A well water level sensing apparatus using a pressurized air column in contact with the water at its distal end to derive a correlated value dependent upon the length of the air column which is converted for retrieving stored water levels from memory and displaying the retrieved water levels on a visual display. The water level sensing apparatus may be manually initiated or programmatically controlled for continual monitoring.

This application references Disclosure Document No. 478,776 filed Aug. 21, 2000.
The invention generally resides in the field of instruments for measuring and displaying the level of a liquid in a containment vessel or a drilled well. A unique sensor system is employed to monitor, obtain depth (height) of the liquid (water) and transmit for display the determined depth (height) information to the user.
Over years varying types of instrumentation have been used to gauge the water level and available pressure in drilled wells so as to be able to determine water flow rate and capacity. The present invention enables the instrumentation and the apparatus needed to make such measurements.
Earlier devices for measuring water flow rate and well capacity were complicated and cumbersome to install and to maintain. One such device is that described in U. S. Pat. No. 5,105,662 [Marsh, et al.] which is suited for measuring the liquid level in a fixed dimension containment vessel, i.e. a fuel tank. Marsh, et al. discloses a system for measuring the level of a liquid material by direct pressure of the subject liquid against a pressure sensor balanced against a reference pressure in an air column. The reference pressure is based upon the static air pressure in the containment vessel holding the liquid as registered by the compression of the air column.
A second patent, U. S. Pat. No. 5,207,251 [Cooks], describes an automatic fill control for a liquid holding tank which uses a pressurized sensor to determine both flow rate and liquid level height. This is accomplished utilizing a gas bubble (column) as the correlating measurement device. Cooks describes a gas column as containing Nitrogen (N2) which uses the gravimetric pressure of the liquid whose height (depth) is to be measured by being exerted against a second (pressure conducting) fluid. The second fluid, in turn, exerts pressure against a sensor. In this manner the primary pressure conducting fluid has its level of compression controlled by the pressure exerted against it by the fluid in the containment vessel which is used as a threshold for controlling a dispensing valve to add fluid to the vessel.
Finally, U. S. Pat. No. 5,901,603 [Fiedler] describes a hydrostatic pressure sensing device for measuring the height (depth) of a liquid in a containment vessel. The particular apparatus utilized comprises a pump for supplying pressurized air to a supply tank which is maintained at a 1.5 psi differential above the detected liquid pressure. Exiting the supply tank is an air supply line which is applied to one side of the hydrostatic pressure sensor. A temperature compensated solid state pressure transducer bleeds off or increases pressure by way of a manifold to maintain the appropriate pressure in the air supply. The reference side of the pressure sensor vents to the outside (ambient) air. The pressurized air supply line and the air reference ports are tied together through the manifold, also referred to as a drift compensation valve, so that the differential pressure transducer prevent drift by automatic correction and correlation of the pressures between the ambient (outside) air and the pressurized air column in the air supply line as applied to the pressure sensor which is submerged below the fluid level in the containment vessel.
In all of the foregoing devices, the complexity of the balancing of reference pressures against the variant pressures of the contained liquid require intermediate elements to counteract or to convey the pressure in order to obtain accurate results. The present invention creates a unique and simple series of elements for accurately determining the height of the water level in a drilled well and to instantaneously display, or continually record, that level for immediate of later use by the water user.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a simple system for measuring well water depth (height) utilizing a control circuit for determining the depth of the water by measuring the pressure of the water in a selectably dimensioned column and display such result instantaneously to the user.
It is also an object of the present invention to have the capacity to measure more than one well water level and to provide output control signals for communication with multi-purpose computers or to water flow rate controllers to regulate flow against demand.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide useful information to the display in the form of water flow rate (usage) in gallons, liters or feet per time segment, and to provide this information on a single inquiry or continuing inquiry basis.
It is a still further object of the present invention to provide a programmatically controlled water level measurement device which is capable of communicating with other computing devices as well as controlling and monitoring a plurality of measurements of for each of a plurality of wells.
Other objects will appear hereinafter.
A well water level sensing apparatus using a pressurized air column in contact with the water at its distal end to derive a correlated value dependent upon the length of the air column which is converted for retrieving stored water levels from memory and displaying the retrieved water levels on a visual display. The water level sensing apparatus may be manually initiated or programmatically controlled for continual monitoring.
The program control can be described as follows. Measuring the level of water in a well utilizing pressurized air comprises the steps of initializing a means for controlling the sensing and monitoring of the water level measurement which first reduces pressure in an air column inserted into a well to existing ambient pressure by closing a first valving means located between a pressure sensor and the air column to exhaust and isolate the air column. A second valving means located between a pump and an air tank of substantially equal volume as the air column is opened and the pump to charge the air tank to a predetermined measurement pressure is started. The second valving means is closed to isolate the air tank as the measurement pressure is detected by the pressure sensor. The first valving means is opened equalizing the measurement pressure between the air tank and the air column to obtain a direct pressure of the well water against the distal end of the air column. The pressure of the well water exerted against the air column is detected by the pressure sensor and the water level is calculated from the resultant sensed pressure. The calculated water level is then displayed on a visual display for viewing by a user. This method may further comprise continually sensing and monitoring the pressure of the well water exerted against the air column by repeating the sequence at preset periodic times.
The means for controlling the sensing and monitoring of the water level measurement may include a programmable computing device for controlling the sequence for measuring the well water depth using pressurized air. The controller may receive instructions over a communications channel from a multi-purpose computer to perform the well water depth measurements and providing well water depth measurements to said computer over said communications channel. The method may also include selectively sensing and monitoring the well water depth of a plurality of wells by repeating the measurement sequence for each well water depth measurement for each one of the plurality of wells.
The measurement may be accomplished by a number of elements for measuring well water depth using pressurized air which include a means for controlling the sensing and monitoring of water level measurements subject to program control for sequencing the order of operation of a first and a second valving means, an air tank, an air column, a pressure sensor, and a visual display. The first valving means is operatively connected between the pressure sensor and the air column, having its distal end inserted into a well, to reduce pressure in the air column to existing ambient pressure by exhausting said air and isolating the air column. The second valving means is operatively connected to a pump and an air tank of substantially equal volume as the air column, and to the pressure sensor, to couple the air tank to the air column upon the sensing of a predetermined measurement pressure being detected in the air tank by the pressure sensor. The pump is capable of charging the air tank to the predetermined measurement pressure. As above, the pressure sensor is capable of directly sensing the pressure of the well water exerted against the distal end of the air column, following the equalizing of the predetermined measurement pressure between the air tank and the air column, and to provide the sensed pressure to the controller for calculating the water level in the well from the sensed pressure. The controller will then display the calculated water level on the visual display.
The apparatus may be programmed for the controller to continually sense and monitor the pressure of the well water exerted against the distal end air column by repeating the sequence of operation at preset periodic times. The controller may also receive instructions over a communications channel from a multi-purpose computer to perform the well water depth measurements and provide well water depth measurements to said computer over said communications channel. The controller may also selectively sense and monitor the well water depth of a plurality of wells by repeating the sequence of operation for each well water depth measurement for each one of the plurality of wells.

Well water level measurement and display apparatus


A safety display sign includes a wire post member having spaced apart wire legs extending from a rounded end portion. The wire legs extend through the channels of a corrugated polyethylene sign panel, and project therefrom a sufficient distance to permit secure fixation in the ground. An extruded polyethylene base member is provided with two slotted passages integrally formed at opposite side edges of the base member to receive and grip the wire legs in a unitary assembly which prevents the sign panel from sliding along the length of the wire legs. The polyethylene base is positioned along the length of the wire legs and is urged against the edge of the sign panel by the ground or other supporting surface to secure the sign panel at the top portion of the post.

Display sign assemblies of the prior art include vertical members to which a display sign panel is attached by rivets, threaded connections, staples, nails, adhesives, and the like. The vertical members may be wooden stakes or metal posts which are driven into the ground by hammer or mallet, or by application of body weight against a post cross-brace or other transverse bar member. When a wooden stake is used, the stake must be suitably sized and shaped to carry the combined load of the display sign panel and stake assembly and to absorb, without damage, considerable insertion force applied to the stake when the ground is dry, hard, or when the end of the stake has not been properly sharpened. Metal posts used for this type of display sign assembly often are fabricated of steel or aluminum members. In general, metal posts having U-shaped and T-shaped cross-sections are used to support one-sided display signs. Metal posts having a square cross-section may be used for securing two display signs mounted on opposite sides of the post.
Because of their generally rugged construction and considerable weight, the above-described display sign assemblies are cumbersome to transport from one installation site to the next and require considerable labor to install at the new site. Furthermore, the combined costs of manufacturing and materials for the aforementioned display signs generally prohibit a one-time use, thereby requiring retrieval and storage of the display sign when not in use, resulting in additional labor for disassembly and subsequent reassembly, and storage expenses.
Another problem with prior art display sign assemblies is the popular use of styrene plastic for the display sign panel. While styrene plastic provides good display characteristics, aging and weathering causes this material to become embrittled with greater susceptibility to breakage when impacted. Accordingly, display sign panels fabricated from styrene plastic must be replaced on a regular basis, resulting in yet additional material and labor expenses.
Typically, display sign assemblies, and especially those used to warn potential intruders that a residence is protected by a security system or to post real estate notices, are posted on residential lawns and other areas frequented by children, maintenance and utility workers, and other pedestrian traffic. Many of the prior art display sign assemblies include numerous sharp corners and ragged edges on the sign panels and in exposed locations about the upper end portions and periphery of the metal post or wooden stake to which the sign panel is affixed. Should a child run or fall against these sharp corners and ragged edges, serious injury to the child can result. This situation may be exacerbated in the case of styrene plastic panels which may have become embrittled, causing the panel to shatter into numerous sharp-edged fragments upon impact. To avoid possible injury to children and other individuals, such display sign assemblies are often posted near mail box posts, landscaping shrubbery or other out-of-the-way locations. However, this solution sometimes defeats the primary purpose of the sign which is intended to be located in the most visible place possible. In addition, the prior art security system and real estate signs are sometimes difficult to remove and replace for normal lawn maintenance, such as mowing and the like. Accordingly, it would be desirable to provide a display sign that is inexpensive to manufacture, easy to install, remove and replace, and is sufficiently resilient so as not to pose any safety hazard to children and others passing nearby, yet has the sturdy appearance of the prior art display signs described above.


An apparatus is disclosed for reducing the production of NOx in an engine. One embodiment of the apparatus comprises a plurality of mixing cans in which air is drawn into the flow of gaseous fuel therethrough. The gaseous mixture formed by one of the mixing cans is transmitted to the engine at a rate which increases with the load on the engine, and the other mixing cans are serially brought on line after the preceeding mixing cans reach their predetermined rate.

Fossil fuels are burned to produce energy for a variety of applications. In many conventional engines such as gas turbines, fuel is vaporized and mixed with air at or near their stoichiometric ratio prior to combustion. In order to increase the efficiency of combustion, it is known to premix a quantity of air with the fuel prior to introduction of the mixture into the combustion zone of the engine such as the combustor of a gas turbine.
An example of premixing is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,835,962 to Rutter. Rutter discloses a fuel atomization apparatus for a gas turbine engine in which during start-up, fuel is directed through a mixing apparatus. The pressure drop created as the fuel passes through a nozzle draws air into the apparatus and effects mixing of fuel and air. However, because the flow rates through the mixing nozzle of the apparatus are not sufficient for most post-start-up engine operating conditions, it is necessary to provide a means for delivering greater amounts of fuel to the combustor.
A frequent unwanted product of combustion is oxides of nitrogen, commonly known as NOx. It is generally accepted that NOx formation results from incomplete combustion and/or very high combustion temperatures. It has been suggested that the formation of nitrous oxide (NO), a prerequisite to the formation of NO2, can be controlled either by lowering the peak temperatures in the combustor by lean, premixed operation and by exhaust gas recirculation, or by reducing the residence time in the primary zone by rapid addition of secondary air through turbulent mixing. Anand and Gouldin, Combustion Efficiency of a Premixed Continuous Flow Combustor, Journal of Engineering for Gas Turbines and Power, July 1985, Vol. 107, pp. 695-705. In order to reduce the formation of NOx, various proposals have been made to reduce the temperature of combustion, including the introduction of water into the combustion zone, low excess air operation, staged combustion or off stoichiometric firing, and flame temperature reduction.
In a liquid fuel fired engine, the water to be introduced into the combustion zone may first be emulsified with the fuel either through the addition of a chemical surfactant, the use of a mixer or other mechanical means, or both. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,110,973 to Haeflich et al. discloses a gas turbine engine power plant having a water/fuel mixing device that employs a fuel conduit with a helical arrangement of water injection apertures for injecting water jets through the fuel to impinge upon the inside wall of the conduit and mix homogeneously with the fuel. As an alternative to emulsification, steam may be injected directly into the combustion zone. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,102,125 to Schelp discloses a gas turbine engine in which water is turned to steam in the hot turbine, superheated, and then injected into the combustor to aid in the gasification of fuel and to reduce the flame temperature.
An example of staged combustion is disclosed by U.S. Pat. No. 4,629,413 to Michelson et al. Michelson teaches a premix burner having a burner tube provided with a jet eductor system at the upstream end section of the tube for inspirating and mixing primary air with fuel gas, a burner tip at the downstream end of the tube provided with ports for receiving and burning the mixture of primary air and fuel gas, and a burner tile surrounding the downstream end section of the tube. The channel between the tile and the tube section is sealed off to prevent access of secondary air thereto, and secondary air is supplied to flow downstreamwardly outside of the tile and to promote mixing of the secondary air with the flame downstream of the burner to achieve delayed combustion.
Similarly, U.S. Pat. No. 5,022,849 to Yoshii et al. discloses a low NOx burning method and apparatus wherein a low air ratio flame burned with an amount of air less than the theoretical air ratio required for burning fuel perfectly is formed, and combustibles discharged from the low air ratio flame are burned at a trailing stream of the low air ratio flame while supplying air.
However, systems for reducing the production of NOx during combustion, such as those described above, have so far been unable to meet proposed environmental regulations, or are prohibitively expensive to manufacture and operate.

Method for reducing the production of NOX in a gas turbine


When performing gradation display by giving digital value as display data to each pixel arranged in a matrix on a display panel and emitting the pixels at a brightness corresponding to the magnitude of the digital value, plural display frame periods are set as one cycle, and digital value .alpha. is given as display data in certain display frames selectively determined in the cycle, and digital value .beta.=.alpha..+-.M (M being a positive Integer) is given as display data in, other display frames in the same cycle. Accordingly, a halftone gradation between the gradation corresponding to the digital value .alpha. and the gradation corresponding to the digital value .beta. may be displayed in plural degrees depending on the rate of the number of display frames given the digital value .alpha. and the number of display frames given the digital value .beta..

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method and apparatus for driving a display device such as liquid crystal display, plasma display, EL display and LED display.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Hitherto, for example, for gradation display by a liquid crystal display device of active matrix driving system, analog signals are applied as the display data corresponding to each pixel disposed in matrix on a display panel, and the control voltage of the display panel is varied depending on the magnitude of the analog signal, thereby achieving gradation display.
In other method, digital signals are given as the display data, and the analog voltage corresponding to input digital value is selected, and the selected analog voltage is used as the control voltage of the display panel for gradation display.
In a liquid crystal display apparatus of simple matrix driving system, a frame thinning method is employed for gradation display. In this method, plural display frame periods are determined as one cycle, and depending on the gradation to be displayed, the number of display frames for ON driving of the pixels in the cycle and the number of display frames for OFF driving of the pixels are variably set.
In the case of plural gradation displays by a large liquid crystal display device of 10 inches or larger size by using such conventional method, since the capacity of the electrode becomes large because of the large size of the display panel, when an analog signal is fed as display data, it becomes difficult to drive the electrode by transmitting the analog voltage at high speed.
Or when entering digital value as display data, it is necessary to generate the analog voltage by the number of the digital values, and prepare the changeover circuits for selecting the voltages by the number of pixels per line to be arranged on the display panel, which results in the increase of the circuit scale.
Furthermore, in the case of plural gradation displays by the frame thinning method, in the liquid crystal display device of simple matrix driving system, there is no problem because the response speed is slow, but in the liquid crystal display device of active matrix driving system, the response speed is high, and the flicker is very obvious, and the display grade is extremely lowered.

Method and apparatus for driving a display device


A fiber optic communications link having PMD characterization across multiple optical channels to identify PMD problems. The communications link has adaptive PMD controls employed along the optical link, whereby PMD phenomena detected by instruments, such as PMD compensators, are interpreted as being either attributable to perturbation of fiber characteristics at large, or by failure of PMD equipment along the link. The present invention avoids taking unnecessary control or maintenance actions upon PMD related controllers and compensators. PMD notifications from various PMD compensators are correlated to identify which portion of the link has undergone a change in polarization characteristics to further identify PMD related errors and problems.

The present invention relates to optical communication networks, and more particularly to a method and apparatus for monitoring the quality of optical channels of an optical link having polarization-mode dispersion (PMD) to intelligently determine and distinguish PMD problems in the optical link.
In a typical optical communications system, an optical signal in the form of a series of light pulses is emitted from a modulated optical transmitter comprising a laser diode. Each light pulse is of extremely short duration, such as 40 ps, and is roughly Gaussian shaped as a function of time. In the frequency domain, this signal comprises numerous frequency components spaced very closely about the nominal center frequency of the optical carrier, such as 193,000 GHz. As this type of modulated optical signal passes through an optical fiber, different frequency components of the optical signal travel at slightly different speeds due to an effect known as chromatic dispersion. In the course of the optical signal traveling through a very long fiber, such as fibers that are 200 km in length, chromatic dispersion causes a single pulse of light to broaden in the time domain, and causes adjacent pulses to overlap one another, interfering with accurate reception. Fortunately, many techniques are known for compensating for chromatic dispersion.
Another form of dispersion is becoming a limiting factor in optical communications systems as progressively higher data rates are attempted. Polarization-mode dispersion (PMD) arises due to birefringence in the optical fiber. This means that for two orthogonal directions of polarization, a given fiber can exhibit differing propagation speeds. A light pulse traveling through a fiber will probably, unless some control means are employed, have its energy partitioned into polarization components that travel at different speeds. As with chromatic dispersion, this speed difference causes pulse broadening and restricts the usable bandwidth of each optical carrier.
Schemes to actively compensate for PMD generally involve detecting the presence of polarization-dependent timing differences and either: a) applying delay elements to one or the other polarization to realign the timing of pulses; or b) controlling the polarization state of the optical signal upon entry into the fiber, or at intermediate points along the fiber, such that birefringent effects are minimized or canceled out. Active compensation techniques are required because the PMD of a given fiber varies over time due to temperature and pressure changes along the fiber and due to aging. A fiber that is installed above ground can exhibit fairly rapid fluctuations in PMD due to temperature and mechanical forces. A fiber buried underground can be sensitive to loads such as street traffic or construction work.
A modulated optical signal arriving at an optical receiver must be of sufficient quality to allow the receiver to clearly distinguish the on-and-off pattern of light pulses sent by the transmitter. Conventionally, a properly designed optical link can maintain a bit-error-rate (BER) of 10xe2x88x9213 or better. Noise, attenuation, and dispersion are a few of the impairments that can render an optical signal marginal or unusable at the receiver. Generally, when an optical channel degrades to a bit-error-rate of 10xe2x88x928, a communications system will automatically switch to an alternate optical channel that has a better BER.
One common method of analyzing the quality of a modulated optical signal is a so-called xe2x80x9ceye diagramxe2x80x9d, shown in FIG. 1. The eye diagram consists of overlaying successive frames of time-domain traces of the signal, with each frame corresponding to one period of the nominal periodicity of the modulation. As portrayed, the vertical axis represents instantaneous intensity of the received signal, and the horizontal axis corresponds to time. Many successive traces of transmitted xe2x80x9conesxe2x80x9d and xe2x80x9czerosxe2x80x9d define a region or window within the middle of the display. In the time axis, the window is bound on either side by the transitional leading and trailing edges of the pulses. Using this technique, a large clear area or xe2x80x9cwindowxe2x80x9d in the center with no encroachment from any side represents a good signal in that the presence or absence of a pulse during each clock cycle is clearly distinguishable.
Noise added to a signal appears as xe2x80x9cfuzzinessxe2x80x9d of the lines defining the window. Sufficient noise can even obliterate the appearance of the window, representing a bad signal in that xe2x80x9conesxe2x80x9d and xe2x80x9czerosxe2x80x9d are no longer distinguishable. Impairments in the time axis, such as chromatic dispersion or polarization mode dispersion, cause the transitional areas of the display to close in upon the window from either side. Overlapping of pulses can require more stringent synchronization of the receiver""s decision point, or even render the signal unusable.
A given optical receiver will automatically adapt to receive a modulated optical signal. Automatic gain control (AGC), frequency control, and phase lock-in are typically applied in sequence so that a threshold decision circuit can best sample the signal and decode every pulse. Superimposed upon the eye-diagram, an optimal point of operation for a threshold decision circuit would intuitively be at the center of the window, as shown by the xe2x80x9c+xe2x80x9d in FIG. 1. This means that the intensity threshold is about halfway between the zero values and one values observed on average.
Timewise, the center of the window corresponds to sampling the pulses in the middle of their duration when they tend to be of maximum intensity also shown by the xe2x80x9c+xe2x80x9d in FIG. 1. Intuitively, one can see how this choice for an operating point would be the most robust against either noise or timing impairments, which cause the window to shrink.
A received optical signal can undergo some degree of change in, for example, pulse width without having an immediate impact on the BER, as observed by this optimally positioned main decision circuit. A particular type of receiver has been developed having at least two independent decision circuits of the type just described. Reference is made to an article entitled xe2x80x9cQ-factor Measurement for High Speed Optical Transmission Systemsxe2x80x9d, authored by A. J. Ramos which is from proceedings of the SubOptic ""97 conference, San Francisco Calif. 1997,891, as well as an article entitled xe2x80x9cMargin Measurement in Optical Amplifier Systemsxe2x80x9d authored by Bergano, Kerfort and Davidson, Photonics Technology Letters, 5(1993)304, the teachings of both are incorporated herein by reference. A main decision circuit is dedicated to actual communications reception and is maintained at the optimum point, once it is established, within the center of the window. But for analyzing signal quality to a finer degree and for measuring degradation before it impacts the BER of the actual communications, an auxiliary decision circuit is used to probe the extents of the operating window. Robustness to timewise disturbances is gauged by directing the auxiliary decision circuit to sample at various time offsets relative to the optimum point. Findings by the auxiliary circuit may even be used to fine-tune the optimum decision point settings of the main decision circuit.
The auxiliary decision circuit is set to a given timing offset and its output is monitored for BER, especially in comparison to the output of the main decision circuit. The BER measurement at each operating point can typically take several minutes. Gradually, BER data is accumulated for every offset value. As expected, a plot of this data resembles an inverted Gaussian curve with a minimum BER occurring some optimum offset, as shown in FIG. 2. A similar plot is derived by varying the amplitude threshold of the auxiliary decision circuit.
All of this BER data may be summarized into a xe2x80x9cQxe2x80x9d factor or quality metric for the received signal. In general terms, the broader the range of timings over which a low BER can be sustained, the greater the Q factor of the signal. A receiver with an auxiliary decision circuit can measure and output such a Q factor.
The Q measurement is particularly useful for assessing and fine-tuning an optical path that is already operating at a healthy low BER. The Q measurement estimates a BER without requiring any actual bit errors to occur. A Q measurement covering the BER range of 10xe2x88x9213 to 10xe2x88x9220 may be completed in a few minutes, whereas an actual errored bit might not be observed for hours, days, or months.
When an optical path degrades, some corrective action may be necessary either to improve the optical path or to divert the communications traffic along an alternate channel or path that will work better. Yet, it is equally important to the integrity of the traffic bearing signal to avoid taking unnecessary corrective actions. Each adjustment or switching operation can temporarily disrupt the traffic-bearing signal.
Where adaptive PMD controls are employed along an optical link, PMD phenomena detected by instruments, such as PMD compensators, must be interpreted as being either attributable to perturbation of fiber characteristics at large or by failure of PMD equipment along the link. Making this distinction avoids taking unnecessary control or maintenance actions upon PMD-related controllers and compensators.
Therefore, a method and system are required for monitoring the quality of optical channels in an optical link to determine and distinguish PMD problems in the optical link across all the optical channels from PMD equipment failures along the link to avoid taking unnecessary control or maintenance actions upon PMD controller and compensators.
Accordingly, the present invention provides a method and apparatus that achieves technical advantages by providing PMD fault isolation along an optical link by correlating PMD notifications across multiple optical channels to determine if detected shifts of the PMD are attributable to bulk fiber disturbances or per-channel PMD malfunctions. The present invention provides this distinction to temper corrective actions that would normally be taken to correct PMD problems. When it is determined that the PMD of all optical channels suddenly shift, it is determined that this PMD shift is attributed to bulk fiber disturbances. On the other hand, when it is determined that the PMD of only one optical channel has shifted, then it is determined that the PMD problems are related to the associated optical channel and, thus, actions can be taken to correct the PMD problem in this channel. Making these distinctions avoids taking unnecessary control or maintenance actions upon related PMD controllers and PMD compensators.
According to a preferred method of the present invention, the method comprises performing fault management in an optical communications link having a plurality of optical channels, whereby each optical channel has associated therewith at least one PMD detector, such as a PMD compensator, generating an output indicative of PMD of the respective optical channel at the PMD detector. The method comprises the steps of obtaining a first output from a first PMD detector associated with a first optical channel, obtaining a second output from a second PMD detector associated with a second optical channel, and correlating the first output and the second output to determine a fault of the optical communications link and generate a fault signal indicative of the fault. The PMD detector outputs are correlated across multiple optical channels to determine a fault of the optical communications link, such as to determine if a PMD problem is attributed to bulk fiber disturbances, or isolated PMD detector malfunctions.
The apparatus comprises an optical fiber, an optical transmitter coupled to the optical fiber for generating a first optical channel and a second optical channel through the optical fiber, a first PMD detector and a second PMD detector, such as a PMD compensator, coupled to the optical fiber for generating a first output and a second output, respectively, indicative of PMD of the first optical channel and the second optical channel, respectively, at a first location and a fault detector coupled to the first PMD detector and the second PMD detector for generating a fault output as a function of the first output and the second output indicative of a PMD problem in the optical fiber.
In summary, the present invention provides adaptive PMD controls, such as a PMDC, to be employed along an optical fiber link a fiber, whereby PMD phenomena detected by instruments, such as PMD compensators, can be interpreted as being either attributable to perturbation of fiber characteristics at large or by failure of PMD equipment along the optical fiber link or fiber. Making this distinction avoids taking unnecessary control or maintenance actions upon PMD related controllers and compensators.

PMD characterization across multiple optical channels of an optical link


A first server in, for example, a primary datacenter, may be paired with a second server in, for example, a backup datacenter. The first server may include a first datastore, which includes a plurality of virtual machines, and the second server may include a second datastore. The first and second datastores may then be mapped to each other. The plurality of virtual machines included in the first datastore are then, without any user prompting, replicated at the second datastore. Therefore, when the first server becomes unavailable, the virtual machines included in the first datastore may still be accessible at the second server.

An enterprise may implement disaster recovery solutions to provide business continuity in the event that there is a site failure, for example. Disaster recovery solutions may involve replicating data and metadata from a first, primary datacenter to a second, backup datacenter. Often, the first datacenter and the second datacenter are geographically separate to improve protection. Disaster recovery solutions may provide an interface so that various storage replication solutions may integrate with the disaster recovery solution to facilitate data and metadata replication.

Supporting datastore replication using virtual machine replication


The present disclosure relates to methods and compositions for suppressing the growth of microorganisms on selected areas of the skin for an extended period of time, such as one hour, twenty four hours, seventy two hours, or longer. An area of the skin is selected for the suppression of the growth of microorganisms and a microorganism growth suppressing agent is topically applied to the selected area of the skin. The microorganism growth suppressing agent may be comprised in a pharmacologically acceptable vehicle such as an emulsion or soap. The microorganism growth suppressing agent comprises free conjugated fatty acid such as conjugated linoleic acid.

Background information is for informational purposes only and does not necessarily admit that subsequently mentioned information and publications are prior art.
People are cognizant with the notion of microbes (i.e., microorganisms such as bacteria and fungi) as being potentially hazardous and their transmission from person to person. People come into contact with these potentially hazardous microbes on a daily basis. Once in contact with human hands, these microbes may be passed from individual to individual and, thus, may contribute to infections of open wounds on the skin and the spread of infectious and contagious diseases. One of the most common ways of preventing infection or transmitting such microbes is by washing or applying antimicrobial emollients.
Topical wound treatment compositions are well known. They may include wound debriders, wound cleaners, wound healing agents, topical anti-microbials, anti-fungals, and skin conditioning agents. Regardless of the specific use, wound treatment compositions need to stay on the skin surface and remain active for a sufficient period of time to allow the composition to perform.
An example of use of an antimicrobial material that requires long acting bacterial suppression on the skin, in addition to topical wound treatment compositions, is when a doctor performs surgery. During surgeries requiring a prolonged surgical time, persisting bacteria in the surgical site may begin to double at the rate of once every 10 minutes. Over several hours there may develop gross contamination which can cause infection of the surgical incision. Under such circumstances, it is helpful for the doctor to apply a long acting bacterial suppression material or composition on his or her hands as well as the patient's skin within the operative region.
As reflected in the literature, much is known about antimicrobial agents. For example, there are the so-called "natural" antibacterial actives, which may be referred to as natural essential oils. Additional known antimicrobial agents are antibacterial metal salts and other antimicrobial agents. Much is also known about antifungal agents as well, particularly compounds belonging to the imidazole class of compounds.
However, many of the agents and compounds currently known may not provide long acting bacterial suppression, have properties limiting their application, or may not be easily applied. What are needed are methods and compositions for long acting bacterial and/or fungal suppression.

Method and composition for long acting bacterial suppression on skin


A stacked unit of disposable gloves each having a glove body formed of front and back layers of plastic sealed around the periphery thereof forming a closed end and an open end and forming a thumb portion and one or more finger portions. A detachable section extends from the back layer adjacent the open end of each glove body and has a line of weakness, such as perforation suitable for separation of the detachable portion from each glove body. The detachable portion also includes means to mount each glove assembly on a glove support rack to form a stacked unit of gloves. The glove support rack having a top surface and front surface and a fastening means extending from the front surface for insertion into the mounting means on the glove assembly. The top glove of the stacked unit can be easily donned while on the glove rack and by applying force to the top glove in the direction of donning the line of weakness separate the glove from the detachable section.

The present invention relates to a disposable glove system including a stacked unit of easily donned disposable gloves mounted on a specially configured glove rack. The glove rack permits the quick and safe donning of the top glove mounted thereon.
Disposable gloves are mandatory equipment in many industries that require clean and/or sterile environments, e.g., the foodservice industry. The use of disposable gloves reduces the spread of viruses and other contaminants among individuals. In the foodservice industry, such contaminants are less likely to be transmitted from employees to food when employees regularly wear gloves, when employees frequently and regularly replace used gloves with new ones, and when gloves require little handling to be donned.
Many types of disposable gloves are known to and used by the foodservice industry. One type comprises two superimposed layers of thermoplastic film sealed together along their peripheries, leaving an opening for a hand to be inserted between the two layers. A two-layered disposable mitt is shown in Grinberg U.S. Pat. No. 5,806,099, and a method of forming such a mitt is shown in Bradfield U.S. Pat. No. 4,928,322. (It is intended that the word xe2x80x98glovexe2x80x99 include both multi-finger mitts and five-finger gloves.)
Disposable gloves are generally sold in stacked units containing a supply of gloves layered one on top of the other. Gloves may be sold in a dispenser, such as a paperboard box, which encloses the stack and from which gloves may be removed one at a time. (A glove is typically removed in the manner that a paper tissue is removed from a tissue dispenser.) A box dispenser thus provides a simple and economical means for protecting the stored gloves from contamination and for dispensing the gloves. Variations of box dispensers for disposable gloves are shown in McLaughlin U.S. Pat. No. 4,844,293 and Hoffrichter U.S. Pat. No. 5,655,682.
Box dispensers also have several drawbacks. For example, a disposable glove is often difficult to don after removing it from a box dispenser. Upon being dispensed, the glove may have creases and/or be folded, requiring a user to straighten it out before donning it. A user may have difficulty first finding and then separating the glove opening into which the hand is inserted. Therefore additional dispensing configurations have also been developed. One such configuration comprises a stack (or xe2x80x98saddlexe2x80x99) of disposable gloves held together by a heat-fused detachable portion of the gloves, which portion may be covered by a flap as shown in Klecena U.S. Pat. No. 5,966,741. The gloves advantageously remain flat as they are removed from the detachable portion, in order to facilitate the process of donning them after they are removed. However, as is the case with the box dispensers, a glove must first be removed from the stack before it is donned.
It is an object of the present invention to provide an improved configuration for a disposable glove system whereby a disposable glove may be donned more easily and quickly than heretofore. The new and improved system of the present invention is especially valuable in the foodservice industry, where efficiencies in the nature of time-saving and in the ease and simplicity of donning the gloves result in significantly increased productivity and enhanced hygiene. It is a further object of the invention to provide a disposable glove rack from which a glove can be removed and donned more easily, more quickly, and more safely, in order to encourage the frequent and regular replacement of used gloves with new ones.
The present invention is an improved disposable glove system in which a stacked unit of easily donned gloves is mounted on a glove rack specially configured to permit donning of the gloves safely, quickly, and easily. In accordance with an important objective of the invention, a glove of the present system may be safely donned and removed from the glove rack by a single, swift motion of the hand. The gloves and glove rack may be manufactured easily and economically.
The improved glove of the present invention may be easily donned and removed with a single hand. Making this possible is that the glove opening through which the entire hand enters the glove spreads apart easily when a hand is slid into the glove body. The glove is held in place by the rack until the hand is completely inserted; thus the glove rack provides the function of the other hand, namely to assist in donning the glove.
The disposable glove system of the present invention includes a glove rack on which fasteners for mounting the gloves are advantageously positioned along a front surface of the rack rather than on the rack""s top mounting surface. The front surface of the rack is advantageously displaced by an angle of preferably 90 degrees or higher from the top mounting surface. Because the fasteners are positioned away from the top mounting surface, they do not interfere with one""s hand as a glove is removed and donned, hence reducing the risk that a user might otherwise sustain an injury while removing and/or donning a glove. The edge between the front and top surfaces causes the gloves to crease proximate their respective lines of weakness, thus facilitating the removal of gloves from the glove rack. The crease also causes the glove opening of the top glove to spread apart slightly, thus increasing the ease of donning the gloves and eliminating the need to handle the gloves when donning them. The fasteners may be J-shaped arms to hold the gloves more securely, and the fasteners preferably point downward and have rubber or plastic covers to reduce the risk of injury even further. The top mounting surface of the rack may advantageously tilt downward to provide a more ergonomic design whereby a glove is donned by a more comfortable and more natural downward motion of the hand.


A system and method for measuring small particles suspended in a fluid are disclosed. The system employs optical imaging using diffraction enlargement. A sample of small particles illuminated by a light source is imaged onto a pixel array of detector elements using an imaging optical system having a reduced magnification not sufficient for forming a large enough image of a smallest particle of interest. A low-aperture imaging optics with NA<0.05 is used to add diffraction enlargement to the image corresponding to at least 5 pixels to enable accurate measurement of images of smallest particles of interest, and to increase an optical sampling volume. Suitably programmed processor is used for determining at least a pixel count for each of the diffraction-enlarged images, and for generating a number, size or distribution of particles accounting for pre-determined diffraction enlargement of particle images of different sizes. The method enables analysis of large samples of small particles in one measurement.

Many prior art systems exist for detecting the presence of particles or size of particles in a fluid, such as a supply of potable water. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,438,408 entitled Measuring Device and Method for the Determination of Particle Size Distributions by Scattered Light Measurements discloses the use of a charge coupled device (CCD) camera. U.S. Pat. No. 6,061,130 entitled Apparatus for Determining the Particle Size Distribution of a Mixture discloses an apparatus that includes a CCD matrix. By identifying particles by predetermined parameters, such as diameter or cross-sectional area, such systems can ascertain the presence or absence of unwanted harmful bacteria in a water sample which are known to be within a predetermined range of diameters.
Some of these systems have also been known to be useful in analyzing other fluids such as blood and blood products. Typically, identifying particle populations in accordance with some parameter, for instance particle size or particle cross-section, allows a parameter distribution to be ascertained. In a water supply the goal may be to determine the number of particles of various sizes that are present in a representative sample.
Detection systems most often employ the use of computers or powerful processor-based systems coupled to one or more CCD or pixel arrays of detecting elements, which detect the presence of one or more particles projected upon a portion of the array of charge coupled elements. Often thousands of frames of information are collected. Within a single frame more than a single particle may be detected; therefore, the software is programmed to find clusters of pixels, indicating the presence of a particle, and to determine a number of pixels, or a pixel total, for the cluster. Some software can determine instances where portions of particles overlap and determine the size of each particle.
In each successive frame, images of the particles contained within an optical sampling volume are projected onto the pixel array by a magnification system. These images of the particles are randomly distributed on the array depending on the positions of the particles in the sampling volume. In order to produce the parameter distribution information, the parameter value corresponding to each pixel total must be determined. When the number of pixels is large, a simple scaling factor, which depends only on the pixel size and the magnification, gives accurate results. However when the number of pixels is small, that is, when only very few detectors sense the presence of at least a portion of a particle, this scaling factor becomes increasingly uncertain and depends more strongly on the image location and on a detector sensitivity threshold.
Image location error results from the fact that the pixel total measured for a particular value of a particle image depends on the location of the image with respect to the pixel grid. This can be understood more clearly by way of example considering a particle which image has a cross-sectional area corresponding to exactly one array element. Such an image can overlap, either completely or partially, from one to four array elements, and therefore can potentially trigger from one to four array elements, or pixels, depending on the image position with respect to the detector array and the sensitivity threshold setting of the detector elements.
Whether a partially exposed element of the detector array will trigger a pixel count depends on the detector sensitivity threshold, which contributes to uncertainty of the relation between a particle size and a pixel total count of its image. This uncertainty, which decreases with increasing the pixel total count, is hereafter referred to in this specification as a pixelation error. A minimum number of 9 pixels are normally considered to be required to achieve approximately 30% accuracy in a single image measurement. In applications, and depending on a data processing technique used, this minimum pixel count threshold Nmin of reliable image detection can be either larger or less than 9.
A method of at least partially obviating negative effects of the pixelation errors on obtaining a parameter distribution from digital images of a sample of particles was disclosed in a U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/653,133 filed Sep. 3, 2003 by a same inventor, which is incorporated herein by reference. The method involves post-processing of the measured statistical data containing pixel count per image using pre-determined probability coefficients relating a pixel total count to a particle size, which can be obtained for example by measuring a statistically large sample of particles of same diameter and analyzing statistical distribution of the pixel count per image. Using this method, reliable statistical information about particle size distribution in a sample containing statistically significant number of small particles can be obtained using a small number of pixels per image without significantly suffering from the effects of the pixelation error normally associated with using a small number of pixels.
An ability of the prior art systems to measure large samples of small particles is however limited by the used magnification system; regardless of a particular value of the minimum pixel count per image adopted for the system, as the particles of interest become smaller, a proportionally larger magnification factor is normally required to reliably detect smaller particles, leading to an undesirable reduction of a sample size that can be analyzed in one measurement.
For in-line operation or, in applications where a large number of samples must be analyzed, it is desirable that measurements be made in the shortest possible time. For example it would be desirable to analyze a sample in several minutes and not in several hours. Furthermore, it is desirable that a single measurement at a single magnification provides information, i.e. the number of particles in each of a specified range of equivalent diameters for the particles having the largest possible range of sizes.
To ensure that that the pixelation error is small, a sufficiently high magnification may be selected so that the images of the smallest particles occupy a sufficient number of pixels, no less than a fixed minimum pixel total Nmin. In magnification systems used for imaging in conventional microscopy, the optics is designed to provide a magnified image, which has minimum distortion and closely resembles the particle under examination. In such systems, the optical sampling volume over which non-distorted images may be obtained is a product of a field of view and a depth of focus of the optics used; at sufficient magnification it is very small, and become smaller as the magnification is increased. Typically, a system with 15 times magnification used to image 2 micron particles would have a depth of focus of approximately 2.5 microns and a field of view on the pixel array of approximately 0.5×0.5 mm. The resultant small optical sampling volume severely limits the number of particles in a flowing stream, which may be in-focus for measurement at a given time. By way of example: the time required to analyze a typical sample of 1 cc, using a magnification such that a 2.5 micron particle occupies two hundred 7.5×7.5 micron pixels, is approximately 5 hours. Furthermore as magnification is increased, the size of the largest particle, which may be imaged without incurring a significant probability that its image will overlap with the edge of the pixel array, is reduced; for the magnification value used in the example, this upper limit is approximately 50 microns. As a result, conventional microscopy has not been commercially used heretofore to make measurements on particle populations in flowing streams.
For maximum measurement speed and maximum parameter measurement range it is desirable that largest sample volumes could be measured in a single measurement using a smallest possible magnification factor that provides sufficient number of pixels in the image of the smallest particle to be included in the characterization of the population.
It is an object of this invention, to provide a relatively fast and inexpensive imaging system whereby a small magnification factor can be used to image a small particle in a large sample volume.

Method and apparatus for particle measurement employing optical imaging


A propellant charge igniter for cartridge ammunition, includes an ignition tube; and a transfer charge disposed within the ignition tube, wherein the ignition tube is composed of a jacket tube having defined therein a plurality of ignition openings; and a protective tube which is positioned within the jacket tube so that the outside wall of the protective tube rests flush against the inside wall of the jacket tube and covers the plurality of ignition openings, which is thin-walled and has a wall thickness ranging from 0.1 mm to 0.8 mm, which is arranged to effectively protect the transfer charge against adverse external environmental influences including humidity, and which is comprised of a material selected from the group consisting of glass, oxide ceramic material, glass ceramic material, metal or metal alloy, and plastic. This arrangement provides a reliable sealing of the transfer charge against external environmental influences over a long time period, e.g., at least 10 years, even if handled roughly.

1. Field of The Invention
The invention relates to a propellant charge igniter for cartridge ammunition in which the charge igniter includes an ignition tube containing a transfer charge.
2. Description of the Related Art
In a propellant charge igniter of this type, the sensitive, explosive elements of the explosive train must be present in a protected, e.g., jacketed, form. The transfer charge of this explosive train is made from easily ignitable powder which burns up very quickly and propagates the flame very rapidly even with only a moderate pressure applied, and lies encapsulated in the metallic ignition tube of the propellant charge igniter in which ignition distribution bores are distributed over the entire length of he ignition tube. Up-to-date propellant charge igniters have ignition tubes which, in relation to the entire cartridge, have a maximum possible length in order to take the ignition flame unhindered into upper (front) propellant powder layers of the cartridge ammunition and in order to have an ignition surface available which is as large as possible by means of the ignition distribution bores.
For known propellant charge igniters of this type, a considerable expenditure is typically necessary for the sealing of the sensitive ignition elements against environmental influences. Therefore, especially the ignition openings and threaded parts of the ignition tube must be securely sealed to ensure the functioning of the propellant it charge igniter. If the ignition elements are not sufficiently protected against humidity, malfunctions or ignition delays occur when the propellant charge igniter is fired. With respect to demands of customers for the corresponding cartridge ammunition, sealing of the transfer charge must be reliably ensured for at least 10 years in humid and aggressively humid climates, even if the corresponding cartridge itself is not totally sealed against humidity.
From U.S. Pat. No. 2,446,187, a propellant charge igniter is known wherein, for the protection of the booster charge against external environmental influences, a thin-walled protective tube made from a lead/tin alloy is arranged within the jacket tube. Here, the protective tube rests flush against the inside wall of the jacket tube so that the ignition openings are covered. If the charge igniter is activated, the shock pressure punches out the ignition openings of the protective. However, the ignition flame in this arrangement is weakened by energy withdrawal due to simultaneous start of melting of the lead/tin alloy which thus results in delayed flame propagation through the ignition openings into the propellant powder of the cartridge. This time delay becomes measurably significant so that the required short ignition times, e.g., far below 50 ms, are not reached.
Furthermore, a propellant charge igniter of this design has the drawback that the material of the protective tube comprises lead constituents which are released when the cartridge is ignited and which reach the ambient air as toxic agents and pollutants. Finally, the use of such a protective tube made from a metal alloy will probably result in an impermissible increase in the internal pressure of the propellant charge igniter.
From European Patent No. 0 392 533 B1 and German Published Patent Application No. 37 01 145 A1, propellant charge igniters with ignition tubes are known wherein the ignition openings are covered by plastic sleeves applied on the outside of the respective jacket tube.
The drawback of these propellant charge igniters is that the respective plastic sleeve might be damaged in case of mechanical stressing of the cartridge, e. g., during jolting coincident with testing, because the edges of the hard propellant powder grains in the main charge of the cartridge can wear or damage the sleeve through friction and scoring, thus leading to a failure of the protection against the penetration of humidity into the propellant charge igniter.
German Patent No. 34 16 736 C2 discloses a propellant charge igniter wherein a protective casing is arranged on the inside of the jacket tube and is made from a heat-shrinkable plastic film. The protective casing holds together a transfer charge comprised of several ring pellets and encloses it firmly. During the ignition process, the propagation of the ignition flame is inhibited, however, because the blocking effect of the enclosing plastic thwarts a rapid, no-delay ignition of the entire transfer charge so that a measurable increase of the ignition time is noted.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a propellant charge igniter having an ignition tube with an internally arranged protective tube which reliably seals the booster charge and the transfer charge against external environmental influences over a period of more than 10 years despite rough handling, the presence of shock-like temperature fluctuations, and/or storage under increased humidity conditions.


An electronic device includes a chassis, a carrier for a storage device, and a cover. The chassis includes a panel defining an opening. A supporting frame is received in the chassis and forms two resilient hooks. The carrier is received in the supporting frame and defines two hooking slots engaging with the resilient hooks. The cover is detachably mounted on the panel and includes a covering plate covering the opening. A pulling mechanism extends down from a middle of a bottom of the covering plate and includes two protrusions. When the cover is detached from the panel and rotated to allow the pulling mechanism to extend through the opening, the protrusions engage in the hooking slots and disengage the resilient hooks from the hooking slots. When the cover is pulled outward, the carrier is pulled out of the opening by the protrusions.

A storage device, such as a hard disk drive, is generally mounted in a chassis of an electronic device. To detach the storage device, the chassis of the electronic device needs to be opened firstly, then the storage device may be detached manually, which is troublesome, and is apt to damage components in the electronic device.

Electronic device with carrier for storage device

NANNING FUGUI PRECISION INDUSTRIAL CO., LTD.


A method of TOF-PET image reconstruction using time-truncated TOF-PET projection data. The time-truncated TOF-PET data is obtained by narrowing the scanner time window to a smaller “time window field of view,” which reduces the field of view of a TOF-PET scanner. This results in a lower list mode stream transfer rate, which can be useful in high count rate data acquisitions, in particular 82Rb cardiac studies.

Nuclear medicine is a unique specialty wherein radiation is used to acquire images which show the function and anatomy of organs, bones or tissues of the body. The technique of acquiring nuclear medicine images entails first introducing radiopharmaceuticals into the body—either by injection or ingestion. These radiopharmaceuticals are attracted to specific organs, bones or tissues of interest (These exemplary organs, bones, or tissues are also more generally referred to herein using the term "objects".). Upon arriving at their specified area of interest, the radiopharmaceuticals produce gamma photon emissions which emanate from the body and are then captured by a scintillation crystal. The interaction of the gamma photons with the scintillation crystal produces flashes of light which are referred to as "events." Events are detected by an array of photo detectors (such as photomultiplier tubes) and their spatial locations or positions are then calculated and stored. In this way, an image of the organ or tissue under study is created from detection of the distribution of the radioisotopes in the body.
One particular nuclear medicine imaging technique is known as positron emission tomography, or PET. PET is used to produce images for diagnosing the biochemistry or physiology of a specific organ, tumor or other metabolically active site. The measurement of tissue concentration using a positron emitting radionuclide is based on coincidence detection of the two gamma photons arising from a positron annihilation. When a positron is annihilated by an electron, two 511 keV gamma photons are simultaneously produced and travel in approximately opposite directions. Gamma photons produced by an annihilation event can be detected by a pair of oppositely disposed radiation detectors capable of producing a signal in response to the interaction of the gamma photons with a scintillation crystal. Annihilation events are typically identified by a time coincidence between the detection of the two 511 keV gamma photons in the two oppositely disposed detectors; i.e., the gamma photon emissions are detected virtually simultaneously by each detector. When two oppositely disposed gamma photons each strike an oppositely disposed detector to produce a time coincidence event, they also identify a line(s)-of-response (LOR) along which the annihilation event has occurred. An example of a PET method and apparatus is described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,858,847, which patent is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.
After being sorted into parallel projections, the LOR defined by the coincidence events are used to reconstruct a three-dimensional distribution of the positron-emitting radionuclide within the patient. In two-dimensional PET, each 2D transverse section or "slice" of the radionuclide distribution is reconstructed independently of adjacent sections. In fully three-dimensional PET, the data are sorted into sets of LOR, where each set is parallel to a particular detector angle, and therefore represents a two dimensional parallel projection p(s, φ) of the three dimensional radionuclide distribution within the patient—where "s" corresponds to the distance of the LOR from the center of the detector and "φ" corresponds to the angle of the detector plane with respect to the x axis in (x, y) coordinate space (in other words, φ corresponds to a particular LOR direction).
Coincidence events are integrated or collected for each LOR and stored in a sinogram. In this format, a single fixed point in f(x, y) traces a sinusoid in the sinogram. In each sinogram, there is one row containing the LOR for a particular azimuthal angle φ; each such row corresponds to a one-dimensional parallel projection of the tracer distribution at a different coordinate along the scanner axis. This is shown conceptually in FIG. 1.
An event is registered if both crystals detect an annihilation photon within a coincidence time window τ (e.g., on the order of 4-5 nsec), depending on the timing properties of the scintillator and the field of view (FOV). The FOV is defined as the volume between the detectors; and a pair of detectors is sensitive only to coincidence events occurring in the FOV. Therefore, the need for physical collimation is eliminated and sensitivity is significantly increased. Accurate corrections (for example, attenuation correction) can be made for the self-absorption of photons within the patient so that accurate measurements of tracer concentration can be made.
The number of time coincidences detected per second within a FOV of a detector is the count rate of the detector. The count rate at each of two oppositely disposed detectors, A and B, can be referred to as singles counts or SA and SB, respectively. The time required for a gamma photon to travel from its point of origin to a point of detection is referred to as the time-of-flight (TOF) of the gamma photon. TOF is dependent upon the speed of light c and the distance traveled. A time coincidence or coincidence event is identified if the time difference between the arrivals of signals in a pair of oppositely disposed detectors is within the coincidence time window τ. In conventional PET, the coincidence detection time window τ is wide enough so that an annihilation event occurring anywhere within the object will produce annihilation gamma photons reaching their respective detectors within the coincidence window. Coincidence time windows of 4.5-12 nsec are common for conventional PET, and are largely determined by the time resolution capabilities of the detectors and electronics.
As illustrated in FIG. 2, if an annihilation event occurs at the midpoint of a LOR, the TOF of the gamma photon detected in detector A (TA) is equal to the TOF of the gamma photon detected in detector B (TB) If an annihilation event occurs at a distance Δx from the midpoint of the LOR, the difference between TA and TB is Δt =2Δx/c, where c is the speed of light. If d is the distance between detectors, the TOF difference Δt could take any value from −d/c to +d/c, depending on the location of the annihilation event.
Time-of-flight (TOF) positron emission tomography (PET) ("TOF-PET") is based on the measurement of the difference Δt between the detection times of the two gamma photons arising from the positron annihilation event. This measurement allows the annihilation event to be localized along the LOR with a resolution of about 75-120 mm FWHM, assuming a time resolution of 500-800 ps (picoseconds). Though less accurate than the spatial resolution of the scanner, this approximate localization is effective in reducing the random coincidence rate and in improving both the stability of the reconstruction and the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), especially when imaging large objects. Thus, in TOF-PET, the "TOF" coordinate, Δt, is stored together with s and φ.
Local tomography refers to the ability to reconstruct an image from truncated or incomplete projection data. Such cases typically arise when the object to be imaged is relatively large, the entire object is not sufficiently measured, and the projection data are truncated due to a small detector size and resulting small field of view (FOV). Here, the truncated projection data is in the radial direction as the small FOV cannot directly detect gamma photons from outside the FOV. In this case, because the distribution of activity extends beyond a region of interest (ROI) that is targeted by the FOV, some of this activity from outside the FOV is received by the detector and represents artifact data. However, in such cases, a small ROI can be sufficiently measured, and the small ROI is able to be exactly reconstructed.
Because TOF-PET data includes Δt information in addition to LOR information, the present inventors have investigated the possibility of truncating data acquisition in the time direction as opposed to the radial direction which would be useful in significantly high count rate acquisitions, such as 82Rb PET imaging scans.

Time-of-flight (TOF) positron emission tomography (PET) reconstruction from time-truncated projection data


Automatic machine (26) for the deposit and withdrawal of cash, assisted by operator, comprising an input port (33) for a bundle of banknotes (36), a separating device (37) for the bundle of banknotes, a validation device (38) for banknotes separated from the bundle, an output port (39) and an input/output opening (41) for a recycling store (52). The machine (26) has a structure of compact dimensions for use in a banking workstation and comprises a third transaction port (43), for instance a reject/unfit port, and a moving mechanism actuatable for transporting the banknotes from the input port (33), and through the validation device (38), to the output port (39), or to the reject/unfit port (43), and/or to the input/output opening as function of dispensing of the banknotes.

Machines of this type, known as TCR (Teller Cash Recycler) are used in Banking Institutes as assistance to the tellers to automatize operations of deposit and delivery of banknotes from customers.
The automatic machines currently used for the cash-in and the result of cash are located in the immediate proximity of a banking workstation, or between two banking workstations, often underneath the working plane of the banking workstation. These machines have an input transaction port in which the banknotes received from the teller are inserted in bundle for being separated and to pass to a validation device, an output transaction port and, as recycling store, comprise a safe including a series of recycling boxes. The separated banknotes pass to a validation device, which verifies the authenticity and the denomination thereof: the banknotes recognized as valid are sent to the safe, while the banknotes recognized as not valid are sent to the output port. The output transaction port also receives the banknotes from the recycling store.
An activity typical of the banking environment relates to the validation, the calculation and the preparation of stacks of banknotes to be used for reloading automatic equipments for the withdrawal of banknotes of ATM type. The banknotes for such equipments should respect conditions of recycling regarding the degree of integrity thereof. A genuine banknote is "Fit" if it has a degree of such integrity to respect the conditions of recycling. A genuine banknote is "Unfit", if it is not fit to the conditions of recycling: it has to be retired from the circulation and should be processed apart.
In the European Community, the circulation of the banknotes of the European system is regulated by particular banking Rules given, in detail, by the pamphlet "Recycling European of Banknotes" dated January 2005.
An actual classification divides the banknotes for the deposit and following recycling operation in four categories:                Cat 1(A) unidentified banknotes;        Cat 2(A) false banknotes;        Cat 3(A) suspected banknotes;        Cat 4a(B1) genuine and "Fit" banknotes; and        Cat 4a(B2) genuine but "Unfit" banknotes.
The current TCR machines are not able to verify if the banknotes recognized as genuine have a degree of integrity to respect the "Fit/Unfit" conditions of recycling. Those machines are not of help in the operations of calculation and preparation of stacks of banknotes for ATMs.
Complex systems for the automatic processing and the recycling of banknotes and to classify the banknotes on the basis of examination of the "Fit/Unfit" conditions are also known. Such systems include several boxes, which are programmable to receive, in selective way, different kinds and denominations of banknotes. On the other hand, these systems are of high costs and dimensions and are unsuitable to be use close to a banking workstation.

Automatic machine for the deposit and withdrawal of cash


A power tool includes a driving unit for performing screw tightening operations; a motor for rotatably driving the driving unit; a trigger switch for turning on and off the motor; and a control circuit, accommodated in a main body of the power tool, for monitoring the screw tightening operations. The control circuit having a screw tightening completion detection unit for detecting completion of a screw tightening operation, a screw tightening count unit for counting the number of detected tightening operations, a screw tightening number setting unit for presetting the number of screws to be tightened, a screw tightening completion notifying unit for notifying completion of the screw tightening operations when the number of detected tightening operations reaches the preset number of screws.

When a product is assembled by a power tool or the like by repeatedly performing a screw tightening operation, and if checking the completion of a series of screw tightening operations solely relies on an operator, some of the screws may sometimes remain unfastened. Since occurrence of such case would lead to deterioration in quality and reliability of the product, the number of tightening operations needs to be checked in every operation process. Accordingly, excessive burdens are imposed on the operator though mistakes cannot be completely prevented.
To that end, there have been a number of proposals for inventions that are geared towards preventing forgetfulness of a screw tightening operation by using a controller that is connected to a power tool which counts the number of tightening operations (see, e.g., Japanese Patent Laid-open Applications Nos. H9−150338, 2003−123050 and 2005−125464).
Although the above prior art references can improve the drawbacks of forgetting the screw tightening operation, its applications are limited due to the fact that the power tool and the controller are connected with each other by a power cord. This problem may not be that serious when an operator is working in a restricted working area using a corded power tool or a pneumatic power tool connected to an air hose. However, when an operator is working in an unrestricted area, handling of tool and the controller would become troublesome, or restriction on the area where an operator can work may arise. Especially, in case of a cordless rechargeable power tool, the inherent advantages of the cordlessness diminish.


A method and apparatus for the production of prostheses used in orthopaedic and trauma surgery for pinning broken bones wherein the method includes the steps of predetermining the shape of the article required, selecting a sheet material blank from which the article is formed, processing the blank by removing material therefrom to leave an article of the predetermined shape or a processed blank from which an article of the predetermined shape is made by bending the blank, and removing the material using an etching process. The apparatus includes a blank processing device for predetermining the shape of the article required and processing the blank by removing material therefrom to leave an article of the predetermined shape or a process blank from which the article of the predetermined shape may be made by bending the blank. An etching device is provided for removing material from the blank.

Conventionally, such prostheses are selected by the surgeon from a set or kit of standard sizes and shapes of plates or strips having pre-drilled holes for screws. These may be capable of some limited bending and/or cropping to adapt a specific size of strip or shape to more closely suit the circumferences of any particular fracture. Generally speaking, however, the type of pinning possible using these conventional prostheses is limited in scope because of their 2-dimensional configuration which is often unsatisfactory from both a surgical and mechanical strength point of view.
The difficulties involved in bending have led to proposals for mechanical aids to bending so-called osteosynthetic plates during surgery, such proposals being contained in DE-OS-37 24 479 and DE-OS-29 20 223. However, these aids do not facilitate anything like the full range of prosthetic shapes necessary and even so require still a considerable inventory of shapes and sizes of osteosynthetic plates.
A wider range of prosthetic shapes would facilitate different and better pinning techniques, but the prefabrication of a complete range would be a near-impossible task and the maintenance of a comprehensive inventory to cover all eventualities prohibitively expensive, to say nothing of the difficulty of selecting a shape and size from such a plethora of possibilities.
The custom-production of prostheses precisely adapted to a particular fracture has to date been substantially ruled out because of the time required to produce such prostheses by conventional production techniques and the lack, in any event, of workshop facilities close to the operating theater.


A system for processing a point cloud in a simulated three-dimensional space includes an application server (1), client computers (3), and a database (5). The application server includes: a data acquiring module (10) for acquiring from the database point cloud data on an object measured by a measurement apparatus; a point cloud editing module (12) for editing the point cloud data to make the point cloud smooth and regular, and displaying different portions of the point cloud by using different colors; and a view changing device (11). The view changing device includes a position changing module (110) and a view changing module (111). The position changing module is used for changing a position of the point cloud in the three-dimensional space. The view changing module is used for changing a view to the point cloud in the three-dimensional space. A related method is also disclosed.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to Computer Aided verification (CAV) systems and methods, and more particularly to systems and methods for processing a point cloud in a simulated three-dimensional space.
2. Related Art of the Invention
In recent years, reverse engineering has been applied in a wide range of industrial design and manufacturing fields. Reverse engineering is mainly used for obtaining geometrical data on an object by analyzing and processing point cloud data on the object. Then a user can reproduce the object according to the geometrical data.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,621,648 discloses an apparatus and method for creating three-dimensional modeling data on an object. The apparatus comprises a material removal means, a data requisition means, and an object shuttle. The object shuttle lets the user know where and how the manufactured object is different from the design model.
Even though CAV can indicate difference ranges between the manufactured object and the design object, the user sometimes needs to observe the point cloud from various angles. This is because the user may want to improve the quality of the manufactured object by changing production criteria and procedures. Current technology does not enable the user to observe the point cloud from various angles for precise comparison.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

System and method for processing a point cloud in a simulated three-dimensional space

Hong Fu Jin Precision Industry (ShenZhen) Co., Ltd.


A separator of a fuel cell, which is inserted between single cells, each single cell having an electrolyte sandwiched between electrodes, in order to stack the single cells together, includes gas diffusion portions which are arranged so as to cover a surface of the electrodes and in which are formed multiple air holes for gas diffusion, and spacer portions which form parallel divided gas passages on the back side of portions of the gas diffusion portions which cover the surface of the electrodes. The gas diffusion portions and the spacer portions are integrally formed by bending a wire mesh member to have a rectangular corrugated plate shaped cross-section. As a result, the air holes are formed evenly between the electrodes and the separator and high contact pressure is ensured by the contact of the fine wire mesh, thereby making it possible to both have the gas diffuse evenly and reduce the power collection resistance.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a fuel cell, and more particularly, to a separator interposed between single cells of a fuel cell.
2. Description of the Related Art
Various types of fuel cells exist, one of which is a polymer electrolyte fuel cell that is particularly well suited for use in vehicles due to its small size which is made possible by a low reaction temperature. This type of fuel cell is based on units of membrane electrode assemblies (MEAs), each MEA having a polymer electrolyte membrane sandwiched between two gas diffusion electrodes (each of which includes a catalyst layer and a porous support layer (i.e., a gas diffusion layer)). A separator that also acts as a supply channel for reaction gases such as hydrogen (i.e., the fuel gas) and oxygen (i.e., the oxidizing gas) is arranged on the outside of each membrane electrode assembly. The separator both acts as an impermeable barrier for the reaction gases, and collects power in order to extract the generated electric current to the outside. The MEA and separator together constitute one fuel cell unit. In an actual polymer electrolyte fuel cell, many of these fuel cell units are stacked together in series to form a cell module.
In order to maintain sufficient power generation efficiency with polymer electrolyte fuel cells, the electrolyte membrane must be kept sufficiently moist. Since the moisture from only the water produced by the electrolytic reaction is generally not sufficient, it is necessary to provide a mechanism to supply humidifying water to each MEA. Further, the electrolytic reaction generates heat of a heat quantity that substantially corresponds to the power generated, so a cooling mechanism must be used to prevent the fuel cell itself from heating up excessively.
For this cooling mechanism, the applicant proposes technology which mixes humidifying water in a mist state with the reaction gas to be supplied to the air electrode, such that it is supplied together with the reaction gas to the gas diffusion electrode. In attempt to improve manufacturability of the separator and make the fuel cell thinner, this technology employs a structure in which the separator is a corrugated (i.e., wavy) thin metal plate with air holes provided in a portion midway between the mountain peaks and the mountain bases in the corrugated plate. The reaction gas and the humidifying water which has been vaporized by heat from the separator are then supplied to the gas diffusion electrodes through these air holes. With this structure, the vaporization of the humidifying water within the gas supply passages can also be used for latent heat cooling.
Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 2002-184422 discloses one example of related art in which a separator of a polymer electrolyte fuel cell is made of a thin metal plate. This technology aims to maintain contact pressure following settling of the gas diffusion electrodes by employing a structure in which parallel slits are continuously formed in a metal plate serving as the separator. The portions between adjacent slits are then bent such that the metal plate is wavy shaped with offset phases, and thus is elastic. The cut portions created between the waves by the offset phases serve as air holes.
Also, Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 7-254424 proposes a fused carbonate fuel cell, which is a different type of fuel cell than the one described above, in which the collector plate (i.e., the separator) is formed of a corrugated thin plate, and a plurality of holes are provided through the thin plate at the top portion on the side that is in contact with the anode or the cathode.
With the technology disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 2002-184422, lessening the pitch of the waves in order to ensure contact area reduces air flow, while increasing the pitch of the waves in order to ensure air flow conversely reduces the contact area. As a result, it is considered difficult to ensure both the contact area and the air flow at the same time. Further, in order to ensure the passage area, the waves must be at least a certain height, and in view of ensuring the contact pressure, the pitch of the waves has to be large.
Next, with the related technology disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 7-254424, because the structure has holes for supplying gas provided only at the top portion of the thin collector plate that is in contact with the anode or cathode, the machining for opening the holes in the collector plate is done at the top portion of the waves, which is approximately only several millimeters wide, so it is considered a difficult operation that requires extreme skill.
Also, even if a structure in which holes are provided only at the top portion of the waves, as described above, can be applied with no problem to a fused carbonate fuel cell in which there is no diffusion layer on the electrodes, the same structure will pose problems if applied to a polymer electrolyte fuel cell in which a diffusion layer is provided on the electrodes. That is, in this structure, the holes must be positioned away from the curved portion of the wave and toward the inside, in the width direction, of the top portion to some extent. As a result, the aperture ratio may be restricted in some areas along the curved portion, in particular, of the contact surface that contacts the anode or cathode, such that the diffusion of the gas supplied may be uneven in view of the entire contact surface. Moreover, if the technology proposed earlier (i.e., mixing and supplying reaction gas and cooling water) by the applicant were to be applied to this technology, the cooling may be uneven, membrane moistening may be uneven, and furthermore, the supply of gas may be uneven due to clogging of the cooling water. Thus, problems exists with respect to the general applicability of the technology disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 7-254424 to different types of fuel cells.
Furthermore, with a structure in which contact is made with a surface having a small aperture ratio (a surface with a large area), as described above, the contact surface must be extremely flat or else the actual power collecting surface will decrease due to only localized contact, which would result in higher power collection resistance.

Separator and fuel cell using that separator


A multi-frame data processing apparatus and method using frame disassembly is provided. The multi-frame data apparatus includes a data communication unit, a frame processing unit, and a data processing unit. The data communication unit receives a transmission signal from a Line Adaptation Unit (LAU). The frame processing unit disassembles each frame of the transmission signal and acquires information data that is included in the transmission signal. The data processing unit transfers the information data to an Algorithm Processing Unit (APU), and acquires processed information data that is obtained by processing the information data via the APU based on a corresponding algorithm.

1. Technical Field
The present invention relates generally to a multi-frame data processing apparatus and method using frame disassembly and, more particularly, to a multi-frame data processing apparatus and method using frame disassembly, which are capable of processing data of transmission signals having multiple frames.
2. Description of the Related Art
In general, technologies are designed to receive transmission signals having a single frame structure and then process the data of the transmission signals.
In common algorithm processing and encryption processing systems, a technique for processing the data of transmission signals having various frame structures using a single apparatus is an important factor.
Korean Patent Application Publication No. 2001-0018469 relates to a byte-based data processing apparatus for an optical transmission system, and discloses a technology in which, in order to prevent a data slip and to process data at high speed, input bit-based data and a clock are converted into byte-based data, stuffing management is performed on the byte-based data, and the resulting data and clock are output in a desired format.
In this conventional data processing technology, only switching from bit-based data processing to byte-based data processing has been taken into consideration in an optical transmission system, but specific techniques related to factors that need to be taken into consideration in order to process the data of transmission signals having multiple frames and related to how the data of the transmission signals having multiple frames will be processed while the factors are being taken into consideration have not been proposed.
Accordingly, there is an urgent need for a new data processing technology, which disassembles transmission signals having a multi-frame structure into format data and information data, processes only the information data based on an algorithm via an Algorithm Processing Unit (APU), reassembles the processed information data using the format data, converts a transmission signal having a Pulse Code Modulation (PCM) frame structure into parallel data, and processes the parallel data based on an algorithm, thereby enabling more rapid and efficient multi-frame data processing.

Multi-frame data processing apparatus and method using frame disassembly

ELECTRONICS AND TELECOMMUNICATIONS RESEARCH INSTITUTE


Systems, computer-implemented methods, and non-transitory machine-readable storage media are provided for detecting recapture attacks of images. One method comprises extracting one or more features from an image captured by a device; applying the one or more features as input to a trained machine learning model, wherein the trained machine learning model outputs a first score based on the extracted features; obtaining metadata of the image; performing a statistical analysis of the metadata of the image; generating a second score based on the statistical analysis of the metadata of the image; and generating a probability that the image is a recapture of an original image based on the first score and the second score.

The use of digital images (including still pictures, video, multimedia, and/or other images) has grown steadily since its introduction. Social networks and mobile computing devices have further accelerated the growth of digital images. The ability to create and share digital images anytime and anywhere has resulted in the general public consuming more image data than ever and relying on these images for up to the minute information. However, it is a well-known fact that digital images are easily edited, and the information contained within a digital image may not be entirely trustworthy. Thus, obtaining trustworthy evidence based on digital images can be challenging due to the use of technology that can alter and compromise the integrity of such images. These and other problems exist with the use of digital images, in general, and more specifically in connection with image collection and authentication systems.
Authenticated images can be used in many situations, particularly where the image is used as evidence or proof of some fact or set of facts. For example, various industries deal with technical challenges around remote or virtual underwriting and inspections. Traditionally an inspection required a trusted human inspector to go view a property, business, or asset in person. This is costly and time consuming. The use of technology has enabled remote or virtual inspections. However, this technical solution has led to other issues.
One issue with using digital images to facilitate a remote or virtual inspection is that verifying that an image is an authentic original image and not a recapture of the original image can be difficult. For example, in the context of insurance claims, a photo of damage to a vehicle may be substituted for an in-person physical inspection. However, a high-quality photo of a computer screen on which a picture of a damaged vehicle is displayed (which may also be referred to as a "picture of a picture" or "POP") may be indistinguishable to the human eye from the original photo of the damaged vehicle itself. In the same context, a video of the car accident that caused the damage may serve as a substitute for an in-person physical inspection. However, a high-quality video recording of a computer screen on which the original video of the car accident is being played back (which may also be referred to as a "video of a video" or "VOV") may be indistinguishable to the human eye from the initial video capture of the car accident itself. In order to rely on an image as a substitute for an in-person physical inspection, the insurance provider must be able to verify that images provided are not a POP or a VOV.
This problem exists across many industries and in many contexts where an electronically provided image is relied on for what is depicted in that image.

Systems and methods for detecting image recapture