A detection unit that detects smoke contained in a gas by radiating detection light toward a detection space for detecting smoke, and an inner labyrinth for inhibiting ambient light from entering the detection space, the inner labyrinth being provided to cover an outer edge of the detection space are included, the detection unit includes a light emitting unit that radiates the detection light and a light receiving unit that receives the detection light radiated by the light emitting unit, and at least a part of a side surface of the inner labyrinth on a side of the detection space is formed in a flat shape capable of inhibiting the detection light reflected by the inner labyrinth from entering a field of view RV of the light receiving unit in the detection space.

Conventionally, there has been a known alarm installed on an installation surface of a monitored area to detect smoke in the monitored area and issue a warning (for example, Patent Document 1). This alarm includes a casing, a detection unit, and a circuit unit. Among these components, the casing accommodates the detection unit and the circuit unit, and an opening for allowing smoke in the monitored area to flow into the casing is provided on a side wall of the casing. In addition, the detection unit detects smoke and includes a plurality of labyrinth walls, a light emitting unit, and a light receiving unit. Here, the plurality of labyrinth walls covers a space for detecting smoke (hereinafter referred to as a "detection space"), a side surface of at least one or more labyrinth walls on a detection space side is formed in a non-flat shape, and the labyrinth walls are provided with a gap therebetween. In addition, the light emitting unit radiates light toward the detection space. In addition, when light radiated from the light emitting unit is scattered by particles of smoke flowing into the detection space, the light receiving unit receives the scattered light. In addition, the circuit unit includes a control unit that controls each operation of the alarm. Further, when the amount of light received by the light receiving unit exceeds a predetermined threshold, the circuit unit determines that a fire has broken out in the monitored area.


A power regulating apparatus for controlling power to a cyclic load in which a pivotally-mounted constant speed motor has a fixed diameter pulley on the motor output shaft operatively connected to a variable speed pulley mounted on a driven shaft whereby motor reactive torque due to an increase in load on the motor causes the motor and its fixed diameter pulley to approach the variable speed pulley allowing the effective diameter of the variable speed pulley to increase for reducing the rate of rotation of the variable speed pulley and increasing the torque of the driven shaft.

Oil well pumpjacks which are connected by a string of rods to a submerged reciprocating pump place a cyclic load on the motor or prime mover which drives the system. The power required to maintain a continuous operation in which the weight of the loaded system pump requires considerably more power during some parts of the cycle than other parts of the cycle and results in a wide fluctuation of power consumed. The resulting increasing energy consumed can be substantial and the wear on the drive motor excessive.
It is known to vary the power output from a constance speed electric motor by mounting a variable speed pulley on the motor output shaft. Pfleger U.S. Pat. No. 2,211,986 issued Aug. 20, 1940, for example, discloses a variable speed electric motor drive having a manually adjustable pulley for varying the effective pulley diameter. The drive motor is mounted on a pivotal base or on a spring-loaded slidable base to maintain the drive belt in a tightened condition.
Hallinan U.S. Pat. No. 2,369,044 issued Feb. 6, 1945 discloses a heating system having another embodiment of an automatic, belt-tightening assembly in which the change in placement of a pivotally mounted electric drive motor relative to a stationary blower controlled, for example, by a thermostatically-controlled bellows, is compensated by a spring-loaded variable-diameter pulley on the drive motor to maintain a constant belt tension. A desired blower speed can be obtained whereby the blower speeds up when the air temperature increases and slows down when the air temperature decreases.
Morton et. al. U.S. Pat. No. 2,479,764 issued Aug. 23, 1949, discloses a transmission governor for use with an electric motor wherein spring-loaded variable diameter pulleys are used in combination with governors to maintain a constant output speed with controlled belt tension.
Heyer U.S. Pat. No. 2,189,288 issued Feb. 6, 1940 discloses another embodiment of a variable speed transmission having one or more variable-diameter pulleys in which the drive motor is manually pivotable to maintain a desired belt tension.
None of the above patents discloses a power regulating apparatus for controlling the power required for a cyclic load wherein which the load demands transmitted to a constant speed motor are maintained substantially constant.
It is a principal object of the present invention, therefore, to provide a power regulating torque control apparatus for use in combination with a constant speed motor for equalizing power requirements of a cyclic load on the said motor.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a relatively simple and positively acting apparatus particularly suited for use with oil well pumpjacks.


The present invention provides an internal positive control for contaminating viruses. The invention provides the use of a second virus as an exogenous internal positive control in methods for verifying the reliability of an assay to detect a first virus, in methods of ensuring the absence of the first virus in a biological sample or pharmaceutical sample and in methods of manufacturing a vaccine free from a first virus.

Viral contamination in biological samples is a problem in a number of areas of medicine including blood transfusion and organ transplantation, and vaccine and drug production. Viruses can be detected in biological samples using a number of different tests that detect the presence of viral antigens, host antibodies to viral antigens or viral nucleic acids.
When testing a biological sample for contamination by a virus or confirming that a biological sample is free from a virus, a problem exists with interpreting a negative result. Without appropriate controls, it is not possible to determine whether an absence of contaminating virus being detected is as a result of the failure of the assay, or as a result of the absence of any contaminating virus in the biological sample. If the negative result can be attributed to the former reason, the failure of the assay could have occurred at any stage. For example, in a nucleic acid assay, the failure may have occurred during nucleic acid extraction, handling, amplification or detection steps. Generally, four controls are used in PCR based methods for the detection of viral nucleic acids. The first control is an internal positive control for the nucleic acid extraction step. The second control is for the detection of the PCR products. The third control is for the amplification step. Finally, the fourth control is a no template control to detect contamination during the assay. Similar controls are used in assays to detect viral polypeptides.
The present invention relates to the use of a second virus as an exogenous internal positive.
The concept of using an exogenous virus as an internal positive control for diagnostic purposes is known in the art. For example, Mairhofer et al. (qPCR 2007 Symposium & Exhibition & Workshop 3rd International qPCR Symposium, page 28. ISBN-13 978-3-00-020385-5) describes the use of Tomato Mosaic Virus (ToMV) as an internal positive control in an assay for the detection of influenza A virus in a biological sample from a subject infected with influenza A. This system, however, has several disadvantages. In particular, ToMV did not work as an internal positive control for the detection of Norovirus I from clinical specimens and its use as an internal positive control is therefore limited.
A further disadvantage of the system described by Mairhofer et al. is that the control virus (ToMV) and the test virus (influenza A) are different types of virus. ToMV is a non-enveloped virus with a +ssRNA genome. On the other hand, influenza A is an enveloped virus with a −ssRNA genome. This is likely to lead to a lack of reliability of the positive control. For example, if extraction, amplification and detection steps are optimised for the positive control virus it is possible that the conditions in any one of the extraction, amplification and detection steps would not be suitable for the contaminating virus. Thus, a negative result for the detection of the contaminating virus when the assay is positive for the detection of the control virus could represent a failure of the extraction, amplification or detection step to work for the contaminating virus rather than an absence of contamination in the biological sample. Indeed, Mairhoffer et al. reported at the 2007 qPCR symposium that ToMV and Norovirus nucleic acids can not both be detected in a same sample known to contain both viruses when the nucleic acids are extracted under the same conditions.
A yet further disadvantage of the use of ToMV is that the virus is commonly found in all solenaceous plant (for example tobacco, potato and tomato). Thus, contamination of the assay with the positive control after nucleic acid extraction is possible from commonly found plant materials. If a sample were to be contaminated after the nucleic acid extraction step, a positive result for the detection of the control virus ToMV could result even if the extraction step failed.
There therefore remains a need for a suitable internal positive control for nucleic acid extraction and detection assays. To our knowledge, the use of exogenous viruses as an internal positive control (IPC) in vaccine manufacturing has not been described previously.


In a system control information transmission system in a ring LAN system, each of a plurality of data transmission devices transmits a transmission frame including a user information transmission area and a system control information transmission area to an adjacent data transmission device at peculiar periods independent of the state of the system, i.e., a failure in the system. The system control information transmission area in the transmission frame is used to transmit system control information only required to be relayed to a downstream data transmission device.

The present invention relates to a data transmission in a ring LAN system and more particularly to transmission of system control information in the ring LAN system.
A technique concerning the data transmission in a ring LAN system in which a plurality of data transmission devices are connected in a ring through a transmission path, is disclosed known in Japanese Patent Unexamined Publication No. 61-210742.
In this technique, a data transmission device required to urgently transmit data can preferentially secure a special area of a data transmission area in a transmission frame which circulates the data transmission through the ring LAN system.
In the above technique, however, when one data transmission device uses the special area in a usual operation, another data transmission device can not use the special area.
As a result flexibility in utilization of the data transmission area is diminished and the data transmission area is not utilized efficiently. This causes a problem in that a waiting time from generating the point of a request for transmitting data to ann actual transmission thereof is increased.
Particularly, this problem is significantly important when the number of data transmission devices in the ring LAN system is increased.
Furthermore, when a failure such as disconnection of the transmission path occurs in the ring LAN system and circulation through the transmission frame in the ring LAN system is failed, circulation through the data transmission area in the ring LAN system is also failed, so that the data transmission is failed.
In the above case, a problem that means for transmitting data without use of the data transmission area must be arranged newly in the ring LAN system, thereby complicating the processes.

Transmission system of system of system control information in a ring LAN system


Systems and methods for synchronizing task data between a mailbox server of an email system and a project server of a project management system include a project that is published on the project management system, task data for the project is sent from the project server to the mailbox server. The task data includes the attributes of the project tasks and resources assigned to the project tasks. When the mailbox server receives the task data, the mailbox server creates a task on the mailbox server for each task for which the task doesn't already exist on the mailbox server. The mailbox server inserts each created task into the mailbox of the assignee for the task. The assignee can view the task attributes and update task status using a client that accesses the mailbox server.

Project management systems assist project managers in developing project plans, assigning resources to tasks, tracking progress, managing budgets and analyzing workloads. Users of project management systems can typically view tasks assigned to them via a user interface and update task status. The project management systems permit users to view and update assigned tasks as the users work on and complete the tasks.


A shooting system of the present invention comprises a silver-salt camera unit shooting on a silver-salt photosensitized material, an electronic image pickup unit which is detachably combined with the silver-salt camera unit and in which a solid image pickup element is embedded, and a control unit which is combined with the electronic image pickup unit instead of the silver-salt camera unit.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a shooting system which shoots on a mounted silver-salt photosensitized material and which shoots by means of a self-contained solid image pickup element, and to a silver-salt camera which shoots on a silver-salt photosensitized material.
2. Description of the Related Art
In addition to a conventional silver-salt camera which shoots a photograph on a silver-salt photosensitized material like a roll-shaped photo film or an instant camera film, an electronic camera which forms an image of a subject on a solid image pickup element to obtain electronic image data, thereby shooting a photograph has become widespread in recent years.
The silver-salt camera has a merit that the camera can shoot a photograph having excellent image quality as compared with the electronic camera, and the electronic camera has a merit that the shot image can be edited, that is impossible for the silver-salt camera.
Therefore, it is conceived to bring both the electronic camera and the silver-salt cameral in order to satisfy various shooting requirements, but there is problem that it is troublesome to carry these two cameras.
Thereupon, a compound camera in which these cameras are combined as one unit has been conceived (for example, see Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 11-338047 and No. 2000-89345).
However, if the compound camera is used, even when only the electronic camera is to be used, the entire compound camera including the unnecessary silver-salt camera function must be carried, and when only the silver-salt camera is to be used, the entire compound camera including the unnecessary electronic camera function must be carried, and there is a problem that it is troublesome.
Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2001-45351 discloses an apparatus having a shooting section which is inserted into a camera body instead of a photo film. In this case, however, if the photo film is once mounted, photographs can be taken only on the photo film until shooting onto the photo film is completed, and if the shooting section is inserted instead of the photo film, the camera functions only as an electronic camera, and it is not possible to select appropriate camera or use the both functions at the same time.


A catheter for removing tissue from a body lumen includes a rotatable cutter. The cutter includes an annular cutting tip at the distal end portion of the cutter for removing tissue from the body lumen. An axial cavity is defined by an interior surface of the cutter and extends proximally from the annular cutting tip toward the proximal end portion of the cutter. An eccentric opening extends from the central cavity through the cutter to allow tissue removed from the body lumen by the annular cutting tip to pass proximally through the eccentric opening toward an interior passage of the catheter body. The offset opening is offset from the longitudinal axis of the cutter.

Vascular disease frequently arises from the accumulation of atheromatous material on the inner walls of vascular lumens, particularly arterial lumens of the peripheral and other vasculature, especially peripheral arteries, resulting in a condition known as atherosclerosis. Atherosclerosis occurs naturally as a result of aging, but may also be aggravated by factors such as diet, hypertension, heredity, vascular injury, and the like. Atheromatous deposits can have widely varying properties, with some deposits being relatively soft and others being fibrous and/or calcified. In the latter case, the deposits are frequently referred to as plaque.
Vascular disease can be treated in a variety of ways, including drugs, bypass surgery, and a variety of catheter-based approaches, including those which rely on intravascular debulking or removal of the atheromatous or other material occluding a blood vessel. A variety of methods for cutting or dislodging material and removing such material from the blood vessel have been proposed, generally being referred to as atherectomy procedures. Atherectomy catheters intended to cut or excise material from the blood vessel lumen may employ a rotatable cutting blade (or other tissue-removing element) which can be advanced into or past the occlusive material in order to cut and separate such material from the blood vessel lumen.
It is desirous to provide catheters which can access small, tortuous regions of body lumens and which can remove tissue and/or other occluding materials from within body lumens in a controlled fashion. In one instance, it may be desired to provide atherectomy catheters which can facilitate capturing atheromatous materials. The catheters and methods for use in a variety of body lumens, including but not limited to coronary, peripheral, and other arteries, and other body lumens.


A ladder stand-off includes an extension beam and first and second stand-off sections slidingly mounted on the extension beam, so as to provide an adjustable span. Each stand-off section includes a support beam and an arm fixedly connected to the first support beam. A contact element is pivotally contacted to the outer end of each arm, allowing the device to be used with flat, curved and corner surfaces. The two arms preferably extend in an outward direction so as to be angularly divergent with respect to each other. The device can also be implemented as a ladder stand-off kit having multiple extension beams of different lengths that can be used interchangeably with the two ladder stand-off sections. In this case, the desired extension beam would be assembled with the first and second stand-off sections to form a ladder stand-off.

This invention relates generally to ladder stand-offs and more particularly to ladder stand-offs useful in corner applications.
Ladders are commonly used for many tasks to enable the user to reach locations that otherwise could not be reached. One of the most common types of ladders is the lean-on ladder which comprises a pair of laterally spaced side rails interconnected by a plurality of longitudinally spaced rungs. In use, the bottom of the ladder is supported on the ground or a floor and the top of the ladder is placed against a wall or similar vertical surface. Generally, lean-on ladders should be oriented at an angle of lean (i.e., the angle between the ladder and the ground or floor) of approximately 70–80 degrees for safe and stable deployment.
It is known to use ladder attachments such as stand-offs with lean-on ladders to increase ladder stability. Such devices are attached to the upper portion of the ladder and position the ladder away from the wall that it is leaned against. Stand-offs designed to be used in corner applications have also been proposed. However, many known stand-offs are not readily used with both flat and corner surfaces or require manual adjustment of various moving parts to permit use with different surfaces. Such moving parts are susceptible to becoming lost or broken. Many current stand-offs are also big and bulky and thus not suitable for use in tight spaces.
Accordingly, there is a need for a ladder stand-off that is compact and easy to use and can be used on both flat and corner surfaces without excessive adjustable parts.


A new and distinct cultivar of Verbena plant named ‘Duefarsopi’, characterized by its compact, outwardly spreading and cascading plant habit; freely branching habit; freely flowering habit; and pink-colored flowers.

The present Invention relates to a new and distinct cultivar of Verbena plant, botanically known as Verbena hybrida, and hereinafter referred to by the name 'Duefarsopi'.
The new Verbena is a product of a planned breeding program conducted by the Inventor in Rheinberg, Germany. The objective of the breeding program is to develop new trailing Verbena cultivars with large and intensely-colored flowers.
The new Verbena originated from a cross-pollination made by the Inventor in July, 2001 of a proprietary seedling selection of Verbena hybrida identified as F-11-23, not patented, as the female, or seed, parent with a proprietary seedling selection of Verbena hybrida identified as F-20-12, not patented, as the male, or pollen, parent. The cultivar Duefarsopi was discovered and selected by the Inventor as a flowering plant within the progeny from the aforementioned cross-pollination in a controlled environment in Rheinberg, Germany in July, 2002.
Asexual reproduction of the new cultivar by cuttings at Rheinberg, Germany, since July, 2004, has shown that the unique features of this new Verbena are stable and reproduced true to type in successive generations of asexual reproduction.


Vesicle compositions from high molecular weight silicone polyether copolymers, methods for preparing the vesicle compositions, and personal, household, and healthcare formulations containing the vesicle compositions are disclosed.

The aggregation behavior of surfactants in aqueous media is a robust area of investigation. Various vesicle compositions, such as liposomes and the like, have been developed for many applications with particular emphasis on the design of such systems for delivery of active materials via a pharmaceutical or personal care product formulation. Long-standing needs in this field are to identify vesicle compositions that form and entrap actives easily, are stable under various chemical and mechanical stresses, and yet are able to deliver the actives in a controlled manner under desired conditions. To this end, many classes and types of surfactants have been investigated for their ability to form vesicles and thus entrap and deliver actives.
Vesicles derived from silicone surfactants, and more particularly silicone polyether surfactants, are of interest because of additional inherent benefits that this class of surfactants possesses vs other types. For example, silicone surfactants often have improved aesthetics in personal care formulations.
The aggregation behavior of certain silicone polyethers has been discussed along with their ability to form vesicles. For example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,364,633 and 5,411,744 by Hill teaches the self-assembly of certain silicone polyethers in aqueous media to form vesicles. PCT Application US2003/38455 by Lin teaches the entrapment of various oils in certain silicone polyether vesicles and their use in various personal care formulations.
While these references represent advancements in the art, a need still exists to create silicone vesicles having improved stability. For example, the silicone vesicles formed from the self-assembly procedures can lack durability. This lack of durability can limit the processing conditions they can be subject to in the formation of various finished products. Furthermore, such self-assembled silicone vesicles can lack the ability to provide sustained release of loaded actives over an extended period of time. Thus, a need exists for a process to prepare silicone vesicles having improved durability and the ability to release loaded actives over an extended period of time.
The present inventors have discovered that high molecular weight silicone polyethers (SPEs) form vesicle compositions in aqueous media. The vesicle compositions possess enhanced stability and are useful to prepare formulations for the delivery of personal, household, and healthcare active materials.

Vesicles of high molecular weight silicone polyethers


The invention relates to a system and method for sensing the characteristics of a fluid in a sub-surface formation. In one embodiment, the invention relates to a sensor apparatus for sensing a chemical in a vapor emitted by a sub-surface fluid sample. In various configurations, the apparatus senses the presence and/or percentage of water, the presence of a gas, an oil/gas ratio, an aliphatic/aromatic hydrocarbon ratio, and/or the presence of corrosive or poisonous chemicals.

During the drilling of a wellbore, it is often necessary to determine certain physical and chemical characteristics of sub-surface drilling fluids. Examples of sub-surface fluid characteristics that are of particular importance to oil well operators include, for example, the presence and/or percentage of water, the presence of a gas (e.g., methane), the oil/gas ratio, the aliphatic/aromatic hydrocarbon ratio, and the presence of corrosive or poisonous chemicals (e.g., hydrogen sulfide). Current methods for analyzing wellbore fluids typically require transporting a fluid sample to the surface. In deep wells, this process can be both costly and time-consuming.
To address this problem, downhole sensing systems have been developed in which a sensing system located within the wellbore transmits real-time data to the surface. Typically, existing downhole systems include one or more sensors that are placed in direct contact with the wellbore fluid. In deep wells, temperatures within the wellbore can reach as high as 450° F. and pressures can exceed 30,000 psi, which tends to limit the operational life of existing downhole sensors. Furthermore, the sensitivity of existing sensors is often sacrificed in order to increase their resistance to the harsh conditions within the wellbore.
There is, therefore, a need for a downhole sensor system for sensing the characteristics of a fluid in a sub-surface formation that can withstand prolonged exposure to harsh environmental conditions.

Sensor apparatus and method of using same

The Charles Stark Draper Laboratory Inc.


Method for displaying an available time according to battery capacity in a mobile station, including the steps of (1) forming relations between current consumption(mA) of the mobile station both in a standby mode and a call mode and a strength of a received signal into tables, and storing the tables in a memory respectively, (2) measuring a battery voltage for calculating a remained amount of battery capacity(mAh), (3) measuring a strength of a received signal, and reading current consumption(mA) both in the standby mode and in the call mode corresponding to the measured strength of the received signal, (4) dividing the remained amount of the battery capacity(Mah) by respective current consumption to calculate an available standby time and an available call time, and (5) displaying the available standby time and/or the available call time, whereby enhancing an efficiency of use of the mobile station because available time of use of the mobile station can be known with easy, and a time when the battery should be charged can be informed by vision.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a mobile station, and more particularly, to a method for displaying an available time according to battery capacity in a mobile station, in which both an available standby time and an available call time of a mobile station are displayed according to a remained amount in a battery capacity.
2. Background of the Related Art
In general, the mobile station provides a variety of services, such as displaying a time period to be charged and a real time, memorizing, signal transmission/reception selection, and the like. FIG. 1 illustrates a block diagram showing a system of a related art mobile station.
Referring to FIG. 1, the related art mobile station is provided with an antenna 110 for transmission/reception of a radio signal, a duplexer 120 for combining the transmission/reception of the radio signals through the antenna 110 to permit communication even by using only one antenna, a receiver 140 for converting a frequency of the radio signal received through the antenna 110 into a Intermediate frequency(IF), a transmitter 130 for converting frequencies of various signals processed for transmission for transmission through the antenna 110 into Radio frequencies(RF), and providing to the duplexer 120, a high power detector 150 for detecting an output power of the transmitter 130, a battery 160 for supplying an operation power to the mobile station, a memory(RAM) 200 for storing various information required for processing external data, a baseband part for converting outputs of the high power detector 150, the receiver 140 and the battery 160 in digital signals, or converting a signal to be provided to the transmitter 130 into an analog signal, an MSM(Mobile Station Modem) 180 for controlling the transmission/reception of the radio signal of the mobile station, and a user interface 190 having a keypad, a liquid crystal display, a speaker, and a microphone for a user to select a mode or permit input/output the radio signal. The baseband part 170 has a digital/analog converter 171 for converting the digital signal form the MSM 180 into an analog signal and providing to the transmitter 130, a first analog/digital convertor 172 for converting the analog signal from the receiver 140 into a digital signal and providing to the MSM 180, and a second analog/digital convertor 173 for converting outputs of the high power detector 150, the receiver 140 and the battery 160 into digital signals and providing to the MSM 180. The MSM 180 has a demodulator 183 for demodulating a signal from the first analog/digital convertor 172 into a CDMA digital signal, a microprocessor 182 for receiving a signal from the second analog/digital convertor 173 and a key signal from the user interface 190 and providing a control signal corresponding to the received signals, a modulator 181 for modulating a data to be transmitted, and a vocoder 184 for converting the signal demodulated at the demodulator 183 into a speech signal, and converting the signal to be transmitted into a CDMA digital signal and providing to the modulator 181. The user interface 190 has an LCD window 194 for displaying various data for the user, a microphone 192 for converting a speech of the user into an electrical signal, a speaker 193 for receiving and converting various electrical signals into vibration to convert the electrical signals into audible signals, a keypad 195 having a plurality of buttons for the user to input various data in using the mobile station, and a CODEC 191 for converting the digital speech signal from the vocoder 184 into an analog speech signal and presenting to the speaker 193, and converting an analog speech signal from the microphone 192 into a digital speech signal and providing to the vocoder 184.
The signal transmission/reception operation of the related art mobile station will be explained. A CDMA signal received through the antenna 110 undergoes a frequency conversion into a intermediate frequency(IF) at the receiver 140. The analog signal is converted into a digital signal at the first analog/digital convertor 172 in the base band part 170. The analog/digital convertor 172 is used for conversion of a voice data. The digital signal from the first analog/digital convertor 172 is demodulated into a CDMA digital signal at the demodulator 183 in the MSM 180, and converted into a digital voice signal at the vocoder 184. Once the digital signal is converted into an analog signal at the CODEC 191 in the user interface 190, and forwarded to the speaker 193, the voice can be heard. In the case of transmission, the analog voice signal received at the microphone 192 is converted into a digital voice signal at the audio CODEC 191, into a CDMA digital signal at the vocoder 184 in the MSM 180, and into a digital signal at the modulator 182. The digital signal, then, is converted into an analog signal at the digital/analog convertor 171 in the baseband part 170, and frequency up-converted at the transmitter 130, and transmitted to a base station through the duplexer 120 and the antenna 110.
Related art methods for displaying a strength of incoming signal and an available battery capacity in the aforementioned mobile station will be explained. FIG. 2 illustrates a graph showing a battery discharge characteristic in a mobile station. In general, a lithium-ion battery is used for the mobile station. The battery is rechargeable, can provide approx. 4.2V when the battery is charged fully, and has a built-in protection circuit for blocking anymore use of the battery when the battery can only provide 2.7V due to prolonged use of the battery. That is, since 2.7V is preset as a cut off voltage by a mobile station vender, the mobile station becomes inoperative when the battery voltage is at 2.7V. FIG. 3 illustrates a flow chart for explaining a related art method for displaying a strength of incoming signal and a method for displaying remained battery capacity in a related art mobile station.
Referring to FIG. 3, a radio signal from a base station is received at an antenna S21, passes through the antenna 110 and the duplexer 120, and undergoes frequency up-converting at a receiver 140 S22. The signal is then converted into a digital signal at the second analog/digital convertor 173 S23. The second analog/digital convertor is used for a conventional input/output data. The strength of a signal received through the antenna and a battery voltage are read at a microprocessor 181 in an MSM 180 S24. Then, the strength of the received signal and the remained amount of battery charge are displayed S25. The remained amount of battery charge is displayed, with a range of voltage between 4.2V at the time of full charge and the 2.7V at the time of cut off divided equally into three to five. That is, when the remained amount of battery charge is divided into four, four pieces are displayed when the battery output voltage is 3.6Vxcx9c4.2V, three pieces are displayed when the battery output voltage is 3.2Vxcx9c3.6V, two pieces when the battery output voltage is 3.0Vxcx9c3.2V, one piece when the battery output voltage is 2.7Vxcx9c3.0V. Thus, the aforementioned related art mobile station digitizes the strength of a received signal and the remained amount of battery charge and displays on an LCD for informing to the user.
However, the related art method for displaying the remained amount of battery capacity has the following problems.
First, when the mobile station is turned on, a charge in the battery is consumed continuously from the time of turn on, and particularly, a rate of the consumption is greater during call than standby. As the remained amount of battery capacity is displayed, merely with the remained amount of battery capacity divided three to five in the related art method for displaying an available time period of the battery, the user can not see an available standby time and available call time for the remained amount of battery capacity, precisely. Consequently, there may be occasions when the user fails to complete an important call due to the battery discharge when a hurried, or unexpected call is required.
Second, even if the rate of charge consumption varies with the strength of reception/transmission signal (sensitivity), the available standby time and the available call time could not have been displayed because the variation has not been taken into account in calculation of the available time, causing the above failure occurred.
Accordingly, the present invention is directed to a method for displaying an available time according to battery capacity in a mobile station that substantially obviates one or more of the problems due to limitations and disadvantages of the related art.
An object of the present invention is to provide a method for displaying an available time according to battery capacity in a mobile station, which can inform an available standby time and an available call time of the mobile station to a user, and calculate a more accurate remained amount of battery capacity.
Additional features and advantages of the invention will be set forth in the description which follows, and in part will be apparent from the description, or may be learned by practice of the invention. The objectives and other advantages of the invention will be realized and attained by the structure particularly pointed out in the written description and claims hereof as well as the appended drawings.
To achieve these and other advantages and in accordance with the purpose of the present invention, as embodied and broadly described, the method for displaying an available time according to battery capacity in a mobile station, includes the steps of (1) calculating an available standby time and an available call time according to battery capacity, and (2) informing the calculated available standby time and/or the available call time by numerals or voice.
In other aspect of the present invention, there is provided a method for displaying an available time according to battery capacity in a mobile station, including the steps of (1) forming relations between current consumption(mA) of the mobile station both in a standby mode and a call mode and a strength of a received signal into tables, and storing the tables in a memory respectively, (2) measuring a battery voltage for calculating a remained amount of battery capacity(mAh), (3) measuring a strength of a received signal, and reading current consumption both in the standby mode and in the call mode corresponding to the measured strength of the received signal, (4) dividing the remained amount of the battery capacity(mAh) by respective current consumption(mA) to calculate an available standby time and an available call time, and (5) displaying the available standby time and/or the available call time.
It is to be understood that both the foregoing general description and the following detailed description are exemplary and explanatory and are intended to provide further explanation of the invention as claimed.

Method for displaying available time of battery in mobile station


The present invention provides a pre-triturating device, for solving a problem that the food should be pre-processed in the prior art to make the user inconvenient. According to the problem described above, after the pre-triturating device of the present invention is installed in the food processing machine, by connection between the driving shaft or the shaft hole and the shaft hole or the connecting shaft of the center of the bottom surface of the pre-triturating device, in the pre-triturating procedure, the user can relieve the food pre-processing procedure when processing the food, and the processing food is easier and quicker. Because the food is pre-triturated, the loader of the mixed device is reduced, the life of the machine is prolonged, and the mixing or squeezing juice efficiency is increased.

In food processing field, wide use of a juicer brought rich and colorful enjoy to people's diet life. People can choose all kinds of fruit and vegetable to be chopped by using the mixer to forming a mixed fruit juice, or squeezing the juice of food by using a juicer for people's enjoying. However, this kind of food processing equipment usually need the food to be cut in a certain size by artificial means, so that the cut food can be adapted to be processed by the juicer, that increases a pre-procedure in use and bring inconvenience to users at the same time. Furthermore, if the food volume is not pre-processed before entering into juice squeezing or mixing zone, a load of the mixing head would be increased and the mixer or juicer would even be damaged.

T.F. Electrical Technology (Shenzhen) Co., Ltd.


An animated wind up toy, that is safe, durable, lightweight, compact and includes a wind up motor that drives a cam actuated mechanism that causes the toy to move. The wind up toy has an outward contour and coloring that resembles a food item, such as a milk shake, fries or hamburger.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a wind up animated toy, that may resemble a food item such as a hamburger, milk shake, package of french fries, chicken nuggets or the like.
2. Description of Prior Art
Dancing or moving toys, that include sound responsive sensors that actuate an electric motor contained in the toy, of the type shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,903,424 and 4,983,890 are known. Toys having actuating mechanism of this type can take the form of a food item such as a soft drink, as in U.S. Pat. Nos. De. 312,674 and 313,261. The electronic/electro-mechanical components of such prior art devices result in their being complex and expensive and not able to withstand being dropped and other abuses that must be expected from small children. Toys intended for play by young children should be safe, durable, lightweight, and compact. Toys for small children should not have sharp edges or pieces that can be easily removed or broken off. Also toys for small children should be inexpensive so that they can be disposed of or replaced when worn, soiled or broken. Further, battery powered children toys are undesirable because the cost of replacing batteries can exceed the initial cost of the toy.

M-B Sales, Division of the Havi Group Limited Partnership


The invention relates to an acrylic alloy composition that can be 3-D printed by a material extrusion additive manufacturing process, to an acrylic filament that has a very uniform diameter useful in the extrusion additive manufacturing process, to acrylic articles made from the acrylic alloy composition by a material extrusion additive process, and to a material extrusion additive manufacturing process for producing the acrylic articles. The acrylic alloy composition is an alloy of an acrylic polymer, and a low melt viscosity polymer, such as polylactic acid. The alloy may optionally be impact modified, preferably with hard core core-shell impact modifiers.

Equipment advances and reduction in pricing have allowed 3D printing to become widely adopted in homes, schools, and industry as a fast, simpler, and often cheaper way to prototype and make custom end use parts. Specifically, material extrusion additive manufacturing 3D printing (also known as fused filament fabrication or fused deposition modeling), has emerged as a tool of choice for direct consumer use, larger scale production, and quick thermoplastic prototyping as it is the easiest to operate and it produces the least waste and shortest turnaround time of the 3D printing technologies.
Many materials have been used to produce 3-D printed articles for a wide variety of end uses, from chocolate to collagen. Thermoplastic materials are especially well adapted for use with material additive extrusion printers. Unfortunately, there have been few thermoplastics available that provide good mechanical properties, transparency and ease of print.
Polylactic acid (PLA) is widely used for desktop home printers as it prints well, and has very low warpage. Unfortunately it has a low use temperature, poor chemical stability and is yellowish when not colored with dyes or pigments. ABS is a more stable commonly used "engineering" thermoplastic for 3-D printing, and has a higher use temperature—but has a high warpage level, is not transparent, and has a printed elongation at break of less than 6%.
Acrylic polymers are well known for their clarity, sparkling color, surface gloss, depth of image, and weather resistance. They have similar use temperatures to ABS. Unfortunately, the brittleness associated with acrylic polymers makes them impractical for making filaments for use in extrusion additive 3-D printing.
There is a desire to have the physical weathering resistance, transparency, and appearance of an acrylic polymer in a material extrusion additive printed article, but with low warpage and no need for an adhesive or heated chamber, as with PLA, yet having the mechanical and chemical properties of ABS, and additionally having good impact resistance, and excellent optical clarity.
Surprisingly, it has now been found that an alloy of a polymethyl methacrylate-based polymer with a low viscosity polymer such as polylactic acid (PLA), and optionally having impact modifiers, provides an acrylic filament that has the flexibility and flow properties to be printed, while retaining the transparency and strength of PMMA. The PMMA blend composition exhibits a very low variance in diameter when extruded as a filament, and the resulting filament is capable of being coiled. The composition of the invention can be easily printed without the need for adhesives or a heated chamber.

Dimensionally stable acrylic alloy for 3-D printing


A method of reducing glycation of an amino acid in a protein produced by a host cell in cell culture medium is disclosed.

Glycation is a common post-translational modification of proteins, resulting from the chemical reaction between reducing sugars such as glucose and the primary amino groups on protein (Ahmed, N., Diabetes Res. Clin. Practice 67:3-21 (2005)). The first step in this non-enzymatic glycosylation reaction is a nucleophilic addition reaction between the open chain form of the reducing sugar and the free amino group on the protein (Ahmed, N., 2005, supra). The resulting aldimine (a reversible Schiff base) can undergo Amadori rearrangement to form a more stable ketoamine.
In vivo, glycated proteins can further undergo subsequent slow reactions, such as rearrangement, oxidation, dehydration, and polymerization, to form a host of heterogeneous species collectively termed as advanced glycation endproducts (AGEs). AGEs have been implicated in aging-related diseases and long-term diabetic complications: the formation and accumulation of AGEs in various tissues have been known to progress during normal aging and at an extremely accelerated rate in diabetes mellitus (Ahmed, N., 2005, supra; Cai, W. et al. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 103:13801-13806 (2006)). For instance, Nε-(Carboxymethyl)lysine (CML) is a well-characterized AGE (FIG. 1) that has demonstrated diabetic and age-dependent accumulation in the human lens and is associated with cataract formation (Sybille, F. et al., J. Cataract Refract. Surg. 29:998-1004 (2003)).
Glycation generates structural heterogeneity in recombinant polypeptides secreted from a host cell expressing the polypeptide during cell culture, such as during expression of the polypeptide during fermentation. For example, such heterogeneity was shown in the production of recombinant antibodies produced by cell culture processes (Harris, R. J., Dev Biol (Basel) 122: 117-127 (2005)). Because of the desirability of structural homogeneity of recombinant polypeptides, such as polypeptides used for biopharmaceuticals, there is a need to reduce the level of glycation of such polypeptides produced in cell culture.


A power supply system for a portable device such as portable personal computer, to be operated from a DC power source supplied from a rechargeable battery or an AC adapter includes: an input current detecting circuit for detecting an input current supplied from the AC adapter and for generating a detection signal having a magnitude which varies depending upon the input current, and a charging current control circuit for controlling the amount of the charging current in response to the detection signal. The power supply system has low power losses and effects a high efficiency battery charging.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to a power supply system for portable electronic devices provided with rechargeable batteries, and more particularly, to a system for charging a rechargeable battery in a portable computer.
2. Related Art
Rechargeable batteries are commonly used to supply power to portable electronic devices, such as personal computers, wordprocessors, a variety of portable handsets and so on when conventional power outlets are not available. An AC (alternating current) adapter is also typically provided to power a portable device when the user does have access to a power outlet. The AC adapter further provides power to a battery charging circuit, which recharges the batteries, of the portable device.
When a rechargeable battery is used as a power supply system for portable personal computers as disclosed, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 5,561,361 for Computer Power Supply And Battery Recharging System issued to Sengupta et al., the battery may be charged by the battery charger in two different charging modes, that is, a run and charging mode and a run or charging mode. During the run and charging mode, the battery is charged regardless whether the computer is operating or not, and as a result, the charging operation may be difficult to control. In contrast to the run and charging mode, the run or charging mode allows the battery to be charged selectively depending upon whether or not the computer is operating.
Generally, charging operations of such a battery may be classified into four modes, that is, a fast or rapid charging, a quick charging, a standard charging and a trickle charging, in relation to the charging capacities or charging current of the battery. In the fast charge mode, a relatively large charging current (e.g., about 2 amperes or so) is supplied to a battery over a relatively short period of time (e.g., one or two hours). In the quick charge mode, a relatively large charging current (e.g., about 1 ampere to high hundreds of milliamperes or so) is supplied to the battery over a relatively short period of time (e.g., four to six hours). In the standard charge mode, a relatively small charging current (e.g., about low hundreds of milliamperes or so) is supplied to the battery over a relatively long period of time (e.g. eight to ten hours). In the trickle charge mode, the battery charging circuit provides a relatively even smaller constant current (e.g., about 100 milliamperes or so) to the battery without interruption. In this mode, the battery may not be charged but its power loss due to natural discharge is compensated for. During all the charging operations, the charge level of the battery is monitored so that, when the battery reaches its maximum charge level, the charging operation is terminated in order to prevent overcharging and damage of the battery. Exemplars of contemporary battery chargers are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,843,299 and 5,049,804 for Universal Battery Charging System issued to Hutchings, U.S. Pat. No. 5,168,205 for Method And Apparatus For Charging A Battery In High Amp And Automatic Charging Modes issued to Kan et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,175,485 for Apparatus For Controlling Charging Of A Storage Battery issued to Joo, U.S. Pat. No. 5,241,259 for Method and Apparatus For Rapidly Charging A Battery At High Temperature issued to Patino et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,411,816 for Method And Apparatus For Determining Battery Characteristics issued to Patino, U.S. Pat. No. 5,479,083 for Non-Dissipative Battery Charger Equalizer issued to Brainard, U.S. Pat. No. 5,541,492 for Method For Charging A Multiple Voltage Electrochemical Cell issued to Fernandez et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,592,069 for Battery Charger issued to Dias et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,637,981 for Method For Charging A Secondary Battery And Charge Used Therefor Using Constant Current And Constant Voltage issued to Nagai et al., and the co-pending Korean application Ser. No. 96-45546 filed by the present applicant.
The following additional patents each disclose features in common with the present invention: U.S. Pat. No. 5,465,039 to Power Supply For Electronic Device, And Electronic Device System issued to Narita et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,625,275 for Power Supply Which Provides A Variable Charging Current To A Battery In A Portable Computer System issued to Tanikawa et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,481,175 for System And Method For Charging Auxiliary Batteries issued to Qualich et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,462,029 for Constant Current Battery Charger With Auxiliary Output For Portable Apparatus issued to Seragnoli, U.S. Pat. No. 5,541,490 for Computer Power Supply System, issued to Sengupta et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,568,038 for Portable Electric Equipment And Rechargeable Built-In Batteries issued to Tatsumi, U.S. Pat. No. 5,382,893 for Maximum Power Regulated Battery Charger issued to Dehnel, and U.S. Pat. No. 5,150,031 for Battery Charging System issued to James et al.

Power supply system for portable electronic devices


The light reflecting plate has a substrate made of metal plate, a binder layer made of organic resin or an inorganic material, which is formed on the substrate, a reflective layer formed of a plated layer of silver or silver alloy containing silver as a main component, which is formed on the binder layer, and a protective layer formed on the reflective layer.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a light reflecting plate, a method of manufacturing the same, and a light reflecting device using a light reflecting plate, more particularly to a light reflecting plate with excellent light reflection characteristics, a method of manufacturing the same, and a light reflecting device such as a mirror duct in which a light reflecting plate is provided on the inner wall of a light guiding section and which introduces sunlight to indoor by the light reflecting plate to illuminate the indoor, an illumination fixture equipped with a light reflecting plate of a light source, a liquid crystal display device equipped with a light reflecting plate of external incident light, an edge-lighting type backlight of a liquid crystal display device equipped with the light reflecting plate, or a liquid crystal display device equipped with the edge-lighting type backlight.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, as a light reflecting plate of a light reflecting device, a glass substrate on which aluminum (Al) film is deposited by vacuum evaporation (refer to Japanese Patent Laid-open No. 2001-235798) or a stainless steel substrate or anodized aluminum substrate on which aluminum (Al) or silver (Ag) film is deposited via a base layer by vacuum evaporation, vacuum sputtering or the like (refer to Japanese Patent Laid-open No. 2001-523835, Japanese Patent Laid-open No. 2002-530803) has been used.
Meanwhile, because it is possible to save energy of the above-described light reflecting device by effective utilization of light, wider promotion of the device is desired.
However, the light reflecting plate described in the aforementioned publicly known documents has the following problems.
First, the glass substrate has problems of workability and strength.
Then, the present inventor examined using a metal plate having high strength as a substrate.
The present inventor first considered evaporating silver being a reflective layer on galvanized steel sheet by an evaporation method. However, when silver is heated for evaporation purpose, the heating temperature influences a substrate side being a body to be deposited and zinc or the like on the substrate side melts first because zinc coating on the steel sheet has lower melting temperature than silver. For this reason, there is a problem that large unevenness occurs on substrate surface or the surface degenerates. Note that the problem becomes larger when substrate heating is required in performing evaporation.
Then, by using a plating method instead of evaporation, silver film was formed on galvanized or zinc alloy plated steel sheet. However, adhesion between the silver film and the galvanized or zinc alloy plated steel sheet was poor, and peel of silver film occurred.

Light reflecting plate, method of manufacturing the same and light reflecting device


A protective garment is constructed with a fibrous material. The fibrous material comprises a first nonwoven layer, a second nonwoven layer, and a nanofiber layer laminated between the first nonwoven layer and the second nonwoven layer. The fibrous material has a mean flow pore size greater than or equal to about 0.02 micron and less than or equal to about 0.5 microns, and a water vapor transmission rate greater than or equal to about 10000 g/m2/day and less than or equal to about 100000 g/m2/day. In a method of making a fibrous layer, a first nonwoven layer and a nanofiber layer are provided. A polyurethane reactive resin is applied to the first nonwoven layer in an amount of 2 to 30 g/m2. The nanofiber layer is then laminated to the first nonwoven layer applied with the polyurethane reactive resin and pressed to form the fibrous layer.

Surgical gowns have been used by health care providers to ensure that patients do not contract any infection while receiving quality care in a hospital or a surgery center. The possibility of health care providers becoming infected with human immunodeficiency (HIV), hepatitis B viruses (HBV), severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) virus, more recently the coronavirus (COVID 19), and the threat of pathogens being spread by biological warfare and terrorism, have resulted in much increased concern for the safety of health care providers or emergency responders. According to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), more than 5.6 million health care and public safety workers are at potential risk of being exposed to HIV and HBV alone. This risk led OSHA to recognize the critical nature of blood borne pathogens and to issue a mandate on personal protective equipment (PPE) with the long-term goal of reducing the risk of occupational exposure to blood borne diseases. PPE is defined by OSHA as "specialized clothing or equipment worn by an employee for protection against a hazard." Gowns, aprons, drapes, and masks are included in this designation. PPE is considered to be "appropriate" only if it does not permit blood or other possibly infectious materials to pass to or reach employee's clothes, street clothes, undergarments, skin, eyes, mouth, or other mucous membranes under normal conditions of use and during the time in which the protective equipment will be used (CFR Part 1910.1030 Occupational Exposure to Bloodborne Pathogens: Final Rule, Federal Register, Dec. 6, 1991). Extent and time exposure and other conditions during usage are criteria used in determining the efficacy of PPE for a certain task.
Healthcare workers are at risk of exposure to pathogenic microbes via contact with bodily fluids such as blood, urine, saliva, sweat, feces, vomit, breast milk, semen, or other carriers such as lint, sloughed skin or other viruses such as coronavirus. The use of protective clothing such as surgical gowns, surgical hoods, isolation gowns, and coveralls that act as a barrier to bodily fluids and other carriers can eliminate or reduce exposure, and therefore prevent the transfer of pathogenic microbes between, e.g., patients and healthcare workers. The use of defective or inappropriate protective clothing may result in unintended penetration of a carrier through the clothing (e.g., strikethrough) and the subsequent ability for microbes present in the carrier to directly contact the wearer. Depending on the application, protective clothing may be designed to offer different levels of protection from carriers and microbes.
Protective garments or clothing, such as surgical gowns, are generally worn in environments such as hospitals, health-care facilities, food processing plants, accident sites, hazardous waste sites, homes or anywhere a person may encounter pathogens, chemicals, dusts, blood, water, smoke, or irritants. These garments are exposed to a variety of hazards, and as a result, typically require sufficient strength to resist contaminants, water, tears, and puncture, and yet achieve the breathability for wearer's comfort.
Materials used to manufacture protective garments or clothing are often designed to act as a barrier to liquids thereby providing protection from blood, water, industrial chemicals, pathogens, irritants and the like. In this regard, some fabrics or layers can act as a barrier to liquids while at the same time remaining "breathable" in the sense that water vapor may pass through the fibrous layers from inside. Breathable materials are often desired in many products such as for healthcare workers because breathable clothing helps prevent the build-up of moisture next to the worker's body, and thus, is generally more comfortable to wear than non-breathable clothing.
However, as the level of breathability increases the strength and the protection of the barrier layer typically decreases. Moreover, breathable barrier layers are often materials that have little inherent strength. They tend to be very fragile or easily damaged by abrasion, stretching and/or tearing forces. Additionally, breathable barrier layers are often heat sensitive and are difficult to thermally bond to other higher-strength materials. Adhesives may be used to join breathable barrier layers with other materials. Unfortunately, adhesives tend to be expensive, may reduce breathability, lose adhesion when exposed to certain solvents or environments, and require heat curing that may thermally damage sensitive films. Thus, many breathable fabrics fail to provide sufficient barrier properties and are prone to leak when subjected to intense wear, abrasion, stretching or other harsh conditions.
Accordingly, there is a general need for improved protective garments or surgical gowns. It would be desirable to provide a protective garment or surgical gown that can prevent penetration by fluids such as microbes while being highly permeable to moisture vapor. It would be highly desirable to provide an ultra-light breathable protective garment or surgical gown with improved mechanical properties such as enhanced tensile strength and tear resistance.

Ultra-light nanotechnology breathable gowns and method of making same


A pop-up rotary sprinkler includes a sprinkler body, a rotatable distributor and nozzle assembly mounted in the sprinkler body for movement between inoperative retracted and operative extended positions in response to fluid pressure within the sprinkler body. The rotatable distributor has a plurality of water distribution grooves and is supported at an upper end portion of a shaft, while the nozzle assembly surrounds a lower end portion of the shaft. The nozzle assembly includes a discharge orifice having a peripheral surface at least a part of which is defined by a peripheral surface of the shaft, and a deflector is mounted on the shaft downstream of the discharge orifice and upstream of the distributing grooves, and is adapted to direct water emanating from the discharge orifice onto the distributing grooves so as to avoid direct impingement on a seal located at the distributor-shaft interface.

This invention relates to rotary sprinklers and, specifically, to pop-up rotary sprinklers of the type which include generally a sprinkler body, a discharge orifice and a rotatable distributor mounted on the sprinkler body downstream of the orifice. The orifice and distributor assemblies are typically secured to an inner stem which is movable between a retracted or inoperative position and an extended or operative position. Such sprinklers often make use of distribution grooves on the rotatable distributor which are arranged so that a stream impinging on the grooves will cause the distributor to rotate about a center axis of the sprinkler body. See, for example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,471,908 and 1,821,579.
It is also known to utilize in connection with such sprinklers interchangeable arc or other shaped nozzles in order to permit easy adjustment of the degree of coverage of the discharged stream, while maintaining a constant flow or precipitation rate to the watered areas. Typically, these nozzles comprise orifice plates which have a central hole for receiving a shaft which supports the distributor above the nozzle. The orifice itself is generally radially outwardly spaced from the shaft hole in the orifice plate. Representative examples of this type of construction are described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,932,590; 4,842,201; in the previously mentioned 4,471,908, and in 3,131,867.
It will be appreciated, however, that for a constant flow rate and constant degree of arcuate coverage, the width of the orifice necessarily decreases with radial distance from the center axis. In other words, since the arcuate length necessarily increases as the orifice is moved away from the radial center, the width of the slot necessarily must decrease to maintain constant the overall orifice area and, hence, flow rate. The narrower the orifice, however, the greater tendency for the orifice to clog with dirt or other debris. It is therefore desirable to locate the orifice as close as possible to the radial center to minimize the arcuate length and thus maximize the orifice width. This, of course, permits larger size contaminants to pass through the orifice and thereby reduces potential clogging. In the best of circumstances, therefore, the orifice slot will actually border on, or be defined partially by, the distributor supporting shaft.
There have been a few sprinkler constructions where the distributor shaft itself defines part of the nozzle discharge orifice. See U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,353,506 and 4,261,515. One significant disadvantage of having the shaft form part of the discharge orifice, however, is that the discharged stream will impinge directly on the shaft/distributor interface. In those instances where a seal is employed at that interface, the direct impingement of water on the seal can lead over time to seal damage and/or failure. Seal integrity is particularly critical in the present sprinkler assembly which includes a viscous brake within the distributor housing for slowing the rotational speed of the distributor. In this particular construction, if the distributor seal is damaged, the viscous fluid may leak out of the distributor, thereby rendering the viscous brake inoperative.
It is therefore the principal object of the present invention to take advantage of the larger discharge orifice made possible by locating the orifice directly at the center shaft while at the same time, preventing stream impingement on the distributor shaft seal.
This object is achieved by providing a deflector on the shaft immediately adjacent and downstream of the discharge orifice which directs the discharged stream away from the seal and substantially tangentially onto the stream distributing grooves of the rotatable distributor.
As mentioned above, the preferred sprinkler construction in accordance with this invention incorporates a viscous brake within the distributor. There is a need for easy yet effective filling of the viscous brake chamber and, to do this, it is necessary to permit air in the chamber to escape during filling.
It is therefore another object of the invention to provide an improved viscous brake within the distributor assembly by providing an air vent hole in the distributor housing to permit escape of air during filling of the viscous brake chamber, as well as an associated seal arrangement to prevent subsequent leakage through the vent hole.
This second object is achieved by forming a pair of radially extending holes in the distributor housing, substantially diametrically opposed to each other. One hole is used for filling the viscous brake chamber, the other for venting air as the chamber is filled. An O-ring type seal is used to close the two holes, and the seal is pressed into engagement with the holes by an adjustable distributor cap, as explained in greater detail below.
Thus, in accordance with one aspect of the invention, there is provided a rotary sprinkler having a sprinkler body, a rotatable distributor assembly and a nozzle assembly wherein the rotatable distributor assembly and nozzle assembly are axially fixed in spaced relationship with respect to each other by means of a shaft, and wherein the distributor assembly includes stream distribution surfaces, the improvement comprising a discharge orifice in the nozzle assembly at least partially defined by the shaft and a deflector on the shaft between the discharge orifice and the rotatable distributor assembly for deflecting a stream of fluid emanating from the discharge orifice onto the stream distribution surfaces.
In another aspect, the invention provides a pop-up rotary sprinkler comprising a sprinkler body, a rotatable distributor and nozzle assembly mounted in the sprinkler body for movement between inoperative retracted and operative extended positions in response to fluid pressure within said sprinkler body, said assembly including a rotatable distributor supported at an upper end portion of a shaft and a nozzle assembly surrounding a lower end portion of the shaft, the distributor having a plurality of water distributing grooves, and the nozzle assembly including a discharge orifice having a peripheral surface at least a part of which is defined by a peripheral surface of the shaft; a deflector mounted on the shaft downstream of the discharge orifice and upstream of the distributing grooves and adapted to direct water emanating from the discharge orifice to the distributing grooves.
Other objects and advantages of the present invention will become apparent from the detailed description which follows.

Part circle rotator with improved nozzle assembly


A backlight unit for a liquid crystal device capable of obtaining a high-quality image and reduced in thinness. The backlight unit is disposed below a liquid crystal panel to irradiate light thereoto. A plurality of separate light guide plates define respective blocks. Groups of LEDs each are disposed along an edge of each of the light guiding plates, each of the LED groups emitting light toward a corresponding one of the light guide plates. The each LED group is turned on and off according to the corresponding block.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a backlight unit for a liquid crystal display (LCD) using a light emitting diode (LED) and a light guide plate, more particularly, which can obtain high definition through a high contrast ratio and be reduced in thickness.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, with the trend of a thinner and high-performing image display device, a liquid crystal display is prominently utilized in televisions, monitors and the like. A liquid crystal panel does not generate light on its own so that the liquid crystal display requires a backlight unit (BLU). The BLU has adopted as its light source a cold cathode fluorescent lamp (CCFL) which is inexpensive and easy to assemble together. The BLU using the CCFL performs separate driving such as local dimming or impulsive driving. Besides, the CCFL-based BLU is not environment-friendly due to use of a mercury gas, and low in response rate. To overcome this drawback, the CCFL has been replaced by light emitting diodes (LEDs) as the light source for the BLU.
Meanwhile, in a method to drive the BLU by local dimming, the liquid crystal panel of the liquid crystal display is divided into a plurality of areas and brightness of the BLU light source can be adjusted according to the divided areas by a value of a grey level. That is, light emitting diodes (LEDs) of the BLU corresponding to a brighter area in the displayed image are turned on, and the LEDs corresponding to the rest of the image are turned on with low brightness or completely turned off. In the impulsive driving, the BLU is time-synchronized with the liquid crystal panel. Here, a plurality of light source areas arrayed in rows and columns on a BLU board are turned on sequentially.
In general, the BLU includes a direct-type BLU and an edge-type BLU. In the latter, a bar-shaped light source is disposed at an edge of the liquid crystal panel to irradiate light thereonto through a light guide plate. On the other hand, in the former, a surface light source is disposed below the liquid crystal panel to directly irradiate light thereonto.
FIG. 1 is a perspective view illustrating a conventional edge-type BLU using an LED. Referring to FIG. 1, the BLU 10 includes a light guide plate 11, LED light sources 15 and 17 disposed along edges of the light guide plate 11, respectively, and a reflective plate 19 disposed underneath the light guide plate 11. Each of the LED light sources 15 and 17 includes a printed circuit board 17 and a plurality of LEDs 15 arranged on the board 17. Light incident on the light guide plate 11 from the LEDs 15 is internally total-reflected and scattered, and then transferred to the liquid crystal panel. This edge-type BLU 10 can be manufactured in a relatively small thickness but not suitable for separate driving such as local dimming.
FIG. 2 is a perspective view illustrating a conventional direct-type BLU using an LED. Referring to FIG. 2, the BLU 20 includes a PCB 21 and a plurality of light emitting diodes 23 arranged thereon. A diffusing plate 25 is disposed between a liquid crystal panel (not illustrated) and the LEDs to diffuse light. The LEDs 23 directly irradiate light onto the liquid crystal panel. This direct-type BLU 20 can perform separate driving such as local dimming. In order to achieve such local dimming, each of the LEDs 23 can be controlled to be turned on/off. Alternatively, the BLU is divided into predetermined areas, e.g., A1, A2, and A3 areas to drive the LEDs 23 according to the divided areas. However, the LEDs 23, when driven respectively, entail high consumption power, costs for a heat radiating structure for coping with from high temperature and complicated circuits. Meanwhile, the LEDs, when driven according to the divided areas, experience less local dimming effects due to difficulty in dividing the areas and thickness (H) of the BLU. Notably, here, the BLU should be sufficiently thick to assure uniform light, thereby disadvantageous for thinning the BLU and the liquid crystal display.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Backlight unit for liquid crystal display device


A method of processing data comprising performing a sequence of operation instructions with variable operand size, wherein respective size codes for different source and destination operands are obtained and registered separately from performing the sequence of operation instructions, and the sequence of operation instructions is performed using operand sizes defined by the registered size codes, the operation instructions of the sequence not themselves containing size codes.

A data processor functions in response to machine code instructions. A machine code instruction set may have all instructions of the same length, or may have variable-length instructions. How the machine code instructions are organized depends largely on the specification of the machine code. Common to most organisations is the division of the instruction into one field, the opcode (operation code) which specifies the exact operation (for example "add") and other fields, which may give the type of the operands, their location, or their value directly (operands contained in an instruction are called immediate). The specification and format of the instructions are laid out in the instruction set architecture of the processor in question (which may be a general central processor unit ('CPU') or a more specialized processing unit). The location of an operand may be a register or a memory. The types of operations may include arithmetics, logical operations and data instructions including display or print characters for example, as well as special instructions (such as CPUID and others) and program control.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,649,477 describes certain issues arising with instruction execution in a typical data processor, such as a microcontroller or a microprocessor. The instructions are partitioned into functional routines. These routines perform either a portion of the instruction or the entire instruction, depending on the instruction's complexity. An example is the fetch effective address routine which calculates an effective address and then fetches the sized operand from that address. To perform this operation, it is necessary to provide size information during the address calculation operation. The size is also needed by the bus controller to determine the size of the operand to be fetched from memory. These routines require that the instruction be decoded to reflect the size of the operand to be fetched. Similarly, the instruction operation routine which performs the operation on the operands for the instruction may require their size.
In a machine which performs operations on various sized operands that is controlled by a control structure, it is possible to provide different control sequences for each sized operation. This technique is inefficient, however, for while it is necessary to provide separate control for those operations larger than the size of the available resources, it would be preferable that all sizes less than or equal to those resources should share control sequences and allow secondary decoding of the instruction and provide the determination as to which size should occur.
If there is sharing of code sequences for multiple operations as well as multiple operand sizes, the constraints become more stringent. As an example, there are functional routines provided to evaluate an effective address and to fetch the sized operand. U.S. Pat. No. 4,649,477 refers to data processors having a 16 bit data bus in which there are two different routines, one to fetch a long word operand and the other to fetch a byte or a word operand depending upon the size of the operation. These routines can be called in the execution of any instruction.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,649,477 refers to data processors which perform operations on operands which have their size or length specified as part of the instruction, the operand and register size being controlled implicitly. The size of the operation normally reflects the size of the operand to be operated on for an instruction. There are three operand sizes handled in the examples of processors referred to, namely 8-, 16- and 32-bit operands to perform byte, word and long word operations, respectively. The control used to perform sized operations is derived from the instruction and affects the execution unit, condition codes in the condition code register, the data bus and the bus controller. Other operand sizes are also possible, notably 64-bit, for example.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,649,477 proposes a data processor which has an instruction register for storing an instruction which selects the operation to be performed on the operand and the size of the operand, and a size controller for selectively enabling either the instruction register or another functional block, or a size selector to select the size of the operand so as to allow both implicit residual size control, where the size is calculated by one of several control units, and explicit size control, where the size is selected or forced by the size selector.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,649,477 aims in this way to achieve a simplification in the internal state machine based on selecting the operand sizes by an internal size bus where different sized operands are needed. However, when employing explicit control it applies the same operand size to each register and does not enable dynamic switching of the register sizes, that is to say making the register size part of a task state.

Data processing with variable operand size


Methods of, and systems for, simultaneously compensating for external-magnetic-field inhomogeneity as well as radiofrequency magnetic-field inhomogeneity in an MRI system. In one method embodiment, a pulse sequence is applied when the transmitter-reference frequency is delivered on resonance. The pulse sequence includes radiofrequency pulses which may be applied at arbitrary-excitation-flip angles that are not necessarily 90° degrees. The pulse sequence also includes spin-locking pulses applied in concert with a refocusing-composite pulse. In another method embodiment, a pulse sequence is applied when the transmitter-reference frequency is delivered off resonance. This off-resonance-pulse sequence includes radiofrequency pulses which may be applied at arbitrary-excitation-flip angles that are not necessarily 90° degrees. Sandwiched between the excitation-flip angles are at least two off-resonance-spin-lock pulses applied at an inverse phase and frequency from each other.

Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) is an imaging technique based in part on the absorption and emission of energy in the radio frequency range. To obtain the necessary magnetic resonance (MR) images, a patient (or other target) is placed in a magnetic resonance scanner. The scanner provides a magnetic field that causes target atoms to align with the magnetic field. The scanner also includes coils that apply a transverse magnetic field. Radio-frequency (RF) pulses are emitted by the coils, causing the target atoms to absorb energy. In response to the RF pulses, photons are emitted by the target atoms and detected as signals in receiver coils.
Radio frequency pulses delivered by the coils are precisely calibrated to deliver the appropriate amount of power to maximize tissue contrast. Emitting RF pulses with too much power, however, may result in a host of undesired effects, such as tissue or cellular damage. Specifically, high-power RF-energy levels may cause an overheating of tissues inside a patient, as well as the absorption of harmful levels of radiation. Absorption of electromagnetic energy by the tissue is described in terms of Specific Absorption Rate (SAR), which is expressed in Watts/kg. SAR in MRI is a function of many variables including pulse sequence and coil parameters and the weight of the region exposed. In the United States, for example, the recommended SAR level for head imaging is 8 Watts/kg. Consequently, government restrictions are in place limiting how much power may be delivered into a patient's tissues during RF pulses.
Several techniques, shown to be useful for pathology diagnosis, unfortunately, require substantial RF power and, consequently, SAR levels may be unacceptable for clinical use. Unfortunately, reducing the amount of power delivered to patients to meet acceptable SAR levels produces clinical images with artifacts and reduced tissue contrast. Imperfections in magnetic fields of a scanner interfere with the scanner's ability to produce high-contrast/artifact free images; especially at low RF-power levels.
One conventional technique used to compensate for these imperfections involves injecting intravenous-contrast agents into patients to delineate areas of interest. These contrast agents, however, are often contraindicated for certain patients, and can produce undesirable side effects, including the chance for an anaphylactoid reaction, among other serious risks.
Thus, presently, there is no satisfactory way to produce high-contrast-clinical images free of artifacts, within acceptable SAR levels.

System and method for minimizing MRI-imaging artifacts

The Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania


A semiconductor device that is equipped with an ESD protection element, which has a size increase thereof suppressed, does not require extra process, and can be formed without inducing deterioration of characteristics of the semiconductor device. This semiconductor device includes a semiconductor substrate, a circuit element, that includes a PN junction formed of a region, which is formed on the semiconductor substrate, and which has a conductivity type different from that of the substrate and a protection element for the circuit element. The protection element is a transistor formed of the region, another region having the conductivity type same as that of the region, and the semiconductor substrate. The emitter for the transistor and the semiconductor substrate are connected to each other.

Nowadays, semiconductor devices such as semiconductor integrated circuits are used in a variety of fields, for example, for civilian use such as mobile communications terminals, display equipment, and laptop computers, as well as for industrial use such as various productive equipment and industrial robots. Meanwhile, with the expansion of application filed, a required reliability level is increased. Particularly, in the application fields involving human lives such as medical devices and transportation equipment, an extra-high reliability is required.
However, a semiconductor device having a general structure in which the device is formed on a semiconductor substrate is very vulnerable to ESD caused by, for example, a contact with a person retaining electricity, along with a refinement of rules of wiring on substrate. Thus, to protect such semiconductor device from ESD, an ESD protective element is provided in the input circuit of the semiconductor device.
FIGS. 28 and 29 are circuit diagrams showing the periphery of a protective element of an input circuit of a conventional semiconductor device. In FIG. 28, diodes 30 as ESD protective element are connected between an input terminal 13 and an upper voltage source terminal 15/a lower voltage source terminal 14 to protect each element of the input circuit using breakdown of p-n junction. In FIG. 29, an ESD protective element 31 is connected between an input terminal 13 and a lower voltage source terminal 14. The ESD protective element 31 is composed of several circuit elements, whose examples are disclosed in Patent Documents 1 to 3. The ESD protective elements described in Patent Documents 1 and 2 use breakdown of p-n junction of a transistor therein. The ESD protective element described in Patent Document 3 makes a zener diode and a field effect transistor therein operate with respect to application of overvoltage due to ESD and function as a protective element.
Since these conventional ESD protective elements are provided specially to protect circuit elements such as a transistor in the input circuit, the region for forming the ESD protective element is required in addition to the region which is needed in order that a semiconductor device has its original functions. In the production process, the step for forming the ESD protective element is also required.


A method for cutting sapphire comprising a sapphire body and a coating formed on the sapphire body, the method comprising: focusing a first CO2 laser beam the coating via a CO2 focusing assembly to remove the coating with a predetermined thickness extending along a first path; wherein dust and debris generated during removal of the coating are removed while the coating is removed; focusing an ultrafast laser beam on the sapphire body via an optical path shaping assembly to form a plurality of restructuring channels distributed along a second path and penetrating through the sapphire; wherein the second path coincides with the first path; scanning, by the second CO2 laser beam, the sapphire body via a galvanometer focusing assembly, wherein a path of the second CO2 laser beam scanning the sapphire body via a galvanometer focusing assembly coincides with or deviates from the second path, so that the sapphire cracks along the restructuring channels.

Sapphire is used as a diaphragm of precision instruments, a precision part and a LED (Light Emitting Diode) substrate because of its high hardness, scratch resistance, high temperature resistance, good chemical stability, etc. With a rapid development of the consumer electronics market in recent years, applications of sapphire in the field of consumer electronics have shown a sharp increase. Glass materials applied to cell phone screens, cameras, back buttons and fingerprint recognition modules are replaced gradually by sapphire.
In a conventional sapphire processing process, firstly, sapphire dies are processed, and then other coating processes are performed. Therefore, the processing technic of the sapphire is cumbersome and inefficient. As market demands continue to increase, in sapphire processing, a direct processing of a sapphire composite material with a coating has gradually emerged. However, in general, the direct processing of the sapphire composite material with the coating has a problem that the damage area of the coating is large.

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