A medical image processor and a storage medium are shown. According to one implementation, the medical image processor includes the following. An input unit is used to input a cell shape image and a fluorescent image showing expression of a specific protein. A cell nucleus extracting unit extracts a cell nucleus. A fluorescent bright point extracting unit extracts a fluorescent bright point. A region estimating unit sets a predetermined region. When the set region does not overlap with another, it is estimated to include one cell. When a plurality of the set regions overlap, it is estimated to include a plurality of cells. A feature amount calculating unit calculates a feature amount. A determining unit determines whether each estimated cell region is cancer and determines an expression status in the region based on the calculated feature amount. An output unit outputs a determination result.

In pathological diagnosis, first, after processing of dehydrating the obtained tissue so as to be fixed and blocking with paraffin, the above is cut into thin pieces with a thickness of 2 to 8 μm, the paraffin is removed, and the above is stained to observe with a microscope. The pathologist performs diagnosis based on morphologic information such as change in size and shape of a nucleus of a cell, change in pattern as a tissue, etc., and stain information in the microscopic image. Methods known as the tissue staining method used in pathological diagnosis include a conventional chromatic staining method (for example, Hematoxylin and Eosin staining; hereinafter referred to as HE staining) and a chromatic staining method using enzyme (for example, DAB (diaminobenzidine) staining).
In pathological diagnosis, specifying the protein overexpressing in the tissue slice and its expression amount may be very important information for prognostic expectation and determining the future treatment plan.
For example, HER2 protein coding HER2 gene is a receptor type glycoprotein which penetrates the cell membrane, is composed of 3 domains which are extracellular, transmembrane, and intracellular, is activated by phosphorylating of tyrosine residue when bonded with a growth factor, and is said to be involved in proliferation and malignant alteration of cells through signaling pathways. Overexpression of HER2 protein can be seen in breast cancer, lung cancer, colon cancer, stomach cancer, bladder cancer, etc.
HER2 protein is considered to be a prognostic factor of breast cancer, and it is known that especially in a case where lymph node metastasis is positive, the prognosis of cases where HER2 is positive is significantly poor. HER2 protein is also gathering attention as an information factor for deciding adaptation of a molecularly targeted drug (trastuzumab) and as a result prediction factor of anticancer drugs such as anthracycline type, taxane type, etc.
Typically, overexpression of HER2 protein is examined by an immunohistochemical method (IHC method) and overexpression of HER2 gene is examined by FISH method. According to the HER examination guideline, first, positive, negative, boundary region is discriminated by a simple IHC method, and when the result is positive, it is decided that trastuzumab is provided. When the result is in the boundary region with the IHC method, further examination is done to discriminate positive and negative by the FISH method.
Comparing the IHC method and the FISH method, the IHC method is easier, but there is the problem that accuracy is low. Turning to the FISH method, the accuracy is high, but the process is troublesome, and the cost is high. In other words, there are needs for development of a method of an IHC method which has the same accuracy as the FISH method. Moreover, there are needs for development of a method where the dependence on the person is low and which can be automated.
For example, Patent Document 1 describes a system where a cell nucleus is extracted from an image of biological tissue stained by the DAB method, a cell membrane is specified from an image of biological tissue based on the cell nucleus, a stained state of a cell membrane is determined, and expression of HER2 protein is evaluated based on the result of determination.

Medical image processor and storage medium


A rotation detecting device for detecting a rotating object includes a housing having a bearing and an mounting surface, a rotor member having magnetic peripheral portion and a rotary shaft that is supported by the bearing, a biasing permanent magnet for providing magnetic field around the mounting surface and the magnetic peripheral portion, an IC sensor chip including plural magnetic sensor elements disposed on the mounting surface to provide a sensing signal related to change in magnetic field around the sensor elements, and an IC signal processing chip that provides a rotation signal according to the sensing signal. In this device, the bearing and the mounting surface are integrally formed into the housing at a prescribed distance to secure an unchanged air gap distance.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a rotation detecting device for detecting rotation of a vehicle engine, wheel rotation speed or the like and, particularly, a rotation detecting device that employs magnetoresistance elements or hall elements.
2. Description of the Related Art
U.S. Pat. No. 6,366,079 B1 or JP-A-2001-153683, which is a publication of its counterpart Japanese patent application, discloses a common rotation detecting device. Such a rotation detecting device provides rotation data of an engine crankshaft by detecting changes in a magnetic field caused by rotation of a rotary magnetic member that is rotated by the engine crankshaft. As shown in FIG. 6, such a rotation detecting device includes a bridge circuit 3 of four magnetoresistance sensors MRE 1, MRE 2, MRE 3, MRE 4 and a signal processing circuit, which are formed in an IC chip. The IC chip is disposed on a surface of a member formed at a distance L from the rotary magnetic member. The signal processing circuit includes a differential amplifier 4 and a comparator 5 The IC chip is covered with a coating member of resinous material, from which electric terminals including a power terminal to be applied a voltage (+V), an output terminal T2 and a ground terminal are drawn out. In that common rotation detecting device, a variation in the distance between the magnetoresistance sensors and the rotor member causes one of major errors in the rotation data.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,812,694 B2 or its counterpart Japanese patent application JP-A-2004-301645 discloses another common rotation detecting device. In this rotation detecting device, a similar problem is caused by a variation in the distance between the magnetoresistance sensors and the rotor member.


According to one embodiment, an X-ray tube assembly includes a housing, an X-ray tube, a coolant to which at least a part of heat generated by the X-ray tube is transferred, a circulation channel through which the coolant is circulated, a circulation pump, a radiator, an air filter and a fan unit. The air filter is formed of a three-dimensional nonwoven fabric that is formed of irregularly tangled resin fibers and provides a three-dimensional structure having a spatial volume ratio of not less than 93%. The air filter permits air to pass therethrough to eliminate dust from the air.

The gantry of an X-ray computerized tomography scanner (hereinafter referred to as an X-ray CT scanner) comprises a stationary frame, a rotating frame rotatably supported by the stationary frame, and a housing containing the stationary frame and the rotating frame. The gantry also comprises an X-ray tube assembly mounted on the rotating frame, an X-ray detector, a cooling unit (cooler), etc.
More specifically, the rotating frame has a ring-shaped frame member, and the X-ray tube assembly, the X-ray detector and the cooling unit are attached to the inner wall of the ring-shaped frame member. These components are heavy and hence impart significant pressure against the installation surface, although they are relatively compact. Therefore, the components are secured to the installation surface by an especially strong anchoring force.
The strong anchoring of the X-ray tube assembly and the cooling unit can be maintained even when the rotating frame is rotated at high speed to thereby exert a significant centrifugal force upon the X-ray tube assembly and the cooling unit.
The X-ray tube assembly and the cooling unit are connected to each other via a circulation channel for circulating a coolant used to transmit the heat generated by an X-ray tube. The exothermic source of the X-ray CT scanner is the X-ray tube. The heat generated by the X-ray tube is transmitted to the coolant, and the thus-heated coolant is guided into the cooling unit. The cooling unit includes a radiator and a fan unit. The coolant cooled by the coolant unit is returned to the X-ray tube.

X-ray tube assembly and X-ray computerized tomography scanner

Toshiba Electron Tubes & Devices Co., Ltd.


A cable holder for relieving strain on the current-supply cable of a portable handheld electrically-operated work apparatus such as a lawn mower or brushcutter. The cable holder includes a chamber fixed to the apparatus and a closure piece which is pivotally journalled on the chamber. The closure piece and a wall of the chamber conjointly define a latch for holding a segment of the cable. In its at-rest position, the closure piece blocks access to the receptacle for the cable segment to be clamped with the receptacle being defined by the chamber. The cable segment held by the cable holder is part of a cable loop of an extension cable for supplying current to the work apparatus from a remote location. The cable segment is inserted into the receptacle by pushing the cable segment into the chamber thereby causing the closure piece to pivot into its release position. Thereafter, the closure piece is returned to its at-rest position, which is now effectively a clamping position. Part of the closure piece is formed as a grab portion which can be pulled by an operator to open the clamp.

A cable holder having strain relief for the current supply cable of a work apparatus is most of all advantageous when the current supply cable for the electric motor of the apparatus has a pregiven length which must not be exceeded because of safety regulations. An extension cable is then required to provide a connection to a distant current supply with the extension cable being connected to the cable attached to the work apparatus by means of a coupling. Stress loads are unavoidable when working with the apparatus and can lead to the condition wherein the connection is interrupted at the coupling.
A cable holder is disclosed in published German utility model registration 8,025,512 which can be hooked onto the work apparatus, for example, on the holding bar of the apparatus. The cable holder includes a base plate which has a pass-through opening defining a receiving opening for a cable segment which is hooked into a loop-shaped projection of the base plate. This projection and a rib formed on this projection conjointly define a clamp for providing strain relief for the cable. Threading the loop-shaped cable segment through the receiving opening is inconvenient as is loosening the cable loop from the clamp. Since the cable holder is hung loosely on the apparatus or is carried by the operator, the cable holder is hardly suitable for providing strain relief for the extension cable since, for an unwanted movement of the cable holder, the tension force can be partially transmitted to the cable connection at the apparatus.

Cable support for an electrically-operated portable handheld work apparatus


An anchor storage apparatus comprising a cylindrical container having opposing notches formed along the upper rim thereof for receiving opposing ends of the anchor pivot bar therein to support the anchor. The container comprises a hollow tube mounted to the bottom of the container in the center thereof for receiving therein the anchor shank and a portion of the anchor rode and/or chain. The rode is preferably stored in a coiled manner around the hollow tube within the side walls of the container. The bottom of the container has a plurality of drainage holes therethrough to allow water to drain from the container. The bottom of the container is raised relative to the bottom of the side walls to promote water drainage. The side walls of the container have a plurality of holes therethrough to allow air flow so that the rode can adequately dry. An annular ring of soft rubber is affixed along the bottom of the side walls to prevent slippage of the container along the surface of the boat. There is a hole through either the side wall or bottom of the container through which the rode passes for attachment to the boat to prevent loss or substantial displacement of the storage apparatus. The storage apparatus further comprises a cover having a cushion so that the apparatus can be used as a stool.

A boat anchor for smaller vessels is typically a heavy object attached to the vessel by a rope, or "rode", which can be cast overboard to keep the vessel in place by either its weight or its flukes, which grip the bottom of the waterway. On larger vessels, anchors are usually attached to a pulley system that allows the anchor to be conveniently lowered or raised. On these larger vessels, there is typically a large rode locker for storing the anchor rode. On smaller vessels, however, there is typically no dedicated storage for an anchor and rode, and if present, the storage area is usually inadequate.
In certain circumstances, it may become necessary to rapidly deploy an anchor to prevent any number of maritime mishaps. The key to rapid anchor deployment is a state of anchor readiness. When there is no adequate storage, anchor deployment can become frustrated, such as when the anchor rode becomes entangled. An entangled rode can lead to or exacerbate a dangerous situation, such as where the anchor cannot be quickly deployed to prevent the boat from moving into another vessel. Further, when there is no dedicated storage, the anchor and rode are typically stored on the boat deck. As the boat sways, the anchor has a tendency to slide or bounce along the boat surface, which can mar the surface and fracture the protective coating over the surface material (e.g. fiberglass or wood).
What is needed is an improved anchor storage system, particularly adapted for smaller vessels, which is designed for adequate, convenient storage and rapid deployment of the anchor and rode.


A tamper-evident closure includes a cap having a plug, a skirt, and a locking member. The cap and skirt have seats in which a first portion and a second portion of the locking member are arranged. Upon first opening, as the cap moves longitudinally away from the skirt, the lower edge of the cap passes over the first portion longitudinally so that, upon reclosing the tamper-evident closure, the first portion positions in an obstructive manner between the lower edge of the cap and an upper edge of the skirt.

Tamper evident closures with a cap having a plug are known in the art and disclosed for example in WO 2014124653. WO 2014124653 discloses a tamper evident closure with an outer cap and inner part having a plug in which the outer cap moves relative to an inner part upon first opening and means are provided to prevent the outer cap from moving back to the original position once it has risen.
The tamper evident closure disclosed in the above mentioned document necessitates inner and outer parts mutually movable upon first opening to provide a tamper evident feature. In order to guarantee the activation of the tamper evident mechanism, the inner part must remain attached to the neck of the container upon first opening until the outer part has reached the second position. Otherwise, the tamper evident feature would fail upon first opening.
Under certain environmental conditions, the attachment of the inner part to the neck of the container cannot be guaranteed so that, upon first opening, it might happen that the tamper evident mechanism does not activate.
Moreover, in case of sparkling wines, the attachment force of the plug with the neck of the container may be not sufficient to contrast the inner pressure of the container with the consequence that the closure may be ejected when the container is stored.
In view of the above prior art, the object of the present invention is to provide a tamper evident closure not relying upon the attachment of the plug to the container neck for the activation of the tamper evident mechanism upon first opening and with a structure preventing ejection of the closure when the container is stored.


An improved bearing mechanism works in conjunction with the control rod of a vertical blind system or a roller shade system to provide superior bearing and load handling capability. A conical bore has a plurality of grooves into the surface of the conical bore. A series of cylindrical rollers are supported within the grooves, and against a central rotational member having a conical surface for bearing against the rollers. A set screw is used to control the seating of the central rotational member within the conical bore, is used to make up any tolerance created through the manufacturing process, and can be used to increase the tension necessary to hold a roller shade in place. A balanced bearing system uses two sets of roller bearings, which may be frusto-conical, to make for a more stable, more secure, and more evenly balanced roller shade assembly.

Conventional support and track systems for vertical blinds and roller shades have concentrated on two problems with two different structures.
First, for vertical blinds, the main objective has been to eliminate friction in actuating the rotation of the control rod which extends along the drapery track and which turns the individual vertical blind units simultaneously to admit or shut off light from entering the room. The control rod engages a gear associated with each support structure for each vertical blind panel, known as a carrier. The carrier has the ability to freely translate and roll within a raceway within the track, the system then having an ability to rotate the control rod to change the angle of the vertical blind panels regardless of where the carriers are located along the track.
Thus, the rod's contact with several carriers adds significant mechanical resistance to turning, especially when the turning is accomplished from the end of the vertical blind track. A significant turning force complicates the actuation with a pull chain, as the pull chain sprocket will normally experience additional friction from being actuated by being pulled downward, at a right angle from its axis of rotation.
One method and technique which has been applied to this problem is the use of the concentric reducing gear. This normally cuts the pull chain force in half by doubling the length of travel of the pull chain, but because of the lateral force friction, probably reduces the force by about 1/3. This can make the operation of the vertical blind set fussy and time consuming. Moreover, the gear mechanism significantly increases the cost of the mechanism, both from a number of parts standpoint, assembly standpoint, and even more importantly from a tolerance standpoint.
The cost for injection molded parts increases significantly once the tolerance specifications are made more exacting. Where several parts have to fit together and work properly, the tolerances have to be controlled within strict limits. Stricter limits translate to longer cycle times in the injection mold process and greater waste, both of which drive up the cost.
The size factor multiplies and exacerbates the above factors. Keeping tolerance on a small part is difficult. Having a series of smaller parts perform a load bearing function doesn't leave much room for wear. The use of a metal ball bearing set is out of the question as the added cost would be unbearable by the market.
Roller shades present the problem of controlled friction, coupled with bearing lateral force resistance and wear. One popular design uses a two ended coil spring which is activated by pushing the spring in an unwind direction to cause it to lose its grip and move. The spring, however, produces a good deal of friction upon the cylindrical tube upon which it is mounted. So, where the spring is made strong enough to strongly resist pulling on the window shade, it adds significant friction to the tube upon which it is mounted. Since the ends of the springs are all that hold the window shade in place, making a smaller spring would cause the force from the shade to bend the spring ends. As a result, the window covering industry has had to settle for a device which produces significant resistance to operation in order to provide window roller shade control. In reality, the force moment on a roller shade is small due to a general balance of material when rolled up, and a relatively short turning moment when fully unrolled.
In both the window shade and vertical blind configurations, the necessity to place greater force on the actuating member, particularly in the downward direction, means that greater time and effort must be expended in making certain that the mounting of the track or bracket is sufficient to withstand the pulling force of the actuation member, usually a looping suspended chain. So even in instances where dry wall would be sufficient to hold the roller shade or vertical blinds and more, additional labor and structure will be needed to further anchor the window covering device to a stud or beam. Of course, all installations should be secure, but where additional anchoring is needed simply because of the unreasonable forces needed to operate the window covering mechanism, the added money for much higher installation costs are not justified.
What is therefore needed is a mechanism for a window covering device which can be inexpensively injection molded and which makes up for relaxed tolerance in manufacture. The device should have load bearing capability and for roller shades, the resistive force to prevent the unwinding of the window shade should be adjustable.

Bearing structure for vertical blinds and roller shades


A method of making a matted article, as well as the article per se wherein it is derived from molding and heat treating a vinyl chloride resin composition incorporated with 0.002-0.02 mol of zinc carboxylate for 100 g of vinyl chloride resin and 0.3-5 mol of a compound having two or more alcoholic hydroxyl groups in one molecule per mol of the zinc carboxylate. This composition yields an article having a good matte-finished surface owing to minute corrugated irregularities formed on the surface.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a vinyl chloride resin composition for vinyl chloride resin products and also to a matte-finished or surface delustered article produced therefrom.
2. Description of the Prior Art
There is an increasing demand for matte-finished vinyl chloride resin products in such application areas as wall covering, flooring, vehicle interior, electric wires, and daily necessities, where reduced surface gloss, non-glare reflection, dry feeling, and quiet appearance are desirable. There are several methods for their matte finishing by (1) physically forming a rough surface, (2) compounding with a special component which gives rise to a rough surface, or (3) coating the surface with dull lacquer.
Method (1) involves embossing with finely textured dies, sand blasting, and dusting with fine particles in the course of molding. A disadvantage of mechanical embossing is unsatisfactory matte-finishing which results from the fading out of embossed patterns that takes place after the embossing operation owing to the viscoelastic properties of the material. Another disadvantage of mechanical embossing is that the embossing die becomes contaminated during the embossing operation. Sand blasting is applicable only to articles having a hard surface and needs a complex apparatus to confine and recover fine particles. Dusting with fine particles also needs a special apparatus for uniform dusting and recovery of fine particles.
Method (2) involves blending with a vinyl chloride resin having a different particle diameter, blending with a vinyl chloride resin having a different degree of polymerization, incorporation with a specific polymer other than vinyl chloride resin, partial crosslinking, and incorporation of a large amount of inorganic filler such as calcium carbonate. The first three methods have a disadvantage that the molding process depends largely on the molding condition, that is, no satisfactory matting effect is obtained with a high molding temperature. Incorporation with a large amount of filler has an adverse effect on the physical properties of articles, e.g., decrease in tensile strength.
Method (3) is effective in matte finishing but is economically poor in that it needs a special coating material and additional steps for coating and drying.
The present invention was completed to address the above-mentioned problems associated with the conventional matte-finishing method for vinyl chloride resin products.

Polyvinyl chloride resin composition and surface delustered article


A method and an apparatus for interworking between base stations using a GateWay (GW) in a wireless communication system of a hierarchical cell structure are provided. In the method, a message requesting Internet Protocol (IP) information of a target eNB is received from a source eNB. The IP information of the target eNB is obtained. The source eNB is mapped to the target eNB and the mapping is stored. IP information of the GW is transmitted to the source eNB instead of the IP of the target eNB.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a wireless communication system having a hierarchical cell structure. More particularly, the present invention relates to a method and an apparatus for X2 interwork between eNBs using a gateway.
2. Description of the Related Art
A Long Term Evolution (LTE) system provides an S1 handover using an S1 interface between a Mobility Management Entity/Serving-GateWay (MME/S-GW) and an eNB and an X2 handover using an X2 interface between eNBs. However, since the S1 handover is performed via an MME/S-G, it may generate an overhead to a core network and a handover delay time increases, so that the X2 handover between eNBs is preferred.
Meanwhile, recently, for swift communication of user equipment (UE), a wireless communication system provides a wireless communication system of a hierarchical cell structure where eNBs having different cell coverages co-exist. For example, a wireless communication system provides a communication system where a small cell like a pico cell and a macro cell co-exist. Particularly, the current LTE-A standard discusses an alternative for improving an entire system performance using a small eNB.
FIG. 1 illustrates a general LTE system configuration.
Referring to FIG. 1, the LTE system includes macro base stations (eNBs) 100-1 to 100-3, small base stations (pico eNBs or home eNBs) 110-1 to 110-4, an MME/S-GWs 120-1 and 120-2 which are core networks, and a small gateway (pico GW or home GW) 130. Here, the macro eNBs 100-1 to 100-3 interwork using the MME/S-GWs 120-1 and 120-2 and an S1 interface, and the home eNBs 110-1 to 110-4 operate by interworking using the pico GW 130 and an S1 interface in order to minimize an influence of the core network. Particularly, referring to the LTE system standard, the macro eNBs 100-1 to 100-3 and home eNBs 110-1 to 110-4 are defined to operate by connecting with an X2 interface via the small GW 130.
However, since the standard does not describe a specific alternative for connecting with the X2 interface via the small GW, a specific alternative needs to be proposed.

Interworking method and device between base stations using gateway in wireless communication system of hierarchical cell structure


The present invention comprises a stator, and a rotor which is disposed oppositely to the stator with a gap interposed. The stator comprises a stator core, and a distributed stator winding mounted to the stator core. The stator core comprises a ring-like yoke core, and a plurality of teeth cores which protrude from the yoke core in the radial direction. The rotor comprises a rotor core, and a plurality of permanent magnets embedded in the rotor core. A pair of non-magnetic portions is created inside the rotor core and on both sides of the circumferential width of a permanent magnet for one magnetic pole. In the rotor core located on the stator side of the pair of non-magnetic portions, a pair of magnetic paths is created as the result of the creation of the pair of non-magnetic portions. Furthermore, a groove or hole is created on the outer circumferential portion of the rotor core and between the adjacent magnetic poles.

Improved efficiency is required for a permanent magnet motor generator. Specifically, it is sometimes required that the power factor of a motor generator in a high-speed overload area be improved. With regard to a permanent magnet type motor generator, patent document 1 has disclosed the technology wherein when the magnetic flux axis of the permanent magnet is considered as a d-axis and an axis perpendicular to the d-axis is considered as a q-axis, the power factor can be increased by notching the q-axis side of the outer circumferential surface of the rotor core.
Furthermore, patent documents 2 and 3 have disclosed the configuration of a motor generator related to patent document 1.
Furthermore, reduction in the volume of a permanent magnet which accounts for a large portion of cost structure is required, and patent document 4 has disclosed the configuration of an embedded permanent magnet type motor generator. According to patent document 4, magnetic flux of the permanent magnet is increased to reduce the d-axis side reactance and simultaneously the q-axis side reactance is reduced Therefore, as the result of reduction of magnetic flux that generates reluctance torque, reactance in the high-speed load area is reduced thereby improving the power factor.    [Patent document 1] Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2006-101608    [Patent document 2] Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2002-78255    [Patent document 3] Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2001-145284    [Patent document 4] Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. Hei 10 (1998)-126985

Permanent magnet type generator and hybrid vehicle using the same


A mineral composite consists essentially of a naturally occurring glacial deposit comprising not more than 20 weight percent Si, 10-20 weight percent Ca, 2-10 weight percent Mg, 2-10 weight percent Fe, 1-10 weight percent K, 1-5 weight percent Al, 0-3.0 weight percent Na, 0-5.0 weight percent Ti, 0-1.0 weight percent Mn, 0-0.5 weight percent P, 0-0.01 weight percent Ba, and 0-0.005 Cr; and wherein the mineral composite is in powdered form with a mean particle size of 2-20xcexc and with a surface area of least of 0.8-1.5 m2/cm3 of the composite. Other additives may be added to the mineral composite to make it even more effective for treating soil. Methods of making and using the mineral composite are also described.

1 . Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a mineral composite, and particularly to a finely divided or powdered mineral composite, containing a wide variety of minerals in a small, relatively uniform particle size, which may be added to soil for stimulating activity of beneficial fungi and other useful microorganisms contained therein, and for thereby enhancing the growth rate and mineral content of plants and vegetables grown in the soil. The invention also pertains to methods of using the composite to treat soil, and to methods of growing plants, having enhanced mineral content, in such treated soil.
2. Description of the Relevant Art
There are known mineral composites for being added to soil, compost and the like to stimulate the activity of microorganisms, to counter balance the natural acidity of the soil, etc. Some of such known mineral composites include Azomite(copyright) by Peak Minerals of Colorado Springs, Colo., Mineral Rite(trademark) by Vulcan Materials Company of Winston-Salem, N.C., Sacred Mountain Mineral soil additive by Sacred Mountain Minerals of Rohnert Park, Calif., and Bio 2(trademark) glacial rock powder by Meridian Environmental Group, Inc. of Okemos, Mich. Each of these known products is essentially powdered rocks such as the dust or fines from a gravel pit, sea bed or the like, and contains a large variety of minerals, mostly in the form of oxides or other compounds.
Further, there are known publications which specifically address and advocate the practice of soil remineralization through addition of rock powders thereto. One such publication is Remineralize The Earth, a periodical published by Remineralize the Earth, Inc. of Northampton, Mass. This publication discusses various mineral composites which have been added to soils by persons for various reasons, and various effects achieved thereby. Several books are available which discuss adding rock powder to soil, including Bread from Stones by Dr. Julius Hensel, Secrets of the Soil by Peter Tompkins and Christopher Bird, and The Survival of Civilization by John Hamaker and Don Weaver.
Although the known mineral composites, including those discussed above and in the known publications, are somewhat useful and effective as soil additives, they still remain to be improved upon. For example, each of the Azomite(copyright), Sacred Mountain Mineral, Vulcan materials and Bio 2(trademark) mineral supplements contain a large proportion of silicon in the form of silicon dioxide or sand (SiO2), i.e., between 49% and 87% by weight of the entire composition is silicon dioxide, whereas silicon dioxide has relatively little stimulative effect on microorganisms in the soil as compared with other minerals such as ferric oxide (Fe2O3), calcium oxide (CaO), magnesium oxide (MgO), etc.
Further, the known mineral composites, although in powdered form, have relatively large or coarse, and non-uniform particle sizes. For example, a sample of the Bio2(trademark) product was analyzed and found to have an average particle size of 22.28 microns, and with only 86% of the particles able to pass through a 325 mesh (44 micron) screen. Larger particle size for the mineral supplements is not desirable, because larger particles present less accessible surface area than smaller particles would. As a result, larger particles have less stimulatory effects on the microorganisms in the soil, i.e., they are not readily or easily assimilated by the microorganisms and plants, whereby a lesser overall stimulatory effect is achieved even if a larger quantity of the mineral composite is applied.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,927,122 to Wallace discloses a method for the biological degradation of organic containing waste matter, in which a mineral composite consisting essentially of a glacial deposit is added to the waste matter, in an amount ranging from 1 part mineral composite per 15 parts organic matter contained in the waste matter, to 1 part mineral composite per 400 parts organic matter. The particle size disclosed in this reference is below about 70% mesh size at 100 mesh, and preferably, below about 70% of mesh size at 200 mesh. The disclosure of Wallace U.S. Pat. No. 4,927,122 is hereby incorporated by reference.
The present invention has been developed to overcome the limitations and disadvantages associated with the known mineral composite additives.
It is an object of the invention to provide a mineral composite for use as a soil additive having an effective combination of numerous mineral oxides as might be found in a natural glacial deposit, a gravel quarry or the like, but wherein the supplement has a reduced silicon content as compared to the conventional glacial deposits, sea beds, rock quarries, etc. which are used in making the conventional mineral composites. Preferably, the mineral composite according to the present invention has not more than 20 percent, by weight, of silicon.
It is another object of the invention to provide such a mineral supplement having a very fine particle size to achieve a prompt, optimum stimulatory effect on microorganisms in the soil, in waste water, in compost or solid waste, etc.
It is another object of the invention to provide a simple and economic method of making the mineral composite from naturally occurring glacial deposits, rock quarries, etc.
It is yet another object of the invention to provide a simple and effective method for remineralizing soil using the mineral supplement, and optionally, this method may also involve treating the soil with mycorrhizae spores, with externally added bacteria, with humate, with a biodegradable carbohydrate source, and/or with other beneficial additives. These additives are preferably added to the mineral composite before adding it to the substrate to be treated.
According to the invention there is provided a mineral composite consisting essentially of a naturally occurring glacial deposit comprising not more than 20 weight percent Si, 10-20 weight percent Ca, 2-10 weight percent Mg, 2-10 weight percent Fe, 1-10 weight percent K, 1-5 weight percent Al, 0-3.0 weight percent Na, 0-5.0 weight percent Ti, 0-1.0 weight percent Mn, 0-0.5 weight percent P, 0-0.01 weight percent Ba, and 0-0.005 Cr; and wherein the mineral composite is in powdered form, with an average particle size of 2-20 microns, possibly 1-10 microns, and preferably 1-9 microns. In a preferred embodiment of a mineral composite in accordance with the present invention, over 90% of the mineral composite has a mean particle size less than or equal to 10xcexc, based on the total number of particles, and with a surface area of at least 0.8 m2/cm3.
The above components of the mineral composite are present in compound form, typically oxides, and the mineral composite also preferably comprises approximately 50-65 other elements due to the natural occurrence thereof in the glacial deposit, although the other elements are mostly present in relatively small quantities.
The other elements may include 2-15 weight percent C, 0.00005-0.005 weight percent of each of Ni and Zn, 0.0005-0.02 weight percent Rb, 0.005-0.1 weight percent Sr, 0.001-0.025 Zr, 0.0001-0.01 weight percent La, 0.00005-0.005 Gd, 0.00005-0.0005 Yb, 0.0001-0.0025 weight percent of each of Pb and Li, 0.00005-0.0150 weight percent Y, 0.00005-0.0025 weight percent Ce, 0.00001-0.0015 weight percent Yb, 0.0001-0.0025 weight percent B, 0.0005-0.01 weight percent Ga, 0.00005-0.0005 weight percent of each of Er and Lu, 0.0001-0.0025 weight percent V, 0.0001-0.0025 Sc, and trace amounts of Be, Co, Cu, Ge, As, Se, Nb, Mo, Ru, Rh, Pd, Cd, Sn, Te, Cs, Nd, Sm, Eu, Tb, Di, Ho, Tm, Hf, Ta, W, Os, Ir, Pt, Au, Hg, Tl, Th, Ag, Sb, Pr, Re, Bi, and U.
Also preferably, as a result of being finely divided, the mineral composite according to the invention will have average particle size of between 2 and 20 microns, preferably less than 10 microns, and at least 0.8 square meters of surface area per cubic centimeter of the mineral composite.
It has been found that the mineral composite as described above is particularly effective for stimulating microbiological activity in soil in relatively small doses, e.g., 1-12 kilograms per cubic meter of soil, preferably 1-7 kg of the mineral composite per cubic meter of soil, although greater or lesser amounts of the composite may be added to the soil for achieving an optimum result, depending on the organic content of the soil. Soil with a high organic content can utilize a greater quantity of the composite because the higher organic content of the soil can appropriately sustain a higher level of enhanced microbiological activity. Additionally, the mineral composite provides relatively immediate results because its very small particle size permits it to be readily assimilated by the microorganisms in the soil and by the plants growing in the soil.
In particular, the mineral composite according to the present invention is believed to be especially effective in promoting the growth of beneficial symbiotic mycorrhizae fungi on the roots of growing plants, which leads to the growth of healthier plants.
Also according to the invention there is also provided a method of forming a mineral composite comprising the steps of: obtaining a naturally occurring glacial deposit including not more than 20 weight percent Si, 10-20 weight percent Ca, 2-10 weight percent Mg, 1-10 weight percent Fe, 1-10 weight percent K, 1-10 weight percent Al, 0-3.0 weight percent Na, 0-1.0 weight percent Ti, 0-1.0 weight percent Mn, 0-0.5 weight percent P, 0-0.5 weight percent Ba and 0-0.005 Cr; and pulverizing the glacial deposit into a fine powder having a mean particle size of 1-20xcexc and a surface area of at least 0.8-1.5 m2/cm3.
Other objects, advantages, and salient features of the invention will become apparent from the following detailed description which, when viewed in conjunction with the appended drawings, describes the presently preferred embodiment of the invention.

Methods of utilizing a finely divided mineral composite


A fuel cell is provided with an anode and a cathode. The anode is in electrical communication with an anode enzyme and the cathode is in electrical communication with a cathode enzyme. The anode enzyme is preferably an oxidase or a dehydrogenase. The cathode enzyme is a copper-containing enzyme, such as a laccase, an ascorbate oxidase, a ceruloplasmine, or a bilirubin oxidase. Preferably, the cathode enzyme is operable under physiological conditions. Redox polymers serve to wire the anode enzyme to the anode and the cathode enzyme to the cathode. The fuel cell can be very small in size because it does not require a membrane, seal, or case. The fuel cell can be used in connection with a biological system, such as a human, as it may operate at physiological conditions. By virtue of its size and operability at physiological conditions, the fuel cell is of particular interest for applications calling for a power source implanted in a human body, such as a variety of medical applications.

Packages comprising autonomous electronic and electromechanical systems that are implanted in the body of animals, such as sensors and their associated electronic circuits that function to amplify the sensor signals and transmit them to a nearby receiver, require a power source. Today, these packages are powered externally by batteries. The smallest batteries are, however, much larger than the implantable sensors and their associated signal amplifier circuits. For this reason, the size of autonomous packages that include a sensor, an amplifier-transmitter, and a power source are generally defined by the battery. Batteries cannot be made as small as the sensors or amplifiers because the batteries require cases and seals, the miniaturization of which is difficult and prohibitively expensive.
Known fuel cells are also much larger than available sensors because they require a case and a seal, and usually also a membrane, which is difficult to miniaturize and seal. By way of illustration, in a conventional fuel cell, usually a membrane separates the cathode and anode compartments of the cell so as to separate electrooxidized reactant of the anodic reaction and electroreduced reactant of the cathodic reaction. If these reactants were not separated, they could react with one another, thereby reducing the power and the efficiency of the cell. As the miniaturization and sealing of membranes present difficult manufacturing issues, conventional fuel cells are generally much larger than is desirable for certain applications.
Biological fuel cells, also known as biofuel cells, have received much attention in past years. Herein, the term "biological fuel cell" or "biofuel cell" refers to an electrochemical cell having performance attributes that permit its use as a power source for an implanted device in a biological system, such as an animal, including a human, or a plant. Biological fuel cells generate electrical energy using components found in biological systems, such as sugars, alcohols, carboxylic acids, carbohydrates, starches, cellulose, and oxygen. Such devices are generally disclosed and discussed in the above-referenced U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,294,281 and 6,531,239. Miniature biofuel cells having oxygen electroreducing cathodes and glucose electrooxidizing anodes are of current interest because such cells may power future autonomous electronic and electromechanical systems implanted in a biological system, and particularly, the human body.
Numerous biofuel cells have been described in the past fifty years. However, only a few of these biofuel cells could be operated under physiological conditions, which are the conditions relevant to operation in the body of animal. Physiological conditions include, for instance, a pH of about 7.2 to 7.4, a temperature of near 37° C., and a chloride concentration of about 0.14 M. The power density of known biofuel cells is small, the typical currents per square centimeter of electrode area being less than 1 mA/cm2, and usually less than 100 μA/cm2.
Furthermore, known biofuel cells having higher power densities require ion-conducting separation membranes, such as Nafion™ membranes. These membranes are required because components of the catalysts of the anode and cathode reactions are often dissolved or reversibly adsorbed on the electrodes. Most of these known biofuel cells comprise two different dissolved or absorbed enzymes, one in the anode compartment, and the other in the cathode compartment. The most efficient of these cells also comprise diffusional redox mediators dissolved in their respective compartments. These mediators carry electrons between the electrodes and the dissolved enzymes. Because these fuel cells have limited power densities and unstable dissolved enzymes, and require membranes that are difficult to miniaturize, they have not been produced in dimensions smaller than 1 mm in length, width, or height.
As the electronic circuits and sensors used in implantable devices have become miniaturized, autonomous sensor-amplifier-transmitter devices of millimeter and sub-millimeter dimensions can be built. For example, signal amplifier circuits and sensors with footprints under 1 mm2 can be produced. The size reduction in these implantable devices is severely limited, however, by battery size and/or cost. For example, smaller batteries, such as lithium batteries of sub-millimeter dimensions, are prohibitively expensive to manufacture. Therefore, reduction in the size of implantable medical devices depends on the availability of power sources that can be miniaturized to dimensions comparable to the implantable devices themselves, and on the cost of such power sources. These factors are important, for example, in the development of autonomous medical sensors and associated transmitters, or of receivers and associated actuators.
Accordingly, the development of a miniaturized power source is desirable. Further, the development of a power source, having millimeter to sub-millimeter dimensions, is desirable. Still further, the development of a power source that can function under physiological conditions is desirable.

Miniature biological fuel cell that is operational under physiological conditions, and associated devices and methods


A baffled liner cover supported at the top of a liner surrounding a wafer support tower for semiconductor thermal processing. The cover may present a continuous horizontal surface for preventing particles from falling within the liner but present horizontal extending gas passageways in a baffle assembly to allow the flow of processing gas through the cover. In one embodiment, the baffle assembly includes a cup-shaped member disposed in a central aperture of a top plate having an open top, a continuous bottom, horizontal holes through the sides, and a flange around sides defining a convolute annular passage. Alternatively, the planar top plate may included slanted holes therethrough or vertical holes occupying a small fraction of the surface area. The liner and cover may be composed of quartz, silicon carbide, or preferably silicon.

Batch thermal processing continues to be used for several stages of fabrication of silicon integrated circuits. One low temperature thermal process deposits a layer of silicon nitride by chemical vapor deposition, typically using chlorosilane and ammonia as the precursor gases at temperatures in the range of about 700° C. Other, high-temperature processes include oxidation, annealing, silicidation, and other processes typically using higher temperatures, for example above 1000° C. or even 1350° C.
For large-scale commercial production, vertical furnaces and vertically arranged wafer towers supporting a large number of wafers in the furnace are typically used, often in a configuration illustrated in the schematic cross-sectional view of FIG. 1. A furnace 10 includes a thermally insulating heater canister 12 supporting a resistive heating coil 14 powered by an unillustrated electrical power supply. A bell jar 16, typically composed of quartz, includes a domed roof 18 and fits within the heating coil 14. An open-ended liner 20 fits within the bell jar 16. A support tower 22 sits on a pedestal 24 and during processing the pedestal 24 and the support tower 22 are generally surrounded by the liner 20. The tower 22 includes three or four vertically extending legs 26 fixed at the ends to a tower top plate 28 and a tower bottom plate 30. The legs 26 include vertically arranged slots 32 for holding multiple vertically arranged and horizontally disposed wafers 34 to be thermally processed in batch mode. If used, one or more gas injectors 36 principally disposed between the liner 20 and the tower 22 have multiple gas outlets 38 at different heights for injecting processing gas within the liner 18. An unillustrated vacuum pump removes the processing gas through the bottom of the bell jar 16. Conventionally, the top of the liner 20 is left open so that, in processing, the processing gas generally flows upwardly within the liner 20 and out the top of the liner 20 before descending downwardly around the outside of the liner 20 to the vacuum pump. The heater canister 12, bell jar 16, and liner 20 may be raised vertically to allow wafers to be transferred to and from the tower 22, although in some configurations these elements remain stationary while an elevator raises and lowers the pedestal 24 and loaded tower 22 into and out of the bottom of the furnace 10.
The bell jar 16, which is closed on its upper end by the dome 18, produces a generally uniformly hot temperature in the vertically middle and upper portions of the furnace 10. This is referred to as the hot zone in which the temperature is controlled for the optimized thermal process. However, the open bottom end of the bell jar 16 and the mechanical support of the pedestal 22 causes the lower end of the furnace 10 to have a lower temperature, often low enough that the thermal process such as chemical vapor deposition is not effective. The hot zone may exclude some of the lower slots of the tower 22.
Conventionally in low-temperature applications, the tower, liner, dome, and injectors have been composed of quartz, typically fused silica. However, quartz towers, liners, and injectors are being supplanted by silicon towers, liners, and injectors. Towers of silicon carbide are also available. Silicon towers having somewhat different configurations for various applications and silicon injectors are commercially available from Integrated Materials, Inc. of Sunnyvale, Calif. and are disclosed respectively by Boyle et al. in U.S. Pat. No. 6,450,346 and by Zehavi et al. in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/177,808, filed Jul. 8, 2005 and published as U.S. Patent Application Publication 2006/0185589, now abandoned. Silicon liners based on silicon staves bonded together into a generally tubular (actually polygonal) shape are disclosed by Boyle et al. in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/642,013, filed Sep. 26, 2001, published as U.S. Patent Application Publication 2004/0129203, and issued as U.S. Pat. No. 7,137,546, and incorporated herein by reference. A preferred liner design disclosed by Reese et al. in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/536,352, filed Sep. 29, 2006 and now published as U.S. Patent Application Publication 2007/0169701, includes generally rectangularly shaped staves having interlocking structures on their shared edges. All these patent references are incorporated herein by reference. Silicon is available in very high purity in the form of virgin polysilicon (electronic grade silicon) and thus contains very low levels of impurities. However, a silicon member is defined as comprising at least 95 at % and preferably at least 99 at % of elemental silicon.
The use of a silicon tower, a silicon liner, and silicon injectors allows the hot zone to include only silicon parts, which substantially reduces contamination and particles. However, it is now believed that the dome 18 of the quartz bell jar 16 generates a significant number of particles in the 0.2 to 1 μm and larger range, which may fall into the open end of the liner 20 and thence onto the tower 22 and its supported wafers regardless of the composition of the liner 20 and tower 22. Any die on which a particle falls is likely to be inoperable or at least undependable. That is, particles severely affect yield. However, sealing the upper end of the liner 20 would prevent process gas from the injectors 34 from flowing in a regular pattern past the tower 22 and its supported wafers 34.


Embodiments of a method and an apparatus for detecting multiple complex-valued symbols belonging to discrete constellations. The method and apparatus is a detector that finds a closest vector, or a close approximation of it, to a received vector. The disclosure also gets (optimally, in case of two transmit sources) or closely approximates (for more than two transmit sources) the most likely sequences required for an optimal bit or symbol a-posteriori probability computation. Also part of the present disclosure is represented by Also embodiments of a method and an apparatus to determine a near-optimal ordering algorithms for the aforementioned purpose. The method and apparatus achieves optimal performance for two transmit antennas and achieves near-optimal performance for a higher number of antennas, with a lower complexity as compared to a maximum-likelihood detection method and apparatus. The method and apparatus are suitable for highly parallel hardware architectures.

(Note: This application references various publications as indicated throughout the specification by reference numbers enclosed in brackets, e.g., [x]. A list of these publications ordered according to these reference numbers can be found below in the section entitled "References." Each of these publications is incorporated in its entirety by reference herein.)
Wireless transmission through multiple antennas, also referred to as MIMO (Multiple-Input Multiple-Output) [1]-[2], currently enjoys great popularity because of the demand of high data rate communication from multimedia services. Many applications are considering the use of MIMO to enhance the data rate and/or the robustness of the link; among others, a significant example is provided by the next generation of wireless LAN networks, of which the standard is currently under definition (IEEE 802.11n) [3]. Another candidate application is represented by mobile "WiMax" systems for fixed wireless access (FWA) [4]-[5]. Also, fourth generation (4G) mobile terminals will likely endorse MIMO technology and as such represent a very important commercial application for embodiments of the present disclosure.
An embodiment of the present disclosure is concerned with the problem of detecting multiple sources corrupted by noise in MIMO fading channels. The linear complex baseband equation representative of narrow band MIMO system is:Y=HX+N  (1)where R and Tare the number of receive and transmit antennas respectively,Y=[Y1Y2 . . . YR]T is the received vector (size R×1),X=[X1X2 . . . XT]T is the transmitted vector (size T×1), H is the R×T channel matrix, whose entries are the complex path gains from transmitter to receiver, samples of zero mean Gaussian random variables (RVs) with variance σ2=0.5 per dimension. N is the noise vector of size R×1, whose elements are samples of independent circularly symmetric zero-mean complex Gaussian RVs with variance σN2=N0/2 per dimension. Equation (1) is considered valid per subcarrier for wideband orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) systems.
Maximum-Likelihood (ML) detection is desirable to achieve high-performance, as this is the optimal detection technique in presence of additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) [6]. It corresponds to finding the transmitted vector X which minimizes the minimum of the squared norm of the error vector (i.e., its squared norm, ∥.∥2):
                              X          D                =                  arg                                                                                min              x                                                                                                    Y                  -                  RX                                                            2                                                          (        2        )            where the notation corresponds to the commonly used linear MIMO channel with i.i.d. Rayleigh fading and ideal channel state information (CSI) at the receiver is assumed. ML detection involves an exhaustive search over all the possible ST sequences of digitally modulated symbols, where S is a Quadrature Amplitude Modulation (QAM) or Phase Shift Keying (PSK) constellation size, and T is the number of transmit antennas; this means it becomes increasingly unfeasible with the growth of the spectral efficiency.
Because of their reduced complexity, sub-optimal linear detection algorithms like Zero-Forcing (ZF) or Minimum Mean Square Error (MMSE) [7] are widely employed in wireless communications. They belong to the class of linear combinatorial nulling detectors, i.e., the estimates of each modulated symbol are obtained considering the other symbols as interferers and performing a linear weighting of the signals received by all the receive antennas. ZF and MMSE schemes are highly sub-optimal, since they yield a low spatial diversity order: for a MIMO system with 7 transmit and R receive antennas, this is equal to R−T+1, as opposed to R for a ML [20].
To improve their performance, nonlinear detectors based on the combination of linear detectors and spatially ordered decision-feedback equalization (O-DFE) were proposed in [8]-[9]. There, the principles of interference cancellation and layer ordering are established. In the remainder of this document terms "layers" and "antennas" will be interchangeable.
First, a stage of ZF or MMSE linear detection, also called interference "nulling", is applied to determine T symbol estimates. Based on the "post-detection" signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), the first layer is detected. Then, each sub-stream in turn is considered to be the desired signal and the other are considered as "interferers"; interference from the already detected signals is cancelled from the received signal, and nulling is performed on modified received vectors where, effectively, fewer interferers are present. This process is called "interference cancellation (IC) and nulling" or, equivalently, spatial DFE. In case of IC, the order in which the transmit signals are detected is critical for the performance. An optimal criterion has been established, corresponding to maximizing the minimum SNR ("maxi-min" criterion) over all possible orderings. Fortunately, for T transmit antennas, it can be demonstrated that only T(T+1)/2 dispositions of layers have to be considered to determine the optimal ordering, instead of all the possible T!. However, nonlinear ZF or MMSE-based O-DFE detectors have a limited performance improvement over linear ZF or MMSE, due to noise enhancements caused by nulling and error propagation caused by IC. In addition, they still suffer from ill-conditioned channel conditions, as the linear detectors. Also, the complexity of the original version of this algorithm is very high, O(T4), as it involves the computation of multiple Moore-Penrose pseudo-inverse matrices of decreasing size sub-channel matrices. More recent efficient implementations exist [22], though, keeping a O(T3) complexity. Last, no strategy to compute the bit soft metrics has been proposed for O-DFE detectors.
A better performing class of detectors is represented by the list detectors [10]-[13], based on a combination of the ML and DFE principles. The common idea of the list detectors (LD) is to divide the streams to be detected into two groups: first, one or more reference transmit streams are selected and a corresponding list of candidate constellation symbols is determined; then, for each sequence in the list, interference is cancelled from the received signal and the remaining symbol estimates are determined by as many sub-detectors operating on reduced size sub-channels. Compared to O-DFE, the differences lie in the criterion adopted to order the layers, and in the fact that the symbol estimates for the first layer (i.e., prior to interference cancellation) are replaced by a list of candidates. The best performing variant corresponds to searching all possible S cases for a reference stream, or layer, and adopting spatial DFE for a properly selected set of the remaining T−1 sub-detectors. In this case, numerical results demonstrate that the LD detector is able to achieve full receive diversity and a SNR distance from ML in the order of fractions of dB, provided that the layer order is properly selected. A notable property is that this can be accomplished through a parallel implementation, as the sub-detectors can operate independently. The optimal ordering criterion for LDs stems from the principle of maximizing the worst case post-detection SNR ("maxi-min"), as proposed for the O-DFE [9]. This was first proposed in [11] and then re-elaborated in [12]-[13], and results in computing the O-DFE ordering for T sub-channel matrices of size R×(T−1) thus entailing a complexity O(T4). A simplified suboptimal ordering criterion is contained in both [13] and [14].
The LDs may also suffer from some major drawbacks. In particular, we refer to the "parallel detection" (PD) algorithm [11] and the additional implementation details contained in [12]-[13]. They all suffer from a high computational complexity as T O-DFE detectors acting on R×(T−1) sub-channel matrices have to be computed; this involves the computation of the related Moore-Penrose sub-channel pseudo-inverses. In [12]-[13] they are efficiently implemented through T complex "sorted" QR decompositions [23]-[24], however the overall complexity is still in the order of O(T4). As previously mentioned, a simplified suboptimal ordering method is included in [13] and [14]. In the case when all the possible constellation symbols are searched for a reference layer and the rest of the layers are detected through spatial DFE, such an ordering technique corresponds to selecting as reference layer the one characterized by the worst case post-detection SNR; then O-DFE is performed on the remaining layers. However, in [13] this criterion is only drafted as a possible simplification of the optimal layer selection algorithm but neither its HW complexity nor the performance is provided; [14] provides only one simulation plot for an uncoded 4×4 16QAM MIMO system, but its processing uses a complex-domain Cholesky decomposition of the channel matrix to compute its pseudo-inverse, which entails high complexity too. Finally, another major shortcoming in list based detection is, to the best of our knowledge, the absence of an algorithm to produce soft bit metrics for use in modern coding and decoding algorithms.
Finally, it shall be remarked that another important family of ML-approaching detectors is given by the lattice decoding algorithms, applicable if the received signal can be represented as a lattice [15]-[16], i.e., through a proper real-domain representation of discrete signals. The so-called Sphere Decoder (SD) [17]-[18] is the most widely known example for these detectors and can be utilized to attain hard-output ML performance with significantly reduced complexity.
However SD may suffer from some important disadvantages; most notably, it is not suitable for a parallel VLSI implementation. This because it is a inherently serial detector. In other words, it spans the possible values for the I and Q PAM components of the QAM symbols successively and thus is not suitable for a parallel implementation. It should be noted that in order to slightly increase the degree of achievable parallelism, the authors in [19] resort to a complex domain version of the SD algorithm.
A related issue is that the number of lattice points to be searched is non-deterministic, sensitive to the channel and noise realizations, and to the initial radius. This is not desirable for real-time high-data rate applications; an example is given by high-throughput Wireless LANs 802.11n, whose standard definition is ongoing [3].
Finally, generation of soft output metrics may not be easy with known lattice decoding procedures, because the need to reduce the size of the search before converging to the ML-approaching transmitted sequence is not always compatible with the need of finding a number of (selected) sequences in order to generate bit soft-output information.
Besides performance (the benchmarks are optimal ML detection and linear MMSE, ZF on the two extremes, respectively) at least four features are typically needed for a MIMO detection algorithm to be effective and implementable in next generation wireless communication algorithms:                a reduced overall complexity;        near optimal performance;        the possibility to generate bit soft output values (or log-likelihood ratios, LLR, if in the logarithmic domain), as this yields a significant performance gain in wireless systems employing error correction codes (ECC) coding and decoding algorithms;        the capability of the architecture of the procedure to be parallelized, which is significant for an Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC) implementation and also to yield the low latency often required by a real-time high-data rate transmission.

Method and apparatus for multiple antenna communications, computer program product therefor


A method in the manufacture of an elevator, in which is formed an elevator arrangement, which includes an elevator hoistway, at least one elevator unit to be moved in the elevator hoistway, said unit(s) including at least an elevator car, a movable supporting structure in the elevator hoistway above the elevator car, roping suspended from the supporting structure for supporting the aforementioned at least one elevator unit to be moved, in which method the following steps are performed: a) the elevator car is used to transport passengers and/or freight, after which b) the supporting structure is lifted in the elevator hoistway, after which c) the elevator car is used to transport passengers and/or freight. In the method, between steps a) and c), additionally a step x) is performed, in which the section of the roping is lifted, separately from the lifting of the supporting structure, higher up in the elevator hoistway. An elevator arrangement includes a movable diverting pulley separate from the supporting structure, supported by which diverting pulley the section of roping is arranged to be suspended.

In connection with so-called jump-lifts, an elevator is taken into use already before the full length of the elevator hoistway has been completed. The elevator car moving in the bottom part of the elevator hoistway is supported and moved during the construction-time use suspended on hoisting ropes that are supported by a supporting structure in the elevator hoistway, which ropes are moved with a hoisting machine. The top part of the elevator hoistway above the supporting structure is constructed at the same time as an elevator car moving in the already completed bottom part of the elevator hoistway serves people on the lower floors of the building. The hoisting machine can be supported e.g. on the supporting structure. When the part of the elevator hoistway under construction above the supporting platform has reached a sufficient stage of readiness, it can be taken into use. In this case a lift (a so-called jump-lift) is performed, wherein the supporting platform is raised to a higher position in the elevator hoistway, thus extending the service range of the elevator car upwards. A worksite crane in use in the construction of the building can, for example, be used for the lifting. Alternatively, the supporting structure could be shifted with a hoist, which is supported on a support structure to be arranged in the hoistway above the machine room platform. When the elevator hoistway has reached its final height, the elevator is left permanently in its position, possibly however first performing some conversion procedures, e.g. by removing the elements required for jump-lifts, possibly by replacing the roping and/or by changing its route. One solution according to prior art is described in publication WO 2010100319.
One problem in solutions according to prior art has been the large weight of the structures to be hoisted in lifting the supporting structure. More particularly the roping hanging from the supporting structure is supported during a lift by the hoist moving the supporting structure. The hoist itself and the hoisting arrangement generally must be dimensioned to be heavy-duty. Likewise the support points for the structures, more particularly for the hoisting arrangement of the supporting structure, but also for supporting the supporting structure in its position, have been difficult to arrange. It has been noticed that the difficulty of finding support points that are sufficiently stable and durable is one limiting the maximum height to which a jump-lift can, with a reasonable work input, reach. A worksite crane must sometimes be used for shifting the machine room platform, because the aforementioned problems make other solutions so awkward. Another problem has been, generally speaking, the demanding installation environment, which has set numerous practical challenges, which are connected to the smooth running and safety of the installation and to the durability of installation structures. These are, inter alia, the space usage and complexity of the hoisting arrangement for the machine room platform, the center of mass and stability of the machine room platform during the lifting and while it is stationary in position, the center of mass and stability of the support arrangement to be used for the lifting during the lifting and while in position, the layout producing a suitable balance of the support locking mechanism, the cramped layout of the machine room platform, suitable hoisting devices, the dimensioning of the hoisting machine for the final lifting height, routing of the ropes with adequate run clearances, correct configuration of the rope length, the need for safe and spacious working space and position. These numerous variables that must be taken into account affect each other directly or indirectly and their overall effect is that the structure easily becomes complex and heavily built, and requires a lot of space. Taking these challenges into account, there has been a need to further simplify the supporting structure to be lifted in a jump lift and to reduce the weight to be lifted in a jump lift. Likewise, there has been a need to further develop the safety and speed of the method.


Systems and methods are presented for real-time realistic river modeling. In one implementation, when provided with the physical features of a modeled terrain, the systems and methods described herein automatically determine a watercourse route in relation to the terrain and calculate river borders. The systems and methods then calculate a surface structure for the river between the borders and map texture coordinates to the surface structure. The systems and methods apply textures at the texture coordinates to provide an animated, view-dependent representation of wave geometries for the modeled water surface including reflection, refraction, and Fresnel effects.

Visualization of river surfaces is an important topic in computer graphics because rivers are present in many natural scenes. Although many conventional techniques have been developed for river simulation and rendering in the film industry, these techniques are only appropriate for off-line rendering of animated sequences. Real-time applications such as games typically model a conventional river surface as a texture mapped plane with simple lighting effects, while realistic wave geometry and sophisticated lighting effects are ignored. Conventional methods for graphically providing river scenes are often merely derived from modified photographs, as in the case of many flight simulators, or the river simulations are laboriously constructed by artists who manually create river graphics—literally by hand—for storage and later retrieval during a game.


According to one embodiment, a wireless apparatus includes a first antenna and a second antenna. The first antenna is positioned on a first imaginary plane orthogonal to a rotation axis and includes a first main radiating element. The second antenna is positioned on a second imaginary plane orthogonal to the rotation axis and opposite to the first imaginary plane at a first space from the first imaginary plane and includes a second main radiating element. The second antenna is rotatable around the rotation axis and performs at least one of transmission and reception of electromagnetic wave to and from the first antenna, and at least one of the first main radiating element and the second main radiating element is displaced from the rotation axis.

When a fixed unit and a rotator communicate wirelessly with each other, circular polarization antennas mainly used for satellite communication and a radio frequency identification (RFID) are utilized as a transmitting antenna and a receiving antenna to prevent polarization mismatching in which polarized waves are orthogonal to each other, in spite of rotation, allowing appropriate communication at all rotation angles. However, the circular polarization antenna needs to generate two orthogonal polarized waves with the same amplitude and with 90-degree phase difference and thus has a complicated configuration.
On the other hand, linear polarization antennas and elliptic polarization antennas are mainly used for wide applications such as wireless local area networks (LANs) and can be more easily designed and manufactured than the circular polarization antenna. In view of design and manufacture costs, linear polarization antennas and elliptic polarization antennas are desirably also used for communication between the fixed unit and the rotator. As a technique using linear polarization antennas for communication between the fixed unit and the rotator, a technique is available in which a transmitting antenna is disposed in the rotator while a receiving antenna is disposed in the fixed unit so as to make a radiating element parallel to a rotation axis for wheels.
However, the antennas used for the above-described technique are assumed to be dipole antennas with rotationally symmetric radiation directivity. In both the transmitting antenna and the receiving antenna, a main radiating element is disposed along and parallel to the rotation axis. Thus, when the main radiating element is large in size, a large space is needed in a rotation axis direction to install the antenna. On the other hand, when the main radiating element is disposed in a plane perpendicular to the rotation axis direction, the space needed to install the antenna in the rotation axis direction can be made narrower. However, rotation may make polarized waves from the antennas in the fixed unit and the rotator orthogonal to each other. As a result, disadvantageously, polarization mismatching may occur, leading to a decrease in received power.


An apparatus for regulating the flow of articles from an infeed stream at an infeed end of a packaging machine which apparatus comprises a plurality of article feed lanes for supplying a row of articles converging at a predetermined position, each feed lane having a regulator to control article flow, one of said regulators providing a reference position by which the relative positions of the articles may be controlled such that as the lanes converge one row of articles is offset from the or each other rows of articles.

This invention relates to packaging a primary article such as cans or bottles in multiple packaged cartons and is more particularly concerned with feeding such cartons in collapsed condition from a hopper, and for initiating and then completing a set of operation of cartons in sequence.
One common method used by known packaging machines typically comprises moving a collapsed carton from the suppliers of such cartons or blanks. The collapsed carton is then erected, and the cans, bottles or other articles to be packaged are placed in the erected carton. Alternatively, a supplier of cartons in the form of flat blanks may be provided. After withdrawal of the carton from the supply, a carton may first be partially formed and is then placed on to the articles. The carton is further formed into the completed package.
The majority of known packaging machines are dedicated machines which construct only one size of carton. Therefore, modern bottling plants are required to use a plurality of packaging machines to package different carton types, each machine taking up considerable floor space and being expensive to purchase and operate.
However, a limited number of packaging machines are capable of packaging different sizes or types of carton, for example six, eight or twelve packs of a wrap around carton. All such machines require adjustment when switching from one size or type of carton to another. This adjustment includes the manual removal of all of the cartons within the packaging machine and possibly the mechanical adjustment of components in the machine. During this change over period, which can be thirty minutes or more, a machine cannot be used (known as "down time"), which is an expensive delay in a bottling plant. Such a delay may even result in down time for the entire bottling line, not just the packaging machine, if problems arise during the change over procedure.
WO 98/52826 illustrates a carton set up machine having a suction device for withdrawing collapsed basket type cartons from a hopper or magazine parallel to, but offset from the longitudinal axis of the machine. The blanks are stored with their bottom panel lowermost and are rotated about a substantially vertical axis to be transferred from the magazine to the feed of the machine. The cartons are then engaged by the handle panel to progress through the first stage of the erecting process.
The off-set nature of the hopper means that the machine requires more floor space, and the fact that the blanks must be stacked on their bottom flaps weakens the stack, and may lead to feed and subsequent construction problems.
Pending PCT applications PCT/US98/19523, PCT/US98/19646, PCT/US98/196512, PCT/US98/19619 disclose a machine switchable "on the fly" between basket, fully enclosed and wraparound carton types. However, the supply hoppers feed at right angles to the direction of the carton erection process.

Packaging machine and method of forming a carton


An input/output circuit with wide voltage tolerance is using a feedback circuit for increasing the voltage tolerance. A single gate oxide structure is fabricated instead of a dual gate oxide structure.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an input/output (I/O) circuit, and more particularly to using a feedback circuit in the I/O circuit to increase the I/O voltage tolerance.
2. Description of Related Art
An integrated circuit (IC) device includes a number of electronic elements such as resistors, capacitors, transistors and switches, which are made of semiconductor materials, such as silicon or gallium arsenide, and are fabricated together on a semiconductor substrate by fabricating technologies, such as photolithography, etching, chemical vapor deposition (CVD) and so on. The IC device including many electronic elements, therefore, appears in a size about 1.about.2 cm.sup.2 with thickness about 1 mm.
Basically, any IC device is composed of a number of conductors, semiconductors and dielectrics, which are orderly formed together according to the circuit design. For example, a metal oxide semiconductor (MOS) device is composed of a metal layer, an oxide layer and a semiconductor layer, which are sequentially formed. When a bias is applied on the MOS device between the metal layer and the semiconductor layer, certain charges are stored on an interface, or called PN junction, between the oxide layer and the semiconductor layer. The MOS device behaves like a capacitor. If the applied bias keeps on increasing, the charge density is accordingly brought up and then reaches a critical density, which is high enough to invert the type of the semiconductor, such as a P-type semiconductor turns to an N-type semiconductor. This phenomenon is called inversion. A strong inversion can happen if the applied bias is higher than a threshold voltage. When a MOS device stays on the strong inversion situation, if there are another two side MOS devices with different semiconductor type separately located at the sides of the MOS device, these three MOS devices are then coupled together through an inversion layer of the MOS device. The inversion layer, which has the same semiconductor type as the side MOS devices, is resulted from the strong inversion to change the semiconductor type.
Thus, if the applied bias is higher than the threshold voltage, the IC device can normally work. If the applied bias is too high, which has cross over a breakdown voltage of the IC device, since load of the IC device is too high, the PN junction and the gate oxide of a MOS transistor can be damaged. A phenomenon of leakage current therefore can happen and, even more serious, the IC device could be burnt down.
For example, in an IC device using two voltage sources of 3.3 V and 5 V, if the IC device has one bus for common uses, the part of the IC device using the bias of 3.3 V should sense a stress induced by the bias of 5 V and get a result of damages on the output PN junction and the gate oxide. One conventional solution for this problem is forming a dual gate oxide instead of a single gate oxide to increase the breakdown voltage and further prolong the lifetime, which is the happening time of a time-dependent dielectric breakdown (TDDB). The TDDB is related to the IC reliability. However, although the dual gate oxide structure can solve the above problem, the fabricating costs are about 15% higher than the fabricating costs for a single gate oxide structure.
Another solution is done through a circuitry technology. FIG. 1 is a schematic conventional I/O circuit, which has been disclosed by AT&T in an U.S. Pat. No. 5,381,062, "MULTIVOLTAGE COMPATIABLE BIDIRECTIONAL BUFFER".
In FIG. 1, an output pad 10 is coupled to an output of a 5 V IC device 9. When the 5 V IC device 9 receives a driving voltage of 5 V from a 5 V-voltage source 8, an output the output pad 10 is driven by the 5 V IC device 9 and then provides a 5 V bias to the circuit. The circuit includes two PMOS transistors 11, 12 connected serially and two NMOS transistors 13, 14 connected serially. The gate of the PMOS transistor 11 is, for example, coupled to a driver output (not shown) through a node 15 and the gate of the NMOS transistor 14 is, for example, coupled to a driver output (not shown) through a node 16. The nodes 15, 16 are used to control the output levels to be either "high" or "low", which determine the "ON" or "OFF" statuses of the PMOS transistor 11 and the NMOS transistor 14. When the circuit is at a sourcing mode, the 5 V bias from the output pad 10 goes through the PMOS transistors 11, 12. When the circuit is at a sinking mode, the 5 V bias from the output pad 10 goes through the NMOS transistors 13, 14. The circuit shown in FIG. 1 can effectively solve the problems of the reliability of the oxide layer and the leakage current of the PMOS transistors 11,12. In other word, the part of IC powered by 3.3 V is not affected by the 5 V bias. Although the problems as described above are solved, the output impedance turns to higher because a necessary rout through the PMOS transistors 11, 12 for the sourcing mode and a necessary rout through the NMOS transistors 13, 14 for the sinking mode. This decreases the transmission speed of voltage source.
FIG. 2 is a schematic block diagram of another conventional I/O circuit, which has been disclosed by TSMC at a U.S. Pat. No. 5,546,019, "CMOS I/O CIRCUIT WITH 3.3 V OUTPUT AND TOLERANCE OF 5 V INPUT".
In FIG. 2, the I/O circuit includes an output pad 20, a pull-up circuit 21, a PMOS transistor 22, two NMOS transistors 23, 24, and a control circuit 25. According the I/O circuit in FIG. 2, a problem of the forward bias on the PN junction of the PMOS transistor 22 can be solved, and by a full swing situation can be achieved by using the pull-up circuit 21. The control circuit 25 is used to control the output at "low" level or "high", which determine the states of the PMOS transistor 21 and the NMOS transistor 23,24 to be either "ON" or "OFF". When the NMOS transistor 24 is "OFF", the NMOS transistor 24 is in a high impedance status and its gate oxide is loaded by 5 V from the output pad 20. So, the oxide layer can potentially be damaged. This gives a poor reliability of the oxide layer.
As described above, the conventional I/O circuits have drawbacks as follows:
1. When an IC needs two different biases, which are supplied from a single bus, even though a dual gate oxide is used to replace a single gate oxide for increasing the breakdown voltage, the fabricating costs is therefore increased. PA1 2. When the I/O circuit is at the sourcing mode or the sinking mode, it needs to go through two PMOS transistors 11, 12 connected serially or two NMOS transistors 13, 14 connected serially, respectively. In this case, the output impedance is increased such that the transmission speed of voltage source is decreased. PA1 3. When the NMOS transistor 24 is "OFF", the NMOS transistor 24 is in a high impedance status and its gate oxide is loaded by 5 V from the output pad 20. So, the gate oxide can potentially be damaged. This gives a poor reliability of the gate oxide.

Input and output circuit with wide voltage tolerance


A filter system for smoke or polluted air comprises a smoke or polluted air filter device, a bag filter device, and a water treatment device. A duct and a plurality of power sprayers are provided in the smoke or polluted air filter device to remove harmful substances in the smoke or the polluted air. A plurality of filtering bags are provided in the bag filter device to clean the waste liquid coming from the smoke or polluted air filter device. A plurality of treating troughs are provided in the water treatment device to purify the liquid flowing down from the filter bag device. A coarse ash collecting device is provided additionally in the filter system to collect particle ashes or dusts in the smoke before entering the smoke or polluted air filter device. Ingredients such as carbon ashes, grease or oily substances, offensive odors, poisonous substances, and etc. contained in the smoke or the polluted air may be suitably treated by the filter system.

Up to the present, there are many filter devices have already been developed to clean the smoke or the dirty air. But, functions offered by these filter devices are quite different from each other. One of these devices is applying water sprayers to carry out the cleaning job. General speaking, the cleaning device with water sprayers is much simpler for installation and very practical for use.
The inventors, Sung-Chuan Mai et al., have endeavoured in the field of air anti-pollution for many years, and have create many devices to treat the waste gas. For instance, U.S. Pat. No. 5,074,007, CLEANER FOR EXHAUST PIPE, granted on Dec. 24, 1991 is invented by them to clean the dust in the exhaust pipe of a combustion engine. Now, they improve the art concerning water spraying and the waste water treatment to create a system for cleaning the smoke or the polluted air under the condition of no further contamination occuring.


An abrasive tool includes a rotatable hub from which extends a bundle of plastic abrasive monofilaments. The bundle has a high filament count and each filament includes a substantial amount of abrasive uniformly entrained therein. After the bundle is secured to the hub, the tool is placed in a mold completely enclosing at least the projecting bundle and a foamable elastomer is injected into the mold to produce a light density cellular matrix bond encapsulating the filaments. The preferred plastic for the plastic monofilaments is nylon 6-12 and the preferred elastomer is a low density (2-20 lbs/cu/ft) polyurethane. The cellular matrix bond for the preferred applications upon wear does not produce a liquid phase at even high tool pressures. Radially extending enlarged coolant passages may be formed during the encapsulation and injection process step. The tool may be in disk, cup or twisted stem form.

In prior U.S. Pat. No. 4,945,687 and 5,046,288, there is disclosed a rotary finishing tool where monofilaments such as extruded nylon containing abrasive grains are used as reinforcement in a relatively heavy foam elastomer which contains at least one grit size type of abrasive and preferably two grit size types, one of which is relatively coarse. The foam elastomer bond has a void content of from about 5 to about 50 percent. Tools made according to such patents typically have elastomeric densities of from 20 to 50 pounds per cubic foot and higher. The inclusion of the nylon abrasive monofilaments allows the tool to be run at higher speeds. The tools of such prior patents have the characteristics of improved soft grinding wheels with the abrasive being delivered to the work primarily through the elastomer. While effective as a high speed material removal tool, such tools are not effective for surface finish and edge blending operations where the tool would run at a slower or more normal speed such as 2000 to 2500 feet per minute, and at considerably higher pressure.
Lateral distortion of an abrasive monofilament is to be expected at high working pressures. Such lateral distortion is where the tip of the monofilament is deflected to one side or the other of the plane of rotation as it engages the work. This produces a non-linear scratch pattern and reduces the efficiency of the tool. In primary metal finishing, where metal is made in bulk, usually in strip form, a straight line or generally linear scratch pattern is very important. Before subsequent operations, the strip, usually coiled, is uncoiled and run through surface finishing tool stands where both surfaces are subjected to the normal speed high pressure surface finishing operation. The strip may be quite wide and the tools span the width of the strip. The tools are usually run with coolant. In some cases, the coolant is introduced at the working face and in others, the coolant is introduced at the axis or arbor of the tool to flow radially outwardly to the working face. The coolant removes loose abrasive particles, anything worn from the tool, and anything removed from the metal. The coolant is run through a filter which takes out some of the particles, but not all. Some, mostly detritus, remains entrained in the coolant and over time, tends to clog up between the tool sections. This is particularly true if the coolant moves through the core of the tool to pass radially. This is the most effective cooling system for an abrasive nylon monofilament tool since it keeps the whole length of the monofilament at the proper temperature.
If the proper coolant flow is blocked, the plastic of the monofilament may become soft or melt and this may very quickly ruin a very expensive tool. For a wide strip, such tools may cost many thousands of dollars. Also, and perhaps more importantly, if the tool clogs, the line has to be shut down, the tool disassembled, and if the foreign material has dried, it literally has to be sand blasted to clean the tool properly.
High application pressure with plastic abrasive monofilaments rather highly compacted and with a high abrasive loading will normally generate more heat than normal. Also, high pressure tends to compact the monofilaments, and if the interstices are relied on for coolant flow, such compression tends to close any normal separation or voids. If detritus is in the coolant system and not removed by upstream filters, the tool will clog and may soon self destruct because of lack of coolant flow. While the exterior of the tool may in some cases be sand blasted to remove clogging particles, the interior interstices cannot. The clogging and heat rise may happen suddenly resulting in the destruction of the tool.
Where a high density matrix is employed, particularly one which incorporates abrasive of some coarseness, tool wear tends to form rather sizable clumps or particles. In some applications, this is not a particular problem. However, in primary metal finishing or edge blending where high pressures are employed continuous recirculated coolant is required and such high density material creates particles which can quickly clog filters or coolant flow paths which can quickly lead to expensive consequences. High density materials which have a liquid state upon erosion also tend to agglomerate other particles to form clumps, particularly when abrasive or coarse abrasive is used. Accordingly, it would be desirable to have a matrix which does not create clogging clumps as it wears away. It would also be desirable that under normal wear or erosion that the matrix material go from a solid to primarily gas, and that what particles are produced, do not create problems, due to particle size, velocity and weight or mass.
It would, accordingly, be desirable to have a low cost highly efficient surface finishing and edge blending tool which would produce a straight or generally linear scratch pattern and not be subject to clogging or coolant filter problems.
While abrasive plastic monofilaments both circular and rectangular in section have been used in a variety of tools, such monofilaments are limited in the amount of abrasive which may be entrained during extrusion. The tough plastic material provides the tensile and modular strength, and at high abrasive loading particularly with large grit size abrasive, the strength of the abrasive monofilament declines. This is particularly true in high pressure surface finishing or edge blending operations where lateral distortion or flexing is apt to occur. With high abrasive loading, abrasive monofilament breakage, fracture, and premature wear is to be expected at high working pressures. It would also be desirable to have such a tool capable of operating at such high pressures and yet have a high abrasive loading of the monofilaments, both in amount and grit size.


A wideband transceiver using contiguous overlapping frequency range local oscillators (32, 34) for a high side or a low side local oscillator and an intermediate frequency approaching, within commercialy practical limits, but not exceeding one half of the total limited oscillator frequency range (71).

This invention relates to wireless communications transceivers, including but not limited to, transceivers adapted for multipurpose operations over a broad range of frequencies.
Globalization of the wireless communications market has resulted in a growing number of sophisticated users whose requirement for economically effective voice and/or data services can span multiple countries and continents. This requirement generates competitive pressure to provide equipment with the requisite flexibility and capability to operate within, and meet the regulatory mandates of, multiple jurisdictions.
Among numerous attributes, this equipment may need to operate over a large radio frequency bandwidth (for example 400 MHz-500 Mhz) without significant performance loss or otherwise becoming physically, economically, or functionally unacceptable. One significant constraint on this range may be the bandwidth or range of frequencies over which a voltage controlled oscillator, acting as a local oscillator, can deliver acceptable performance.
One known transceiver architecture that is used includes two voltage controlled oscillators, each capable of supplying a limited range of oscillator frequencies, operating on adjacent ranges of frequencies and collectively supplying either high side or low side local oscillator frequencies (f.sub.LO) to a receiver. The f.sub.LO is such that the difference between a desired receive frequency and the f.sub.LO is equivalent to an intermediate frequency (f.sub.IF). The f.sub.IF is preselected in view of commercial practicality and largely without regard to the magnitude of the range of oscillator frequencies. If, as is typical, a transmitter needs to cover the same range of frequencies as the receiver, one or more, in effect additional, voltage controlled oscillators may be required to supply these local oscillator frequencies. Other things being equal, physical size, economic cost, and power consumption may increase as the range of frequencies increase (number of voltage controlled oscillators increase).
Clearly a need exists for a transceiver that operates over a large range of radio frequencies without incurring the burdens associated with additional voltage controlled oscillators.

Wideband wireless communications receiver