A feeder having a reduced compression gravity-feed clean food-recycling system providing clean food for a bird including a pair of side panels; a manicuring perch with a serrated surface adjacent the side panels for wearing down a toenail of the bird while feeding; a manger floor with a pair of particle egress notches adjacent the pair of side panels supporting the clean food; a pair of settling slots established by the pair of particle egress notches, the manger floor and the pair of side panels passing particles of food; a manger stop adjacent the manger floor for confining the clean food; a catch encompassed by the pair of side panels, the manicuring perch, the settling slots and the manger stop accommodating clean food spilled or discarded by the bird; and a reclamation slide adjacent the side panels for collecting food and food particles.

There are no prior applications related to this application.
This invention relates generally to the field of animal feeders, and more particularly, but not by way of limitation, to reduced compression gravity-feed clean food-recycling system for a bird feeder with an ability to protect the food from fecal contamination.
Man has kept birds since the beginning of time, and has been faced with the same problem since man put the first bird in a cage. The problem being how to keep an adequate supply of food before the bird at all times, in spite of the bird""s habit of throwing it out.
Typically birds are fed out of small, open, lightweight containers sized by the cage manufacturers to fit through slots in the cage wire and held in place by wire doors, and referred to as feed bowls. Very quickly the bird finds other uses for these as push-pull or chew toys. It becomes a battle of wills between bird and owner to keep the food bowl in place. Ultimately the owner usually loses and resorts to using cereal bowls or heavy crock bowls that the bird should not be able to move or dump, but does. At the end of the day the bird is without food and the frustrated owner refills the open bowl, knowing full well that such a feeding method is totally inadequate and inefficient.
For the owner of one bird, the feed bowl problem with resulting clean up of the cage, and the immediate surrounding area, is sufficiently frustrating. For breeders with perhaps hundreds of birds, the problem becomes life threatening to the birds, their hatchling and perhaps a significant health risk to the owner, as a result of sweeping moldy feed off the floor. In addition to the health risk, such food waste can cause severe economic loss to the breeder and is ultimately reflected in the price of pet birds. Many breeders have resorted to rabbit type feeders: gravity feeders made of tin with small trays that the food drops into. But the same problem exists with these as with open feeders. The bird often digs out every bit of food and throws it all over the room, looking for that favorite piece.
Why are birds prone to this wasteful behavior? In the wild, birds forage and gather as a primary part of their daily routine. They browse on the ground, in trees and bushes, over and under rocks and leaves for food. They even search under the ground for their favorite morsels, scratching up topsoil and picking for seeds underneath. They search for their favorite foods and only accept second choice after they are satisfied that their favorite is unavailable. The universal favorite of almost all birds is sunflower seeds. Many cage birds will empty a full bowl of bird food, throwing it everywhere, as they eat only the sunflower seeds out of it.
Limited access gravity feeders, such as the rabbit type described above, have been around for many years. An alternate approach is exemplified by U.S. Pat. No. 5,771,838 issued to by Bloom et al. (Bloom ""838) proposes a bird feeder with a recapture reservoir. However, neither the gravity type rabbit feeders nor Bloom ""838 limit contamination of the food pan with bird droppings. Once the food pan is contaminated, it must be washed to stop the spread of germs. This often requires a major intrusion into the cage with tools, pliers, wrenches, etc. to remove the, bolts, washers, wing nuts, which commonly secure these devices to the cage. Such intrusions, while disturbing to pets, can cause major upsets for breeding birds, including the cessation of breeding activity and even the killing, or worse, maiming, of the young in the nest.
Another problem with these rabbit-type metal-gravity feeders is that they are opaque and cannot be seen through. They also have straight walls, which can cause the feed to compress at the bottom and become plugged. Because the feed is hidden, birds can die before the plug is discovered. Even in the transparent acrylic feeders, compression induced feed stoppage is still a problem.
Still another problem existing in the prior art, including Bloom ""838, is that of the feed trough being too flat, or angled so slightly that the food dust settles in the corners and has to be chipped out with an instrument such as a screwdriver, and are void of cleaning ports. Old food stuck in the corners of any feeder often molds. Mold can cause several serious respiratory conditions in birds and humans alike.
Thus, challenges remain and needs persist to provide an improved bird feeder that will trap displaced and thrown feed, that addresses the problem of compression of the feed, which will substantially eliminate direct feed contamination, that can be re-supplied from outside a cage or enclosure, and that can be removed for cleaning from outside the cage or enclosure absent a need for tools.
An embodiment of the present invention provides a feeder having a reduced compression gravity-feed clean food-recycling system providing clean food for a bird including a pair of side panels; a manicuring perch with a serrated surface adjacent the side panels for wearing down a toenail of the bird while feeding; a manger floor with a pair of particle egress notches adjacent the pair of side panels supporting the clean food; a pair of settling slots established by the pair of particle egress notches, the manger floor and the pair of side panels passing particles of food; a manger stop adjacent the manger floor for confining the clean food; a catch encompassed by the pair of side panels, the manicuring perch, the settling slots and the manger stop accommodating clean food spilled or discarded by the bird; and a reclamation slide adjacent the side panels for collecting food and food particles.
An embodiment of the feeder is built by steps that include providing a sheet of material for use in producing component parts of the feeder; separating each component part of the feeder from the sheet of material; collecting and pre-staging select component parts into an assembly kit specific to a bird species; notching a particle egress notch into a manger floor for use in forming a settling slot; embedding a serrated pattern into a manicuring perch to provide a means for manicuring a toenail of the bird while the bird feeds from the feeder; forming the manicuring perch into a predetermined shape sized to accommodate the grasp of the bird; placing each component part onto an assembly fixture and linking the components one to the other to form the feeder; and removing the linked components from the assembly fixture and installing a reclamation-stop-door to form the feeder.
These and various other features and advantages, which characterize the present invention, will be apparent from a reading of the following detailed description and a review of the associated drawings.

Reduced compression gravity-feed clean food-recycling system with manicuring perch for a bird feeder


Aspects described herein include a computer-implemented method (and related system and computer program product) comprising receiving, from a bonding service, an authorization request for a predefined authorized use of a good or service by a user. The authorization request indicates that the user meets one or more predefined criteria for the predefined authorized use. The method further comprises determining one or more penalty conditions of a bonding agreement for the predefined authorized use by the user, and receiving, from the bonding service, a confirmation that the user agrees to meet the one or more penalty conditions of the bonding agreement. The method further comprises receiving, from an owner of the good or service, an authorization of the authorization request, and transmitting, responsive to authorization of the authorization request, a token to the bonding service that enables the user to access the predefined authorized use of the good or service.

The present disclosure relates to authorizing uses of goods or services using bonding agreements.
Current authorization techniques for goods or services do not penalize authorized users who knowingly misuse their authorization. For example, an authorized person may permit an unauthorized person to use the authorized person's authorization (e.g., a user name and password of the authorized person) to access the good or service, effectively representing to the provider that the unauthorized person is the authorized person. Responsibility for the prevention of unauthorized access to the good or service typically falls upon the provider. Further, obtaining proper authorization may require a person to release sensitive or personally-identifying information that may require special legal or regulatory protections by the provider.

Authorizing uses of goods or services using bonding agreement

International Business Machines Corporation


The present invention relates to a transcriptional regulatory sequence with enhanced tumor-specificity and strength and a recombinant vector comprising the transcriptional regulatory sequence. More particularly, the present invention relates to a transcriptional regulatory sequence comprising a human telomere reverse transcriptase (hTERT) promoter linked to a nucleotide sequence that comprises one or more c-Myc binding sites and/or one or more Sp1 binding sites, and a recombinant vector comprising a certain gene that is operably linked to the above transcriptional regulatory sequence.

Adenovirus was known to have several advantages of mediating gene transfer with high efficiency in vivo and in vitro, transferring exogenous genes into a variety of cell types and allow for expression of the genes, regardless of cell division state of target cells, producing high-titer virus and not causing cancer in humans. Due to these advantages, adenovirus has greatly increased in use in clinical cancer gene therapy (Graham, F. L. 'Adenovirus vectors for high-efficiency gene transfer into mammalian cells.' Immunol. Today, 2000, 21, 426-8; Castell, J. V. et al. 'Adenovirus-mediated gene transfer into human hepatocytes: analysis of the biochemical functionality of transduce cells.' Gene Ther., 1997, 4, 455-64). When cancer is treated using gene therapy mediated by adenovirus, long term expression of therapeutic genes is not required, and host immune response induced by virus or viral proteins is not highly significant or even can be beneficial in some cases. Thus, adenovirus becomes attractive as a gene transfer vehicle for cancer therapy.
However, the most conventional recombinant adenoviruses for cancer therapy, which are known as replication-incompetent first-generation viruses, display antitumor activity in only primary infected cells or a very small number of surrounding cells (Vile, R. G. et al. 'Cancer gene therapy: hard lesion and new courses.' Gene Ther., 2000, 7, 2-8; Paillard, F. Cancer gene therapy annual conference. 1997: trends and news, Hum. Gene Ther., 1998, 4, 283-6; Lattime, E. C. et al. 'Selectively replicating viruses as therapeutic agents against cancer.' in: D. Kirn (Ed), Gene therapy of cancer, Academic Press, New York, 1999, 235-50).
To overcome such problems, the McCormick research group reported first a recombinant adenovirus that replicates selectively in tumor cells and eventually kills the tumor cells. After that, a variety of efforts were made to develop modified adenoviruses causing tumor-specific cytolysis (Bischoff, J. R. et al. 'An adenovirus mutant that replicates selectively in P53-deficient human tumor cells.' Science, 1996, 18, 274(5286), 373-6; Heise, C. et al. 'ONYX-015, an E1B gene-attenuated adenovirus, causes tumor-specific cytolysis and antitumoral efficacy that can be augmented by standard chemotherapeutic agents.' Nat. Med., 1997, 3(6), 639-45). The oncolytic adenoviral vectors have a domino effect on cancer therapy by displaying antitumor activity not only in primary infected cells, but also in secondarily infecting surrounding tumor cells by replication thereby remarkably increasing therapeutic efficacy against cancer. Also, the oncolytic adenoviral vectors further include the advantage of being inhibited replication in surrounding normal cells, and thus, having low cytotoxicity to the normal cells.
Tumor-specific replication-competent adenoviruses have been developed mainly by two methods, as follows. First, tumor-specific replication-competent adenoviruses can be developed by regulating cancer tissues expression of E1A protein which is essential for replication of adenovirus using tumor- or tissue-specific promoters. Rodriguez, R. et al. reported in 1997 that, when the upstream promoter of E1A gene is replaced by the promoter/enhancer region of prostate-specific antigen (PSA) selectively expressed in prostate cancer cells, adenovirus replicates selectively in PSA-positive prostate cancer cells (Rodriguez, R. et al. 'Prostate attenuated replication competent adenovirus (ARCA) CN706: a selective cytotoxic for prostate-specific antigen-positive prostate cancer cells.' Cancer Res., 1997, 1, 57(13), 2559-63). The prostate attenuated replication competent adenovirus (ARCA) CN706 (Calydon Pharmaceuticals, Calif., USA) is under a phase I clinical trial in patients suffering from recurred prostate cancer. In addition, some attempts have been made to develop more potent prostate cancer-specific replicative adenoviruses. For example, the expression of the two early genes, E1A and E1B, of adenovirus can be regulated according to expression levels of PSA by additionally inserting a prostate-specific enhancer region into the upstream of E1B gene that is one of early genes of adenovirus (Yu, D. C. et al. 'Identification of the transcriptional regulatory sequences of human kallikrein 2 and their use in the construction of cyldon virus 764, an attenuated replication competent adenovirus for prostate cancer therapy.' Cancer Res., 1999, 1, 59(7), 1498-504). Further, employing promoters of genes activated only in specific tumor cells, such as alpha-fetoprotein (AFP), carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) and MUC-1, tumor-specific replication-competent adenoviruses have been developed (Kanai, F. et al. 'Gene therapy for alpha-fetoprotein-producing human hepatoma cells by adenovirus-mediated transfer of the herpes simplex virus thymidine kinase gene.' Hepatology, 1996, 53, 963-7; Marshall, J. F. et al. 'Tissue specific promoters in targeting systemically delivered gene therapy.' Semin. Oncol., 1996, 23, 154-8; Osaki, T. et al. 'Gene therapy for carcinoembryonic antigen-producing human lung cancer cells by cell type specific expression of herpes simplex virus thymidine kinase gene.' Cancer Res., 1994, 54, 5258-61; Kurihara, T. et al. 'Selectivity of a replication-competent adenovirus for human breast carcinoma cells expressing the MUC1 antigen.' J. Clin. Invest., 2000, 106, 763-71).
In the second strategy for the development of tumor-specific replication-competent adenoviruses, some attempts have been tried to develop tumor-specific replication-competent adenoviruses by selectively knocking out adenoviral genes that are essential for active viral replication in normal cells but not essential in tumor cells (Whyte, P. et al. 'Cellular targets for transformation by the adenovirus E1A proteins.' Cell, 1989, 56, 67-75; Fueyo, J. et al. 'A mutant oncolytic adenovirus targeting the Rb pathway produces anti-glioma effect in vivo.' Oncogen., 2000, 19, 2-12). Bischoff J. R. et al. reported first in 1996 that an adenovirus mutant deficient in the adenoviral early protein E1B-55kD that functions to bind to and then inactivate the tumor suppressor protein p53 is capable of replicating selectively in p53 deficient tumor cells. When a wild-type adenovirus infects normal cells, the infected cells inhibit viral proliferation by activating the tumor suppressor protein p53. The E1B-55kD protein is responsible for the p53 activation, which binds to p53 and inhibits its function. As a result the wild-type adenovirus actively proliferates in the normal cells and eventually destroys the cells (Yew, P. R. et al. 'Adenovirus E1B oncoprotein tethers a transcriptional repression domain to p53.' Genes, 1994, 8, 190-202; Dobner, T. et al. 'Blockage by adenovirus E4 or F6 of transcriptional activation by the p53 tumor suppressor.' Science, 1996, 7, 272(5267), 1470-3.). However, when the E1B-55kD gene-deleted recombinant adenovirus infects normal cells, viral proliferation is inhibited because p53 inactivation is not induced, whereas the virus actively proliferates in several tumor cells in which the function of p53 is inhibited and eventually induces cell death of the infected cells. Based on these fact, the present inventors developed an E1B-55kD gene-deleted, tumor-specific cytolytic adenovirus, YKL-1, which was demonstrated to be superior to the conventional first-generation adenoviruses that is replication-deficient in transfection efficacy. YKL-1 also has the oncolytic effect against several human tumor cells (Lee, H. et al. 'Oncolytic potential of E1B55kDa-deleted YKL-1 recombinant adenovirus: Correlation with p53 functional status.' Int. J. Cancer, 2000, 88, 454-63).
In addition to inactivating p53, the E1B55kD protein stimulates to transport the adenovirus mRNA to the cytosol and synthesize the composed proteins of adenoviruses, and thus is essential for replication of adenoviruses. Therefore, the E1B55kD gene-deleted replication-competent adenovirus is proliferation-restricted in tumor cells and thus has reduced cytotoxic activity, resulting in a decrease in vivo antitumor efficacy. To solve this problem, the present inventors construct an Ad-ΔE1B19 adenovirus deleted for the adenovirus E1B19kD gene of which translational product functions to inhibit apoptosis, and revealed that the Ad-ΔE1B19 adenovirus has greatly enhanced cytolytic effect and in vivo antitumor effect (Kim, J. et al. 'Evaluation of E1B gene attenuated replicating adenoviruses for cancer gene therapy.' Cancer Gene Therapy, 2002, 9, 725-736). However, in this case that the E1B55kD gene is not deleted to achieve effective replication of adenovirus. Cell death is increased by elevated adenovirus replication, but the tumor-specific replication activity is lost. Thus, the Ad-ΔE1B19 adenovirus is required to have tumor specificity for use in cancer treatment by gene therapy.
Human telomere reverse transcriptase (hTERT) is one subunit of the telomerase holoenzyme that is involved in uniformly maintaining telomere length during chromosome replication, and known to be related to cell aging, tumorogenesis and cell immortalization (Counter, C. M. et al. 'Telomere shortening associated with chromosome instability is arrested in immortal cell which express telomerase activity.' EMBO J. 1992, 11, 1921-29; Kim, N. W. et al. 'Specific association of human telomerase activity with immortal cells and cancer.' Science, 1994, 21, 66, 2011-5; Harley, C. B. et al. 'Telomeres shorten during aging of human fibroblasts.' Nature, 1990, 345, 458-60). Telomerase activity is detected in germline cells and lymphocytes in human ovaries and testes, but not found in normal somatic cells (Wright, W. E. et al. 'Telomerase activity in human germline and embryonic tissues and cells.' Dev. Genet. 1996, 18, 173-9). Therefore, normal somatic cells have below a threshold length of telomere after a limited number of cell divisions, and eventually senesce (Yasumoto, S. et al. 'Telomerase activity in normal human epithelial cells.' Oncogene. 1996, 13, 433-9). In contrast, telomerase activity is elevated in benign tumor cells before tumor progression and cancer cells (Broccoli, D. et al. 'Telomerase activity in normal and malignant hematopoietic cells.' Proc. Nat'l. Acad. Sci. USA. 1995, 92, 9082-6.). After the first report in that telomerase activity is increased in ovarian cancer, elevated telomerase activity is detected in almost all human cancers, including blood cancer, stomach cancer, lung cancer, liver cancer, large intestine cancer, brain cancer, prostate cancer, head and neck cancer and breast cancer (Counter, C. M. et al. 'Telomerase activity in human ovarian carcinoma.' Proc. Nat'l. Acad. Sci. USA. 1994, 91, 2900-4; Counter, C. M. et al. 'Stabilization of short telomeres and telomerase activity accompany immortalization of Epstein-Barr virus-transformed human B lympho-cytes.' J. Virol., 1994, 68, 3410-4; Shay, J. W. et al. 'A survey of telomerase activity in human cancer.' Eur. J. Cancer, 1997, 33, 787-91; Harle-Bachor, C. et al. 'Telomerase activity in the regenerative basal layer of the epidermis in human skin and in immortal and carcinoma-derived skin keratinocytes.' Proc. Nat'l. Acad. Sci. USA. 1996, 93, 6476-81).
Expression of hTERT that plays a critical role in the function of telomerase is associated with telomerase activity. Recent data suggest that telomerase expression is regulated according to the activity of hTERT promoter, that is, mRNA levels of hTERT. The minimum hTERT promoter region to regulate hTERT activity is 181 bp in length. The wild-type hTERT promoter contains two c-Myc binding sites and five Sp1 binding sites. According to some reports the c-Myc oncoprotein which is highly expressed in tumor cells compared to normal cells is binding to the transcription factor Sp1. This binding activates hTERT promoter. Takakura M. et al. reported in 1999 that the activity of hTERT promoter is elevated by overexpression of c-Myc (Cerni, C. 'Telomeres, telomerase, and myc.' An update. Mutat. Res., 2000, 462, 31-47; Greenberg, R. A. et al. 'elomerase reverse transcriptase gene is a direct target of c-Myc but is not functionally equivalent in cellular transformation.' Oncogene, 1999, 18, 1219-26; Takakura, M. et al., 'Cloning of human telomerase reverse transcriptase gene promoter and identification of proximal core promoter essential for transcriptional activation of hTERT in immortalized and cancer cells.' Cancer Res., 1999, 59, 551-9).
As described by Shoji K. et al., apoptosis-inducing toxic genes such as caspase-8 can be expressed in only tumor cells by inducing expression of cancer cell-specific genes using the hTERT promoter (Shoji, K. et al. 'A novel telomerase-specific gene therapy: gene transfer of caspase-8 utilizing the human telomerase catalytic subunit gene promoter.' Human Gene Therapy, 2000, 11, 1397-406.). However, the use of the hTERT promoter alone has a limitation in attaining sufficient tumor specificity.

Modified tert promoter with enhanced tumor-specificity and strength and recombinant vector comprising the same

Industry-Academic Cooperation Foundation, Yonsei University


A system and device for detecting inclination that eliminates the need to compensate for the acceleration of the vehicle is disclosed. The system includes a multi-axis acceleration sensing device that is fixedly attached to the object such that each sensing axis of the multi-axis acceleration sensing device lies in a common plane with the forward-aft axis of the object and the sensing axes are orthogonal to one another and each sensing axis is oriented 45 degrees from the forward-aft axis.

The present invention is related to the field of navigational systems and devices and, more particularly, to navigational systems and devices capable of detecting inclination and changes in inclination of an object in motion without having to compensate for the acceleration of the object.
Presently, on-board, three-dimensional travel navigation systems using, for example, the global positioning system ("GPS"), compensate for vehicle acceleration by using a speed pulse that is generated by a speed-pulse generator to accurately detect inclination of the vehicle.
Recent car makes and models can be digitally wired, e.g., using a CAN bus connection, to provide the speed pulse. Transducers have been used to produce speed pulses in older model vehicles. Another popular system incorporates a magnetized, steel, bias wire in one of the vehicle's tires. A receiver is adapted to count the number of rotations of the tire, generating an electronic speed pulse after a predetermined number of rotations.
It would be desirable to provide a system or a device that does not rely on speed pulses, which is to say that the system or device detects inclination independent of the acceleration of the object.

Two-axis accelerometer for detecting inclination without the effect of common acceleration


An optical beam scanner is provided in which light emitted from a light source and transmitted through a slit formed in a diaphragm plate is made incident upon a polygonal mirror through a cylindrical lens having positive power in the sub-scanning direction. The light reflected by the polygonal mirror is converged onto an object surface to be scanned through an optical image forming system. A plane mirror is provided between the diaphragm plate and the polygonal mirror to reflect the light emitted from the light source toward the polygonal mirror. The optical elements provided between the light source and the optical image forming system are housed in a casing having a bottom surface perpendicular to the axis of rotation of the polygonal mirror. The light emitted from the light source toward the plane mirror is parallel with the bottom surface. The light incident upon the polygonal mirror and the light reflected by the polygonal mirror are separated in the sub-scanning direction. The slit has different diameters in two orthogonal directions. The longitudinal direction of the slit is inclined with respect to the bottom surface, so that the longitudinal direction of a slit image projected on a reflection surface of the polygonal mirror through the plane mirror is substantially parallel with the bottom surface. The direction of the generatrix of the cylindrical lens is inclined with respect to the bottom surface in the same direction as the longitudinal direction of the slit.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an optical beam scanner which is incorporated in an optical system of a laser printer, and more particular, the present invention, it relates to a control system of a diaphragm plate therein.
2. Description of the Related Art
There has been a need for the realization of a compact scanner which can be incorporated in an optical system of a laser printer, etc., in accordance with the miniaturization of the laser printer. In a known reflection-type compact beam scanner, the laser beam deflected by a polygonal mirror is reflected by a curved mirror in the sub-scanning direction at a predetermined angle toward the polygonal to mirror laser beam is made incident upon an object surface to be scanned through an anamorphic lens, as disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 6-265810 (referred to as "JPP '810" hereinafter) for example.
The reflection surfaces of the polygonal mirror are parallel with the center axis (rotation axis) of the polygonal mirror about which the polygonal mirror rotates. Namely, assuming that a reference plane is defined by a plane perpendicular to the center axis of the polygonal mirror, the reflection surfaces are perpendicular to the reference plane. Since a bundle of light (light bundle) emitted from the light source is separated in the sub-scanning direction by the polygonal mirror, the light source is disposed such that the light incident upon the polygonal mirror defines a predetermined angle with respect to the reference plane in the sub-scanning plane.
However, in the known reflection-type beam scanner mentioned above, the light path from the light source to the polygonal mirror is defined by a straight line since no reflection system is used. Therefore, it is impossible to make the length of the beam scanner in the direction of the straight light path smaller than the distance between the light source and the polygonal mirror. Hence, the beam scanner cannot be miniaturized.
A solution to miniaturize an optical system is to bend the light path using a mirror disposed in the light path from the light source to the polygonal mirror. However, this solution is not useful for miniaturizing and the optical system in the main scanning direction in which the light bundle is moved to scan an object, since the size of the optical system in the main scanning direction is determined by the width of the curve mirror and the anamorphic lens. Namely, even if the light path from the light source to the polygonal mirror is bent into the main scanning direction, substantial reduction in the size of the entire optical system cannot be expected.
In the simplest arrangement to bend the light path using a plane mirror, the latter is added in the optical system as disclosed in JPP '810 mentioned above, so that the positional relationship between the light source and the polygonal mirror is optically equivalent to that in the optical system in JPP '810. The line normal to the plane mirror is parallel with the reference plane. Hence, the light path which is developed without taking the reflection by the mirror into consideration is identical to that in JPP '810. In this arrangement, the space for the optical system in the direction of travel of the light incident upon the polygonal mirror is reduced, nevertheless, the height of the optical system in the sub-scanning direction cannot be decreased in comparison with the prior art.
If the direction of the light incident upon the plane mirror is made parallel with the reference plane, the height of the optical system in the sub-scanning direction can be decreased. In order to achieve this, it is necessary to incline the line normal to the plane mirror with respect to the reference plane, instead of inclining the light incident upon the polygonal mirror with respect to the reference plane.
In a first arrangement in which the normal line to the plane mirror is inclined with respect to the reference surface, the reference plane itself is inclined with respect to the bottom surface of the casing; the light path of light incident upon the plane mirror and the normal line to the plane mirror are both parallel with the bottom surface of the casing; and the center axis (rotation axis) of the polygonal mirror is inclined with respect to the bottom surface of the casing. In the first arrangement, the mounting to the casing and the adjusting of the polygonal mirror are difficult.
In a second arrangement in which the normal line to the plane mirror is inclined with respect to the reference surface, the reference plane is parallel with the bottom surface of the casing; the light path of light incident upon the plane mirror is parallel with the bottom surface of the casing; the center axis (rotation axis) of the polygonal mirror is perpendicular to the bottom surface of the casing; and the normal line to the plane mirror is inclined with respect to the bottom surface of the casing. In the second arrangement, there is a problem in that a beam is not correctly focused on a surface to be scanned (i.e., the shape of the beam spot is deformed). This will be discussed below.
In general, in an optical beam scanner, it is preferable that the shape of the beam spot on the image surface be elongated in the sub-scanning direction. In order to achieve this, a diaphragm plate having a slit which as a major diameter in the main scanning direction and a minor diameter in the sub-scanning direction is provided in the vicinity of the light source. The diameter of the light bundle differs in the main scanning direction and sub-scanning direction due to the slit, so that the f-number of the optical system is substantially varied to thereby vary the diameter of the beam spot.
However, in the second arrangement in which the normal line to the plane mirror is inclined with respect to the bottom surface of the casing, the direction of the section of the light bundle is distorted upon reflection by the plane mirror. Consequently, if the longitudinal direction of the slit is parallel with the bottom surface of the casing as in the conventional scanner, the direction corresponding to the longitudinal direction of the slit does not coincide with the main scanning direction on the reflection surface of the polygonal mirror due to the distortion. Therefore, the direction in which the f-number is substantially reduced is not identical to the main scanning direction. Hence, the direction of the beam spot formed on the surface to be scanned is rotated with respect to an ideal direction by a predetermined angle. If an ideal beam spot having a minor diameter in the main scanning direction is rotated, the spot diameter in the main scanning direction, i.e., the size of the beam spot projected on the line in the main scanning direction is increased, so that the resolution of the image is attenuated. Consequently, the required performance of the beam scanner cannot be achieved.


Characteristics of a nonvolatile semiconductor memory device are improved. The memory cell comprises: an ONO film constituted by a silicon nitride film SIN for accumulating charge and by oxide films BOTOX and TOPOX disposed thereon and thereunder; a memory gate electrode MG disposed at an upper portion thereof; a select gate electrode SG disposed at a side portion thereof through the ONO film; a gate oxide film SGOX disposed thereunder. By applying a potential to a select gate electrode SG of a memory cell having a source region MS and a drain region MD and to the source region MS and by accelerating electrons flowing in a channel through a high electric field produced between a channel end of the select transistor and an end of an n-type doped region ME disposed under the memory gate electrode MG, hot holes are generated by impact ionization, and the hot holes are injected into a silicon nitride film SIN by a negative potential applied to the memory gate electrode MG, and thereby an erase operation is performed.

The invention relates to a nonvolatile semiconductor memory device and, more particularly, to a nonvolatile semiconductor memory device, which is suitable to speed up an erase operation and a read operation and improve data retention characteristics, write/erase endurance characteristics, or write disturb characteristics.
As electrically erasable and programmable nonvolatile semiconductor memory devices, EEPROMs (Electrically Erasable and Programmable Read Only Memories) are popularly used. Each of these memory devices (memories) represented by flash memories has a conductive floating gate electrode or a trapping insulator film which are surrounded by an oxide film under a gate electrode of a MOS (Metal Oxide Semiconductor) transistor. This trapping insulator film means an insulator film, which can accumulate charges therein, and may be, by way of example, a silicon nitride film or the like.
Injection and discharge of charges into/from these charge accumulation regions cause the threshold voltage of a MOS transistor to be shifted and to operate as a memory device.
There is used, as the flash memory, a split-gate cell employing a MONOS (Metal-Oxide-Nitride-Oxide-Semiconductor) structure that will be described later.
In the memory, since a silicon nitride film is used as a charge accumulation region, the following advantages are achieved: in comparison with a conductive floating gate film, 1) reliability of data retention is high due to discrete accumulation of charges; 2) because of high reliability of the data retention, oxide films located on upper and/or lower side of the silicon nitride film can be thinned and write/erase operations can be performed at low voltages; and the like.
By using the split-gate cell, the following advantages are also achieved: 1) hot electrons can be injected into the silicon nitride film by a source-side injection method and good electron injection efficiency can be achieved, whereby the write operation can be performed at a high speed and with a low current; 2) since the write/erase operations are easily controlled, a peripheral circuit can be made small in scale; and the like.
As erase methods for the above-mentioned memory, there are given two methods, i.e., a tunneling erase method and a BTBT (Band-To-Band Tunneling) hot hole injection erase method.
For example, Patent Document 1 (Japanese Patent Laid-open No. 2001-102466) discloses a memory cell using a tunneling erase method. Further, Patent Document 2 (U.S. Pat. No. 5,969,383) discloses a memory cell using the BTBT hot hole injection erase method.
In the tunneling erase method, electrons, injected into a silicon nitride film by a source-side injection write method, are tunneled through an oxide film located on upper or lower side of the silicon nitride film by applying a positive or negative voltage to a gate electrode, and are extracted into the gate electrode or a substrate to perform an erase operation.
In the other BTBT hot hole injection erase method, a high voltage is applied between a source and a gate electrode, and holes with positive charges generated by the BTBT are accelerated by an electric field directed to a channel direction at an end of a source diffusion layer and are attracted by the negative voltage of the gate electrode and are injected into the silicon nitride film to perform an erase operation (see FIG. 32).
[Patent Document 1]
Japanese Patent Laid-open No. 2001-102466
[Patent Document 2]
U.S. Pat. No. 5,969,383


An antifuse structure and method for making the antifuse structure having a doped antifuse layer is disclosed. The doped antifuse layer is preferably deposited over a lower electrode. A barrier layer may then be formed over the doped antifuse layer and an upper electrode may subsequently be deposited over the barrier layer. The method of depositing the doped antifuse layer includes: (a) providing a chemical vapor deposition reactor having a support chuck for supporting a partially fabricated silicon wafer; (b) powering up the chemical vapor deposition reactor and heating the partially fabricated silicon wafer; (c) selecting a dopant species for the antifuse layer (e.g, n-type or p-type); (d) introducing a gaseous mixture of a silane compound and the selected dopant species into the chemical vapor deposition reactor with the aid of a neutral species; and (e) depositing the antifuse layer over the lower electrode. When the antifuse structure is programmed, a wider conduction path is formed in the doped antifuse layer and deprogrammed states are prevented.

The present invention relates generally to integrated circuit (IC) chips, and more particularly, to improved antifuse structures and methods for depositing antifuse layers to prevent deprogramming failures.
Fuse and antifuse structures have been used for sometime in certain classes of IC chips such as field programmable gate arrays, programmable read-only memories (PROMs) and the like. Field programmable gate arrays include a large number of logic elements, such as AND gates and OR gates, which can be selectively coupled together by means of fuses or antifuses to perform user designed functions. An unprogrammed fuse-type gate array is programmed by selectively blowing fuses within the device, while an unprogrammed antifuse type gate array is programmed by causing selected antifuses to become conductive.
There are many types of PROMs including standard, write-once PROMs, erasable programmable read-only memories (EPROMs), electrically erasable programmable read-only memories (EEPROMs), etc. A PROM usually comprises an array of memory cells arranged in rows and columns, which can be programmed to store user data.
Fuses for field programmable gate arrays, PROMs and the like are typically made from a titanium-tungsten (TiW) alloy and are shaped somewhat like a bow-tie having a narrow, central neck and wide ends. The neck of the fuse is typically about 2 microns wide, while the ends of the fuse are typically about 6 microns wide. When a sufficiently high voltage (usually on the order of 10 volts D.C.) is applied to the fuse, the current flowing through the fuse will cause it to heat-up and will eventually melt the fuse at its neck, thereby "blowing" the fuse. Fuses in electronic devices are much more prevalent today than antifuses because they are easier to manufacture and have a better record of reliability.
Antifuses, however, do have the very desirable feature of being small in size. For example, a TiW fuse with a 2 micron neck and 6 micron end width permits approximately 4,000 fuses to be provided on a typical device. In contrast, a 1 or 1.2 micron diameter antifuse via permits 80,000-100,000 antifuses to be formed on a single device. As a result, antifuses provide designers with the ability to form larger numbers of antifuses for storing information on a typical devices than fuse technology storage.
Antifuse structures include a material which initially has a high resistance but which can be converted into a low resistance material by the application of a programming voltage. Once programmed, these low resistance antifuse structures can couple together logic elements of a field programmable gate array so that the gate array will perform user-desired functions, or can serve as memory cells of a PROM.
To facilitate further discussion, FIG. 1 schematically illustrates a cross section of a prior art antifuse structure 10. Antifuse structure 10 includes a "metal-one" layer 14, which is typically formed over an oxide layer of a semiconductor substrate, e.g., the silicon dioxide layer of a silicon wafer. Metal-one layer 14 typically comprises titanium-tungsten and/or other suitable conductive materials and may be formed by a conventional physical vapor deposition (PVD) process, such as sputtering.
Once metal-one layer 14 is formed, an antifuse layer 16 is blanket deposited and patterned using a suitable photolithographic process. Antifuse layer 16 is formed from amorphous silicon (a-Si), which has an intrinsic resistivity of approximately one mega-ohm-cm, and which may be deposited by any number of conventional processes, including chemical vapor deposition (CVD).
Following the amorphous silicon deposition, a barrier layer 17 is blanket deposited over antifuse layer 16. By way of example, barrier layer 17 may be a titanium-tungsten (TiW) layer configured to prevent aluminum atoms of subsequently deposited metallization layers from diffusing into and degrading antifuse layer 16. Next, an intermetal oxide (IMO) layer 18, typically consisting of silicon dioxide, is deposited above barrier layer 17 using any well-known process. A via hole 20 is then etched, using a suitable photolithographic process and an appropriate etchant. The via hole 20 therefore extends through inter-metal oxide layer 18 and stops at about barrier layer 17. A "metal-two" layer 22 then fills via hole 20 to create a metal contact to barrier layer 17 through inter-metal oxide layer 18.
The antifuse structure of FIG. 1 can then be programmed by applying an appropriate programming voltage between metal-one layer 14 and metal-two layer 22. For a typical amorphous silicon-based antifuse, the programming voltage is, for example, between about 8-12 volts D.C. at about 10 milli-amps (mA). During the programming step, antifuse layer 16 will typically form a conductive filament 24. Conductive filament 24 is generally formed when conductive atoms from metal-one layer 14 and/or conductive barrier layer 17 migrate into antifuse layer 16. A description of conducting filaments in programmed antifuse devices is found in a paper entitled "Conducting Filament of the Programmed Metal Electrode Amorphous Silicon Antifuse," Gordon et al., IEDM Tech. Dig., p. 27, December 1993, incorporated herein by reference.
A typical amorphous silicon-based antifuse structure 10 typically having a resistance of about 1-2 giga-ohms before programming (e.g., for a one micron diameter antifuse structure). After being programmed, the same antifuse structure 10 may have a resistance of about 20 to 100 ohms.
A problem often encountered with conventional antifuses is known as "deprogramming" (also referred to as infant mortality failures), in which antifuses having been subjected to a programming voltage are later found to have reverted to an unprogrammed "off" state. In some cases, deprogramming is a result of weakly "programmed" antifuse which initially forms an inadequate conductive filament. By way of example, antifuses with inadequate filament formation typically increase in resistance over time and essentially become unprogrammed as opposed to remaining in a low resistive state. Deprogramming problems may also result in programmed IC chip failures or latent defects that could potentially result in exceedingly expensive unsuspected future malfunctions.
In view of the forgoing, what is needed is a method for manufacturing amorphous silicon antifuse structures that maintain their programmed status thereby preventing infant mortality failures.

Method for making doped antifuse structures


An optical disc comprises two facing disc units, at least one of which has a recording layer formed on its surface facing to the other disc unit. The disc units are bonded together by a layer of adhesive which may be a room-temperature curing thermosetting adhesive having a glass transition temperature higher than the upper limit of the range of temperatures of environments in which the disc may be used. Alternatively, the adhesive may be a room-temperature curing two-pack epoxy adhesive which comprises a bisphenol epoxy resin base agent and a modified aliphatic polyamine curing agent, and which has a viscosity of 100-1000 cps, a pot life of one hour or more, a cure shrinkage of 1.0% or less, a water absorption, after curing, of 0.2% or less, and a Shore hardness, after curing, of 80-90.

FIG. 1 shows a cross-section of an ordinary optical disc, designated as 10. A recording layer 2 is formed on a transparent substrate 1 of resin, such as, for example, polycarbonate, and a protective film 3 is formed over the recording layer 2. The substrate 1, the layer 2 and the film 3 form a disc unit 4. Two such disc units 4 are bonded to each other at the exposed surfaces of the respective protective films 3 with an adhesive layer 5. Thus, the optical disc 10 is formed. Conventionally, in order to bond the disc units 4 together, a thermosetting adhesive, an ultraviolet-curable adhesive, or a thermoplastic adhesive are used. A corrosive component contained in such adhesives, however, tends to degrade the recording layers 2, and, in particular, when the water absorption of the adhesive layer 5 is high, the protective films 3 ana the recording layers 2 are oxidized, which lowers the reliability of the disc 10. A moisture-curing adhesive, such as one-pack epoxy resin adhesive, may be used. However, when disc units having large areas are bonded with a thin layer of a moisture-curing adhesive, air or moisture hardly penetrates to reach center portions of the bonded disc units, resulting in incomplete curing of the adhesive. Furthermore bonding disc units with such an adhesive requires a long time and is difficult to do. When two-pack non-mixing type resins and microcapsule type resins are used, some components may remain uncured, which will erode the discs. Furthermore, such adhesives can provide insufficient adhesion. For such reasons, two-pack non-mixing type and microcapsule type adhesives are considered unsuitable for bonding disc units.
Another problem which may be encountered when curing type adhesives are used is that contraction of the curing adhesive may cause distortion of the disc units. In particular, when a thermosetting adhesive is used, not only does contraction of the adhesive occurs when it cures, but also heat applied for curing the adhesive distorts the adhesive layer 5 itself. Distortion of the adhesive layer 5 causes deformation or warpage of the disc units, and, therefore, resulting optical discs may have to be rejected.
The use of a thermoplastic resin adhesive rather than a thermosetting resin as the adhesive layer 5 is disclosed in, for example, Japanese Patent Publication No. SHO 63-67258. In the invention disclosed in this patent publication, a hot-melt type adhesive, which is thermoplastic, is used for the adhesive layer 5. A hot-melt adhesive which has been heated and melted is applied over the protective film 3 of a first disc unit 4. Then, the other disc unit 4 is placed on the first disc unit 4 in such a manner that the protective film 3 of the other disc unit 4 comes into contact with the adhesive which has been applied over the protective film 3 of the said first disc unit 4. Then, the assembly is cooled to room temperature so that the hot-melt adhesive cures to bond the two disc units 4 to each other.
Since such a thermoplastic resin adhesive need not be heated for its curing, distortion of the adhesive layer 5 is small, which, in turn, can advantageously reduce warpage of the disc units 4. However, if the adhesive is applied non-uniformly, portions of the adhesive layer 5 may swell from moisture which penetrates through the substrate 1, and the disc units may crack or may separate from each other.
Usually, optical discs are used in different environments, from cold districts to hot districts, and, accordingly, the temperature at which discs are designed to perform desired functions (hereinafter this temperature is referred to as usable environment temperature) ranges for example, from -20.degree. C. to 60.degree. C. The inventors have conducted humidity-resistance tests and temperature-humidity cycle tests on optical discs comprising two disc units 4 bonded together with a hot-melt adhesive at the above-stated temperature range of from -20.degree. C. to 60.degree. C. at which discs may be used. They found that the recording layers 2 were readily peeled off, pin holes were produced and, when the number of test cycles increased, bit error rates increased abruptly. Therefore they concluded that such optical discs were not sufficiently reliable.
One conventional technique for bonding two disc units 4 together is as follows. A first disc unit 4 is positioned with the recording layer 2 facing upward. An adhesive is applied over the protective film 3 on the recording layer 2 in generally concentric circles. A second disc unit 4 is aligned with the first disc by means of a center shaft of a disc manufacturing apparatus, and the protective film 3 of the second disc unit is brought into contact with the adhesive. The resultant assembly is left as it is so that the adhesive is spread over the entire surfaces of the protective films due to the weight of the disc unit, and the adhesive is caused to cure to bond the two disc units together. In this bonding technique, bubbles may be disadvantageously formed in the adhesive when it is applied over the protective film or when the second disc unit is brought into contact with the adhesive on the protective film of the first disc unit, and the bubbles may remain after the adhesive cures.
one method for preventing such bubbles from being formed in the adhesive layer is shown in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. SHO 61-50231. According to the method shown in this patent publication, an adhesive is applied over the entire surface of the protective film 3 by spin-coating, and the two disc units are bonded together with their center axes aligned with each other. According to another method which is shown in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. SHO 61-292244, an adhesive is applied over portions of the protective film 3 of one disc unit, the other disc unit is placed over the first disc unit with the center axes of the two disc units aligned, and pressure is applied to bond the two disc units together with the adhesive spread over the entire surfaces of the protective films.
When an adhesive is applied over the entire surface of the protective film 3 of one disc unit 4 and the other disc unit is bonded to the first disc unit, the adhesive may forced out into the center holes of the disc units and also around the bonded disc units, and, when the adhesive cures, burrs 7 may be formed on the periphery of the center hole 6 of the optical disc 10 and on the periphery of the disc 10, as shown in FIGS. 2(a) and 2(b). Burrs 7 formed within the center hole 6 could make the disc 10 eccentric, and, accordingly, they should be completely removed. In order to deburr, a deburring device, such as one shown in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. SHO 61-00534, may be used. However, the use of a deburring device will undesirably increase the number of manufacturing steps, which, in turn, increases the manufacturing costs. On the other hand, even when the adhesive is applied over portions of the protective film, it may be forced out or ooze out as in the case when the adhesive is applied over the entire surface as stated above, or, sometimes, the distribution of the adhesive may be non-uniform, so that the disc 10 may flutter.
In order to prevent the adhesive from oozing out into the center hole or out of the periphery of the disc, a precisely adjusted pressure must be applied, which requires high-precision, expensive equipment. One of the simplest techniques for bonding two disc units is the use of the weight of a disc unit itself with an adhesive placed between the two disc units. In this technique, however, if an adhesive having viscosity of less than 100 cps is used, it may ooze out and form burrs 7 like the ones shown in FIGS. 2(a) and 2(b). In contrast, if the viscosity of the adhesive is above 1000 cps, the adhesive may not spread over the entire space between the two disc units 4, as shown in FIGS. 3(a) and 3(b). Even if the amount of the adhesive to be applied is precisely measured, oozing out of the adhesive as shown in FIGS. 2(a) and 2(b) or absence of the adhesive at some portions as shown in FIGS. 3(a) and 3(b) may occur if the adhesive is applied to disc units at inappropriate positions.
A reduced-pressure bonding apparatus as shown in FIG. 4 has been conventionally used for bonding, with an adhesive, two disc units without leaving bubbles in the adhesive layer. In FIG. 4, a vacuum chamber 11 houses mounts 14 and 15 coupled respectively to shafts 12 and 13 which can move up and down. Disc units 4 with adhesive layers 16 and 17 applied over the surfaces of protective films 3 of the respective disc units 4 are mounted on the mounts 14 and 15, respectively. A vacuum pump (not shown) is operated to reduce the pressure in the vacuum chamber 11 through an exhaust pipe 18 to a pressure of about 20 Torr or less. Then, the shafts 12 and 13 move the mounts 12 and 13 toward each other for bonding the disc units 4 together. The adhesive may be cured under a reduced pressure or under normal pressure, but the pressure under which the bonding of disc units is carried out must be about 20 Torr or below. When the pressure is higher than that, bubbles may form in the adhesive.
When the reduced-pressure bonding apparatus of FIG. 4 is used, the adhesive is applied to at least portions of the protective films 3 of the disc units 4, and the disc units 4 are bonded with the adhesive which is spread over the entire surfaces of the films 3 due to application of pressure. It is, therefore, necessary to control precisely the movement of the shafts 12 and 13 in order to prevent the adhesive from oozing out into the center hole or to the outer periphery of the disc or from being non-uniformly distributed. Furthermore, it is necessary to determine precisely the amount of adhesive to be applied and also the position where the adhesive is to be applied. In addition, it is also necessary to maintain the pressure in the reduced-pressure bonding apparatus at about 20 Torr or below. If one wants to use this type of apparatus for mass-production of optical discs, the size of the apparatus must be large.
Therefore, a first object of the present invention is to produce optical discs which are free of warpage of the discs and peeling off of a recording layer of the discs when they are used at a usable environment temperature within a range of, for example, from -20.degree. C. to 60.degree. C.
A second object of the present invention is to produce, at low costs, highly reliable optical discs in which degradation of recording layers and deformation of disc units are eliminated by the use of such an adhesive that can reduce the number of discs to be rejected in the step of bonding two disc units.
A third object of this invention is to provide an improved method of manufacturing optical discs, according to which, when two disc units are bonded together with an adhesive, the adhesive does not ooze out into the center hole or to the outer periphery of a resulting disc, and, accordingly, a step for removing burrs can be eliminated. The resulting optical discs are free of eccentricity and free of surface fluttering.

Optical disc and method and apparatus for making same


An environmental barrier coating material comprising one or more constituents selected from a group consisting of hafnia; hafnia stabilized by one or more rare-earth oxides and/or silica; zirconia-containing hafnia; and zirconia-containing hafnia stabilized by one or more rare-earth oxides and/or silica, which when formed as a coating structure for covering a substrate which has a low thermal expansion coefficient, has hafnon (HfSiO4) serving as a first layer directly formed on the substrate, and hafnia with which the first layer is coated as a second layer.

Silicon nitride ceramics and silicon carbide ceramics are easily oxidized at high temperatures and eroded in an environment, in which water vapor is present, as a result of corrosion. There is, therefore, a need to protect erosion when non-oxide ceramics are applied as a gas turbine component, requiring the application onto the surface of a water vapor corrosion resistant layer for that purpose.
A mechanism for improving oxidation resistance has been proposed for silicon nitride ceramics having excellent oxidation resistance in high temperatures, as disclosed in, for example, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 6-32658, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 5-221728 and Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 5-208870, in which a rare-earth oxide is added as a sintering aid and the resulting compound is formed on the surface.
Lutetium disilicate (Lu2Si2O7) has a relatively low thermal expansion coefficient, and it is known that this material can remain on a non-oxide ceramics surface even after testing in an actual gas turbine environment. This material has begun to be broadly researched as a candidate material for an environmental barrier coating for non-oxide ceramics.
Regarding non-oxide ceramic structures having a rare-earth oxide silica coating deposited, a rare-earth silicate deposited silicon nitride ceramic structure, with the rare-earth with respect to Y, Yb, Er and Dy, is known as disclosed in, for example, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 11-139883, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 11-12050, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 10-87386, and Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 10-87364. It is also well known that water vapor corrosion can be effectively suppressed in a static environment when the rare-earth is Lu by depositing lutetium silicate on a silicon nitride ceramics.

Environmental barrier coating material and coating structure and ceramic structure using the same

Central Research Institute of Electric Power Industry

National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology


A radio frequency (RF) cavity resonator having a resonator chamber and one or more RF coupling loop assemblies is presented. The RF coupling loop assembly has a connector with a first connector interface coupled to an inner conductor and a second connector interface coupled to an outer conductor, the first and second connector interfaces forming a pair when mated, the second connector interface rotatable about a collinear axis of the connector and the first connector interface not rotatable about the collinear axis of the connector; a wire loop coupler; and a bandwidth selection element at least partially coupled to the coupling loop assembly. In response to changing the bandwidth selection setting while the RF cavity resonator is operational, the wire loop changes orientation about the collinear axis of the connector and causes the RF resonator chamber to output an RF carrier signal having a bandwidth of the new bandwidth setting.

In the art of RF antennal technology, cavity resonators are used to generate RF carrier signal(s) that may be combined by an RF combiner assembly and transmitted on one transmit antenna. A drawback of the current technology is that once RF carrier frequencies and bandwidths of a cavity resonator are set and the system put into the field, such as at a public safety transmit site, changes to the bandwidths of the RF carrier signals being presented for transmission to the transmit antenna cannot be readily implemented in the field without first disabling the transmitter. More particularly, in the current state of the art, expanding some RF carrier signal characteristics (such as bandwidth) has to be addressed by adding more site antenna(s) and separate equipment rack(s) to accommodate different carrier bandwidths. This requires taking down the site to make the additions, a solution that is costly in terms of both capital expansion costs and downtime at the site.
For example, a user wishing to offer high speed data (HSD) would have to add a separate, dedicated transmit antenna(s) for HSD, adding significant cost and complexity in site design. HSD has more than a 25 kHz wide composite carrier, and is also referred to herein as "high data speed" or HSD. HSD will allow public safety agencies to communicate at higher data rates.
Thus, there exists a need for an RF cavity resonator and cavity combiner assemblies that permit changes to bandwidth of constituent RF carrier signals while operational and under power and while maintaining desired frequency agility.
Skilled artisans will appreciate that elements in the figures are illustrated for simplicity and clarity and have not necessarily been drawn to scale. For example, the dimensions of some of the elements in the figures may be exaggerated relative to other elements to help improve understanding of various embodiments. In addition, the description and drawings do not necessarily require the order illustrated. It will be further appreciated that certain actions and/or steps may be described or depicted in a particular order of occurrence while those skilled in the art will understand that such specificity with respect to sequence is not actually required. Apparatus and method components have been represented where appropriate by conventional symbols in the drawings, showing only those specific details that are pertinent to understanding the various embodiments so as not to obscure the disclosure with details that will be readily apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art having the benefit of the description herein. Thus, it will be appreciated that for simplicity and clarity of illustration, common and well-understood elements that are useful or necessary in a commercially feasible embodiment may not be depicted in order to facilitate a less obstructed view of these various embodiments.

Frequency agile variable bandwidth radio frequency cavity resonator


At a sampling operation, an analog signal and an inverted signal thereof are respectively supplied to first and second sampling capacitor elements, DC components of input signals are supplied to first and second capacitors, and reference voltages are supplied to third and forth capacitors. At the time of the comparison operation, the reference voltages are respectively supplied to the first and the second sampling capacitor elements, the first and the third capacitors and the second and the forth capacitors are connected in parallel, respectively. Voltages of connection nodes thereof are input to an operational amplifier, therefore an A/D converter is obtained wherein a fluctuation of operation points of the operational amplifier at the time of the sampling operation and at the time of the comparison operation can be kept small, an improvement of a conversion precision and an operation stability can be achieved without being influenced by fluctuation of the DC component of the analog signal, and a high precision can be achieved.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a voltage comparator and a parallel type or a successive approximation type analog-to-digital converter using same.
2. Description of the Related Art
An analog-to-digital converter (hereinafter referred to as an ADC) converts the level of an input analog signal to a digital signal. In general, there are two types of ADCs--a parallel type and a successive approximation type. In any ADC, a voltage comparator is provided for comparing the voltages of the analog signal and a reference signal. As one example of the voltage comparator, there can be mentioned a differential type voltage comparator. The differential type voltage comparator compares the magnitudes of the differential voltage of the reference signal and the differential voltage of the differential input signal and sets the level of the output signal in accordance with the result of the comparison.
FIG. 1 is a circuit diagram of the configuration of a parallel type ADC of the related art. This parallel type ADC is constituted by a plurality of resistors R.sub.1 to R.sub.15 connected in series, differential type voltage comparators COMP.sub.1 to COMP.sub.14, AND gates AGT.sub.1 to AGT.sub.15, an encoder ECD, and a control circuit TIMGEN. The plurality of resistors connected between the reference voltages VRT and VRB divides the difference of the reference voltages (VRT-VRB) to obtain a plurality of reference voltages VRT.sub.n and VRB.sub.n (n=1, 2, . . . , 14). The differential type voltage comparator COMP.sub.n compares the differential voltage of the reference signal (VRT.sub.n -VRB.sub.n) and the differential voltage of the differential input signal (AIN-XAIN) and sets the voltages of an output signal D and an inverted signal DX thereof in accordance with the result of comparison. The AND gates AGT.sub.1 to AGT.sub.15 output conversion codes in accordance with the result of comparison of the differential type voltage comparator. The encoder ECD converts the conversion codes from the AND gates AGT.sub.1 to AGT.sub.15 to for example binary codes.
A four-bit parallel type ADC shown in FIG. 1 has 15 voltage dividing resistors, 14 differential type voltage comparators, and 15 AND gates. An analog signal AIN, an inverted signal XAIN thereof, and a reference voltage V.sub.ref are input to each differential type voltage comparator. Note that the reference voltage V.sub.ref is the voltage of an intermediate level between the reference voltages VRT and VRB and, as shown in FIG. 2, is obtained by voltage division by the resistors R.sub.T and R.sub.B having the same resistance value connected in series between the reference voltages VRT and VRB. Further, the control circuit TIMGEN is provided in order to control the operation timing of the ADC.
The voltage comparators COMP.sub.1 to COMP.sub.14 constituting the parallel type ADC shown in FIG. 1 have the same configuration. Here, as a common example of them, an explanation will be made of the configuration and operation of a chopper type differential type voltage comparator COMP.
FIG. 3 is a circuit diagram of the configuration of a chopper type differential voltage comparator COMP constituted by switches 1 to 6, sampling use capacitor elements C.sub.S1 and C.sub.S2, a differential type operational amplifier 10, and a latch circuit 20.
The reference voltage VRT.sub.n and the analog signal AIN are selectively input to a node ND.sub.1 by the switches 1 and 2, respectively. The reference voltage VRB.sub.n and the inverted signal XAIN of the analog signal AIN are selectively input to a node ND.sub.2 by the switches 3 and 4, respectively. The sampling use capacitor element C.sub.S1 is connected between the node ND.sub.1 and the node ND.sub.3, and the sampling use capacitor element C.sub.S2 is connected between the node ND.sub.2 and the node ND.sub.4. The switch 5 is connected between the node ND.sub.3 and the input terminal of the reference voltage V.sub.ref, and the switch 6 is connected between the node ND.sub.4 and the input terminal of the reference voltage V.sub.ref. Capacitor elements C.sub.1 and C.sub.2 exist between the node ND.sub.3 and the node ND.sub.4 and a ground potential GND. Note that the capacitances of these capacitor elements are very small.
A voltage V- of the node ND.sub.3 is input to an inverted input terminal (-) of the operational amplifier 10, and a voltage V+ of the node ND.sub.4 is input to a non-inverted input terminal (+) of the operational amplifier 10. The output signal D of the operational amplifier 10, the output signal D of the inverted signal operational amplifier 10 thereof, and the inverted signal XD thereof are output via the latch circuit 20.
FIG. 4 is a waveform diagram of the operation of the chopper type differential voltage comparator shown in FIG. 3. The switches 1 and 3 are controlled in their conductive states by a clock signal SCKD.sub.2, and the switches 2 and 4 are controlled in their conductive states by a clock signal XSCK. Further, the switches 5 and 6 are controlled in their conductive states by a clock signal XSCKD.sub.1. The operation timing of the latch circuit 20 is controlled by a clock signal CCK.
The clock signal SCK is generated by the clock signal CLK. Its rising edge is the same as the clock signal CLK, and its trailing edge is delayed from the trailing edge of the clock signal CLK. The clock signals SCKD.sub.1 and SCKD.sub.2 are signals obtained by delaying the clock signal SCK.
In the chopper type differential voltage comparator shown in FIG. 3, the switches 1 and 3 are set to a conductive state when the clock signal SCKD.sub.2 is at a high level and are set to a non-conductive state when it is at a low level. The switches 2 and 4 are set to a conductive state when the inverted signal XSCK of the clock signal SCK is at the high level and are set to a non-conductive state when it is at the low level. The switches 5 and 6 are set to a conductive state when the inverted signal XSCKD.sub.1 of the clock signal SCKD.sub.1 is at the high level and are set to a non-conductive state when it is at the low level.
Below, an explanation will be made of the operation of the voltage comparator COMP by referring to FIGS. 3 and 4. During the period when the clock signal SCK is at the low level, the sampling operation (sample) is carried out. During the period when it is at the high level, a hold and comparison operation (hold & comp, hereinafter, simply referred to as a comparison operation) is carried out.
During the sampling operation, the switches 2, 4, 5, and 6 are set in a conductive state, and the switches 1 and 3 are set in a non-conductive state. The analog signal AIN and the reference voltage V.sub.ref are supplied to the two sides of the sampling use capacitor element C.sub.S1 whereby the sampling use capacitor element C.sub.S1 is charged to (AIN-V.sub.ref), and the inverted signal XAIN of the analog signal AIN and the reference voltage V.sub.ref are supplied to the two sides of the sampling use capacitor element C.sub.S2 whereby the sampling use capacitor element C.sub.S2 is charged to (XAIN-V.sub.ref).
During the comparison operation, the switches 1 and 3 are set in a conductive state, and the other switches are set in a non-conductive state. By this, the voltages V- and V+ of the node ND.sub.3 and node ND.sub.4 are individually represented by following equations: EQU V-=-C.sub.S (AIN-VRT.sub.n)/(C.sub.S +C.sub.1)+V.sub.ref (1) EQU V+=-C.sub.S (XAIN-VRB.sub.n)/(C.sub.S +C.sub.1)+V.sub.ref (2)
Here, assume that the capacitances of the sampling use capacitor elements C.sub.S1 and C.sub.S2 are the same, that is, C.sub.S, and the capacitances of the capacitor elements C.sub.1 and C.sub.2 are the same, that is. C.sub.1.
The differential voltage of the voltages V+ and V- is represented by the following equation: EQU (V+)-(V-)=(AIN-XAIN)-(VRT.sub.n -VRB.sub.n) (3)
The differential voltage of the voltages V+ and V- is amplified by the operational amplifier 10. The output signal D and the inverted signal XD thereof are latched by the latch circuit 20 at for example the rising edge of the clock signal CCK and output to an external unit.
In the differential type voltage comparator of the related art explained above, when the analog signal AIN and the inverted signal XAIN thereof are within the range of the reference voltages VRT and VRB as shown in FIG. 5, the reference voltage V.sub.ref becomes the same level as that of the DC component V.sub.C of the analog signal AIN, and the operational amplifier 10 uses the reference voltage V.sub.ref, that is, the DC component V.sub.C of the analog signal AIN, as the operation point. However, when the analog signal AIN and the inverted signal XAIN thereof are out of the range of the reference voltages VRT and VRB, that is, when the DC component V.sub.C of the analog signal AIN and the inverted signal XAIN thereof deviate from the center value V.sub.ref of the reference voltages VRT and VRB, the operation point of the operational amplifier 10 fluctuates during the sampling and comparison operations of the ADC. When the operation point becomes out of the input range of the operational amplifier 10, there is a problem that the voltage comparison is no longer correctly carried out and the precision of conversion of the ADC is deteriorated.
In order to solve this problem, it is necessary to shift the level of the analog signal AIN and the inverted signal XAIN thereof before the ADC input by using a full differential type operational amplifier as shown in FIG. 6. The full differential type operational amplifier in this case directly handles the input signal, therefore it is necessary to use one having excellent gain characteristics and frequency characteristics for the frequency of the input signal and the number of bits and conversion speed of the ADC. This causes an increase of the size of the circuit of the ADC and an increase of the costs. Further, the power consumption is increased due to the use of the high performance operational amplifier.

Voltage comparator for analog-to-digital converter


The invention relates to a process of recovering galactose from a solution derived from plant-based biomass. In the process of the invention, the starting solution is subjected to one or more chromatographic fractionation steps, which may carried out with a strongly basic anion exchange resin and optionally with a strongly acid cation exchange resin, in any desired sequence, followed by recovering at least one fraction enriched in galactose. The galactose fraction thus obtained is further purified by crystallization to obtain crystalline galactose. The invention also relates to non-animal derived crystalline D-galactose.

Galactose is a monosaccharide, which is mostly found in the milk sugar or lactose, where galactose is bound to glucose. In some sour milk products, lactose has been decomposed into glucose and galactose.
Galactose has many applications in the pharmaceutical field and in food technology. In the pharmaceutical field, galactose is useful for example as a pharmaceutical intermediate for several medicines. Furthermore, galactose is also useful as a stabilizer in intravenous solutions for medical use. In food technology, galactose has been found useful for example as a potential energy source in sports drinks. Galactose is also useful in cell culture media as a nutrient or as an inducer in the fermentation.
Galactose is as a rule obtained by hydrolyzing lactose (a disaccharide consisting of glucose and galactose), which is found in dairy products, such as milk. Recently, for example due to the BSE disease, there is an increased interest to produce galactose of non-dairy and non-animal origin.
British Patent 925 380, Joseph Donelly (published May 8, 1963) discloses a process based on crystallization for purifying crude anhydrous (D)(+)-galactose, which has been produced by the degradation of an oligosaccharide, such as lactose, melibiose and raffinose. The purification process comprises dissolving the crude galactose in methyl alcohol or ethyl alcohol or a mixture thereof with water, removing the undissolved impurities and recovering galactose from the solution by crystallization, optionally followed by recrystallization. The purity of the galactose product has not been reported.
WO 99/53088, Deva Processing Services Ltd (published 21 Oct. 1999) discloses a process for the production of galactose from galactose-containing disaccharide or polysaccharide, such as lactose, by hydrolysis and enzymatic treatment. The galactose obtained by this process is not crystallized. It is recited in the reference that it is extremely difficult to separate contaminants from galactose so that galactose with a pharmaceutical grade purity would be obtained.
Galactose is rather rare in plant-based materials, but it has been found in not very abundant amounts in various plants as a multicomponent mixture with other sugars and carbohydrates. Galactose has been found for instance in wood resources, where galactose is, present as an admixture with other carbohydrates and lignin components. Softwood hemicelluloses are especially rich in galactose. Galactose has also been found in various natural gums and pectin-based materials.
Wood resources, for example, may thus be potential sources for the recovery of plant-based galactose. Spent liquors obtained from acid wood-pulping processes, especially liquors from softwood pulping processes can be mentioned as examples of potential starting materials for the recovery of galactose.
It is known in the state of the art to recover galactose from various plant-based raw materials using methods selected for example from extraction, hydrolysis and treatment with adsorbents and cation and anion exchangers, followed by crystallization. Chromatographic methods for the recovery of galactose-containing solutions from plant-based materials are also known in the state of the art. However, these chromatographic methods for the recovery of galactose-containing solutions generally provide galactose as a mixture with other closely-related sugars. Galactose has not been recovered from said sugar mixtures.
EP 1 046 719 A1, Cargill B. V. (published 25 Oct. 2000) recites that rare sugars, for example arabinose, rhamnose, fucose and mannose are unwanted in galactose preparations, because the presence of these components will limit for example the scope of food applications in which the galactose preparations may be used. The EP publication discloses a process based on hydrolysis for manufacturing D-galactose from an oligosaccharide-containing legume composition which contains D-galactose mainly in chemical combination with D-glucose and/or D-fructose. The oligo-saccharide-containing material is typically derived from soybeans, rapeseeds or sunflower seeds or mixtures thereof. In the examples, a galactose preparation containing D-galactose in an amount of 3 to 10% on a dry weight basis was recovered. In accordance with Example 4 of the reference, the D-galactose content of the preparation may be increased by chromatography. The galactose preparation obtained by the process is not crystallized.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,451,123 B1, Saska, M., Board of Supervisors of Louisiana State University of Agricultural and Mechanical College (published 17 Sep. 2002) discloses a method of separating a carbohydrate selected from xylose, mannose, galactose, arabinose, glucose, xylitol, arabitol, galactitol and mannitol from an aqueous phase comprising said carbohydrate and at least one other non-identical component (a sugar or a sugar alcohol). The aqueous phase from which the carbohydrates are separated may be a soft-wood liquor, a hardwood liquor or a hydrolysate thereof, for example. It is recited that the separation is carried out using a strong base anion exchange resin in an anion form, which is other than hydroxyl form. The resin used for the separation is conditioned with a sufficient concentration of hydroxyl ion. In a typical application of the method, a resin in a chloride form is used. In this process, galactose is not recovered.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,451,123 B1 mentioned above refers to man-nose/galactose separation with a strong acid cation selected from Ca2+ and Pb2+ (page 2, Table II, lines 65 and 66) disclosed by Caruel H. et al.
Caruel, H. et. al. have studied carbohydrate separation in "Carbohydrate separation by ligand-exhange liquid chromatography: correlation between the formation of sugar-cation complexes and the elution order", J. Chromatography 558(1), pp. 89-104 (1991). It is recited that carbohydrate separation (hexoses, pentoses and corresponding polyols) was studied by liquid chromatography using ligand exchange on a strong acid cation-exchange resin column with water as the eluent. Seven cations (Ca2+, Sr2+, Ba2+, Pb2+, Y3+, La3+ and Pr3+) were tested.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,471,329, Laevosan-Gesellschaft Chem. Pharm Industrie Frank & Dr. Freudl (published Oct. 7, 1969) discloses a process for the separation of different sugars from a mixture thereof, comprising reacting a cation exchange resin with hydrazine, and then contacting an aqueous-alcoholic solution of said mixture of sugars with the hydrazine-containing cation exchange resin, followed by washing the sugar-containing resin to fractionate the sugars and obtain the individual sugars present in said sugar mixture in the different fractions. The cation exchange resin may contain highly acid active groups, such as sulphate, carboxyl or phosphite groups. The separation of fructose and galactose is disclosed in Example 3 of said reference. It is also recited in Example 3 that the galactose fractions gave pure crystallized galactose after crystallization. However, the feed solution is not a hemicellulose hydrolysate.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,084,104, Cultor Ltd, Heikkilä et al. (published Jan. 28, 1992) discloses a process for the production of a high purity xylose fraction from a xylose-rich solution further containing other monosaccharides, using chromatographic fractionation with a strong base anion exchange resin in sulphate form. Galactose is not recovered in this process.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,772,334, Kureha Kagaku Kogyo Kabushiki Kaisha (published Sep. 20, 1988) discloses a process for producing highly pure rhamnose from gum arabic by hydrolyzing gum arabic with a mineral acid to form a liquid hydrolysate comprising L-rhamnose, L-arabinose and D-galactose and subjecting the neutralized and clarified hydrolysate to strongly cationic ion-exchange chromatography to separate D-galactose and L-arabinose from L-rhamnose using a mixture of water and organic solvent as an eluant. In the examples, a Na+ form resin is used. Galactose is not recovered.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,857,642, UOP (published 15 Aug. 1989) discloses a process for separating arabinose from an aqueous feed mixture containing arabinose and at least one other monosaccharide from the group consisting of aldoses and ketoses by contacting the feed mixture with an X-zeolite adsorbent containing ammonium cations. Said other monosaccharide is typically selected from glucose, xylose, galactose and mannose. It is recited that arabinose is selectively absorbed by the X-zeolite adsorbent. Galactose is not re-covered.
Bollini, M & Galli, R ("Separation and determination of the sugars of bisulfite liquors", Stn. Sper. Cellul., Carta Fibre Tess. Veg. Artif., Milan, Italy. Ind. Carta (1975), 13(10), 392-4) have identified and determined mannose, glucose, galactose, arabinose, xylose, hexoses and pentoses in a bisulfite liquor after the separation of lignosulphonates. The liquor was treated with EtOH, the precipitate centrifuged, lignosulphonates separated, purified with cation and anion exchange resins and subjected to gas chromatographic and colori-metric determinations.
Sinner, M., Simatupang, M. H. & Dietrichs, H. H. ("Automated Quantitative Analysis of Wood Carbohydrates by Borate Complex Ion Exchange Chromatography", Wood Science and Technology, 1975, pp. 307 to 322) describe a simple automated analytical method for the separation and quantitative determination of sugars from acidic and enzymatic hydrolysates of wood polysaccharides via borate complex ion exchange chromatography. The sugars separated in this way may include mannose, fructose, arabinose, galactose, xylose, glucose and disaccharides like xylobiose, cellobiose and sucrose.
Guihard, L., Dendene, K. & Bariou, B. ("Sugar separation by low pressure chromatography", Lab. GPSA, ENSCR, Rennes Beaulieu, Fr. Recents Progrés en Genie des Procédés (1991), 5 (15, Procédés Sep.), 167-72 disclose the separation of lactose from other milk sugars using AG 50W-X8 cation exchanger. A syrup containing galactose, lactose and lactulose was first eluted on the resin in Na+ form, eliminating the galactose fraction. The product containing lactose and lactulose was then eluted on the resin in Ca2+ form giving lactulose in practically pure form. Galactose is not recovered in this process.
Indian Patent IN 158940 A, Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (India), (published 21 Feb. 1987) discloses a process for the preparation of pure D-galactose from green Aegle marmelos fruit-gum. In this process, said fruit material is subjected to two-step hydrolysis with H2SO4, followed by deionization treatment with Amberlite IR 120 (H+) and IR-4B (OH−). The product thus obtained is purified with activated carbon, and the solution is heated to a temperature of less than 40° C. under reduced pressure to give a syrup. The syrup is treated with 100 ml hot MeOH and 8-10 ml water, to crystallize D-galactose.
Ingle, T. R, Kulkarni, V. R, Vaidya. S. H. & Pai, M. U., Natl. Chem. Lab, Poona, India, Res. Ind. (1976), 21(4), 243-6 disclose a commercial process for the preparation of D-galactose from cashew nut shells. In this process, the cashew nutshell material is subjected to aqueous extraction, hydrolysis with H2SO4, concentration to a syrup, extraction, decolorization with activated charcoal, concentration and crystallization, followed by drying and powdering of the crystalline D-galactose.
Serdyuk, L. V, Dudkin, M. S., Gerzhov, A. F., Odess. Tekhnol. Inst. Pishch. Prom. im. Lomonosova, Odessa, USSR, Izv. Vyssh. Ucheb. Zaved. Pishch. Tekhnol. (1974), (2), 28-30 disclose potato as raw material for the production of concentrated solutions of simple sugars, including galactose. It is recited that the hydrolysis of potato material with 3% H2SO4 at 98 to 100° C. for 3.5 to 4 hours yielded a concentrate containing glucose, galactose and arabinose.
Kato, Y. et al. disclose an affinity chromatographic adsorbent for carbohydrate separation in Japanese Patent JP 06201671, Cosmo Sogo Kenkyusho Kk, Cosmo Oil Co Ltd, (published 22 Jul. 1994). It is recited that the affinity chromatographic adsorbent is a porous crosslinked copolymer containing alcoholic hydroxyl groups and lectin. It is also recited that the adsorbent is used in HPLC for the separation of carbohydrates, especially mannose and galactose.
Yamane, T. et al. disclose decomposition of raffinose by an enzymatic reaction applied in a factory-process in Japanese beet sugar factories in Sucr. Belge/Sugar Ind. Abstr. (1971), 90(7), 345-348. It is recited that raffinose is decomposed by α-galactosidase into sucrose and galactose.
Dugal. H. et al. disclose enzymatic modification of locust bean and guar gums in IPPTA (1974), 11(1), 29-35. The effect of time, pH, temperature and enzyme and substrate concentration on the hydrolysis of locust bean gum and guar by α-galactosidase isolated from sprouted guar seeds was studied and the hydrolyzed gums were characterized by X-ray diffraction and molecular weight determination. It is recited that the enzymatic hydrolysis of gums liberated galactose, arabinose and mannose. However, there is no xylose present in the substances used for the separation.
Non-published Finnish Patent Application 20012605, Danisco Sweeteners Oy discloses a method of recovering mannose from a solution derived from biomass by subjecting said solution to a chromatographic separation process using at least one chromatographic separation resin which is at least partly in Ba2+ form and at least one chromatographic separation resin which is in other than Ba2+ form. The latter resin is a cation exchange resin, where the cation is preferably Ca2+. The starting biomass-derived solution typically contains mannose in admixture with other sugars, such as xylose, galactose, glucose, rhamnose, arabinose and fructose. Galactose is not recovered.
It appears from the above description of the prior art that it is known to prepare galactose-containing solutions from raw materials based on hemicellulose. However, it has been found difficult to produce pure crystalline D-galactose, because it is especially cumbersome to separate galactose from other sugars, especially from mannose and xylose, but also from arabinose and rhamnose, when the content of galactose in the starting solution is low.
This problem has now been solved in accordance with the present invention by providing a combination of chromatographic fractionation and crystallization to obtain pure crystalline galactose from plant-based hemicellulsose raw materials.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.


A serialized stream of state change requests are received over a network for a network device. The network device has a current state object representing a current state of the network device. A desired state object is modified with each of the state change requests in the serialized stream. The desired state object represents a desired state for the network device. An instance of the desired state object is read at a particular instant in time. The instance of the desired state object is compared to the current state object. A set of tasks are determined to change the current state of the network device to the desired state based on the comparison.

A network can connect various components and devices together so that the components and devices can communicate. For instance, the Internet is a network of networks that allows a virtually limitless number of computers to share information and resources, provide services, etc. Networks can be quite useful on a smaller scale as well. For example, networks are increasingly used in the home to connect a variety of devices, such as home computers, printers, household appliances, environmental systems, and network-ready home theater components like televisions, digital versatile disk (DVD) players, satellite turners, etc.
By networking devices such as these, it may be possible to control one or more of the devices remotely through the network from any of a variety of control points. A common example of a remotely controlled device is a computer with a printer coupled to it. If the computer is connected to a network, another computer on the network may be able to request that the computer print a file by sending both the request and the file through the network. Similarly, a computer, or some other device, may be able to request a home theater to do a variety of actions, such as play a DVD or even download content from a server that is accessible through the network. These requests are often called state change requests. For instance, in response to a state change request, a DVD player may change its state from STOP to PLAY.
As useful as networks are, they can present some challenges when it comes to remotely controlling a device through a network. For example, most DVD players include buttons for PLAY, STOP, PAUSE, NEXT, and PREVIOUS. To control the DVD player through a network, a control point may include the same functions, possibly in the form of icons in a graphical user interface on a personal computer.
A user can expect an almost instantaneous response when pressing the buttons on the DVD player. For instance, skipping forward several tracks by repeatedly pressing the NEXT button may take just a couple of seconds. The response time through the network, however, can be less predictable and less reliable. The amount of other traffic on the network, interference in a wireless network, software crashes, and countless other factors may delay a state change request. Skipping forward several tracks may take several times as long through the network compared to the buttons on the DVD player.
The situation becomes even less predictable and less reliable when not only the control point is remote, but the content is remote as well. That is, rather than playing a DVD in the DVD player, the DVD player may be capable of downloading music and movies over the network from a server. In which case, both the request and the content may be delayed in the network.

System using state change requests received over a network to change current state of a network device to a desired state at a particular time


An elastomer sealing sleeve 32 of C-shaped cross section is disposed in a contractible housing 10 and includes sealing lips 36 which extend towards each other and which, upon the contraction of the housing 10 and the simultaneous upending of the sleeve 32, are brought to bear snugly against the pipe wall 55. The front face 38 of the sleeve 32 is divided up into two oppositely directed conical surfaces 58, 60, which are embraced by a supporting ring 40 of V-shaped cross section. The inner flank 62 of the supporting ring is positioned between the radially inner surface 58 and the clamping ring 20 supported in the throat of the housing 10 and, in so doing, bridges the recesses 26 in the clamping ring 20. The outer flank 63 of the supporting ring supports the sleeve 32 in the area of the radially outer surface 60. This pipe coupling is particularly simple in its construction and is suitable for high operating temperatures and for large temperature changes.

The present invention relates to a pipe coupling having some of the features of the pipe coupling shown in DE-A-27 31 465 or from the corresponding U.S. Pat. No. 4,119,333. An elastomer sealing sleeve of C-shaped cross section is embraced by a contractible housing having radial end walls. The axial border areas of the sleeve are of wedge-shaped configuration when viewed in cross section, so that the front faces exhibit a conical, radially inner surface, converging in the direction of the longitudinal center of the housing, and an inversely conical, radially outer surface. The sleeve bar is enclosed by an open-ended insert plate, which bridges the housing gap and which exhibits radially inwardly angled-off borders in order to support the sleeve on its front side, in the area of the radially outer surface. Frustoconical clamping rings, which converge in the direction of the longitudinal center of the housing and which are supported by their outer border in the throat between the housing casing and the end walls, support the sleeve, with their inner, laminated border areas at the radially inner surfaces of the front faces. In order to hold the clamping rings in the housing and prevent the angled-off borders of the steel ribbon insert from spreading open under the pressure of the sleeve when the housing is compressed, the space between the border of the steel ribbon insert, the housing casing and the clamping ring in question is filled in each case by a solid spring ring of triangular cross section. A further spring ring of circular cross section reaches in each case between the clamping ring and the end wall in question of the housing. This pipe coupling exhibits outstanding sealing properties even where there is a rough or irregular pipe surface.


The present disclosure relates to compositions including a phenylbutyrate compound and a bile acid, and methods of processing such compositions.

The flow properties of powder and other bulk solids is an important consideration during the manufacturing of pharmaceutical compositions. In addition, particle size distribution also affects downstream processing and packaging of the pharmaceutical products. Certain active pharmaceutical ingredients have poor flowability and a need exists for improved pharmaceutical compositions with improved physical properties including improved flowability.

Compositions of bile acids and phenylbutyrate compounds