The invention teaches derivatives of mycophenolic alcohol and methods of preparing immunogens and other conjugates useful in immunoassays for quantitatively measuring concentrations of mycophenolic acid (MPA) and/or active metabolites of MPA in patient specimens. Antibodies produced from the disclosed immunogens capable of binding to MPA with cross-reactivity of no more than 5% with inactive metabolites and commonly co-prescribed drugs. Further, immunoassays for measuring the concentration of MPA using such antibodies are taught.

Mycophenolic acid (MPA) is a metabolite of the pro-drug mycophenolate mofetil (MMF, CellCept®), widely used for the prevention of rejection in patients receiving renal, heart, or liver transplants. Chemically, MMF is 2-morpholinoethyl(E)-6-(1,3-dihydro-4-hydroxy-6-methoxy-7-methyl-3-oxo-5-isobenzofuranyl)-4-methyl-4-hexenoate. After administration, MMF is rapidly absorbed and hydrolyzed essentially completely to MPA. Biochemically, MPA is a potent and specific inhibitor of inosine-monophosphate dehydrogenase (IMPDH), an enzyme necessary for de novo purine synthesis used by B- and T-lymphocytes. The inhibition of IMPDH by MPA at the cellular level suppresses proliferation of B- and T-lymphocytes, due to their dependency on de novo purine synthesis and, thus, results in immunosuppression at the organism level. MPA is, at times, co-administered with cyclosporine or tacrolimus in transplant patients to further enhance immunosuppression.
MPA has an acceptable therapeutic window in the range of 1–3.5 mg/L in serum or plasma. Because of its immunosuppressive effects, circulating levels of MPA beyond this range are associated with an increased risk of infections or leukopenia. Therefore, levels of MPA must be monitored to insure effective use of the drug while minimizing the risk of adverse side effects in patients.
MPA is further metabolized by UDP-glucuronosyl transferases primarily to a phenolic glucuronide, 7-O-MPAG, which is pharmacologically inactive. However, a minor metabolite, acyl glucuronide (AcMPAG), has been described to have activity similar to that of MPA with regards to inhibiting IMPDH, possibly contributing to the adverse effects of MPA therapy. See Shipkova et al., British Journal of Pharmacology 132:1027–1034 (2001). Therefore, therapeutic drug monitoring in patients receiving MPA is likely improved if levels of the active metabolite, AcMPAG, are also measured as part of the active MPA concentration, while the inactive metabolite, 7-O-MPAG, remains undetectable by the assay.
In developing an immunoassay for the detection of a small molecule target, such as a drug, which often lacks inherent antigenicity, an immunogenic compound must first be made. When the target drug is an immunosuppressant, the challenge to make an immunogenic compound increases. Typically, larger antigenic proteins, polypeptides, or other antigenic biomolecules are conjugated to the drug. Still, the immunogen must be capable of stimulating production of an antibody that interacts specifically with at least a portion of the target drug and not just the conjugated antigenic biomolecule.
Further, detection of a drug in an immunoassay generally requires the use of a detectable component or label including, but not limited to, radioisotopes, enzymes, fluorescent molecules, and particles. The label is typically conjugated to an antibody or antibody fragment, in the case of a sandwich immunoassay, or to the drug or analog of the drug, in the case of a competitive immunoassay.
The chemical structure of MPA is represented by the formula:

Modifications of MPA, for the purpose of developing immunoassays, have been previously described. U.S. Pat. No. 6,225,073 to Alexander et al., incorporated herein in entirety, teaches compounds comprising MPA bound to a polypeptide by replacement of one or more hydrogen atoms in various functional groups. For example, modifications of MPA at existing functional groups, such as the phenolic hydroxy group at position 4 or the carboxyl group at position 1′, are disclosed. Also, the methoxy group at position 6 of the isobenzofuranyl ring system may be cleaved to form a phenolic hydroxy group that is reacted to form an ether linkage. Alternatively, a functional group can be added via oxidation of a C—H bond, for example, the methyl group at position 7 of the isobenzofuranyl ring. Further, Alexander et al. used immunogens prepared by conjugating keyhole limpet hemocyanin (KLH) to MPA via substitution of the hydrogen atom in the phenolic hydroxy group at position 4, or via oxidation of the methyl group at position 7, to produce monoclonal antibodies capable of specifically binding MPA but little or no cross-reactivity to mycophenolic acid glucuronide (MPAG).
U.S. Pat. No. 6,524,808 to Dorn et al., incorporated herein in entirety, discloses conjugates made via attachment of ligands to MPA at a carbon atom in the hexanoic chain. Such conjugates were used for the purposes of making enzyme conjugates for a homogeneous enzyme inhibition immunoassay, not for immunogenic conjugates.

Reagents and methods for mycophenolic acid immunoassay


A naphthalene derivative having the formula is new and useful for medicine. ##STR1## wherein R.sup.1 represents a hydrogen atom, a lower alkyl group or an acyl group;. R.sup.2 independently represents a hydrogen atom, a lower alkyl group, a lower alkoxy group, a halogen atom, a cycloalkyl group, a cycloalkylalkyl group, a hydroxyl group, an aryl group which may be substituted, an arylalkyl group whose aryl group may be substituted, a heteroaryl group, or a heteroarylalkyl group; PA0 R.sup.3 and R.sup.4 are the same or different and represent a hydrogen atom, a lower alkyl group, a lower alkenyl group, an aryl group which may have a substituent, an arylalkyl group whose aryl group may be substituted, an arylalkenyl group whose aryl group may be substituted, a cycloalkyl group, an alkoxyalkyl group, a heteroaryl group, a heteroarylalkyl group, a carboxyl group, a carboxyalkyl group, an aminoalkyl group, or a cyano group; PA0 R.sup.5 represents a group of the formula, --OR.sup.7, (wherein R.sup.7 represents a hydrogen atom or a lower alkyl group), or a group of the formula, ##STR2## (wherein R.sup.8 and R.sup.9 are the same or different and represent a hydrogen atom or a lower alkyl group.

Interleukin-1 (hereinafter referred to simply as IL a protein produced from macrophages, neutrocytes and the like and is a central factor of inflammation and immune systems. Its relation with autoimmune diseases and inflammatory diseases, typical of which is chronic articular rheumatism, is being clarified.
Especially, according to the recent report, it has been found that IL-1 is detected in rheumatoid chronica, particularly in the synovial fluid of chronic articular rhumatics, and the lymph cell emigration factor consists chiefly in IL-1 and that the peripheral hemomonocyte of rhumatics in activity is promoted in the IL-1 productivity.
We attempted to mainly suppress the production of IL-1 so that the automimmune diseases, such as chronic articular rheumatism, and diseases such as inflammatory diseases were cured and prevented.
The chronic articular rheumatism is a chronic inlflammatory disease whose cause is unknown. For medicinal therapy, non-steroid, antiphlogistic drugs have been used and their utility is not satisfactory in respect of the curing and side effects.
We have made extensive studies on compounds having the IL-1 production inhibiting action over a long period of time and found that naphthalene derivatives are excellent in the action.
Naphthalene derivatives are disclosed, for example, in Japanese Laid-open Patent Application No. 61-263943, as having the 5-lipoxigenase inhibiting action.


A control system includes an upstream nitrogen oxide (NOx) control module that increases an upstream NOx level based on an initial upstream NOx level in an exhaust system, and an ammonia (NH3) storage condition detection module that detects a NH3 storage condition based on a difference in a downstream NOx level before and after the upstream NOx level is increased. A method includes increasing an upstream NOx level based on an initial upstream NOx level in an exhaust system, and detecting an NH3 storage condition based on a difference in a downstream NOx level before and after the upstream NOx level is increased.

The background description provided herein is for the purpose of generally presenting the context of the disclosure. Work of the presently named inventors, to the extent it is described in this background section, as well as aspects of the description that may not otherwise qualify as prior art at the time of filing, are neither expressly nor impliedly admitted as prior art against the present disclosure.
Internal combustion engines combust an air and fuel mixture to generate drive torque. The combustion process generates exhaust that is exhausted from the engine to the atmosphere. The exhaust contains nitrogen oxides (NOx), carbon dioxide (CO2), carbon monoxide (CO), and particulates. An exhaust system treats the exhaust to reduce emissions prior to being released to the atmosphere.
In an exemplary exhaust system, a dosing system injects a dosing agent (e.g., urea) into the exhaust upstream of a selective catalytic reduction (SCR) catalyst. The dosing agent breaks down to form ammonia (NH3) that is stored in the SCR catalyst. NH3 stored in the SCR catalyst reacts with NOx to form nitrogen (N2) and water (H2O), which reduces the NOx levels released to the atmosphere.


A module and support structure assembly, in particular for mounting on the windscreen of a passenger compartment of an automotive vehicle, that includes: a module having a housing; and a support structure adapted to carry the module, the housing and support structure comprising respective first and second fixation members cooperating with each other for releasable fixing, in particular by snapping, the module to the support structure. The housing and support structure further comprise cooperating positioning members that are configured to define a receiving position for the module on the support structure, in which the module is not fixed, and to assist in a guided fashion engagement of the first and second fixation members to bring the module in a fixed position.

Automobile vehicles which provide driving assistance are generally constructed with vision systems. For advanced driving assistance, vision systems can be installed in the passenger compartment. For example, a camera can be arranged behind the windscreen in order to make the road visible. Typically, the camera is mounted on a support or bracket, which is then fixed to the windscreen. The driving assistance requires a robust construction of the camera mounting system to be secure and ensure safety of the passengers, especially in case of crash. However, the camera mounting system shall not be a permanent fixation in order to allow the removal of the camera, for example for maintenance. Clipping systems (namely snap fit systems) have therefore been used to facilitate the locking of the camera on the platform.
WO 2013/009368 A1 discloses a retention system, on a mounting structure, for a generally cylindrical component, the retention system comprising: a generally U-shaped metal spring clip comprising a base and a pair of symmetric resilient retainer arms extending from the base and defining an inlet passage; and a member holding the U-shaped spring clip. The retainer arms have a substantially arcuate shape (hourglass-shaped profile), so that each retainer arm contacts the component over a substantial peripheral region, which allows securing the component between the retainer arms.
Current issues with known mounting brackets are the fragility of the releasable fixtures, which may not resist several mounting/dismounting required for maintenance, or may be damaged by a miss-assembly. In some designs, the locking grooves of the fixtures are oriented downwards, facilitating the detachment of the module on used mounting brackets.
Another camera mounting assembly is disclosed in EP 3 258 119. The mounting bracket disclosed therein has an improved retainer design with a metallic spring clip that has proved very robust in practice. Indeed, it allows detaching the camera from the mounting bracket several times, without risking damaging the retainers.


An aircraft seat fastening assembly, due to the use of electroactive polymers, facilitates the compensation of tolerances and the fastening of aircraft seats in the passenger cabin of the aircraft. A fixing actuator contains the electroactive polymer and can be switched electrically between a fixed state, in which a movement of a fastening region is not possible, and a non-fixed state, in which a movement of the fastening region is possible in a vertical direction. The aircraft seats can thereby be displaced in a continuously variable manner along the aircraft seat fastening rail. The aircraft seats can also be locked in a fully automated manner, and possibly from a central location. It is also conceivable to individually control the aircraft seats and/or the group(s) of seats.

Seat fastening means for aircraft are available in different variants.
Mechanical clamping connections are usually used to fasten the seats to the cabin floor. To simplify mounting and to accommodate as large a number of passengers as possible, as a rule, several seats are combined to form a group of seats. The group of seats is fastened, on the cabin floor, to a seat rail which specifies a discrete grid, for example, of one inch. As a result of the fact that the groups of seats have to be mounted individually, there is a high outlay during production and also when exchanging any defective groups of seats. To date, the seat configuration, that is to say, the collective arrangement thereof in the cabin space, also cannot be changed by the crew. In addition, the rigid grid also does not allow for a flexible seat configuration.
For the prior art, reference is made to the following documents:                WO 2009/0 114 751 A2        DE 10 2009 012 626 A1        EP 3 321 174 A1        US 2007/0 063 566 A1        WO 2009/0 092 493 A1        DE 10 2007 059 156 A1

Aircraft seat fastening assembly, seat arrangement and aircraft cabin provided therewith, and aircraft


A satellite communications system provides a communications service to a mobile terminal on which different communications applications may be run. Calls are set up between any of the applications via a satellite to a network management center which provides different service adaptors which adapt the calls to different types of service provided over terrestrial networks such as telephony, facsimile, internet or ATM services. The bandwidth allocated to each call over the satellite link may be varied during the call according to demand either from the relevant application or from the network management center. Multiple calls may be connected concurrently to or from different applications running on the mobile terminal. A maximum bandwidth is allocated to each call. Efficient use is thereby made of the limited bandwidth available over the satellite, according to the instantaneous bandwidth requirements of different applications. For real-time calls requiring multiple slots per frame in a TDMA channel, the slots are mutually spaced apart to reduce delay.

In some satellite and terrestrial mobile communication systems, terminals are available which provide both voice and data communication. For example, some GSM mobile telephones are connectable to data terminals, such as portable computers. During a data call using such mobile terminals, TDMA slots are assigned to the data call in a similar way as to a voice call, so that a constant bandwidth connection is established both in the forward and return direction. Mobile satellite systems, such as the Inmarsat-B™, Inmarsat-C™ and Inmarsat-M™ satellite communication systems, allow fixed-bandwidth data communications.
Such systems are suitable for the exchange of some types of data, but are primarily designed for voice communications, which require a constant symmetrical data rate. Such systems are not optimized for both data and voice communication.
There is an increasing demand for data communications which require intermittent bursts of data to be sent or received at a high data rate, while requiring only low data rate communication at other times. For example, it is desirable when using a Web browser for requested pages to be downloaded as quickly as possible to the user terminal, but little or no bandwidth is required in the forward direction while the user reads the downloaded page. Such usage is also very asymmetrical, since the user only needs to send requests for new pages or small amounts of data in the return direction. The use of such applications over the GSM system is unsatisfactory, since for some of the time during the data call the allocated bandwidth is not used, but while large amounts of data are being downloaded, the allocated bandwidth is insufficient.
Furthermore, it would be desirable to allow multiple calls to be handled concurrently by the same mobile terminal. For example, during a telephone call, a mobile user may wish to refer to data from an online database, or receive an incoming facsimile.
A variable data rate satellite communication system is described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,256,925. In this system, a satellite is used for communication between a plurality of ground stations. Each ground station requests a proportion of the total channel capacity in accordance with the traffic load of voice and data call to that ground station. A reference station in the network allocates the channel capacity among the stations.
An ATM (asynchronous transfer mode) satellite communication system is described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,363,374. Each earth station requests sporadic connection to the communication system and a central management station determines whether to accept or refuse the connection according to the available bandwidth.
The document GB 2 270 815 A discloses a cellular mobile radio system which provides a packet reservation multiple access protocol for implementing a variable bit rate service. The mobile terminals contend for access in the same time slots in which they will transmit information. In order to support variable bit rates, the terminals have the ability to reserve multiple slots in any given frame. Both voice and data calls may be supported in the same frame, with a larger burst size being used for data traffic for greater efficiency, and a small burst size being used for voice traffic to reduce the delay incurred in waiting for enough information from a voice code.
The document EP 0 713 347 A discloses a system for transmission of STM and ATM traffic on a broadband communications network, such as a fiber/coax network or a wireless network in which mobile stations depend on a base station for feedback. ATM calls can be constant bit rate, delay sensitive variable bit rate, delay tolerant variable bit rate or contention based. Delay sensitive variable bit rate calls are allocated time slots in accordance with a statistically weighted incremental bandwidth determination that takes into account existing variable bit rate traffic and the statistical characteristics of the new call request. ATM traffic is assigned a minimum guaranteed bandwidth and any spare bandwidth is assigned among existing ATM calls or used to admit a new ATM call.

Method and apparatus for allocating time slots within a frame of a TDMA frequency channel


An electro-optical device includes a display electrode disposed in an image display region of a TFT array substrate, a pattern portion including at least one of wiring and a circuit element connected to the display electrode directly or through a pixel switching element and provided in a frame region, which defines the periphery of the image display region, and a lower shielding film for covering the TFT array substrate side of at least a portion of the pattern portion. Therefore, in the electro-optical device such as a liquid crystal device, a light-dark pattern due to the wiring and the circuit element provided in the frame region can be prevented from being projected near the edge of a display image.

The present invention relates to the technical field of an electro-optical device such as a liquid crystal device or the like, and particularly to the technical field of an electro-optical device comprising a frame shielding film which defines an image display region, and an electronic apparatus comprising the electro-optical device.
This type of electro-optical device comprises an element array substrate on which display electrodes such as pixel electrodes or stripe electrodes, various wirings such as data lines and scanning lines, switching elements such as pixel-switching thin film transistors (referred to as "TFT" hereinafter) or thin film diodes (referred to as "TFD" hereinafter) are formed, and a counter substrate on which a counter electrode formed in stripes or formed over the entire surface, and a light shielding film are formed. The two substrates are disposed opposite to each other. Furthermore, an electro-optical material such as a liquid crystal is sealed between the two substrates with a sealing material, and an image display region in which the display electrodes are arranged is located nearer to the center (i.e., a region of each substrate which faces the liquid crystal) than a seal region in which the sealing material is present. Particularly, in a plan view of the device (as viewed from the direction perpendicular to the image display region), the frame region of the image display region is defined as a frame shape along the inner line of the seal region by the same film as the shielding film provided on the counter substrate as described above.
A built-in peripheral circuit-type electro-optical device is also generalized, in which peripheral circuits such as a scanning line driving circuit, a data line driving circuit, a sampling circuit, an inspection circuit, etc. are formed in the frame region and the peripheral region in the periphery of the frame region of the element array substrate.
Therefore, wirings led from the image display region to the peripheral region are present in the frame region. Furthermore, when some of the peripheral circuits such as the sampling circuit, and the like, which are connected to the wirings, are formed in the frame region, the circuit elements constituting some of the peripheral circuits are present in the frame region. Namely, a pattern comprising the wirings and the circuit elements is present in the frame region.
The electro-optical device having the above construction is contained in a light-shielding mounting case comprising a display window provided corresponding to the image display region so that the edge of the display window is positioned near the center line of the frame region.

Electro-optical device with a gap of the light shielding layer being in a non-overlapping condition with the drain and the source in plan view


A cell unit for use in a solid oxide fuel cell has a laminate structure including a cell element and a separator. The cell element includes a dense and planar solid electrolyte having a rectangular plane shape, and an air electrode film and a fuel electrode film provided on opposite surfaces of the flat solid electrolyte, respectively. The separator is made of a dense electron conductor. A plurality of oxidizing gas flow paths are defined between the separator and the air electrode, and the cell element has a rectangular planar shape and a ratio of a short side to a long side of the rectangular planar shape is not less than 2.

(1) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to cell units for solid oxide fuel cells and power generators using such cell units.
(2) Related Art Statement
Recently, the fuel cells have attracted public attention as power generators. Since fuel cell is a device which directly converts chemical energy possessed by the fuel to electric energy and which is free from restraint of the Carnot cycle, the fuel cell has an essentially high energy-converting efficiency. In addition, the fuel cell can use a variety of fuels (naphtha, natural gas, methanol, coal-reformed gas, heavy oil, etc.), and has less public nuisance, and its power-generating efficiency is not influenced by the scale of the plant. Accordingly, the fuel cell is an extremely promising technique.
Particularly, since the solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) functions at high temperatures of around 1,000.degree. C., the reaction on the electrodes is extremely high, no catalyst of an expensive noble metal such as platinum is necessary at all, the polarization is small, and the output voltage is relatively high. Thus, the energy-conversion efficiency is conspicuously high as compared with other fuel cells. In addition, since the constituent parts are all constituted by solid material, the SOFC has high stability and long use life.
As mentioned above, since the constituent parts of the SOFC are all solid, SOFCs possessing various structures have been proposed. These SOFCs are broadly classified into planar type and cylindrical type (General Energy Engineerings, 13-2, 1990). Since the electromotive voltage of a cell unit in these SOFCs is about 1 V in an open circuit, and the current density is about several hundreds mA at the maximum, it is important that the cell units, each having a large power-generating area, can be easily connected in parallel and in series in the practical application. From this standpoint of view, the structure of the cell units and their stack (collected cell) must be examined.
However, in the case of the planar cell, it was difficult to produce the cell units having high plane accuracy and large area due to brittleness of ceramics. In order to solve this problem, a method is proposed to interpose a soft material between cell units for electrically connecting the cell units (Japanese patent application Laid open No. 3-55,764). However, the size of the ceramic flat plates to be integrally produced has a limit even in this case, and the structure is complicated. Thus, it is difficult to connect the cell units in parallel, so that it is difficult to increase the intensity of the output current. Furthermore, it is difficult to gas-tightly seal the planar cell units at their ends.
To the contrary, Westinghouse Electric Corporation proposed a currently most advanced production technique of cylindrical cells in which a cylindrical type fuel cell having structurally high strength is employed to mitigate brittleness possessed by ceramics and one end of the cell unit is closed to attain a sealed structure (General Energy Engineerings, 13-2, 1990). Further, this technique is excellent in that the cell units can be easily connected in parallel or in series.
However, since current flows in parallel to the solid electrolyte film in this structure, the current-flowing path is long and power is consumed in this flowing step. In order to solve such a problem, a method is proposed, in which a current-flowing path is provided at a location other than a circumferential direction of the section of the cylinder (Japanese patent application Laid-open No. 63-261,678). However, even in this case, the internal resistance of the cell cannot be decreased to such a degree as in the case that current is passed vertically to the solid electrolyte film. Further, although the above method requires that a gas-tight solid electrolyte film is formed on the porous cylindrical support, it is necessary to use a high technique having low production speed and high production cost, for example, EVD.
On the other hand, since the SOFC is operated at high temperatures of around 1,000.degree. C., the SOFC has an advantage that a cogeneration system may be attained by utilizing waste heat of the SOFC. However, to the contrary, although the fuel gas and the oxidizing gas need be separated in a gas-tightly sealed manner so that they may not be mixed, it is difficult to gas-tightly seal the cell units at high temperatures. For example, the gas-tight sealing member such as a gasket or organic resin can withstand only temperatures up to 500.degree. C.
Recently, sealing means has been proposed with respect to the planar cell unit (Japanese patent application Laid-open No. 2-278,664). According to this publication, planar cell units and gas-separating plates are alternatively laminated, a reserviour is formed around the outer periphery of each cell unit or the entire outer periphery of the laminate, and sealing is effected by filing a molten glass in this reserviour. However, this method has the problem in that when the temperature is repeatedly raised or lowered, the molten glass is repeatedly solidified and melted. Therefore, the sealant has poor durability.
On the other hand, in the above cylindrical cell manufactured by Westinghouse Electric Corporation (General Energy Engineerings, 13-2, 1990), one end of the cylindrical cell unit must be closed. It is difficult from the standpoint of productivity that one end of the cylindrical cell unit is closed with a ceramic material, and suitable strength is given to this sealed portion, although the cylindrical cell unit having opposite ends opened can be relatively easily shaped by extrusion at high productivity. Furthermore, in the case of the power generator using the one-end closed cell units, oxidizing gas-introducing pipes made of a heat-resistive material need be inserted and fixed into inner spaces of the respective cell units. Owing to this, the number of constituent parts largely increases, so that working to insert the oxidizing gas-introducing pipes into respective cell units is great to make the mass production difficult.

Cell units for solid oxide fuel cells and power generators using such cell units


The present invention provides mutant cereal plants and mature grain thereof, characterised by enhanced levels of the enzyme phytase in the grain, and methods for inducing, detecting and selecting the mutant cereal plants. The invention further relates to animal feed comprising said grain having enhanced amounts of phytase.

Phytases (myo-inositol hexakisphosphate phosphohydrolase) [EC 188.8.131.52 and EC 220.127.116.11] are phosphatases that initiate the sequential liberation of orthophosphate groups from phytate (InsP6, myo-inositol 1,2,3,4,5,6-hexakisphosphate), providing phosphate, inositol phosphates and inositol required for a range of cellular activities (Brinch-Pedersen et al., 2002). A number of enzymes with phytase activity are known from plants, animals and microorganisms (Dvorakova, 1998).
Phytases are of particular importance during seed germination where they mobilize phosphate from phytate, the major reserve of phosphorus (P) in plant seeds accounting for ˜70% of the total P (Lott, 1984). Different plant species have developed various strategies for phytase mediated degradation of phytate during germination. Among cereals, barley (Hordeum vulgare L.), wheat (Triticum aestivum and durum L.) and rye (Secale cereale L.) synthesize and accumulate phytase during grain development and the mature seed has a significant level of preformed phytase activity. Levels of phytase activity of 582, 1193 and 5130 U kg−1 have been detected in mature grain of barley, wheat and rye respectively (Eeckhout and de Paepe, 1994). Preformed phytase catalyses the first wave of phytate hydrolysis during early germination. Other cereals possess little (maize (Zea mays L.) ˜41 U kg−1) or close to no (rice (Oryza sativa L.)) preformed phytase activity in the mature seed and depend entirely on de novo synthesis during germination (Eeckhout and de Paepe, 1994).
The spatial and temporal regulation of phytase biosynthesis in plant seeds has profound effects on phosphate bioavailability when dry grains are used as food and feed. Monogastric animals such as pigs, poultry and humans have little or no phytase activity in their digestive tracts and thus depend on either a phosphate supplement or on the presence of the enzyme phytase in their diet, in order to meet their nutritional phosphate requirements. In most cases the amount of preformed phytase activity in mature cereal grain is not sufficient to ensure sufficient phytate degradation when included in animal feed. As a consequence, most of the cereal grain phytate consumed by an animal is excreted, thereby adding to the phosphate load on the environment which can be massive in areas with intense livestock production. One current solution to this problem has been to supplement animal feed, on a large scale, with inorganic phosphate, in order to meet an animal's need for phosphate. However, this solution can only continue in the short term since phosphate is a non-renewable resource, which will be depleted within a few decades. An alternative solution relies on the addition of phytase enzyme, in particular microbial-derived phytase, to feed intended for intense pig and poultry production. It has become common practise to include the enzyme phytase in pre-mixes for addition to animal fodder, and animal fodder, which is an additional cost factor. Thus there exists a need for alternative cheaper methods for enhancing the bioavailability of phosphate in cereals used for animal feed.
A DNA sequence comprising a coding sequence for wheat phytase has been deposited in GenBank (AX298209). Patent application (WO2001/083763A2) describes said wheat phytase as a 66 kDa PAPhy with the same temperature and pH optima as PHYI (Rasmussen et al., 2004), and describes the production of transgenic wheat plants comprising said coding sequence.


A photopolymerizable composition and a presensitized planographic printing plate employing the same are disclosed which comprise a compound having an ethylenically unsaturated bond and a dye represented by the following formula (1) or (2): ##STR1##

Recently, use of a semiconductor laser or a YAG laser is increasing as an image recording laser in view of stability, compact and ease of maintenance. The technique shifting the wavelength of these lasers to shorter wavelength has been sought, and a laser (532 nm) employing SHG of a YAG laser is put into practical use. A method of forming an image is known which comprises the steps of exposing a photopolymerizable composition to a laser such as a semiconductor laser or a YAG laser to cause radical polymerization to harden at exposed portions, whereby difference of physical property between the exposed and unexposed portions is produced, and then to develop to form an image.
In order to form an image employing a laser exposure, a light sensitive composition suitable for a laser light wavelength is necessary, and a radical generating agent as a radical polymerization initiator has been studied. Most radical generating agents alone have absorption only at ultra violet wavelength regions. The agents are ordinarily used in combination with a sensitizing dye capable of absorbing a light emitted from a light source.
Various combinations (hereinafter referred to also as initiator compositions) of a sensitizing dye for a 488 nm argon laser or a 532 nm W-YAG laser with a radical generating agent are known. A specific photo-reducing dye as an effective sensitizing dye is described in U.S. Pat. No. 2,850,445. An initiator composition comprising a dye and amines is disclosed in Japanese Patent Publication No. 44-20189, an initiator composition comprising a biimidazole and a radical generating agent in Japanese Patent Publication No. 45-37377, an initiator composition comprising a biimidazole and dialkylaminobenzylideneketones in Japanese Patent Publication No. 47-2528 and Japanese Patent O.P.I. Publication No. 54-55292, an initiator composition comprising a keto-substituted cumarin and an active halogenated compound in Japanese Patent O.P.I. Publication No. 58-15503, and an initiator composition comprising a substituted triazine and a merocyanine dye in Japanese Patent O.P.I. Publication No. 54-15102. However, the above techniques have problems in sensitivity and storage stability.
A dye having a pyrazolo 1,5-b!1,2,4! triazole nucleus for a photographic material is disclosed in Japanese Patent O.P.I. Publication No. 60-213937, but there is no description therein that a combination of the dye with a radical generating agent can be used as a photopolymerization initiator. Further, there is no description therein of a dye having a pyrazolo 3,2-b!1,2,4! triazole nucleus. It is unexpected that these dyes have a capability of generating a radical.

Photopolymerizable composition and presensitized planographic printing plate employing the same


The invention relates to regenerative, solid sorbents for adsorbing carbon dioxide from a gas mixture, including air, with the sorbent including a modified polyamine and a solid support. The modified polyamine is the reaction product of an amine and an epoxide. The sorbent provides structural integrity, as well as high selectivity and increased capacity for efficiently capturing carbon dioxide from gas mixtures, including the air. The sorbent is regenerative, and can be used through multiple cycles of adsorption-desorption.

Climate change and global warming is considered one of today's the most pressing and severe environmental problems. It is now generally accepted that the main cause for global warming is the release of so-called greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. A major greenhouse gas is carbon dioxide (CO2), which is released predominantly from combustion of fossil fuels such as coal, petroleum and natural gas. Together, these fossil fuels supply about 80% of the energy needs of humanity. Because fossil fuels are still relatively inexpensive and easy to use, and since no satisfactory alternatives are yet available to replace them on the enormous scale needed, they are expected to remain our main source of energy for the foreseeable future.
One way to mitigate CO2 emissions and their influence on the global climate is to efficiently and economically capture CO2 from its point sources, such as from the emissions of fossil fuel-burning power plants and various industrial factories, naturally occurring CO2 accompanying natural gas, and the air, and then to sequester or convert the obtained CO2 to renewable fuels and materials.
Among various CO2 collection or separation techniques, amine solution-based CO2 absorption/desorption systems are still one of the most suitable for capturing CO2 from high volume gas streams. Commonly used solvents in such systems are aqueous solutions of alkanolamines such as monoethanolamine (MEA), diethanolamine (DEA), diisopropanolamine (DIPA), and methyldiethanolamine (MDEA). Certain sterically hindered amines, such as 2-amino-2-methyl-1-propanol (AMP), can also be used as absorbents because of their high CO2 loading capacities. Of these, MEA is most widely used because of its high CO2 absorption rate, which allows use of shorter absorption columns. The MEA system presents major drawbacks, however, including the large amount of heat required to regenerate the aqueous solution and operational problems caused by corrosion and chemical degradation. To prevent excessive corrosion, typically only 10 to 30 weight % MEA is used in an aqueous amine solution, with the rest being water. Because the entire solution, of which 70 to 90% is water, must be heated to regenerate the MEA system, a large amount of energy is wasted during the regeneration process. Other alkanolamine systems also present disadvantages. For example, secondary and hindered amines (e.g., DEA, DIPA, AMP) provide more moderate CO2 absorption rates than MEA, and are also prone to corrosion and chemical degradation. MDEA is known to absorb CO2 only at a slow rate. Formulations formed by blending several alkanolamines are of interest because they can combine favorable characteristics of various compounds while suppressing in part their unfavorable characteristics. A number of blended alkanolamine solutions have been developed, and the most common blends are MDEA-based solution containing MEA or DEA. However, blended alkanolamine solutions do not eliminate the drawbacks of amine solution-based systems.
CO2 can also be captured by adsorption on solid sorbents. Solids are typically used as physical adsorbents for separation of CO2. Such processes are based on the ability of porous solids to reversibly adsorb certain components in a mixture. The solids can have a large distribution of pore size, as in silica gel, alumina, and activated carbon, or a pore size controlled by the crystal structure, e.g., shape selective zeolites. At low temperatures such as room temperature, zeolite-based adsorbents have high CO2 absorption capacities (e.g., 160 mg CO2/g for zeolite 13X and 135 mg CO2/g for zeolite 4A at 25° C. in pure CO2). However, the adsorption capacities of these adsorbents decline rapidly with increasing temperature and in the presence of water or moisture. Further, because gases are only physically adsorbed on the adsorbents, actual separation of an individual gas from a mixture of gases is low.
To achieve a higher selectivity for CO2 adsorption, a compound providing chemical absorption can be applied on the solid adsorbent. For this purpose, an amine or polyamine can be deposited or grafted onto a solid support. Amines and polyamines chemically bound (grafted) on the surface of solids, such as silicas and alumina-silicas, however, show in general limited adsorption capacity of less than 90 mg CO2/g and, in most cases, less than 50-60 mg CO2/g absorbent under dry conditions (Choi, S. et al., Chem Sus Chem, 2, 796-854, (2009)). For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,087,597 to Leal et al. discloses a method for chemisorption of CO2 at room temperature using silica gel having a surface area between 120 and 240 m2/g, which is modified with a polyalkoxysilane containing one or more amino moieties in its structure. The material is disclosed to be capable of absorbing between 15 and 23 mg of dry CO2 per gram of absorbent. U.S. Pat. No. 6,547,854 to Gray et al. discloses a method for preparing amine-enriched sorbents by incorporating the amine onto the surface of oxidized solids. The reported maximum amount of CO2 absorbed on these solids is reported to be 7.7 mg/g absorbent using a gas mixture of 10% CO2 in Helium. As is evident from the data, the amount of CO2 that can be absorbed on the grafted amino group on various solid supports remains relatively low, because of their low amine coverage. Hyperbranched amino silica in which aziridine is polymerized directly off the surface of the silica offers somewhat higher amine content and higher CO2 adsorption capacity (Hicks, J. C. et al., J. Am. Chem. Soc. 130: 2902, 2008).
Another pathway involves impregnating a solid support with amines or polyamines. For example, a paper by S. Satyapal et al., J. Energy and Fuels 15:250 (2001) describes the development of polyethylenimine (PEI)/polyethylene glycol (PEG) on a high surface area polymethylmethacrylate polymeric support. This solid was developed to be used in spacecrafts to remove CO2 from the cabin atmosphere and release it into space. Its capacity is approximately 40 mg CO2/g absorbent at 50° C. and 0.02 atm. CO2. This material and its modifications are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,364,938; 5,876,488; 5,492,683; and 5,376,614 to Birbara et al. The preferred supports described in these patents are of polymeric nature, with acrylic ester resins such as AMBERLITE® being described as having particularly suitable characteristics. U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,376,614; 5,492,683; and 5,876,488 also disclose other possible supports, including alumina, zeolite and carbon molecular sieves. According to U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,492,683 and 5,376,614, however, the amount of amine present on the sorbent is limited, ranging from 1 wt. % to 25 wt. %.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,810,266 to Zinnen et al. discloses a method for creating CO2 sorbents by treating carbon molecular sieves with amine alcohols. This patent discloses that monoethanolamine (MEA)-based materials are not stable and release MEA during the regeneration step at higher temperatures. International Publication No. WO 2004/054708 discloses adsorbents based on mesoporous silica supports. The active components for CO2 adsorption are amines or mixture thereof chemically connected or physically adsorbed on the surface of the mesoporous silicas. Adsorption on most of the adsorbents described in this publication is below 70 mg CO2/g. The best results are obtained by using diethanolamine (DEA), which is physically adsorbed on the support (about 130 mg CO2/g). However, because of the volatility of DEA under the desorption conditions, the effectiveness of this adsorbent generally decreases with increasing number of CO2 adsorption-desorption cycle (a decrease of about 16.8% after 5 cycles at a moderate regeneration temperature of only 60° C.). U.S. Pat. No. 6,908,497 to Sirwardane et al. discloses a method for preparing sorbents by treating a clay substrate having a low surface area of 0.72 to 26 m2/g with an amine and/or ether.
Alcohols, polyethylene glycol and other oxygenated compounds have also been used for decades for acid gas removal, mainly CO2 and H2S. For example, SELEXOL® from Union Carbide (now Dow Chemicals) and SEPASOLV MPE® from BASF are used in commercial processes. Oxygenated compounds in combination with amines as mixed physical or chemical sorbents, in a process such as a glycol-amine process, have also been used for many years for acid gas removal (see Kohl, A. L. and Nielsen, R. B., GAS PURIFICATION 5th ed. 1997, (Gulf Publishing Co.)). U.S. Pat. No. 4,044,100 to McElroy demonstrates the use of mixtures of diisopropanolamine and dialkyl ethers of a polyethylene glycol for removing gases, including CO2 from gaseous streams. The use of ethylene glycol to improve the absorption and desorption of CO2 from amines has also been studied by J. Yeh et al., Energy and Fuels 15, pp. 274-78 (2001). While the literature mainly relates to the use of amines and oxygenated compounds in the liquid phase, the use of oxygenated compounds to improve characteristics of gas sorbents in the solid phase has also been explored. S. Satyapal et al., Energy and Fuels 15:250 (2001) mentions the use of polyethylene glycol in conjunction with polyethyleneimine on a polymeric support to remove CO2 from the closed atmosphere of a space shuttle. X. Xu et al., Microporous and Mesoporous Materials 62:29 (2003) shows that polyethylene glycol incorporated in a mesoporous MCM-41/polyethyleneimine sorbent improves the CO2 adsorption and desorption characteristics of the tested material. Preparation and performance of a solid adsorbent consisting of PEI deposited on a mesoporous MCM-41 is also disclosed (see X. Xu et al., Energy and Fuels 16:1463 (2002)). U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,376,614 and 5,492,683 to Birbara et al. use polyols to improve adsorption and desorption qualities of the adsorbents. Improvements were also noticed by Goeppert et al. (Energ. Environ. Sci. 3:1949-1960, (2010)) and Meth et al. (Energ. Fuel. 26: 3082-3090 (2012)).
Another new material for trapping carbon dioxide are metal organic framework compounds. A preferred compound known as MOF-177 (J. Am. Chem. Soc., 2005, 127, 17998) has a room temperature carbon dioxide capacity of 140 weight percent at a relatively high pressure of 30 bar.
Yet another adsorbent for this purpose is a supported amine sorbent comprising an amine or an amine/polyol composition deposited on a nano-structured support, which provide structural integrity and increased CO2 adsorption capacity. This material is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 7,795,175. The support for the amine and amine/polyol compositions is composed of a nano-structured solid. The nano-structured support can have a primary particle size less than about 100 nm, and can be nanosilica, fumed or precipitated oxide, calcium silicate, carbon nanotube, or a mixture thereof. The amine can be a primary, secondary, or tertiary amine or alkanolamine, aromatic amine, mixed amines or combinations thereof. In an example, the amine is present in an amount of about 25% to 75% by weight of the sorbent. The polyol can be selected from, for example, glycerol, oligomers of ethylene glycol, polyethylene glycol, polyethylene oxides, and ethers, modifications and mixtures thereof, and can be provided in an amount up to about 25% by weight of the sorbent.
Despite these prior disclosures, there still remains a need for an improved sorbent for capturing CO2, which is efficient, economical, readily available and regenerative, and which provides a high removal capacity at ambient as well as elevated temperatures.
Instead of adding polyols and amines based sorbents to enhance the CO2 adsorption/desorption properties, the alcohol groups could be chemically bound to the amines and polyamines. One of the possibilities is to react epoxides with the amino groups of these amines and polyamines. In fact this reaction is commonly used in many applications for the curing of so-called "epoxy resins" where an epoxy resin is reacted with an amino compound (epoxy hardener or curing agent). The two components are generally mixed just before use. Application are numerous and include the formation of adhesives, primers for paints, coatings, production of molds, laminates, castings, fixtures and others. Each primary amino group is theoretically capable of reacting with two epoxide groups, and each secondary amine group is capable of reacting with one epoxide group. The reaction of a primary amine with an epoxide leads to a secondary amine which can itself react further with an additional epoxide to form a tertiary amine, as shown in FIG. 1.
To obtain optimum properties in the product, the curing agent (amine) and epoxide are generally reacted in stoechiometric quantities. To be more precise, the amount of amine N—H bonds is chosen to be equivalent or close to the amount of epoxide groups in the epoxy resin, so that all the amine N—H bonds and epoxide groups would react to form a solid.
The formation of a solid where all the amine N—H bonds would have reacted to form mostly tertiary amines would not result in the most efficient CO2 adsorption characteristics. Thus, these prior art material do not disclose or inherently provide desirable CO2 adsorption.
The reaction of an amine with an epoxide increases the molecular weight of the obtained compounds resulting in a lower volatility. This is particularly important for relatively low molecular weight amines such as for example diethylenetriamine (DETA) triethylenetetramine, (TETA) and tetraethylenepentaamine (TEPA) which have a tendency to leach out when impregnated on solid support as was shown in a number of papers (Qi, G. et al. Energy Environ. Sci. 2012, 5, 7368; Liu, S.-H. et al. Adsorption 2012, 18, 431.; Yan, W. et al. Ind. Eng. Chem. Res. 2012, 51, 3653.; Wang, W. et al. Energy & Fuels 2013, 27, 1538; Qi, G. G. et al. Energy Environ. Sci. 2011, 4, 444.). When epoxides containing several epoxide groups (2, 3 or more) are used, crosslinking can occur between amines.
The crosslinking of amines with epoxides for the purpose of capturing CO2 has been described to some extent. Andreopoulos et al. (Polymers Advanced. Technol. 1991, 2, 87-91) describes the impregnation of polyethylene fibers with polyethylenimine (PEI, Mw˜50000-60000)/epoxy resin (Epon 828). The CO2 adsorption capacity obtained was, however, very low, most likely due to the poor surface area of the support. There is no mention of recyclability of the adsorbent. The solvents used for the preparation of the adsorbents were methanol, acetone and dimethylformamide (DMF) which are not benign.
Li et al. (J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2008, 108, 3851) coated PEI (Mw-25000)/epoxy resin (Bisphenol A epoxy resin) on a glass fiber matrix and obtained higher CO2 adsorption capacities than the ones reported by Andreopoulos et al. The presence of moisture had a significant positive effect on the adsorption capacity. The solvents used for the preparation for the adsorbent were methanol and DMF.
Gebald et al. (WO 2010/091831 A1) also described the preparation of adsorbents based on fibrous materials on which crosslinked amine was impregnated. The crosslinked amine was the result of the reaction of an amine with an epoxy resin. The authors only described the reaction of two types of amines, i.e. PEI and TEPA, and one type of epoxy resin, i.e. D.E.R. 332, a bisphenol A diglycidylether manufactured by Dow Chemicals. The solvent used for the preparation of the adsorbent was ethanol.
A sorbent based on PEI and D.E.R. 332 on carbon fiber lead to an adsorption capacity of 56.8 mg CO2/g adsorbent from a gas mixture containing 500 ppm CO2 and 100% humidity at 20° C. At 50% relative humidity a much lower adsorption capacity of only 12.5 mg CO2/g was obtained. Reacting TEPA with D.E.R. 332 gave an adsorbent with an adsorption capacity of 82.5 mg CO2/g with a 50% relative humidity at 20° C. The PEI based adsorbent was tested for recyclability in three consecutive adsorption/desorption cycles during which, the adsorption capacity remained similar. On the other hand, the adsorbent based on TEPA was not submitted to a similar treatment and recyclability was therefore not demonstrated. In the example for the preparation of TEPA/epoxy resin containing sorbent, the amount of epoxy resin was 0.55 g or 0.00161 mol. The amount of TEPA used was 5 g or 0.02641 mol. Even taking into account that the epoxy resin (D.E.R. 332) has two epoxide groups in each molecule able to react with amino groups, the molar ratio of TEPA/epoxide groups is still only 8.2 (amino groups/epoxide groups ratio of 41). Ideally a ratio of 1 or lower would be necessary for all TEPA molecules to react with at least one epoxide group. This means that due to this high ratio, a majority of the TEPA added at the beginning of the reaction is probably still present, unreacted, in the adsorbent material. The volatility problem of TEPA and other low molecular weight amines have been presented vide supra. It is therefore likely that the adsorbent based on TEPA described in this patent suffers from some leaching problems. Interestingly, the weight of the TEPA based adsorbent during TGA analysis dropped by only 28.5% when heated up to 750° C., which was significantly lower than the 50% expected, indicating some possible loss of TEPA during the preparation itself.
Pfeifer et al. (U.S. Pat. No. 8,557,027) described the preparation of epoxy-amine materials for the purpose of CO2 adsorption. The obtained materials were, however, not impregnated or deposited on any support. Their adsorption capacity seemed therefore quite limited at ambient to moderate temperatures (25-50° C.) and they exhibited their highest, although still limited, adsorption capacity at around 80-110° C. This implies that the CO2 desorption would require even higher temperatures and/or a combination with lower pressure, meaning a higher energy input during the desorption. Furthermore, when porogens were used during the preparation to increase the surface area, an additional step of extraction of these porogens with solvents was required at the end of the synthesis.
Meiller (U.S. Pat. No. 4,112,185) described the preparation of an ion exchange resin based on modified porous materials with their surface covered with a cross-linking polymer resulting from the reaction of a polyamine with an epoxide. However, the epoxide compound was generally added in excess (by weight) compared to the amine compound, leading most probably to the formation of a large proportion of tertiary amines. While this resulted in materials with suitable properties for ion exchange application they would have had limited activity for CO2 capture.
Considering the state of the art described here, improvements to the prior art materials is therefore now needed. The present invention now addresses the deficiencies of the prior art to provide new materials as well as their preparation on suitable supports for use in CO2 adsorption.

Regenerative adsorbents of modified amines on solid supports


A connector has a plurality of holes formed in an insulating layer. Contacts inside these holes have contact parts at the top and bottom. Each contact has a base part, a pair of contact parts which extend up and down from the base part, a lip which is connected to the base part, and a latching part. Inside the holes of the insulation layer, there is a guide groove, which houses and retains the contact by the lip, and a stopper, which prevents the contact from slipping out by interfering with the latching part of the contact. The holes of the insulation layer house and retain the contacts while allowing for vertical movement of the contacts in the thickness direction of the insulation layer. The compression connection type connector can be aligned by a depositing device and also has a stable contact pressure.

Examples of connectors of the prior art for connecting the electrode terminals of LGA electronic components, such as LSI (Large Scale Integration) or IC (Integrated Circuit) components, and printed boards and the like are shown in FIGS. 6A, 6B, 7A and 7B.
With the type shown in FIGS. 6A and 6B, a connector 110 is sandwiched between electronic components 101, 102 as shown in FIG. 6A as the electronic components 101, 102 are brought closer to each other. As shown in FIG. 6B, by having a plurality of electrodes 101a, 102a of both components push against and contact contact parts 132a, 132b of connector 110, the electronic components become electrically connected with each other via a contact 130 which is a conductor.
With connector 110, C-shaped contact 130 is a spring that is held in place by a protrusion 120a which is placed at the end of the spring. Contact parts 132a, 132b can be elastically deformed in the vertical direction.
However, because contact 130 is retained within hole 121 by protrusion 120a, as shown in FIG. 6B, when there is a connection, spring ends 132c, 132d interfere with protrusion 120a.
As a result, the repellent force of the spring is not always the same, and achieving a stable contact pressure for the contact parts becomes difficult.
In Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication Number 5-226043, a contact body with a two-layer ohm-shaped construction is placed inside a housing. The contact body is retained between an upper and lower inner wall (chamber inner wall). However, with this construction, because there is variability in the spacing between the contact body and the upper and lower inner wall, there is variability in contact pressures between the plurality of contact points.
In addition, with the type shown in FIGS. 7A and 7B, FIG. 7B shows how a contact 140 is inserted into a hole 150. FIG. 7A shows a longitudinal cross-section in an area near the groove area when the contacts are attached. As shown in FIG. 7A, there is a lip 141 on contact 140. Lip 141 is pushed into groove 151 inside hole 150.
However, with this construction of affixing contact 140 by insertion and sandwiching of lip 141 in this way, the insertion position is not stable. The affixing position of the contact can be variable in the thickness direction of insulation 120. As a result, when there are a plurality of contact parts 142a, 142b, the contact pressure is not stable.
In addition, the shape of contact 140 is not vertically symmetrical due to the insertion orientation. Each of the plurality of contacts must have their orientation determined before insertion into hole 150. Productivity is extremely poor.
Upon considering the technical problems described above, the present invention provides a connector with a simple construction and which can achieve a stable connection pressure.

Connector with self-adjusting vertical alignment feature


The present application discloses a phase adjustment method and apparatus for an antenna array. The method includes: dividing the antenna array into a first antenna subarray and a second antenna subarray according to a first division rule in a preset division rule set; obtaining a phase difference between a first aggregated signal corresponding to the first antenna subarray and a second aggregated signal corresponding to the second antenna subarray; determining a to-be-adjusted phase value of each antenna array element in the antenna array according to the phase difference and a first weighting rule; and sending, to a phase shifter corresponding to each antenna array element, the to-be-adjusted phase value corresponding to the antenna array element.

In a microwave system that includes an antenna array, each antenna array element in the antenna array corresponds to one phase shifter whose phase shift angle can be adjusted. A phase of a transmitted or received signal on each antenna array element may be independently changed by adjusting the phase shifter. In actual application, a phase of an antenna array element in an antenna array is changed by adjusting a phase shifter, so that transmitted or received signals are coherently combined in an expected beam direction, so as to maximize a transmit gain or a receive gain of the antenna array in the expected beam direction.
For example, as shown in FIG. 1, in an antenna array that includes four antenna array elements, each antenna array element corresponds to one signal channel, and current phases of phase shifters corresponding to all the antenna array elements are respectively Ψ1, Ψ2, Ψ3, and Ψ4. When an expected beam direction is at θ, spatial channel phases that are obtained through estimation and that correspond to all the antenna array elements are φ1, φ2, φ3, and φ4. In this case, after signals transmitted by the four antenna array elements are propagated through spatial channels, phases that are obtained through estimation and that are of the signals that arrive at a receive end are P1=Ψ1+φ1, P2=Ψ2+φ2, P3=Ψ3+φ3, and P4=Ψ4+φ4. To maximize a transmit gain of the antenna array in the expected beam direction by ensuring phase alignment for the antenna array elements in the antenna array at the receive end, the phases of the phase shifters need to be adjusted, so that P1=P2=P3=P4.
Currently, a commonly used phase adjustment method is as follows. A spatial channel phase corresponding to each antenna array element is estimated according to an expected beam direction. The spatial channel phase obtained through estimation and a current phase value of a phase shifter corresponding to the antenna array element are added to obtain a final phase of a transmitted signal or a received signal corresponding to the antenna array element. The phase value of the phase shifter corresponding to the antenna array element is adjusted, so that a final phase value corresponding to the antenna array element reaches a target phase value, so as to implement phase alignment.
However, in the phase adjustment method currently used, phase adjustments need to be performed on all antenna array elements one by one, and when a phase adjustment is performed on a single antenna array element, only the antenna array element is in an active state, and other antenna array elements cannot work. Consequently, a loss to an array gain of an antenna array is caused, and accordingly the antenna array has relatively low working efficiency.

Phase adjustment method and apparatus for antenna array


Some embodiments of a medical instrument can be configured to reduce the formation of coagulum by delivering a negative charge bias to conductive surfaces that interface with blood or bodily tissue during a medical procedure. The application of the negative charge at the instrument-blood interface can reduce the fibrinogen deposition and the formation of coagulum because fibrinogen molecules in general are negatively charged at neutral pH levels. In addition, some embodiments of the instrument may be configured to irrigate the instrument-blood interface with RGD/ClfA peptides, a bicarbonate solution (or other high pH solution), or both to further repel the fibrinogen and thereby inhibit the formation of coagulum. Accordingly, some embodiments of the medical instrument can substantially reduce the risks of thromboembolism during particular medical procedures.

A number of medical treatments include the insertion of catheters, implants, or other devices into the patient's blood stream. Such contact with the blood may cause thrombus formation and subsequent embolization. Various therapies may be used to limit these consequences, including the infusion of heparin or other anticoagulants into the bloodstream.
In one example, radiofrequency (RF) ablation can be used to treat various arrhythmias including atrial fibrillation, ventricular tachycardia and supraventricular tachycardia. RF ablation can be performed percutaneously, a procedure in which a catheter is introduced into the patient through an artery or vein and directed to the atrium or ventricle of the heart to perform one or more procedures. In such circumstances, the RF ablation procedure is used to destroy the tissue causing the arrhythmia in an attempt to remove the electrical signal irregularities or create a conductive tissue block to restore normal heart rhythm. Successful ablation of the conductive tissue at the arrhythmia initiation site may terminate the arrhythmia or reduce the frequency of the arrhythmia to acceptable levels. When multiple applications of energy are required to treat a clinical arrhythmia (e.g., atrial fibrillation or ventricular tachycardia), thrombus formation and subsequent embolization giving rise to stroke or other embolic sequelae become an important limiting factor. In an effort to limit such complications, therapy such as intravenous anticoagulation can be employed (e.g., infusion of heparin or other anticoagulants to the blood).
Although heparinization can reduce the chance of thrombus formation associated with denuded endothelium, stroke and other thromboembolic events may occur despite adequate heparinization. For example, during RF ablation clotted components (e.g., coagulum) of blood may form along the tip portion of the ablation catheter and the ablated tissue, increasing the effective impedance between the ablation catheter and tissue and also increasing the risk of embolization of the coagulum. One reason is that RF ablation is associated with a direct conversion of fibrinogen to fibrin and subsequently to char. This fibrin and char can potentially lead to embolization even in the absence of thrombin. Accordingly, the coagulum can be formed during RF ablation even if heparin is adequately supplied to reduce thrombin in the blood.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research


An ergonomic finger tab includes a tab plate with a contoured upper surface to receive and support the fingers of an archer during execution of an archer shot. The upper surface contains a plurality of spaced parallel contours extending from the forward edge of the tab plate to a position short of the rear edge of the tab plate. A palm extender is adjustably connected with the tab plate adjacent to its rear edge. The palm extender preferably includes a pivotal palm plate which can be pivoted to provide a reference point for the archer when positioning the shooting hand on the finger tab.

When firing an archery shot, archers often use a finger tab to protect their fingers from damage from the string of a bow, particularly after repetitive shots. Repetitive shots may also damage the tendons in the archer's hands. Finger tabs help to alleviate pain and damage to the archer. Many archery instructors and coaches encourage their students to use finger tabs.


A tool for notifying a recipient of an email message, belonging to an email thread, that a recipient address has been added to or dropped from the thread. Address fields of the email message received are compared to the address fields of the most recent prior email message in the thread. Addressed that are determined to be added or dropped are stored in the metadata of the email message received so the added or dropped recipient addresses can be accessed to notify recipients of subsequent emails in the email thread. The metadata of previous email messages in the email thread are accessed to notify the recipient of recipient addresses added or dropped between any two consecutive email messages in the thread.

Electronic mail (email) is a widely used format to communicate over the Internet. The use of email is commonplace for personal and business use. Individuals use email to communicate with other users. Additionally, electronic documents can be attached to and sent with the email messages.
Email may be exchanged between clients via servers. The servers play a role that may include both enhanced functionality and storage for email messages and any attached files.
In one method for transferring email messages, an email program may reside in part on a user's computer. The user drafts the email message on the user's computer (including entry of at least one recipient address in an address field and entry of a body of the email) and the email program replicates the message (i.e., copies, uploads) to an email server computer, which may sometimes be provided by an Internet Service Provider (ISP). The email message is subsequently replicated (i.e., copied, downloaded) to a recipient's computer, from the email server computer.
Another common technique for sending and receiving email messages is for an email program to operate primarily at the server computer. For example, in a web-based email program (webmail) a client may access the server computer and draft an email message in a user interface operating on the client computer. Upon "sending" the email message, the server computer stores the email message in association with the recipient. In web-based email programs, a copy is not typically stored on the client computer. The recipient may access the server computer from a client computer and view the email message in a user interface on the client computer. The email message need not be stored on the recipient client computer. Some email programs are capable of both techniques at a user's discretion.
An email messaging program (e.g., an electronic mail program) typically includes or has access to a directory of recipient addresses, which may be on a local client computer or on a server computer. In a business environment, the directory typically includes the recipient addresses of all employees in the same company.
An email messaging program generally has the ability to organize email messages into threads. An email thread (or simply "thread") is a group of email messages all relating to a single topic. There are different ways in which an email message can be identified as belonging to a thread. The email messaging program could look for matching subject lines of messages. Another way in which a message could be identified as belonging to a thread would be by use of a unique identifier present in each message belonging to the thread. Such an identifier need not be found in the subject line portion of the message.

International Business Machines Corporation


A switch fabric system comprises a first chassis for receiving a plurality of line cards each having a plurality of ports and at least two switch fabric cards wherein each line card comprises a plurality of link ports for linking the line card with the switch fabric card. Each switch fabric card provides a switching bandwidth. The system comprises a management unit for managing the traffic on the switch fabric cards wherein the management unit removes the traffic from one switch fabric card if the one switch fabric card is to be removed while the other switch fabric card operates and transfers the traffic to the other switch fabric card.

Current Storage Area Networks (SANs) are designed to carry block storage traffic over predominantly Fibre Channel standard medium and protocols using fabric networks comprising local area networks (LANs). Expansion of SAN fabric networks is limited in that conventional SAN fabric channels cannot be implemented over geographically distant locations. Conventional Fibre Channel architecture is not suitable for WAN/LAN applications. While SCSI and Ethernet may be used to implement a WAN/LAN, these two protocols are not efficient for storage applications. Accordingly, current SAN fabric networks are limited to a single geographic location.
There exist several proposals for moving block storage traffic over SANs built on other networking medium and protocol technologies such as Gigabit Ethernet, ATM/SONET, Infiniband, and the like. Presently, to bridge or interconnect storage data traffic from SANs using one medium/protocol type to another SAN using an incompatible protocol/medium type requires devices and software that perform the necessary protocol/medium translations. These translation devices, hereinafter referred to as "translation bridges," make the necessary translations between incompatible protocol/mediums in order to serve the host computers/servers and storage target devices (the "clients"). Interconnecting heterogeneous SANs that may be easily scaled upward using these translation bridges is very difficult because the translation bridges usually become the bottleneck in speed of data transfer when the clients (servers and/or storage devices) become larger in number. In addition, in a mixed protocol environment and when the number of different protocols increase, the complexity of the software installed on the translation bridges increases, which further impacts performance.
A limitation of the size of SAN fabric networks, in terms of storage capacity, is cost and manpower. In order to expand the storage capacity of a SAN fabric network, storage devices such as disk drives, controllers, fiber channel switches and hubs, and other hardware must be purchased, interconnected and made functionally operable together. Another major, if not primary, expense is the cost of managing a SAN. SAN management requires a lot of manpower for maintenance and planning. For example, as storage capacity grows, issues such as determining server access to storage devices, backup strategy, data replication, data recovery, and other considerations become more complex.
It is desirable that next generation storage network switch systems will have ingress and egress ports that support different protocols and network media so that different types of host computer/servers and storage target devices may be attached directly to the switch system and start communicating with each other without translation overhead. In order to communicate between any two ports, the source and destination ports must be identifiable in both the source and destination protocol. For example, to send a message or frame from a Fibre Channel port to a Gigabit Ethernet port, the destination port needs to appear as a Fibre Channel port to the connected Fibre Channel source, and the source port needs to appear as a Gigabit Ethernet port to the destination port.
Storage Area Network (SAN) and networking products are usually used in mission critical applications and housed in chassis or racks. When a customer wants to expand this system, one or more chassis are added into the existing domain. However, the user has to power down the existing system and reconnect the new chassis into the existing system. Once the new configuration or topology is complete, the user will have to power on the new system. Unfortunately, this upgrade causes system downtime and potentially loss of revenue.
Switches have a limited resource—the switch fabric or routing core. A non-blocking switch must have enough bandwidth to receive traffic at full speed from all ingress ports and direct the traffic to the egress ports without dropping traffic, assuming that the traffic is spread equally across all egress ports and does not congest one of them. Therefore, if all ports connected to the switch have the same data rate, then the switch fabric must have bandwidth greater than the number of ports multiplied by the port speed if it wants to be a non-blocking switch that does not drop traffic.
The problem with existing switches is that the internal switch fabric is fixed in size. If large scalability is desired one has to pay for a large switch fabric that initially is not needed. In present systems a smaller switch has to be replaced when more capacity is needed by a larger switch. This is a disruptive upgrade that causes all nodes connected to the switch to loose connectivity while the upgrade is occurring. In another scenario, multiple smaller switches can be interconnected using lower bandwidth interconnects. However, these interconnects can become congested and limit the throughput of the network.
The majority of the SAN switches are not expandable and typically have a limited number of ports, for example, 16 ports. When a customer needs more than 16 ports two or more of the 16 port switches must be connected together. Unfortunately, to achieve a non-blocking switch in a typical configuration half of the ports on the switch are then used for interconnect purposes.
Some larger switches are based on a chassis design where cards plug into a backplane. This design allows the user to add and remove ports. However, switches are typically designed with a fixed amount of switching bandwidth. The cost of this bandwidth must be amortized over each port. Therefore, if you purchase a switch with large growth potential but start with a modest number of ports you have a higher initial investment than necessary. Also, when a customer fills up the chassis the system still has the problem of expansion. If a chassis supports non-blocking expansion, then it normally has to have twice the required bandwidth.
Furthermore, to expand a system according to the prior art, the system usually has to be shut down. Depending on the design of the system, there might be a significant time gap between the shutdown and the power up of the expanded system due to reconfiguration time and manual labor that has to be performed. This will cause significant loss of revenue during down time.
Thus, there is a demand for a more user friendly system reducing the downtime and overall cost of a network switch fabric system.

System and method for expansion of computer network switching system without disruption thereof


An electronic apparatus includes first and second panels. A scanning line driving circuit is formed in each of the first and second panels. The scanning line driving circuit can perform a scanning to select k scanning lines for every k lines from m scanning lines. A first start pulse signal supplied to the first panel and a second start pulse signal supplied to the second panel can be temporarily shifted only an integer multiple of half of a horizontal scanning period of the scanning. Thus, even when a high-definition image is displayed at a high speed using the scanning, the position of a display image can be minutely adjusted, and thus a high-quality image can be displayed.

1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to an electronic apparatus, an electronic apparatus control device, a method of driving the electronic apparatus, and a method of driving an electro-optic device.
2. Related Art
A projector is an electronic apparatus that radiates light to a projection type electro-optic device or a reflection type electro-optic device and projects transmitted light or reflected light modulated by such an electro-optic device onto a screen. The projector has the advantage of displaying a large screen since the projector is configured such that light arriving from a light source is condensed and caused to be incident by the electro-optic device and transmitted light or reflected light modulated according to an electric signal is expanded and projected to the screen through a projection lens. A liquid crystal device is known as an electro-optic device used in such an electronic apparatus. The liquid crystal device forms an image using dielectric anisotropy of liquid crystal and optical activity of light in a liquid crystal layer. To display a color image, a red image, a green image, and a blue image are projected in an overlapping manner to a screen using three liquid crystal devices, that is, a red liquid crystal device, a green liquid crystal device, and a blue liquid crystal device.
The positions of the three images have to be identical on the screen. An example of a technology for adjusting the positions of images is disclosed in JP-A-8-102901. The technology of JP-A-8-102901 is known as electric alignment and is a technology for adjusting positions at which images are displayed within an effective screen by changing signals supplied to the liquid crystal devices.
On the other hand, in the liquid crystal devices, there are a case in which scanning lines are selected one by one and a case in which the scanning lines are selected two by two, as disclosed in JP-A-2012-49645, according to the display method.
When the electric alignment method disclosed in JP-A-8-102901 is applied to the liquid crystal device that utilizes the display method of selecting the scanning lines two by two, as disclosed in JP-A-2012-49645, the positions of the displayed images are misaligned normally by an integer multiple corresponding to two scanning lines, and thus minute adjustment of changing the positions of the displayed images in units of one scanning line may not be achieved. In other words, in the electro-optic devices of the related art, there is a problem that it is difficult to realize high-quality image display according to circumstances.

Electronic apparatus, electronic apparatus control device, method of driving electronic apparatus, and method of driving electro-optic device


Embodiments of the disclosure include methods and compositions for treatment of a medical condition related to the liver, including at least viral infections and liver cancer, for example. In specific embodiments, immunotherapies are provided for delivering polynucleotides locally to the liver, wherein the polynucleotides encode particular gene products that include bispecific antibodies, including those that target certain liver antigens, for example.

The field of immunotherapy has promise in treating various infectious diseases and cancers with recent success in clinical trials. Through engineering or activating host immune cells, either artificially in vitro or in vivo, these diseases can potentially be reversed. However, these therapies can hold significant toxicities, lack of persistence, and dosing limitations. New methods that solve these limitations, maximizing the efficacy of treatment while minimizing off-target and off-organ toxicity are needed.
The present disclosure satisfies a long-felt need in the art by providing effective targeted immunotherapies for medical conditions that affect a particular tissue or organ, while lacking systemic side effects and toxicity, in at least certain aspects.

Antibody based gene therapy with tissue-directed expression


The present invention provides a per-flow dynamic buffer management scheme for a data communications device. With per-flow dynamic buffer limiting, the header information for each packet is mapped into an entry in a flow table, with a separate flow table provided for each output queue. Each flow table entry maintains a buffer count for the packets currently in the queue for each flow. On each packet enqueuing action, a dynamic buffer limit is computed for the flow and compared against the buffer count already used by the flow to make a mark, drop, or enqueue decision. A packet in a flow is dropped or marked if the buffer count is above the limit. Otherwise, the packet is enqueued and the buffer count incremented by the amount used by the newly-enqueued packet. The scheme operates independently of packet data rate and flow behavior, providing means for rapidly discriminating well-behaved flows from non-well-behaved flows in order to manage buffer allocation accordingly. Additionally, the present invention adapts to changing flow requirements by fairly sharing buffer resources among both well-behaved and non-well-behaved flows.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to internetworking systems and in particular to methods and apparatus for managing traffic flow in routers and switches.
2. Description of the Related Art
Internetworking encompasses all facets of communications between and among computer networks. Such communications data flow streams may include voice, video, still images, and data traffic. All have widely varying needs in terms of propagation delay (or latency) during transit through the network. Various systems and devices, both in hardware and in software, have attempted to deal with the plethora of data flow requirements present in modern internetworking systems.
One such scheme consists of attempting to regulate the traffic within the router or switch connecting multiple networks in the typical internetworking system at either the data link or network function levels. (The functions performed at each level are defined in the open systems interconnection (OSI) reference model. This model is well known in the art. See, e.g., Merilee Ford, et al., Internetworking Technologies Handbook, Cisco Press 1997.) Such schemes attempt to provide fair allocation of data throughput capacity (bandwidth) by allocating router buffer and/or queue space according to the type of packets in each flow stream received.
A particular problem in internetworking traffic regulation arises from the variety of traffic sources or flows presented to the router/switching device. Referring to FIG. 1, illustrating a high-level schematic view of the operation of a prior art router/switch 10, a number of input flows 20 are presented to the unit. These flows each consist of multiple packets of data, in a variety of sizes and presented at a variety of rates. Additionally, flows may be presented in different protocols, such as the Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) and the related User Datagram Protocol (UDP), File Transfer Protocol (FTP), Terminal Emulation Protocol (Telnet), and Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP). Other internetworking protocols are found in the literature, such as Merilee Ford, et. al., Internetworking Technologies Handbook, Cisco Press 1997, incorporated herein by reference in its entirety. The packets are buffered in a buffer pool 30, which is typically random access memory (RAM). Buffering is accomplished according to the directives of a controller 60 and a buffer manager 25. The flows are sent to the proper output port 70 by way of a set of output queues 40 and a port scheduler 50, discussed below. Controller 60, buffer manager 25, and port scheduler 50 are conventionally implemented as one or more high speed microprocessors with associated interface circuitry. Buffer manager 25 and port scheduler 50 are also implemented as ASICs.
Some flows are well-behaved in the event of traffic congestion: when faced with packet drops (i.e., packets discarded deliberately by a downstream device due to congestion at that device), these "good" (robust) flows reduce their flow rates and send less packets per unit of time. Other flows, however, are not well-behaved. These non-adaptive "aggressive" flows (NAFs) do not throttle back the flow of packets to the router when they experience drops. This may be because the NAFs do not recognize the congestion, sometimes due to protocol incompatibilities, or (more likely) because they actually are trying to capture more router bandwidth. The latter situation arises particularly in flows sent by sources that consider themselves higher priority than all others (hence the term "aggressive"); such priority assumptions by one flow are often in error in the modem, highly heterogeneous networks seen today.
Several regulation schemes are known in the art. Broadly classified, these schemes fall into two types: queue-based and buffer-based.
In queue-based schemes, incoming flows are classified according to their actual priority, as determined by the receiving router, and assigned accordingly to output queues within the router. High priority flows, such as time-sensitive voice traffic, are placed in a queue that is read out more often. Low priority flows, such as file transfer protocol (FTP) or hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) flows, are placed in queues that are read out of the router at a slower rate. Numerous schemes, discussed below, are used to control the buffering and enqueuing methods to achieve a measure of throughput balance or fairness among flows, thus managing router/switch bandwidth as efficiently as possible. As will be seen, however, all of these schemes have drawbacks in cost, capacity, and efficiency that suggest a better scheme is needed.
In the extreme, queue-based flow management assigns one queue per input flow. Queues are read out of the router according to statistically fair scheduling process, such as round-robin employing port scheduler 50. In round-robin scheduling, one packet is read out of each queue, one queue at a time, reading again from the first queue only when one packet has been read out from every other queue. This system is known as fair queuing (FQ), or weighted fair queuing (WFQ). While FQ and its variants operate well when the number and variety of input flows is small and well-behaved, they becomes inefficient when the number of flows grows. Clearly, a high number of flows requires a large number of queues, consuming a proportionally larger amount of resources, both in hardware and in operational complexity. More memory and more software processing overhead is required to set up and tear down the queues as flows begin and end. In the context of the modem, high volume networks seen today, this extra cost and complexity is undesirably inefficient.
A less extreme queue-based technique is random early drop (RED) and variants thereon. In a RED scheme, a smaller number of queues (less than the total number of input flows present at any time) is maintained. Flows are segregated into queues by flow volume, with a number of high volume flows placed in one queue. Each queue is managed according to a probabilistic flow rule that causes packets to be dropped more often in the queues associated with the heaviest flows. Because of this relationship, heavy flows experience packet drops more often, statistically, than other flows. This scheme achieves a measure of fairness, but it assumes that heavy flows will be well-behaved, i.e., that they will reduce flow rate when they experience packet drops. This assumption has proven to be erroneous in the modern heterogeneous network. Certain NAFs do not reduce flow rate and thus continue to take an unfair amount of router bandwidth simply because they counter packet drops with retransmissions. The "good" flows get less and less throughput as they reduce flow rate in response to drops while the NAFs capture more bandwidth.
As a further drawback, the random packet drops sometimes hit a fragile flow. These flows contain time-critical traffic of the highest priority, such as voice data. Fragile flows have the lowest tolerance for drops and delay, so a random packet drop management scheme can have a highly detrimental effect on them.
An alternative to managing router/switch traffic at the queue end is to manage flows at the buffer end, referring to buffer pool 30 of FIG. 1. The basic premise of buffer-based management is that if one limits how much of a particular input flow gets into buffers 30 relative to other input flows 20, the output queues 40 will take care of themselves. Such limits on the number of packets buffered per flow can be either static or dynamic.
In the static or strict limit scheme, a set maximum number of buffers is available for each flow. Any packets received after those buffers are full are discarded. Static limits are set by the system administrator for each type of flow. However, this scheme has the obvious drawback of high overhead associated with setting up a gating mechanism for each flow and administrative oversight. Additionally, it lacks long-term flexibility to adapt to the wide variety and constantly changing mix of flow types seen in modem internetworking.
Typical prior art systems implement static buffer limitation schemes in software with limited hardware support. All experience the same or similar drawbacks noted above due to overhead (set up and tear down, as well as processing time delay and hardware resource) costs. Furthermore, typical prior art systems implement buffer limitation schemes based on a limit that is imposed per output queue or per class of service required by the received packet. FIG. 2 illustrates the standard bit configuration for an Internet Protocol (IP) packet, including the fields within its header. Class of service information, sometimes referred to as flow type or flow classification, can be found in, for instance, the precedence or type of service (TOS) field 210 in the IP received packet header 200 or in the source address 220 or a combination thereof. These systems also either set their limit values from manually configured parameters or else update them at a relatively slow periodic rate compared to packet rates.
Current schemes are unable to update their limit values fast enough to keep up with changing traffic conditions in the latest generation of ultra-fast (e.g., Gigabit speed) flows. As an additional drawback, the use of TOS field 210 is not standardized among internetworking users. Thus, neither TOS nor source address is a reliable means of identifying flow type at this time.
What is needed is a scheme to rapidly identify good flows from bad (i.e., the well-behaved flows vs. the non-adapting aggressive flows) on a packet-by-packet basis. Furthermore, a flexible, low-overhead, extremely fast dynamic buffer limiting method and apparatus to fairly buffer and enqueue the wide variety of good flows and NAFs found in today's networks is also needed.


An optical semiconductor device includes: a resonator end face; an optical waveguide; a window structure located between the resonator end face and the optical waveguide; and a vernier on the window structure and allowing measurement of length of the window structure along an optical axis direction.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an optical semiconductor device, a method for manufacturing an optical semiconductor device, and a method for manufacturing an optical module which can thereby easily measure the length of the window structure.
2. Background Art
In optical semiconductor devices with a window structure formed on a resonator end face, a length of the window structure varies depending on a position of cleavage for forming the resonator end face (e.g., see Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2000-216489).

Optical semiconductor device, method for manufacturing optical semiconductor device, and method for manufacturing optical module


A land grid array connector includes a housing having a plurality of passageways therethrough and a conductive contact provided in each passageway. A recess is formed in each passageway. Each contact has a deformable portion having a tip provided at an end thereof. The deformable portion is capable being in an undeformed position and in a deformed position. When a lateral force is placed on the deformable portion of each contact, at least a portion of the tip is maintained within the recess. The recess is sized and configured to limit lateral deflection of the tip upon deformation of the deformable portion in a lateral direction.

Land grid array connectors are commonly used with integrated circuits. Conventional land grid array connectors include an insulative housing which defines a plurality of passageways therethrough, and a plurality of conductive contacts received in the passageways. The land grid array connector is connected to an integrated circuit which has a plurality of flat contact pads formed on a bottom surface thereof to which the contacts are electrically mated.
A mating component, such as a printed circuit board, a plate having a contact pad thereon, or an integrated circuit package, is typically mated with the land grid array connector by lowering the mating component onto the land grid array connector such that the conductive contacts are compressed within the housing.
Problems can occur, however, when the mating component is mated with the land grid array connector. For instance, if the mating component contacts the conductive contacts without an equal force across the entire land grid array connector, lateral forces can be placed on some or all of the conductive contacts such that the conductive contacts can plastically deform. Such a situation could damage the land grid array connector such that replacement of the connector would be necessary. Such a situation could further affect the desired signal transmission.
Thus, there is a need for a land grid array connector which overcomes the disadvantages of prior art land grid array connectors. The present invention provides such a land grid array connector. Features and advantages of the present invention will become apparent upon a reading of the attached specification, in combination with a study of the drawings.