use of a non-stick coating, nor flavoring and/or fragrance nor an aluminum coating were utilized. The package was also preformed.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,267,420 pertains to a four layered, preformed structure comprising a polymer film with vacuum deposited aluminum susceptor, an adhesive layer and a second polymer layer preferably polyethylene. There was no non-stick layer and two polymeric film layers are used.
In the present invention one polyester film layer and one susceptor layer on paper film in addition to an adhesive layer (preferably FDA approved) and a non-stick layer (preferably FDA (approved) that can be optionally modified to add flavor and fragrance are used because this combination imparts the desired dimensional stability, the non-stick properties, the browning and crispening. Moreover, the present invention allows the package to be easily custom formed by the user. Prior art U.S. Pat. No. 5,231,268 utilizes various layers to release water vapor produced during the cooking. This does not prevent food from sticking to the container, but does include a susceptor layer and thermal insulators such as sodium silicate.
Prior art U.S. patents in the general area of which we are aware include: U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,641,005 and 4,825,025.
Accordingly, it may be appreciated that the prior art relates to preformed, rigid paperboard containers, manufactured at a factory, filled with food at another factory, transported to a retailer, stored in the package and finally purchased as a package ready for use in a microwave oven for cooking.


A circular knitting machine has a needle cylinder (7) and a dial (25) which define a comb distance (x). One of these two needle carriers and a respective cam (9, 27) are displaceably supported in a frame of the circular knitting machine. To prevent unwanted changes in the comb distance during temperature fluctuations, a compensating structural component part (30) is provided which is coupled with the displaceable needle carrier, usually the dial and the cam assigned to the latter and constructed and arranged in such a way that the unwanted changes in the comb distance are compensated for automatically by correspondingly dimensioned thermal expansion or upsetting of the compensating structural component part.

The invention is directed to a circular knitting machine having a frame in which a first carrier for knitting tools, a first cam assigned to the latter, a second carrier for knitting tools arranged above the first carrier, and a second cam assigned to the latter are mounted in such a way that changes in temperature result in an unwanted change in a comb distance measured in the direction of the machine axis and defined by the two carriers and one of the two carriers and the associated cam are supported so as to be displaceable in the direction of the machine axis.
In circular knitting machines of this type (e.g. DE-OS 17 60 124 and DE-OS 22 12 749) which have two needle carriers or beds and can be constructed as right/right circular knitting machines or interlock machines as well as double-cylinder machines, the reed or comb distance between the needle cylinder and the dial or rib disk, sometimes also called verge distance, and the strength or length of the stitches determined by it, vary depending on whether the machine is cold or warm, particularly in machines which generate high heat. Thus, knitted fabrics having varying stitch lengths are produced. This is generally the case in circular knitting machines which have a large number of knitting systems, are operated at high speed, have high gauges (number of knitting tools per inch) and/or develop a comparatively high friction between the knitting tools (needles, jacks, sinkers, etc.) and the respective cam parts.
The difference in comb distance results from the fact that the needle cylinder, which is generally supported in a frame by its lower end, increasingly expands axially upward when the machine is running warm or during other changes in temperature, whereas the dial or rib disk which is generally suspended at an upper frame part expands downward simultaneously. Because of this, or even as a result of only one of these two effects, the comb distance is increasingly reduced during warming and is smaller in warm running machines than in cold machines. Although these unwanted changes are comparatively small, e.g. in the order of magnitude of only several hundredths of a millimeter, they nevertheless have a significant influence on the operation of the circular knitting machine and on the quality of the knitted fabrics produced with it.
A result of this phenomenon is e.g. that a circular knitting machine whose comb distance has been adjusted in the warm state causes problems when started cold because the knitting tools consume more thread, the thread tension is correspondingly greater and the threads can even break. The machine must then be switched off, manually readjusted by an axial relative displacement of the dial and/or needle cylinder or by increasing the thread feed and then restarted. However, both of these adjustments are inadequate because they change the size of the stitch and the fabric quality and because the same adjustments would therefore have to be made in reverse after the machine has warmed up to maintain the stitch length and fabric quality actually desired in both a warm and a cold machine. It would therefore be ideal if the comb distance could be maintained constant independently of the respective machine temperature.
Similar problems result in circular knitting machines in which a sinker ring is securely connected with the upper end of the needle cylinder. In this case, however, the stitch size increases when the machine is running warm because the distance between the sinkers and the cylinder cam changes when the needle cylinder expands. Therefore, the known devices for preventing this problem (DE-OS 26 40 112, DE-OS 32 32 643 and DE-OS 33 16 382) can not easily be used to maintain a constant comb distance.

Circular knitting machine with a needle cylinder and a dial

SIPRA Patententwicklungs- und Beteiligungsgesellschaft mbH


A method for full duplex data transference between a master device and a slave device comprises the steps of the slave device providing (725) data stored in a location within the slave device to the master device and the master device providing (760) modified data to be stored in the location to the slave device. A further step includes the slave device, substantially coincident with the master device providing (760) the modified data to the slave device, providing (755) data stored in a subsequent location within the slave device to the master device.

Electronic devices, such as pagers, often incorporate communication between different semiconductor devices. In many electronic devices, the communication between semiconductor components involves data transference between a master device, which controls the communication process, and a slave device, which responds to commands from the master device. In this manner, the tasks necessary to the operation of the electronic device may be shared by the master device and the slave device, thereby providing for the faster execution of the necessary tasks.
In conventional pagers, a microcomputer, employed as a master device, may be interactively coupled to one or more slave devices, e.g., a support chip or another microcomputer, to perform such operations as decoding incoming messages and monitoring internal pager parameters, e.g., battery voltage. During normal operation of the pager, the master device typically communicates with a slave device to either read or modify information stored within registers internal to the slave device.
The microcomputer in a pager may, for example, read the contents of a register to determine whether a message has been received by the pager. In response to reception of a message, the microcomputer may provide modified information to the slave device directing it to transmit a signal to an alert mechanism, whereby an audible or tactile alert is generated.
In many cases, communication between the microcomputer and the slave device must be completed very rapidly, as when messages are being decoded. If the communication cannot be completed within a predetermined amount of time at a normal rate of data transfer, the microcomputer increases the rate of transfer to ensure the completion of the communication between the devices. For example, in many conventional pagers, a predetermined amount of time exists in which the pager is able to recover a message included in a selective call signal. If the message is not completely recovered within this predetermined amount of time, the message could be erroneously decoded or possibly be lost entirely by the pager. In one conventional pager, depending upon factors such as type or length of message, decoding the message could require from 138 to 416 operations involving data transference between the microcomputer and the slave device. In each case, the microcomputer internal to the pager will adjust the rate of transfer to complete the required operations within the predetermined amount of time. However, increasing the speed at which data is transferred requires a higher consumption of current by the microcomputer, thereby decreasing the life of a battery providing power to the pager. From a user standpoint, any decrease in the battery life of the pager is very undesirable.
Thus, what is needed is a rapid method of data transference between semiconductor devices that does not increase the power consumption of the pager.

Method and apparatus for enhanced modes in SPI communication


A target handset in a wireless communication network receives a PTT call announce message that is broadcast over a plurality of base stations without first sending a page message to precisely locate the target handset. The plurality of base stations cover a geographic region in which the target handset is expect to be located. Accordingly, the call setup delay introduced by first broadcasting a page message to precisely locate the target handset is eliminated. The additional burden on the network to broadcast the larger announce message is negligible because the bandwidth available in the forward common control channel (“FCCCH”) is sufficient to handle the larger message with no degradation to the network. Additionally, the announce message can be streamlined to reduce its data size and thereby minimize any additional burden on the network.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to wireless communications and more specifically relates to establishing push-to-talk communication between wireless communication devices.
2. Related Art
Conventional systems and methods for establishing a push-to-talk ("PTT") call over a wireless communication network suffer from significant call setup times. Typically, a call message from a requesting handset is received by a PTT server that subsequently sends out an announce message to the target handset. In order to send the announce message to the target handset, however, the target handset must first be located. Accordingly, conventional systems first broadcast a page message over a predefined geographical region in order to precisely locate the target handset.
Once the handset has responded to the page message, and thereby identified its location in a particular cell of the wireless communication network, the announce message is sent to the target handset via the specific base station for the particular cell. A significant drawback of these conventional methods for establishing a PTT call is the amount of time required to locate the target handset. Although periodic registration of handsets in a wireless communication network is generally required, the time lapse between registration messages can vary between a few minutes and several hours. Consequently, the location of a target handset can require multiple page messages to be sent over a wide geographic area if the handset has not recently registered with the network and has moved. These multiple page messages increase the PTT call setup time.
Additionally, once the target handset has been located and received and responded to the announce message, the PTT server sends a connection status message back to the requesting handset. However, the connection status message is delayed at the base station until the wireless communication network has established a traffic channel for the PTT call. Once the traffic channel is established, then the connection status message is sent to the requesting handset over the traffic channel. This delay in delivering the connection status message significantly increases the PTT call setup time.
Therefore, what is needed is a system and method that quickly and efficiently establishes push-to-talk communications between wireless communication devices and overcomes the time consuming procedures found in the conventional systems as described above.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Directed flood of push-to-talk announce message