Provided is a LDMOS device and method for manufacturing. The LDMOS device includes a second conductive type buried layer formed in a first conductive type substrate. A first conductive type first well is formed in the buried layer and a field insulator with a gate insulating layer at both sides are formed on the first well. On one side of the field insulator is formed a first conductive type second well and a source region formed therein. On the other side of the field insulator is formed an isolated drain region. A gate electrode is formed on the gate insulating layer on the source region and a first field plate is formed on a portion of the field insulator and connected with the gate electrode. A second field plate is formed on another portion of the field insulator and spaced apart from the first field plate.

Generally, a lateral diffused metal oxide semiconductor (LDMOS) device, which is a high voltage MOS device, is used as a power semiconductor device.
A device that can operate at a high voltage close to a theoretical breakdown voltage of a semiconductor is preferred as an ideal power semiconductor device. Accordingly, in a case where an external system using a high voltage is controlled by an integrated circuit (IC), the IC needs a high voltage control device built therein and configured to have a high breakdown voltage.
That is, in the case of a drain or source of a transistor to which a high voltage is directly applied, it is required that a punch through voltage between the drain/source and a semiconductor substrate and a breakdown voltage between the drain/source and a well or substrate be higher than the high voltage.
Among those high voltage semiconductor devices, the LDMOS device has a structure suitable for a high voltage because channel region and drain electrode thereof are separated with a drift region disposed therebetween and controlled by a gate electrode.
FIG. 1 is a sectional view of an LDMOS device according to the related art.
Referring to FIG. 1, the related art LDMOS device includes a first well 12 formed in a substrate 10, a field oxide 17 formed on a surface of the substrate 10, and source region 15 and drain region 16 formed in the surface of the first well 12 at both sides of the field oxide 17. The source region 15 and the drain region 16 are isolated at both sides of the field oxide 17 by the field oxide 17. During formation of the field oxide 17, a gate oxide 18 is formed on the surface of the substrate 10 at both sides of the field oxide 17.
A gate electrode 19a is formed on the gate oxide 18, and a field plate 19b is formed on the field oxide 17 and connected with the gate electrode 19a.
In FIG. 1, the symbol 'L' indicates a width of the field oxide 17, and a half pitch 'HP' indicates a distance between the source region 15 and the drain region 16.
The field plate 19b lowers a strong electric field at an edge of the gate electrode to increase the breakdown voltage, and decreases the resistance of the first well 12 to lower the On resistance 'Ron' of the LDMOS device.
To increase the breakdown voltage of the LDMOS device in the related art, there is a method of increasing the width 'L' of the field oxide 17. However, increasing the width 'L' causes the half pitch to be increased and the electric field at the edge of the gate electrode to also increase, so that the occurrence probability of a breakdown at the surface is increased and thus the On resistance 'Ron' is increased.
Also, because the related art LDMOS device separates the channel region and the drain electrode by a drift region and controls the drain current by a single gate, the drift region has a large On resistance and is not suitable for large current operation.

LDMOS device and method for manufacturing the same


A plural bin metering system for broadcasting material ingredients contained therein over a ground surface. The system includes at least two material ingredient hoppers, each of the hoppers having a material ingredient discharge port. At least one of the material ingredient hoppers includes a variably controllable metering unit associated therewith for variably controlling the discharge of material ingredients therefrom independently from the rate of discharge of material ingredients from the other material ingredient hopper. A conveyor is disposed below the hoppers for receiving material ingredients discharged from the hoppers, and a material ingredient broadcasting device disposed off of one end of the conveyor for receiving material ingredients conveyed thereon, received from the hoppers, for broadcasting the material ingredients over a ground surface. The metering unit is capable of metering material ingredients from its associated hopper at ultra low rates. In a preferred embodiment the system has three hoppers for broadcasting, for example fertilizer across a field in one pass.

It is generally known to provide a plural bin system for mixing multiple ingredients, such as fertilizer and fertilizer supplements, and spreading or broadcasting the mixture over a ground surface. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 3,073,606 to Hurt discloses an apparatus including a multiplicity of bins which are separated from each other for carrying material ingredients with transversely oriented metering screw auger conveyors disposed underneath the bins such that equal amounts of ingredients are discharged from the bins. The discharge of each of the ingredients from the transverse screw auger conveyors is equally divided by four longitudinally extending screw auger conveyors that discharge the ingredients onto a transverse screw auger conveyor at the rear of the apparatus. The mechanical complexity of this system has many moving parts requiring substantial maintenance and operating costs. In addition, this system does not have the ability to easily vary the spread rates of the different materials.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,817,551 to Williams, et al. discloses a convertible plural bin and conveyor material spreader. In this device, the material bin may be converted from a single bin to a plural bin apparatus and vice versa by the insertion or removal of a self-contained bin having its own separable conveyor. Thus, each bin has its own conveyor for discharging material ingredients from the bin, with the conveyors disposed one over the other.
In spite of the existence of these devices, there remains a need for equipment that is capable of spreading a plurality of different materials/ingredients at independently varying rates that is more economical than existing devices. There also exists a need for spinner spreader equipment that is capable of spreading a plurality of different material ingredients with some at ultra low rates.


An instruction fetching device includes one or both of a cache device and a branch history table. The cache device stores a plurality of pairs, each pair including an instruction string divided into minimum unit instructions and an address of the instruction string. At the time of reading an instruction, an instruction string is selected and output by every minimum unit instruction from at least two pairs. The branch history table stores a plurality of pairs, each pair including a branch destination address and a set of an address of a branch instruction and a value obtained by subtracting a given value from the address. At the time of reading an instruction, first, a pair having an address of a branch instruction which address is the nearest to a head address of an instruction string to be read out is selected from a plurality of pairs, each pair including an address of a branch instruction which address is in a predetermined address range including the instruction string to be read out, or each pair of the plurality of pairs including a value obtained by subtracting a given value from the address of the branch instruction. Then, a branch destination address is selected and output from the pair which is selected first from the plurality of pairs.

The present invention relates to a central processing unit of a computer and more particularly to an instruction fetch device for predicting a branch destination of a branch instruction by supplying fixed-length part of a variable-length instruction.
FIG. 8 shows the construction of a conventional instruction fetch device for performing a branch destination prediction. In the Figure, numeral 7 designates a 29-bit read pointer for holding the leading address of an instruction code to be read, 8 an instruction cache, and 9 a branch history table for storing as a set the address of each branch instruction taken and the address of the branch destination. The address of an instruction code to be read is stored in the read pointer 7 and the instruction cache 8 and the branch history table 9 are searched. When the instruction code read out from the instruction cache 8 includes any branch instruction taken in the past, it is expected that its branch destination address is also read from the branch history table 9. In this case, this branch destination address is read and stored in the read pointer 7 and the instruction cache 8 is searched thereby reading the instruction code at the branch destination without waiting until the decoding and execution of the branch instruction.
However, where branch instructions Bcc0 and Bcc1 are respectively present at the positions of addresses n and n+4 as shown in the instruction alignment diagram in FIG. 9A, after the high-order 29 bits of the address n have been stored in the read pointer 7, even if the branch history table 9 is searched by the high-order 29 bits of the address n so as to obtain the branch destination address of the branch instruction Bcc0 or Bcc1, both of the two entries storing the branch destination addresses hit and thus the desired branch destination address cannot be obtained. Also, where an instruction OP with a 32-bit displacement operand disp 32 is present at the position of an address n+6 as shown in the instruction alignment diagram in FIG. 9B, in predicting a branch instruction for branching to the address n+6 from a certain address, even if the branch destination address obtained from the branch history table 9 is the address n+6, the instruction code read from the instruction cache 8 does not include the displacement operand disp 32 and a wait is required for the decoding of the instruction OP until the displacement operand disp 32 is read out again.

Cache device for supplying a fixed word length of a variable instruction code and instruction fetch device

Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.


An exemplary embodiment of the invention relates to a method and system for simulating data on bar code labels. The system and method include aligning a series of light sources in an array; and driving a selected number of the light sources in the array indicative of data on a bar code label to emit light having a wavelength simulating a light generated from a bar code scanner and reflected from a white space of bar code label.

The present invention relates generally to a method and device for generating a signal that emulates the pattern of light reflected from a bar code when a pulse of light from a bar code scanner is applied to the bar code, and, more particularly, to a device that communicates with bar code scanners without the physical printed barcode.
Bar codes have been in use for many years and have become the standard for efficient and inexpensive coding and transfer of small amounts of data. The Universal Product Code (UPC), a bar code symbology standard, has become an indispensable merchandising system to identify manufacturers and products. There are many bar code standards available including the UPC, the European Article Number (EAN), Code 39, Code 93, Code 128, ISBN, and ISSN to name a few. Each standard has a specific symbology to code information, but every standard functions on the same basic bar and space premise. A bar code is comprised of a series of alternating black bars and white spaces of varying widths. Each bar and a space will have a minimum width that can be treated as the unit width for a bar and a space, respectively. At least one bar and one space of respective unit width typically appear at the beginning of each bar code sequence for proper calibration. Successive bar and spaces in a coded sequence will have widths that are integer multiples of the unit width and the bar code information is coded by the pattern of varying widths in a sequence of alternating bars and spaces. The bar code sequence can be printed on a medium and affixed to a product or item for identification.
The bar code can be read and decoded by a bar code scanner signal that passes a pulse of light over a printed bar code and detects the back-scattered light patterns reflected by the bar code. A bar will absorb a large portion of the scanner signal while a space will reflect a large portion of the scanner signal. The durations of the absorption and reflectance patterns gathered by the scanner as back-scattering of the scanner signal corresponds to the widths of the corresponding bars and spaces of the bar code. It will be noted that CCD readers quantize an image and perform bitwise analysis to distinguish marks from spaces, and vice versa, and do not sense impulses of light. In either way, the coded information is transferred from the printed bar code to the scanner. All bar code standards operate in this fashion
Bar codes have been used in automated shipping and packaging systems. In some instances, bar code readers are used extensively along a conveyor line to provide information to an operator as to where certain products are in the line. However, some bar code readers are virtually inaccessible to operators while machinery, associated with the automated shipping and packaging systems, is running. For example, in clean rooms associated with packaging semiconductors, operator presence is often restricted. Therefore, if a bar code reader is not operating properly because of a fault, the bar code reader may not properly indicate a fault occurrence such as an absence of semiconductor wafers from the line because of a fall therefrom, for example. Furthermore, printed bar codes do not allow data represented thereon to be easily changed to verify proper fault reporting by the bar code readers.
Accordingly, a method and system to simulate bar code labels having data that can be automatically and easily changed is desired.

Method and system for a bar code simulator

International Business Machines Corporation


A method for etching nitride is provided, by which the etching rate and the roughness of the etching surface can be powerfully controlled, and by which the etching depth can be in-situ monitored. The etching method comprises the steps of: (i) coating a first electrode on a nitride chip; (ii) mounting the nitride chip on a holding device; (iii)dipping the holding device, the nitride chip and the first electrode in electrolysis liquid; (iv) irradiating the nitride chip with a UV light having a wavelength shorter than 254 nm; and (v) connecting the first electrode to a second electrode dipped in the electrolysis liquid by a galvanometer to in-situ monitor the etching current, so as to in-situ control the etching depth.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method for etching nitride, and more particularly to a wet-etching method for nitride enhanced by utilizing UV light.
2. Description of Prior Art
Using III-V group semiconductors to manufacture light-emitting devices is a well-known prior art. The procedure of manufacturing light-emitting devices is similar to that of manufacturing Si-based devices, which comprises epitaxy, photolithography, etching, diffusion and coating, etc. However, due to the difference of semiconductor materials, each procedure mentioned above needs to be modified when manufacturing a device with different semiconductor materials. Particularly in the etching step, different materials result in very different ways of etching. For example, the photoelectrochemical (PEC) etching technology disclosed in J. Electrochem. Soc. 138, pp. 1174-1185 (1991) by M. N. Rubert et al., which incorporates the effect of visible light and chemical matter, has been widely applied to the etching of narrow energy band III-V group semiconductor materials such as GaAs or InP.
However, only three prior arts are disclosed applying the photoelectrochemical etching technology to wide energy band semiconductor materials such as GaN (gallium nitride). The first one is "Room-temperature photoenhanced wet etching of GaN," Appl. Phys. Lett. 68, pp. 1531-1533 (1996) disclosed by M. S. Minsky et al., which employs a He-Cd laser (570 mW/cm.sup.2, 325 nm) while etching under no bias voltage. The second one is "Photoassisted anodic etching of GaN," J. Electrochem. Soc. 144, L8-L11(1997) disclosed by H. Lu et al., which applies mercury lamps of 60 mW/cm.sup.2 at 365 nm and 150 mW/cm.sup.2 at 405 nm to the etching under bias. The third one is "Broad-area photoelectroch. etching of GaN," Elec. Lett. 33, pp. 245-246 (1997) disclosed by Youtsey et al., which uses unfiltered mercury lamps of 6.4 mW/cm.sup.2 at 320 nm, 7.4 mW/cm.sup.2 at 365 nm and 13.2 mW/cm.sup.2 at 405 nm as light sources to work in the etching under no bias voltage.
In the prior arts above, the drawbacks of Minskey et al. to are that the effective area of the laser spot working on GaN is too small, normally only 1 mm.sup.2, and that the mode distribution of the incident light after passing through the glass wall of the vessel containing etching liquid is not spatially uniform. These drawbacks cause inferior yield and degrade performance during the fabrication of light-emitting devices.
Regarding to Lu et al., the wavelengths of the incident light used in etching are 365 nm and 405 nm, both longer than the energy band absorption of GaN that is 3.4 eV, i.e. 364.7 nm. In this case, the function of the bias voltage is similar to the anode electrolysis of electrochemistry. The mercury lamp of 365 nm or 405 nm is only used to provide heat during the etching process.
As to Youtsey et al., the manufacturing process suffers from variation in etching depth. Taking a sample of 0.5.times.1 cm.sup.2 for example, the variance of etching depth is 20.about.30% when the impurity concentration is about 10.sup.18 cm.sup.-3, and up to 80% when the impurity concentration is about 10.sup.16 cm.sup.-3.
Each of the three prior arts has the following drawbacks: the roughness of the etching surface is around 100 nm under the conditions in each prior art. However, such a roughness will cause remarkable optical loss and degrade the efficiency of light-emitting devices for laser diodes having a wavelength less than 450 nm.

Industrial Technology Research Institute


Method for feeding material into a rotary shaper device in a pneumatic pipe transport system for material, in which the material is conducted along a feeder channel to the rotary shaper device, in which case the material to be handled is conducted into the shaper device and/or through it by the aid of at least partly the suction and/or a pressure difference of the pneumatic pipe transport system. In the method the material is acted upon in the feeder channel, or in the channel leading into it, with at least one guide member, which is configured to reduce the undesirable rotation of the material in the feeder channel and/or to improve the access of replacement air into the rotary shaper. The invention also relates to an apparatus.

The invention relates generally to materials handling systems, such as partial-vacuum transporting systems, more particularly to the collection and conveying of wastes, such as to the conveying of household wastes.
Systems wherein wastes are conveyed in piping by means of an air current produced by a pressure difference or suction are known in the art. In these, wastes are conveyed long distances in the piping. It is typical to these systems that a partial-vacuum apparatus is used to achieve a pressure difference, in which apparatus a partial vacuum is achieved in the conveying pipe with partial-vacuum generators, such as with vacuum pumps or with an ejector apparatus. A conveying pipe typically comprises at least one valve means, by opening and closing which the replacement air coming into the conveying pipe is regulated. Input points at the input end of the material are used in the systems, from which input points the material, such as wastes, is conveyed into the system. The system can also comprise refuse chutes into which material, such as waste material, is fed and from which the material to be conveyed is conveyed into a conveying pipe by opening a discharge valve means, in which case, by means of the sucking effect achieved by the aid of the partial vacuum acting in the conveying pipe and also by means of the surrounding air pressure acting via the refuse chute, material such as e.g. waste material packed into bags, is conveyed from the refuse chute into the conveying pipe. The pneumatic waste conveying systems in question can be utilized particularly well in densely populated urban areas. These types of areas have tall buildings, in which the input of wastes into a pneumatic waste conveying system is performed via a refuse chute or other input point arranged in the building.
Wastes are conveyed pneumatically in a closed system to the reception station, in which the wastes are compressed with a press only after transportation. The pipes of a pneumatic conveying system are in normal cases rather large in diameter, e.g. in the region of 500 mm in their diameter.
Known from publication WO8203200 A1 is a device for fine-grinding, compressing and outputting a high-volume bulk good, more particularly household wastes, by means of which device the waste material conducted through the device can be compacted. In the solution according to the publication large output powers are typically needed, especially in situations in which the device is used to cut or fine-grind a material, in which case the energy consumption of the drive devices and the costs of the drive devices are high. In addition, the passage of stones or other corresponding material between the cutting blades can produce breakage of the blades. Further known from publications WO2011098666, WO2011098667, WO2011098668 and WO2011098669 are solutions in which rotary shapers are applied. Rotary shapers according to prior art comprise a number of rotatable handling means and typically a non-rotating handling means between them. These have proven to be effective for their purpose. In the feeder channel of rotary shapers the material being fed in can, in some cases, compact and, in some cases, try to rotate along with the rotational movement of the shaping means, possibly hampering effective infeeding of material into the rotary shaper from the feeder channel. Material that has compacted onto the feeder channel can, on the other hand, hinder the access of replacement air into the rotary shaper via the feeder channel.
The aim of the present invention is to achieve an entirely new type of solution in connection with waste feeder channels and rotary shapers, by means of which solution the drawbacks of prior art solutions are avoided.

Method and apparatus for feeding material into a rotary shaper device


A method and an equipment for prioritizing traffic in an ATM network, in which services of the network are divided into different service classes, and cells are transmitted via service-class-specific buffers, whereby a cell is temporarily stored in the buffer corresponding to the service class of said cell. In order to be able to pay as much attention as possible to the application of the subscriber at the time in question and at the same time retain the trunk network as simple as possible, the service class division is implemented at least at an NNI interface of the network only by means of a virtual path identifier (VPI) in the header of the cell so that one service class corresponds to each identifier and a certain group of virtual path identifiers belongs to the same service class.

The invention relates to a method and an equipment for prioritizing traffic in an ATM network.
ATM (Asynchronous Transfer Mode) is a new connection-oriented packet-switching technique which the international telecommunication standardization organization ITU T has chosen to be the target solution of a broadband integrated services digital network (B-ISDN). The problems of conventional packet networks have been eliminated in the ATM network by starting to use short packets of a standard length (53 bytes) known as cells.
FIG. 1a shows the structure of one cell to be transmitted in an ATM network. Each cell transmitted in the network contains a payload part of 48 bytes and a header of 5 bytes in length. However the more exact structure of, the header (the contents of the header) depends on which part of the ATM network is being used at the time. The ATM network architecture comprises a group of interfaces exactly specified in the standards, and the header structure used in an ATM cell depends on the interface (that is, the part of the network) in question.
FIG. 1b shows the structure of the header of a cell at a UNI interface (User-to-Network Interface) of the ATM network that is an interface between an ATM terminal equipment (such as a computer, a router or a telephone exchange) and an ATM node. FIG. 1c shows the structure of the header at an NNI interface (Network-to-Network Interface) of the ATM network that is an interface between two ATM nodes, either inside the network or between two different networks. The most significant part of the header for the present invention is a routing field that comprises a virtual path identifier VPI and a virtual channel identifier VCI.
In the header structure of FIG. 1b, which is used only at a subscriber interface, 24 bits in all are reserved for the routing field (VPI/VCI). In the header structure of FIG. 1c, which is used anywhere else in the ATM network, 28 bits are reserved for the routing field (VPI/VCI). As the name suggests, the routing field is the basis for the routing of cells in the ATM network. The inner parts of the network primarily use the virtual path identifier VPI which, in practice, often defines to which physical connection a cell is to be routed. On the other hand, the virtual channel identifier VCI is used in routing only at the boundary of the network, for example when connecting FR connections (FR=Frame Relay) to the ATM network.
However, it is to be noted that only the VPI and VCI together define the route of the cell unambiguously.
Other fields in the header of the ATM cell defined by the specifications are
GFC (Generic Flow Control), a field intended for traffic control at a subscriber interface, not yet exactly defined, PA1 PT (Payload Type), primarily used for distinguishing between the administrative cells of the network and the information cells of the subscribers but part of the field can possibly be used for transmitting virtual-path-specific and virtual-channel-specific congestion notices, PA1 CLP (Cell Loss Priority) is used for prioritizing cells in relation to the discard probability (which closely corresponds to the DE bit of the Frame Relay network), PA1 HEC (Header Error Control), the check sum of the header.
Of these other fields, the present invention is solely concerned with the CLP bit, by means of which cells can be prioritized in relation to the probability of loss. In practice, this field has two different meanings. Primarily, applications can distinguish cells with a CLP bit with regard to how important their throughput is for the application (Service Oriented Marking). On the other hand, the CLP bit can be set by the network on those cells that exceed the traffic sold to the subscriber. In this case it is a question of usage parameter control (UPC).
The use of the CLP bit closely corresponds to the use of the DE bit in the Frame Relay network. However, the biggest difference is that in the ATM network, applications also make use of the possibility provided by the CLP bit for prioritizing cells. This is an especially common practice for video coders and generally, transmission sources with a variable bit rate (VBR). In coders, the CLP bit is not set on the cells of significance for the whole, whereas on other cells it is set.
Also, the response of the network to the cells, on which the CLP bit is set, corresponds to a great degree to the way the FR network reacts to the frames on which the DE bit is set. In congestion situations of the network, when the fill rates of the buffers increase, primarily only those cells are discarded on which the CLP bit has been set.
The ATM cell will not be described any further in this connection. The cell and its operation have been described in the CCITT standard I.361 (reference 1!, in the list of references provided at the end of this specification) which is referred to for a more exact description. A more exact description of the ATM technique can be obtained in references 1! and 2!, for example.
In an ATM network operating merely in compliance with the specifications, traffic is not prioritized in any other way but by discarding cells on the basis of the CLP bit. The cells are buffered in nodes in common buffers that operate on the FIFO principle. Thus, the traffic source cannot be taken into account at all, which means that a short delay, for example, cannot be granted to subscribers requiring it. Neither is the use of the CLP bit in prioritizing the discarding of cells very efficient, as only the incoming cells to the buffer can be discarded, without paying any attention to the cells already in the buffer.
In the past few years, different kinds of methods based on service class type of solutions have been developed for prioritizing traffic. The developed solutions have primarily been based on the use of the CLP bit. As was mentioned earlier, this bit is used for two different purposes, which makes its use in prioritizing cells often inappropriate.
In one of the most general methods (a so-called Push-out Scheme), a common buffer is used, in the filling of which the service class the cell belongs to is taken into account. In practice, the operation can be based on two classes only (notified by the CLP bit). One cell of a lower service class is always discarded from a full buffer when a cell of an upper service class is received. A buffer that is not full is filled in the normal FIFO way. By prioritizing the cells significant for the applications, it is ensured that cell throughput probability will be relatively high with a short delay. The problem of the method is that it is difficult to implement, especially in hardware implementations, because of which the processing time of cells in the buffers increases. A further problem is that, in practice, the method does not operate as it does in the case of two classes. The discarding of cells specifically for each class from the buffer will, in practice, be impossible with a greater number of classes. The principle of the method is shown in FIG. 2, in which reference signs IN.sub.0 and IN.sub.1 indicate the incoming of cells of the lower and of the upper class, respectively, and reference signs DEL.sub.0 and DEL.sub.1 the corresponding deletions. Reference sign S indicates a buffer length and reference sign G, a server reading in the buffer. The cells of the upper class are discarded in this method only when the buffer is filled with cells of the upper class only.
A method, Partial Buffer Sharing, PBS, which is easier to implement, has been developed from the one described above. This method utilizes a partial sharing of the buffering capacity. This method is illustrated in FIG. 3 in which the same reference numerals are used as in FIG. 2. The bases of sharing are two (to be notified by a CLP bit) service classes, the primary difference between which is their attitude towards delay. The largest part of the buffer (which part is indicated in the figure by reference sign S.sub.0) is used as a normal FIFO buffer. The remaining part of the buffer, S-S.sub.0, is used only for buffering cells with a higher class priority. This means that no mechanism is needed for discarding cells in the buffer, and implementation becomes simpler than in the push-out method described above. The greatest shortcoming of this method is that bursts on a lower service level may cause the discarding of rather a great number of cells of a higher service level. Many of the same problems as in the conventional FIFO method still remain in this method. Prioritization provided specifically for each class is impossible without complicated buffer-handling methods. Furthermore, even in this case, the implementation of more than two classes is in practice impossible.
In addition to these two prioritizing methods, a method (not illustrated) based on so-called route separation has been disclosed. In this method, cells belonging to different service classes are routed via different routes. In each connection, only traffic of one service class passes inside the network. A drawback of this method is that the service class division applies to the whole network, which causes problems with dimensioning. The prioritization of cells cannot be performed specifically for each node, for example, because cells of another service class pass through a different node.
The disadvantages described above have been successfully eliminated in the newest arrangements in which cells are transmitted through service-class-specific buffers so that each cell is temporarily stored in the buffer corresponding to the service class of the cell in question. For example, in European Patent Application 596,624 there is a description of such a network in which traffic is classified into different service classes on the basis of the virtual channel identifier VCI. A good service level is provided by such an arrangement in which traffic is divided by fine division into different types, but it makes the node (and the network) complicated at the same time. The arrangement also means that the network cannot make use of the nodes that perform switching only on the virtual path level. (By means of the concept of the virtual path, a large number of connections can be gathered into one bundle which can be handled as one connection. Because of this, it is possible to build into trunk nodes a virtual path network, in which the nodes handle only the virtual path identifier. In this manner, the nodes will be essentially simpler (the processing of the header will become lighter and the switching time shorter). Thus, it is necessary to handle the virtual channel identifier, at the most, in the node nearest to the receiver).

Method and equipment for prioritizing traffic in an ATM network


A machine for processing liquid or semi-liquid food products including a containing element for containing the product to be dispensed; a stirrer for stirring the product to be dispensed; a heat exchanger fluid flowing in a circuit in a direction of circulation through an evaporator, a compressor, a condenser and a pressure reducing element; a fan rotating about an axis of rotation to force an air flow towards the condenser; a control unit connected to the fan to control the fan through a speed signal; a temperature sensor, located downstream of the condenser in the circulation direction to detect a condensation temperature and configured to send to the control unit a temperature signal as a function of which the control unit generates the speed signal.

This invention relates to a machine, and a related method, for processing liquid or semi-liquid food products, with speed control feature for regulating the rotation speed of the condenser fan.
The technical field this disclosure pertains to is that of machines for thermally processing liquid or semi-liquid food products, in particular cold or iced products. Such machines comprise a product containing element which holds the product and stirs it with a stirrer. These machines also comprise a refrigeration system integrated in the machine to allow thermally processing the product to be dispensed. More specifically, the refrigeration system comprises an evaporator which is associated with the containing element to extract heat from the product in order to cool it to the required thermal conditions.
The refrigeration system comprises a circuit in which a refrigerant fluid is made to circulate and to flow through a compressor which increases the pressure of the refrigerant fluid, a condenser which extracts heat therefrom by exchanging it with the ambient surroundings, a pressure reducing element which decreases its pressure and, lastly, the evaporator which extracts heat from the product to be dispensed and transfers the heat to the refrigerant fluid.
The cooling capacity of the refrigeration system is, however, influenced by the temperature of the ambient surroundings. In effect, if the external temperature were very high, less heat would be exchanged by the condenser and the result would be refrigerant fluid that is warmer when it enters the evaporator. The cooling power of the system is inversely proportional to the temperature of the refrigerant fluid entering the evaporator. In other words, the warmer the refrigerant fluid entering the evaporator, the smaller the amount of heat removed from the product.
These machines generally comprise a fan, associated with the condenser in order to cool the condenser.
The function of the fan is to keep the heat exchange power of the condenser at a level such as to ensure that the machine functions correctly. In effect, increasing the air flow in the condenser enables air that has already exchanged heat to be replaced with "fresh" air at a lower temperature. This allows keeping a higher mean temperature difference between the refrigerant fluid and the air, thus increasing the exchange efficiency of the condenser.
Machines of this kind, however, have a fan that rotates at a constant speed, which is the speed needed for the machine to work at the maximum ambient temperature at which its operation can be guaranteed.
Thus, with the fan working constantly at high rotation speeds, these machines are very noisy and have high energy consumption.

Machine and method for processing liquid or semi liquid food products


A caster assembly is provided for supporting an object. The caster assembly includes a generally triangular landing for receiving the object thereon. The landing lies in a first plane. The caster assembly also includes first and second legs that lie in a second plane generally parallel to the first plane. The first and second legs are vertically spaced from the landing and each leg includes an upper surface and a lower surface. A first plurality of wheel assemblies are interconnected to the lower surface of the first leg and a second plurality of wheel assemblies are interconnected to the lower surface of the second leg.

As is known, caster wheels are often interconnected to various objects such as furniture, file cabinets, luggage and the like to facilitate the movement of the item along a supporting surface. While these objects are often manufactured with the caster wheels already mounted thereon, the pre-mounting of the caster wheels on an object presents certain unique problems. For example, in order to safely ship an object after the caster wheels have been attached thereto, specialized packaging must be used in order to prevent the caster wheels from being knocked off the article during shipment. This, in turn, increases the overall expense of the article.
In view of the foregoing, specialized mounting brackets have been developed to allow for the caster wheels to be attached and/or removed from the bottom surface of the object after the manufacture thereof. While functional for their intended purpose, there are certain inherent problems with the mounting of the caster wheels to the bottom surface of an item. For example, given the weight of certain items such as furniture, the mounting of the caster wheels to the bottom surface thereof may be difficult. Further, when used in connection with heavy objects, it is possible for the caster wheels to be dislodged from the bottom surface of the object as the object is transported over a supporting surface. Finally, space considerations may limit the ability of a user to place the caster wheels under the object due to the height of the caster wheels.
Therefore, it is a primary object and feature of the present invention to provide a caster assembly that is mountable on the bottom surface of an object and that has a low mounting capability with respect to a supporting surface on which the object resides.
It is a further object and feature of the present invention to provide a caster assembly that may be simply and easily connected to an object.
It is a still further object and feature of the present invention to provide a caster assembly that is mountable to the bottom surface of an object to allow the object to be transported over a supporting surface in a user desired direction.
In accordance with the present invention, a caster assembly is provided for supporting an object. The caster assembly includes a plurality of wheel assemblies and a landing supported by the caster wheels for receiving the object thereon. The landing lies in a first plane that extends through the caster wheels.
Each wheel assembly includes a corresponding caster wheel that is rotatable about a corresponding axis. The axes of the caster wheels lie in a common axes plane. The landing has a generally triangular configuration and includes first and second edges that are generally perpendicular to and intersect each other. A first sidewall extends from the first edge of the landing at angle generally perpendicular to the landing and terminates at an upper edge. A second sidewall extends from the second edge of the landing at angle generally perpendicular to the landing and terminates at an upper edge. A first leg extends from the upper edge of the first sidewall and lies in a second plane generally parallel to the first plane. The first leg has upper and lower surfaces. A second leg extends from the upper edge of the second sidewall and lies in the second plane. The second leg also has upper and lower surfaces. A first wheel assembly of the plurality of wheel assemblies is attached to the lower surface of the first leg and a second wheel assembly of the plurality of wheel assemblies is attached to the lower surface of the second leg.
In accordance with a further aspect of the present invention, a caster assembly is provided for supporting an object. The caster assembly includes a landing for receiving the object thereon. The landing lies in a first plane. The caster assembly also includes first and second legs that lie in a second plane generally parallel to the first plane. The first and second legs are vertically spaced from the landing and each leg includes an upper surface and a lower surface. A first wheel assembly is interconnected to the lower surface of the first leg and a second wheel assembly is interconnected to the lower surface of the second leg.
It is contemplated for the landing of the caster assembly to have a generally triangular configuration. In addition, the landing includes first and second edges that are generally perpendicular to and intersect each other. A first sidewall extends from the first edge of the landing at angle generally perpendicular to the landing and terminates at an upper edge. A second sidewall extends from the second edge of the landing at angle generally perpendicular to the landing and terminates at an upper edge. The first leg extends from the upper edge of the first sidewall and the second leg extends from the upper edge of the second sidewall.
In accordance with a still further aspect of the present invention, a caster assembly is provided for supporting an object. The caster assembly includes a generally triangular landing first and second edges that are generally perpendicular to and intersect each other. It is intended for the landing to receive the object thereon. A first sidewall extends from the first edge of the landing at angle generally perpendicular to the landing and terminates at an upper edge. A second sidewall extends from the second edge of the landing at angle generally perpendicular to the landing and terminates at an upper edge. A first leg extends from the upper edge of the first sidewall and lies in a second plane generally parallel to the first plane. The first leg has upper and lower surfaces. A second leg extends from the upper edge of the second sidewall and lies in the second plane. The second leg having upper and lower surfaces. A first wheel assembly is interconnected to the lower surface of the first leg and a second wheel assembly is interconnected to the lower surface of the second leg.
It is contemplated for the landing to lie in a first plane extending through the first and second wheel assemblies. Each wheel assembly includes a corresponding caster wheel that is rotatable about a corresponding axis. The axes of the caster wheels lie in a common axes plane.


The present invention is a method for locating an edge portion of an aperture in an X-ray filter member having at least one aperture formed therethrough, such that X-rays passing through the at least one aperture remain unattenuated and strike a subject body in a common region and wherein the X-rays passing through the filter member are attenuated and strike the subject body in a pattern that surrounds, and is adjacent to, the common region.

Interventional radiology procedures are becoming more prevalent for the detection and treatment of many diseases and injuries. Often an interventional radiology procedure involves the viewing of a catheter, or needle, as it is directed into a desired position within the body. Catheter based medical procedures are commonplace and include such medical treatments as balloon angioplasty, laser ablation, the installation of stints and many other valuable treatments. In such medical procedures the progress of the catheter is typically monitored, within a patient's body, by an X-ray fluoroscope imaging system.
During a catheterization procedure, physicians and technicians need to position themselves next to the patient, in order to control the catheter. The overall X-ray exposure to such medical personnel can be higher than the X-ray exposure to the patient because medical personnel may do several X-ray fluoroscopic procedures in a single day and receive multiple dosages of X-ray radiation. For example, neuroangiographic procedures to repair an aneurysm or malformation may take as long as ten hours, during which the patient and physician are exposed to X-ray radiation much of the time. If the physician performs several such procedures a year, the physician quickly may exceed the recommended maximum dosage of radiation. The results of this potential for overexposure has been for highly trained physicians and other technical medical personnel to reduce their work load or to not wear their radiation monitor. Similarly, concern over overexposure may cause a physician to hurry a procedure, thus increasing the chances of making a mistake.
One way to reduce X-ray exposure from fluoroscopy is to use various shielding techniques. Staff can be protected with lead aprons, imaging chain canopies, lead gloves, and eye shields. Patients can be protected with gonad shields, etc. Many of these techniques are not often used because they interfere with the clinical procedure in one way or another.
In X-ray fluoroscopy it is well known that the dosage of the X-ray radiation is inversely proportional to the quantum noise in the viewed image. Prior art methods of X-ray dose reduction have addressed lowering the rate of dosage. For example, a nominal operational rate for X-ray fluoroscope is 30 frames/sec which may result in an exposure of approximately 10R/min skin dose. Prior art methods have attempted to reduce exposure by reducing the operational rate, for example, from 30 frames/sec. to 15 frames/sec. Such techniques have not been successful since a reduced frame rate necessitates an increased dosage rate per frame to minimize the quantum noise, the net result being no significant reduction in exposure.
Other techniques for reducing the dosage of X-ray radiation include operating the fluoroscopy imaging system in a zoom mode; in other words, limiting the X-ray radiation to a small region and electronically magnifying that region to form the entire viewed image Zoom mode imagery is not popular among some medical personnel because the zoomed image only permits a physician to view a small segment of a patient's body. Such a limited view makes it difficult for a physician to orient the placement of a catheter in a body, and prevents a physician from anticipating upcoming obstacles in the body until they appear in the zoomed image. In addition, in zoom mode, some X-ray systems increase the X-ray tube output dose such as to maintain a constant level of light output from the image intensifier. In that case, there is no dose saving to the patient.
It is therefore desirable to provide an apparatus and method for reducing X-ray radiation exposure to both patients and medical personnel without adversely affecting either the area of interest the X-ray fluoroscope procedure is being used to view, or the physician's ability to view the peripheral regions surrounding the area of interest.
Apparatus and a method for reducing the dosage of X-ray radiation incurred by a patient and medical personnel during a fluoroscopic procedure are disclosed in applicant's copending applications entitled APPARATUS AND METHOD FOR REDUCING X-RAY DOSAGE DURING A FLUOROSCOPIC PROCEDURE and METHOD FOR TRACKING A CATHETER PROBE DURING A FLUOROSCOPIC PROCEDURE, filed concurrently herewith and whereof the disclosures are herein incorporated by reference. During a fluoroscopic procedure X-rays are passed through a patient and are converted into a viewed image. Traditionally, the input X-ray beam is unattenuated across the entire field of view, even though it is herein recognized that, with some procedures, only a small area of the field of view actually requires high definition imaging The present invention includes a filter member that attenuates the X-ray radiation in areas of the field of view that are not of primary interest. With the filter member in place, a physician can still visualize the entire field of view for the purposes of orientation and placement, except that now the areas in the viewed image outside the point of interest are of lower quality. By attenuating the X-ray radiation in the areas outside the point of interest, the integrated-area dosage of X-rays is greatly reduced, as is the chance of overexposure to either the patient or the physician. There is an analogy to the retina fovea mechanism of the human eye to track an object of interest. Thus the concept is also referred to herein as an "X-ray fovea".
The attenuation of the X-ray radiation in selective areas changes in the brightness of the viewed image. Thus, the areas of the viewed image created by the attenuated X-rays are amplified to match the brightness of the viewed image created by the unattenuated X-rays. To prevent a distinct division of the viewed image between the areas formed by the attenuated and unattenuated X-rays, special image processing algorithms must be used. In addition, the filter member can have a varying transparency to X-rays, such that a smooth transition is made between the various regions of the viewed image and no discernable transition line appears in the image. In addition to compensating the brightness in the peripheral area, one may also introduce temporal or spatial filtering to reduce noise.
In one arrangement, the filter member is a substantially planar structure having a single aperture formed therethrough, the planar structure decreasing in thickness in the transition area such that the thickness of the planar structure is at a minimum at the edge of the aperture. Images of the filter plate or fovea collimator are obtained and algorithms on a workstation then find the center of the filter plate hole. Although the size of the filter plate hole changes with geometric magnification, the center remains fixed. Compensation of the image with regard to intensity and magnification changes requires finding the filter plate edge. Localization of the filter plate is also required for positioning the filter plate over an area of interest automatically by a systems controller.

Method for locating an edge portion of an aperture in a filter member in X-ray fluoroscopy apparatus


Disclosed is “Golfball®”, a system and method of playing a team golf game in which teams consisting of nine players each compete in a match play format with the object being to win the greater number of holes, including rules for player substitutions, line up disclosure, simultaneous play, extra holes in case of ties, real time communication of the game score and the number of holes remaining to be played to all participating players and the display of the current status of the game and all component matches on a consolidated scoreboard.

My invention has to do with the game of golf. Golf has been played since the 15th century in Scotland. It was introduced in the United States in the 17th century and became an organized sport in the US in 1888. In early times, golf was played in the format known as match play, in which competitors sought to complete the play of each hole in fewer strokes than their opponents. In recent years, stroke or medal play has become common in professional and collegiate tournaments. In stroke or medal play, the object is to complete the designated number of holes in the least number of strokes.
Despite its immense popularity—golf is played by more than 26 million people in the United States alone—golf has never developed as a team sport. The game is played in many different formats, but there is no single, generally accepted, method of playing golf as a true team game or sport.
By 'true team game or sport' I mean to describe a game or sport in which 1) teams, consisting of more than two players each, compete against each other; 2) the teams compete in a discrete contest or competition, known as a game; 3) there is one accumulating score for each team, the winner being the team with the highest score at the end of the game; 4) the object of the game being that a team defeat an opposing team, the individual success or failure of individual players is not the measure of the winning or losing and consequently substitution of players in accordance with established rules, is permitted; 5) the efforts of the team are coordinated and directed by a coach, manager or captain who is responsible for strategic decision making before and during the game; 6) the players are aware, in substantially real time, of the status of the game, i.e., the current score and the amount of the game remaining to be played, so that their strategy in playing the game can be responsive to the game situation.
To some extent, the Ryder Cup® and Presidents Cup® competitions have approached the model of true team sports. Still, they are not played in a single, discrete game format, but instead are played over a period of several days using different formats each day.
Intercollegiate and interscholastic golf competition is generally conducted in stroke or medal play format which lacks both the cohesiveness and the challenge of match play competition. Moreover, college players typically compete in multi-school tournaments rather than in games against one other school.
Typically, golfers, both professional and amateurs, compete in tournaments rather than games. It is rare for more than a fraction of the players in a golf tournament to be in contention for the winner's prize. The rest of the field presents little spectacle for fans to watch or care much about. Golf enthusiasts are familiar with the structure known as the 'Leaderboard', a large display showing the progress of the ten or twelve players currently leading a golf tournament. Even there, I have found no evidence of electric leaderboards which might rival the animated and exciting scoreboards used in football, baseball, basketball, and hockey. This is partially because the identity of the leaders is subject to change. It is also true that most golf tournaments do not present the kind of fast action that lends itself to automated scoreboards.
To the extent that golf tournaments represent the prior art related to team golf competition, there are a number of shortcomings which my invention is intended to address. Unlike sports which are played in stadiums and arenas, golf is played on a golf course which may occupy 150 to 200 acres or more. The players are not within sight and sound of each other. Various means of keeping players informed of the status of the game are unsatisfactory. Often, even professional golfers engaged in major tournaments are only peripherally aware of the overall status of the event because of hearing crowd reactions on adjacent holes. An effective course-wide public address system is not only expensive; its intrusive noise would be disrupting to players. The same is true to a lesser degree of walkie-talkies. To maintain manually posted scoreboards all over a golf course would be very expensive.
While it is true that in major golf tournaments something approaching real time, overall score keeping is accomplished through telephonic and other electronic voice communication with the leaderboard, such labor intensive and costly score keeping is not available to amateur, recreational, high school, or even collegiate golfers.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,266,214 issued to Joseph Peters, Jr., describes a hand held game scoring apparatus, not unlike the Golfball® scorecard included in my invention. Peters, however, does not address the problem of communicating the current score of a golf game to the several participants who are scattered over the golf course. Moreover, the Peters device is multi-purpose, requires a certain amount of initial data input, (course information, handicaps, etc), and does not function either as a transmitter or receiver of information. Nor does it have as its primary purpose, the function of keeping players informed of the status of the game over the entire field of play.

Golfball, a team golf game system and method of play


The present application discloses a portable tool. In one embodiment, the portable tool comprises a body portion, a tool portion, and an attachment member for fastening the portable tool to a second device. The tool portion is coupled to the body portion and has one or more tools. The tool portion is configured to rotate about an axis of rotation and relative to the body portion. The attachment member is operatively coupled to the tool portion and rotates with the tool portion about the axis of rotation and relative to the body portion. Rotating the tool portion relative to the body portion exposes a space between the attachment member and the tool portion that permits release of the second device from the portable tool.

Tool kits are known for many different purposes. For example, portable tool kits exist for repairing bicycles or repairing tires. Some conventional tool kits have one or more tools that are housed within a body of the tool kit. In some instances, the tool kits are configured to be attached to a key ring or a key chain.


A new electrically powered corkscrew for aiding in the removal of corks from bottles, such as wine bottles. The inventive device includes a bottle holding unit which supports a bottle thereon and a corkscrew spiral mounted on the holding unit for both rotary motion and longitudinal movement. A first electric motor is coupled to the spiral for rotating the spiral, and a second electric motor is coupled to the spiral for longitudinally moving the spiral. Operation of the motors is controlled by a control unit for operating the spiral to at least partially removing the cork from the bottle.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to corkscrews and more particularly pertains to a new electrically powered corkscrew for aiding in the removal of corks from bottles, such as wine bottles.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The use of corkscrews is known in the prior art. More specifically, corkscrews heretofore devised and utilized are known to consist basically of familiar, expected and obvious structural configurations, notwithstanding the myriad of designs encompassed by the crowded prior art which have been developed for the fulfillment of countless objectives and requirements.
Known prior art corkscrews include U.S. Pat. No. 5,351,579; U.S. Pat. No. 5,095,778; U.S. Pat. No. 4,955,261; U.S. Pat. No. 4,637,283; U.S. Pat. No. 5,079,975; and U.S. Pat. No. Des. 358,744.
While these devices fulfill their respective, particular objectives and requirements, the aforementioned patents do not disclose a new electrically powered corkscrew. The inventive device includes a bottle holding unit which supports a bottle thereon and a corkscrew spiral mounted on the holding unit for both rotary motion and longitudinal movement. A first electric motor is coupled to the spiral for rotating the spiral, and a second electric motor is coupled to the spiral for longitudinally moving the spiral.
In these respects, the electrically powered corkscrew according to the present invention substantially departs from the conventional concepts and designs of the prior art, and in so doing provides an apparatus primarily developed for the purpose of aiding in the removal of corks from bottles, particularly wine bottles.


In a magnetic resonance tomography method and apparatus (MRT), as employed in medicine for examination of patients, for dynamic distortion correction in EPI measurements, image acquisitions are acquired that are adjacent in a periodic/alternating manner differ with regard to phase information, phase coding direction or with regard to the echo time, and based on this difference a field map and/or a displacement map is calculated with which at least one distorted result image is corrected.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally concerns magnetic resonance tomography (MRT) as employed in medicine for examination of patients. The present invention in particular relates to a method and apparatus to reduce distortions or deformations in the plug connection device that appear in the use of echoplanar imaging sequences (EPI sequences) and that significantly negatively affect the image quality (and therefore the diagnosis).
2. Description of the Prior Art
MRT is based on the physical phenomenon of nuclear magnetic resonance and has been successfully used in medicine and biophysics as an imaging method for over 15 years. In this examination method the subject is exposed to a strong, constant magnetic field. The nuclear spins of the atoms in the subject which were previously randomly oriented thereby align. Radio-frequency waves can now excite these "ordered" nuclear spins to a precession movement. This precession generates the actual measurement signal in MRT, which measurement signal is acquired by means of suitable acquisition coils. The measurement subject can be spatially coded in all three spatial directions via the use of inhomogeneous magnetic fields generated by gradient sub-coils.
In one method for generation of MRT images, a slice is initially selectively excited, for example in the z-direction. The coding of the spatial information in the slice ensues via a combined phase and frequency coding by means of two orthogonal gradient fields that, in the example of a slice excited in the z-direction, are generated in the x-direction and y-direction by the aforementioned gradient sub-coils. The imaging sequence is repeated M times for different values of the phase coding gradients (for example GP), wherein the nuclear magnetic resonance signal is digitized and stored given each sequence pass in the presence of the readout gradient GR. A number matrix (matrix in k-space) with N×M data points is obtained in this manner. An MR image of the considered slice with a resolution of N×M pixels can be directly reconstructed from this data set.
In imaging known as echoplanar imaging (EPI), multiple phase-coded echoes are used to fill the raw data matrix. The basic idea of this technique is to generate a series of echoes in the readout gradient (GR) after a single (selective) RF excitation, which echoes are associated via a suitable modulation of the phase coding gradient (GP) with different lines in the k-space plane.
One possible form of the echoplanar pulse sequence is shown in FIG. 1. After an excitation pulse and a refocusing pulse, multiple gradient echoes are generated via a sinusoidally oscillating frequency coding gradient in the readout direction and phase coding. The phase coding in this depiction ensues through small gradient pulses (blips) in the range of the zero crossing of the oscillating frequency coding gradient and leads in this manner to a meandering traversal of the spatial frequency matrix (k-matrix), as is shown in FIG. 2. It is thereby noted that, as an alternative to this, EPI can also be implemented as Cartesian EPI (blipped EPI), as non-Cartesian EPI (spiral EPI) or as a single-shot turbo-spin echo (TSE) readout train, for example.
In spite of many limitations, EPI sequences present a high clinical potential (particularly in functional imaging and in perfusion and diffusion measurements) since movement artifacts (for example due to breathing or pulsed movement of blood or cerebral fluid) can be drastically reduced due to the extremely short measurement time (MR image acquisition in less than 100 ms).
As stated, the reason for this is the fact that in EPI an entire 2D MR image is acquired with only a single excitation pulse. A scan direction with high readout speed (readout direction) and a scan direction with low readout speed (phase encoding direction), but results due to the wandering k-space sampling. Susceptibility artifacts which reflect the spatial inhomogeneity of the magnetic field in the image primarily occur in the plug connection device due to the low bandwidth resulting from this. The magnetic field inhomogeneity is essentially caused by the subject itself or, respectively, by the spatially changing susceptibilities inside the subject (inside the body). An example of this is the boundary surface in the naso-tracheal area of a test subject between air and the skull or, respectively, the brain (air vs. bone/water).
The artifacts resulting from this are designated as a "static effect" because the adulterate the measurement result due to static inhomogeneities of the magnetic field (thus without gradient activities or patient movement).
In addition to the "static effects", there are also dynamic influences on the image quality of the measurement due to temporal susceptibility changes in the subject region. For example, a slight rotation of the patient during a functional MR measurement can already distinctly adulterate the measurement or, respectively, the measurement result.
Local magnetic field changes likewise result due to the breathing of the patient (due to the changing air quantity in the lungs) and his pulse beat (brain pulsation). These circumstances also lead to a degradation of the image quality.
While "static effects" according to the prior art can be corrected by a number of methods—some methods for this utilize field maps acquired in advance, other methods are based on the use of reference scans—the problem of an optimal time-resolved correction of "dynamic effects" is not yet solved. Furthermore, either it presently assumed that the initial magnetic field inhomogeneities remain constant during the entire MR experiment (however, this is not provided given in vivo measurements due to continuous patient breathing, pulse beat, possible position change or movement of the head itself and/or of extremities) or time-intensive prescan-based correction methods are used that, however, entail a significant extension of the total measurement time and thus lead to an additional stressing of the patient.

Method and apparatus for dynamic distortion correction in EPI measurements in medical magnetic resonance imaging


An apparatus includes an endless conveyor formed with transverse rows of holes each adapted to receive a preform to be filled with ice cream or other edible substances from an upper filler assembly adapted to move intermittently synchronically with the conveyor during operation of the thereof. Under an upper run of such first endless conveyor, in the area at the filler assembly, is a second endless conveyor adapted to move synchronically with the first endless conveyor and carrying transverse rows of liftable and lowerable suction cups which in their turn are adapted to be lifted up through an overlaying row of the holes for engaging and removing a respective preform from a dispenser station in the filler assembly and lowering the preform onto the first endless conveyor while holding it in correct position during the subsequent filling operations. A wall portion is radially spaced around each hole to prevent displacement of filled preforms resting on the first endless conveyor but not fitting into the holes.

The present invention relates to an apparatus for making frozen edible products, typically ice cream products. Ice cream is marketed in a large variety of grades and shapes, such as cones, flat-bottomed troughs, rectangular sandwiches and various cup shapes. Most of the products, in addition to the ice cream proper, also contain various fillings and top decorations.
The products are formed more or less automatically, such as by filling ice cream into containers in the form of cornets, cups or the like, then moving the filled products into a freezing or hardening compartment, and finally picking up the frozen products ready for packing. In the simplest production systems, no particular means are provided to hold the products upright during the freezing process. As a result, the decoration tends to creep downwards and outwards when the products are laying down during the freezing process, leaving a diffuse and less attractive appearance. There are more advanced machines on the market, in which the products are held upright also during the freezing/hardening process. However, until now, all such types of machines have been encumbered with low capacity and/or limited flexibility. The machines are generally built for producing either cone or cup shaped ice cream and rarely both kinds. Machines capable of producing both have a low capacity, from 4000 to 8000 items per hour. Also, such machines are very expensive, and shifting from one product to another takes considerable time and tends to cause running-in problems.
Today there are three main machine varieties available for producing cup or cone shaped ice cream products with the products standing upright. According to one such variety the products are filled by a traditional filling machine such as a so-called "Fornaroli" or "Viking" in four or six rows. After the products have been filled and provided with lids they are lifted up from the machine by means of vacuum or tongues and placed in plastic or steel cages formed with holes to accomodate the products. The filled cages are then moved into a traditional freezing tunnel or cabinet, e.g. of the spiral type. When frozen the products are picked up from the cages and packed. The empty cages then return to the filling machine to be filled with products again.
This prior system has a large capacity but very low flexibility. The diameter of the cage holes must match the associated filling machine equipment, and consequently such a production system is normally not feasible for more than two different products. If more than two variants are required, then a completely new set of cages must be provided and in addition all of the filling machine product dispensers must be replaced. Also, the largest product diameter should not exceed the maximum diameter for which the filling machine is designed. In addition, this system is limited to a certain product taper angle, with a corresponding limitation of possible variants. Therefore, machines of this type very seldom allow for more than two or three different product variants. As a result only the very largest ice cream makers use such equipment, since the investments are high and require continuous production. Furthermore, cleaning of the cages represents a considerable problem and the cages occupy a considerable space when not in use.
A second wellknown type of machine is sold in several variants such as the so-called Straight Line, Glacier, Gram and Cattabriga machines. These mainly consist of a long continuous chain provided with squared steel trays. Holes are formed in the trays to receive the product to be run on the machine. Usually there are up to six products per tray. The capacity of this machine is low and large expenses are required for replacing trays, etc., if high flexibility is to be obtained.
There is also a third machine variant exemplified by U.S. Pat. No. 3,580,188. This is a 6-row type of machine in which the products are filled and frozen in a traditional manner. After dwelling for about 15 minutes in the freezing tunnel the products are turned upside-down and emerge depending with their tops down. This prior machine requires a very long freezing tunnel in order to ensure sufficient hardening of the products before upsetting them. The machine construction is useful for conical products only.
Swedish Patent No. 127 370 describes an endless conveyor machine specifically designed for producing ice lollies. Trays carried by the conveyor are lifted and rotated horizontally a quarter turn by cylinder means below the conveyor upper run to permit insertion of sticks into the ice bodies formed on the trays.

Apparatus for making frozen edible products


Model terrain accessories that are positioned for use on the surface of a miniature landscape are fabricated from a permanently flexible material, preferably polyvinyl chloride. These flexible accessories are realistically contoured models representing roads, streams, stream banks, earthworks, and walls, or segments thereof. These flexible accessories will conform to changes in surface elevation on any miniature landscape on which they are assembled. The flexible accessories fit together easily in an infinite variety of individual and group configurations, and can be easily removed from the landscape surface and reused when desired.

Miniature layouts of landscape surfaces are commonly used for scale model toy railroads and adventure games using miniature figures. Such landscape surfaces often contain accessories, such as roads, streams, earthworks, walls, and the like. These accessories are of a type that can be modeled on top of the landscape surface after the topography of hills and valleys is completed. The accessories are typically oblong shapes.
The accessories are sometimes permanently attached to the landscape surface. Prior art accessories, such as roads, river banks, earthworks, and walls are typically made of epoxy putty, sheetrock spackle, or some other material that can be applied when soft and allowed to harden in place. Streams and rivers are cast in place with high gloss polyester resin or some other material and painted or varnished to look like water.
These accessories conform to the configuration of the landscape surface but once fixed in place are unchangeable so there is no variability in either their overall configuration as a group or in their individual placement. This is a prohibitive disadvantage for those who want to change the accessories from time to time, such as between adventure games. Another disadvantage is that such permanent accessories are time consuming to create.
The common alternative to using permanently attached terrain accessories is to use removable terrain accessories. Roads, streams, stream banks, walls, and earthworks are commercially available. These prior art removable accessories are made from rigid materials such as hard cast resin, hard foam, ceramics, ABS plastics, cardboard, etc. Rigid accessories, such as roads and fences, for example, will not go over hills, but they can be used in various combinations or be independently placed on flat landscape surfaces. They can also be used to make turns or curves to the extent that the rigid accessories are curved or bent. Thus, these prior art rigid accessories are limited in their variability of overall group configurations and in their individual placement. Moreover, these rigid accessories, particularly if used in combinations, have an unnatural geometric look when assembled for use.
Homemade terrain accessories such as roads and rivers have been made from colored cloth strips, masking tape, cardboard, acetate, and even chalk marks on a tabletop. Walls and earthworks have been made from balsa wood or other rigid materials. Rigid homemade accessories are even less realistic in appearance than the correspondingly rigid commercially available accessories and have the same disadvantage of being limited in variability. Non-rigid homemade accessories are more variable in configuration and will go over hills and around corners, but masking tape and the like have a very limited visual appeal because they are not realistically contoured models.
In recent years, inventors and modelers have tried to combine the superior appearance of permanently attached terrain accessories with the variability of removable features by the use of modular landscape systems. U.S. Pat. No. 3,352,054 to Glass et al. discloses a modular system using interchangeable tiles. Such systems use large modules and have limited variability. Features such as roads and rivers that are attached to the tiles cannot be changed, only the placement of the tiles in relation to each other may be changed.
Other modular systems use smaller modules, often in hexagon shapes that can be put together in many different combinations. This allows greater variability, but in order to get a certain accessory on the terrain, a separate module with that accessory on it is required. All of the modular systems are time consuming to assemble and there are many joints between the modules which detract from the visual appeal of the assembled terrain and accessories.

Flexible terrain features for miniature modeling


A power converter is presented. The power converter includes at least one leg, the at least one leg includes a first string, where the first string includes a plurality of controllable semiconductor switches, a first connecting node, and a second connecting node, and where the first string is operatively coupled across a first bus and a second bus. Furthermore, the at least one leg includes a second string operatively coupled to the first string via the first connecting node and the second connecting node, where the second string includes a plurality of switching units. A method for power conversion is also presented.

The invention relates generally to power converters and more specifically to a multilevel converter.
In the last few decades, the field of power conversion has grown tremendously due to its imminent advantages in motor drives, renewable energy systems, high voltage direct current (HVDC) systems, and the like. The multilevel converter is emerging as a promising power conversion technology for various medium and high voltage applications.
Multilevel converters offer several advantages over an ordinary two-level converter. For example, the power quality of the multilevel converter is better than that of two level converters. Also, the multilevel converters are ideal for interface between a grid and renewable energy sources such as photovoltaics (PV), fuel cells, wind turbines, and the like. In addition, the efficiency of the multilevel converter is relatively higher as a result of its minimum switching frequency.
In the recent times, the multilevel converters having a modular structure and without transformers have been designed. The modular structure of the converters, allows stacking of these converters to an almost unlimited number of levels. Also, the modular structure aids in scaling up to different power and voltage levels. However, certain currently available multilevel converters such as modular multilevel converters (MMC) typically employ a large number of fully controllable semiconductor switches, such as insulated gate bipolar transistors (IGBTs).

Multilevel power converter system and method


In an embodiment of the invention, a composition for treating a cell population comprises a medicant. The medicant moiety can be an illudofulvene analog. In an embodiment of the invention, a composition for treating a cell population comprises an Affinity Medicant Conjugate (AMC). The affinity moiety can be an antibody, an antibody fragment, a receptor protein, a peptidic growth factor, an anti-angiogenic protein, a specific binding peptide, protease cleavable peptide, a glycopeptide, a peptide, a peptidic toxin, a protein toxin and an oligonucleotide. The affinity moiety can be covalently bound to the medicant via a linker.

The present invention is directed to a medicant or an Affinity Medicant Conjugate (AMC) including illudofulvene based medicants, illudofulvene based Affinity Medicant Linker Conjugates (AMLC), illudofulvene based antibody-drug conjugates (ADC) and illudofulvene based medicant-linker (ML) compounds, as well as to compositions of the same, and to methods for their use in treating cancer, an autoimmune to methods of using illudofulvene based Ligand Linker Medicant (LLM) conjugates and illudofulvene based ML compounds in vitro, in situ, and in vivo for the detection, diagnosis or treatment of cells and associated pathological conditions.


A high speed, high sensitivity post amplifier as described herein includes a digitally-controlled DC offset cancellation feature. The amplifier circuit is configured to provide DC offset voltage levels in response to a digital control signal, where the digital control signal is generated based upon a data error metric such as bit error rate. The AC signal path and the DC offset adjustment signal path in the amplifier circuit are separated to facilitate operation with normal power supply voltages, and to achieve low power operation.

The presence of DC offset in a data signal can be a significant problem in high speed, high sensitivity, post amplifiers utilized in optical communication systems. In general, two distortion sources can contribute to DC offset in an amplified data signal: (1) the DC offset already present in the input data signal, which may be caused by duty cycle distortion, data pattern irregularities, or practical limitations of the communication system components; and (2) internal DC offset generated by the amplifier circuit itself, which is caused by asymmetry or mismatching of the amplifier devices. When a low level data signal is amplified by a highly sensitive amplifier circuit, even small amounts of DC offset can significantly degrade the quality of the amplified data signal.
The prior art contains several DC offset cancellation techniques that address the problem of DC offset in a processed data signal. Typically, such prior art techniques suffer from one or more of the following shortcomings: (1) limited to the cancellation of "internal" DC offset generated by the amplifier circuit, and not able to cancel "external" DC offset that may be present in the amplifier input signal; (2) the need for off-chip components; (3) high operating power requirements; and (4) limited to relatively low speed operation, e.g., below 1 Gbps (especially for practical CMOS implementations).

Amplifier with digital DC offset cancellation feature


The present disclosure describes defending against an attack execution operation. According to one aspect of the subject matter described in this disclosure, a method for generating a domain-specific language (DSL) file is disclosed. The method may comprise determining, a framework based on an attack repository, determining a first primitive based on the framework, and determining a second primitive based on the framework. In one implementation, the first primitive and the second primitive are fundamental structures or constructs within a DSL. The method further comprises combining the first primitive and the second primitive into a DSL file. In one implementation, the DSL file is executed to defend against a first attack execution operation executed by a threat-actor.

In the computer security space, threat-actors (also called adversaries/attackers elsewhere herein) are constantly developing tactics, techniques, and practices/procedures that exploit security vulnerabilities of computing systems. As a result, the tech community is progressively moving towards collaborating and sharing information about threat-actor activity as part of dealing with computer security issues. For instance, the ATT&CK (Adversarial Tactics, Techniques, and Common Knowledge) framework (generally referred to as "attack classification and risk assessment framework), which is a living growing document of threat tactics and techniques grouped into a repository of globally observed attacks on a plurality of networks and computing devices from millions of collaborating individuals and groups, provides invaluable insight into threat-actor activities on computing devices.
Information from sources like the attack classification and risk assessment framework can facilitate developing threat models in cybersecurity and/or computer security product and service community. Presently, there is no "formal language" that provides a schema for threat models and methodologies for enticing threat-actors and defending against attack execution operations threat-actors perform. More importantly, existing methodologies for threat-analysis and mitigation do not have a formal language based on information sources such as the attack classification and risk assessment framework.
Additionally, existing adversary emulation platforms and other computer security systems or computer security products are generally not configured to be domain-specific (i.e., configured for use within a specific domain). This makes it easy for threat-actors to compile and maliciously use custom scripts outside of a given domain for which the scripts were initially intended.

Domain specific language for defending against a threat-actor and adversarial tactics, techniques, and procedures


An amplifying optical fiber includes an inner core, an inner cladding, a depressed trench, and an outer cladding (e.g., an outer optical cladding). Typically, the inner core includes a main matrix (e.g., silica-based) doped with at least one rare earth element. The depressed trench typically has a volume integral V13 of between about −2200×10−3 μm2 and −1600×10−3 μm2. Exemplary embodiments of the amplifying optical fiber are suitable for use in a compact configuration and high power applications.

An optical fiber (i.e., a glass fiber typically surrounded by one or more coating layers) conventionally includes an optical fiber core, which transmits and/or amplifies an optical signal, and an optical cladding, which confines the optical signal within the core. Accordingly, the refractive index of the core nc is typically greater than the refractive index of the optical cladding ng (i.e., nc>ng).
For optical fibers, the refractive index profile is generally classified according to the graphical appearance of the function that associates the refractive index with the radius of the optical fiber. Conventionally, the distance r to the center of the optical fiber is shown on the x-axis, and the difference between the refractive index (at radius r) and the refractive index of the optical fiber's outer cladding (e.g., an outer optical cladding) is shown on the y-axis. The refractive index profile is referred to as a "step" profile, "trapezoidal" profile, "parabolic" profile, or "triangular" profile for graphs having the respective shapes of a step, a trapezoid, a parabola, or a triangle. These curves are generally representative of the optical fiber's theoretical or set profile. Constraints in the manufacture of the optical fiber, however, may result in a slightly different actual profile.
Generally speaking, two main categories of optical fibers exist: multimode fibers and single-mode fibers. In a multimode optical fiber, for a given wavelength, several optical modes are propagated simultaneously along the optical fiber. In a single-mode optical fiber, the signal propagates in a fundamental LP01 mode that is guided in the optical-fiber core, while the higher order modes (e.g., the LP11 mode) are strongly attenuated.
Amplifying optical fibers (e.g., optical fibers doped with rare-earth elements) are commonly used in various optical applications.
International Publication No. WO 2010/080952 (and its counterpart U.S. Patent Publication No. 2010/0178504), each of which is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety, disclose bend-insensitive optical fibers with a low refractive index glass ring in the cladding (i.e., a ring where the refractive index percent relative to pure silica glass is less than −0.5 percent). The design of the disclosed optical fibers, however, does not satisfactorily reduce bending losses. Additionally, International Publication No. WO 2010/080952 does not target high-power applications.
Thus, there exists a need for a rare-earth-doped amplifying optical fiber for use in a compact configuration and high power applications (e.g., around 500 mW or more).

Rare-earth-doped amplifying optical fiber


Device for measuring physical characteristics of a porous sample by performing successive drainage and imbibition phases in the presence of a first electricity-conducting fluid and of a second fluid of lower density than the first fluid, by means of a centrifuge whose speed is successively increasing and decreasing. The sample saturated with the first fluid is placed in a vessel (13) fastened to the end of an arm (9) driven in rotation by a motor (10) and communicating, by means of a rotating electro-hydraulic connector (17), with a stationary measuring signal control and acquisition unit (E) including hydraulic fluid displacement means and an acquisition device connected to a capacitive sonde in the vessel, which delivers signals indicative of the position of the interface between the two fluids. The device can be applied for analyzing rocks taken from an underground reservoir for example.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an improved device for measuring physical characteristics of a more or less porous sample. Such a device is notably well suited to test geologic samples and to determine various parameters such as the capillary pressure of rocks in drainage and imbibition phases, their wettability index, their relative permeability, their resistivity index, etc.
2. Description of the Prior Art
It is important to determine the wettability of rocks with respect to the water and to the oil which may be contained therein. To that effect, the rock must be subjected to a drainage process, that is a displacement of the fluids intended to decrease the water saturation thereof, followed by an imbibition, that is a displacement of the fluids allowing an increase of the water saturation (Sw) of the rock. The capillary pressure at one point is defined as the difference Pc at equilibrium between the pressure Po of the oil and the pressure Pw of the water. This parameter is meaningful only if the two fluids are in the continuous phase in the porous medium. For a water wet medium, only positive values are meaningful. On the other hand, if the medium has a mixed wettability, the fluids can remain in the continuous phase for the positive and for the negative capillary pressures (Pc) as well.
For an application of this type, a complete capillary pressure measuring cycle must therefore comprise (FIG. 1):
a) positive primary drainage of an initially 100% water-saturated sample (curve 1),
b) positive imbibition (curve 2),
c) negative imbibition (curve 3),
d) negative drainage (curve 4), and
e) positive secondary drainage (curve 5).
Knowledge of various parameters and notably of the wettability of rocks is useful notably when enhanced recovery is to be performed in a formation, by draining the effluents contained therein by injecting a fluid under pressure, and when the most suitable fluid (water or gas) for displacement of effluents is to be determined by means of preliminary tests.
French Patent A-0,603,040 filed by the assignee describes a method allowing measurement of physical characteristics of saturated rocks by subjecting them to a progressive-speed centrifugation and by measuring the amount of fluid displaced as a function of the rotating speed. The sample saturated with a liquid A for example is placed in an elongate container or vessel containing another fluid B of different density. The vessel is fastened to the end of a rotating arm and a centrifugal force is applied thereto so as to study the fluid displacements in the sample during at least two distinct phases. During a first drainage phase, the assembly is subjected to a centrifugal force applied along the length of the vessel so as to exert an expulsion force thereon, which tends to flow out of part of the first fluid B. At the same time, some of fluid A flows into the sample. The two fluids move through the sample until they reach a position of equilibrium where the force due to the capillary pressure in the pores compensates for the centrifugal force exerted.
It is well-known that the capillary pressure PC at a distance R from the fulcrum pin, when it is positive, is expressed by the following relation:PC(R)=½Δρω2(R2max−R2)PC(Rmax)=0where ω is the angular rotating speed, Rmax is the distance from the base of the sample bar S to the fulcrum pin, and Δρ is the difference between the respective densities of the two fluids.
For negative values, the capillary pressure PC at a distance R from the fulcrum pin is:PC(R)=½Δρω2(R2min−R2)PC(Rmin)=0.
During the re-imbibition phase (curve 2), the speed is decreased in order to study the re-integration of the initial fluid therein. With this type of method, local saturations are calculated by an inversion program from the total amount of water expelled from the sample.
The capillary pressure in the sample can be deduced from the precise measurement of the amount of initial fluid extracted as a function of the centrifugal force exerted and from the variation of the average fluid saturation Sm of the sample as a function of the centrifugal force exerted, which is obtained, for example, by acoustic detection.
With a fluid-saturated sample, it can be seen (FIG. 1) that the saturation during the centrifugal drainage phase, for a determined radius r, decreases (curve 1) as the rotating speed w increases until a minimum value Si is reached. During this drainage phase, the rotating speed is increased in successive stages until a speed of 3500 rpm is reached for example. The fluid saturation variations are measured during the deceleration phase. A hysteresis phenomenon and a return, according to another variation curve (curve 2), to a relative maximum value Sm are observed during the re-imbibition phase of the porous material.
A system for maintaining the drained fluid in contact with the sample bar is preferably used so that, when the deceleration phase starts, the bar can be properly re-imbibed. To ensure this maintenance, the system stabilizes the interface level between the two fluids at a minimum level where it is level with the base of the bar, that is at the furthest distance from the fulcrum pin (Rmax), at least throughout the deceleration phase.
Displacements inside the sample are followed either by measuring the variation of the time of flight of the ultrasounds through the sample, or by measuring the variation of the electric resistance thereof. The volume drained can be measured optically by a vessel provided with a transparent light and by observing the level variation by use of a stroboscopic lighting.
The fluids drained out of the sample can for example be transferred into a variable-volume chamber in the same vessel or in a second rotating vessel for example, by a pump borne by one of the arms and driven by an electric motor. Such a system is easy to implement and has a reasonable cost. However, it requires using a pump borne by the arm and therefore subjected to the centrifugal force. This is a drawback because it is difficult to find standard electric driving motors capable of withstanding the great accelerations required for implementation of the process, typically of the order of 3000 g. Special motors whose cost is very high must be used therefore.