A method and system are provided for automatically generating Internet formatted data files from nonInternet formatted data files. The present invention includes processing one or more directories selected by a user to locate and tag any files of a type to be converted. A file list is created and output as a spreadsheet type text file containing the file information for each file to be processed. Each located file is then converted into an Internet ready file format, and transferred to a chosen destination. The present invention allows for automatic generation of an Internet yellow page directory using nonInternet formatted customer advertising data files with significantly reduced production costs and likelihood of processing error.

With the increasing use of the Internet for conducting commercial transactions, a corresponding need has arisen for Internet servers to increase the ease and efficiency of repurposing traditional printed documents and products into a form suitable for distribution via a web browser. While file conversion arrangements have been developed for converting noninternet ready files into a suitable Internet ready format, such as a JPEG or GIF file, such arrangements require extensive human input and oversight to control the repurposing operation, and then to subsequently process the converted files to make them available for distribution in a web page.
However, the need for extensive human input and control makes the repurposing and web page construction process highly susceptible to human error. In addition, such human interaction significantly increases administrative burdens and server production costs while simultaneously decreasing server throughput efficiency.

Method for automatically generating Internet ready GIFs from selected data files


Provided herein are a plasticizer composition, a resin composition, and a method of preparing the plasticizer composition. A plasticizer composition capable of enhancing poor physical properties occurring due to structural limitations and enhancing physical properties such as tensile strength, migration resistance, volatile loss, and the like, which are required when used as a plasticizer of a resin composition, and a resin composition including the same may be provided.

Generally, in plasticizers, an alcohol reacts with a polycarboxylic acid such as phthalic acid and adipic acid to form an ester corresponding thereto. In addition, in consideration of domestic and foreign regulations of phthalate-based plasticizers which are harmful to the human body, research on plasticizer compositions that can replace phthalate-based plasticizers such as terephthalate-based plasticizers, adipate-based plasticizers, other polymer-based plasticizers, and the like has been continuously conducted.
Meanwhile, to manufacture products such as flooring materials, wallpaper, sheets, interior and exterior materials for automobiles, films, electric wires, and the like, the use of a suitable plasticizer is required in consideration of migration, volatile loss, extension, elongation, plasticizing efficiency, and the like. According to properties required according to the type of industry in such various applications, i.e., tensile strength, elongation, light resistance, migration, gelation properties, and the like, a PVC resin is mixed with a plasticizer, a filler, a stabilizer, a viscosity reducing agent, a dispersant, an antifoaming agent, a foaming agent, or the like.
For example, from among plasticizer compositions applicable to PVC, when inexpensive diethylhexylterephthalate is used, plasticizing efficiency is low, an absorption rate of the plasticizer is relatively low, and light resistance and migration are also poor.
Therefore, there is a need to develop products of a novel composition, such as products with superior properties to diethylhexylterephthalate, and continuously conduct research on the most suitable technology for the use thereof as a plasticizer for vinyl chloride-based resins.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Plasticizer composition, resin composition, and method of preparing the same


A control system for an absorption heat transfer plant controls the quantity of heat input into the plant's concentrator in response to the plant's evaporator liquid refrigerant temperature. The control system also controls the temperature of the cooling fluid for the plant's absorber and condenser.

The present invention relates to absorption heat transfer plants and in particular to a control system therefor.
Absorption refrigeration plants are well known in the refrigeration art and have been used in a wide variety of refrigeration applications. Examples of such plants are those using water as a refrigerant and those using ammonia as a refrigerant.
An absorption refrigeration plant comprises a concentrator, a condenser, an evaporator, and an absorber. In the concentrator, a dilute solution of absorbent and refrigerant is heated, thereby releasing refrigerant. The refrigerant vapor flows to the condenser, where the vapor is cooled and thereby condensed. From the condenser, the liquid refrigerant flows through an orifice into the evaporator. The evaporator is at a lower pressure than the condenser, thus a portion of the liquid refrigerant vaporizes, cooling the remaining liquid. The cooled liquid refrigerant cools the system fluid by direct heat transfer, which causes additional liquid refrigerant to vaporize. The cooled system fluid is used to cool an external refrigeration load. The refrigerant vapor flows to the absorber, where the vapor is absorbed by a relatively undiluted solution of absorbent and refrigerant, which dilutes the solution. The dilute solution is then pumped to the concentrator, completing the cycle.
A refrigeration absorption plant is generally subjected to a variable refrigeration load and variable external conditions, such as ambient air temperature. An automatic control system is generally provided to accomplish stable, efficient operation of the plant.
An additional consideration in absorption refrigeration plants which use water as a refrigerant is that if the refrigerant is allowed to freeze, the operation of the plant will be disrupted and the plant possibly damaged. The lowest temperature liquid refrigerant occurs in the evaporator. Thus, in the past, such plants were designed to maintain the temperature of the liquid refrigerant in the evaporator substantially above 32.degree. F. (generally between 40.degree. and 42.degree. F.) at full capacity to provide a safety margin against freezing the refrigerant.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,505,123 (Kusakabe et al) discloses a control system in which the rate of flow of liquid refrigerant from the condenser to the evaporator is controlled in response to any of the following:
1. the temperature of the heat supplied to the concentrator,
2. the temperature of the liquid refrigerant entering the evaporator,
3. the temperature of the solution of absorbent and refrigerant, or
4. the pressure of the refrigerant vapor in the absorber.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,706,464 (Kreutmair) discloses a control system in which the heat supplied to the concentrator is controlled in response to the temperature of the refrigerant vapor leaving the concentrator and the flow of liquid refrigerant from the condenser to the evaporator is controlled in response to the temperature of the refrigerant vapors at the outlet of the evaporator.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,894,988 (Kaneko et al) discloses a control system in which liquid refrigerant in the condenser may be diverted directly to the absorber when the temperature of cooled system water leaving the evaporator decreases below a preset temperature.
The Trane Company of La Crosse, Wis., manufactures an absorption refrigeration machine in which an electro-pneumatic control system controls the heat supplied to the concentrator in response to the temperature of the system fluid, the fluid which cools an external load. The Trane control system also controls the heat supplied to the concentrator in response to the temperature of a fluid which is used to cool the machine's absorber and condenser. The Trane control system is described in Operation-Maintenance Manual, Trane Company, La Crosse, Wis., 1983.

Control system for absorption heat transfer plants


A natural gamma tag marking materials for sub or permanent markers used in gamma logging operations, such natural gamma materials having a gamma count of between 200 and 1000 counts per second. The instant invention further discloses a typical Sub, for insertion in a drilling operation, utilizing natural gamma element compounds which are considered to be non-hazardous and effective as tag markers when used in wireline logging operations.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a gamma radiation emitting tool joint referred to as a sub, often used in wireline logging operations as tag markers or permanent reference points in conjunction with tubing conveyed drilling tools etc. More particularly, the present invention is directed to an improved material and method of conveyance for performing such task.
2. General Background
Radioactive tag markers utilized in a drilling operation are by no means new. However, they have evolved over the years, from permanent markers placed in the casing or tubing, to cobalt pellets implanted into a drilling tube sub. These reference markers are necessary to provide an exact known location for perforating and other such down hole operations. Although each joint of drill pipe or tubing is measured prior to insertion in the bore hole, even small measurement errors and coupling differences become cumulative over the hundreds of joints of pipe used in the string, resulting in errors of several feet in some cases. Stretch and bounce in the wireline while logging the well also plays a large role in drilling tool location error. Therefore, it has been the accepted practice to provide a highly radioactive substance as a detectable tag marker referencing source, located in the near vicinity of the tool joint. Thus, when the initial subsurface formation log is compared to a through tubing wireline log, for any given well, in which a tag marking reference source has been placed near the tool joint, a high gamma count spike is detectable and can be accurately located utilizing the standard API gamma ray tubing collar locator scale.
It has been assumed in the past that the radioactive tag marker reference source must have a high gamma count to overcome the natural gamma radiation being emitted by the surrounding subsurface formations. Therefore, high gamma count elements such as cobalt with gamma counts in excess of 3600 counts/sec. are currently being used. High radiation elements, when used in well logging operations, are highly controlled by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the Department of Transportation and various environmental agencies, both Federal and State. Personnel must be highly trained and a paper trail must be maintained at all times for the handling of such materials to minimize human exposure to radiation. A license must also be acquired and maintained for each state through which the material passes and expensive equipment must be utilized in the handling and detection process. The necessary equipment can not be transported quickly by air, if at all, due to these time consuming restrictions. Accordingly, there is a need for a gamma ray tag marker that can be detected by the wireline logging operation which does not exhibit the draw backs hereabove mentioned. Namely, a less hazardous substance that can be handle without risk to personnel.


A method for loading a plurality of dynamically linked assemblies during the execution of an application program is disclosed. The application program reads a configuration file that includes a load sequence for the plurality of dynamically linked assemblies and a class associated with each dynamically linked assembly. The plurality of dynamically linked assemblies are loaded in accordance with the load sequence read from the configuration file. Each class has a common dataset and each of the plurality of dynamically linked assemblies is independent from the other of the plurality of dynamically linked assemblies. A process request defined by the associated class is sent to at least a first of the plurality of dynamically linked assemblies.

In a power monitoring system, various installations send electrical data from data collection nodes to a data collection server. This collected data may then be processed (e.g., filtered, aggregated, etc.) or extracted from a database by an application program. The application program typically utilizes a number of assemblies (e.g., dynamically linked libraries (DLL)) to process the data. These assemblies are dynamically linked with the application program that uses them during program execution rather than being compiled with the main program. The advantage of such assemblies is that, because they need not be loaded into random access memory (RAM) together with the application program, space is saved in the RAM. When and if an assembly is needed, it is loaded into the RAM and run by the application program.
Typical application programs hard code the load sequence for the various assemblies into the application program itself. As such, when the load sequence for the assemblies is to be modified (e.g., the order of the assemblies is changed or an assembly is added or deleted) a programmer must modify the source code and recompile the application program to carry out such a modification.
Thus, a need exists for an improved apparatus and method. The present invention is directed to satisfying one or more of these needs and solving other problems.

Loading a chain of processors from an XML file


An active matrix electrowetting on dielectric (AM-EWOD) device includes a substrate electrode and a plurality of array elements, each array element including an array element electrode. The AM-EWOD device further includes thin film electronics disposed on a substrate. The thin film electronics includes first circuitry configured to supply a first time varying signal V1 to the array element electrodes, and second circuitry configured to supply a second time varying signal V2 to the substrate electrode. An actuation voltage is defined by a potential difference between V2 and V1, and the first circuitry further is configured to adjust the amplitude of V1 to adjust the actuation voltage. V1 may be adjusted to adjust the actuation voltage while V2 remains unchanged. The actuation voltage may be controlled to operate the AM-EWOD device between high and low voltage modes of operation in accordance with different droplet manipulation operations to be performed.

Electrowetting on dielectric (EWOD) is a well known technique for manipulating droplets of fluid by application of an electric field. It is thus a candidate technology for digital microfluidics for lab-on-a-chip technology. An introduction to the basic principles of the technology can be found in "Digital microfluidics: is a true lab-on-a-chip possible?", R. B. Fair, Microfluid Nanofluid (2007) 3:245-281).
FIG. 1 shows a part of a conventional EWOD device in cross section. The device includes a lower substrate 72, the uppermost layer of which is formed from a conductive material which is patterned so that a plurality of electrodes 38 (e.g., 38A and 38B in FIG. 1) are realized. The plurality of electrodes may be termed the EW drive elements. The droplet 4, consisting of a polar material (which is commonly also ionic), and is constrained in a plane between the lower substrate 72 and a top substrate 36. A suitable gap between the two substrates may be realized by means of a spacer 32, and a non-polar fluid 34 (e.g. oil) may be used to occupy the volume not occupied by the liquid droplet 4. An insulator layer 20 disposed upon the lower substrate 72 separates the conductive electrodes 38A, 38B from a first hydrophobic surface 16 upon which the liquid droplet 4 sits with a contact angle 6 represented by θ. On the top substrate 36 is a second hydrophobic layer 26 with which the liquid droplet 4 may come into contact. Interposed between the top substrate 36 and the second hydrophobic layer 26 is a top substrate electrode 28.
The contact angle θ6 is defined as shown in FIG. 1, and is determined by the balancing of the surface tension components between the solid-liquid (γSL), liquid-gas (γLG) and non-ionic fluid (γSG) interfaces, and in the case where no voltages are applied satisfies Young's law, the equation being given by:
                              cos                                                              θ                =                                            γ              SG                        -                          γ              SL                                            γ            LG                                              (                  equation                                                              1                )            In certain cases, the relative surface tensions of the materials involved (i.e the values of γSL, γLG and γSG) may be such that the right hand side of equation (1) is less than −1. This may commonly occur in the case in which the non-ionic fluid 34 is oil. Under these conditions, the liquid droplet 4 may lose contact with the hydrophobic surfaces 16 and 26, and a thin layer of the non-polar fluid 34 (oil) may be formed between the liquid droplet 4 and the hydrophobic surfaces 16 and 26.
In operation, voltages termed the EW drive voltages, (e.g. VT, V0 and V00 in FIG. 1) may be externally applied to different electrodes (e.g. drive element electrodes 28, 38A and 38B, respectively). The resulting electrical forces that are set up effectively control the hydrophobicity of the hydrophobic surface 16. By arranging for different EW drive voltages (e.g. V0 and V00) to be applied to different drive element electrodes (e.g. 38A and 38B), the liquid droplet 4 may be moved in the lateral plane between the two substrates 72 and 36.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,565,727 (Shenderov, issued May 20, 2003) discloses a passive matrix EWOD device for moving droplets through an array.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,911,132 (Pamula et al., issued Jun. 28, 2005) discloses a two dimensional EWOD array to control the position and movement of droplets in two dimensions.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,565,727 further discloses methods for other droplet operations including the splitting and merging of droplets, and the mixing together of droplets of different materials.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,163,612 (Sterling et al., issued Jan. 16, 2007) describes how TFT based electronics may be used to control the addressing of voltage pulses to an EWOD array by using circuit arrangements very similar to those employed in AM display technologies.
The approach of U.S. Pat. No. 7,163,612 may be termed "Active Matrix Electrowetting on Dielectric" (AM-EWOD). There are several advantages in using TFT based electronics to control an EWOD array, namely:                Driver circuits can be integrated onto the AM-EWOD array substrate.        TFT-based electronics are well suited to the AM-EWOD application. They are cheap to produce so that relatively large substrate areas can be produced at relatively low cost.        TFTs fabricated in standard processes can be designed to operate at much higher voltages than transistors fabricated in standard CMOS processes. This is significant since many EWOD technologies require EWOD actuation voltages in excess of 20V to be applied.
A disadvantage of U.S. Pat. No. 7,163,612 is that it does not disclose any circuit embodiments for realizing the TFT backplane of the AM-EWOD.
EP2404675 (Hadwen et al., published Jan. 11, 2012) describes array element circuits for an AM-EWOD device. Various methods are known for programming and applying an EWOD actuation voltage to the EWOD drive electrode. The voltage write function described includes a memory element of standard means, for example, based on Dynamic RAM (DRAM) or Static RAM (SRAM) and input lines for programming the array element.
U.S. Pat. No. 8,173,000 (Hadwen et al., issued May 8, 2012) describes an AM-EWOD device with array element circuit and method for writing an AC actuation voltage to the electrode. The AC drive scheme described by this patent utilizes the application of AC signals to both the drive element electrode and top substrate electrodes of the device. Therefore, the device is capable of generating a voltage difference between the electrodes that varies between +VEW and −VEW, whilst the transistors in the array element circuit are only ever required to operate with a rail-to-rail voltage of VEW. This patent further describes methods of driving the device sometimes in an AC and sometimes in a DC mode, so as to be compatible with the operation of integrated sensor functions.
US application 2012/0007608 (Hadwen et al., published Jan. 12, 2012) describes how an impedance (capacitance) sensing function can be incorporated into the array element. The impedance sensor may be used for determining the presence and size of liquid droplets present at each electrode in the array.
US application US2011/0180571 (Srinivasan et al., published Jul. 28, 2011) describes how using adjustable electrowetting voltages may help to maintain the stability of the oil film that is formed between the liquid droplet 4 and the hydrophobic surfaces 16 and 26. They describe how the maintenance of the oil film between the droplet and the surface of the droplet actuator is an important factor in optimum operation of the droplet actuator. A stabilized oil film leads to less contamination, such as contamination due to absorption and resorption. In addition, maintenance of the oil film provides for more direct electrowetting and allows for the use of lower voltages for droplet operations. They further describe how different voltages may be used for performing different operations, for example a higher voltage may be used in order to elute a droplet from a reservoir than as would be used to move a droplet between adjacent array elements.

AM-EWOD device and method of driving with variable voltage AC driving


A method for packing bitumen in a continuous process is disclosed. To pack the bitumen, a tray having one or more bitumen-receiving cavities is prepared. The cavity of the tray is coated with polymer film and bituminous film consecutively. Following that, the bitumen, in liquid form, is filled into the coated cavity. Additional layer of bituminous and polymer film are then consecutively laid over the bitumen-filled cavity, encapsulating the bitumen thereto. A system to form such bitumen package is also disclosed herein.

Bitumen, also known as asphalt, is a petroleum derivatives product which has been widely used as construction material. Bitumen, including naturally occurring bitumen and refined bitumen obtained from fractional distillation of crude oil, is semi-solid and very sticky at room temperature. When bitumen is heated up to an elevated temperature, it appears in a liquid form.
Bitumen is transported from oil refineries to user site in a number of ways. One way of transporting it is by heated tankers. Nevertheless, transportation by heated tankers consumes significant amount of energy, thus making it costly. Beside that, transportation of bitumen by heated tankers is also considered hazardous.
Another way for transporting bitumen would be transportation of cold bitumen in metal drums. While considered safe, transportation of cold bitumen by metal drums leads to wastage of bitumen as stickiness of bitumen makes it very difficult to recover all bitumen from the metal drums upon usage. About 2-3% of the bitumen is left as residues in the metal drums. Additionally, after it has been used once in transporting bitumen, the metal drums cannot be recycled for another usage, thus disposal of the used metal drums, with bitumen residues stick to the drums, leads to an environmental issue.
Attempts have also been made to use materials such as polymers and paper bag for packing bitumen. US Patent Publication no. 2009/0000976 discloses a method to pack bitumen using polymer bag for easy storage, handling, and transportation. To prepare a bitumen package, a pre-fabricated empty polymer bag having opening at the top is held firmly in a metal mould. The metal mould is then placed in a coolant/water tank. Following that, bitumen in liquid form is poured into the polymer bag with the help of a funnel. After that, the polymer bag is sealed and the sealed bag is placed on pallet, ready for further storage and transportation.


A compact and easily cleanable device for separating solids from a stream of liquid entering the device includes a hollow base having a screen positioned spatially above the bottom of the base and tilted forwardly and downwardly to define a plane which is recessed from an opening in the base which is generally parallel to the screen. A cover is hingedly mounted adjacent the top of the device and includes a motor centrally positioned externally thereon having a drive shaft extending through the cover to the interior side thereof. A pair of wiper blades are rotatably driven on the shaft and are positioned between the interior of the cover and the screen so as to have an edge of the wiper blade rotatably movable on the screen for moving solids collected on the screen around the output shaft and upwardly toward a cutout adjacent the top of the shaft where the solids may exit the device.

It is often desirable to remove solid matter from a stream of water prior to employing the water for industrial uses. Also, it is often desirable to remove solids, such as leaves and the like from the surfaces of swimming pools and ponds. Currently, such solids are removed by directing a water stream through a screen which traps large solid material and allows only the smaller particles to remain. Such screens, however, can become clogged or blinded when the solid material builds up on the surface thereof, preventing the water from passing through. To minimize the effect of blinding, very large screens have been employed to remove solids from a water stream. Several efforts have been made to improve the efficiency of screens such as the provision of a vibrator as shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,065,382, and of a wiper as shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,863,765. Such efforts, however, have not been entirely successful, and the machines remain large considering the amount of water passing therethrough. It would, therefore, be desirable to provide an improved device from a stream which would be more compact and easily cleanable.

Apparatus for removing solids from a stream of water


Method and system are provided for automatic failover between multiple nodes in a middle-tier layer between client applications and a back-end service. The method at a first node includes: receiving a request from a client application; determining that the first node cannot service the request successfully; forwarding the request from the first node to a second peer node; receiving a response at the first node on completion of the request by the second peer node; and forwarding the response from the first node to the client application. An original path of communication between the client application and the first node is maintained. The failover of the request from the first node to the second peer node is transparent to the client application. Nodes may be registered in a group, wherein a node in a group has awareness of other nodes in the group.

In three-tier networked topologies, the middle layer acts as a concentrator for many clients to share a finite resource at the back-end service. It can be used to protect the back-end systems by providing a level of indirection and hence a point of control.
In a highly available three-tier system, the middle tier can add further value by providing a single point of entry to client applications, thus hiding the complexity of the middle-tier and back-end implementation, both of which may be made up of multiple cloned nodes.
When the middle tier itself is made up of multiple cloned nodes, ultimately—one of those nodes will be elected to process a specific request. In certain circumstances, the middle-tier node, having received a specific request, might find that it is unable then to satisfy the request (e.g. within a target response time). This might occur if the selection of the specific middle-tier node coincides with a problem in the back-end node associated with this specific middle-tier node.
Having exhausted any chance to successfully process the request, the middle-tier node would typically respond to the client application associated with the request with an error. The client would then close and re-open its connection to the middle tier, in the expectation that an alternative middle-tier node would be selected.
An example of such a highly available three-tier system is a transaction system in which client applications access transaction servers via a transaction gateway. An example of such a transaction system is the IBM CICS® Transaction Server System (CICS is a trade mark of International Business Machines Corporation).
An external call interface (ECI) request is typically received and processed by a single gateway daemon. The path length and network resources used to successfully connect to and deliver an ECI request to a gateway daemon form a large "investment" in terms of response time, and CPU (Computer Processing Unit) load. Unfortunately, the successful delivery of an ECI request to a gateway daemon does not guarantee a successful onward delivery of the request to its intended destination (for example, a transaction server). This might be due to a temporary lack of capacity between the gateway daemon and transaction server, for example, all communication resources are busy.
Such failures can result in the entire connection from application to gateway daemon being torn down and subsequently being re-established, with the expectation that the new connection will deliver the request to an alternative gateway daemon, which does have the capacity to service the request. This failover pattern is an expensive process.
Therefore, there is a need in the art to address the aforementioned problems.

Automatic failover of nodes of a middle-tier layer


Described herein are methods and systems for the liquefaction of natural gas to produce a LNG product. The methods and systems use an apparatus for separating a flash gas from a liquefied natural gas (LNG) stream to produce a LNG product and recovering refrigeration from the flash gas. The apparatus includes a shell casing enclosing a heat exchange zone comprising a coil wound heat exchanger, and a separation zone. The heat exchange zone is located above and in fluid communication with the separation zone. Flash gas is separated from the LNG product in the separation zone and flows upwards from the separation zone into the heat exchange zone where refrigeration is recovered from the separated flash gas.

The present invention relates generally to methods and systems for the production of a liquefied natural gas (LNG) product. More specifically, the invention relates to an apparatus for separating a flash gas from an LNG stream to produce an LNG product, and for recovering refrigeration from the flash gas. The present invention also relates to methods and systems for producing an LNG product that utilize said apparatus.
The liquefaction of natural gas is an important industrial process. The worldwide production capacity for LNG is more than 300 million tonnes per annum (MTPA). A number of liquefaction systems for cooling, liquefying, and optionally subcooling natural gas are well known in the art.
In a typical liquefaction system, a first natural gas feed stream is pre-cooled, liquefied and optionally subcooled in a main cryogenic heat exchanger (MCHE) via indirect heat exchange with one or more refrigerants, to produce a first LNG stream. The first LNG stream can then be further processed by flashing the first LNG stream to produce a first flashed LNG stream, which is then sent to a vapor-liquid separator (flash drum) to separate the LNG product from the flash gas.
The separated flash gas is removed from the vapor-liquid separator, and warmed in a cold side of a flash gas heat exchanger to produce a warmed flash gas stream, thereby recovering refrigeration from the flash gas and providing cooling duty to the flash gas heat exchanger. The warmed flash gas stream can then be compressed, cooled and recycled back into the natural gas feed stream. A second natural gas feed stream (for example separated from the first natural gas feed stream prior to liquefaction of the latter in the MCHE) can be cooled and liquefied in the flash gas heat exchanger to produce a second LNG stream which can be flashed and combined with the first flashed LNG stream. Alternatively, another type of stream may be passed through and cooled in the warm side of the flash gas heat exchanger, such as a stream of refrigerant circulated by the refrigeration circuit for the MCHE.
A common feature of prior art liquefaction systems is that the vapor-liquid separator and the flash gas heat exchanger are separate units that are connected by piping. For a typical land-based LNG plant that produces around 3 million tonnes of LNG per year, the plot space required for the vapor-liquid separator and flash gas heat exchanger arrangement as described above is approximately 10×20 feet with around 100-300 feet of insulated piping having a diameter of 24″ to 30″.
A current trend in the LNG industry is to develop remote offshore gas fields, which will require a system for liquefying natural gas to be built on a floating platform, such applications also being known in the art as Floating LNG (FLNG) applications. Designing and operating such a LNG plant on a floating platform poses a number of challenges. One of the main issues is the limited amount of space available on such floating platforms. Typically, the plot space available for FLNG applications is around 60% of a conventional land-based LNG plant.
Another trend in the industry is the development of smaller scale liquefaction facilities, such as in the case of peak shaving facilities, or modularized liquefaction facilities where multiple lower capacity liquefaction trains are used instead of a single high capacity train.
As a result, there is an increasing need in the art for methods and systems for the liquefaction of natural gas that are suitable for use in FLNG applications, peak shaving facilities, and other scenarios where the available footprint is smaller than in conventional land-based LNG facilities.

Modularized LNG separation device and flash gas heat exchanger


An impact tool includes a housing extending along a longitudinal axis. The housing includes a motor housing portion, a first handle extending from the motor housing portion, and a front housing coupled to the motor housing portion opposite the first handle. The impact tool also includes a motor supported within the motor housing portion, an anvil extending from the front housing, an impact mechanism supported within the front housing, and an auxiliary handle assembly. The auxiliary handle assembly includes a mount coupled to the housing, an auxiliary handle coupled to the mount and spaced from the first handle, and an adjustment mechanism. Loosening the adjustment mechanism permits rotation of the auxiliary handle assembly about the longitudinal axis relative to the housing, and tightening the adjustment mechanism secures the auxiliary handle assembly in a selected rotational position.

Impact tools or wrenches are typically include a hammer that impacts an anvil to provide a striking rotational force, or intermittent applications of torque, to a workpiece (e.g., a fastener) to either tighten or loosen the fastener. High torque impact wrenches are capable of delivering very large amounts of torque to fasteners. As such, high torque impact wrenches are typically used to loosen or remove large and/or stuck fasteners (e.g., an automobile lug nut on an axle stud) that are otherwise not removable or very difficult to remove using hand tools, drills, or smaller, lighter-duty impact drivers.


An ion implantation apparatus is disclosed in this invention. The ion implantation apparatus includes a target chamber for containing a target for implantation and an ion source chamber includes an ion source with a mass filter for generating an ion beam with certain mass and original energy. The ion source chamber further includes beam deceleration optics for decelerating the ion beam from the original energy to the desired final energy. The ion beam apparatus is able to accurately direct low energy ions to a target wafer. The beam deceleration optics further includes a plurality of electrodes for generating an electric field for spreading the charged ion beam over an angular range to accurately control the trajectory paths of ions of different energy levels. The purpose is to eliminate the energy contamination by more accurately controlling the energy range of the charged ions that reach the target for implantation and to block the neutralized particle and ions of higher energy from reaching the target for implantation.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to ion implantation apparatus used to decelerate ion beams to sub-keV energies. Specifically, this invention relates to an improved deceleration optics system that functions as an energy-filter to allow only charged particles within a particular range of energies to reach the targeted wafers.
2. Background
Ion implantation is a ballastic process used to introduce atoms or molecules, called dopants, to make materials with useful properties. In particular, ion implantation is a common process used in making modern integrated circuits. The amount of ion beam current that can be transported in a conventional ion implanter depends on the ion beam energy and at low energies this beam current becomes unfeasibly low.
For a conventional high current ion implanter, an ion beam is extracted from an ion source and travels through a mass analyzer to select specific ionic species. The selected or filtered ion beam emerges from the magnet and is then incident toward the semiconductor target wafers. The travel distance from the source to the wafers is usually about two meters. For an ion beam with an energy as low as 0.2 keV and beam currents as high as 10 mA, the space charge of the beam is so intense that the ion beam starts to blow up severely as it leaves the source. This problem exists regardless of what kind of beam focusing optics is used. After the ion beam travels about two meters there is not much usable beam current left for implantation. An efficient way to obtain high beam currents at low ion energy is to decelerate an ion beam from higher energy, e.g., 5 keV, to a lower energy, e.g., 1,0.5, or as low as 0.2 keV, at a region close to the wafers. Although the beam may also blow up after deceleration, there is still sufficient beam current remaining for implantation because the distance between the deceleration region and the wafers is usually less than 0.4 meters. With the use of a plasma or electron shower, the beam blow-up will be less and beam transmission can be improved.
The above method is able to achieve high beam currents at energies below 5 keV by extracting ions at a higher than desired final energy, conducting a mass analysis of the ions, and then decelerating the ion beam to the desired energy just before it reaches the target. However, high-energy neutrals can be generated in the region between the mass analyzer and the deceleration electrodes when higher energy ions have charge exchange interactions with residual gases in the beamline. These neutralized atoms will not be decelerated by the decelerating electric fields and will reach the wafers at higher than desired energies. This results in what is known as energy contamination, which causes a deeper than desired dopant depth profile. Energy contamination is only tolerable to xcx9c0.1% in order to provide sufficient margin against shifts in device performance [L. Rubin, and W. Morris, xe2x80x9cEffects of Beam Energy Purity on Junction Depths in Sub-micron Devicesxe2x80x9d, Proceedings of International Conference on Ion Implantation Technology, 1996, p96]. To have such a low neutral fraction it requires that the chamber pressures be kept very low (5.0E-7 torr) so as to minimize the probability of charge exchange reactions. This level of pressure is, however, very difficult to maintain under normal operating conditions in an implantation system due to the out-gassing of the photo-resist coating of patterned devices and the presence of feed gases from the source and plasma shower. Another issue is the variation in the level of contamination. Pressure fluctuations during the implant can cause across wafer effects. Day-to-day changes in residual vacuum or photo-resist quality can cause batch-to-batch effects. Finally, the potential loss of wafers worth millions of dollars exists due to these types of undetected vacuum problems.
For all of the above reasons, traditional techniques of ion implantation using conventional deceleration approaches as described above do not provide a viable solution for very low energy ion implantation. There is a need in the art of IC device fabrication to provide new systems to provide very low energy implants with minimal energy contamination. For devices that require shallow p-type and n-type junctions new methods and systems are required to resolve the difficulties and limitations of low energy ion implantation with effective control over energy contamination.
It is the object of the present invention to provide a new ion implant system for very low energy (sub 2 keV) implants to form shallow p-type and n-type junctions in semiconductor devices. The new ion implant system has novel deceleration optics that will enable those of ordinary skill in the art to overcome the problems encountered in the prior art.
Specifically, it is the object of the present invention to present a new ion beam steering deceleration and steering system for decelerating a charged ion beam and for separating the neutralized component, or neutral fraction, from the main ion beam. The charged ion beam is filtered and focused by the ion beam deceleration optics and becomes an angularly spread out beam with an angle of deflection that is dependent on the ion energy. In this way, the ion implant energy can be more accurately controlled and the neutral fraction can be removed. The neutral beam is unaffected by the decelerating electric fields and propagates in the same direction as the initial beam before deceleration. A neutralized-particle stop block then stops the neutrals before reaching the target wafer or target chamber. Energy contamination resulting from neutralized particles incident to the target with higher than desired energies is thus resolved.
The electrodes of the beam deceleration optics are configured to move in a traverse direction relative to the beam line so that the beam can be steered to travel further away from both the neutralized and high-energy particles to assure that only low energy ions are employed for implantation.
Briefly, in a preferred embodiment, the present invention discloses an ion source apparatus for generating and directing an ion beam. The ion source apparatus includes a beam deceleration optics for decelerating and filtering the ion beam. The beam deceleration optics includes a plurality of electrodes for generating an electrostatic field for filtering and spreading out the ion beam over an angular range according to the energy of each ion for more accurately directing a low energy ion to a target wafer.
More specifically, an ion implantation apparatus is disclosed in this invention that includes a target chamber for containing a target for implantation and an ion source chamber that includes an ion source with a mass analyzer for generating an ion beam with specific mass at original energy. The ion source chamber further includes beam deceleration optics for decelerating the ion beam from the original energy to the desired final energy. The ion beam apparatus is able to accurately direct low energy ions to a target wafer. The beam deceleration optics further includes a plurality of electrodes for generating an electric field for spreading the charged ion beam over an angular range to accurately control the trajectory paths of ions of different energy levels. The purpose is to eliminate the energy contamination by more accurately controlling the energy range of the charged ions that reach the target and to block the neutralized particles and ions with higher energy from reaching the target
These and other objects and advantages of the present invention will no doubt become obvious to those of ordinary skill in the art after having read the following detailed description of the preferred embodiment, which is illustrated in the various drawing figures.

Apparatus for decelerating ion beams with minimal energy contamination


An apparatus for extending the memory of an electronic data processing system and a method for providing access to the extended memory for reading data, writing data, and refreshing data. The method provides a partitioning of the original virtual address space into a reduced virtual address space and an extended real memory address space. An extended address register is loaded initially with an extended memory control word by the operating system, but this word may not be changed again until the current process is over. If this control word is changed, it is changed by the operating system such that the use of the extended memory is transparent to the application processes using the system. The method further provides for refreshing of the memory circuitry of the extended memory. The apparatus supports the extended real memory address space by decoding the read and write accesses to the extended real address space, and by providing electrical connections for the refreshing of the extended memory circuitry. Thus, with this apparatus and method, the real memory of an electronic data processing system may be multiplied by a factor of two, four, or some higher multiple of two.

The present invention relates to an electronic data processing system and more particularly to a memory expansion apparatus for a virtual memory electronic data processing system, as well as, a method for operating the apparatus.
A common problem experienced by users of electronic data processing systems is for the main memory requirement of a given system to grow with time. This common problem stems from the natural tendency of data files used in data bases and/or spreadsheets to grow with time, and the tendency for application programs to grow in size and number as the system evolves. This problem is evidenced by the conventional wisdom for a purchaser to purchase a system that has a memory which may be expanded to at least fifteen per-cent above the maximum memory requirement at the time of purchase. But even when the conventional wisdom is heeded, a user may find a need for expanding system main memory beyond the original maximum memory capacity. Thus, there is a need for the capability to expand the main memory of a system beyond its original maximum capacity.
Further, when the system memory is expanded beyond its original limit, it is highly desirable that any and all application programs, which are currently being used on an unexpanded system, function well on any expanded system. The functioning of the application programs is important from two aspects: cost and performance. If substantial changes need to be made to an application program, expenses will be incurred during a reprogramming. Secondly, the performance of an expanded memory system, in order to be commercially competitive, should be equivalent to or greater than the performance of an unexpanded system.
In a real memory system, where the memory address corresponds to an actual location in read only memory or random access memory, the maximum memory limit usually corresponds to the summation of all addresses below the maximum address accessible by the processor-memory bus. In a system with a sixteen bit processor-memory bus, this maximum would be 65536 when addressing is performed directly in one access cycle. A twenty bit address bus, which is common on most personal computers, would have a maximum of 1,048,576 address locations available directly in one access cycle. This does not mean that these systems cannot have memory capacity greater than that which is addressable in one cycle. In fact, many ways have been devised to expand available memory beyond the maximum memory capacity which is addressable in one access cycle.
It is known to add expanded memory locations, by the addition of either higher capacity memory chips or more memory chips, and to concomitantly add additional parallel address lines to the processor-memory bus in order to address the expanded memory. The known system has a segment register which has segment values of 0 to 15, but as originally supplied the equipment only uses three of the sixteen possible segments to read/write data and instructions into memory. Thus, by adding additional address bus lines and control circuitry, which utilizes the unused and available segment values, the maximum addressable real memory of the known system is expanded from 64 kilobytes (where 1 kilobyte=2.sup.10 or 1024 bytes) to 288 kilobytes. The expansion to the 288 kilobyte real memory capacity of the segment register reached the hardware and software limit. Expansion beyond this limit is not possible without changing the software and incurring a degradation of performance, or changing the processor integrated circuits to ones with larger address buses (which is not economically feasible).
Another known approach for expanding memory capacity beyond the maximum real memory limit is to change the architecture of the system to that of a paged memory system where a page register keeps track of the current page. Paged memory systems typically have one or more banks of real memory with each bank having at least one page, and each page having one or more segments. Expanded addresses are possible because of extra bits which are stored in a page register. But, this type of paging requires the loading of the page register whenever a new page of real memory is used. The loading of the page register takes another write cycle and thereby degrades system performance.
An example of a system which needs to be expanded or extended beyond its original maximum is the NCR System 10000 Model 75. The NCR System 10000 Model 75 system design is generally shown and described in NCR/32 GENERAL INFORMATION MANUAL, published in 1984 by NCR Corporation, Dayton, Ohio, which manual is hereby incorporated by reference. As originally designed, the System 10000 Model 75 has a design maximum of 16 million bytes. This may seem to be a large amount of memory, but this is a 32 bit system, and 16 million bytes is not exceedingly large for such a system. Further, this system stores and retrieves information as four byte words. Thus, this system as originally designed has a maximum of 4 million words. Additionally, the 4 million words may be shared between two dyadic processors, thereby lowering the design maximum memory per processor to 2 million words.
Since the NCR System 10000 is a virtual memory system, performance degrades somewhat when a real memory limit is reached because the virtual operating system must clear an address space in real memory to load the next program from virtual memory by writing the current contents of that address space to virtual memory (i.e. disk memory). This writing of a previous program to disk memory and reading of a current program from disk memory to real memory degrades performance. The more virtual memory writing and reading that takes place between disk and real memory, the lower the performance becomes.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide an extended addressable real memory to a virtual system which has already reached its maximum real memory limit.
It is another object of this invention to provide an extended real memory without significantly degrading the operation of the virtual system.
It is a further object of this invention to provide extended real memory in a virtual memory system to prevent performance degradation caused by program transfers between virtual memory and real memory.

Memory expansion method and apparatus in a virtual memory system


A golf club head comprising a wedge has bottom and back surfaces having substantially aligned channels provided for reducing drag created by contact with the ground during a stroke. Of particular advantage in a hazard such as a sand trap, the channels facilitate flow of the sand from below to behind the club head such that greater, controlled force is imparted to the ball at or near the sweet spot of the club head. The bottoms of the heel and toe of the club head have sufficient mass with respect to the remainder of the club head that stability and resistance to torquing is provided. Thus, an increased control of the ball trajectory is achieved and more accurate positioning of the ball on the fairway is obtained.

The present invention relates to golf clubs, and, in particular, to a golf club head for use in golf's short game, including pitching wedges, lob wedges, sand wedges and the like.
In golf, amateurs and professionals alike endeavor to keep the ball in play on the fairway or trimmed grass areas of the golf course and hopefully end up on the green surrounding the hole, where the ball can then be more easily putted into the cup. However, virtually all players, at some point in a game, will end up with the ball close to but not on the green, and have to then hit the ball out of a hazard such as a sand trap or out of the "rough", or the area of taller or coarse grass.
Golf clubs referred to as wedges are used for this type of stroke, wherein the loft of the club head is substantially increased to provide a golf shot which has greater vertical height, less forward distance. That is, the angle between the vertical and a plane formed by the face of the club head is substantially greater than zero, and often about 50-60 degrees. The intent in having such a large loft is to hit the ball more upwardly so that it lands and remains on the green in a closer position to the hole. For all wedge types, a back spin will ideally be imparted on the ball which causes it to go up and out of the hazard, stopping on the green without too much forward travel. Pitching or lob wedges are used in a golfer's short game wherein the ball is on the fairway and only needs to be hit a short distance onto the nearby green. Such wedges may also be used to hit out of the rough, and sand wedges are used for hitting the ball out of a sand trap.
Rather than directly contacting the ball, the sand wedge is intended to hit the sand at about one inch behind the ball, just prior to contacting the ball. This type of shot cushions the ball so that it does not travel a great distance; however, it is hard to hit through sand or tall grass. Ground contact usually produces misalignment of the club head prior to hitting the ball, and the golfer's swing is made less smooth in the attempt to swing through the sand or grass. That is, because of the presence of loose sand or long grass, the wedge tends to be prematurely stopped by the entrapment of the ground between the wedge and the ball, so that the golfer's swing is either not completed or is not of desirable form.
To compensate, many golfers will avoid all but minimal contact with the ground by the wedge, so that the ball hits near the bottom edge of the face of the club head, well below its "sweet spot". The result is less than full force on the ball and reduced control of the resultant trajectory of the ball. The ball then travels more horizontally than vertically and may end up in another hazard or otherwise positioned detrimentally with respect to the number of additional strokes required to get to the end of the hole. Consequently, there exists a dilemma in the golfer's short game, wherein the golfer must exercise great control and a certain finesse in order to accurately place the ball in a desirable position on the nearby green, and yet he or she is also aware of the difficulty in hitting out of the sand or grass and therefore feels a need to hit the ball harder.
One attempt to overcome the entrapment of the ground by the wedge at a hazard comprises a golf club head having a pair of rails on the bottom surface or sole. The rails extend below the face of the club head, effectively raising the face off the ground. However, in actual use these rails tend to become entangled with or entrapped by the ground, therefore having an opposite effect than that intended. That is, the force imparted to the ball by the club head is reduced. There is a misalignment from the sweet spot of the club face and control over the ball trajectory is thus diminished.


An aroma diffusing night lamp system having the characteristics of high level of safety and installation angle adjustability is disclosed to include a lamp socket, a light emitting device mounted in the top side of the lamp socket, an electric plug rotatably coupled to the lamp socket and a lampshade surrounding the light emitting device and having a top trough that holds an aromatic substance that gives off a pleasant smell when heated by heat energy from the light emitting device during its operation.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to scent releasing devices and more specifically, to an aroma diffusing night lamp system that combines a night lamp unit and an aroma diffuser unit together and that uses an angle-adjustable electric plug to obtain the necessary working power supply.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventional night lamp does not allow adjustment of the angular position of the two parallel metal prongs of their electric plugs to fit different indoor installation requirements.
There are night lamps with an added aroma diffusing function. These night lamps combine an angle-adjustable night lamp unit and an aroma diffuser unit. When the night lamp unit of a night lamp is connected to a city power supply outlet, the radiating heat from the night lamp unit heats an aromatic substance, for example, essential oil in the aroma diffuser unit into vapor, providing a romantic atmosphere and enhancing the value of use of the night lamp.
Although conventional aroma diffusing night lamps allow adjustment of the installation angle of the night lamp unit, their angle-adjustable structure wears quickly with use or is difficult to be adjusted to the accurate angle. After installation, the applied essential oil may fall from the lampshade accidentally.
Further, regular aroma diffusing night lamps commonly use an incandescent lamp bulb to emit light and to heat the supplied aromatic substance. The heating efficiency of an incandescent lamp is low. Further, the aroma diffuser unit of a regular aroma diffusing night lamp is less stable. In consequence, a gap may be produced in the electric conducting structure, affecting the performance of electric conductivity. Further, regular aroma diffusing night lamps have no means to seal the electric conducting component parts. If the aromatic fluid leaks out, a short circuit accident may occur.
Further, some known aroma diffusing nigh lamps use a lampshade prepared from a light-transmissive heat-resisting hard material such as ceramic or glass. During installation, small retaining and/or fastening members are used to affix the lampshade in place. The use of these retaining and/or fastening members may cause the lampshade to break, shortening the night lamp lifespan and threatening user safety.

Aroma diffusing night lamp system having an angle-adjustable electric plug


Aspects of an embodiment include providing a correction circuit that corrects image data in apiece of a frame, the correction circuit comprising: a weight processing unit which performs weighting on position data corresponding to a relative position in response to the relative position between a position of a pixel in the image data and a certain position in the frame; and a correction processing unit that corrects the image data based on a correction value corresponding to the weighted position data.

1. Field of the Invention
Aspects of the present application relate to a shading correction circuit which is used for correcting unevenness in luminance occurring in an image pickup element of a digital still camera or the like.
2. Description of Related Art
Generally, limb darkening occurs in a periphery of an image pickup frame in an image processing apparatus using an image pickup element including a CCD sensor, a COME sensor or the like. To correct such limb darkening, the image processing apparatus is equipped with a shading correction circuit. It is necessary not only to improve accuracy in correction of the shading correction circuit, but also to reduce the shading correction circuit size. For example, Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 2002-10122, Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 2002-218298, Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 2005-341033 and so on disclose the shading correction technique.
Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 2002-10122 discloses a shading correction system. In this system, an image of a uniform light source is taken to produce reference shading correction data and this reference shading correction data is stored in a memory. Next, when the shading correction is performed on a read out image, the reference shading correction data undergoes an appropriate correction according to image pickup magnification to perform the shading correction. However, it is difficult to achieve sufficient reduction in the memory capacity used for storing the reference shading correction data, in the above-described shading correction system.
Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 2002-218298 discloses an image pickup apparatus. In this apparatus, a shading correction coefficient corresponding to luminance data taken from respective pixels of the image pickup element is extracted from the shading correction coefficients stored in a memory. However, the above-described image pickup element requires a large capacity memory in order to store the shading correction coefficients corresponding to the respective pixels, in the memory.
Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 2005-341033 discloses another image pickup apparatus. In this apparatus, the shading correction is performed on a picked-up image with the use of a dedicated correction table with respect to each color component. This apparatus is, also, equipped with a shading correction table for a lens system and a shading correction table for a sensor system. However, this image pickup element also requires a large capacity memory in order to store the shading correction tables.

Correction circuit, correction method and image pickup apparatus


Described herein is an improved apparatus for increasing the performance of a ΣΔ modulator, which may function as an ADC. In one embodiment, the ΣΔ modulator comprises a voltage to current converter, a capacitor connected between two outputs of the voltage to current converter to receive a differential input current, and a switch that can switch between connecting each output of the voltage to current converter to ground while disconnecting the other output of the voltage to current converter. In this embodiment, the ΣΔ modulator has no common mode control loop, and no reference current. This results in decreased complexity, i.e., fewer components, as well as reduced noise.

Quantized feedback may be used in control loops to perform analog to digital conversion. Analog to digital converters (ADCs) with such features are often known as sigma-delta (ΣΔ) converters, or ΣΔ modulators, the modulator term referring to an output digital data stream having a certain symbol pattern, or modulation, imposed upon it by the control loop. The terms ΣΔ modulator and noise shaping control loop are often used interchangeably in the art, although the latter is more descriptive. Circuit designers often like to use such ΣΔ modulators as in many cases they may be simpler to design and cheaper to make than other types of ADCs.
In such a noise shaping control loop, a continuous analog signal is applied at the input, and a digital pattern representative of this signal emerges from the output. The digital signal is created by one or more quantization elements in the control loop, for example, by non-linear elements in the loop such as flip-flops or comparators that have a discrete set of non-continuous output values for any given continuous input quantity.
The ΣΔ modulation works by constraining a feedback parameter to one of a set of at least two specific values, and a control loop of arbitrary order ensures that the average feedback value equals the input. Instantaneous deviations from the ideal continuous feedback necessarily introduced by quantization elements represent noise, and a sophisticated, possibly high order, control loop can suppress or "shape" this noise. To "shape" the noise means to filter it, generally to make it not appear in certain frequency bands. The loop therefore operates to suppress this noise in certain frequency bands of interest, often at the expense of increased noise in bands that are not relevant to the application. Hence ΣΔ modulators are sometimes also referred to a "noise shaping loops."
In some ΣΔ modulators the input parameter is a current (or a difference in currents), in part of the circuit, and two or more currents (or difference currents) are generated to provide feedback. FIG. 1 shows an example of a circuit 100 of the prior art, in which an input difference current is made to flow in the drains of transistors M1 and M2. In this case, the "common mode current" must be balanced, i.e., the sum of the currents through the drains of M1 and M2 must equal the sum of the currents in current sources I3, I4 and I5.
The common mode control portion of the circuit 100, i.e., the components below transistors M1 and M2, adds complexity and cost. Further, whenever a circuit operates by nulling out the difference of two quantities, as in circuit 100, it is only the nominal value of those quantities that are caused to be equal; if the quantities have associated noise, that noise is not cancelled, but rather remains in the difference of the two quantities as the root-sum-square of the individual noise components.
For these reasons, a simple and inexpensive way of improving the performance of ΣΔ modulators by eliminating any common mode control may be useful.

Low noise quantized feedback configuration


A rifle, comprising a stock with a housing provided with a housing sheath and a barrel, the barrel having a barrel sleeve adapted to be removably received by the housing sheath of the housing of the stock, the housing sheath being provided with a slot extending longitudinally along said housing sheath, the housing sheath having parts for varying the slot width in the region of the slot, the diameter of the housing sheath being adjustable to the diameter of the barrel sleeve using the parts for varying the slot width, the barrel sleeve of the barrel being positively lockable with the housing sheath.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a rifle comprising a stock with a housing provided with a housing sheath and a barrel, the barrel having a barrel sleeve adapted to be removably received by the housing sheath of the stock housing, said housing sheath being provided with a slot extending longitudinally along said housing sheath, said housing sheath comprising means for varying the slot width in the region of the slot.
Experts use the term "takedown rifle" when speaking of a rifle the barrel of which is detachable from the stock. Such type rifles, the barrel of which may be separated from the stock, are particularly suited for use when a rifle must be transported or when the barrel is wished to be interchangeable.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In a prior art takedown rifle (SAUER 202), the barrel is clampingly received by the housing sheath of the stock housing. For this purpose the housing has a lengthwise slotted sheath-like projection which is provided with clamping screws in the region of the slot. Said clamping screws serve to vary the width of the slot so that the barrel may be clampingly fastened in the slotted sheath-like projection of the housing. The disadvantage of this rifle is that after each assembly the barrel adopts another position relative to the stock so that the aiming situation is a different one after each assembly as a result thereof. This is substantially due to the fact that the barrel of the rifle is oriented relative to the stock in function of the tightening torque of the various clamping screws.
DE 198 15 261 C2 describes a rifle that can disassemble into three parts and the barrel of which is fastened to the stock through the forearm. Beneath the stock housing, the stock is thereby provided with a groove that opens toward the front side of the stock. A corresponding nose of the barrel is insertable into said groove. The groove is closed by the front side of the forearm so that the barrel is fastened to the stock through the forearm. The forearm is fastened to the stock by way of a dovetail guide that is oriented normal to the longitudinal axis of the barrel on the front side between forearm and stock. In order to prevent the forearm from unintentionally detaching from the stock there is provided a locking device in the form of a movable pin, the movement of the forearm relative to the stock being blocked by said pin. The movable pin communicates with a lever provided on the forearm, the pin being capable of being snapped into engagement with the stock or of being disengaged from this position of engagement through said lever.
It is not necessary to lock the barrel to the stock during firing since, in the repeated condition, the barrel is connected with form-positive fit to the housing and, as a result thereof, to the stock, through the chamber body. Accordingly, the barrel needs only be fastened to the stock through the forearm in the non-repeated condition i.e., during repetition because during repetition there is a risk that the chamber body or the cartridge inserted in the chamber pulls the barrel forward and out.
This known rifle is characterized inter alia in that it offers the same aiming situation at each shot regardless of how often it has been assembled and disassembled. The reason therefore is that the barrel is not clamped to the housing of the stock as it is the case with prior art rifles in which the barrel is clampingly fixed through the screws to the housing of the stock.
However, to lock the forearm to the stock is a quite complicated operation. A rifle is known (DE 102 05 503), which is comprised of a stock, a forearm and a barrel, the barrel being also releasably connectable to the stock. A locking device is provided for locking the forearm to the stock. The locking device more specifically comprises a rod with a piston disposed on the end thereof, said rod extending through the forearm. The piston is lodged in a bore of the stock and is spring-loaded. Circumferentially spaced locking members which are configured as balls are located on the piston. A forearm bushing, which has circumferentially spaced openings for the balls, projects into the bore of the stock. A tangentially oriented groove is located in the bore of the stock, in the same plane as the bushing openings. The piston causes the balls to enter the openings in the bushing, said balls concurrently projecting into the circumferential groove. The piston and the balls thus provide a form-positive fit between the forearm with the barrel and the stock.

Rifle comprising a stock and a housing with a housing sheath


Providing a microscope apparatus including an optical mount member capable of supporting various optical devices even without a large amount of space. A base body 10 arranged on a mount surface 9a of a vibration isolation table 9 is provided substantially perpendicularly to the mount surface 9a. A plurality of rails 32 through 36 are provided on the base body 31 vertically to the mount surface 9a so as to provide a plurality of extension optical devices such as a Galvanic scanner 64 to be combined with the microscope main body 10.

Inverted microscopes for biological observation have been conventionally known (see Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 10-282430 and Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 8-43741).
In some case, this type of inverted microscope is typically combined with a laser manipulator for manipulating micro objects in cells and an optical system for high SN fluorescent observation by total internal reflection illumination.
The optical system of the laser manipulator and the optical system of high SN fluorescent observation mentioned above are disposed in such a way as to surround the microscope mounted on a base (e.g. vibration isolation table).
Therefore, there arises a problem that when an extension optical device is to be used in combination with a microscope, a large mount space is required.


A synthetic resin card in which card warpage can be reduced and a method for producing the same are provided. By setting the difference Δ in the angle of orientation between outer layers symmetrically laminated on a card core section, it is possible to reduce imbalance of stress resulting from the difference in the shrinkage factor between the outer layers, and card warpage can be suppressed. Furthermore, by setting the thickness of the outer layers at 25 μm to 125 μm, rising of the surface of the synthetic resin card can be reduced. By reducing the card warpage and the rising of the surface of the synthetic resin card, it is possible to improve moving characteristics when the synthetic resin card is allowed to move in a device.

Magnetic recording mediums have been conventionally widely used in the field of cash cards, credit cards, ID cards, and the like. In magnetic recoding mediums, simple information, such as names of card owners and membership numbers, can be magnetically recorded, and identification of the card owners, etc. is performed on the basis of such information. However, in the magnetic recording mediums, the amount of information that can be recorded is limited. Furthermore, since magnetically recorded information can be easily read, there remains a concern with respect to security.
Recently, in view of prevention of leakage of personal information, there has been a demand for tightening security. IC cards including IC chips as recording mediums have been receiving attention for the sake of higher security and becoming mainstream. In particular, non-contact IC cards have been widely used in boarding systems, security systems, and the like, and widespread use of such IC cards is remarkable.
These cards are usually produced by thermal pressing of synthetic resins, such as plastics. When oriented PET substrates are vertically symmetrically placed and laminated on front and back surfaces of a core layer composed of a plurality of sheets interposed inside a card, in some cases, warpage may occur in the card after lamination with a press, giving rise to problems.
Such card warpage causes various defects. For example, moving characteristics may be affected by the warpage of the card when an initializer, a printer, or the like is used. It may become impossible to read information recorded in IC chips and magnetic stripes and to write information in these recording mediums. Furthermore, when a card is left to stand in high temperatures, the shape of an IC chip, etc. contained in the card may stand out, and as a result, moving characteristics may be affected when an initializer, a printer, or the like is used, as in the case of the card warpage described above. Consequently, there has been a need for a card in which card warpage due to thermal pressing is suppressed and degradation of the surface of the card is small, and which has excellent durability.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a synthetic resin card in which moving characteristics are improved when an initializer, a printer, or the like is used, and card warpage after pressing is reduced so that reading and writing from and in an IC chip, a magnetic stripe, or the like formed in the card can be performed satisfactorily, and which has excellent durability, and a method for producing such a synthetic resin card.

Synthetic resin card and method of producing the same


A digital down-converter having a low spurious level and a high frequency precision without increasing power consumption of a local oscillator. A first mixer receives, as a first IF input signal, a digital signal obtained by sampling a received signal with an RF signal or an IF signal, and converts the first IF input signal to a second IF signal using the first local oscillator. A digital filter suppresses an outband signal of the second IF signal provided from the first mixer. A second mixer converts an output of the digital filter to a detection process frequency using the second local oscillator. An available frequency step of the first local oscillator is larger than an available frequency step of the second local oscillator.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a digital down-converter, and in particular, to a digital down-converter for sampling a received radio signal with a radio frequency (RF) signal or an intermediate frequency (IF) signal and then performing digital signal processing on the sampled signal.
2. Description of the Related Art
A conventional digital down-converter (DDC), such as a typical frequency down-converter for a digital signal processing circuit in a data communication receiver, will be described with reference to FIG. 1. Referring to FIG. 1, an input signal 100, such as an RF or IF modulation carrier, is an IF signal of a frequency Fif1, sampled with a frequency Fs1. For detection, the IF input signal 100 is mixed with a cosine wave c(t) and a sine wave −s(t) of a frequency Fc output from a local oscillator (LO) 102 by a mixer 101a and a mixer 101b. When the frequency Fc for the cosine wave and the sine wave, output from the local oscillator 102, is set to satisfy a relationship of Fc=Fif1, the IF input signal 100 is converted to a detection process frequency signal. The converted IF signals are subjected to 1/n down-sampling (Fs2=Fs1/n) by sampling rate converters 103a and 103b, creating baseband signals of a frequency Fb. The baseband signals are rolloff-shaped by rolloff filters 104a and 104b, and then, variably amplified by undepicted automatic gain control (AGC) amplifiers. As a result, the IF input signal is output as a complex baseband signal comprised of an in-phase component I signal and a quadrature-phase component Q signal.
As stated above, in the digital down-converter (DDC) for sampling a received signal with a radio frequency (RF) or an intermediate frequency (IF) and converting the sampled digital signal to a complex baseband signal by digital signal processing, a spurious signal generated by an operation of the local oscillator 102 used by the mixers 101a and 101b deteriorates an adjacent channel interference characteristic or an outband interference characteristic. This is because an adjacent channel or an outband signal is multiplied by the spurious signal, thus generating undesired signals outside the corresponding band.
To solve this problem, countermeasures have been taken by (1) increasing an operation precision to decrease a level of the spurious signal from the location oscillator 102 to a tolerable level, (2) adopting a dither technique to reduce a spurious peak level by spreading the spurious signal generated from the local oscillator 102, and (3) using a spurious-free frequency based on the fact that generation of the spurious signal by the local oscillator 102 depends upon an oscillation frequency of the location oscillator 102.
However, even the countermeasures for the spurious signal (1) cause an increase in circuit scale and power consumption; (2) cause an increase in circuit scale and power consumption, though less than when the measurement of decreasing the spurious level has been taken, and a deterioration in a carrier-to-noise ratio (C/N); and (3) cause the restriction of available frequencies. In particular, since the power consumption of the local oscillator 102 requiring the maximum processing speed to operate with a sampling frequency of the received signal holds a large part of the total power consumption of the digital down-converter, the increase in power consumption of the local oscillator 102 is very undesirable.


A water-tight assembly of an electrical plug or receptacle with a weather-resistance insulating housing employs interlocking ribs on the interior of the housing and the exterior of the electrical connector. Additional ribs on the interior of the housing insures intimate engagement between these ribs and provides additional seals. A shroud on one of the housings permits the joiner of two housings in a water-tight manner and a closure cap supported on a tether provides a water-tight closure of the housing when not in use.

1. Field of the Invention
The invention is directed to the field of electrical connectors and more particularly to an insulated housing providing a water-tight seal for an electrical connector.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Known prior art devices depend upon the interface between the outer surface of the electrical connector and the inner surface of the housing to provide a water-tight seal for the connector. To be effective, the housing bore is smaller than the outer diameter of the connector so that the housing is dilated as the connector is forced into the housing bore and returns to its initial size and shape once the connector is in its desired position within the housing. Gaps between the housing and the connector will admit moisture which could lead to the distruction of the connector and render any connected system inoperative.
The patent to Swartz, U.S. Pat. No. 3,307,138 issued Feb. 28, 1967, shows a watertight repairable electric plug using an annular elastomeric waterproofing packing to seal the cable entrance into the plug and an elastomeric gasket between the end of the plug and the shield of a shield-type receptacle. The blade contact end of the plug is not water-tight if the plug is not attached to the receptacle.
In Buberniak, U.S. Pat. No. 3,624,591 issued Nov. 30, 1971, a front end seal or a seal about the plug blades is created during the molding phase. He states "Preferably, the main body portion 18 is molded from an electrically insulating material, such as polycarbonate or nylon, and the prongs 24 are imbedded in and integrally molded into the closed end portion 20 providing a seal-tight connection around the prongs to prevent any moisture from entering into the cup-shaped body portion 18 along the prongs." There is, however, no seal between the main body portion 18 and the end cap 60 and it could be possible for moisture to enter the connector assembly along the threaded connection between body portion 18 and the end cap 60.
Neither one of these patents show the use of a housing into which the plug or receptacle can be placed and which interlocks with such plug or receptacle to provide a water-tight seal thereabouts and further shows a closure plug to fully seal the entrance to the housing when no plug or receptacle engages the receptacle or plug in the housing.
The U.S. Pat. Nos, 3,984,168 issued Oct. 5, 1976; 3,989,340 issued Nov. 2, 1976 and 4,070,085 issued Jan. 24, 1978 show multi-part cap and connector assemblies which provide strain relief only to cables entering the assembly through the cover. No mention is made of providing a water-tight environment for the cap and connector.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,114,974 issued Sep. 19, 1978 and owned by the assignee of the patents in the previous paragraph shows the use of a sealing element which can provide a seal against entry of foreign material into the cap or connector.

Insulating enclosure to provide a water-tight seal with an electric connector