Provided is a positive electrode for lithium ion secondary cell that includes an electrolyte holding layer excellent in electron conductivity, and a lithium ion secondary cell using the same. The present invention relates to a positive electrode for lithium ion secondary cell that includes a positive electrode current collector foil and positive electrode mixture layers laminated on both surfaces of the positive electrode current collector foil. The positive electrode mixture layer includes a first positive electrode active material layer, an electrolyte holding layer, and a second positive electrode active material layer. The first positive electrode active material layer, the electrolyte holding layer, and the second positive electrode active material layer contain positive electrode active materials, binders, and conductive agents containing carbonaceous material. A conductive agent ratio of the electrolyte holding layer is higher than conductive agent ratios of the first positive electrode active material layer and the second positive electrode active material layer. A positive electrode active material ratio and a binder ratio of the electrolyte holding layer are lower than positive electrode active material ratios and binder ratios of the first positive electrode active material layer and the second positive electrode active material layer.

In the automotive industry, to conform to fuel consumption and environment regulations tightened in each country and each region, the technology development of automobiles that do not discharge carbon dioxide, for example, an electric vehicle that uses a battery as a power source and a fuel cell vehicle that uses hydrogen as a fuel source, has been attracting attention. However, there are problems of a charging infrastructure and a charging period for the electric vehicle, and there are problems of infrastructure maintenance of hydrogen stations and a battery cost for the fuel cell vehicle. Accordingly, to adapt to the fuel consumption and environmental regulations in a short period, automobiles that employ both an internal combustion engine and a battery as power sources, for example, a Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicle (PHEV) and a Hybrid Electric Vehicle (HEV), have still been strong candidates for the automobiles that emit less carbon dioxide.
A property required for a lithium ion secondary cell in thus HEV use is to be capable of supplying a large current necessary for driving a motor, that is, having a low internal resistance and a low voltage drop during electrical discharge.
For example, Patent Literature 1 discloses a negative electrode plate for secondary cell that includes a first negative electrode active material layer, a conductive layer, and a second negative electrode active material layer laminated in this order, in which the first negative electrode active material layer and the second negative electrode active material layer contain negative electrode active materials and binders, the conductive layer contains a conductive agent and another binder different from the binders contained in the first negative electrode active material layer and the second negative electrode active material layer, and the other binder contained in the conductive layer is large in tensile breaking strain and small in tensile modulus of elasticity compared with the binders contained in the first negative electrode active material layer and the second negative electrode active material layer. With the negative electrode plate for secondary cell, cycle characteristics can be improved even when negative electrode active material particles having large volume change are used.
Patent Literature 2 discloses an electrode for lithium ion secondary cell that includes a current collector, an electrode active material layer, and an electrolyte impregnation layer that contains an metal oxide and a conductive substance, in which the electrode active material layer includes a first electrode active material layer and a second electrode active material layer, and the electrolyte impregnation layer is positioned between the first electrode active material layer and the second electrode active material layer. With the electrode for lithium ion secondary cell, since an electrolyte can be smoothly supplied and impregnated into the electrode even if the electrode is thick, a lithium ion secondary cell excellent in cycle life characteristics and output characteristics is achieved.

Positive electrode for lithium ion secondary cell, and lithium ion secondary cell using same


A system and apparatus for detecting electrode faults in a physiological activity acquisition system or device. The system includes at least one signal sensing electrode attached to the subject and a signal processor coupled to the at least one signal sensing electrode. The signal sensing electrode senses a combined signal from the subject. The combined signal has an activity portion and a carrier portion. The signal processor receives the combined signal from the electrode. The signal processor processes the combined signal and generates a noise-redeuced ECG and an electrode fault signal, if an electrode fault exists.

The present invention relates to a method and apparatus for reducing noise and detecting electrode faults in equipment used to measure physiological activity.
Organ function in humans and other subjects is often controlled or otherwise associated with electrical activity. For example, human and animal nervous systems generate a variety of electrical signals that can be monitored and measured. Similarly, the rhythmic beating of a heart is maintained by an orderly series of electrical discharges. In humans, the discharges originate in the sinus node of the right atrium. The discharges proceed through the atrioventricular node and a bundle of neuromuscular fibers (known as the bundle of His) to the ventricles. By attaching electrodes to various parts of the body, a record of the electrical activity of the heart can be obtained. This record is known as an electrocardiogram or ECG. ECGs are used in a variety of diagnostic and treatment procedures.
The correct application of electrodes to a patient is very important to proper detection and measurement of ECGs. If an electrode is improperly or poorly connected to the body, either no ECG signal or a noisy ECG signal is detected. This can result in misdiagnoses and improper medical treatment, which in turn can have serious consequences.
To avoid erroneous ECG readings, a number of devices and methods have been developed to detect or to identify electrode fault conditions. Despite the existence of these devices and methods, adequate detection of electrode faults and reduction of the noise associated with electrode faults and poor electrode connections has not been achieved.
The present invention provides a method and an apparatus for detecting faults in electrodes used to measure electrical activity in subjects. The invention also provides a mechanism for reducing noise in signals from electrodes. The method includes the acts of delivering a carrier signal to the subject by connecting an RL electrode (so named because it is generally positioned over or near the right leg) to the subject. The RL electrode delivers an AC carrier signal to the subject. Once the RL signal is delivered to the subject, a combined signal having an electrical-activity portion and a carrier-signal portion is sensed by attaching at least one signal sensing electrode to the subject. The combined signal is then processed by dividing the electrical activity portion from the carrier signal portion. An impedance value for the at least one signal sensing electrode is then calculated using the carrier signal portion. Finally, the calculated impedance value is compared against known values to determine whether an electrode fault exists.
Preferably, the act of processing the combined signal includes filtering the combined signal in a low-pass, finite impulse response filter having a first zero point frequency. The low-pass filter is used to reduce high frequency noise and to separate the sensed carrier signal portion from the sensed electrical activity portion. The low-pass filter is also used to determine the characteristics of the carrier signal. In particular, the carrier signal is generated so that it has a frequency substantially the same as the first zero point frequency of the filter. Since the filter is used for two functions, namely noise filtering and removing the carrier signal, less computing power is needed in the present invention as compared to prior-art electrode fault detecting systems. Using less computing power is particularly beneficial in multi-lead systems with 12 or more leads.
The invention may be implemented in a system that includes a first ECG signal sensing electrode, a second ECG signal sensing electrode, and a third ECG signal sensing electrode, all of which are designed to be attached to a patient or subject. An RL electrode is also connected to the patient. The RL electrode carries an AC carrier signal generated by a signal generator. The carrier signal radiates from the RL electrode and is sensed, along with physiological electrical activity from the patient, by the sensing electrodes. Thus, each sensing electrode outputs a combined signal having a carrier signal portion and an electrical activity portion. The signals from the electrodes are delivered to a signal processing unit that processes the signals and generates an output signal that may be delivered to a device such as a monitor, a printer, or additional processing device. The signal processing unit also generates an electrode fault signal that may be delivered to a control or warning device to trigger an alarm indicator, such as a light or audio alarm.
As is apparent from the above, it is an advantage of the present invention to provide a method and system of identifying faults in electrodes in combination with noise filtering. Other features and advantages of the present invention will become apparent by consideration of the detailed description and accompanying drawings.

Method and apparatus for reducing noise and detecting electrode faults in medical equipment

GE Medical Systems Information Technologies, Inc.


Methods for increasing the nephron mass of a mammalian recipient are disclosed. A metanephros from an allogenic or xenogeneic mammalian donor is implanted next to a recipient's omentum or under the renal capsule of the recipient's kidney. The metanephros becomes vascularized by the recipient's blood vessels, forming a chimeric kidney that produces urine and develops a ureter that facilitates externalization of the urine. A ureter to ureter anastomosis can be subsequently performed to provide fluid communication between the chimeric kidney ureter and a ureter of the recipient.

Kidneys are excretory organs that serve the general function of maintaining the chemical and physical constancy of blood and other body fluids. They remove superfluous water and biologically useless as well as toxic materials that accumulate in the blood.
In vertebrates, the kidneys are paired, bean-shaped organs, with each kidney having a convex lateral or external border, and a medial, internal border which is concave in the center and convex toward either extremity. The central part of the medial border has a deep fissure called the hilum, through which extends vessels, nerves and the ureter. The hilum expands into a central cavity called the renal sinus. Each kidney is surrounded by a smooth, fibrous capsule and is comprised of an internal medullary surrounded by an external cortical substance. The medullary substance consists of striated conical masses termed renal pyramids, arranged such that their bases are directed toward the lateral border, while their apices converge toward the renal sinus. The cortical substance lies immediately beneath the fibrous capsule and arches over bases of the pyramids and extends between adjacent pyramids towards the renal sinus.
Microscopically, the kidney is comprised of a number of functional units called nephrons. The human kidney is comprised of about 1.25 million nephrons. Each nephron has a complex structure with two main parts: the glomerulus and the renal tubule. The glomerulus is a tuft of nonanastomosing capillaries located in the cortical substance which is derived from an arteriole called the afferent vessel which branches to form the capillary loops. The capillaries join to form the efferent arteriole The glomerulus is surrounded by a double-walled membranous sac called the capsule of Bowman, which is part of the renal tube. The renal tubule is located partly in the cortical substance, where it pursues a convoluted, circuitous course and forms the capsule of Bowman, and partly in the medullary substance, in which the convolutions of the tubule disappear. As it enters the medullary substance, it becomes straight, and dips down for a variable depth, then bends to form the loop of Henle and ascends back into the cortical substance where it again becomes tortuous and terminates into a collecting tubule which opens into a ureter. The ureter opens into the urinary bladder.
During embryogenesis, the rudiments of the permanent kidneys, the metanephros, make their appearance during the fifth week of gestation in humans, during day 12 of embryonic rat development and during day 11 of embryonic mouse development. At this stage of development, outgrowths of the mesonephric ducts, called ureteric buds, collect about their distal ends, intermediate mesoderm caudal to the mesonephros, designated metanephric blastema. Numerous outgrowths arise from the distal end of the ureteric bud which push radially into the surrounding mass of metanephric blastema and give rise to the collecting ducts of the kidneys. The proximal ends of the ureteric bud give rise to the ureter and renal pelvis. The metanephric blastema differentiates into all of the tubular structures of the adult renal tubule with the exception of the collecting system. Nephron segment growth and differentiation that occurs in metanephric organ culture recapitulates closely that which occurs in vivo. One exception is that vascularization of the nephron does not take place in the metanephric organ culture system because the origin of the glomerular blood vessels is, in part, extrametanephric. Humans develop a full complement of nephrons by approximately 35 weeks of gestation. However, in rodents nephrogenesis is not complete at the time of birth, but rather continues for the first 3 weeks following birth, when nephrons continue to develop from a nephrogenic zone located at the periphery of the kidney.
Once renal development is complete, no new nephrons are formed under any conditions. Renal arteries deliver blood to the glomerulus, where blood plasma is filtered through the porous walls of the capillaries. The filtrate drains into the tube system where the major part of water and plasma components are reabsorbed into the blood vessels. The remaining liquid containing biologically useless materials in a high concentration is the urine that passes through the ureter to the urinary bladder. Urine contains hundreds of organic compounds, including the protein digestion and metabolism products, urea, creatinine, uric acid and others. The loss of functional renal mass that occurs following insults to the adult kidney, is compensated for in the short term, by hypertrophy and hyperfunction of the remaining nephrons. However, these compensatory changes are often transient and under some circumstances maladaptive in that they may lead to further loss of functional renal mass. When kidneys cannot operate properly, useless and/or toxic materials accumulate in blood and other physiological fluids and can lead to illness and death.
End-stage chronic renal failure in humans afflicts more than 250,000 individuals in the United States, most of whom are treated using dialysis. External hemodialysis removes excess water and biologically useless organic compounds from the patient. A drawback of this treatment results from the unselectivity of the diffusion process through the polymeric membrane that is used, which does not distinguish between useless molecules and useful molecules, such as amino acids, nucleotides, mineral ions and many other useful components. Additionally, the treatment is generally unpleasant for the patient because before dialysis, the waste products build up in the body, and after dialysis there is an imbalance of chemical equilibria and processes in the body due to removal of essential components. Thus, considerable morbidity is associated with dialysis treatment. Additionally, hemodialysis is an expensive, time-consuming process, which keeps the patient connected to the dialysis machine for several hours, three or four times a week.
Another method of treating kidney failure is to replace the malfunctioning kidneys with a functioning kidney from a donor organism. In the United States approximately 5,000 kidneys transplantations are performed annually. Because the kidneys are paired organs, and only one is necessary for normal life, live volunteer donors, in addition to cadaveric donors, can be used to provide the donor kidney. The drawbacks associated with transplantation are the availability of donor kidneys and immunological rejection by the transplant recipient of the donor organ.
Attempts have been made to increase renal mass by allogeneic kidney grafting. Woolf et al. transplanted pieces of metanephric tissue from embryonic mice into tunnels made into the renal cortex of recipient neonatal mice (less than one day old) which were still undergoing nephrogenesis [Kidney International, Vol. 38 (1990), .paragraph.. 991-997; and American J. of Kidney Diseases, Vol. XVII, No. 6 (June 1991) .paragraph.. 611-614]. Two to four weeks later, the chimeric kidneys were removed from the mice. The donor tissue was observed to contain mature, functioning, differentiated features within the nephrons which indicated that post-transplantation differentiation occurred within the donor metanephric tissue. When adult mice were grafted with pieces of metanephric tissue, using the same procedure that was used for the neonatal mice, the donor tissue was extruded from the cortex and resembled a poorly-differentiated tumor underneath the renal capsule. The investigators concluded that the neonatal kidney, which in mice still undergoes nephrogenesis after birth, can facilitate differentiation of an embryonic implant, but that this ability is lacking in the fully-differentiated adult kidney.
Barakat and Harrison, J. Anat. (1971), Vol.110, 3, .paragraph.. 393-407, sectioned metanephroi originating from embryonic rats (days 15-17) and kidneys from newborn rats (<1 day), into quarters, and transplanted each quarter into a subcutaneous site in the abdominal wall of either a newborn or adult rat. Within the newborn hosts, the grafts formed fully differentiated glomeruli and tubules by 8 days post-transplantation. However, with the adult hosts, there was significant lymphocytic infiltration into the grafts after the same amount of time. By 11 to 12 days, the grafts within the adult hosts were largely replaced by fibrosis. Irrespective of whether the grafted renal tissue was of fetal or neonatal origin, each of the adult host rats rejected its graft.
Abrahamson et al. transplanted whole embryonic (day 17) rat kidneys under the renal capsule of mature rat hosts [Laboratory Investigation, Vol. 64, No. 5, .paragraph.. 629-639 (1991)]. Considerable glomerulogenesis and tubulogenesis occurred, although structural abnormalities were present. While, the implanted kidneys had become connected to the host vasculature, no observations were made as to whether functioning nephrons were present.
Signs of rejection were apparent in all of the grafts within 10 days post-transplantation.
Immunosuppression treatments have been used to prevent rejection of allografts. Churchill et al. performed experiments where the left kidneys of adult rats were removed and replaced by donor adult rat kidneys [Transplantation, Vol. 49: 8-13 (1990)]. Non-immunosuppressed recipients rejected the transplanted kidneys, while rejection was prevented in recipients immunosuppressed with daily injections of Cyclosporine A.


A skate device that has one or more turnable wheels. In one group of embodiments, the turnable wheels may be linked such that when one wheel turns another wheel turns in a manner that facilitates turning. In another group of embodiments, the turnable wheels are not so linked. The skate device of the present invention may achieve turning from a point underneath the shoe or foot region of the skate, thus more closely approximately turning on ice skates. The skate device may have inline wheels and maybe relatively light-weight and compact.

The prior art includes various wheeled devices that are worn or otherwise attached to a human foot. Common examples include roller skates, in-line skates, roller skis and the like. Various other, less common, devices also exist.
Conventional roller skates have a wheel arrangement consisting of two paired wheels. This arrangement provides relative stability, but is undesirably bulky and heavy and offers limited steerability or turnability.
In-line skates tend to be faster and lighter than conventional roller skates, and they have grown in popularity. Turning an in-line skate is often achieved by (1) physically lifting the skate and placing it down in a new line-of-direction (sometimes stepping over the other skate) or (2) leaning in a desired direction and effectively "pulling" the skate in that direction. In the latter turn, the front wheel is pulled into the desired new direction and the skate effectively "slips" across the skating surface to achieve the turn. Some in-line skates are configured with center wheels that are lower than the front and back wheels. These "rocker" skates may be easier to turn yet are less stable.
Other in-line skates or roller ski type devices have been developed that offer some degree of turning, though the degree of turning tends to be limited and the turning mechanism bulky, heavy and/or complicated, etc. Examples include the devices found in U.S. Pat. Nos.: 6,241,264; 5,732,957; and 4,382,605; and European Patent No.: 355,897; among others.
These "turnable" skate devices typically turn in response to weight displacement, i.e., the user shifts his or her weight causing the wheels to turn. These devices do not operate by turning or pivoting the foot. It is a disadvantageous limitation of prior art wheeled skates that they do not provide a mechanism for turning the skate in response to turning of a user's foot.
Furthermore, devices such as those discussed in the '264 and '957 patents have a wheel located on one end that turns and a wheel on the other end that functions as the pivot point of the turn. Hence, the pivot point for the turn is located before or after the "foot coupling" region of the skate, and not under the skate as it is, for example, with ice skates.
It is desired to provide a wheeled skate that more closely approximates the ice skating experience, e.g., that turns in response to a user turning his or her foot. It is also desired to provide a wheeled skate that has an underfoot centered turning mechanism that facilitates turning in a rapid and efficient manner. Furthermore, it is desired to provide such features in a wheeled skate arrangement that is lightweight and non-bulky.


Provided is a control circuit for a thermostatic oven in an oven controlled crystal oscillator, which is capable of further improving stability of an oscillation frequency. A control circuit in which a thermistor whose resistance value changes according to a temperature outputs a signal according to the ambient temperature of the thermostatic oven inside the oscillator, an operational amplifier outputs a signal according to a difference between the output of the thermistor and a reference signal, a power transistor amplifies the output of the operational amplifier, and a heater generates heat based on a collector voltage of the power transistor, is provided with a temperature sensor circuit having a transistor with a base to which the output of the operational amplifier is input. The control circuit outputs a collector voltage of the transistor as an internal temperature signal which changes according to a temperature inside the oscillator.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a control circuit for a thermostatic oven in an oven controlled crystal oscillator, and more particularly to a control circuit capable of further improving stability of the oscillation frequency of an oven controlled crystal oscillator by performing temperature-based compensation for the oscillation frequency with high accuracy.
2. Description of the Related Art
An oven controlled crystal oscillator (OCXO) has a crystal resonator disposed inside a case whose temperature is maintained constant, and has a stable frequency characteristic which is not easily influenced by an environmental temperature.
A control circuit for a thermostatic oven to be used in an oven controlled crystal oscillator has a heater which heats the thermostatic oven, and a thermistor whose resistance value changes according to the temperature, and controls the temperature in the thermostatic oven to be constant by adjusting a voltage to be applied to the heater according to the ambient temperature of the thermostatic oven.
To perform temperature-based compensation for the oscillation frequency of a crystal oscillator, the voltage is adjusted based on a temperature detected by a temperature sensor provided outside the oscillator to compensate for the oscillation frequency thereof.
Related arts relating to an oven controlled crystal oscillator are disclosed in Japanese Utility Model Application Laid-Open No. S64-7320 (Patent Document 1) and Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. H3-126303 (Patent Document 2).
The Patent Document 1 describes a thermostatic oven temperature control circuit which is configured to have a nichrome wire heater as a heating element provided in a temperature setting bridge and set the temperature according to a change in the resistance value of the heating element, and eliminates the need for a temperature sensor such as a thermistor.
The Patent Document 2 describes a temperature compensated crystal oscillator in which a transistor serving as an oscillation active element is used as a temperature sensor and a frequency control element, and which has a circuit configuration to facilitate integration.
Patent Document 1: Japanese Utility Model Application Laid-Open No. S64-7320
Patent Document 2: Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. H3-126303
Because the conventional crystal oscillator compensates for the oscillation frequency based on a temperature detected by the temperature sensor provided outside the oscillator, however, the temperature to be detected slightly differs from the temperature inside the oscillator where the crystal resonator is actually disposed, disabling more accurate temperature compensation.
In the conventional oven controlled crystal oscillator, the thermistor is used only for controlling the temperature of the thermostatic oven, and a signal according to the ambient temperature of the thermostatic oven which is to be detected by the thermistor is not used in control or the like of the oscillation frequency.
Further, the stability of the frequency of the conventional oven controlled crystal oscillator is 10−9 to 10−10 or so, and is not sufficient in a case of demanding a higher stability.

Control circuit for thermostatic oven in oven controlled crystal oscillator


A falling film evaporator (12) includes an evaporator vessel (26), a plurality of evaporator tubes (38) disposed in the in evaporator vessel (26) through which a volume of thermal energy transfer medium is flowed and a suction port (42) extending through the evaporator vessel (26) to remove vapor refrigerant from the evaporator vessel (26). A refrigerant distribution system (34) is located in the evaporator vessel (26) to distribute a flow of liquid refrigerant over the plurality of evaporator tubes (38). The refrigerant distribution system (34) is configured such that the refrigerant distribution system (34) has a first height at the suction port (42) and a second height greater than the first height at a longitudinal location (28) other than at the suction port (42).

The subject matter disclosed herein relates to heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) systems. More specifically, the subject matter disclosed herein relates to falling film evaporators for HVAC systems.
HVAC systems, such as chillers, use an evaporator to facilitate a thermal energy exchange between a refrigerant in the evaporator and a medium flowing in a number of evaporator tubes positioned in the evaporator. In a flooded evaporator, the tubes are submerged in a pool of refrigerant. This results in a particularly high volume of refrigerant necessary, depending on a quantity and size of evaporator tubes, for efficient system operation. Another type of evaporator used in chiller systems is a falling film evaporator. In a falling film evaporator, the evaporator tubes are positioned typically below a distribution manifold from which refrigerant is urged, forming a "falling film" on the evaporator tubes, utilizing gravity to drive the flow of refrigerant over the evaporator tubes. Evaporation is primarily accomplished through thin film evaporation on the surface of the evaporator tubes, while a small fraction of refrigerant is boiled off in a pool boiling section of the evaporator.
As regulatory & industry trends continues to drive towards replacement of conventional HFC's like R134a, of particular interest are the class of "low pressure refrigerants", i.e. refrigerants that are near or below atmospheric pressure at typical boiling temperatures in a chiller. These refrigerants can provide environmental benefits through increased cycle efficiencies, reduced global warming potential, and slower refrigerant leak rates. However, in real systems their lower vapor densities can result in a refrigerant pressure drops that can offset any performance gains.
Low pressure refrigerants offer potential for high efficiency refrigeration systems, but are very sensitive to changes in pressure, meaning that pressure losses greatly increase energy use. For this reason, velocities and flow resistances must be minimized by enlarging HX vessels and refrigerant lines. However, enlarged vessel and line sizes increase cost and physical footprint of these chiller systems, so solutions that can optimize vessel size and pressure drop are critical.

Refrigerant distributor for falling film evaporator


An information processing apparatus includes: a managing module configured to manage pieces of image information corresponding to types of applications; a determination module configured to determine whether a present time satisfies a preset temporal condition; an image selecting module configured to select first image information corresponding to a type of an activated application, and second image information corresponding to the type of the activated application when the present time satisfies the temporal condition; and a display module configured to generate a first image based on the first image information to be displayed on a display device when the image selecting module selects the first image information. The display module generates a second image based on the second image information to be displayed on the display device in place of the first image when the image selecting module selects the second image information.

1. Field
One embodiment of the invention relates to an information processing apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
The method of using a server is known as a method for reproducing or recording content data including video data, audio data, etc. in an apparatus on a network. In this method, designation of desired content data is enabled by displaying a GUI (graphical user interface) image on the display screen of a communication terminal that can communicate with the server.
For example, JP-A-2007-324755 discloses a mobile communication terminal capable of changing, according to preference of users, a user interface picture to be displayed in reproducing content data.
However, no consideration has been given to switching the user interface picture on a regular basis. For example, the apparatus disclosed in JP-A-2007-324755 is low inconvenience in that the user himself or herself needs to perform, when necessary, a manipulation of switching the user interface picture to be used in the case where plural user interface pictures are provided.

Apparatus for managing selection and display of graphic user interface (GUI) information


The present invention is directed to a computer-based weight loss system for supporting bariatric treatment of obesity that is accessible to both the patient and the medical practitioner. The system has a central server maintaining a library of information related to the treatment of obesity and a patient interface and a medical practitioner interface linked to the central server for uploading and downloading of information. The patient interface also provides access to information selected from the group consisting of bariatric care pathway, behavioral modification planning, fitness, preoperative diet, postoperative diet, monitoring of a gastric band, monitoring of a patient's weight, monitoring caloric intake and nutritional information. The uploaded information is processed by the central server and then made available to the medical practitioner and the patient.

1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a computer system providing assistance in bariatric treatment, for example, procedures aimed at treating obesity. More particularly, the invention relates to a computer system working in conjunction with gastric (or other bariatric) procedures to assist patients and medical practitioners in the treatment of obesity.
2. Description of the Related Art
Obesity has become a major problem in our society. Activities which previously required substantial manual exertion now are accomplished with minimal effort. Processed food is also more plentiful and provides people with ready access to high calorie food, and often times, facilitates over eating.
A portion of the population requires surgical intervention to address and alleviate the problems associated with their obesity. These surgical procedures may range from restriction of the stomach to a complete rearrangement of the digestive system. Each of these procedures comes with its own host of complications and advantages.
One procedure that has recently grown in popularity is adjustable gastric band application employed in reducing stomach volume and ultimately reducing food intake. Regardless of which procedure is chosen to address a person's obesity problem, these people require support both before and after the procedure. The present invention provides a system for supporting both the patient undergoing obesity related procedures and the medical practitioner assisting them in achieving their goal of losing weight and ultimately improving their quality of life.

Interactive web based system in support of bariatric procedures


Integrated microfluidic devices comprising at least an enrichment channel and a main electrophoretic flowpath are provided. In the subject integrated devices, the enrichment channel and the main electrophoretic flowpath are positioned so that waste fluid flows away from said main electrophoretic flowpath through a discharge outlet. The subject devices find use in a variety of electrophoretic applications, including clinical assays, high throughput screening for genomics and pharmaceutical applications, point-or-care in vitro diagnostics, molecular genetic analysis and nucleic acid diagnostics, cell separations, and bioresearch generally.

This invention relates to microfluidics, and particularly to microchannel devices in which fluids are manipulated at least in part by application of electrical fields.
Electrophoresis has become an indispensable tool of the biotechnology and other industries, as it is used extensively in a variety of applications, including the separation, identification and preparation of pure samples of nucleic acids, proteins, carbohydrates, the identification of a particular analyte in a complex mixture, and the like. Of increasing interest in the broader field of electrophoresis is capillary electrophoresis (CE), where particular entities or species are moved through a medium in an electrophoretic chamber of capillary dimensions under the influence of an applied electric field. Benefits of CE include rapid run times, high separation efficiency, small sample volumes, etc. Although CE was originally carried out in capillary tubes, of increasing interest is the practice of using microchannels or trenches of capillary dimension on a planar substrate, known as microchannel electrophoresis (MCE). CE and MCE are increasingly finding use in a number of different applications in both basic research and industrial processes, including analytical, biomedical, pharmaceutical, environmental, molecular, biological, food and clinical applications.
Despite the many advantages of CE and MCE, the potential benefits of these techniques have not yet been fully realized for a variety of reasons. Because of the nature of the electrophoretic chambers employed in CE and MCE, good results are not generally obtainable with samples having analyte concentrations of less than about 10.sup.-6 M. This lower analyte concentration detection limit has significantly limited the potential applications for CE and MCE. For example, CE and MCE have not found widespread use in clinical applications, where often an analyte of interest is present in femtomolar to nanomolar concentration in a complex sample, such as blood or urine.
In order to improve the detection limits of CE, different techniques have been developed, including improved sample injection procedures, such as analyte stacking (Beckers & Ackermans, "The Effect of Sample Stacking for High Performance Capillary Electrophoresis," J. Chromatogr. (1993) 629: 371-378), field amplification (Chien & Burgi, "Field Amplified Sample Injection in High-Performance Capillary Electrophoresis," J. Chromatogr. (1991) 559: 141-152), and transient isotachophoresis (Stegehuis et al., "Isotachophoresis as an On-Line Concentration Pretreatment Technique in Capillary Electrophoresis," J. Chromatogr. (1991) 538: 393-402), as well as improved sample detection procedures and "off-line" sample preparation procedures.
Another technique that has been developed to improve the detection limit achievable with CE has been to employ an analyte preconcentration device that is positioned directly upstream from the capillary, i.e., in an "on-line" or "single flow path" relationship. As used herein, the term "on-line" and "single flow path" are used to refer to the relationship where all of the fluid introduced into the analyte preconcentration component, i.e., the enriched fraction and the remaining waste fraction of the original sample volume, necessarily flows through the main electrophoretic portion of the device, i.e., the capillary tube comprising the separation medium. A review of the various configurations that have been employed is provided in Tomlinson et al., "Enhancement of Concentration Limits of Detection in CE and CE-MS: A Review of On-Line Sample Extraction, Cleanup, Analyte Preconcentration, and Microreactor Technology," J. Cap. Elec. (1995) 2: 247-266, and the figures provided therein.
Although this latter approach can provide improved results with regard to analyte detection limits, particularly with respect to the concentration limit of detection, it can have a deleterious impact on other aspects of CE, and thereby reduce the overall achievable performance. For example, analyte peak widths can be broader in on-line or single flow path devices comprising analyte preconcentrators.
Accordingly, there is continued interest in the development of improved CE devices capable of providing good results with samples having low concentrations of analyte, particularly analyte concentrations in the femtomolar to nanomolar range.
MCE devices are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,126,022; U.S. Pat. No. 5,296,114; U.S. Pat. No. 5,180,480; U.S. Pat. No. 5,132,012; and U.S. Pat. No. 4,908,112. Other references describing MCE devices include Harrison et al., "Micromachining a Miniaturized Capillary Electrophoresis-Based Chemical Analysis System on a Chip," Science (1992) 261: 895; Jacobsen et al., "Precolumn Reactions with Electrophoretic Analysis Integrated on a Microchip," Anal. Chem. (1994) 66: 2949; Effenhauser et al., "High-Speed Separation of Antisense Oligonucleotides on a Micromachined Capillary Electrophoresis Device," Anal. Chem. (1994) 66:2949; and Woolley & Mathies, "Ultra-High-Speed DNA Fragment Separations Using Capillary Array Electrophoresis Chips," P.N.A.S. USA (1994) 91:11348.
Patents disclosing devices and methods for the preconcentration of analyte in a sample "on-line" prior to CE include U.S. Pat. No. 5,202,010; U.S. Pat. No. 5,246,577 and U.S. Pat. No. 5,340,452. A review of various methods of analyte preconcentration employed in CE is provided in Tomlinson et al., "Enhancement of Concentration Limits of Detection in CE and CE-MS: A Review of On-Line Sample Extraction, Cleanup, Analyte Preconcentration, and Microreactor Technology," J. Cap. Elec. (1995) 2: 247-266.


A tachykinin receptor antagonist is useful for treating or preventing a psychoimmunological disorder in a patient.

The fact that psychologic stress can precipitate or alter the course of organic diseases has long been recognized. An essential challenge in psychosomatic-psychobiological research is to delineate the mechanisms by which experience causes certain types of physiological reactions that result in disease states. In addition, the mechanisms of neurobiological modulating systems need to be understood at the molecular and genetic levels. Recent and ongoing developments in cellular and molecular biology provide some research models by which transducing mechanisms involved in psychosomatic reactions can be understood at the most fundamental level. It has been suggested that anxiety can occur as a result of acquired neurophysiological chemosensitivity. Stimuli that produce "chronic anxiety" in the sea snail aplysia cause the enhancement of connections made by the sensory neurons on their target cells--that is, interneurons and motor neurons. The enhancing process, deemed postsynaptic facilitation, is caused by noxious stimuli that activate cells that use a serotonin-like neurotransmitter. Those cells on the head of the aplysia act as a defensive arousal system, impinge on the synaptic terminals of the reflex system for gill withdrawal, and enhance the connections that the sensory synapses make on the motor neurons and interneurons. Serotonin appears to play a major role in the defensive arousal process by increasing intracellular cAMP, which then strengthens the neuroconnectors of the sensory neurons by facilitating neurotransmitter release. In accordance with the present invention, substance P has been found to play an important role in the inducement of disease states by psychobiological reactions.
With respect to psychoimmunologic disorders, interest in the interactions between the central nervous system and the immune system date back to Aristotle, who hypothesized a connection between physical health and mood. Later, Sir William Osler spoke of the importance of knowing what is going on in a patient's head, as well as the lungs, in predicting the outcome of pulmonary tuberculosis. During the mid 1950s Selye demonstrated a clear relation among brain activity, endocrine organs, and immune function. In 1964 the field was first referred to as psychoimmunology, later amended to psychoneuroimmunology, the study of the interaction of consciousness, the brain and the central nervous system, and the body's immune system. In recent years major advances have been made in establishing direct evidence for a brain-immune system relation. In serving functions of adaptation and defense, both the central nervous system and the immune system discriminate between self and nonself, and they incorporate principles of recognition, learning, memory, and transmission of information. Evidence for such a communication system ranges from anatomical confirmation of the central nervous system innervation of immune organs to reports documenting the behavioral effects on immune response and tumor acquisition in experimental animals. A number of studies involving experimental animals and human autopsy specimens have shown direct sympathetic nervous system innervation of the spleen, the thymus, and the lymph nodes. Cholinergic innervation of the thymus gland has now been documented, and investigators have described noradrenergic innervation of lymphoid tissue in a variety of mammalian species, including humans.
Lending further evidence is the presence of receptors for various neurotransmitters, neurohormones, and neuropeptides on cells of the immune system. In particular, neurokinin receptors have been found in lymphatic tissue. Noradrenergic receptors have been found on lymphocytes that appear to be exclusively for beta2-adrenergic receptors, which are similar to those found in the smooth muscles of the bronchi and the lungs. In addition to the noradrenergic receptors of the beta-1 subtype, evidence indicates the presence on lymphocytes of receptors for gonadal steroids, endorphins, enkephalins, corticotropin, vasointestinal peptide, cholecystokinin, neurotensin, acetylcholine, and serotonin. Recent evidence also indicates that lymphocytes may synthesize some neurohormones de novo.
Although some studies suggest that bereavement and depression can interfere with immunological competence, the findings in this area of research have been diverse and often inconsistent. Studies of bereaved men and women have reported reduced in vitro lymphocyte response to mitogen stimulation, with normal levels of circulating immunoglobulins and normal responses on delayed hypersensitivity skin tests; the reduced lymphocyte response is most dramatic in bereaved patients with depressive symptoms. A recent meta-analysis of methodologically sound studies addressing cellular immunity in depression found that the immune abnormalities reliably associated with depression were (1) decreased proliferative response of lymphocytes to mitogen stimulation, (2) decreased natural killer cell activity, and (3) abnormalities of different white blood cell lines. The magnitude of these immune system abnormalities correlated with the intensity of depressed mood. However, methodological concerns limit the interpretation and generalizability of much of the available data on the immune system in depression; there is a high incidence of failure to replicate findings.
Although the present invention is not limited to a specific mechanism of action, the inventors postulate that a potential explanation for some of the diverse findings may involve high catecholamine output and the increased production of prostaglandins, each of which has been observed separately in studies of depressed patients. Catecholamines, acting through beta-adrenergic receptors, are known to suppress the activity of human natural killer cells. Prostaglandins, functioning through a complex interaction between second messenger systems, may inhibit in vitro mitogen-induced lymphocyte proliferation. Because recent animal work suggests that prostaglandin production is increased by catecholamines through a nonreceptor-mediated mechanism, the diminished immunological competence reported in depressed patients may be a result of the dysregulation of the catecholaminergic system. In accordance with the present invention, the neuropeptide substance P is postulated to play in important role in this mechanism. Accordingly, a tacykinin antagonist, in particular a neurokinin-1 receptor antagonist would be useful in the treatment or prevention of a psychosomatic disorder or a psychoimmunologic disorder.
Antidepressant and antianxiety agents have been employed for psychosomatic or psychoimmunologic disorders with limited success. In addition, certain side effects may be present with such treatment. These approaches have had limited success, however, and an alternate means of treating or preventing psychosomatic or psychoimmunologic disorders would be of great benefit.
The neuropeptide receptors for substance P (neurokinin-1; NK-1) are widely distributed throughout the mammalian nervous system (especially brain and spinal ganglia), the circulatory system and peripheral tissues (especially the duodenum and jejunum) and are involved in regulating a number of diverse biological processes. This includes sensory perception of olfaction, vision, audition and pain, movement control, gastric motility, vasodilation, salivation, and micturition (B. Pernow, Pharmacol. Rev., 1983, 35, 85-141). The NK-1 and NK-2 receptor subtypes are implicated in synaptic transmission (Laneuville et al., Life Sci., 42, 1295-1305 (1988)).
Substance P is a naturally occurring undecapeptide belonging to the tachykinin family of peptides, the latter being so-named because of their prompt contractile action on extravascular smooth muscle tissue. The tachykinins are distinguished by a conserved carboxyl-terminal sequence. In addition to SP the known mammalian tachykinins include neurokinin A and neurokinin B. The current nomenclature designates the receptors for substance P, neurokinin A, and neurokinin B as neurokinin-1, neurokinin-2, and neurokinin-3, respectively.
Substance P is a pharmacologically-active neuropeptide that is produced in mammals and acts as a vasodilator, a depressant, stimulates salivation and produces increased capillary permeability. It is also capable of producing both analgesia and hyperalgesia in animals, depending on dose and pain responsiveness of the animal (see R. C. A. Frederickson et al., Science, 199, 1359 (1978); P. Oehme et al., Science, 208, 305 (1980)) and plays a role in sensory transmission and pain perception (T. M. Jessell, Advan. Biochem. Psychopharmacol. 28, 189 (1981)).
Neurokinin-1 (NK-1; substance P) receptor antagonists are being developed for the treatment of a number of physiological disorders associated with an excess or imbalance of tachykinins, and in particular substance P. Examples of conditions in which substance P has been implicated include disorders of the central nervous system such as anxiety, depression and psychosis (see, for instance, PCT Patent Publication Nos. WO 95/16679, WO 95/18124 and WO 95/23798). More recently, PCT Patent Publication No. WO 96/24353 suggests that a more efficacious and safe treatment of psychiatric disorders would be achieved using a combination of a tachykinin antagonist and a serotonin agonist or selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI). However, such as regimen would not be free of side-effects due to the serotonin agonist or SSRI. Currently there are only limited means for treating or preventing psychosomatic or psychoimmunologic disorders. In view of the short-comings of existing agents, there is a need for new effective methods for treating or preventing psychosomatic and psychoimmunologic disorders.

Method for treating or preventing psychoimmunological disorders


A system and method for utilizing virtual ports associated with a physical port in a Fiber Channel adapter for use in a clustered storage system is disclosed. A plurality of virtual ports are created and associated with a physical port on a storage system. One of the virtual ports is utilized as a standby port to be used to assume the identity of a port associated with a failed storage system in the cluster. In the event of a failover operation, the standby port is activated and assumes the identity of the failed storage systems port. Data access requests previously directed to the failed storage system are received by the activated virtual port and processed by the surviving storage system.

A storage system is a computer that provides storage service relating to the organization of information on writeable persistent storage devices, such as memories, tapes or disks. The storage system is commonly deployed within a storage area network (SAN) or a network attached storage (NAS) environment. When used within a NAS environment, the storage system may be embodied as a file server including an operating system that implements a file system to logically organize the information as a hierarchical structure of directories and files on, e.g. the disks. Each "on-disk" file may be implemented as a set of data structures, e.g., disk blocks, configured to store information, such as the actual data for the file. A directory, on the other hand, may be implemented as a specially formatted file in which information about other files and directories are stored.
The file server, or filer, may be further configured to operate according to a client/server model of information delivery to thereby allow many client systems (clients) to access shared resources, such as files, stored on the filer. Sharing of files is a hallmark of a NAS system, which is enabled because of semantic level of access to files and file systems. Storage of information on a NAS system is typically deployed over a computer network comprising a geographically distributed collection of interconnected communication links, such as Ethernet, that allow clients to remotely access the information (files) on the file server. The clients typically communicate with the filer by exchanging discrete frames or packets of data according to pre-defined protocols, such as the Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP).
In the client/server model, the client may comprise an application executing on a computer that "connects" to the filer over a computer network, such as a point-to-point link, shared local area network, wide area network or virtual private network implemented over a public network, such as the Internet. NAS systems generally utilize file-based access protocols; therefore, each client may request the services of the filer by issuing file system protocol messages (in the form of packets) to the file system over the network. By supporting a plurality of file system protocols, such as the conventional Common Internet File System (CIFS), the Network File System (NFS) and the Direct Access File System (DAFS) protocols, the utility of the filer may be enhanced for networking clients.
A SAN is a high-speed network that enables establishment of direct connections between a storage system and its storage devices. The SAN may thus be viewed as an extension to a storage bus and, as such, an operating system of the storage system enables access to stored information using block-based access protocols over the "extended bus". In this context, the extended bus is typically embodied as Fibre Channel (FC) or Ethernet media adapted to operate with block access protocols, such as Small Computer Systems Interface (SCSI) protocol encapsulation over FC (FCP) or TCP/IP/Ethernet (iSCSI). A SAN arrangement or deployment allows decoupling of storage from the storage system, such as an application server, and some level of storage sharing at the application server level. There are, however, environments wherein a SAN is dedicated to a single server. When used within a SAN environment, the storage system may be embodied as a storage appliance that manages data access to a set of disks using one or more block-based protocols, such as FCP.
One example of a SAN arrangement, including a multi-protocol storage appliance suitable for use in the SAN, is described in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/215,917, entitled MULTI-PROTOCOL STORAGE APPLIANCE THAT PROVIDES INTEGRATED SUPPORT FOR FILE AND BLOCK ACCESS PROTOCOLS by Brian Pawlowski et al.
It is advantageous for the services and data provided by a storage system, such as a storage appliance, to be available for access to the greatest degree possible. Accordingly, some storage systems provide a plurality of storage appliances organized as a cluster, with a property that when a first storage appliance fails, the second storage appliance is available to take over and provide the services and the data otherwise provided by the first storage appliance. When the first storage appliance fails, the second storage appliance in the cluster (the "partner") assumes the tasks of processing and handling any data access requests normally processed by the first storage appliance. One such example of a storage appliance cluster configuration is described in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/421,297, entitled SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR TRANSPORT-LEVEL FAILOVER OF FCP DEVICES IN A CLUSTER, by Arthur F. Lent, et al., the contents of which are hereby incorporated by reference. In such a storage appliance cluster, an administrator may desire to take one of the storage appliances offline for a variety of reasons including, for example, to upgrade hardware, etc. In such situations, it may be advantageous to perform a "voluntary" user-initiated takeover operation, as opposed to a failover operation. After the takeover operation is complete, the storage appliance's data is serviced by its partner until a giveback operation is performed.
In certain known storage appliance cluster implementations, the transport medium is FC cabling utilizing the FCP protocol (SCSI embedded in FC) for transporting data. In known failover techniques involving clusters of storage appliances, each storage appliance in the cluster maintains two physical FC ports, namely an A port and a B port. The A port is typically active and, as such, is utilized for processing and handling data access requests directed to the storage appliance, while the B port is typically inactive and operates in a standby mode. However, when a failover situation occurs, the B port is activated and assumes the identity of the failed partner storage appliance. At that point, the B port receives and handles data access requests directed to the failed storage appliance. In this way, the surviving storage appliance may process requests directed to both the storage appliance and its failed partner storage appliance. Such a conventional FC failover is further described in the above-incorporated patent application entitled SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR TRANSPORT-LEVEL FAILOVER OF FCP DEVICES IN A CLUSTER.
A noted disadvantage of such failover configurations is the requirement for a second (or B) physical port on the storage appliance, which necessitates that an additional port be located on any switch or other routing hardware connecting the storage appliance to the FC network. As the B port typically operates in a standby mode for the vast majority of time, e.g., at all times except during a failover, the requirement for a second physical port ("port burn") not only increases the costs of the appliance and its associated routing hardware, but also increases the costs for a system administrator to establish and maintain such a clustered storage appliance configuration. In effect, the clustered storage appliance failover configuration requires twice as many physical ports on the storage appliances and switches as are normally needed. It is thus an object of the present invention to provide a system and method for reducing port burn in a clustered storage system.

System and method for failover using virtual ports in clustered systems


According to the present invention, inequality in the film thickness of the solder resist and the occurrence of the blur can be eliminated, and it is possible to perform a screen printing for the solder resist with a minute pattern which leads to the formation of a minute solder land.. A solder resist 60 is screen printed while leaving an etching resist 3 in the step for forming a printed wiring circuit 5 on the front of an insulating board 4. Afterward, the etching resist and the overlaid solder resist 60a are simultaneously removed, thereby forming a flat surface over the printed wiring circuit 5.

The present invention relates to a method for manufacturing a printed wiring board and, more particularly, is directed to a method for the formation of a solder land.
Conventionally, a solder resist coating is formed for the purpose of preventing the adhesion of solder onto undesired portions of a wiring circuit having a desired pattern. The solder resist film is formed to reduce the volume of solder used, prevent a short circuit from arising due to a soldering bridge, form an appropriate soldering fillet, and protect conductors on the wiring circuit from the external environment.
To form such a solder resist coating, a screen printing method and a photographic developing method is used. The screen printing method is mainly employed for a non-throughhole wiring board, while the photographic developing method tends to be used for a through-hole wiring board (including multi-ply board).
The reason is that the through-hole wiring board has a more miniaturized circuit as compared to the non-throughhole wiring board, thus leading to a miniaturization of the solder resist pattern, which is better accomplished by the photographic developing method due to its adaptation for such circumstances.
Nevertheless, the photographic developing method is poor in productivity and high in production costs owing to increased raw material cost, and hence it s unsuitable for the non-through hole wiring board which requires a mass-productivity and a lower cost.
Also, the solder resist coating in accordance with the screen printing method is executed after etching in a subtractive method (etched wheel method ) as shown in FIGS. 8 to 11. That is, an etching resist 3 corresponding to a predetermined pattern is applied on a copper foil 2 of a copper laminated board 1 which has been subjected to a cutting process shown in FIG. 8 FIG. 9, and then a wiring circuit 5 having a predetermined pattern is formed on the front of the insulating board 4 by means of predetermined etching process (FIG. 10).
Afterward, a solder resist 6 is printed on the wiring circuit 5 in FIG. 10 through a predetermined solder mask as shown in FIG. 11 .
The conventional method of forming solder resist 6 has, however, a limitation in accurately forming it after forming the miniaturized circuit. Therefore, as shown in FIGS. 12 and 13, particularly for the formation of a solder land 7 among the solder resist 6 in the process of FIG. 11 the printing may be made in compliance with the required specification of a solder mask diameter in the first printing step, and then a solder land 8 may be printed in a slightly larger diameter (for example, +0.1 m/m to 0.2 m/m in diameter) than the solder mask diameter in the second printing step, followed by the finish over the entire surface. Or alternatively, the solder resist printing is performed in the first printing step as shown in FIG. 14, and then the solder land portion of the solder resist 6 is trimmed 9 by character ink in the second printing step as shown in FIG. 15 (Note that steps shown in FIGS. 14 and 15 may be performed in reverse order).
The following are three main requirements of the printing technique at the time of the solder resist formation in the conventional method of manufacturing the printed wiring board described above.
(1) The copper foil portion of the wiring circuit to be covered with the solder resist must not be exposed.
(2) The area of the solder land must be secured in compliance with the design dimensions so as to suppress blurring of the solder resist.
(3) Minimum coating thickness of the solder resist must be maintained.
In order to satisfy the above requirements of the screen printing method, the requirements (1) and (2) are, however, contrary to each other, which leads to a limitation on miniaturization of the solder land by the screen printing method.
That is, in order to execute the requirement (1), it must be recognized that the printing surface of the solder resist 6 remains uneven due to the existence of the wiring circuit 5 after etching during the manufacture of the printed wiring board as shown in FIG. 16. Upon printing of the solder resist 6, the solder resist ink must be deposited into the recess 12 by applying a printing pressure on a squeegee 11 when printing the solder resist 6 on the front of the wiring circuit 5 through the screen 10 as shown in FIG. 17.
Thus, in principle, the higher the printing pressure and the lower the ink viscosity, the better the solder resist ink flows into the recess 12.
Next, in order to suppress blurring which is the second requirement, the printing pressure of the squeegee 11 must be kept as low as possible.
That is, as shown in FIG. 18, a higher printing pressure causes the top 11a of the squeegee 11 to bend, which results in a larger area of the top 11a in contact with the printed surface 13 of a matter to be printed 14 (Refer to FIG. 19), thereby bringing about a poor separation from the plate, to consequently lead to the occurrence of the blur.
Although apparent from the principle of the screen printing, the screen 10 which has completed the printing for some area must be promptly separated from the printed surface 13. However, if the top 11a of the squeegee 11 has a larger contact area, it takes the screen 10 more time to separate from the printed surface 13, which leads to a poor separation from the plate. In order to prevent this phenomenon and obtain screen printing without blurring, the printed surface must be impressed sequently from the front thereof to the rear through the medium and then separated from the sheet from the front to the rear through the medium without impressing the stamp surface onto the sheet at one time. Also, this is the same where blurring occurs when the entire surface is impressed on the sheet at one time and a transverse minute vibration (a minute vibration following progression of the squeegee) is applied due to an unsteady manual process.
Therefore, as the printing pressure of the squeegee 11 becomes lower, better printing accuracy and without blur using a higher circuit density can be achieved. FIGS. 20 and 21 show a state of the printed surface 13 when squeegee 11 is under a lower printing pressure.
The following conclusion is derived from the above discussion. The conditions of the screen printing technique for the requirements of the perfect covering of the first copper foil portion which is required in forming of the solder resist by means of the screen printing method are that preferably the printing pressure of the squeegee 11 is high and the viscosity of the solder resist ink is low. While on the contrary, the conditions of the screen printing technique for the requirement that the blur of the second solder resist must be suppressed are that preferably the printing pressure is low and the viscosity of the solder resist ink is high. Under these inconsistent conditions conventionally, the screen printing method must be carried out having only one or two minutes between the movements of the squeegee 11.
Thus, even the adoption of the methods as shown in FIGS. 12, and 13, and FIGS. 14 and 15 in forming of the solder resist does not basically change the state of unevenness of the printed surface. Due to the contradictory relationship described above, there is a technical limitation for mass production that the diameter of the solder land 7 formed by the application of solder resist 6 is limited to about 1.4 mm.
Furthermore, with regard to controlling the thickness of the resist coating which is referred to as the third technical requirement on forming the solder resist by the screen printing method, the thickness of the coating of the solder resist 6 conventionally provided on the front of the wiring circuit 5 is shown as portion A in FIG. 22. The portion B is about half of the portion A in the coating thickness, and the difference in coating thickness obtained of portions A and B is conventionally inevitable resulting in problems, such as resistance to moisture, at the portion B during the environmental test or the like. It is therefore very advantageous to entirely equalize the coating thickness, which is not possible using the conventional methods.
Thus, the present invention was conceived in view of the problems in forming the solder resist by means of such conventional screen printing method. An object of the present invention is to provide a method of forming the solder resist by means of the screen printing method, which is capable of forming a minute solder land in a high-density wiring circuit.

Method of manufacturing printed wiring board


A nestable box spring foundation includes support modules each formed of a single length of wire defining a top base, a bottom base, and four straight legs. The top base is welded to a wire grid assembly and includes two upper wire segments each having a straight wire portion and respective first and second curved end portions, each upper wire segment lying in a first plane with the straight wire portions lying in angularly converging mirror image relation to each other, each upper wire segment being spaced from one another with first end portions thereof lying closer together than second end portions thereof. The bottom base includes two straight lower wire segments lying in parallel relation to and in a second plane with one another and a straight cross wire segment fixedly intersecting orthogonally the lower wire segments proximate first ends thereof, with the first plane being parallel with the second plane. A first leg extends from the first end portion of an upper wire segment to a second end of a lower wire segment, a second leg extends from the first end portion of the other upper wire segment to a second end of the other lower wire segment; a third leg extends from the second end portion of the first upper wire segment to a first end of the cross wire segment; and a fourth leg extends from the second end portion of the second upper wire segment to a second end of the cross wire segment.

Typically in the manufacturing process of box springs, a first manufacturer constructs a box spring foundation which includes a support surface and a plurality of support modules. The first manufacturer also may attach a box spring base to the support modules. The box spring foundation is then shipped by the first manufacturer to a bedding manufacturer who secures the support modules to a box spring base, if not done by the first manufacturer, and then applies top padding and a cover to complete the box spring. In addition to consumer preference regarding firmness of box springs, storage and shipping costs are additional factors which control the design of box spring foundations and, in particular, support modules used therein.
Many various types of support modules are known which can support rigidly a support surface at a predetermined spacing from a box spring base and which can be inexpensively stored and shipped during the manufacturing process. For example, Schultz, Jr. et al., U.S. Pat. No. 4,377,279, discloses support modules which are hingedly connected both to the support surface and to the box spring base whereby the box spring foundation can be collapsed for storage and shipment. Furthermore, the support modules can be differently configured to allow for total stiffness or varying degrees of recoilable compression.
In Rodgers et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,346,188, the support modules are hingedly secured to the support surface by the first manufacturer and the support modules are collapsed against the support surface for storage and shipment. When the box spring is to be completed, the bedding manufacturer extends and secures the support modules to the box spring base during the padding and covering process whereby the support modules provide rigid support of the support surface above the box spring base. Schultz, Jr. et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,622,357, similarly discloses support modules pivotally secured to the support surface, collapsed for storage and shipment, and later extended and secured to the box spring base by the bedding manufacturer with the support modules rigidly supporting the support surface.
Another type of box spring foundation is disclosed in Hagemeister et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,052,064, in which support modules are fixedly secured to the support surface whereby the resulting box spring foundations can be nestably stacked for shipment and transport. In particular, the support modules are welded to the support surface by the first manufacturer and later stapled to the box spring base by the bedding manufacturer. Hagemeister et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,361,434, discloses a similar box spring foundation which includes resilient support springs located between the support modules for resiliently supporting localized loads that are applied to the support surface between the localized areas of the support modules.
An object of the present invention is to provide an additional novel and unobvious type of box spring support module which permits the inexpensive storage and shipment of box spring foundations to bedding manufacturers as discussed above.


The present invention relates to silicon feedstock for producing directionally solidified silicon ingots, thin sheets and ribbons for the production of silicon wafers for PV solar cells where the silicon feedstock contains between 0.2 and 10 ppma boron and between 0.1 and 10 ppma phosphorus distributed in the material. The invention further relates to directionally solidified silicon ingot or thin silicon sheet or ribbon for making wafers for solar cells containing between 0.2 ppma and 10 ppma boron and between 0.1 ppma and 10 ppma phosphorus distributed in the ingot, said silicon ingot having a type change from p-type to n-type or from n-type to p-type at a position between 40 and 99% of the ingot height or sheet or ribbon thickness and having a resistivity profile described by an exponential curve having a starting value between 0.4 and 10 ohm cm and where the resistivity value increases towards the type change point. Finally the invention relates to a method for producing silicon feedstock for producing directionally solidified silicon ingots, thin sheets and ribbons for the production of silicon wafers for PV solar cells.

In recent years, photovoltaic solar cells have been produced from ultra pure virgin electronic grade polysilicon (EG-Si) supplemented by suitable scraps, cuttings and rejects from the electronic chip industry. As a result of the recent downturn experienced by the electronics industry, idle polysilicon production capacity has been adapted to make available lower cost grades suitable for manufacturing PV solar cells. This has brought a temporary relief to an otherwise strained market for solar grade silicon feedstock (SoG-Si) qualities. With demand for electronic devices returning to normal levels, a major share of the polysilicon production capacity is expected to be allocated back to supply the electronics industry, leaving the PV industry short of supply. The lack of a dedicated, low cost source of SoG-Si and the resulting supply gap developing is today considered one of the most serious barriers to further growth of the PV industry.
In recent years, several attempts have been made to develop new sources for SoG-Si that are independent of the electronics industry value chain. Efforts encompass the introduction of new technology to the current polysilicon process routes to significantly reduce cost as well as the development of metallurgical refining processes purifying abundantly available metallurgical grade silicon (MG-Si) to the necessary degree of purity. None have so far succeeded in significantly reducing cost of production while providing a silicon feedstock purity expected to be required to match the performance of PV solar cells produced from conventional silicon feedstock qualities today.
When producing PV solar cells, a charge of SoG-Si feedstock is prepared, melted and directionally solidified into a square ingot in a specialised casting furnace. Before melting, the charge containing SoG-Si feedstock is doped with either boron or phosphorus to produce p-type or n-type ingots respectively. With few exceptions, commercial solar cells produced today are based on p-type silicon ingot material. The addition of the single dopant (eg. boron or phosphorus) is controlled to obtain a preferred electrical resistivity in the material, for example in the range between 0.5-1.5 ohm cm. This corresponds to an addition of 0.02-0.2 ppma of boron when a p-type ingot is desired and an intrinsic quality (practically pure silicon with negligible content of dopants) SoG-Si feedstock is used. The doping procedure assumes that the content of the other dopant (in this example case phosphorus) is negligible (P<1/10 B).
If a single doped SoG-Si feedstock of a given resistivity is used in various addition levels the charge, the addition of dopant is adjusted to take into account the amount of dopant already contained in the pre-doped feedstock material.
Singel doped feedstock qualities of n- and p-type can also be mixed in the charge to obtain a so-called "compensated" ingot. The type and resistivity of each component of the charge mix must be known to obtain desired ingot properties.
After casting, the solidified ingot is cut into blocks with the footprint of the resulting solar cells for example with a surface area of 125 mm×125 mm). The blocks are sliced into wafers deploying commercial multi-wire saw equipment.
PV solar cells are produced from the wafers in a number of process steps of which the most important are surface etching, POCl3 emitter diffusion, PECVD SiN deposition, edge isolation and the formation of front and back contacts.


An aircraft towing vehicle including a chassis formed with a recess receiving a towing device for securing a nose wheel of an aircraft and including a transversely tiltable bearing frame, a vertically displaceable and longitudinally swingable lifting cradle provided with a pair of telescopic traction arms having respective gripping devices on respective rearward ends, the arms being longitudinally displaceable and adapted to swing about respective transverse axes, bringing thereby the gripping devices upwardly to engage the circumference of the nose wheel above an axle thereof.

In aircraft towing vehicles without a towbar the nose wheel is supported and secured on a support surface designed as a platform, cradle, ramp or the like, provided in the fork-shaped, rearward open recess of the towing vehicle. In order to place the nose wheel on the support surface a take-up operation occurs, consisting mainly of two motion courses. In one variant, the nose wheel is gripped from behind by a gripping and traction device travelling back and forth on the towing vehicle in longitudinal direction and pulled onto the support surface which is basically stationarily mounted on the towing vehicle, such as known from German open specifications 33 18 077, 37 01 971 and 18 01 855. During this take-up operation the aircraft and the towing vehicle have to move relatively to each other, whereby due to the big difference in mass the aircraft stands still, preferably with set landing-gear brakes, while the towing vehicle moves in reverse during the take-up, until the support surface is positioned under the nose wheel In the other variant of the take-up operation both the aircraft and the towing vehicle are stationary relatively to each other and the support surface is moved backwards with respect to the towing vehicle and slipped under the nose wheel. A countersupport reaching behind the nose wheel takes care of the securing of the nose wheel with respect to the towing vehicle and prevents strain on the nose wheel gear due to horizontal forces acting on the nose wheel while the support surface is slipped under the latter. Towing vehicles of this kind are known from DE-OS 39 17 255 and EP 0 331 363 A1.
The invention relates to a towing vehicle of the kind first mentioned, wherein the nose wheel is gripped from the rear by a gripping device and pulled onto the support surface. A towing vehicle is known particularly from EP 0 276 779 A1. In this known towing vehicle the lifting cradle having the support surface is supported on the chassis so that it is swingable about a horizontal transverse axis and the traction arms carrying the gripping members are rigidly connected with the lifting cradle, so that when the lifting cradle is raised or lowered they will be moved up or down to the same extent, and that especially when the lifting cradle is raised they will move together with the same and the nose wheel. Since in this known towing vehicle the position of the gripping members does not change with respect to the lifting cradle during the raising and lowering operation, the gripping member presses against the same location on the nose wheel circumference when the lifting cradle is lowered, as well as when the lifting cradle is raised. If this location is above the axis of rotation of the nose wheel, the gripping member can exert a downwardly oriented holding force on the nose wheel, however there is the disadvantage that the downwardly oriented force component already exists when the nose wheel is supposed to be pulled onto the lowered lifting cradle. This is a drawback, since during the take-up it is desirable to have a force component which is again upwardly oriented, helping to overcome the difference in height between the runway and the lowered lifting cradle. From DE-OS 39 17 255 a towing vehicle is known which has an actively rearward slidable lifting cradle and therefore pertains to the above-mentioned second variant of the take-up operation, wherein traction arms bearing the gripping members reaching behind the nose wheel can be swung vertically independently from the lifting cradle, so that the gripping members can be applied against any desired location on the nose wheel circumference. However, additional hydraulic adjusting cylinders with corresponding control units are required, which increases the complexity and vulnerability of the entire pickup device. Further, both previously mentioned towing vehicles have the disadvantage that the lifting cradle and the traction arms are horizontally swingable o the towing vehicle about rigidly established axes, thereby not having any freedom of movement with respect to the longitudinal axis of the towing vehicle This means that the towing vehicle is under unilateral strain due to the load of the nose wheel positioned eccentrically with respect to the vehicle's longitudinal median plane, which can impair its travel capabilities. Such an eccentric strain exerted by the nose wheel can be the result of an inaccurately centered positioning of the nose wheel on the support surface on the one hand, and on the other hand of the fact that when the vehicle turns, due to normally longitudinally inclined longitudinal axis of the nose wheel, a steering angle of the nose wheel is combined with a weight displacement towards the inside of the curve. From the already mentioned EP 0 276 779 A1 an embodiment of the towing vehicle is known wherein the lifting cradle is raisably and lowerably guided on the chassis via four guide rods arranged in a parallelogram, whereby these guide rods allow for inclinations of the lifting cradle with respect to the longitudinal axis of the vehicle; however, transverse motions of the lifting cradle in order to center an eccentrically picked up nose wheel are not possible.


A semiconductor device comprises a first semiconductor layer formed of a Group III-V semiconductor layer or a II-VI semiconductor layer; and a second semiconductor layer formed of a Group IV semiconductor layer or a Group II-VI semiconductor layer which is different material from the first semiconductor layer and formed in heterojunction with the first semiconductor layer, a junction interface between the first semiconductor layer and the second semiconductor layer being {001} or {111} plane, and a two-dimensional carrier gas being generated in the heterojunction interface.

The present invention relates to a semiconductor device, specifically to an FET (Field Effect Transistor), a BT (Bipolar Transistor), or a CCD (Charge Coupled Device) having a semiconductor heterojunction, which is for use in various electronic circuits, such as integrated circuits, and in the optical communication, and a method of fabricating the semiconductor device.
Higher speed and higher performance of these devices are recently required in accordance with higher speeds and larger capacities of computer systems and communication systems.
To speed up a operation of a semiconductor device, it is necessary to increase the carrier density and carrier mobility. Conventionally the carrier mobility has been enhanced by using compound semiconductors with high carrier mobilities, or by using a modulation-doped structure with a heterojunction to thereby reduce the impurity scattering.
But in a modulation-doped structure using a heterojunction, carrier density is determined by a band offset in the heterojunction interface. Even in the most studied GaAs/AlGaAs heterojunction, the carrier density is about 10.sup.12 cm.sup.-2, which needs further improvement.
Even in this modulation-doped structure, the doped impurities near the heterojunction interface are random, and the carriers sense inhomogeneous potentials. Disadvantageously inhomogeneous potentials scatter the carriers, and the carrier mobility is accordingly deteriorated. The carrier scattering due to the random impurities is an unavoidable problem to the conventional GaAs/AlGaAs structure used in HEMTs (High Electron Mobility Transistors), in which carriers are not generated without higher dopant concentrations.

Semiconductor device having a heterojunction


A stacked-type electrode assembly is disclosed. In one embodiment, the electrode assembly includes at least one first electrode plate including i) a first active material coating portion formed on a first base material and coated with a first active material and ii) a first non-coated portion, wherein the first electrode plate has a first width and a first length greater than the first width, and wherein the first electrode plate has upper and lower portions formed in the direction of the first length. The assembly also includes at least one second electrode plate including i) a second active material coated portion formed on a second base material and coated with a second active material and ii) a second non-coated portion, wherein the second electrode plate has a second width and a second length greater than the second width.

1. Field
The described technology generally relates to a secondary battery, and more particularly, to a secondary battery having improved safety.
2. Description of the Related Technology
Batteries widely used as power sources of portable devices may be divided into secondary batteries and primary batteries. Unlike the primary batteries of which charge is impossible, the secondary batteries are rechargeable, and thus, they can be used multiple times. The shapes of the secondary batteries may be easily adapted to those of external electronic devices that employ the secondary batteries. As described above, since the secondary batteries can effectively accumulate energy for relatively smaller volumes and masses, they are frequently used as power sources of portable electronic devices.
In particular, with the development of portable communication devices, demands on secondary batteries used for the portable communication devices are increased. Since a problem of safety may occur due to characteristics of the secondary batteries, studies have been conducted in many fields so as to prevent the problem of safety.

Secondary battery having first and second non-coated portions


An angle de-skew device and the method thereof are used in an image processing system to rotate a skewed image with respect to a reference point as a rotated center. First and second accumulator circuits respectively are used to accumulate first and second offsets for the X coordinates and Y coordinates of the first pixel in the skewed image, and respectively output the sums into the image processing system. A counter is connected to the two accumulator circuits to control the number of accumulation times.

1. Field of Invention
The invention relates to an image processing technique for skewed images and, in particular, to an angle de-skew device and method thereof to rotate a skewed image by an angle in order to obtain a better output image.
2. Related Art
The digital processing system usually uses a rectangular grid of pixels to represent an image. A 24-bit digital processing system is defined in terms of the red, green, and blue colors, each of which is represented by 8 bits. That is, each color has 256 levels (from the darkest to the brightest). However, the image may be skewed or misaligned from the corresponding rectangular grid during the scanning process. In particular, during the scanning process, a physical image is converted into binary information linked to a digital computer system.
For example, suppose a scanning device obtains an image. If the paper of the original image is not correctly placed on the scanning platform, the obtained image output to the image processing system will be skewed. Therefore, the image is not desirable if it is displayed or printed. Currently, there are many methods to correct skewed images.
With reference to FIG. 1, a de-skewing method is to rotate a skewed original image 102 on the rectangular grid 100 of pixels by a skew angle θ, thereby obtaining a less skewed image 104. The conventional method makes use of sine/cosine functions in image rotations. That is, they use the sine/cosine functions to compute the rotated image coordinates. The rotation formulas are given byXr=Xo×Cosine (θ)  (1)Yr=Yo×Sine (θ)  (2)where (Xo, Yo) are the pixel coordinates of Po in the original image 102, and (Xr, Yr) are the pixel coordinates of Pr in the rotated image 104.
Here Eqs. (1) and (2) require the use of two multipliers and sine/cosine functions to achieve the rotation. However, the multipliers for coordinate transformation are big and the computation of sine/cosine functions is very time-consuming and power-consuming.
An image rotation method and a corresponding image rotation device to rotate an M×N original image by an angle θ is disclosed in the R.O.C. Pat. No. 178690. The method includes the following steps. First, set first initial values (n, m) after the unit (1, 0) on the X-axis of original image coordinate (Xo, Yo) is rotate by θ, where n=Cosine (θ), m=Sine (θ). Then set second initial values (−m, n) after the unit (0, 1) on the Y-axis of original image coordinate (Xo, Yo) is rotated by θ, where n=Cosine (θ), and m=Sine (θ). At the same time, the second initial values (−m, n) are added to the first initial values (n, m). Afterwards, the rotated image coordinates (Xr, Yr) of (1, 1) are determined using the original image coordinates (Xo, Yo) as the rotation reference point. When the value of Y is increased by 1, the second initial values (−m, n) are accumulated. The above step is repeated N−1 times. Then when the value of X is increased by 1, the first initial values (n, m) are accumulated. The above steps are repeated M−1 times.
As shown in FIG. 2, the image rotation device includes four accumulator circuits 210, 220, 230, 240. Each accumulator circuit 210, 220, 230, or 240 includes: a adder 212, 222, 232, or 242 for summing the cosine value n or the sine value m and the accumulated value, a register 214, 224, 234, or 244 for recording the added results and outputting the accumulated result to the adder 212, 222, 232, or 242 in response to a control signal S1, S2, S5, or S6, and a transmitting gate 216, 226, 236, or 246 for transmitting the added results of the adder 212, 222, 232, or 242 in response to a control signal S3, S4, S7, or S8. That is, the first accumulator circuit 210 accumulates corresponding the initial value n of the rotating angle θ of the X unit point (1, 0) when the X coordinate is increased by 1. The second accumulator circuit 220 accumulates corresponding the initial value m of the rotating angle θ of the X unit point (1, 0) when the X coordinate is increased by 1. The third accumulator circuit 230 adds the initial value −m of the rotating angle θ of the Y unit point (0, 1) to the output of the first accumulator 210. When the Y value is increased by 1, −m is added to the above-mentioned sum, thereby determining the value of Xr. The fourth accumulator 240 receives the output from the second accumulator 220 and determines the value of Yr using the same method as the third accumulator circuit 230.
In spite of the fact that this method is simpler than the previous method that totally use multipliers, this method requires the use of four accumulators, and thus has a higher cost and a more complicated operating scheme. Therefore, there is still room for finding a simpler circuit and calculation method so that the manufacturing cost can be reduced.


A method, computer system, and a computer program product for entity selection in a visualization of a network graph is provided. The present invention may include receiving as input a selection interaction. The present invention may then include generating a profile based on one or more entity characteristics of one or more entities selected in the selection interaction. The present invention may then include generating a weighting for one or more entities based on the generated profile, wherein the generated weighting is a sum of weights of one or more entity characteristics. The present invention may lastly include partitioning the user interface into one or more selectable areas, wherein a size of the selectable area is based on the generated weighting for a displayed entity.

The present invention relates to entity selection in a visualization of a network graph, and more specifically, to entity selection in response to a user interface input.
Network graphs having graphically drawn nodes interconnected by edges may be used to represent entities and their links or relationships. Visual analysis tools may utilize network graphs for data analysis and often require selection of entities and links.
Visual analysis tools may include controls that allow a user to select entities and links on a network visualization of graph nodes and edges. While users may sometimes choose to single-select or multi-select items, or to use a lasso tool to select clusters, it is often a discrete series of entities and links through a visualized network that is the target for selection. This is often done manually by incrementally extending selection or by using custom tools that may accelerate this manual process, including but not limited to "Select Connections" or "Select Ends."
As demand for the availability of entity selection applications on touch interfaces increases, challenges may arise in providing continued support for user needs, since not all desktop interaction patterns can be easily applied to a given application.

Entity selection in a visualization of a network graph

International Business Machines Corporation