Disclosed is a remaining fuel alarm for a vehicular fuel-combustion heater, comprising a thermistor for detecting whether or not a predetermined amount of fuel is stored in a fuel tank, a remaining fuel alarm lamp for displaying the fact that a remaining amount of fuel in the fuel tank is not more than a predetermined amount, and a relay for enabling the remaining fuel alarm lamp to operate only when a signal to request operation of a fuel-combustion heater is inputted.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a remaining fuel alarm for a vehicular fuel-combustion heater for heating, with combustion heat, a heating medium which heats air flowing through a duct having air outlets openable into a passenger's compartment, through heat exchange between the heating medium and the air.
2. Description of the Related Art
In general, air-conditioning systems for use on electric vehicles cannot use a heating medium in the form of cooling water which would otherwise be heated by cooling internal combustion engines. For this reason, for example, a vehicular air-conditioning system is known, which is disclosed in Japanese laid-open patent publication No. 8-197937.
The disclosed air-conditioning system has a duct for passing air therethrough into a passenger's compartment, wherein the air-conditioning system operates selectively in a refrigerating cycle which involves an air blower for delivering air through the duct into the passenger's compartment, a coolant compressor for compressing and discharging a coolant, a coolant-water heat exchanger for heating hot water through heat exchange between the compressed coolant discharged from the coolant compressor and the hot water, and a coolant evaporator for cooling air with the heat of evaporation of the coolant, and in a hot-water cycle which involves a pump for circulating the hot water heated by the coolant-water heat exchanger and a hot-water heater disposed in the duct for heating air flowing through the duct with the hot water flowing from the coolant-water heat exchanger. The hot-water cycle also involves a fuel-combustion heater, connected in series with the hot-water heater, for heating the hot water with heat generated when a fuel is combusted, in order to obtain a sufficient heating capability, for example, in cold climates.
In this case, the fuel-combustion heater obtains the combustion heat for heating the hot water, by combusting the fuel such as kerosene, white gasoline, and gas oil. Therefore, in order to inform the passenger of the fact that the remaining amount of fuel is not more than a predetermined amount, for example, it is necessary to display a message on a panel and give a warning.
Therefore, in general, a remaining fuel alarm is adopted, which is involved in a fuel system for supplying fuel to an automobile engine. For example, as disclosed in Japanese laid-open patent publication No. 8-96269, such an apparatus comprises a thermistor which is disposed corresponding to a predetermined height of liquid level in a fuel tank. The apparatus is constructed such that when the level of the fuel arrives at the predetermined height of liquid level to cause the change in resistance value of the thermistor, then an alarm lamp is switched on, or it is switched on and off.
When the fuel-combustion heater is not used as in the summer season, the fuel is removed from the fuel tank in order to pre vent the fuel system from deterioration. Therefore, the thermistor is always exposed to air in the fuel tank, and the alarm lamp is always switched on (or switched on and off).
As described above, the following problem is pointed out. That is, the state, in which the alarm lamp is always turned on as in the summer season during which the fuel-combustion heater is not used, seriously obstructs the view of the passenger. It may be also conceived that the fuel is stored in the fuel tank throughout the year in order not to turn on the alarm lamp. However, such a countermeasure causes another problem that the fuel system is markedly deteriorated.

Remaining fuel alarm for vehicular fuel-combustion heater


In accordance with a representative embodiment, a bulk acoustic wave (BAW) resonator structure, comprises: a first BAW resonator comprising a first lower electrode, a first upper electrode and a first piezoelectric layer disposed between the first lower electrode and the first upper electrode; a second BAW resonator comprising a second lower electrode, a second upper electrode and a second piezoelectric layer disposed between the second lower electrode and the second upper electrode; an acoustic coupling layer disposed between the first BAW resonator and the second BAW resonator; and a bridge disposed between the first lower electrode of the first BAW resonator and the second upper electrode of the second BAW resonator.

In many electronic applications, electrical resonators are used. For example, in many wireless communications devices, radio frequency (RF) and microwave frequency resonators are used as filters to improve reception and transmission of signals. Filters typically include inductors and capacitors, and more recently resonators.
As will be appreciated, it is desirable to reduce the size of components of electronic devices. Many known filter technologies present a barrier to overall system miniaturization. With the need to reduce component size, a class of resonators based on the piezoelectric effect has emerged. In piezoelectric-based resonators, acoustic resonant modes are generated in the piezoelectric material. These acoustic waves are converted into electrical waves for use in electrical applications.
One type of piezoelectric resonator is a Bulk Acoustic Wave (BAW) resonator. The BAW resonator includes an acoustic stack comprising, inter alia, a layer of piezoelectric material disposed between two electrodes. Acoustic waves achieve resonance across the acoustic stack, with the resonant frequency of the waves being determined by the materials in the acoustic stack. One type of BAW resonator comprises a piezoelectric film for the piezoelectric material. These resonators are often referred to as Film Bulk Acoustic Resonators (FBAR).
FBARs are similar in principle to bulk acoustic resonators such as quartz, but are scaled down to resonate at GHz frequencies. Because the FBARs have thicknesses on the order of microns and length and width dimensions of hundreds of microns, FBARs beneficially provide a comparatively compact alternative to certain known resonators.
FBARs may comprise an acoustic stack disposed over air. In such a structure, the acoustic stack can be referred to as a membrane. Often, the membrane is suspended over a cavity provided in a substrate. Other FBARs comprise the acoustic stack formed over an acoustic mirror formed in the substrate.
Filters based on FBAR technology provide a comparatively low in-band insertion loss due to the comparatively high quality (Q) factor of FBAR devices. FBAR-based filters are often employed in cellular or mobile telephones that can operate in multiple frequency bands. In such devices, it is important that a filter intended to pass one particular frequency band ("the passband") should have a high level of attenuation at other nearby frequency bands which contain signals that should be rejected. Specifically, there may be one or more frequencies or frequency bands near the passband which contain signals at relatively high amplitudes that should be rejected by the filter. In such cases, it would be beneficial to be able to increase the filter's rejection characteristics at those particular frequencies or frequency bands, even if the rejection at other frequencies or frequency bands does not receive the same level of rejection.
One type of filter based on FBAR technology is known as a coupled resonator filter (CRF). A CRF comprises a coupling structure disposed between two vertically stacked FBARs. The CRF combines the acoustic action of the two FBARs and provides a bandpass filter transfer function. For a given acoustic stack, the CRF has two fundamental resonance modes, a symmetric mode and an anti-symmetric mode, of different frequencies. The degree of difference in the frequencies of the modes depends, inter alia, on the degree or strength of the coupling between the two FBARs of the CRF. If the degree of coupling between the two FBARs is too great (over-coupled), the passband is unacceptably wide, and an unacceptable 'swag' or 'dip' in the center of the passband results, as does an attendant unacceptably high insertion loss in the center of the passband. If the degree of coupling between the FBARs is too low (under-coupled), the passband of the CRF is too narrow.
All FBARs and filters based on FBARs have an active region. The active region of a CRF comprises the region of overlap of the top FBAR, the coupling structure, and the bottom FBAR. Generally, it is desirable to confine the acoustic energy of certain desired acoustic modes within the active region. As should be appreciated by one of ordinary skill in the art, at the boundaries of the active region, reflection of desired modes can result in mode conversion into spurious/undesired modes, and loss of acoustic energy over a desired frequency range (e.g., the passband of the CRF).
In FBAR devices, mitigation of acoustic losses at the boundaries and the resultant mode confinement in the active region of the FBAR (the region of overlap of the top electrode, the piezoelectric layer, and the bottom electrode) has been effected through various methods. Notably, frames are provided along one or more sides of the FBARs. The frames create an acoustic impedance mismatch that reduces losses by reflecting desired modes back to the active area of the resonator, thus improving the confinement of desired modes within the active region of the FBAR.
While the incorporation of frames has resulted in improved mode confinement and attendant improvement in the quality (Q) factor of the FBAR, direct application of known frame elements has not resulted in significant improvement in mode confinement and Q of known CRFs.
What is needed, therefore, is a CRF that overcomes at least the known shortcomings described above.

Coupled resonator filter comprising a bridge

Avago Technologies General IP (Singapore) Pte. Ltd.


A contact device that has decreased contact pressure against a conductor caused by elastic repulsion force of a spring contact, to thereby enable suppressing friction and reducing electrical-resistance. The contact device includes first and second conductors arranged on a same axis and moved in their axis direction to fit to each other, a spring contact fitted to an installation groove of the second conductor, and a conductive contact piece arranged between a fitting face of the first conductors and the spring contact, so that electric current flows in a pair of conductors through the conductive spring contact and the conductive contact piece. The spring contact has an elliptical cross section formed of a bare wire being spirally wound with tilting against the winding axis thereof, and the contact piece is divided into a plurality of segments in a direction of the winding axis of the spring contact, and configured to line-contact or face-contact the other of the conductors.

In order to improve device-assembly property of electrical apparatus, its conductor is divided into several pieces. Therefore, a contact device for connecting between conductors to each other becomes necessary for easily assembling these conductors. In the contact device, because electric current also flows therethrough similarly to the conductors, in order to prevent heat generation due to electrical resistance, a stable low-electrical-resistance device is required. Moreover, based on a case-by-case system to which the device is applied, the device is required to have a function which absorbs a relative displacement due to size tolerance of the apparatus and/or that generated by thermal expansion/contraction of the conductors depending on its atmospheric condition.
For example, a conventional contact device of a gas-insulated switching apparatus has been configured in such a way that a pair of conductors arranged on the same axis are fitted to each other at their ends in the axis direction, and the conductive contact is arranged in a fitted portion between the conductors, so as to flow current therethrough (for example, refer to Patent Document 1).
The above described contact device disclosed in Patent Document 1 includes at least two kinds of gaps in the fitted portion of the conductor pair, and the gaps are formed by protrusions provided in a cylindrical inner periphery of the conductors. The contact device arranged in the fitted portion of the conductor pair is configured of a coil-spring shaped one having a spring action. A stable contact resistance to the conductor pair can be obtained by a contact load obtained by the spring action. According to such a configuration, in a contact portion of the conductor pair, because a stable contact load can be obtained even though varying the insertion angle of the conductors, a value of stable contact resistance can be obtained.
The spring contact is formed by spirally winding a bare wire constituted by highly electrical-conductive spring material with the wound wire being tilted by an angle less than 90 degrees to its winding axis, so as to be integral and belt-like, and is formed to be circular by jointing its both ends together, which is arranged in a groove provided along the circumferential direction on one of the fitted faces of the conductor pair. Here, the groove is provided in plural numbers along the axis direction, and a plurality of circular spring contacts is arranged in the axis direction.
Because the spring contact is formed by the spiral winding with tilting by the angle less than 90 degrees to the winding axis, its cross section perpendicular to the winding axis becomes elliptical, thereby providing a characteristic in which spring elasticity is provided thereon in the short-axis direction. Thereby, when the spring contact whose cross section is elliptical is fitted into the groove, with the side faces of the spring contact in the short axis direction facing the bottom face of the groove, and arranged in a gap between the pair conductors, elastic repulsion force of the spring contact acts between the spring contact and each of the conductors, providing a low-contact-resistance.
[Patent document 1]
    Japanese Patent Application Publication Laid-Open No. 2005-176536


The bezel (1) is interchangeable via a bayonet device. The shoulder (11) of the middle part (12) is provided with a circular groove (14) and at least two sinks (15) opening out partially into said groove (14). The bezel (1) includes at least two feet (2) positioned to engage in the sinks (15), said feet (2) each including a notch (4) open radially at the emergence of the sinks (15). A locking ring (20) provided with an outer member (21) for rotational manipulation, is positioned in the groove (14), one edge (23) of said ring (20) having a substantially equal thickness to the aperture of the notches (4) and including recesses (24) for the feet (2) to pass and the other edge (25) including a gorge (26) facing a gorge (16) of the middle part (12), the two gorges (16; 26) housing a click spring (30) of the ring (20).

A certain number of devices that allow a bezel to be replaced by another for aesthetic or functional reasons, particularly in a wristwatch, are already known. For an aesthetic purpose, this for example allows the colour of the most visible part of the watch to be match with that of clothing, at little cost. For a functional purpose, the replacement of the bezel for example allows the indications carried by said bezel to be altered, or the movement to be acted upon in order to have a multi-function watch. EP Patent No. 0 603 353 discloses a watch wherein replacement of the bezel allows the current time display to pass to a "football" or "tennis" mode, the selected bezel then comprising indications relating to such sports and means for controlling the watch mechanism in accordance with the rules of said sports.
According to the known prior art, a removable bezel is set in place and held, or conversely replaced, using devices that can be classified in two large categories, if inconvenient devices, requiring for example screwing, are excluded.
A removable bezel can be fixed by resilient means, as is disclosed in GB Patent No. 286 107. These resilient means can be formed by an elastomeric ring of suitable shape as disclosed in Japanese Utility Model No 4134/78. It may also be a snap fit device as is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,005,161. In all these resilient assemblies it is difficult to find a good compromise between a device that is sufficiently flexible to allow a user to replace the bezel without any particular effort and a device that is sufficiently secure to prevent it being accidentally lost.
In order to overcome the aforementioned drawback, a certain number of designs propose fixing the bezel to the middle part by means of a so-called "bayonet" device. The device consists in providing in the bezel and in the top part of the middle part or back cover-middle part, complementary male and female means that engage in each other when a movement of rotation is imparted to the bezel. A security system for locking/unlocking the bezel is also generally provided. A design of this type is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,490,123, the security system being formed by a push-button located on a horn of the case. In EP Patent Application No. 1 249 741, the bayonet device comprises a locking system formed of sinks arranged in the middle part and housing a spring for pushing a ball into recesses made in the inner face of the bezel. These constructions also have the drawback of being relatively complex and having a certain fragility, particularly when the bayonet device is set in place with a rotational movement of the bezel that is too forced and capable of damaging the assembling elements.


A method, apparatus, and article of manufacture for providing a presumptive drafting solution. Input from a cursor control device is received, wherein the input reflects a movement in a computer drawing program of a cursor over a drawing having one or more geometric entities (having one or more geometric attributes). In one or more embodiments, a relevant geometric entity is identified based on how the cursor is moved over the drawing. A presumptive drafting solution is then provided based on the identified relevant geometric entity. In addition, prior drawing solutions (having one or more solution attributes) are obtained and compared to the one or more geometric attributes. A drawing solution having one or more solution attributes similar to the one or more geometric attributes may be provided to the user.

1. Field of the Invention.
The present invention relates generally to computer drawing programs, and in particular, to a method, apparatus, and article of manufacture for providing suggestions for a drawing solution in a computer drawing program.
2. Description of the Related Art
The use of Computer Aided Design (CAD) and drawing programs is well known in the art. Such programs may include presumptive drafting techniques that attempt to provide a possible solution or suggestion to a user in a drawing. For example, the CAD software may suggest a specific point to a user who is trying to pick a point for geometry construction (e.g., suggest the endpoint of a line that the user's cursor has approached). In more complex forms, presumptive drafting can suggest the appropriate placement and orientation of objects such as doors in walls or faucets on pipes.
Prior art presumptive drafting systems analyze geometry and look for points (or angles or rotations, etc.) of interest. In the simplest case, the system examines only points of interest on a single object, such as the endpoints and midpoint of a line segment. Getting more complex, the system may examine various extensions off of the geometry, such as perpendicular or orthogonal projections from those various points of interest.
However, as the complexity grows, a very large number of items of interest may be generated very quickly. Consider an example with two line segments and a circle. The system may start with the basics of the line segments' endpoints and midpoints as well as the circle's center. The intersection point of where the two lines (or their extensions) meet may then be added, as well as any points where the lines (or extensions) intersect the circle. Orthogonal extensions paralleling the X, Y, and Z-axes) and perpendicular extensions (ninety (90) degrees from the line in some predefined plane) are added from these points of interest. The system may then begin to examine where those items intersect resulting in over a hundred points of interest and twenty lines of interest. There may also be several other methods of interest, such as tangent, parallel, as well as geometry that could connect the various points of interest. Further, the geometry under consideration is very rarely as simple as two line segments and a circle. Consequently, the number of potential solutions grows exponentially into an unmanageable number with the user actually interested in at most one solution.
These potential solutions may be maintained in a list. Presumptive drafting solutions may limit the number of potential solutions in the list by limiting the types of interest (endpoint, midpoint, extensions, etc.) or by only considering a subset of the geometry on the screen or by only considering solutions near the user's cursor. A geometric entity may be added to the list of items of interest that generate potential solutions merely by having a cursor control device (such as a mouse) pass over the geometric entity long enough for a background selection process to pick the passed over geometric entity. However, in such a prior art technique, no distinction is made for how the cursor control device moved over a drawing or geometric entity. Further, with additional prior art methods that limit the solutions to a manageable number of solutions, the solution the user is actually interested in may be trimmed out as well.

Method and apparatus for providing a presumptive drafting solution


An improved skeletal iron catalyst is provided for use in Fischer-Tropsch synthesis reactions for converting CO and H2 to hydrocarbon products. The skeletal iron catalyst is manufactured using iron and a removable non-ferrous component such as aluminum. The iron and removable non-ferrous component are mixed together to form a precursor catalyst and then a portion of the removable non-ferrous component is removed to leave a skeletal iron catalyst. One or more first promoter metals and optionally one or more second promoter metals are incorporated into the skeletal iron catalyst either by blending the promoter into the precursor catalyst during the formation thereof or by depositing the promoter on the skeletal iron. The first promoter metals comprises a metal selected from the group consisting of titanium, zirconium, vanadium, cobalt, molybdenum, tungsten, and platinum-group metals. The first promoter metal is selected to improve the yield of C5+ hydrocarbons when the skeletal iron catalyst is used in a Fischer-Tropsch reaction.

1. The Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the manufacture of Fisher-Tropsch catalysts for making synthetic hydrocarbon fuels from carbon monoxide and hydrogen. More particularly, the invention relates to skeletal iron catalysts that incorporate a promoter metal to increase the yield of C5+ hydrocarbons in Fischer-Tropsch synthesis reactions.
2. Related Technology
Skeletal catalysts, also known as "sponge-metal catalysts", have been known for decades and are used extensively in many industries and organic synthesis. The use of skeletal catalysts is particularly prevalent in reactions involving hydrogenation, dehalogenation, and desulfurization. The first skeletal catalysts were developed by Murrey Raney in the 1920's using aluminum-nickel alloys. The catalyst is prepared by treating a block of nickel-aluminum alloy with sodium hydroxide to remove a portion of the aluminum. Removing a portion of the aluminum leaves behind a porous nickel framework. The porous framework gives the catalyst high surface area and increased catalytic activity. These nickel-based skeletal catalysts are often called "Raney Nickel." More recently, iron-based skeletal catalysts have been developed by Hydrocarbon Technologies, Inc. for use in Fischer-Tropsch synthesis reactions for making synthetic fuels.
Technologies for making synthetic fuels typically begin with the partial oxidation of carbon-based materials such as methane or coal to produce carbon monoxide and hydrogen, commonly known as "synthesis gas" or "syngas". Next, in a Fischer-Tropsch reaction, the synthesis gas is converted to more valuable hydrocarbons such as naphtha, diesel and paraffin wax. The general chemistry of the Fischer-Tropsch reaction is as follows:nCO+(2n+1)H2→CnH2n+2+nH2O  (1)CO+H2O→CO2+H2  (2)2nCO+(n+1)H2→CnH2n+2+nCO2  (3)
One competing reaction may be the water-gas shift reaction, equation (2), in which carbon monoxide is consumed in a reaction with water generated from equation (1), above, to form carbon dioxide (CO2) and hydrogen (H2). The net effect is the consumption of at least some of the water produced in equation (1) and an alteration in the H2:CO ratio.
The Fischer-Tropsch reaction is carried out in the presence of a catalyst. Catalysts used in the Fischer-Tropsch process vary in composition based upon the product mixture desired and reaction conditions employed but commonly comprise at least one catalytic metal selected from Group VIIIA, preferably Co, Ru, Fe or Ni. Iron is frequently used because of its high reactivity and lower cost than other suitable metals. Furthermore, iron catalysts have high water-gas shift activity and tend to favor reaction (3) above.
Methods for making iron-based Fischer-Tropsch catalysts are known in the art. Two of the most common iron-based Fischer-Tropsch catalysts are precipitated iron and fused iron. Preparation of a precipitated iron catalyst typically consists of precipitating iron hydroxides and oxides from an aqueous solution; washing, drying and calcining the precipitate; and pretreating the catalyst.
Fused iron catalysts are typically prepared by adding promoters to the melted oxide at high temperature. Solid chunks are obtained from the cooled mixture, then ground and sized. The specific catalytic activity of fused iron catalysts is generally lower than that of precipitated iron catalysts. The catalytic activity of fused iron has been measured in stirred-tank reactors as half that of precipitated iron catalysts (See Fuel Processing Technology, 1992, Vol. 30, pp. 83-107).
While precipitated iron catalysts have greater activity than fused iron catalysts, precipitated iron catalyst have their own disadvantages. For example, precipitated iron is typically in the form of very fine metal particles. These small particles can escape from the reactor as a contaminant of the hydrocarbon product, especially waxy products. Iron particulates contaminating waxy products are often very difficult to remove from waxy products, thereby significantly increasing the processing costs of these products and diminishing the value of the overall process.
Recently, skeletal iron catalysts have been developed for use in Fischer-Tropsch reactions. Skeletal iron catalysts advantageously have high surface areas, and therefore high activity, but are less likely to contaminate the waxy product as compared to precipitated iron catalysts. The skeleton iron catalyst has also proven to be a good potential Fischer-Tropsch catalyst because it needs no pretreatment prior to test, has lower cost per unit mass of metal, good resistance to poisoning, and good structural uniformity.
Despite the advantages of a skeletal iron catalyst, there is still a need to improve the skeletal iron catalyst such that it can better compete economically with traditional sources of hydrocarbons fuels. One inefficiency with all Fischer-Tropsch catalysts is chain termination that results in production of low value short chain hydrocarbons (e.g., C2-C4 hydrocarbons). Chain termination can occur when a hydrogen radical reacts with the growing end of the hydrocarbon chain. Once chain termination has occurred, the length of the hydrocarbon cannot be extended. While it is desirable for chain termination to eventually occur, it is generally undesirable for chain termination to produce C2-C4 hydrocarbons.

Fischer-Tropsch catalysts incorporating promoter for increasing yields of C


Provided is an information processing apparatus that a user is able to acquire a file name the corresponds to content of a document image. In a case where the document image includes an image portion but does not include a character portion, a control unit uses a first learning model to acquire a classification name according to a characteristic of the image portion as a subject. In a case where a document image includes a character portion but does not include an image portion, the control unit uses a second learning model to acquire a classification name according to a character string included in the character portion as a subject. The control unit generates a file name including acquired subject as a file name of an image file.

The present disclosure relates to an information processing apparatus, and more particularly to a technique for generating file names of image files.
A technique for generating a file name according to the contents of an image file is known. For example, as a typical technique, a technique is disclosed in which a character string having a high frequency of appearance is extracted from text data generated from a document image by an OCR (Optical Character Recognition) function, and the extracted character string is generated as a file name of an image file.
As another typical technique, a technique is disclosed in which from a character string indicated by text data generated from a document image by an OCR function, a character string that satisfies specified conditions such as font size, color, or the like for example, is identified, and the identified character string is generated as the file name of the image file.

Information processing apparatus that generates file names of image files


Enteral safety system (ESS) may include syringe having visual indicator such as barrel with measurement marks of a color. Barrel may allow content viewing. ESS may include hub for connecting syringe to enteral set. Hub may have a visual indicator such as being same color as barrel's marks. Enteral tubing or set may have a visual indicator such as a lengthwise stripe same color as barrel's marks. Enteral tubing may allow content viewing. ESS may include an enteral tubing-feeding tube hub for connecting enteral tubing to a feeding tube. This hub may have visual indicator such as same color as barrel's marks. Feeding tube may have visual indicator such as a lengthwise stripe same color as barrel's marks. Feeding tube may allow content viewing. The syringe, syringe-enteral tubing hub, enteral tubing, enteral tubing-feeding tube hub, and feeding tubing are properly connectable by reference to visual indicators such as color matching.

Enteral feeding systems are generally described in the patent to Anderson, U.S. Pat. No. 6,482,170, incorporated herein by reference, and entitled: Apparatus and Method for Relieving Gastric Pressure During Enteral Feeding.
With respect to enteral feeding systems, errors in tubing and catheter mis-connection have led to such tragedies as patient deaths and permanent loss of function. Several factors contribute to tubing errors. A first factor is the similarity in appearance of tubes, catheter connections, and other medical components and accessories that have dissimilar functions. Another factor is the prevalent use of luer connectors that enable functionally dissimilar tubes or catheters to be connected. Yet another factor contributing to errors in tubing and catheter connection is the positioning of functionally dissimilar tubes used in close proximity to one another in patient care. Other factors include the use of tubes or catheters for unintended purposes, movement of patients from one setting or service to others, and staff fatigue.
The factors presented above and others are further delineated in the article entitled Tubing Misconnections—a Persistent and Potentially Deadly Occurrence presented as a Sentinel Event ALERT in Issue 36—Apr. 3, 2006 from the Joint Commission Website: www.jointcommission.org. The article is incorporated herein by reference and is attached with this filing.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.


A water-based drilling fluid composition includes water and at least one rheology modifier and/or fluid loss control agent, and at least one other ingredient of polymeric additive, inorganic salts, dispersants, shale stabilizers, weighting agents, or finely divided clay particles, depending upon the desired attributes, wherein the rheology modifier and/or the fluid loss control agent comprises carboxymethylated raw cotton linters (CM-RCL) made from the baled raw cotton linters or comminuted raw cotton linters with increased bulk density.

Rotary drilling is the most common drilling technology practiced in the oil patch today. Although drilling operations have matured, the increase of economic interests by maximizing the oil recovery capacity have led towards more complex drilling operations, such as deep water drilling, multi-well drilling and horizontal drilling. To accomplish the drilling operations as rapidly and as economically as possible, a great deal of planning and forethought must be put into the drilling program. Among many other parameters, the design of well-adapted drilling fluids is one of the most critical factors for the success of the drilling operations. The drilling fluids are primarily dependent upon the geological formation being drilled and the problems associated with such type of formation.
During the drilling operations, the drilling fluid is injected into the well through the drill pipe and re-circulated to the surface in the annular area formed by the wellbore wall and the drill string. Once back at the surface, the drilling fluid is physically and chemically treated and conditioned before it is pumped back into the well.
The drilling apparatus is comprised of a column of drill pipes to the bottom of which is attached a multi-pronged drill bit. To drill the ground, the column of drill pipes is rotated to cut the earth. As drilling continues, cuttings are accumulated. To facilitate drilling, these cuttings have to be continuously removed from the vicinity of the drill bits at the bottom of the hole. The drilling fluid is pumped down-hole through the drill pipe and pumped through nozzles at the drill bit. The generated cuttings are removed from the down-hole to the surface by the drilling fluid through the annular space between the formation and the drill pipe. Depending on whether the continuous phase is water, oil, pseudo-oil, or gas, the drilling fluid is called water-based, oil-based, pseudo-oil based or foam-based. Water-based drilling fluids are preferred over oil-based or pseudo oil-based for economic and environmental reasons.
According to American Petroleum Institute (API), drilling fluid is defined as a circulating fluid used in rotary drilling to perform any or all of the various functions required in drilling operations (J. L. Lummus and J. J. Azar, in "Drilling Fluids Optimization: A Practical Field Approach"; Penn Well Publishing Company: Tulsa Okla., pp. 19-27, 1986). The main functions of the drilling fluid are to: (i) cool, clean and lubricate the drill bit, (ii) suspend the drill cuttings from the drilling operations, (iii) carry them to the surface and remove them from the bottom of the borehole, (iv) prevent loss of excessive amounts of fluids from flowing from the hole into surrounding formations by forming on the wall of hole a thin and impervious filter cake, (v) serve as a fluid column to exert sufficient hydrostatic pressure to counterbalance the formation pressure (water, gas, oil or other earth fluid) and (vi) prevent caving or other intrusions into the drill hole.
To perform these functions, an efficient drilling fluid must exhibit numerous characteristics, such as desired rheological properties (plastic viscosity, yield value and low-end rheology, gel strengths), fluid loss prevention, stability under various temperature and pressure operating conditions, stability against contaminating fluids, such as salt water, calcium sulfate, cement and potassium contaminated fluids, etc. A wide variety of additives are added to drilling fluid formulations to achieve the above performance properties. These include soluble or insoluble inorganic and organic species, and water-soluble or-swellable clays and polymers.
Drilling fluids, often referred to as muds or drilling muds in the oil industry (both terms will be used interchangeably in the present document), can be classified on the basis of their principal constituent (continuous phase). The continuous phase may be water, oil, pseudo-oil and gas. The resulting drilling fluids are called water-based muds (WBMs), oil-based muds (OBMs), synthetic or pseudo-oil based muds (SBMs or POBMs, respectively) and foam muds, respectively. Depending upon the type of the drilling fluid, the continuous phase may additionally contain dissolved organic and inorganic additives and suspended, finely divided solids of various types. Each of these muds has advantageous and disadvantageous features.
Oil-Based Muds
They have oil as the continuous phase. The oil most often selected is diesel oil, mineral oil and low toxicity mineral oil. Because some water will always be present, the oil-based mud must contain water-emulsifying agents. If water is purposely added (for economical reasons), the oil-based mud is called an "invert emulsion mud". Various thickening and suspending agents as well as barite are added. The emulsified water may contain alkalies and salts.
Due to their continuous phase, OBMs are known to provide unequaled performance attributes with respect to the rate of penetration, shale inhibition, wellbore stability, high lubricity, high thermal stability and high salt tolerance. However, they are subjected to strict environmental regulation regarding their discharge and recycling.
Pseudo Oil-Based Muds (Synthetic Oil-Based Muds)
POBMs (or SBMs) are made on the same principle as OBMs. They have been developed to maintain the performance characteristics of OBMs while reducing their environmental impact. The objective behind the design of these drilling fluids is to exchange the diesel oil or mineral oil base with an organic fluid which exhibits a lower environmental impact. The organic fluids used are esters, poly-olefins, acetal, ether and linear alkyl benzene. As with OBMs, POBMs may contain various ingredients, such as thickening and suspending agents, emulsifying agents as well as weighting agents.
POBMs were developed to technically maintain the performance characteristics of OBMs while reducing their environmental impact. They are, however, not as stable as OBMs depending upon the continuous phase. From environmental perspective, the current legislation is becoming as strict for POBMs as for OBMs.
Gas-Based Muds
Although natural gas (methane), exhaust or combustion gases can be used, air is the most common gas drilling fluid. Air is used to produce the so-called "Foam Muds" in which air bubbles are surrounded by a film of water containing a foam-stabilizing substance or film-strengthening materials, such as organic polymers or bentonite. This type of muds is not re-circulated and is particularly used for reduced-pressure drilling to improve the hole stability in caving formations. However, this type of muds has some use limitation with respect to drilling water-producing or wet formations as well as a limited salt tolerance.
Conventional Water-Based Muds
They have water as the continuous phase. Water may contain several dissolved substances. These include alkalies, salts and surfactants, organic polymers in colloidal state, droplets of emulsified oil and various insoluble substances, such as barite, clay and cuttings in suspension. The mud composition selected for use often depends on the dissolved substances in the most economically available makeup water or on the soluble or dispersive materials in the formations to be drilled. Several mud "types" or "systems" are recognized and described in the literature such as, but not limited to: spud muds, dispersed/deflocculated muds, lime muds, gypsum muds, salt water muds, non-dispersed polymer muds, inhibitive potassium muds, cationic muds and mixed metal hydroxide (MMH) muds.
Despite their environmental acceptance, conventional WBMs exhibit major deficiencies relative to OBMs/POBMs with regard to their relatively poor shale inhibition, lubricity and thermal stability characteristics. To overcome those deficiencies, specific additives may, however, be added into the WBM compositions to deliver properties approaching, even though not as good as OBMs/POBMs performance while minimizing the environmental impact.
Consequently, to meet the new environmental regulations while extending the technical performance of water based drilling fluids, a new generation of water based fluids, also called "inhibitive drilling fluids" was developed to compete against OBMs. Also, to minimize the formation damage, new types of non-damaging drilling fluids, called "drill-in-fluid", have been developed to drill the pay-zone formations
Inhibitive Water-Based Muds
Minimizing the environmental impact of the drilling process is a highly important part of drilling operations to comply with environmental regulations that have become stricter throughout the world. In fact, this is a mandatory requirement for the North Sea sector. The drilling fluids industry has made significant progress in developing new drilling fluids and ancillary additives that fulfill the increasing technical demands for drilling oil wells. These additives have very little or no adverse effects on the environment or on drilling economics.
New drilling fluid technologies have been developed to allow the continuation of oil based performance with regard to formation damage, lubricity and wellbore stability aspects and thus penetration rates. These aspects were greatly improved by incorporating polyols or silicates as shale inhibitors in the fluid systems.
Polyols based fluids contain a glycol or glycerol as a shale inhibitor. These polyols are commonly used in conjunction with conventional anionic and cationic fluids to provide additional inhibition of swelling and dispersing of shales. They also provide some lubrication properties.
Sodium silicates or potassium silicates are known to provide levels of shale inhibition comparable to that of OBMs. This type of fluids is characterized by a high pH (>12) for optimum stability of the mud system. The inhibition properties of such fluids are achieved by the precipitation or gelation of silicates on contact with divalent ions and lower pH in the formulation, providing an effective water barrier that prevents hydration and dispersion of the shales.
Drill-In-Fluids
After drilling a well to the total depth, it is a normal practice to replace the drilling mud with a completion fluid. This fluid is a "clean", solids-free, (or acid soluble), non-damaging formulation, intended to minimize reductions in permeability of the producing zone. Prior to producing from the formation, it is usually necessary to clean up what is left by the original mud and the completion fluid, by breaking and degrading the filter cake with an oxidizer, enzyme or an acid solution.
Nowadays, many wells exploit the pay-zone formations horizontally and for long distances. It is no longer practical in these wells to drill the pay-zone with conventional solids-laden muds as the extended clean-up process afterwards is much more difficult. Consequently, the modern generation of drill-in-fluids were developed.
Drill-in-fluids are completion fluids, but they also act as drilling muds. As the pay-zone is penetrated horizontally, these fluids must provide the multifunctional requirements of drilling fluids in addition to the "non-damaging" attributes of completion fluids. In practice, therefore, the normal drilling mud is replaced with a drill-in-fluid just before the pay-zone is penetrated, and used until the end of operations.
Fluid loss prevention is a key performance attribute of drilling fluids. For water-based drilling fluids, significant loss of water or fluid from the drilling fluid into the formation can cause irreversible change in the drilling fluid properties, such as density and rheology occasioning instability of the borehole. Fluid loss control is measured in the laboratory according to the standard procedure (API-RP-13B) for testing drilling fluids.
A wide variety of water-soluble or water-swellable polymers, such as cellulosics, starches, guar gums, xanthan gums, and synthetic polymers and copolymers of acrylamide, acrylic acid, acrylonitrile, and 2-acrylamido-2-methylpropanesulfonic acid (AMPS) are used in water-based drilling fluids. The most commonly used polymers used to build viscosity are the cellulosics, guar gums, xanthan gums, and polyacrylates. Among cellulosics, carboxymethylcellulose (CMC), polyanionic cellulose (PAC) and carboxymethylhydroxyethylcellulose (CM-HEC) are used. Among them, CMC and PAC are the most preferred ones based on their cost and performances to control viscosity (often combined with xanthan gum) and fluid retention (often combined with starches) during well drilling. They are generally available in two main grades, designated as high viscosity ("Hivis") and low viscosity grades ("Lovis"). Hivis PACs are primarily used for viscosity control and secondarily for fluid loss control while Lovis PACs are primarily used as fluid loss reducer; Lovis PACs are not supposed to contribute to the viscosity of the drilling fluid system. In most cases, both types are used together in a drilling fluid composition. During drilling operations, optimum drilling fluid attributes are further achieved by combining different types of additives such as CMC, PAC, xanthan gum (primary rheology modifier), starches (improved filtration control) and other synthetic polymers that may be required for dispersing or shale inhibition properties.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,028,342 describes the use of a mixture of CMC made from raw linters and polycarboxylic acid to achieve good temperature stability and high electrolyte compatibility for use in drilling muds. The polymer blend was made by mixing an alcohol-moist technical grade CMC (carboxymethyl degree of substitution=1.3) made from raw linters and/or wood cellulose with a solution of the sodium salt of a homopolymer of polyacrylic acid and drying the resultant mixture.
Muniov et al. (B. Kh. Muniov, A. A. Alimov, A Abidkhanov and K. S. Akhmedov, Uzb. Khim. Zh., No. 6, 19, 1983) prepared CMC (DS ˜0.8) in a high solids process from raw cotton linters. The CMCs thus made were suggested to be a stabilizer for drilling muds in oil and gas wells.
Although existing grades of CMC and PAC provide a range of performance in drilling fluids, there still is a need for more efficient and economical polymers to function as effective viscosifiers and fluid loss control agents.


A computing device may include a display, an audio output device, a sensor to detect the position of the display relative to the audio output device, and a processor to receive the detected position of the display and adjust audio output from the audio output device based on the detected position of the display.

Computing devices with display devices and display devices generally may include audio output devices. These audio output devices allow a user to listen to audio presented along with a video output associated with the video. The audio is presented to the user via a number of audio output devices such as speakers.
Throughout the drawings, identical reference numbers designate similar, but not necessarily identical, elements. The figures are not necessarily to scale, and the size of some parts may be exaggerated to more clearly illustrate the example shown. Moreover, the drawings provide examples and/or implementations consistent with the description; however, the description is not limited to the examples and/or implementations provided in the drawings.

Audio outputs based on positions of displays

Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P.


A method of notifying a user to set an internal clock in a mobile communication device having a visual display therein includes powering-up the mobile communication device; determining whether digital services are available, and, if not, activating notification indicia to tell the user to manually set the internal clock in the mobile communication device.

Today, almost all mobile phones are equipped with a clock, including PDA's and other mobile communication devices, which also maintain calendaring, and, in some instances, EMail and browser functions. In some digital cellular/PCS systems, such as the IS-95/2000 CDMA system, the clock in a phone is synchronized to the precise local time (Coordinated Universal Time (UTC)+time zone) given by the base station to which the phone is currently communicating with. Once synchronized, the mobile station maintains the clock until the phone is turned off. As a result, users of such phones do not have to adjust the phone clocks while they are in a digital service coverage area.
However, if the mobile phone is powered up outside of a digital service coverage area, the mobile station may lose the current time, unless it is equipped with a battery-back-up real-time clock hardware (RTC). The RTC maintains the clock while the mobile phone is turned off, but requires extra physical space within the phone and increases the manufacturing costs. For a mobile phone without an RTC, applications that rely on the clock will not function when the current time is lost. For example, in such a case the "alarm clock" feature will miss the time at which it is supposed to give a visual/audible alert to the user.
In addition, because a RTC is normally driven by a low-cost crystal oscillator with only marginal accuracy, the mobile phone may not have a sufficiently accurate clock even if it is equipped with an RTC.
Some mobile phones provide the capability for users to set the current time manually. However, a user may not be aware of the need to set the phone clock manually, or may forget to set the time manually, and thereby not receive important clock-dependent information, or receive the information at an inappropriate time.
U.S. Patent Publication No. 20020116658 A1, of Yano, Published Aug. 22, 2002, for Terminal device and real-time clock control method therefor enabling preservation of clock/calendar information and high information readout speed, describes a method for clock/calendar information to be maintained reliably and correctly through the use of dual RTCs.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,282,431, to Konno, granted Aug. 28, 2001, for Time correcting method and portable remote telephone terminal in which time is corrected in accordance with such method, describes a time correcting method by receiving notifying information from a base station.
U.S. Patent Publication No. 20020098857 A1, of Ishii, published Jul. 25, 2002, for Clock for mobile phones, describes a method of managing time zone changes for mobile devices.
WO0079349, of Ostsjo et al., for Method and Apparatus for Real Time Clock Frequency Error Correction, published Dec. 28, 2000, describes a method of calibrating/correcting a phone's RTC.
WO0052847, of Persico, for Radiotelephone Timer, published Sep. 8, 2000, describes a programmable timer using a RTC, for setting unitary or repeatable clock events.
WO9814842, of LaSalle, for Synchronization of a Timepiece to a Reference Time, published Apr. 9, 1998, describes a method and apparatus for synchronizing a timepiece to a reference time, particularly when changing between daylight and standard time.

User notification for digital mobile phones


The present invention relates to novel TMPK inhibitor compositions and their methods of use. In particular, it relates to novel TMPK inhibitor compositions and therapeutics that lead to dUTP-mediated DNA repair in tumor cells and acts as a novel chemosensitizer, which are useful in methods for treating or preventing cancers.

The main problem with cancer chemotherapy is the lack of differentiation between tumor- and rapidly-dividing cells in normal tissues. This causes substantial side effects, which can in the long run lead to secondary cancers induced by the treatment. Chemotherapeutic agents often cause unwanted general cytotoxicity, and activities of several DNA repair pathways enable tumor cells to survive by removing lesions (Helleday et al., 2008).
Small-molecule inhibitors of checkpoint pathways or DNA repair machineries were identified and used as cellular radio- and chemosensitization compounds in clinical trials (Bolderson et al., 2009). Given the differences in checkpoint and DNA repair alteration during tumorigenesis, the therapeutic efficacies of these strategies were found various depending on the checkpoint context of tumor (Jackson and Bartek, 2009; Jiang et al., 2009).
Moreover, derangement of DNA damage response could cause the accumulation of DNA error during therapy, which might provoke secondary tumor development (Mimeault et al., 2008). Therefore, it is important to develop a chemosensitization regimen that does not disrupt the checkpoint network while specifically inducing cancer cell death with little side effect.
An important process in DNA repair is the supply of balanced and sufficient quantities of four dNTPs (Niida et al., 2010b). Ribonucleotide reductase (RNR)-mediated reduction generates not only dADP, dGDP and dCDP but also dUDP, directly from the corresponding NDPs (Nordlund and Reichard, 2006). RNR is composed of R1 and R2 subunits, of which the level of R2 is cell-cycle-regulated (Bjorklund et al., 1992; Engstrom et al., 1985) and often elevated in tumor cells (Jensen et al., 1994; Zhang et al., 2009). It has been reported that R2 overexpression confers oncogenic potential (Fan et al., 1998). An analogue of R2, p53R2, can substitute for R2 to form RNR enzyme, and its function is important for DNA repair in quiescent cells (Hakansson et al., 2006; Pontarin et al., 2011). Nucleotide diphosphate kinase converts all these dNDPs to dNTPs, which include dUTP (Mathews, 2006; Reichard, 1988). Pyrophosphorolysis of dUTP by dUTPase or deamination of dCMP forms dUMP, which is converted to dTMP by thymidylate synthase (TS) (Mathews, 2006; Reichard, 1988). The action of thymidine kinase (TK) also generates dTMP from thymidine (Amer and Eriksson, 1995). Thymidylate kinase (TMPK) subsequently catalyzes the formation of dTDP (Ostermann et al., 2000; Reichard, 1988). Thus, dTDP is the only dNDP, the formation of which cannot be directly derived from RNR reaction.
Conventional anti-cancer therapies often directly induce genotoxicity (Garg et al., 2010). For example, thymidylate synthase (TS) inhibitor, 5-FU or 5-FdUrd, blocks the conversion of dUMP to dTMP, causing dUTP to accumulate and 5-FdUTP formation (Longley et al., 2003). Since DNA polymerases cannot discriminate between dUTP and dTTP (Bessman et al., 1958; Mosbaugh, 1988), excessive amounts of dUTP and 5FdUTP are mis-incorporated into DNA, triggering DNA damage-induced cell death (Ahmad et al., 1998). Consequently, such anti-metabolites produce excessive DNA damage due to erroneous nucleotide incorporation and causes cancer cells death while being highly toxic to normal cycling cells (Ahmad et al., 1998).
It is known that double-strand breaks (DSBs) in proliferating cells are mainly repaired by homologous recombination (HR) in which a single DSB needs more than 10 thousands of dNTPs new incorporation (Robert et al., 2011; San Filippo et al., 2008). As such, RNR function in supply of dNTPs is critical for HR repair (Burkhalter et al., 2009). Of note, blocking RNR on its own induces DNA damage signal and replication stress (Helleday et al., 2008). Since dTDP formation specifically requires TMPK function, we propose that blocking TMPK may decrease the efficiency of DSBs repair and sensitize tumor cells to genotoxic insults.
Accordingly, there is a need to develop novel therapeutics than can induce cancer cell death, when used alone or in combination with other anti-cancer therapies, while reducing the toxic effects caused by such treatments.

Targeting human thymidylate kinase induces DNA repair toxicity in malignant tumor cells


A chemical distribution system affixes flexible tubing (50) along exterior surfaces (52) of a dwelling (12) and along structures (16) external to the dwelling. The tubing is attached to the exterior surfaces with clamps (54) and exposed for maintenance. The clamps are form-fitted to the tubing. Spray nozzles (58) are inserted into the openings in the tubing for dispensing a chemical solution. The openings can be pre-formed or cut into solid tubing at during installation. A connector (42) has one end coupled to a hose for receiving the chemical solution and another end coupled to the tubing. The fixed distribution system provides for precise and even application of the chemical solution with minimal operator intervention.

Chemicals are commonly used in a myriad of applications to control pests and disease. Chemical agents are also used to apply fertilizer to landscape plants, gardens, and crops. Chemical pesticides rid dwellings and open areas from potentially damaging and annoying pests such as ants, roaches, scorpions, crickets, termites, mites, tics, and other insects. These insects are known to spread disease, destroy vegetation, invade dwellings, infest food supplies, sting or bite people, and bother pets. Chemical herbicides are useful to rid lawns, gardens, and flowerbeds from unsightly weeds. Chemical fertilizers provide vital nutrients to plants of all varieties.
There exist a number of methods and apparatus, which are used to apply or dispense chemical mixtures. Inside dwellings, chemicals have been applied with aerosol cans, hand-pump sprayers, back-pack sprayers, and other mobile pressurized containers. It is known to install fixed chemical distribution systems inside the walls and foundation of structures for subterranean pests, e.g., termites. As for open areas, such as yards, gardens, greenbelts, parks, and fields, the chemical pesticides are typically applied from back-pack sprayers or pumped from a truck and applied using a pressurized hose. A volume of chemical mixture is held in a storage tank on the truck. The hose is reeled from the back of the truck. The storage tank is pressurized to force the chemical solution through the hose. The operator drags the hose around from place to place and hopefully sprays the chemical pesticide in the proper concentration to the necessary locations to rid the open areas of unwanted pests.
For exterior application, hand-held sprayers and back-pack sprayers hold relatively small amounts of chemical mixture and require significant time to cover large areas. Moreover, it is easy to get uneven or inconsistent application and coverage with portable sprays and even entirely miss certain areas through misjudgment or neglect. Some areas are hard to get to with manual sprayers. Using the pressurized hose method delivers more chemical per unit time and generally receives a much greater volume of available mixture from the storage tank. However, the power hose has its own drawbacks. There is set-up time to inspect the application area, pressurize the tank, and deploy the hose. The hose is heavy and requires substantial effort to drag around. In warm climates, the heat is a real problem when performing such hard physical labor. Dragging the hose in and around buildings, corners, trees, plants, furniture, fountains, pools, and other outside structures can cause damage to the hose as well as the yard. Plants get uprooted, furniture gets knocked over, gravel gets displaced, hose contacts pool water, and owners get annoyed. The use of pressurized hoses is still no assurance of consistent and even application of the chemical, either because certain areas are inaccessible or through improper application. Some areas are under-sprayed and some areas are over-sprayed. Constant exposure to and breathing of the chemical spray and mist can be harmful to the long-term health of the operator. The use of power hoses still involves entering the application area and possibly having to deal with hostile dogs.
A need exists for a more convenient and efficient means of applying chemical agents to outside open areas.

External chemical distribution system and method


A wire bonding apparatus including a bonding control section provided with an electrical non-bonding detector, an optical non-bonding detector, and an optical shape detector, which are for detecting non-bonding between a first bonding point and a bonding wire; and when non-bonding is detected by the electrical non-bonding detector and non-bonding is also detected by the optical non-bonding detector, then the tip end of the bonding wire is reformed by, based on the shape of the tip end of the bonding wire detected by the optical shape detector, a ball formation device into a ball of a prescribed shape, and rebonding is performed at the first bonding point.

The present invention relates to a wire bonding apparatus, a bonding control program, and a bonding method for performing recovery processing after detecting non-bonding.
One of the assembly processes for semiconductors such as ICs (integrated circuits) is a wire bonding process for connecting between a semiconductor chip and a lead frame with wires.
In a typical wire bonding process, as seen from FIG. 15, pads 3 (first bonding points) of a semiconductor chip 2 and leads 4 (second bonding points) of a lead frame 15, both on a work 14, are connected by wires 12. FIG. 12 shows a structure of a conventional wire bonding apparatus, FIG. 13 is a flowchart of the bonding steps taken in this wire bonding apparatus, and FIG. 14 shows the bonding steps in conventional bonding process. This conventional wire bonding apparatus and process will be described below with reference to FIGS. 12 to 15.
In the wire bonding apparatus 100, as shown in FIG. 12, a bonding head 19 is set up on an XY table 20; and a bonding arm 13, moved in a Z direction by a motor, is provided on the bonding head 19; and in addition, a capillary 16 is attached to the tip end of the bonding arm 13.
The XY table 20 and the bonding head 19 make a moving mechanism 18. The moving mechanism 18, by the XY table 20, moves the bonding head 19 to any position in a horizontal plane (in the XY plane), and, by moving the bonding arm 13 attached thereto in the Z direction, the capillary 16 at the tip end of the bonding arm 13 is moved freely in the XYZ directions. A wire 12 is made to pass through the tip end of the bonding arm 13. The wire 12 is wound on a spool 11. To the wire 12 wound on the spool 11, an electrical conduction state acquisition device 22 is connected so as to acquire the electrical conduction state between the wire 12 and the work 14 by applying to and measuring electric current or electric voltage between the wire 12 and the work 14. To the bonding head 19, a clamper 17, that moves in the Z direction together with the capillary 16 and secures the wire 12, is attached so that it can freely open and close. To the bonding head 19, moreover, a position detection camera 128 for verifying the position of the semiconductor chip 2 is attached. Also, in the vicinity of the tip end of the wire 12, a ball formation device 26 (called electric torch or electric flame off probe) is attached for effecting electrical discharges between the wire 12 and forming a ball 5 at the tip end of the wire 12. The position detection camera 128 is connected to a position detection camera interface 140, the electrical conduction state acquisition device 22 is connected to an electrical conduction state acquisition device interface 42, the moving mechanism 18 is connected to a moving mechanism interface 44, and the ball formation device 26 (electric torch) are connected to a ball formation device interface 46. Each interface is in turn connected via a data bus 32 to a control section 30 within a computer 31 for controlling the wire bonding apparatus. To the data bus 32, furthermore, a memory unit 34 is connected for storing control data. The above-described wire bonding apparatus is disclosed in, for instance, Japanese Patent Application Unexamined Publication Disclosure No. 2003-163243.
The wire bonding apparatus 100 is controlled by the computer 31 and performs wire bonding with the following steps.                (1) The tip end of a wire 12 is formed into a ball 5 by the ball formation device 26, the position of the semiconductor chip 2 is detected by the position detection camera 128, and the capillary 16 is moved over a pad 3 (first bonding point) by the moving mechanism 18 (step S901 in FIG. 13, step (a) in FIG. 14).        (2) The capillary 16 is then caused to descend, and bonding is performed on the pad 3 (first bonding point) (step S902 in FIG. 13, step (b) in FIG. 14). The ball 5 is pressure-bonded on the pad 3 (first bonding point), so that a first bond portion 6 (pressure bonded ball) is formed.        (3) The moving mechanism 18 causes the capillary 16 to ascend from the pad 3 (first bonding point) and then moves the capillary 16 laterally (step S903 in FIG. 13, step (c) in FIG. 14).        (4) During the movement of the capillary 16, an electric current is made to flow from the wire 12 to the work 14 by the electrical conduction state acquisition device 22, and the electrical conduction state at that time is acquired by the electrical conduction state acquisition device 22. The acquired data are input to the control section 30 via the electrical conduction state acquisition device interface 42 (step S904 in FIG. 13, step (c) in FIG. 14). When the bonding to the pad 3 (first bonding point) is successful and bonding has been performed well, then an electric current is made to flow from the wire 12 to the work 14 in step (c).        (5) In the case of non-bonding (in the case that wire 12 is not bonded to the work 14), no first bond 6 is formed on the pad 3 (first bonding point), and the capillary 16 will ascend and move with the wire 12 at the tip end of the capillary 16 not connected to the pad 3 (first bonding point); as a result, no current will flow from the wire 12 to the work 14. It is thereby made possible to detect wire non-bonding. Acquired data on the electrical conduction state between the wire 12 and the work 14 are processed in the electrical non-bonding detection step by the control section 30, and whether non-bonding has occurred is determined (step S905 in FIG. 13, step (c′) in FIG. 14) (see Japanese Patent Application Unexamined Publication Disclosure Nos. H2 (1990)-298874 and H7 (1995)-94545, for instance).        (6) When it is determined in the electrical non-bonding detection step that non-bonding has occurred, the capillary 16 continues as before to move to a lead 4 (second bonding point), bonding is performed at the lead 4 (second bonding point), and, after causing the capillary 16 to ascend, the wire 12 is cut (steps S906 to S908 in FIG. 13). No electrical conduction state acquisition is, however, made for detecting a no-tail or lead non-bonding at the lead 4 (second bonding point).        (7) When wire cutting is finished, error processing is effected by a pad 3 (first bonding point) non-bonding signal, and the wire bonding apparatus 100 is stopped (step S909 in FIG. 13).        (8) Meanwhile, after bonding to the pad 3 (first bonding point), the moving mechanism 18 moves the capillary 16 to the lead 4 (second bonding point) and performs bonding at the lead 4 (second bonding point). If it is determined in the electrical non-bonding detection step that the pad 3 is not non-bonding (bonding on the pad 3 is successful), then when the capillary 16 is made to ascend thereafter, a current is made to flow from the wire 12 to the work 14 by the electrical conduction state acquisition device 22, and the electrical conduction state is acquired by the electrical conduction state acquisition device 22. When bonding to the lead 4 (second bonding point) is successful, and a tail wire 8 is formed properly at the tip end of the capillary 16, a current is able to flow from the wire 12 to the work 14. Conversely, if the wire 12 is accidentally cut while the capillary 16 is ascending, the current from the wire 12 to the work 14 will cease to flow. It is thus possible to detect whether or not the tail wire 8 is a no-tail in which the tail wire 8 fails to attain a prescribed length. Acquired data are input to the control section 30 via the electrical conduction state acquisition device interface 42 (steps S911 and S912 in FIG. 13, step (d) in FIG. 14 to steps (e) and (e′)).        (9) After the bonding to the lead 4 (second bonding point), the clamper 17 closes and ascends together with the capillary 16; and, as a result, the wire 12 is cut above a second bond 7 (step (e) to (f)). After this wire cutting also, a current will be made to flow from the wire 12 to the work 14 by the electrical conduction state acquisition device 22, and the electrical conduction state at that time will be acquired by the electrical conduction state acquisition device 22 (steps S913 and S914 in FIG. 13).        (10) If the bonding to the lead 4 (second bonding point) is successful and the cutting of the wire 12 is being properly effected, then when the capillary 16 is ascending, the current that was flowing from the wire 12 to the work 14 will have ceased to flow (step (f) in FIG. 14). When the cutting of the wire 12 is not being properly effected, on the other hand, as in the case that the wire 12 has been peeled away from the work 14, for example, the wire 12 will be electrically connected to the work 14 through the first bond 6, as shown in FIG. 14(f), as a result a current will flow. Moreover, when the current ceases to flow prior to the closing and ascending of the clamper 17, and no current is flowing even after the wire 12 is cut, even though the second bond 7 will have been formed, it will be possible to determine that there is a no-tail with the tail wire 8 not attaining the prescribed length. Thus, by processing the data output from the electrical conduction state acquisition device 22 in an electrical no-tail detection step in the computer 31, it is possible to determine whether the electrical conduction state after bonding to the lead 4 (second bonding point) is a no-tail or a lead non-bonding condition (steps S915 and S917 in FIG. 13) (see Japanese Patent Application Unexamined Publication Disclosure Nos. H2 (1990)-298874 and H7 (1995)-94545, for instance).        (11) When a no-tail or lead non-bonding is detected in the electrical no-tail detection step, by a signal therefrom, the wire bonding apparatus 100 performs error processing and stops (see Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Disclosure H6 (1994)-5651, for example).        (12) When bonding to the lead 4 (second bonding point) has finished properly, the bonding cycle ends, and the capillary 16 is moved toward the next pad 3 (which is a next first bonding point).
In the above description of the conventional art, wire non-bonding or no-tails are detected by processing signals from the electrical conduction state acquisition device 22 in the control section 30 of the computer 31 and, when it is determined thereby that a non-bonding or no-tail has occurred, then the wire bonding apparatus 100 is stopped. However, during a wire bonding process, various errors, in addition to what is described above, occur, such as the ball not being properly formed due to an electric discharge deficiency, when forming the ball 5 at the tip end of the wire 12 by electric discharge. In such cases also, conventionally, the wire bonding apparatus is stopped when a flaw is detected (see Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Disclosure Nos. H6 (1994)-5651 and H3 (1991)-17376). Also, in view of the fact that there are cases where an error such as non-bonding or the like is caused when a ball 5 of the prescribed shape is not formed at the tip end of the capillary 16, methods have been proposed in which the wire bonding apparatus is stopped or an anomaly alarm is effected after imaging the shape of the tip end of that wire and processing the resulting data (see Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Disclosure No. 2003-163243).
In the wire bonding apparatus 100 described in the above-referred art, despite the fact that various non-bonding detection device and methods are provided, when an error such as non-bonding is detected, nothing more is done besides stopping the wire bonding apparatus 100 or issuing a flaw alarm, and the apparatus does not process (correct) the error condition and continue bonding.
To the contrary, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Disclosure No. H6 (1994)-5651, for example, discloses that when it is determined by electrically detecting a discharge error that the tip end of the wire 12 is not formed in a prescribed ball shape, abandoning bond is performed at an unnecessary portion of the material being bonded, a ball is reformed, and then bonding is continued. However, with this method, unnecessary wire remains at the abandoning bond position, giving rise to the possibility of short-circuit, which is a problem.
Moreover, as to such errors as non-bonding in pad 3 (first bonding point) and lead 4 (second bonding point) and no-tail, since the situation at the tip end of the wire 12 varies, a simple recovery process such as the abandoning bond described above cannot be effected, and it will always be necessary to stop the whole bonding process and perform recovery process after an operator has verified the situation of the wire 12 and the like. Thus, it is not possible to recover from such errors and continue bonding.

Wire bonding apparatus, record medium storing bonding control program, and bonding method


A network signal coupling and EMI protection circuit assembly includes a processing circuit installed in a circuit board and coupled between a voltage-mode network-on-chip at the circuit board and a network connector and drivable by a driving voltage from the voltage-mode network-on-chip to process network signals. The processing circuit includes opposing first connection end and second connection end, two-wire channels electrically connected between the first connection end and the second connection end, a coupling module and an EMI protection module installed in each two-wire channel for coupling network signals and removing noises. Each EMI protection module includes two capacitors having respective first ends thereof respectively connected to the two wires of the respective two-wire channel and respective opposite second ends thereof connected in series and grounded for filtering lower frequency part of resonant waves in the band during signal transmission to prevent electromagnetic interference and to enhance signal transmission stability.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to network technology and more particularly, to a network signal coupling and EMI protection circuit, which uses a processing circuit with coupling modules and EMI protection modules to isolate electricity and to absorb resonant waves, enhancing network signal coupling performance and network signal transmission stability.
2. Description of the Related Art
Following fast development of computer technology, desk computers and notebook computers are well developed and widely used in different fields for different applications. It is the market trend to provide computers having high operating speed and small size. Further, network communication technology brings people closer, helping people to gather information about living, learning, working and recreational activities. By means of network communication, people can communicate with one another to send real time information, advertising propaganda or e-mail. Further, through the internet, people can search information, send instant messages, or play on-line video games. The development of computer technology makes the relationship between people and network unshakable and inseparable.
Connecting a computer or electronic apparatus to a network for data transmission can be done by a cable connection technique or a wireless transmission protocol. A cable connection technique needs the installation of a network connector. A conventional network connector has built therein transformer modules and common-mode suppression modules. As shown in FIG. 5, a conventional network connector comprises a circuit board A, and multiple transformer coils B and filter coils C installed in the circuit board A. Each of the transformer coils B and filter coils C comprises a wire core D, and a lead wire D1 wound round the wire core D with the ends thereof bonded to respective contacts at the circuit board A. Because the winding of the transformer coils B and the filter coils C cannot be achieved by an automatic machine and must be done by labor, the fabrication efficiency of this kind of network connector is low. Further, the lead wire may be broken easily during winding, thereby increasing the cost. Further, fabrication by labor cannot accurately control the coil winding tightness and number of turns, affecting product quality stability.
Further, following the development of network application technology, network data transmission capacity has been greatly increased. To satisfy the demand for high data transmission capacity, network transmission speed has been greatly improved from the early 10 Mbps to 100 Mbps or 1 Gbps. Nowadays, fiber-optic network transmission speed can be as high as 10 Gbps and up. A transformer coil B is an inductor, the impedance (Z) of an inductor is an inductive reactance, and its unit is ohm (Ω). The inductive reactance is calculated subject to the equation of Z=2π·f·L), in which: f=frequency and its unit is hertz (Hz); L=inductance of inductor and its unit is Henry (H). The aforesaid network connector utilizes the characteristic of the inductance of the transformer coils B to isolate electricity and to couple signals. In order to transmit signals from the primary side to the secondary side, each transformer coil B must have a predetermined inductance. From the above equation, it is known that inductive reactance is directly proportional to the working frequency and the inductance of the inductor. When increasing the signal frequency, the inductance reactance will be relatively increased (see the comparative curve of frequency and inductance reactance based on a 350 μH capacitor shown in FIG. 6). However, increased inductive reactance causes increased signal attenuation, leading to network disconnection or dramatic slowdown in network transmission speed. As shown in FIG. 7, when the insertion loss of the transformer reaches ˜3 db, the response frequency becomes 0.45 MHz˜240 MHz. When over this range, the insertion loss will increase rapidly. Therefore, the working frequency must be controlled within a relatively narrower bandwidth. Further, subject to the characteristic curve of the transformer coils B of low frequency with low intensity, middle frequency with high intensity and high frequency with low intensity, when the network transmission speed reaches 1 Gbps, the signal intensity of the transformer coils B will be lowered, unable to meet the product requirements.
Therefore, there is a strong demand for a network signal coupling and EMI protection circuit assembly, which eliminates the drawbacks of instable quality, high cost, automated production incapability and low signal intensity under a high network transmission speed of the prior art network connector design.

Network signal coupling and EMI protection circuit


A lens system is particularly designed for use in an image reading device, essentially including three lenses elements, wherein two or three of them are plastic lenses.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a triplet lens system constructed with glass and plastic lenses. Although not limited thereto, it is particularly suitable to lens systems for being used with an image reading device.
2. Description of the Related Art
An image reading device generally consists of a glass lens system, but the glass lens system has its disadvantage of high manufacturing cost that refrains from number of elements of glass lenses. In lower cost without losing resolution, spherical glass lenses with three elements are widely used. Whereas aberration still exists and cannot be completely removed by only using three-element-spherical-glass lenses due to its limited controllable factors. Moreover, the field angle to an optical system may get larger as the whole system becomes smaller. As the field angle gets larger, it is more difficult to get rid of the aberration. In addition, high resolution is maintained by reducing the aperture size though incurring insufficient lightness of the lens system and lower diffractive limit from smaller size of the aperture. Therefore, the manufacturing cost, the field angle, the resolution, the illumination, and the diffractive limit become trade-off variables in the optical design.
The use of the plastic lenses may be considered as a solution to the above-mentioned problems.
First of all, the plastic lens made by injection molding of an injection machine is considered to decrease the cost, easier to be produced into aspheric surface or diffractive surface. Unlike the spherical surface, the aspheric and diffractive surfaces have more controllable factors than the spherical surface to eliminate the image aberration and chromatic aberration so as to improve the resolution and to uplift the field angle. Moreover, the aperture can be larger so as to resolve the illumination and diffractive limit problems.
Second, the use of plastic lens can create new lens layout that differ with common triplet lens system. Usually, a lens system with three elements is suggested positioning with positive-negative-positive allocation, or called Cook Triplet System. In such lens system, position of lenses has the following three types: the first lens with forwarded convex surface, positive meniscus or bi-convex lens; the second lens with bi-concave surface; the third lens with bi-convex surface.
During the manufacturing of the glass lens, it is not easy to control the centering error. Considering the cost of production, in design of the lens, the curvature of the two sides of the lens cannot be too close. The plastic lens is made of injection so that it is easy to control the centering error of the meniscus lens. At the same time, during development of the plastic mold, the meniscus lens can reach a precision better than that of glass lens, thereby enhancing the resolution. Therefore, the meniscus positive or negative lens can be adapted to co-operate with an aspherical or diffractive surface so as to obtain a greater field angle.
In accordance with one aspect of the present invention, the main objective of this invention is to completely resolve aberration by means of applying more than two plastic lenses in a three-element lens system.
In order to achieve the primary objective, the lens system according to a first embodiment of the present invention uses a positive-negative-positive arrangement. The first lens uses a positive meniscus plastic lens instead of the positive meniscus glass lens in the prior art. The second lens uses a forward concave surface and negative meniscus plastic lens instead of the bi-concave glass lens in the prior art. The third lens uses a forward concave surface and positive meniscus glass lens instead of the bi-convex glass lens in the prior art. At least one aspheric surface is mounted on one of the plastic lenses, and a diffractive surface is mounted on the first lens. The focal length of the lens system and the plastic lenses satisfy the following equation:
0.2 less than |f2/f1| less than 0.7xe2x80x83xe2x80x83[1]
0.2 less than |f2/fs| less than 0.6xe2x80x83xe2x80x83[2]
wherein, f1 is the focal length of the first lens, f2 is the focal length of the second lens, and fs is the focal length of the optical lens system.
The reasons for applying the plastic-plastic-glass arrangement are explained as follows.
In the so-called xe2x80x9cCook Triplet Systemxe2x80x9d, the focus of the third lens is desired to be shorter than that of the first lens. In other words, it is desirable that the refractive rate of the third lens is higher than that of the first lens for facilitating the design. In addition, it is easier to find a glass material with a high refractive index so that the plastic material is to be applied in the first lens.
The first lens is made of plastic material in that the plastic material is easier to be made into an aspheric or a diffractive surface so that it has a greater ability to resolve the aberration. Relatively, in addition to be provided with a bi-concave shape, the second lens may also be designed to have a meniscus shape so as to increase the precision of the plastic lens, thereby enhancing the image quality. Equation [1] and equation [2] are thus derived for resolving the aberration problem. It is desired that the first lens has a higher Abbe-number so that the diffractive surface was designed to be mounted in the first lens for improving the chromatic aberration.
The lens system according to a second embodiment of the present invention is the opposite case of the first embodiment. Because the allocation of the lenses was reversed, the relationship between the focal length of the second and the third lenses, and the relationship between the focal length of the second lens and the whole optical system are changed and should to satisfy the following condition.
0.4 less than |f2/f3| less than 0.8xe2x80x83xe2x80x83[3]
0.2 less than |f2/fs| less than 0.6xe2x80x83xe2x80x83[4]
wherein, f2 is the focal length of the second lens, f3 is the focal length of the third lens, and fs is the focal length of the whole optical system.
The lens system according to a third embodiment of the present invention uses a positive-negative-positive arrangement, and all of the lenses are made of plastic. A diffractive surface is allocated in the second lens, and the aspheric surfaces are allocated in the plastic lenses. The focal length of the second lens and the whole lens system should to satisfy the following equation:
|f2/fs| less than 0.6xe2x80x83xe2x80x83[5]
wherein, f2 is the focal length of the second lens, fs the focal length of the whole optical system.
In the equation [5], the aberration problem can be easily rectified. Because the kinds of the optical plastic material are limited, the diffractive surface is used to reinforce the capability of chromatic aberration reduction.
Further benefits and advantages of the present invention will become apparent after a careful reading of the detailed description with appropriate reference to the accompanying drawings.


An optical system (120) for detecting optical aberrations of light from an object (101), the optical system comprising: a reference light-source (102) providing collimated reference light; an optical element (212) configured to focus at least one collimated light beam incident on the optical element (212) to a plurality of focal points in a conjugate object plane (214), the optical element (212) being arranged in an optical path between the reference light-source (102) and the object (101) for transmitting a plurality of reference light beams towards the object (101); and a wavefront sensor (112) configured to detect a property indicative of an optical aberration of light incident on the wavefront sensor; wherein the optical element (212) is further arranged to transmit a plurality of reflected guide star light beams resulting from reflection of the reference light beams at the object (101) towards the wavefront sensor (112).

In optical imaging systems it may be necessary to correct for optical aberrations, or phase errors, that blur the image of an object under observation. Typical applications where such correction is required are e.g. ground based telescopes, where the image of an observed object is blurred by the atmosphere, and retinal imaging, where the image of the retina is blurred by the eye's optical aberrations.
One way to correct for such aberrations is to use an adaptive optics (AO) system. Adaptive optics has been applied in different areas of science and industry, e.g. to enhance the capabilities of imaging systems in astronomy, microscopy, and ophthalmology, to enhance signal quality in optical communication systems, and also in laser beam control. In environments where an imaging system is used to observe objects behind a continuously evolving phase curtain (atmosphere, ocular optics, heating effects, etc.), the adaptive optics system can effectively mitigate the effects of this medium to regain the loss of imaging performance.
In systems using adaptive optics, a Shack-Hartmann wavefront sensor may be used to detect an optically aberrated wavefront. A Shack-Hartmann sensor usually makes use of a point source having a known position, a so-called guide star, located somewhere within the field of view to be imaged. By sampling the wavefront of the guide star image, and comparing the acquired samples with known reference samples, it is possible to determine the aberration of a wavefront. Furthermore, it is possible to measure aberrations over a larger field of view by using multiple guide stars.
Once the optical aberrations are known, the AO-system may correct the aberrated wavefront by using one or more wavefront modifying devices, e.g. deformable mirrors or reflective or transmissive phase modulators.
However, with the use of multiple guide stars, it is increasingly important to accurately align the guide star source with various optical elements in the optical system. A system using multiple guide stars thereby becomes more sensitive to misalignment of optical elements, which may for example occur through mechanical movement or through thermal expansion.
In U.S. Pat. No. 6,634,750, a plurality of guide stars is formed by using an array of light-sources to provide a plurality of light beams, each representing a guide star. Each point source in the array provides a collimated light beam which passes through a common lens in order to provide a set of collimated beams at different angles. As the collimated beams are diverging, it is critical that the following optical elements, such as lenses and apertures, are correctly positioned, as any misalignment will lead to subsequent errors in the detection system.
Accordingly, there is a need for a more robust optical system using multiple guide stars and a wavefront sensor to detect optical aberrations.


The specification discloses a modular system for the formation of a prosthesis for the replacement of a long bone in a human or animal body. The system provides a prosthesis comprising a proximal or distal end component such as a trochanter or condylar head, forming one component of a prosthetic joint, a shaft for assembly with the distal or proximal end component and a stem for engagement in a resected bone. The system allows the assembly of a custom fitted prosthesis from a limited range of components.

This invention relates to prostheses for partial or total replacement of a long bone in human or animal bodies.
In the case where limbs are badly damaged or large amounts of bone must be surgically removed, e.g., in the case of treatment of bone cancer, there is a need for prostheses which replace a large part of the natural bone and which can be assembled by the surgeon to meet a wide range of conditions. The present invention provides a modular system for constructing effectively customised prostheses to meet a range of such surgical requirements. Typical requirements may be, for example, to replace the proximal or distal femur or perhaps the total replacement of the femur.