Provided herein is a method for forming a composite. The method can include mixing a plurality of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) and a plurality of magnetic nanoparticles in a non-polar medium. At least some of the plurality of CNTs form entangled CNTs. The method also includes attaching first ones of the plurality of magnetic nanoparticles to exposed surfaces of the entangled CNTs; disentangling the entangled CNTs to form a plurality of dispersed CNTs; and aligning the plurality of dispersed CNTs. The disentangling of the entangled CNTs to form a plurality of dispersed CNTs includes exposing the plurality of magnetic nanoparticles and the plurality of entangled CNTs to electromagnetic energy.

Nanocomposites
A single carbon nanotube has extraordinary mechanical properties, exhibiting a tensile strength of up to 100 times that of high strength steels and a stiffness that is 5 times larger than steel. Thus, one would intuitively expect that the addition of minute amounts of CNTs to another material (to form a so called 'nanocomposite') should result in significant improvements in the mechanical properties. Indeed, mathematical models predict an order-of-magnitude increase in the stiffness of polymers upon adding only 1% by volume of randomly distributed CNTs.
Fiber reinforced polymer composites (FRP) are made from continuous and aligned microfibers that are held together by a polymer matrix. FRPs possess very high in-plane strength and stiffness-to-weight ratio. For instance, carbon fiber reinforced composites are three times stronger than steel at the same weight. However, FRPs lack mechanical performance in the cross-plane direction. FRPs are widely used in many applications including automotive, aerospace, and civil infrastructure industries. Contrary to metallic structures, components made form FRP lack plastic deformation prior to failure and thus experience an abrupt failure. Most importantly, delamination and polymer matrix cracking in composites are usually not predictable, resulting in very conservative designs and frequent inspection of FRP structures. Such problems remain the challenges in the art.
Considering the relatively low price of industrial grade CNTs, which can be used as reinforcement in structures (˜$100 per kilogram), they are theoretically the ideal filler for nanocomposites. In fact, the addition of 1% by weight of randomly distributed CNTs to the matrix of an FRP improves impact resistance, strain to failure and off-axis strength by 21%, 12% and 20%, respectively, compared to conventional epoxy FRP. Further, CNTs are capable of eliminating fatigue limitations of glass fiber reinforced polymers. Importantly, addition of small amounts of CNTs to conventional FRPs significantly improves polymer matrix and delamination crack resistance.
However, nanocomposites suffer some shortcomings. Primarily, groups CNTs 101 may become entangled to form side-by-side assemblies of nanotubes, such as bundles 103, 105, and entangled bundles, such as aggregates, as shown in FIG. 1A, due to their high surface area (up to 1000 m2/gram) and large aspect ratio (up to 106). Breaking down these usually micro-sized aggregates are very challenging and their existence in a nanocomposite 100 is detrimental to the mechanical properties (where they act as defects). Lab-scale techniques have overcome this limitation for CNTs only in solution form by the means of low throughput techniques, such as tip ultrasonication. Secondly, the addition of CNTs to polymers 107 exponentially increases the viscosity, making the polymer practically unsuitable for processing above ˜0.5% CNT loadings. This has considerably limited the industrial use of CNTs in epoxy polymers.
Despite the great promise of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) for many engineering applications, scalable methods to effectively disperse nanotubes and control their alignment in a matrix, such as a polymer matrix, have not been realized. These limitations have greatly limited the widespread use of carbon nanotubes, especially for structural applications.
To alleviate this drawback, CNT alignment can be utilized to achieve the desired mechanical properties in preferred directions, while requiring much less nanotube loadings. For example, as shown in FIGS. 1B, at similar nanotube loading, aligned CNTs 113 in polystyrene 117 enhanced the stiffness by 5 times more than randomly distributed CNTs.
Accordingly, a scalable and economical method to disperse nanoparticles (e.g. carbon nanotubes) and control their alignment in polymeric and other mediums, particularly at an industrial scale, would be welcome in the art.
Thermoelectrics
Meanwhile, the development of thermoelectrics, materials that efficiently convert (waste) heat into pollution free electricity, is an essential energy need for today's society. Thermoelectric energy conversion represents a solid-state technology based on the "Thermoelectric effect", where a temperature gradient generates an electrical current. Conversely, cooling (refrigeration) can be achieved by applying electrical power across the material. The fundamental difficulty in creating efficient thermoelectric materials is that they must be very good in conducting electricity, but not heat. Only for such materials (electrically-conductive but thermally-insulating) a temperature gradient can be maintained across the material while electrons (or holes) diffuse to generate a current. These two properties, however, go hand in hand. Despite 70 years of research, remarkable enhancements in thermoelectrics have been obtained in the past 20 years via the nontraditional technology of nanostructuring.
In general, creating hierarchical structures that allow electron transfer but suppress phonon transport is a commonly practiced strategy to achieve efficient thermoelectrics. Recently, a new class of thermoelectrics based on organic materials has emerged. Organic materials (i.e., polymeric systems with carbon nanomaterials) benefit from many advantages over their inorganic counterparts. Specifically, organic thermoelectrics provide an opportunity for creating flexible modules and even fabrics that can be used in clothing, wearable electronics (e.g., body powered sensor systems for health), and as shapes that conform to complex objects. Moreover, organic thermoelectrics can be integrated into hybrid modules with organic photovoltaics (OPVs), increasing the efficiency of OPVs by converting solar heat into electricity.
The economics and efficiency of current thermoelectrics are not sufficient for commercial usage, and hence they are only found in niche applications such as body heat-powered watches and heating/cooling of seats in luxury brand cars. Moreover, they suffer from other barriers to widespread acceptance because of their difficulty in manufacturing, toxicity, prohibitive cost, and reliance on rare earth materials. While the first generation of thermoelectric devices is being commercialized, the next generation demands lie in designing cheaper and more efficient materials. To address these challenges, organic materials are a particularly attractive alternative to inorganic thermoelectrics, especially for refrigeration or waste heat recovery up to 200° C., in that they are cheap, safe, abundant, and can be produced using scalable roll-to-roll (R2R) processes. R2R refers to processes for creating electronics over flexible plastic substrates using printing, coating, or other scalable techniques.
CNTs are promising materials for thermoelectrics due to their extraordinary electrical properties, air stability, and mechanical flexibility. A single CNT has a flawless structure comprising hexagonal arrays of sp2 connected carbon atoms and therefore has electrical and thermal conductivities on par with the best electrically and thermally conductive materials, respectively. When added as fillers to polymeric materials, CNTs can readily improve electrical properties of the host polymer, tuning it from insulating to conductive. On the contrary, improvement of thermal conductivity in CNT based composites is very minimal As such, CNT-polymer junctions allow electron transport but scatter phonons. Numerous studies have shown that properly engineered nanoscale structures and interfaces allow for the decoupled control of electrical and thermal conductivities in CNT networks and are therefore critical for realizing high ZT values.
Accordingly, methods for incorporating CNTs for use in thermoelectric would be a welcome addition in the art.

Method of dispersing nanoparticles in different mediums and methods to achieve superior thermoelectric performances in carbon nanotube polymer systems


Herein are disclosed an apparatus and method of explicit indication of call from emergency call center. The method includes the steps of forming an emergency signal in relation to the mobile station terminated call; sending the emergency signal to the mobile station on behalf of the emergency call center; and detecting the emergency signal at the mobile station. The apparatus includes emergency signal forming means for forming an emergency signal in relation to the mobile station terminated call; emergency signal sending means for sending said emergency signal to the mobile station on behalf of the emergency call center; and emergency signal detecting means for detecting said emergency signal at the mobile station. A global emergency call information record is disclosed for use in cdma2000 type networks and the like. The apparatus and method may apply to other networks.

1. Technical Field
This application relates to mobile communication techniques in general, and to an apparatus and method of explicit indication of call from emergency call centre, in particular.
2. Description of the Related Art
When a mobile station places an emergency call, the network typically routes the call to an emergency call centre such as Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP). When the emergency call ends, the MS typically stays in an emergency callback mode for at least the duration of time known as the emergency callback period. During this time, the Emergency Call Centre may attempt to callback the MS.
Mobile stations that subscribe to caller id may attempt to determine that an incoming call is a callback from an emergency call centre by screening the caller id of incoming calls. However, this may not work if the caller id is not recognized as belonging to an emergency call centre. Furthermore, this will not work if the user of the mobile station has not subscribed to the caller id service, or even having subscribed to the caller id service, if a caller invokes caller id restriction when placing a call to the user during the emergency callback period. In addition, if the user does not subscribe to the call-waiting feature, this may prevent the emergency call centre from reaching the user if the user decides to take a non-emergency voice call. This could also happen at any time outside of emergency callback period.
Consequently, there is a need for a standard mechanism on mobile stations to adequately differentiate between an incoming call from an Emergency Call Centre, and an incoming non-emergency call.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Apparatus and method of explicit indication of call from emergency call center


A method comprising forming and grafting polymers on carbon nanotubes, a functionalized product and product dispersion produced by the method, a method of forming composites from the functionalized carbon nanotubes, and the composites produced therefrom.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to: a method of forming and grafting polymers on carbon nanotubes and the functionalized products produced therefrom; a method of forming stable dispersions of carbon nanotubes and the products produced therefrom; and a method of forming composites from functionalized carbon nanotubes and the composite products produced therefrom.
2. Background
Single-walled carbon nanotube (SWNT) and multi-walled carbon nanotube (MWNT) materials (SWNT and MWNT being collectively referred to herein as "CNT") exhibit outstanding physical, chemical and mechanical properties, and have been understood to have enormous potential for materials applications. For example, it has been expected that CNT materials should be useful in many different fields including field emission displays, supercapacitors, molecular computers, and ultrahigh strength materials. However, most such applications employing the unique electronic, thermal, optical, and mechanical properties of CNT require that the CNT material be in individual (unbundled) form and in high purity. Unfortunately, as-prepared CNT products contain significant impurities, many of which consist of or include metal catalyst particles and amorphous carbon. Moreover, the individual nanotube elements of the CNT products pack together to form bundles that aggregate into tangled, essentially unusable, networks due to strong van der Waals attraction.
To date, a number of purification methods have been attempted. They can be categorized as acid oxidation, gas oxidation, filtration, chromatography, microwave treatment, and organic functionalization. By using these methods, most of the metal catalyst particles and the amorphous carbon in raw CNT materials can be removed; leaving rather purified CNT in different yields. The disadvantages of these purification methods are that multiple treatment steps are needed and/or only a small quantity (e.g., about 5 mg) of CNT is purified each time. Furthermore, as seen by transmission electron microscopy (TEM) imaging, the purified CNT product is still in the form of big bundles which will not dissolve in any current solvents.
Although some progress has been made toward the solubilization of CNT in both organic and aqueous media, the results have thus far been inadequate. Dissolution in organic solvents has been reported with bare CNT fragments and with chemically modified CNT. Dissolution in water, which is more important because of potential biomedical applications and biophysical processing schemes, has been facilitated by surfactants and polymers, by polymer wrapping, and by chemical modification. In most of these studies, however, the extent to which the suspended materials exist as individual tubes or small bundles of tubes has not been reported. Furthermore, tube aggregation in solution has not been well quantified.

The Board of Regents for Oklahoma State University


An LGA connector includes an insulative housing accommodating a plurality of terminals, a stiffener disposed around the insulative housing and a cover attached to the stiffener. The stiffener includes a front end, an opposite rear end, and two substantially vertical sidewalls connecting the front and rear ends. The cover is pivotally mounted to the rear end of the stiffener. The cover includes a pair of lateral sides having blocking walls being bent downwardly and distant to the sidewalls of the stiffener. One of the sidewall of the stiffener and the blocking wall of the cover has a self-aligning portion extending towards the other for leading the blocking wall to prevent the cover from inclining when the cover is rotated from an open position to a close position. Thus, the cover is shielded on the insulative housing safely without interfering with the insulative housing.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electrical connector for electrically connecting an electronic package such as an integrated circuit (IC) package with a circuit substrate such as a printed circuit board (PCB), and particularly to a land grid array connector having self-aligning portions disposed between a cover and a stiffener for leading the cover to preventing the cover inclining.
2. Description of the Related Art
Land grid array (LGA) connector for electrically connecting a land grid package (LGP) with a printed circuit board (PCB) is widely used in the field of electrical connectors. The conventional LGA connector, such as these disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,877,990 and 7,059,885, issued to Liao on Apr. 12, 2005, and Szu on Jun. 13, 2006, respectively, typically comprises an insulative housing, a stiffener mounted around the insulative housing, a cover pivotally engaged with one end of the stiffener, and a lever engaged with the other end of the stiffener for fastening the cover onto the insulative housing. The LGP is sandwiched between the cover and the insulative housing. The insulative housing usually defines an opening adapted for receiving the LGP and cutouts in two transversal sides thereof, respectively, for removing the LGP much easily.
In use, the cover is firstly rotated to a vertical open position, and the LGP (not shown) is seated into the opening of the insulative housing. Then the cover is rotated to a horizontal close position and locked by the lever. At last, the LGP (not shown) is sandwiched between the insulative housing and the cover.
However, in the above-mentioned LGA connector, there is much space between the cover and the stiffener to mount and rotate the cover easily. In this case, when the cover is rotated to the close position, the cover may incline, and sidewalls of the cover will interfere with the stiffener or the insulative housing. As a result, the insulative housing is damaged and the cover is difficult to close.
In view of the above, a new LGA connector which overcomes the above-mentioned disadvantages is desired.

Electrical connector having self-aligning portion for leading cover


A method of tuning an antenna circuit includes: (a) receiving a signal on an antenna, (b) producing a received signal strength indication based on the received signal, (c) using the received signal strength indication to produce a control voltage, (d) using the control voltage to control a capacitance in an antenna matching circuit, (e) changing the control voltage to minimize a ratio of a change in the received signal strength indication to a change in the control voltage and (f) repeating steps (a), (b), (c), (d) and (e). An apparatus that implements the method is also provided.

The size and aesthetics of many AM/FM receivers constrain the dimensions of their antennas and their ground planes to suboptimal limits.
For simplicity and performance, the desired size of a good-performing antenna is about one-half wavelength at the tuned frequency (e.g., a halfwave dipole). Although longer antennas can offer better antenna gain, their narrow beamwidths make them impractical for most applications. At FM frequencies, a half wavelength is about 1.5 meters, while for AM frequencies it is about 150 meters. Due to the presence of sensitivity-limiting ambient noise, which is greater at lower frequencies, it turns out that 1.5 meters is a sufficient length for both FM and AM receivers. A vertical quarter-wave whip antenna mounted over a large ground plane (e.g., a metal car body) exhibits performance similar to a halfwave dipole antenna, and affords good FM and AM reception in cars.
AM/FM receivers are available in many configurations, including automotive, tabletop, MP3 players, and cell phones. Smaller devices are typically characterized by poor signal reception, since halfwave and quarter-wave antennas are too large and impractical. An antenna size less than a half wavelength is considered electrically small. Electromagnetic interference (EMI) caused by antenna proximity to electronics, signal variability due to human body effects, and variable antenna orientation all have a significant impact on antenna performance. Because these effects are more pronounced at lower frequencies, many small devices have FM-only receivers.
The impedances of any antenna and receiver can theoretically be matched to achieve maximum power transfer. This can be realized by conjugate matching antenna and receiver impedances. Although it is well-known that conjugate matching of the antenna and receiver input impedances maximizes power transfer into the receiver, it is not necessarily optimum for receiver sensitivity. Conjugate impedance matching is practical for half wavelength antennas with relatively low reactance, and resistance nearly constant across the band, but this approach is not practical for the electrically small antennas used in many devices. The radiation and loss resistance of these antennas is very low, and the reactance is high. This high ratio of reactance to radiation resistance leads to matching techniques that maximize the voltage (not power) delivered to the receiver input.
The reactance of electrically small antennas can be tuned out using a resonant matching circuit. The Q of the resonant circuit thus formed must be held sufficiently high to increase the signal voltage to an acceptable level at the input to the receiver low noise amplifier (LNA). To achieve a sufficiently high Q, the receiver LNA must present a high parallel resistance to the antenna resonant circuit. Although higher values may be possible and could improve reception, a Q of about 30 is a practical goal for AM and FM reception.
Since a high Q circuit has a narrow bandwidth, it must be tunable across the AM or FM band as the receiver is tuned. This was common practice for AM tabletop superheterodyne receivers with internal loop antennas. The receiver mixed the RF input signal to a fixed intermediate frequency (IF) using a local oscillator (LO), mixer, and IF filter. The antenna for these receivers was either an air-loop (typical of older tube receivers) or a smaller ferrite-core loop antenna, both having similar characteristics. Since the inductance of this internal loop antenna was fixed and not significantly affected by external factors (such as the human body), a preselection filter was tuned along with the receiver LO to maintain a high Q resonant peak at the tuned frequency. This preselection filter, comprised of the loop antenna's inductance and a variable capacitance, also served as an image reject filter. Older superheterodyne receivers used a ganged-capacitor method to synchronize the preselection filter tuning with the LO tuning.
More modern receivers typically perform a similar function with varactor diodes acting as voltage-controlled capacitors. The voltage for the varactor diode of the preselection filter is derived from the tuning voltage of the LO varactor diode. Factory calibration is usually necessary for these receivers to accommodate component tolerances. Unfortunately, it is impractical for some modern receivers to utilize preselection filter tuning. The receiver IF is sometimes incompatible with this type of tuning, and calibration and consistency over operating temperature become impractical. Furthermore, external and portable antennas have time-varying impedance characteristics, making fixed factory calibration impossible.

Adaptive impedance matching (AIM) for electrically small radio receiver antennas


A gauge assembly having a pointer arm extending away from a hub is supported for movement about an axis to indicate a current vehicle condition. This is accomplished when the pointer points to a specific location and telltales on the gauge surface. The pointer arm has a pointer arm viewing surface with one or more clear portions and one or more illuminated portions along the length of the pointer arm viewing surface. The pointer arm further includes one or more raised steps formed on a bottom surface of the pointer arm located opposite the viewing surface of the pointer arm. The one or more raised steps is aligned with the one or more illuminated portions and the one or more raised steps have a reflective surface for reflecting light through the one more illuminated portions on the viewing surface.

Vehicles include instrument panels to communicate information indicative of operation to an operator. Motor vehicles include instrument panels with several gauges and dials that communicate vehicle conditions such as speed, engine rpm, temperature, oil pressure along with many other operational parameters. A pointer is typically provided that rotates about a fixed axis that points to value on the gauge face to communicate current values of an operational parameter. During rotation pointers can obstruct telltales located on the gauge surface below the pointer. It is therefore desirable to develop pointers that do not obstruct the driver's ability to view the telltales beneath the pointer. Additionally pointers are often illuminated to further enhance visibility and appearance; however, their appearance can be improved upon by adding designs and telltales on the viewing surface.


A MULTIPURPOSE PILLOW that includes a tubular body formed with a substantially soft and resilient material between a fabric enclosure. The tubular body has a central channel for receiving a caregiver's arm. The tubular body has a pocket and a cover interconnected to the tubular body. The cover is sized to extend from the tubular body and operate as a blanket. Further, the cover is sized to fit inside the pocket of the tubular body when not being used.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a multipurpose pillow and more particularly pertains to an easily transportable and light weight pillow for use in cradling infants and small children with a retractable cover.
2. Description of the Related Art
The use of a pillow made typically of a fabric bag stuffed with a soft material is known in the prior art. More specifically, nursing pillows heretofore devised and utilized for the purpose of cradling and holding the head of infants and small children are known to consist basically of familiar, expected, and obvious structural configurations, notwithstanding the myriad of designs encompassed by the crowded prior art, which have been developed for the fulfillment of countless objectives and requirements. Additionally, conventional pillows generally provide a soft cushion on which to place the head of an infant, child, or adult while resting or sleeping, either in bed, or on upholstered furniture in which case the pillows typically have a permanent fabric cover. Further, there are a number of patents for pillows that have arm receiving openings.
By way of example, the prior art includes U.S. Pat. No. 6,041,458 to Vickers, et al., which discloses a tubular pillow that includes a cover tube and method for enclosing the inside and outside surfaces of the tubular pillow with the cover tube. The tubular pillow has a tubular body formed of a soft and resilient material with a central tunnel passing through longitudinally. The length of the tubular pillow of Vickers, et al. is such that it substantially encompasses the entire length of an average arm. The cover of Vickers, et al. is a separate component. The cover tube is a fabric tube having closure elements preferably of the snap fastener type. The cover tube is mounted onto the tubular body by passing through the central tunnel and bringing each end of the cover tube around the tubular body with a set of snap fasteners engaging a complementary set of snap fasteners on the tubular body. When the cover tube is assembled to the tubular body, the tubular pillow of the invention simulates the appearance of a conventional pillow. This pillow is intended to operate as a conventional pillow and is not easily portable for travel, nursing, or feeding an infant.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,440,769 to Thomas, teaches a generally flat specialty item for supporting a baby's head, while the baby is held by a mother's arm, and includes a soft foam pad shaped to support a baby's head, combined with a fabric case, shaped for attachment around a mother's arm, to thereby fix the pad in place when the item is wrapped around the mother's arm. The device of Thomas has a soft foam pad, with a novel configuration that does not surround the person's arm when placed between layers of fabric to hold it in place. Because of the position of the pad, this pillow requires the infant to remain in a centralized location and stationary to maintain comfort. Further, this item offers no comfort to a child lying down and not being held.
Further, U.S. Pat. No. 5,239,717 to Sue is a pillow for a caretaker's arm for supporting the head of a baby. It cushions the caretaker's arm against the arm of a chair in which the caretaker is sitting while holding the baby. The pillow is tubular to receive a part of the arm of a caretaker. Specifically, the pillow forms a tube when it is expanded from a flattened condition. In a flattened, stored condition, the pillow is comprised of two side-by-side interconnected layers, which lie flat and are juxtaposed relative to each other.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,159,727, to McCracken discloses a child care device that includes a pillow mounted on a baby blanket intermediate the blanket ends. The ends of the blanket are provided with mating fastening means, one on one side of the blanket, one on the other. The blanket is wrapped around the baby holder's arm, so that the pillow is on the upside and the baby's head rests thereon when the baby is being cradled by the baby holder. Other nursing pillows include U.S. Pat. No. 4,393,520 to Koch and U.S. Design Pat. No. Des. 315,845.
Mothers/caretakers of an infant, baby, or small child hereinafter referred to as a baby have cradled and carried babies in their arms since time immemorial. This is generally done, while the caretaker is sitting in a chair, such as a rocking chair, with the head of the baby held against the caretaker's arm. The aforementioned actions can also be performed, while the caretaker is standing. When performing these actions, the caretaker often becomes uncomfortable due to the weight of the baby's head against the caretaker's arm. This causes localized pressure on the arm, resulting in tension, sometimes resulting in swelling and abrasion to the caretaker's arm. In addition, in many cases, the localized pressure on the arm cuts off the blood flow through that portion of the arm, causing the arm to fall asleep and in general, exhibit extreme tiredness or soreness in the arm. Similar discomfort is experienced by the baby in and around its head, neck and shoulders, and other parts of the body.
Because of this problem, attempts have been made to alleviate the discomfort to the caretaker and the baby. For instance, a blanket or ordinary head pillow have been used on the arm by being wrapped around the arm, to cushion the weight of the baby's head and to alleviate the strain on the caretaker's arm, when engaging the arm of the chair. However, these techniques are temporary at best, since the blanket or pillow tends to unwrap quickly due to arm movements of the caretaker and head movements of the baby. These movements cause the blanket and the pillow to become loose on the arm, and they become essentially ineffective in reducing discomfort. Because of this drawback, the caretaker must continually re-adjust the position of the blanket or the pillow to its ideal position.
Another matter that has not been considered in the development of the previous pillows that are used during nursing and feeding is the need for privacy of the mother/caretaker when nursing the baby in public or around non-family adults and children.
There remains a serious disadvantage of the devices currently in use with the baby, when it comes to providing the most comfort to both the caretaker and the baby. Further, the privacy of the mother when nursing has become a major societal issue.
Therefore, it can be appreciated that there exists a continuing need for a new and improved multipurpose pillow, which can be used for an easily transportable and light weight pillow for use in cradling infants and small children with a retractable cover. In this regard, the present invention substantially fulfills this need.


A monitoring camera includes an image pickup unit which captures an image of an object, a communication unit which receives superimposition information from a client apparatus through an IP network, a controller which determines whether the received superimposition information is larger than a first amount, an OSD generation unit which outputs part of the received superimposition information when the superimposition information is larger than the first amount and outputs the received superimposition information when the superimposition information is not larger than the first amount, and a compressing/encoding unit which superimposes the output superimposition information on the captured image.

Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to image pickup apparatuses, image pickup systems, methods for controlling the image pickup apparatuses, methods for controlling the image pickup systems, and programs. In particular, the present invention relates to a technique of superimposing information representing an image or the like on a captured image.
Description of the Related Art
In general, a function of superimposing superimposition information such as a certain character and a certain graphic on a certain position of an image has been widely used. For example, an On Screen Display (hereinafter referred to as "OSD" where appropriate) function or the like of displaying an OSD image in a fixed position in an image has been widely used.
Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 9-163258 discloses visual equipment which outputs control command data for the OSD to an interface cable and visual equipment which receives the control command data output to the interface cable.
An amount of superimposition information input to an apparatus having the superimposing function may be large or small. Therefore, when an amount of superimposition information is too large, the superimposition information may not be set to the apparatus. Even if the superimposition information may be set to the apparatus, it is not necessarily the case that the entire superimposition information is superimposed on an image.
For example, a user may not set a character string of 30 characters to an apparatus which allows a setting of a character string having at most 16 characters. Even in a case where a character string of 16 characters may be set to the apparatus, if a size of an image is too small, it is not necessarily the case that all the character string having the 16 characters is superimposed on the image.
Specifically, the present invention provides an image pickup apparatus, an external apparatus, an image pickup system, a method for controlling the image pickup apparatus, a method for controlling the external apparatus, a method for controlling the image pickup system, and a program which are capable of appropriately superimposing superimposition information on an image in accordance with an amount of the superimposition information.

Image pickup apparatus, image pickup system, method for controlling image pickup apparatus, method for controlling image pickup system, and program


The disclosure relates to a dimension measurement apparatus that reduces time required for dimension measurement and eliminates errors caused by an operator. Therefore, the dimension measurement apparatus uses a first image recognition model that extracts a boundary line between a processed structure and a background over the entire cross-sectional image and/or a boundary line of an interface between different kinds of materials, and a second image recognition that output information for dividing the boundary line extending over the entire cross-sectional image obtained from the first image recognition model for each unit pattern constituting a repetitive pattern, obtains coordinates of a plurality of feature points defined in advance for each unit pattern, and measures a dimension defined as a distance between two predetermined points of the plurality of feature points.

In recent years, in order to improve performance of a semiconductor device, a new material is introduced into the semiconductor device, and at the same time, a structure of the semiconductor device is complicated. In addition, processing of an advanced semiconductor device requires nanometer-level accuracy. Therefore, a semiconductor processing apparatus needs to be able to process various kinds of materials into various shapes with high accuracy, and is inevitably an apparatus having a large number of control parameters (input parameters).
In an etching apparatus which is a typical semiconductor processing apparatus, the number of setting items for controlling plasma discharges is 30 or more. Assuming that a discharge when these setting values are fixed is one step, processing proceeds while switching steps having different setting values one after another. In an advanced process, 10 steps or more are usually used in one processing step, and 30 steps or more are used when there are many, and several hundreds of processing tests are performed in order to optimize a combination of steps and all the setting values in the steps. The number of engineers with know-how to extract apparatus performance and high apparatus operation skills is limited, and in the future, cases are expected to increase in which condition derivation and apparatus operation will not proceed as planned.
To solve the problem, PTL 1 proposes a method of automatically searching for an optimal processing condition. Accordingly, the number of steps can be reduced in each stage as compared with the method in the related art that relies on trials and errors of the engineers.
PTLs 2 and 3 are related-art literatures disclosing dimension measurement based on a cross-sectional image of a pattern. In PTL 2, a contour line is obtained from a luminance value of an image, coordinate values of two points in an upper part and a lower part of a pattern cross section are used, and a signal component of a white shadow portion proper to a cross-sectional Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) image is manually removed, thereby improving measurement accuracy of a side wall angle. In PTL 3, an edge point is obtained from a change in a luminance value of a cross-sectional SEM image, and a straight line that approximates each side of a pattern is determined, thereby reducing dependence on an operator in measuring an angle and a length of each side.

Dimension measurement apparatus, dimension measurement program, and semiconductor manufacturing system


A tennis ball retrieving and storing device that comprises a container for storing tennis balls, the container including side walls defining a top end and a bottom end. The bottom end includes at least a pair of parallel rods laterally spaced a distance slightly less than the diameter of a tennis ball to define a space through which a tennis ball is squeezed into the container. The device further includes a pair of pivotable handles connected to the opposite side walls for pivotal movement between a handle position and a container supporting position. The pair of handles have opposing angular portions converging toward each other when in the handle position so that the handles extend upwardly from the top end in a close and substantially juxtaposed manner.

The teaching and practice of the game of tennis is usually accompanied by the repetitive hitting of tennis balls delivered by a tennis instructor or a practice machine, and results that a great number of tennis balls are spread over a tennis court surface. It requires an excessive amount of stoop labor to retrieve these tennis balls from the tennis court surface into a bucket type container. To minimize such stoop labor, an improved tennis ball retriever was introduced which automatically retrieved and stored tennis balls.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,371,950, to Stap, teaches a tennis ball retriever and storage unit which includes a receptacle with a grate forming a bottom wall for the receptacle. The grate has a plurality of fixed bars laterally spaced apart a distance slightly less than a diameter of a tennis ball so that a tennis ball is squeezed between the bars to gain entry into the receptacle. A person carrying such a receptacle pushes its bottom against the tennis balls resting on the court surface to automatically squeeze them into the receptacle.
Similar tennis ball retrievers have been also recently available. For example, one such tennis ball retriever includes a pair of hinged handles mounted on a receptacle which is hinged to swing downwardly below the receptacle to provide supports to raise the receptacle above a tennis court surface. One handle is hinged to one side wall and another to the opposite side wall. The handles extend upwardly from respective side walls toward each other to meet at a center position above the receptacle.
Conventional tennis ball retriever and container units are typically constructed of a Plurality of metal rods or wires which are integrally connected, such as by spot welding, to form a rigid box-like integral structure. Accordingly, it is not possible to replace any damaged parts thereof. Further, such a bulky box-like structure renders its packaging, shipping and handling processes relatively expensive and requires relatively wide storage and shelf space at retailer shops.

Tennis ball retrieving and storing device


Various embodiments of apparatus, systems and/or methods are described for independently controlling an audio stream relative to a video stream in audio trick mode. In one example, an audio stream and a video stream is received, where the audio stream comprises frames that correspond to corresponding frames of the video stream. The audio and video streams are played from a first time to a second time at a first speed. An input to time shift the audio stream independent of the video stream is received, and after receiving such, the audio stream is time shifted to the first time. Then, the audio stream may be re-played from the first time to the second time at a second speed different from the first speed.

Digital video recorders (DVRs) and personal video recorders (PVRs) allow viewers to record video in a digital format to a disk drive or other type of storage medium for later playback. DVRs are often incorporated into set-top boxes for satellite and cable television services. A television program stored on a set-top box allows a viewer to fast forward video for portions of the program that the user does not desire to watch (e.g., commercials).
For certain users, the above functionality may not be helpful for certain purposes. For example, for users where English is a second language, they may watch programming to learn English, but audio is not presented during trick mode (e.g., fast forwarding of the video) and the normal speed of audio sometimes makes it hard to understand a different language. There is currently no method of controlling a playback of an audio stream independently of the other data streams.


A method of displaying multi-channel waveforms including the steps of: dividing at least one waveform screen in a video memory which is mapped to a display terminal into a plurality of waveform windows, wherein boundaries of each of the windows are defined by a plurality of values set in at least a set of boundary registers; establishing a waveform parameter table in a system memory; writing waveform data into a logical space in the waveform screen corresponding to a waveform by writing operations from CPU to the video memory; and based on parameters of the waveform windows in the waveform parameter table, performing a display mode defined by the parameter by means of changing the mapping relationship between the video memory and the display terminal, before transmitting the data of each of the waveform windows read out from the video memory to the display terminal.

The present invention generally relates to a technique for displaying in a field of image communication, particularly to a method of displaying multi-channel waveforms in embedded systems.
A medical patient monitor is typically an embedded system, which is necessary to support displaying multi-channel waveforms. In such system, physiological signals of a human body, such as ECG (electrocardiograph), SPO2 (Pulse Oxygen Saturation) and NIBP (non-invasive blood pressure) and so on, are measured by sensors and detection circuit, then physiological parameter values are obtained which will be recorded in waveform after being subjected to a calculation process, and finally displayed in real time on display terminals such as CRT (cathode-ray tube) and LCD (Liquid Crystal Display). In general, display terminals of patient monitors are required of supporting high-resolution (above 640*480) color displaying and employing display interfaces with special styles, e.g., displaying values and waveforms of various physiological parameters and text information of menu, alert and help in a plurality of colors under black background. Specially, the waveforms should be displayed dynamically by means of refreshing, scrolling and parallel dual-channel display. The refreshing refers to redrawing the display of waveform point-by-point from left to right, and automatically returning to the leftmost end from the rightmost end to continue redrawing. The scrolling refers to moving the whole waveform from right to left, and moving a new portion of the waveform in from the right end of the display region while moving an old part out of the left end. The parallel dual-channel display refers to displaying two waveforms of the left and right channels, which locate at the left and right parts of screen respectively, in parallel by means of refreshing and scrolling in a same horizontal region.
In a system using techniques for displaying, pixel array information on display screen is generally stored in a video memory in order to improve availability ratio of CPU (central processing unit) and main memory. The principle of the above technique is mainly to map the display terminal to a two-dimensional array, wherein each pixel is mapped to one element of the two-dimensional array, the value of the element is a color code of a corresponding pixel, and the y-coordinate and x-coordinate of the pixel are two subscripts in the two-dimensional array. In particulars, the pixel with a coordinate (x, y) on the display terminal is mapped to the element A (x, y) in the two-dimensional array. The video memory is used as a physical device for storing the two-dimensional array such that writing a data to the video memory via CPU corresponds to drawing a point on the display device. Data for display in the video memory may be automatically read out and displayed at appropriate positions on the display device by a display drive circuit.
Like most of embedded systems, patient monitors employ two kinds of methods to drive display device. One method is to display various character information and waveform by a general display control chip in accordance with a common graphics displaying method. In details, all of the data for display including characters and waveforms are calculated and written into the video memory by main CPU; and the data for display in the video memory are read out and transmitted to the display terminal to display a corresponding character and waveform by the general display control chip. With this method, when a waveform is scrolled, it is necessary for CPU to erase the whole waveform being displayed and overwrite all of the refreshed waveform data to the video memory so as to perform the moving of the waveform, thus leading a very heavy load of CPU. In a case of displaying multi-channel waveforms simultaneously, expenses of software in the system will be significantly increased so that the whole performance of the system is degraded. Consequently, this method has no advantage in efficiency despite of high cost.
The other method is to implement a dedicated display drive circuit by FPGA (field programmable gate array). With this method, special display mode such as scrolling of signal waveforms could be realized by hardware acceleration, thereby the load of CPU may be greatly relieved.
The cost of the system using this method is low, while the efficiency is rather higher. in the principle of the method, when a waveform in a horizontal region within a coordinate range of y1<y<y2 is to be scrolled, a mapping rule of the video memory is changed such that A ((x+xo) mod X, y) in the video memory is mapped to (x, y) on the display terminal, wherein xo represents an offset and X represents the number of horizontal pixels. As a result of the mapping, the waveform being displayed in the region is moved left for xo points in horizontal direction and the waveform which has been moved out of the display region (i.e., moved left to a point with a negative abscissa ) is retraced to the right side of the display region. In this way, the scrolling of a waveform could be performed without refreshing the whole of the two-dimensional array so long as the value of xo is changed at a certain rate by the system. For the convenience of the following description, a circuit for display in FPGA is referred as display logic.
In accordance with this method, in order to realize half-screen display of dual-channel waveforms in a region with a coordinate range of y1<y<y2, it is required of two offsets xo, each of which corresponds to each scrolling waveform. In a case that the waveforms of the two channels are arranged horizontally in the left and right screens respectively, display logic should determine the display region of each waveform so as to apply different offsets to different regions. In the following description, the behavior of applying different offsets to different regions is referred as switching of waveform parameters.
There are two aspects of defects in the above-mentioned prior art. One aspect lies in that more logic resources will be needed with the increase of waveforms. Taking an example of a resolution of 1024*768 in the technique of parallel dual-channel display, 10 bits are required for each of the offsets 1xo and rxo of the left and right waveform as well as y2 which represents the lower boundary of the display region. Thus 30 registers in FPGA are required per dual-channel waveforms to store waveform parameters. If more waveforms are desired to be displayed in each of the horizontal regions, larger capacity of registers will be required with more channels of waveforms. The other aspect lies in degradation of the performance of the chip for display with the increase of channels of waveforms, because the system usually requires higher display resolution to cope with the increase of the waveforms, which means that the highest operation frequency of the chip for display should be improved. In accordance with this method, however, MUX (multiplexer) should be used in FPGA to perform the switching of the waveform parameters. If the number of inputs of MUX is large, the switching delay will be considerably large, resulting in degradation of the highest operation frequency of the chip for display. Consequently, it is difficult for existing solution to support such a display where waveforms of more than 7 channels are scrolled simultaneously. Furthermore, there is no solution provided in the prior art for the display of multi-channel waveforms in a same region in parallel.

Method of displaying multi-channel waveforms

Shenzhen Mindray Bio-Medical Electronics Co., Ltd.


Discloses is a benzoxazine benzimidazole derivative, represented by Chemical Formula 1, functioning as an antagonist to the vanilloid receptor-1, a pharmaceutical composition comprising the same, and the use thereof. The benzoxazine benzimidazole derivative can be useful for preventing or treating a disease associated with antagonistic activity of vanilloid receptor-1, without hyperthermia:

A vanilloid receptor, a receptor for capsaicin (trans-8-methyl-N-vanillyl-6-nonenamide), has been cloned in 1997 and called vanilloid receptor subtype 1 (hereinafter referred to as "TRPV1") by Caterina et al. (Caterina et al., Nature, 389, 816 (1997)). Located on small unmyelinated nerve fibers (C-fibers) and also on large myelinated nerve fibers (A-fibers), TRPV1 is an ion channel which plays an important role in sensitizing pain stimuli by introducing a strong influx of cations such as calcium and sodium ions into the nerve endings upon activation in response to external or internal stimuli. External stimuli capable of activating TRPV1 are reported to include heat and acids as well as vanilloid compounds (Tominaga et al., Neuron, 21, 531 (1998)). The internal stimuli to TRPV1, on the other hand, are leukotriene metabolites such as 12-hydroperoxyeicosa tetraenoic acid (12-HPETE) (Hwang at al., PNAS, 97, 3655 (2000)), and arachidonic acid derivatives such as anandamide (Premkumar et al., Nature, 408, 985 (2000)).
On the basis of these physiological activities, TRPV1 has attracted intensive attention as an integral controller playing a pivotal role in transferring various external stimuli into nerve cells. According to a report, TRPV1 knock-out mice respond like normal mice to general stimuli, but showed greatly reduced pain response to heat or thermal hyperalgesia (Caterina et al., Science, 288, 306 (2000)).
TRPV1 is expressed mainly in primary sensory neurons (Caterina et al., Nature, 389, 816 (1997)), which are responsible for controlling the functions of the skin, bone, and internal organs such as the bladder, the gastrointestinal tract, the lungs, and so on. In addition, TRPV1 is also distributed in other neurons on the central nervous system, the kidney, the stomach, and T-cells (Nozawa et al., Neuroscience Letter, 2001, 309, 33; Yiangou et al., Lancet (North America Edition), 357, 1338 (2001); Birder et al., PNAS, 98, 13396 (2001)) and throughout the entire body, and plays important roles in cell division and cellular signal control.
Also, associated with the control mechanism of the activity of TRPV1 are acute pain, chronic pain, neuropathic pain, postoperative pain, migraines, arthralgia, neuropathy, neuronal damages, diabetic neuropathy, neurological disorders, neurodermatitis, stroke, bladder hypersensitivity, irritable bowel syndrome, respiratory disorders such as asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, irritation to the skin, eye, and mucous membranes, itching, fever, reflux esophagitis, gastric duodenal ulcer, inflammatory intestinal diseases, and urge incontinence (Korean Laid-Open Publication No. 2004-0034804), obesity (Pharmacol. Rev., 38, 179 (1986)), and glaucoma (WO07/090,134).
As compounds capable of modulating TRPV1 activity, agonists such as a capsaicin derivative (DA-5018) and resiniferatoxin are used as pain-relief drugs or are under clinical study (Szallasi, J. Med chem., 47, 2717 (2004)), while various TRPV1 antagonists including capsazepine and iodoresiniferatoxin are under pre-clinical studies (WO02/008221, WO03/062209, WO04/055003, WO04/055004, WO04/002983, WO02/016317, WO04/035549, WO04/014871, WO03/099284, WO03/022809, WO02/090326, WO02/072536, WO03/068749, WO04/033435, WO02/076946, WO03/055484, WO03/014064, WO03/080578, WO03/097586, WO03/070247, WO03/029199, WO05/002551, WO05/007648, WO05/016890, WO05/047279, WO06/006740, WO06/006741, WO06/063178, WO06/124753, WO06/063178, WO07/067,619, WO07/067,757, WO07/073,303, WO08/006,481, WO08/007,211, and WO08/018,827).

Pyridyl benzoxazine derivatives, pharmaceutical composition comprising the same, and use thereof

Abstract: wherein, R1, R2, R3, R4 and R5 are as defined in the specification.


A candle making device for making candles from recycled pieces of old candles. The device includes a funnel with an upper conical portion and a lower drain tube downwardly depending from the upper conical portion. A support structure supports the funnel above a resting surface. A heating element is extended around the upper conical portion of the funnel for melting wax in the upper conical portion. The lower drain tube of the funnel has a valve for selectively opening and closing the lower drain tube. A spool is rotatably mounted to the lower drain tube of the funnel. The spool has a length of flexible candle wick coiled therearound such that a free end of the candle wick downwardly depends from the spool.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to candle making devices and more particularly pertains to a new candle making device for making candles from recycled pieces of old candles.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The use of candle making devices is known in the prior art. More specifically, candle making devices heretofore devised and utilized are known to consist basically of familiar, expected and obvious structural configurations, notwithstanding the myriad of designs encompassed by the crowded prior art which have been developed for the fulfillment of countless objectives and requirements.
Known prior art includes U.S. Pat. No. 3,867,173; U.S. Pat. No. 4,296,064; U.S. Pat. No. 5,636,922; U.S. Pat. No. Des. 118,723; U.S. Pat. No. 2,006,876; and U.S. Pat. No. 5,693,277.
While these devices fulfill their respective, particular objectives and requirements, the aforementioned patents do not disclose a new candle making device. The inventive device includes a funnel with an upper conical portion and a lower drain tube downwardly depending from the upper conical portion. A support structure supports the funnel above a resting surface. A heating element is extended around the upper conical portion of the funnel for melting wax in the upper conical portion. The lower drain tube of the funnel has a valve for selectively opening and closing the lower drain tube. A spool is rotatably mounted to the lower drain tube of the funnel. The spool has a length of flexible candle wick coiled therearound such that a free end of the candle wick downwardly depends from the spool.
In these respects, the candle making device according to the present invention substantially departs from the conventional concepts and designs of the prior art, and in so doing provides an apparatus primarily developed for the purpose of making candles from recycled pieces of old candles.


First and second stimulable phosphor sheets are located such that the first stimulable phosphor sheet may be closer to a source of radiation. The radiation, which has passed through an object, is irradiated to the first and second stimulable phosphor sheets, and radiation images of the object are stored on the two sheets Read-out image signals A1 and A2 are respectively read out from the first and second stimulable phosphor sheets. Read-out image signals A1us and A2us are obtained respectively from high frequency component eliminating processes carried out on the read-out image signals A1 and A2. The read-out image signals A1us and A2us are subjected to a first operation expressed as EQU B=A1us-.alpha..multidot.A2us. where .alpha. is a coefficient, and .alpha.>0, and an image signal B is thereby obtained. A second operation is then carried out which is expressed as EQU C=(1-.beta.).multidot.A1+.beta..multidot.A2-.gamma..multidot.B. where .beta. and .gamma. are coefficients, 0.ltoreq..beta..ltoreq.1, and .gamma.>0, and an image signal C is thereby obtained. A visible radiation image, which is free of adverse effects from scattered radiation, is then reproduced from the image signal C.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a method for processing radiation images wherein, when radiation images are recorded and reproduced, read-out image signals, which have been obtained by reading out the recorded radiation images, are processed such that an image having good image quality may be obtained ultimately. This invention particularly relates to a method for processing radiation images, wherein each of radiation images is stored on a stimulable phosphor sheet, which is capable of storing energy from radiation thereon during its exposure to the radiation, the stimulable phosphor sheet on which the radiation image has been stored is then exposed to stimulating rays, which cause the stimulable phosphor sheet to emit light in proportion to the amount of energy stored thereon, the emitted light is photoelectrically detected and converted into an image signal representing the radiation image, and the image signal is thereafter processed and used in reproducing a visible radiation image.
2. Description of the Prior Art
When certain kinds of phosphors are exposed to radiation such as X-rays, .alpha.-rays, .beta.-rays, .gamma.-rays, cathode rays or ultraviolet rays, they store part of the energy of the radiation. Then, when the phosphor which has been exposed to the radiation is exposed to stimulating rays such as visible light, light is emitted by the phosphor in proportion to the amount of energy stored thereon during its exposure to the radiation. A phosphor exhibiting such properties is referred to as a stimulable phosphor.
As disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,258,264 and 4,346,295 and Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 56(1981)-11395, it has been proposed to use stimulable phosphors in radiation image recording and reproducing systems. Specifically, a sheet provided with a layer of the stimulable phosphor (hereinafter referred to as a stimulable phosphor sheet) is first exposed to radiation which has passed through an object, such as the human body. A radiation image of the object is thereby stored on the stimulable phosphor sheet. The stimulable phosphor sheet is then exposed to stimulating rays, such as a laser beam, which cause it to emit light in proportion to the amount of energy stored thereon during its exposure to the radiation. The light emitted by the stimulable phosphor sheet, upon stimulation thereof, is photoelectrically detected and converted into an electric image signal. The image signal is then used during the reproduction of the radiation image of the object as a visible image on a recording material such as photographic film, on a display device such as a cathode ray tube (CRT) display device, or the like.
Radiation image recording and reproducing systems which use stimulable phosphor sheets are advantageous over conventional radiography using silver halide photographic materials, in that images can be recorded even when the energy intensity of the radiation to which the stimulable phosphor sheet is exposed varies over a wide range. More specifically, since the amount of light which the stimulable phosphor sheet emits when being stimulated varies over a wide range and is proportional to the amount of energy stored thereon during its exposure to the radiation, it is possible to obtain an image having a desirable density regardless of the energy intensity of the radiation to which the stimulable phosphor sheet was exposed. In order to obtain the desired image density, an appropriate read-out gain is set when the emitted light is being detected and converted into an electric signal to be used in the reproduction of a visible image on a recording material, such as photographic film, or on a display device, such as a CRT display device.
Also, with the radiation image recording and reproducing systems which use stimulable phosphor sheets, after the radiation image, which has been stored on a stimulable phosphor sheet, is converted into an electric signal, appropriate image processing can be carried out on the electric signal. The electric signal, which has been obtained from the image processing, may then be used in reproducing a visible image of the radiation image on a recording material, such as photographic film, or on a display device, such as a CRT display device. In this manner, a visible radiation image can be obtained which has good image quality and can serve as an effective tool in, particularly, the efficient and accurate diagnosis of an illness. This is very advantageous in practice.
However, with the aforesaid radiation image recording and reproducing systems, when an object is exposed to radiation during the recording of a radiation image of the object on a stimulable phosphor sheet, scattering of the radiation (Thomson scattering or Compton scattering) is caused to occur by elastic collision or electromagnetic interaction between the radiation and substances constituting the object. The radiation is also scattered by elastic collision or electromagnetic interaction between the radiation and substances constituting the radiation image recording apparatus or between the radiation and substances constituting a cassette in which the stimulable phosphor sheet is housed. The radiation, which has thus been scattered, travels three-dimensionally in random directions and impinges upon the stimulable phosphor sheet. If the stimulable phosphor sheet is exposed to the principal radiation, which has passed through the object and which carries the image information of the object, and the scattered radiation, the contrast and the sharpness of the radiation image stored on the stimulable phosphor sheet with the principal radiation, which has passed through the object and which carries the image information of the object, will become bad.
Various attempts have heretofore been made in order to eliminate the adverse effects of the scattered radiation. As one such attempt, a method has heretofore been known wherein a grid member for absorbing the radiation is located between an object and a stimulable phosphor sheet. The grid member is constituted of a plurality of lead plates, which have a thickness of, for example, 1 mm or less and which are combined in a grid pattern or in a row pattern. In cases where the grid member is located in the manner described above, the scattered radiation, which travels in random directions, is absorbed by the lead plates of the grid member.
However, in cases where ordinary radiation images of human bodies are recorded, the amount of the scattered radiation is approximately as large as the amount of the principal radiation, which has passed through the object and which carries the image information of the object. Therefore, even if the grid member is located between the object and the stimulable phosphor sheet, the scattered radiation cannot be completely eliminated by the grid member. Also, if the grid member is used to eliminate the scattered radiation, part of the principal radiation, which has passed through the object and which carries the image information of the object, will be blocked by the grid member. Therefore, the amount of the principal radiation, which impinges upon the stimulable phosphor sheet, becomes small. As a result, the signal-to-noise ratio (S/N ratio) of the read-out image signal detected from the stimulable phosphor sheet becomes low, and the graininess of a visible image reproduced from the read-out image signal cannot be kept good.


.epsilon.-Caprolactam is produced efficiently with high selectivity by contacting cyclohexanone oxime in gas phase with a solid catalyst which is a crystalline zeolite having a pore size smaller than molecular size of cyclohexanone oxime or a crystalline zeolite having closed pores.

The present invention relates to a process for producing .epsilon.-caprolactam and more particularly, to a process for producing .epsilon.-caprolactam from cyclohexanone oxime, characterized by using a crystalline zeolite having a specific pore size or a crystalline zeolite having closed pores.
.epsilon.-Caprolactam is an important raw material for nylon and the like and has, hitherto, been produced by liquid phase Beckmann rearrangement of cyclohexanone oxime using fuming sulfuric acid or concentrated sulfuric acid as a catalyst.
However, this process suffers from the problems such as need of fuming sulfuric acid in a large amount and by-production of ammonium sulfate in a large amount.
For solving these problems, it has been proposed to carry out gas-phase rearrangement using solid catalysts such as crystalline zeolites, for example, ZSM-5 (Japanese Patent Application Kokai Nos. 57-139062 and 62-123167). In this case, however, the selectivity for .epsilon.-caprolactam formation and the like are not enough and further improvement in this respect has been demanded.
Under the circumstances, in order to find a further improved process for producing .epsilon.-caprolactam, the inventors have conducted intensive research on crystalline zeolites as catalysts. As a result, it has been found that cyclohexanone oxime adsorbed into the pores of the zeolites brings about side reaction to cause reduction in the selectivity and it has been further found that the selectivity for .epsilon.-caprolactam formation is remarkably improved by using crystalline zeolites having a specific pore size or crystalline zeolites having closed pores.

Process for producing epsilon-caprolactam


According to one configuration, a power system includes a resonant power converter, a monitor resource, and a controller. During operation, the resonant power converter converts an input voltage to an output voltage. The monitor resource monitors a magnitude of the input voltage. The controller dynamically controls a corresponding resonant frequency of the resonant power converter and a switching frequency of switches in the resonant power converter depending on a magnitude of the input voltage.

Conventional CPUs (Central Processing Units), GPUs (Graphics Processing Units) and processors, for Artificial Intelligence (AI) chips require much higher currents and have a very high dynamic load profile and operate at significantly lower supply voltages compared to well-known CPUs having an integrated Voltage regulator module.
With increasing power consumption and lower input voltages of a respective VRM (Voltage Regulated Module) power stage, the classic architecture of providing 12V throughout the motherboard reaches its limitations. Modern hyperscale datacenter architectures typically operate on 48V DC, which is distributed by central power supplies throughout a respective rack. Certain modern processors run on 0.9V input voltage and have linear on-board voltage regulators to adjust the supply voltage of individual cores along their multi-chip solution.

Dynamic regulation resonant power converter


A process measurement system for measuring a parameter of a work surface includes a light source configured to provide a material processing beam, an optical delivery system optically coupled to the light source and configured to homogenize and direct the material processing beam to the work surface, the optical delivery system including a process optic for optically coupling the material processing beam to the work surface in a predetermined way, the optical delivery system including a delivery waveguide having an output face optically coupled to the process optic, and an optical pyrometer in optical communication with the optical delivery system and configured to receive a pyrometer signal emitted from the work surface and coupled into said output face.

1. Field of the Invention
Generally, the field of the present invention involves temperature measurement of high power light sources. More particularly, the present invention relates to temperature measurement with pyrometers for systems utilizing high power light sources.
2. Background
For many material processing applications, processing techniques utilizing high power light sources, such as laser light sources, are preferred over other conventional processing techniques, such as mechanical or chemical ones. High power light sources can achieve the tight precision and accuracy requirements for the fabrication of both small and large structures, while maintaining very high wall-plug efficiency. High power systems typically include those producing 30 W to multiple kW or even higher. During operation, the work surface is typically monitored for closed or open-loop control of material processing variables or more generally to verify successful operation of the optical processing system. Different techniques may be used to monitor work surface temperature, such as contact measurement through thermocouples disposed in proximity to the surface or indirectly through remote sensing.
In one conventional remote sensing example, in order to monitor and maintain the process parameters of the light source at the work surface, one or more optical pyrometers are typically positioned in relation to the work surface and light source and aligned with the spot of the light source at the work surface. The pyrometer receives light emitted via thermal radiation from the material at the work surface piece and achieves a modicum of accuracy by overlapping the spot of the light source at the work surface with an acceptance aperture of the pyrometer. The pyrometer then typically filters incoming light so that only a particular wavelength is received and measured in order to determine parameters of the work surface or various layers thereof, such as surface temperatures. The pyrometer can be disposed away from the work surface, including behind one or more transparent windows, for contactless temperature measurement. Thus, remote sensing is generally preferred for improved accuracy, simplification of processing, and for lack of interference with the optical material processing assembly.
While useful for detecting uniform temperature profiles, such as oven-heated material work surfaces, problems arise when remote sensing involves incident material processing light at higher powers or tighter tolerance requirements. Careful alignment is required between the spot of the pyrometer signal and the spot of the processing beam. Furthermore, because of short working distances between the light source process optic and the work surface, conventional pyrometer optics have difficulty in imaging to the same spot as the focused high power laser light sources. Accordingly, the spot gathered by the pyrometer at the work surface is often a different size from the spot of the light source, resulting in inaccuracy in the temperature measurement. Also, the light source process optic may be capable of providing a variable focus or other variable parameters, altering the size or shape of the beam. Conventional pyrometers must be adjusted or recalibrated accordingly. For some applications a non-circular processing spot is used, such as a line, rectangle, square, hexagon, etc. The overlap between such spots and the typical circular shape of the pyrometer optic and associated beam are generally poor, leading to additional inaccuracies. Thus, there remains a need for a pyrometer temperature measurement process for use in conjunction with high powered light sources, without any of the attendant drawbacks.

Pyrometer process temperature measurement for high power light sources


The invention comprises a method and apparatus for the distribution, processing, and display of combinations of audio, video, still images, and text which are represented by binary data files. The invention may be adapted for use with any of the various audio, video, still image and text data formats which are utilized to represent such information. A specific embodiment of the invention adapted for use on a personal computer is disclosed.

Synchronized combinations of audio, video, still images, and text are generically referred to as video clips. Through digitization, the electromagnetic signals which are used to represent each of these video clip components may be reduced to binary data files. These files may be stored in combination as video clip data files and may be transferred to and displayed by display units which are capable of processing the video clip data.
One way of distributing video clip data involves placing video clip data files on file servers which are accessible to users of digital computer systems through channels such as the Internet and analogous subscription network services. Ideally, such users could locate video clip data files, discern the data formats of the video clip data components, and process the video clip data on their digital computer systems to achieve display of the video clip. However, to date there exists no organized system for facilitating the identification of the data formats of the component data files which comprise a video clip data file, nor is there presently a digital computer system based video clip display unit which is capable of providing a coherent and synchronized display of the combination of audio, video, still images, and text represented by the data contained in such a video clip data file.

Method and system for providing a multimedia presentation


A wheel mounting apparatus for attaching a wheel to the wheel forks of the body frame of a bicycle, comprising an axle for rotatably supporting the wheel and engageable with the wheel forks of the body frame, a retaining device for preventing detachment of the axle from the wheel forks, the retaining device being constantly biased to an operative position to prevent detachment of the axle from the wheel forks, or an inoperative position to allow detachment of the axle from the wheel forks, and a control device for switching the retaining device from the inoperative position to the operative position. The control device is operable with rotation of the wheel relative to the wheel forks to switch the retaining device automatically from the inoperative position to the operative position.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a wheel mounting apparatus for a bicycle for facilitating attachment and detachment of a wheel and reliably securing the wheel to the wheel forks of the bicycle frame.
2. Description of the Related Art
With a conventional wheel mounting apparatus as noted above, a wheel is tightened to the wheel forks of the body frame of a bicycle by a quick release attached to a hollow axle, with detachment of the wheel from the wheel forks of the body frame reliably prevented by operating locking elements also attached to the hollow axle. However, the wheel may be assembled to engaging portions of the wheels forks of the body frame only when the locking elements are manually set to an inoperative position. Further, it is necessary to switch the locking elements to an operative position manually.


The preceding-profile of a specimen image upon inserting a preceding objective lens in the optical path to a specimen placed on a stage is detected. The succeeding-profile of the specimen image upon inserting a succeeding objective lens in the optical path is predicted on the basis of the preceding- and succeeding-optical parameters of the preceding and succeeding objective lenses inserted in the optical path, and the preceding-profile. The position of the stage with respect to the specimen is adjusted on the basis of the succeeding-profile obtained by this prediction.

The present invention relates to an autofocus control apparatus and method applied to an optical device such as a microscope.
Conventionally, various types of autofocus detection of autofocus detection apparatuses applied to optical devices such as a microscope have been available.
The first example is the following method disclosed in Jpn. Pat. Appln. KOKAI Publication No. 2-109008. In autofocus control for controlling a photographing optical system to focus on an object image formed on the image pickup screen via an imaging optical system, the focus area corresponding to the object image is divided into a plurality of detection areas. Focus control for the imaging optical system is performed using the focusing information of these areas except for ambiguous focusing information.
The second example is the following method disclosed in Jpn. Pat. Appln. KOKAI Publication No. 57-5016. An image formed by an imaging optical system is scanned using a scan means to obtain a scan signal representing the illuminance distribution of the image. This scan signal is supplied to an illuminance change detector to obtain a signal representing an illuminance change at each small portion in the image. Based on this illuminance change signal, an image visibility signal on the scan surface is obtained. In this case, a differentiating circuit having adjustable operation characteristics is used as the illuminance change detector, and an adjustment circuit for adjusting the operation characteristics of this differentiating circuit is arranged. This adjustment circuit adjusts the operation characteristics and gain of the differential circuit on the basis of the numerical aperture information of the imaging optical system.
According to a method of selecting an area suitable for focus detection from an image passing through the imaging optical system, like the method of the first example, e.g., when a high-magnification objective lens is switched to a low-magnification objective lens in a microscope to observe a specimen, the specimen observation range is narrow in observation by the high-magnification objective lens. For this reason, if the high-magnification objective lens is used, the specimen image may fall outside the field of view or the range of a focus detection sensor depending on the observation position of the specimen, disabling focus detection. When the offset amount from the focal point is large, the specimen image is hard to observe, so an area suitable for focus detection cannot be selected from this image. For this reason, this method is effective only after the lens comes near the focal position.
According to a method of changing the visibility evaluation function of an image depending on the conditions of an imaging optical system to always perform appropriate image evaluation, like the second example, e.g., when this method is applied to a microscope, the frequency distribution of the specimen image to be observed varies depending on each specimen even after the specimen image passes through the same imaging optical system. For this reason, even if the visibility evaluation function of the image is changed, it is not always appropriate depending on the conditions of the imaging optical system.
It is an object of the present invention to provide an autofocus control apparatus and method in which high-speed autofocus detection can be attained with high precision, and stable focus detection can be realized.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a microscope in which high-speed autofocus detection can be attained with high precision, and stable focus detection can be realized.

Autofocus control apparatus and method applied to microscope


A printing sleeve for a flexographic printing process is prepared by spirally winding successive adhesive coated tapes onto a forming mandrel such that the outer tape covers the seam in the previous layer, providing heat to the thermoplastic adhesive layers at the initial contact point between two tapes, providing sufficient tension to ensure consolidation, and advancing the resultant printing sleeve off the mandrel by means of a drive belt.

This invention relates to a sleeve for use on a print cylinder, and more particularly, it relates to expandable sleeves which are readily mountable onto and dismountable from print cylinders using pressurized air to expand the sleeves for mounting and dismounting. This invention also includes a method and apparatus for forming the sleeves.
In the printing industry, flexible printing "plates" are mounted on sleeves that are readily and repeatably mounted and dismounted from the printing cylinders. The sleeves must be inexpensive, lightweight, resistant to handling damage, and able to withstand several expansions and still reliably grip the print cylinder without slippage (i.e. elastically expandable diametrically). Typically an interference fit with the print cylinder of from 3 to 15 mils is preferred. The sleeves should be expandable with the 40-100 psig air generally available in printing facilities and should expand sufficiently so they are easily slid over the print cylinder, so typically an expansion exceeding the amount of interference fit is required. The sleeves typically have a wall thickness of from about 10 to 40 mils or more.
There is also a need for a sleeve with a precision outer surface which is free of irregularities that cause printing defects and which has a uniform wall thickness that results in a difference in diameter (or trueness, or runout) of the outer wall surface when mounted on a true cylinder of less than 5 mils and preferably less than 1 mil. The surface irregularities must be minimized since the sleeves are occasionally used with printing plates made of a thin photopolymer laminates only 30-125 mils thick mounted with an adhesive layer only 15-20 mils thick. If the printing sleeve is made by helically winding tapes in layers, the tapes must never overlap themselves, and for high quality printing the helical gap between tape edges should be less than 35 mils on the outer surface and preferably less than 20 mils. Gaps at the inner layers are preferably less than 50 mils. A large gap on the outer surface may allow the printing plate to depress into the gap due to print machine pressure as the ink is applied to the plate and transferred from the plate to the paper, thereby producing a poorly printed image on the paper. A large gap on the inner surface may cause excess leakage of the pressurized air for mounting the sleeve.
There is also a need for a sleeve that can be elastically expanded repeatedly to grip the print cylinder firmly to prevent slipping of the sleeve on the cylinder during use. It would be useful to have an expansion of at least 20 mils across the diameter when 40-60 psi fluid pressure is applied (measured by applying pressure to a sealed sleeve acting as a closed cylinder). The elastic expandable sleeve must also have a minimum stiffness across the diameter. There is a need for diametral stiffness for ease of mounting and when the sleeve is dismounted from the print cylinder so the sleeve does not sag with normal handling or during horizontal storage thereby causing distortion in the print plate and sleeve that makes re-mounting the sleeve a problem. The combined features of high expandability and sufficient stiffness are difficult to achieve in a single sleeve structure.
There are many different diameter printing sleeves employed and many different length sleeves. An economical manufacturing process for making sleeves is to make the sleeves on a spiral tube winding machine which permits continuous operation with a simple inexpensive piece of equipment. The machine utilizes a cantilevered, rigid, stationary mandrel on which narrow tapes are guided at an angle to form a helical tubular structure on the mandrel. A drive belt, looped around drive drums and positioned at the same angle to the mandrel, wraps around the tubular tape structure and rotationally and axially propels the structure along the mandrel. At the unsupported end of the mandrel, the tubular structure is periodically cut across its axis to separate the finished product from the still-forming structure.
There is a need for a spiral tube manufacturing process that can provide a quality sleeve for short run lots where the diameter of the sleeve and thickness of the sleeve and hence the helical wrap angle of the sleeve can be readily changed with little waste of raw material or extensive set-up time. Several variables in the helical tube making process contribute to the difficulty of setting up such a process and achieving good running conditions in a short time and with a minimum of poor quality product waste.
Such variables are:
1) variations in the width of the tape supplied;
2) variations in the cut edge quality of the tapes supplied due to poor slitting that produces camber in the edge or edge damage during shipping and handling;
3) variations in the friction between the tapes and the mandrel;
4) variations in the drive belt tension that cause slipping of the belt on the tubular structure or slipping of the belt on the drive drums;
5) variations in the speed of the drive drums for the belt;
6) variations in the angle of the drive belt during operation due to tension variations and slippage, and bending of the mandrel;
7) variations in the tension of the tapes fed to the mandrel;
8) variations in the angle of the tapes fed to the mandrel due to tape wandering (poor tape guiding);
9) inability of the operator to closely monitor the helical gap;
10) wear in the gear trains driving the belt drive drums that causes irregular speed changes in the belt;
11) inaccuracies in the drum diameters and gear train connecting the drums that results in dynamic friction on one drum (more variable than static friction) due to inability to match surface speeds when slightly different diameter drums are geared together.
As for variables due to variations in the speed of the drive drums and slippage of the belt on the drive drums in conventional spiral winding, a downstream drive drum is driven by a motor, and an upstream drive drum is driven by a mechanical linkage to the downstream drum, or is simply an idler. The disadvantages of these configurations are that in the first case employing a mechanical linkage to drive the upstream drum, the peripheral speed of both drive drums are generally not exactly equal due to normal machining and gearing tolerances and therefore the drive belt slides on at least one of the drive drums. This slippage causes a loss of driving power from the slipping drum, and also, potentially, variation in the drive belt speed which could adversely affect the stability of the tube being produced, principally in achieving a tight tolerance small gap between successive wraps. In the second case the upstream drum operates as simply an idler which removes the potential problems of belt slippage due to differential drum speed since the drum is free to rotate at the belt speed; however, the upstream drum applies no additional driving force to the belt and therefore the downstream drum must provide all the driving force, compensate for all torque variations in the tube making process, and rely on the frictional contact between the downstream driven drum and the belt for control. Belt slippage with this arrangement can also be a problem with high torque loads.

Method and apparatus for making spiral wound sleeves for printing cylinders and product thereof


This application is directed to an electronic device including a phase locked loop (PLL) circuit. The PLL includes a voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO) and the PLL is configured to generate a plurality of periodic signals having a first frequency. Optionally, the periodic signals are equally separated in phase to cover an entire period cycle of the first frequency. The electronic device includes a first multiplexer coupled to the PLL, the first multiplexer being external to the PLL. The first multiplexer configured to receive a first selection signal, select a first periodic signal of the plurality of periodic signals based on the first selection signal, and provide the first selected periodic signal to a first clock-driven circuit that is distinct from the PLL. The electronic device further includes a controller circuit coupled to the first multiplexer, the controller circuit being configured to provide the first selection signal to the first multiplexer.

Phase locked loop (PLL) circuits are widely used in electronic devices for clock synchronization, signal demodulation, and frequency synthesis. A PLL circuit is generally a control system that generates an output signal with a frequency and phase related to that of a fixed reference signal (e.g., an input signal). In its simplest form, the PLL includes a variable frequency oscillator (VCO) and a phase detector in a feedback loop. The VCO generates a periodic signal, and the phase detector compares the phase of that signal with the phase of the input reference signal, adjusting the oscillator to keep the phases matched (or setting the frequency of the output signal to be a multiple of the frequency of the reference signal).
To the extent that other phases are desired, the PLL circuit provides a single output signal (e.g., a main clock signal), and derives one or more additional output signals (e.g., other clock signals) from the main clock signal using a delay-locked loop (DLL) circuit. The DLL circuit temporally shifts the output signal to provide the desirable delay for each additional output signal. However, undesirable delays are often introduced by the DLL over time (otherwise known as drift) based on the DLL's manufacturing processes, operating voltages, and the temperature of the DLL circuit. Thus, there is a need for a PLL circuit that can provide one or more output signals with different phases and frequencies in a stable, reliable and efficient manner.

PLL with multiple and adjustable phase outputs


A method for linking a transaction account to an offer includes: storing a plurality of account profiles, each profile including data related to a transaction account including an account identifier; receiving offer data from an entity, the data including data related to an offer for the purchase of goods or services; storing an offer data entry, the data entry including the offer data; generating an offer identifier associated with the offer data; transmitting the offer identifier to the entity; receiving an offer acceptance notification, the notification including a specific account identifier and the offer identifier; identifying a specific account profile that includes the specific account identifier; and updating at least one of the specific account profile and the offer data entry to indicate a linkage of the related transaction account to the offer data.

Merchants, product manufacturers, retailers, advertisers, content providers, and other entities often try a wide variety of methods in order to get consumers to purchase more products or purchase products from a particular merchant or location. A common method that is used is to provide a consumer with an offer, coupon, discount, deal, etc., collectively referred to herein as "offers," for a good or service. The desire is that the consumer will be motivated by the savings provided by the offer to satisfy any associated conditions and purchase the associated good or service. In an effort to improve the rate of redemption of offers, and thereby increase revenue for the associated merchants and manufacturers, offer distributors are often interested in ways to make offer acceptance and redemption more convenient to consumers.
Some such methods that have been developed include digital offers, where offer information may be stored on a mobile device and presented to a merchant at the point of sale, such as using a bar code or quick response (QR) code. Other methods include associating a payment card to an offer, such that when the payment card is used, the offer may be redeemed, sometimes automatically, by use of the associated payment card. However, current methods for associating an offer with a payment card for use in redemption thereof often include significant steps that must be performed by both the offer provider and the payment network or other entity associated with redemption of the offer. For example, an offer provider may develop an offer that is presented to a consumer and accepted. The offer provider must then collect the consumer's transaction account details, provide the account details and offer details to the payment network, and then the payment network must store the data associated with one another. Then, when the transaction is being processed, the payment network can process redemption of the offer accordingly.
Such methods can thereby be cumbersome for offer providers to develop, particularly for small businesses, such as small, local merchants, that may lack the resources necessary for development of offers, handling of sensitive financial information, and transmission thereof to payment networks, which may require specifically configured computing systems that can communicate using the payment rails and the associated communication protocols and standards. In addition, some consumers may be unwilling to provide their financial information to offer providers, and may therefore refrain from using current methods.
Thus, there is a need for a technical solution for linking transaction accounts to offers where a payment network and/or a computing system associated thereto may enable offer providers to register offers that may be presented to consumers for linking to transaction accounts. Such a system would enable offer providers to provide offers without modification to existing systems and expending resources, and would also enable consumers to link offers to their transaction account without providing financial information to the offer provider. In addition, the system itself may be improved as offer providers would not need to make modifications to existing systems or upgrade to new systems to add capabilities for new communications and protocols that are currently unused.

Method and system for dynamic linking of offers to transaction accounts