A reverse rotation preventing apparatus for a hydraulic actuator includes a hydraulic actuator for driving an inertia member, a main valve which is switched to a driving position in which a pressure oil is supplied to one of first and second ports of the hydraulic actuator and another one thereof is communicated with a tank and to a neutral position in which the first and second ports are shut off, a relief valve adapted to flow out a pressure oil in the first or second port to the tank at a time when a pressure on the side of the first or second port is higher than a set high pressure, a suction valve adapted to suck the pressure oil to the first or second port at a time when the pressure on the side of the first or second port is negative, and a reverse rotation preventing valve adapted to communicate the first and second port sides with the tanks respectively at a time when the pressure on the sides of the first and second ports is higher than a set pressure which is a pressure lower than the set high pressure.

When a hydraulic motor for driving an inertia member is stopped, first and second main circuits connected to first and second ports of the hydraulic motor are shut off by brake valves. However, in such case, since the hydraulic motor is rotated by an inertia force of the inertia member to thereby cause a pumping function which causes a cavitation to one of the first and second main circuits, the first and second main circuits are communicated through a relief valve so that a pressure oil drained from one of the ports flows, through the pumping function of the hydraulic motor, to the other one of the ports to smoothly stop the hydraulic motor.
However, when the hydraulic motor is stopped by the manner mentioned above, an elastic energy is stored to a connection shaft connecting the hydraulic motor and the inertia member at the hydraulic motor stopping time, the hydraulic motor is reversely driven by the elastic energy, and the hydraulic motor is then stopped through the repetition of such operation. That is, a reverse rotation phenomenon due to reaction or rebound force caused at this time is generated, this phenomenon being called herein a rebound reverse rotation phenomenon.
For the reason described above, for example, as disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-open Publication No SHO 57-25570, there is provided a reverse rotation preventing apparatus for preventing the rebound reverse rotation phenomenon by disposing reverse rotation preventing valves to the first and second main circuits, respectively, in a manner that when a pressure in one of the main circuits exceeds a preset pressure, a high pressure oil flows to the other one of the main circuits.
According to such reverse rotation preventing apparatus, since the high pressure oil in one of the main circuits is merely drained to the other one thereof, much time is taken up to the time when the pressures in the first and second main circuits are lowered, and hence, much time is also taken up to the time when the rebound reverse rotation phenomenon is settled. That is, the hydraulic motor is much reversely rotated till the operation of the hydraulic motor stops.
As mentioned above, the fact that much time is taken up to the settling of the rebound reverse rotation phenomenon means that much time is also taken up from the starting of the hydraulic motor stopping operation to the actual stopping thereof. Accordingly, when applied to a hydraulic power shovel, a time interval required from the swinging time of the upper revolving member to an excavation starting time is made long, lowering a working efficiency.
Therefore, the present invention aims to provide an apparatus for preventing a reverse rotation of a hydraulic actuator capable of making short a time interval up to the settling of the rebound reverse rotation phenomenon when a hydraulic actuator such as hydraulic motor is operated to stop the same.

Apparatus for preventing reverse rotation for hydraulic actuator


A tool, specifically described for a hex wrench, using a split head with the pieces joined by an elastic connector allowing for deformation of the exterior of the head shape to wedge into the hex socket. The split pieces of the head have an exterior profile matching the shape of the socket and the interior split has a cam profile that enhances the wedging action of the tool. The elastic allows for the tool to return to the original shape.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of wrenches. In particular, the present invention relates specifically to a hex wrench using an elastic connection for control of an internal expansion profile for providing a wedge type of engagement. Known art may be found in U.S. Class 81, subclass 436, 439 448; Class 411, Subclass 403 as well as in other classes and subclasses.
2. Description of the Known Art
As will be appreciated by those skilled in the art, hex wrenches are well known. Patents disclosing information relevant to improved engagement tools include U.S. Pat. No. 785,162, issued to Freytag on Mar. 21, 1905; U.S. Pat. No. 2,455,005, issued to Hall on Nov. 30, 1948; U.S. Pat. No. 3,224,479, issued to Osborn et al. on Dec. 21, 1965; U.S. Pat. No. 3,286,749, issued to Learned on Nov. 22, 1966; U.S. Pat. No. 3,733,937, issued to Mezey on May 22, 1973; U.S. Pat. No. 4,890,521, issued to Bien on Jan. 2, 1990; and U.S. Pat. No. 5,927,165, issued to Vasudeva on Jul. 27, 1999. Each of these patents is hereby expressly incorporated by reference in their entirety.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,733,937 issued to Mezey on May 22, 1973 discloses a wrench having a plurality of sides is formed with a head at one end for insertion into a socket of a screw or bolt having a corresponding number of sides. A horizontally springy neck of the wrench is integral with a head and with a tip spaced axially from the head. The tip is offset circumferentially from the head approximately 5° to 10°. A similar head, springy neck and offset tip may be provided at the other end of the wrench. The wrench may be straight or L-shaped and have any number of sides greater than two.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,890,521 issued to Bien on Jan. 2, 1990 discloses a power driven screw driver self-gripping composite bit in the form of a pair of mirror image halved elements united at a common oblique interface providing a square end driver for reception in a screw head formed with a combined socket that accepts both a square end bit and a cross-point bit. Each halved element driver portion defines a trapezoidal cross section having major and minor parallel exterior side surfaces, a complete side surface extending at right angles to its major and minor surfaces, and a diagonal-like interface. The composite bit holder resiliently biases the halved elements interfaces into coextensive flush contact normally defining a square end driver. Upon threading torque being applied to the composite bit by a power screw driver the halved elements slip along their interfaces expanding the bit complete side surfaces in opposite directions so as to wedgingly engage their associated socket side faces into positive holding contact obviating slippage of the composite bit square end driver from the combined socket.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,927,165 issued to Vasudeva on Jul. 27, 1999 discloses a fastener-driving tool that has a locking insert which expands or displaces to more securely lock the tool in the fastener. The tool has a distal end configured to engage a driving recess in a fastener, and has an annular recess adjacent the distal end, with a reduced cross-section at the annular recess, other than an axial circular cross-section. A locking insert having a generally similar cross-section to that of the distal end is positioned in the annular recess closely around the reduced cross-section. The locking insert may have a split portion which permits expansion of the locking insert when acted upon by the reduced cross-section as a result of rotation of the distal end relative to the locking insert, or may provide locking simply by displacement resulting from being acted upon by the reduced cross-section.
Thus, it may be seen that these prior art patents are very limited in their teaching and utilization, and an improved elastic connection hex wrench is needed to overcome these limitations.


A method for fabricating a fishing rod which optimally locates the line guides of the rod for improved distance casting. The method includes the steps of: (i) inducing a vibratory force transversely of the elongate axis to identify node locations associated with one or more rod harmonics along the length of the rod; and (ii) placing guides at each node location for receiving fishing line. The node positions minimize the relative motion of the line guides relative to the fishing line when casting to minimize line drag while maximizing rod damping.

As with any sporting endeavor, a professional sportsman relies on a variety of intellectual and athletic skills. In the sport of fishing, these skills are tested in tournaments by the number and/or pounds of fish caught within a particular time frame. With respect to intellectual skills, a professional angler: (i) selects the most appropriate lure/bait for the conditions; (ii) employs the most appropriate tackle; (iii) chooses the optimum time of day as may be influenced by tidal or sunlight conditions (e.g., high tide, low tide, dusk, dawn, etc.,) and (iv) knows how weather conditions, such as rain, wind and temperature influence his/her chances of catching fish. Additionally, the professional angler studies the various types and bodies of water, e.g., fresh, salt, brackish condition within the various ponds, streams, rivers and oceans to gain an appreciation for these bountiful resources. More specifically, the angler gains an appreciation for, inter alia: (i) how deep/shallow to set the bait, (ii) whether to use live, fresh, or simulated bait (e.g., rubber worms, decorated lures, etc.;) (iii) when to drop a line, cast or troll for a particular fish; and (iv) how to catch and release without harming the fish.
As far as athleticism, the professional angler prides himself on a number of skills which are only acquired after many hours of repetition and training. These include the ability to: (i) accurately place a lure at a desired location, i.e., near underwater structure such as a shelf or fallen-tree; (ii) quickly drop bait within reach, or the-line-of-sight, of a fish/school of fish; or (iii) cast a specific distance thus allowing a lure to be placed into an area which may be, otherwise, unreachable or unattainable without the use of, for example, rubber waiters or a small fishing vessel. The foregoing relates broadly to the category of casting skills, however, it should be appreciated that there are other skills required for "presentation" of bait, wherein an angler must master the art of imparting action to the line so as to make a lure/bait visible and/or alluring to a fish.
Of the above-identified skills, perhaps one of the most recognized or highly regarded skills, relates to distance casting. Pendulum, surf and fly casting tournaments have been around for nearly a century, i.e., beginning in the early 1920's. Anglers have achieved distances greater than two football fields, end-to-end, for a distance of six-hundred and seventy-three (673 ft) feet i.e., representing a current casting record. Consequently, any advantage that an angler can achieve in the art of distance casting is highly sought after.
Additionally, any technology which improves accuracy while reducing fatigue is similarly important to a fishing advocate. That is, a fishing rod which delivers distance with less effort is particularly welcome.
A need, therefore, exists for fishing gear capable of delivering greater casting distances.

Harmonically tuned fishing rod for distance casting and method of manufacture thereof


The present invention provides an ashless lubricating oil composition that improves the corrosion properties in natural gas engines. The ashless lubricating oil composition comprises:. a) a major amount of base oil of lubricating viscosity; PA1 b) from about 1 to 6 wt % of an untreated polyalkylene or polyalkenyl succinimide dispersant; and PA1 c) from about 1 to 6 wt % of a borated polyalkylene or polyalkenyl succinimide dispersant.

One of the causes of wear in an internal combustion engine is corrosion of the metal surfaces of the engine, particularly lead and copper metal surfaces caused by the action of various corrosion-promoting compounds which accumulate in the crankcase of the engine. The corrosion-promoting compounds present in the crankcase are principally weak organic acids which may result from nitration and oxidation of the lubricating oil due to contamination by blow-by gases and exposure of the lubricant to high temperatures in the piston and ring zones. Regardless of the source of the corrosion-promoting compounds, it is important to protect the engine from the deleterious action of such compounds and thereby reduce engine wear. For the purpose of preventing corrosivity by these compounds on the various engine parts, it is necessary to incorporate dispersants, detergents, and corrosion inhibitors in the lubricating oil composition, to limit the formation of corrosion products and protecting metal surfaces.
Historically, crankcase oils usually contain ash from detergents, anti-wear products with metals, e.g., Zn, Ca, and the like. Although these metal-containing organic compounds have corrosion inhibition activity as well as detergency, they form undesirable ash deposits in the engine. Ash deposits can lower engine performance by fouling spark plugs, contributing to combustion chamber deposits that cause preignition, or facilitating carbon deposits in two-cycle engine ports and thus are undesirable in many applications. However, it is quite challenging to control corrosion without metal-containing additives like detergents and anti-wear agents. Ashless lubricants would have the advantage of reducing combustion chamber deposits. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,320,765, issued on Jun. 14, 1994 to Fetterman, Jr. et al., disclose marked reductions in diesel engine carbon deposits with lubricating oil compositions containing a high molecular weight ashless dispersant, oil soluble antioxidants, and oil soluble dihydrocarbyl dithiophosphate.
Currently, ashless products are created with metal pacifiers such as terephthalic acid (TPA) to protect the metal surface. However, as highly effective as TPA is in corrosion inhibition, it is very oil insoluble and may contribute to deposits in the engine at low engine temperatures. Thus, it would be desirable to attain the corrosion inhibition performance comparable to TPA but devoid of the insoluble deposit problem associated with TPA.
It is also desirable to minimize the amount of phosphorus in lubricants. Although phosphorus does not contribute to ash, it can lead to poisoning of catalysts in pollution control devices such as emission catalysts or traps when amounts of phosphorus make their way into the exhaust system. Exemplary of references directed to the reduction in phosphorus-containing lubricant additives are U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,147,640, 4,330,420, and 4,639,324.
Combined dispersant-corrosion inhibitors are known in the art. For instance, U.S. Pat. No. 3,287,271, issued Nov. 22, 1966 to Stuart, discloses a novel composition which provides both corrosion inhibition and detergency by combining a polyamine with a high molecular weight succinic anhydride and then contacting the resulting product with a dicarboxylic acid, having the carboxyl groups separated by at least three annular carbon atoms.
U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/015,801, filed Jan. 29, 1998, discloses a lubricating oil composition for internal combustion engines giving improved soot dispersancy. That lubricating oil composition has a mixture of borated and carbonated polyalkylene succinimides derived from different molecular weight polyalkylenes. The molecular weight of the polyalkylenes from which the carbonated polyalkylene succinimide is derived is at least 300 greater than the molecular weight of the polyalkylenes from which the borated polyalkylene succinimide is derived. The lubricating oil compositions of the examples contained in this application included significant portions of metal detergents and zinc dithiophosphates creating high ash content and high phosphorus content formulation.

Ashless lubricating oil formulation for natural gas engines


An automobile distance detection system includes an image camera system which photographs an object which exists in a required range external to an automobile, from a plurality of different directions and obtains a plurality of pictures, and a picture processing unit which processes the plural number of pictures photographed by the camera system and outputs a distance distribution for an entire picture. The image processing unit includes a coincidence calculation element which performs high-speed calculation of a degree of coincidence for each required region, and corresponding to the plural number of pictures photographed by the camera system, and a discrepancy amount determination element determines discrepancy amounts corresponding to the plural number of pictures on the basis of a minimum value for the coincidence, as information relating to the distance distribution.

The present invention relates to a distance detection system for a vehicle, which images an object in a predetermined range and detects a distance in dependency on an imaged picture.
The vehicle such as an automobile is so convenient for transporting persons or articles that vehicles are used in our modern society. Accordingly, many systems for automatically avoiding accidents have been developed recently.
For automatically avoiding collision between the vehicles and the objects, it is very important to detect an obstruct on a running way of the vehicle. Such a system has already been developed as detecting the obstacle by using a radar (radiation detecting and ranging), an ultrasonic wave, or a laser (light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation).
However, it is a very complicated and difficult work to recognize a running route in real time, to detect the obstacle on the route, and to measure a distance and velocity to the obstacle. In particular, the above-mentioned system can detect only the object in a fixed direction by using the radar, the ultrasonic wave and the laser.
Furthermore, it is necessary to detect a place of the obstacle on the road. However, such an apparatus as mentioned above cannot have the sufficient information. Furthermore, it is necessary to detect the obstacle in a large area along the road having curves, and it is insufficient to detect the obstacle only in the fixed direction in the manner of the above-mentioned apparatus.
Accordingly, a distance measurement system is recently used as an effective method. The system images a sight as an object by a camera mounted on the vehicle to take pictures, and processes the pictures so as to obtain a distance between the vehicle and the object.
The distance measurement systems using the picture are divided into two techniques. One is to estimate the distance to the object by measuring a relative distance between a camera position and an image by a single camera. The other is to obtain the distance to the object by a principle of a triangulation after a plurality of pictures are imaged by a plurality of cameras or one camera which has several positions sequentially changed.
The technique for imaging a sight by the single camera is advantageous because little data are processed. And manufacturing cost is low because the object having various characteristics is extracted from two-dimensional images and the characteristics are shown in a manner that a white line indicates the plane.
For example, Japanese patent application laid-open No. 1-242916 (1989) discloses the technique which a television camera is mounted in a cabin near a center portion at a top of a front window, the obstacle and the white line on the road are detected in dependency on a luminance distribution pattern on a certain survey line in the image and the two-dimensional luminant distribution pattern, and the three-dimensional position of the white line and the obstacle is estimated in dependency on parameters of a directional and visual field.
However, an actual picture on the road have various objects such as buildings and trees in surroundings, so that it is difficult to precisely detect the various objects such as a running car in front, an oncoming car, a pedestrian, a pole for a telephone or electric light, a white line across a road, and the like, from such a two-dimensional picture. Furthermore, there is the problem that an estimation of the three-dimensional position has a large error when the three-dimensional position of a white line and the obstacle is estimated from a parameter of the television camera where the surface of the road is uneven and the vehicle is pitching.
Namely, a method of imaging by the single camera cannot always precisely extract the object from the two-dimensional picture because a plurality of various objects exist in the forward view while running. Furthermore, it makes the recognized result ambiguous because estimation of the position of the television camera is not always proper by such an inclined road as a slope.
On the other hand, the technique using triangulation and plurality of pictures can obtain a precise distance because a distance is obtained by a relative discrepancy of the position of the same object in left and right pictures.
For example, Japanese patent application laid-open No. 59-197816 (1984) discloses a method for calculating a three-dimensional position of an obstacle by using the principle of the triangulation in which two television camera are mounted on a front part of the vehicle, the obstacle is detected by a luminant distribution pattern of two dimension in dependency on respective images of each television camera, and so obtain the positional discrepancy on two pictures.
Furthermore, as disclosed in documents of the 22th Research and Lecture Meeting held by the Mechanical Engineering Institute on Oct. 20, 1989, two television cameras are attached to right and left front ends of the vehicle to image two pictures, each of the pictures is spatially differentiated to extract only a dark/light changing point, an image scanning of one of camera is delayed by a predetermined time to superpose on another picture, only a white line is extracted from the superposition of both pictures in dependency on the characteristics of the luminant distribution pattern included in the white line and width values of the pattern, and a distance between the vehicle and the extracted white line is calculated in dependency on the delayed time and the principle of the triangulation. The documents disclose the technology for calculating the three-dimensional position of the white line from short to long distance in the manner that such a processing is performed by continuously changing the delayed time.
Furthermore, as disclosed in Automobile Technology Magazine of Vol. 44, No. 4, 1990, pages 54-59, there is described a technology for calculating the three-dimensional position of the white line by the triangulation in the manner that two television cameras are mounted at right and left front ends of the vehicle, a white line is detected by the luminant distribution pattern in the two-dimensional window with respect to every picture of the television cameras, and the discrepancy of the white line on the two pictures of the right and left cameras.
The above prior art can prevent generation of large errors because two television cameras are used and the three-dimensional position is calculated by the triangulation. However, it is difficult for the above prior art to detect the white line and the obstacle as the object from the two-dimensional picture having various objects and background only by using the luminant distribution pattern. Therefore, even though the three-dimensional pictures have advantages in their use, the amount of the processing data is vast because matching between the right and left pictures must be repeated, thereby deteriorating processing speed.
In order to overcome the above deterioration, since a processing amount must be reduced and pre-processing must be performed, there must be generating binary data, detecting an edge, highly extracting the characteristic point and a set of the window with a decrease of information data. So that the distance must be measured only in the window or only for the object which can generate the binary data and the portion of the characteristic point such as edge or the like.
Accordingly, the prior art has the problem that the necessary object data are eliminated the data with respect to a pedestrian, an electric light or telephone pole, a white line and edges of the road because processing is done at high-speed. Therefore, resulting in the deterioration of the information data in the manner that only a specified portion is previously extracted from the picture and a distance of the only specified portion is obtained.


Pickling the inside and the outside of a hollow part that is in the form of a body of revolution, such as, in particular, a turbine wheel made of titanium alloy. The part is mounted with its axis of revolution in a horizontal orientation and it is partially immersed in a vessel filled with pickling composition while being caused to rotate about its axis of revolution.

A titanium alloy turbine wheel of the kind indicated above has the reputation of being difficult to access on the inside, given the plurality of adjacent annular cavities defined therein between the welded-together disks that constitute the wheel. The heat treatment required for preparing the part has the consequence of causing a contaminated layer to appear on the surface thereof (outside as well as inside), which layer is a few tens of micrometers thick, is rich in oxygen, and is known as the "alpha-case layer". At present, only the outside of the part is pickled, since pickling the inside has previously been considered as being risky.
Unfortunately, the presence of this contaminated layer lies behind the formation of cracks that considerably shorten the lifetime of the part.

Method of pickling a hollow part in the form of a body of revolution, and apparatus implementing such a method


A bond pad structure for an integrated circuit includes first and second active devices formed in a substrate, first and second buses above the first and second active devices, respectively, a bond pad above the first and second buses, first interconnections between the first and second active devices and the bond pad, and second interconnections between the first and second active devices and the first and second buses, respectively. The first active device may be at least one PMOS transistor, and the second active device may be at least one NMOS transistor. A guard band region may be formed in the substrate.

One of the components of an integrated circuit chip is an array of bond pads for electrically connecting the chip to other components of the system in which it is utilized. The bond pad array typically includes multiple bond pads located around the periphery of the integrated circuit chip. Each bond pad is a conductive area used for bonding a connecting wire, the other end of which is connected to a pin of the integrated circuit package. Interface circuitry, such as electrostatic discharge (ESD) protection circuitry and level shifting circuitry, may be associated with the bond pad.
In a common approach, bond pads and associated circuitry are positioned adjacent to each other on a chip. A top schematic view of a prior art bond pad structure is shown in FIG. 1. A bond pad 10 is located at the periphery of an integrated circuit chip 12. Bond pad 10 may be a conductive metal having a sufficient area for bonding of a connecting wire. An ESD protection circuit 20 is located adjacent to and electrically connected to bond pad 10. ESD protection circuit 20 may include PMOS ESD/buffer transistors 22 located under a power supply bus 24 and NMOS ESD/buffer transistors 26 located under a power return bus 28. An isolation/control logic block 30, located between PMOS transistors 22 and NMOS transistors 26, includes control logic and provides isolation between PMOS transistors 22 and NMOS transistors 26. As is apparent from FIG. 1, the prior art bond pad 10 and ESD protection circuit 20 occupy significant chip area. The required area is multiplied by the number of I/O pins on the chip.
Integrated circuits have undergone dramatic increases in function and performance, and dramatic decreases in feature sizes. These trends have impacted the requirements for bond pad structures. As device features have become smaller, the ESD pulse that an integrated circuit is required to withstand has remained the same. Although the density of other circuits has increased, the chip area required to dissipate the ESD pulse has remained nearly constant. In addition, the number of bond pads on a chip has increased with increasing circuit complexity. These trends have resulted in bond pads and ESD protection circuitry occupying a significant proportion of the total chip area on state of the art integrated circuits. It is not uncommon for bond pads and related circuitry to occupy 10–15% of the die area in state of the art integrated circuits.
Various designs for ESD protection circuits and bond pads have been disclosed in the prior art. See, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,514,892, issued May 7, 1996 to Countryman et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 5,517,048, issued May 14, 1996 to Kosaka; U.S. Pat. No. 5,751,065, issued May 12, 1998 to Chittipeddi et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 5,901,022, issued May 4, 1999 to Ker; U.S. Pat. No. 6,157,065, issued Dec. 5, 2000 to Huang et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 6,207,547, issued Mar. 27, 2001 to Chittipeddi et al; U.S. Pat. No. 6,384,486, issued May 7, 2002 to Zuniga et al; and W. R. Anderson et al. "ESD Protection Under Wire Bonding Pads", EOS/ESD Symposium 99–89, pp. 2A.4.1–2A.4.7.
It has been proposed in the prior art to fabricate ESD protection circuitry underneath bond pads. One of the difficulties in this approach is that the bond pad is subjected to thermal and mechanical stresses during the bonding process. Such stresses may damage or destroy sensitive layers and circuitry located under the bond pad. In addition, prior art methods of fabricating MOS transistors under bond pads have not addressed the latchup reliability issue. This issue is present when large active devices are placed under bond pads and in close proximity to circuitry of neighboring bond pads and/or neighboring circuitry outside the bond pad. Furthermore, the area underneath bond pads is very limited due to the need to minimize bond pad area.
None of the prior art bond pad structures has been entirely satisfactory with respect to die area and reliability. Accordingly, there is a need for new and improved bond pad structures and methods of making bond pad structures.

Integrated circuit bond pad structures and methods of making


A very long instruction word (VLIW) architecture describes a processor comprising multiple functional units operating in parallel. A very long instruction word contains a plurality of fields or issue slots for specifying which operations are to be performed by the functional units. Execution of an operation can be inhibited by a guard value specified in the issue slot. Instructions are dispatched in such a guarded VLIW architecture by routing one of a plurality of fields issued for a common functional unit based on the guard value. Thus, an instruction word may contain a greater number of issue slots than there are functional units.

Escalating demands for increased computer processing performance have led to the introduction of highly parallel computer architectures, in which multiple operations are simultaneously executed. Designed to exploit the fine-grained parallelism inherent in high-level language programs, a very long instruction word (VLIW) processor comprises multiple, parallel functional units controlled on a cycle-by-cycle basis by a very long instruction word (i.e., 100 or more bits). Very long instruction words comprise a concatenation of fields or "issue slots," each of which independently specifies the operation of a functional unit. VLIW processors are used in a variety of applications including super-computers and mainframes, workstations and personal computers, and dedicated processors in audio and video consumer products.
FIG. 1 illustrates a conventional VLIW processor 100. On each machine cycle, very long instruction words are loaded or "issued" from an instruction memory 110 into an instruction issue register 120. Instruction memory 110, which can be a random access memory (RAM) or a read only memory (ROM), is typically pipelined and supplemented by an instruction cache (not shown) to enhance execution throughput. Each instruction word loaded into instruction issue register 120 contains a number of issue slots 121-127, each issue slot 121-127 for controlling a corresponding functional unit 131-137 in the VLIW processor 100. In general, a VLIW processor may comprise any useful combination of functional units, and FIG. 1 depicts one such combination. Depending on the particular implementation, there may be more or fewer functional units, and there may be functional units of different types. Functional units may perform a variety of operations, selected by an operation code (opcode); for example, an arithmetic-logic functional unit can add and subtract two values.
Each issue slot 121-127 within an instruction word loaded into the instruction issue register 120 specifies an operation to be started in the current clock cycle for the corresponding functional unit 131-137. In particular, each issue slot 121-127 typically contains an opcode and operands for the corresponding functional unit 131-137. The opcode is useful for functional units that perform a variety of different operations.
Operands for the functional units 131-137 are read from a shared, multi-ported register file 140, and results from the functional unit 131-137 are written into the register file 140.
The term "specification of an operation" as used herein refers to a combination of an opcode, if needed, and operands, if needed, employed to specify an operation of a functional unit. Thus, each issue slot 121-127 contains a specification of operation to be executed by a corresponding functional unit 131-137.
Referring to FIG. 2, issue slot 121 contains a specification of the operation 210 of the constant generation unit 131, namely, a constant value CONSTANT and a register RD to hold the constant value. The specification of the operation 220 of arithmetic-logic units (ALU) 132 and 133 contained in respective issue slots 122 and 123 holds an ALU opcode, two source registers RA and RB, and a destination register RD for the operation of respective. Typical ALU opcodes indicate operations such as addition, subtraction, negation, logical and, logical or, logical exclusive or, logical complementation, and the like. Issue slot 124 holds a specification 240 containing a MUL opcode for multiplication, division, or square root, source registers RA and RB, and a destination register RD for the multiplier unit 134. Issue slot 125 includes specification 250 having an FPU opcode (e.g., addition, subtraction, and comparison), source registers RA and RB, and destination register RD for the floating point unit 135. A data memory unit 136 is controlled by issue slot 126, having a specification 260 including a MEM opcode, indicating a load or store operation, address registers RA and RB, and a data register RD. The jump control unit 137 with reference to specification 270 in the corresponding issue slot 137 uses register RA and RB to indicate a conditional value and a jump destination address within instruction memory 110; the specification 270 also holds a JMP opcode specifying whether to jump always (unconditional jump), jump if the conditional value register is true, jump if the register is false, or not jump at all (NOP). The contents of these issue slots 121-127, the operation of the functional unit 131-137, and the format of specifications 210-270 are to be regarded as exemplary and may be adjusted to suit any useful configuration.
In order for a software program to run on a VLIW machine, a "fine grained parallel" or "instruction level parallel" translation must be found. This is accomplished by a compiler that translates a conventional high-level programming language, such as ANSI-C, into VLIW instructions. Such compilers are described in John R. Ellis, BULLDOG: A Compiler for VLIW Architectures, MIT Press 1985, ISBN 0-262-05034-X. Functional units in conventional VLIW processors are controlled by exactly one issue slot in the instruction word. For example, the VLIW processor 100 depicted in FIG. 1 includes seven issue slots 121-127 corresponding to the seven respective functional units 131-137. Thus, compilers for conventional VLIW processors emit instructions in which a functional unit is controlled by values in a signal issue slot.
High performance processors, including VLIW processors, are subject to the so-called "branch delay" problem caused by the latency of instruction memory, which is the time in machine cycles between the transmission of an instruction address to an instruction memory and the receipt of the corresponding instruction word for execution. During sequential execution, the address of the next instruction can be predicted, allowing the instruction memory to be pipelined for an effective instruction memory latency of one machine cycle. For conditional jumps, however, the address of the next instruction cannot be predicted, because the destination address depends on the outcome of evaluating a conditional expression. Consequently, the branch delay represents a number of machine cycles in which the instruction word at the destination address is not available due to the evaluation of the conditional expression and instruction memory latency. As functional units are made even faster, for example, by aggressive pipelining, this latency increases. In a high-speed, pipelined architecture, it is very undesirable to wait for the instruction word at the destination of the jump instruction to be fetched from instruction memory before continuing execution of the instructions.
One solution to the branch delay problem was suggested by P. Y-T. Hsu, "Highly Concurrent Scalar Processing," Thesis, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1986, which involves continuing to issue instructions during the branch delay period for all possible program paths in parallel, insofar as allowed by the limited number of functional units. Each operation, however, is "guarded" by a Boolean expression so that only those operations satisfying the boolean expression or "guard value" are allowed to be performed. These guard values are constructed by the compiler in such a way as to insure that only those operations on the intended program path are executed.
One disadvantage with current VLIW processors is evident when two or more of the parallel program paths in the branch delay period include operations pertaining to the same functional unit, such as a floating point unit 135. Since each functional unit is controlled by exactly one issue slot in the instruction word, operations for the same functional unit along different parallel program paths must be issued in separate instructions. For example, both program paths of a numerical analysis program may employ floating point operations after a conditional branch. In a VLIW processor with one floating point unit 135, only one floating point operation can be issued in each instruction. Thus, the floating point operations along one path, e.g. the "condition true" path, must be issued in different instructions than the floating point operations along the other path, e.g. the "condition false" path. Consequently, extra instructions need to be scheduled by the compiler, increasing code size and reducing execution times.
As depicted in FIG. 1, one conventional approach in alleviating this disadvantage is to provide another implementation of the same functional unit. For example, the conventional VLIW processor 100 includes two arithmetic-logic units 132 and 133. While a second arithmetic-logic may not be prohibitively expensive, a second floating point unit is expensive to implement again on a monolithic semiconductor device in terms of consumption of surface area and power. Other complex functional units, such as multipliers, barrel shifters, and even data memory units, are also expensive to duplicate.

Guard bits in a VLIW instruction control routing of operations to functional units allowing two issue slots to specify the same functional unit

Philips Electronics North America Corporation


A method of hydrogenation utilizing a reactant gas mixture comprising a carbon oxide and a hydrogen agent, and a hydrogenation catalyst comprising a mixed-metal oxide containing metal sites supported and/or incorporated into the lattice. The mixed-metal oxide comprises a perovskite, a pyrochlore, a fluorite, a brownmillerite, or mixtures thereof doped at the A-site or the B-site. The metal site may comprise a deposited metal, where the deposited metal is a transition metal, an alkali metal, an alkaline earth metal, or mixtures thereof. Contact between the carbon oxide, hydrogen agent, and hydrogenation catalyst under appropriate conditions of temperature, pressure and gas flow rate generate a hydrogenation reaction and produce a hydrogenated product made up of carbon from the carbon oxide and some portion of the hydrogen agent. The carbon oxide may be CO, CO2, or mixtures thereof and the hydrogen agent may be H2. In a particular embodiment, the hydrogenated product comprises an alcohol, an olefin, an aldehyde, a ketone, an ester, an oxo-product, or mixtures thereof.

Hydrogenation catalysts which enhance reactions between hydrogen and other compounds are a topic of significant interest. In particular, catalysts for CO/CO2 hydrogenations into higher oxygenates (C2+, i.e. ethanol, etc.) are of specific interest. These higher oxygenates are widely used as solvents, intermediates, fuel additives, and neat fuels, and producing these products selectively requires catalysts with specific properties. Typically, major byproducts from CO/CO2 hydrogenations are single carbon compounds, so a major challenge is the development of catalysts with higher selectivity towards the higher alcohols and oxygenates. There is particular emphasis on high selectivity catalysts for CO/CO2 hydrogenations acting in environments of CO, CO2, and H2, such as syngas, which require relatively high stability in the presence of a reducing environment. Generally a variety of catalysts, particularly the Group 6 through 11 metals, have been employed in CO/CO2 hydrogenations, but in many cases these catalysts generate broad, complex mixtures of hydrocarbons, oxygenated hydrocarbons, and carbon dioxide. Thus, there is a need for CO/CO2 hydrogenation catalysts that selectively generate higher alcohols/oxygenated hydrocarbons products.
Certain metals such as Rh have been extensively studied because of their generally high hydrogenation activities. For example, these catalysts have been shown to be the most active and selective for higher alcohol synthesis compared to alternatives based on modified copper, cobalt-molybdenum, or promoted Fischer-Tropsch catalysts. The activity and selectivity of the active metal catalysts can be increased by various factors, such as the presence of promoters, the choice of support, the synthesis method, the use of specific precursors, and other factors. Generally, optimum higher alcohols/oxygenated hydrocarbons formation requires a balance among the rates of CO dissociation, hydrogenation, and CO insertion. For example, promoters such as rare earth metals, alkali metals, and other transition metals play an important role in these elementary steps. Typically the promoters activate the oxygen atom of an absorbed CO molecule and weaken the C—O bond, leading to CO dissociation followed by a hydrogenation step to form CHx species. The mechanism for C—C bond formation leading to higher alcohols/oxygenated hydrocarbons also requires the atomic proximity of an activated, associatively adsorbed CO that can react with the CHx species. Subsequent hydrogenation of this initial C2 intermediate leads to higher alcohols or oxygenated hydrocarbons synthesis. The two sites where one forms CHx and the other an activated CO are catalytically distinct, but need to be atomically adjacent. As a result, the hydrogenation of CO to produce C2+ oxygenates such as ethanol is thought to require the atomic proximity of catalytic sites that activate CO in two ways: (i) dissociative adsorption of CO to produce surface carbon that is hydrogenated to form a surface CHx species and (ii) associative adsorption of CO, which is activated by the catalyst and couples with the CHx species to form the critical C—C bond.
Catalytic metals have also been substituted into certain crystalline oxides such as perovskites and pyrochlores in an effort to promote selectivity in CO/CO2 hydrogenations. See e.g., U.S. Pat. No. 4,312,955 to Bartley; and see U.S. Pat. No. 4,126,580 to Lauder; and see U.S. Pat. No. 4,863,971 to Broussard et al.; and see Tien-Thao et al., "Effect of alkali additives over nanocrystalline Co—Cu-based perovskites as catalysts for higher-alcohol synthesis," Journal of Catalysis 245 (2007); and see Tien-Thao et al., "Characterization and reactivity of nanoscale La(Co,Cu)O3 perovskite catalyst precursors for CO hydrogenation," Journal of Solid State Chemistry 181 (2008), and see Bourzutschky et al., "Conversion of synthesis gas over LaMn1-xCuxO3+λ perovskite and related copper catalysts," Journal of Catalysis 124 (1990). Additionally, CO/CO2 hydrogenation catalysts have involved catalytic metals such as Co, Cu, and Rh supported by various structures such as La2Zr2O7, LaFeO3, La2O3, TiO2, SiO2, and Al2O3. See Kieffer et al., "Hydrogenation of CO and CO2 toward methanol, alcohols and hydrocarbons on promoted copper-rare earth oxides catalysts," Catalysis Today 36 (1997); and see Chu et al., "Conversion of syngas to C1-C6 alcohol mixtures on promoted CuLa2Zr2O7 catalysts," Applied Catalysis A: General 121 (1995); and see Fujiwara et al., "Hydrogenation of carbon dioxide over copper-pyrochlore/zeolite composite catalysts," Catalysis Today 29 (1996); and see Fang et al., "LaFeO3-supported nano Co—Cu catalysts for higher alcohol synthesis from syngas," Applied Catalysis A: General 397 (2011); and see Chuang et al., "Mechanism of C2+ oxygenate synthesis on Rh catalysts," Topics in Catalysis 32 (2005). The efforts are generally aimed toward adjustment of the CO dissociation and insertion abilities of the Co, Cu, or Rh through varying promoter and support compositions. Variations in selectivities are typically attributed to the specific properties of the support, the promoter, the morphology of the metal, and the impact of the support on the reducibility of the metal.
Recently, the presence of an atomically adjacent ionic and metallic species (M0-M+) has been reported to enhance the coupling between undissociated CO and CHx and the selective formation of ethanol via ketene (H2C═C═O) or acetyl (H3C—C═O) intermediates. The higher oxygenated hydrocarbon selectivity is postulated to occur via the formation of a "tilted" CO species in which both the carbon and oxygen atoms are bound to the surface. One way in which these types of sites needed to produce higher alcohols/oxygenated hydrocarbons can be prepared is to use particular crystalline oxides such as a perovskite, pyrochlore, fluorite, or brownmillerite with particular catalytic metal sites, where catalytic metals are also doped into the perovskite, pyrochlore, fluorite, or brownmillerite and will have the M0-M+ coordination. Additionally, such perovskite, pyrochlore, fluorite, and brownmillerite materials allow various metals to be isomorphically substituted into the oxide structures providing, for example, basic sites that act to activate adsorbed CO. Further oxygen conductivity of these materials may enhance the ionic and metallic (M0-M+) species coordination. This property has also been shown to reduce undesired carbon formation. The use of such crystal oxides with the doped catalytic metal sites also promote a high degree of thermal stability in environments which may be highly reducing. Further, atomically adjacent ionic and metallic species (M0-M+) can be achieved by depositing the catalytically active metal(s) (M0) on the surface of the doped mixed-metal oxides.
Provided here is a method of hydrogenation utilizing a reactant gas mixture comprising a carbon oxide and a hydrogen agent, and a hydrogenation catalyst comprising a mixed-metal oxide with a metal site supported by and/or incorporated into the lattice. In an embodiment, the metal site is a deposited metal and the mixed-metal oxide supports the metal site. The metal site comprises a transition metal, an alkali metal, an alkaline earth metal, or mixtures thereof, and the conducting oxide comprises a perovskite, a pyrochlore, a fluorite, a brownmillerite, or mixtures thereof, typically doped at an A-site or B-site of the conducting oxide crystal structure. Contact between the carbon oxide, hydrogen agent, and hydrogenation catalyst under appropriate conditions of temperature, pressure and gas flow rate generate a hydrogenation reaction and produce a hydrogenated product made up of carbon from the carbon oxide and some portion of the hydrogen agent. The carbon oxide may be CO, CO2, or mixtures thereof and the hydrogen agent may be H2. In a particular embodiment, the hydrogenated product comprises an alcohol, an olefin, an aldehyde, a ketone, an ester, an oxo-product, or mixtures thereof.
These and other objects, aspects, and advantages of the present disclosure will become better understood with reference to the accompanying description and claims.


A microparticle measuring method according to the present invention, by which the number of fluorescent microparticles is counted and the fluorescent microparticles are analyzed, includes the steps of introducing fluorescent microparticles into a narrow flow path almost one after another; irradiating the fluorescent microparticles in the narrow flow path with excitation light; detecting a signal pulse produced by detection of a single photon of fluorescence generated by the irradiation with the excitation light; and recognizing existence of the fluorescent microparticle, starting from the number of signal pulses measured per predetermined standard period, and further includes the step of obtaining the number of signal pulses per standard period with a time interval shorter than the standard period. It further includes the step of counting successively the number of signal pulses generated in the predetermined standard period to recognize existence of the fluorescent microparticle, when the count value exceeds a predetermined threshold, and the kind of the fluorescent microparticles is estimated from the count value. Particularly by using microparticles having a diameter smaller than 0.1 .mu.m as label material, reaction efficiency of the label material is increased, stability of the binding with the material to be measured is raised, and the material to be measured can be detected with a high precision and a high sensitivity.

The present invention relates to a method for measuring microparticles and an instrument for measuring microparticles capable of detecting microparticles having a very low fluorescence intensity existing in liquid with a high precision to analyze them as well as to a quantitative measuring method and an instrument for realizing the same, useful in fields of immunological analysis and genetic diagnosis using microparticles.
(a) As a method for analyzing particles, etc., there is known an analyzing method using a flow cytometer. In the flow cytometer, liquid containing particles is led to a sheath flow cell so that particles flow separately one after another through an approximately central portion thereof, the particles flowing therethrough are irradiated with laser light, and scattered light or fluorescence (in the case where the particles are fluorescent) thus produced is detected by means of a photodetector such as a photomultiplier, etc. By this method the property of the particles can be analyzed by using pulse heights or integrated values of an output signal of the photodetector as a function of a time for the passage of a particle through the laser light. In order to increase the analysis precision by such a method, there are known a method, by which pulse width information is added to the pulse height, as described e.g. in JP-A-Sho-58-41336, and a method, by which the time of starting analysis of the pulse height or the integrated value is substantially advanced by delaying the signal pulses, as described in JP-A-SHo-65-35345.
(b) On the other hand, as an immunological measurement method using particles, there is known a method, by which antigen concentration is measured by making latex spheres, with the surface of which an antibody is bound, react with an antigen and measuring the agglutinated state of the latex spheres produced by the antigen-antibody reaction by the absorbance or the intensity of scattered light. Further, in order to analyze this agglutinated state with a high precision, there is known also a method, by which each agglutinated lump is led to a flow cytometer to be analyzed there. By this method it is possible to calculate the magnitude of each agglutinated lump, based on the intensity of scattered light to measure the antigen concentration with a high precision. This method is described e.g. in "Kensa to Gijutsu (Test and Techniques)" Vol. 16, No. 7 (1988), pp. 607-613.
(c) Further, as described e.g. in JP-A-SHo-56-151357, there is proposed a method by which particles having a diameter of about 0.5 .mu.m are made to bind with an antigen to be measured by a reaction of a heterogenous system to measure the antigen concentration while counting the number of particles by means of a microscope.

Method for measuring microparticles, quantitative measuring method therefor and instrument for measuring microparticles


A method of a portable electronic device providing payment from an electronic wallet is provided. The method comprises prompting for input of a personal identification number (PIN) after the wallet has been opened and providing payment from the wallet after receiving the PIN, when the wallet is configured to a first level of security. The method also comprises providing payment from the wallet after the wallet has been opened, when the wallet is configured to a second level of wallet security, wherein the PIN is not contemporaneously input. The method also comprises providing payment from the wallet when the electronic portable device has been activated, when the wallet is configured to a third level of wallet security, wherein the wallet is not opened and the PIN is not contemporaneously input.

A variety of alternatives to using cash may be used for paying for goods and services. Credit cards, debit cards, and smart cards may be used to pay for grocery purchases, retail purchases, gasoline purchases, restaurant purchases, etc. Transit cards may be used to purchase a ride on a mass transportation vehicle such as a bus or a subway train. Toll payment devices, sometimes referred to as toll tags, may be used to pay toll without stopping or slowing down at a toll booth, and/or pay for parking fees at airports. The ease with which these payment cards may be stolen and used for purchases of goods and services by someone other than the card holder or authorized proxies of the card holder, which may also be referred to as identity theft, makes payment card security an important subject. Various procedures for preventing improper use of these payment cards have evolved including requiring photo identification of the card holder, entry of a personal identification number (PIN), entry of the zip code of the billing address of the payment card holder, etc. To some extent, increased payment security to complete a payment transaction may consume more time of the user, may distract the user from an on-going social engagement with companions, and may cause embarrassment to the user, for example when the user cannot remember the PIN of the credit card and has to request another to pick-up the tab at a restaurant.
A portable electronic device may include an electronic wallet application, also referred to as an eWallet, that provides a variety of financial and payment capabilities. The electronic wallet application supports paying for products or services with the device in much the same way as presenting a credit card, a debit card, a smart card, a transit card, or a toll tag for payment. The portable electronic device may communicate with a point-of-sale (POS) terminal using contactless communication means, for example near field communication (NFC) technology, to provide the appropriate financial information to complete a payment transaction.

Method and system for setting levels of electronic wallet security


A spray nozzle assembly (10) comprising a cap (30) which houses an inner assembly of nozzle inserts (40). The cap (30) is threadably engaged by complementary threads (31, 21) to a nozzle body (20). The nozzle body (20) and the cap (30) are therefore able to be mated in a controllable axially compressive relationship in which the threadable connection enables a large amount of finely controlled axial tensile or compressive force to be applied in either moving the cap (30) and nozzle body towards each other or away. It should be noted, however, that seat (70) restrict the extent of axial travel of the screwable parts (20, 30, 40) relative to and towards each other. This facility enables strong unwanted adhesive forces of glue-like or set flowable material to be broken so that the cap (30), insert assembly (40) and nozzle body (20) can be moved apart for servicing.

The following description of the prior art is not intended to be, nor should it be interpreted as, an indication of the common general knowledge pertaining to the invention, but rather to assist the person skilled in the art in understanding the developmental process which led to the invention.
Spray nozzles have been described having a nozzle body extending from a fluid inlet end to a fluid outlet end. The interior of the nozzle body forms a housing defining a central bore extending through one or more counterbores and/or chambers. The nozzle body may receive a nozzle cap to retain the inserted devices. The nozzle cap may house various inserted flow modification devices, such as a swirl chamber, an orifice disc and the like.
In prior art devices, the outlet (the face proximal to the outlet) of an orifice disc has been described as abutting a landing defined by a peripheral flange of a nozzle cap extending radially inwardly towards the central bore axis. A flat washer compression seal can be provided between orifice disc and the nozzle cap. Such washer seals, however, do not provide for particularly reliable sealing at elevated pressures and temperatures. Particularly deleteriously, the flat seal may be squeezed out from its mating surfaces and, worse, may enter the material flow.
An O-ring seal groove arrangement has been described in which the groove is situated in a lower peripheral flange of the nozzle cap. This arrangement may conform to sealing gland dimension standards and provide satisfactory sealing between the orifice disc and nozzle cap. However, this arrangement requires that the wall thickness between be the base of the groove and the outer nozzle cap surface be reduced, taking into account other design constraints such as the need to provide an outer nozzle profile that does not impede the spray pattern emitted from the orifice disc. Accordingly, this arrangement compromises the mechanical strength of the nozzle cap peripheral flange, a critical structural element in a spray nozzle arrangement. In such arrangements, the nozzle cap has an O-ring groove and the orifice disc abuts the peripheral flange of the nozzle cap inboard of the O-ring groove. The outer periphery of the orifice disc is free and unsupported at the outer O-ring groove. The orifice disc outer diameter is smaller than the accommodating internal diameter of the nozzle body chamber housing same to provide clearance and facilitate service and removal of the orifice disc—the internal components and elements of the nozzle body may be gummed up by hard-dried or set flow material and suitable clearance in prior art arrangements between the orifice disc and the nozzle cap chamber is generally required. Furthermore, this arrangement provides little mechanical support for the compressive forces required to create an adequate seal face to face without gaps. The arrangement is therefore less than ideal for high pressure operations.
Accordingly, arrangements have been described in which an O-ring groove has not been included in the nozzle cap for the proper sealing of the parts and sealing member is simply provided in a compression arrangement in the manner of a flat washer or gasket. Instead a gap is included as a design feature between the orifice disc and the nozzle cap in the fully assembled spray nozzle. Such an arrangement is not suitable for high pressure applications.
Accordingly, an object of the invention is to overcome one or more of the disadvantages encountered in previously described spray nozzle arrangements or to at least provide a useful alternative thereto.


In a system for data processing by use of a processing language controlled by a job control program for coupling a file having at least one data item to a data set, a method of standardizing data items in an existing program stored in a storage and having a procedure part and a data definition part is disclosed. The names of two data items including the source and destination items of moving in the transfer designated in a plurality of data transfer instructions in an existing program are stored in the storage, and the equivalence number attached to the name of the transfer source item of each of the plurality of data transfer instructions is attached to the name of the transfer destination item. If a plurality of files assigned in the data definition part are defined in a single data set, the file equivalence number is attached to the plurality of files in the storage. The starting position and length of the data items are stored in the storage on the basis of the data length for the data item name in the data definition part, and the data item name is changed on the basis of the relative positions therebetween and the equivalence number thereof.

The present invention relates to a method of software standardization, or more in particular to a method of software standardization suitable for improving the efficiency of the maintenance work on a software that has already been developed, by unifying and standardizing the names and attributes of data items in the developed software.
Conventional effective methods of improving the efficiency of the program rewriting, maintenance, reuse and version-up work of a paperwork processing software that has already been developed, that is, the work of expanding the maintenance functions and reconstruction or shift to a new system include the one in which a developed software is converted into a standard form easy to maintain and reuse. Especially in reusing a paperwork processing software already developed, an effective approach is to standardize and unify the names and attributes of data items having the same contents used in the already-developed software.
A useful conventional system supporting this approach concerns a method proposed by the present inventors in U.S. Pat. No. 4,967,348 entitled "INTRA-PROGRAM DATA REPLACEMENT METHOD AND SYSTEM". According to this method, data items having the same contents in an existing software are detected by detecting the relationship of transfer between data items in the existing software. This is a superior method making it possible to support the whole series of work of detecting data items having the same contents, determining a standard data item and name, and replacing the names and attributes of data items in the program by the standard name and attribute, as necessary for standardizing the names and attributes of data items in an existing software.

Method of software standardization by unifying and standardizing the names and attributes of data items in developed software


The present invention relates to a communications apparatus and method, a storage medium and a program that make it possible for the user to select a device to be made a communications partner more quickly and reliably. The searcher device 21 performs a search so as to detect only one device. If the response message from the searchee device 32 is obtained by the searcher device 21, on the display section of the searcher device 21 is displayed a selection screen for selecting whether or not to make the searchee device 32 a communications partner. If the searchee device 32 is not selected as a communications partner, the searcher device 21 performs another search so as to detect two devices. If the searchee device 31 and the searchee device 32 are detected in the second search, the searcher device 21 excludes the searchee device 32, which was not selected as a communications partner in the previous search, and displays a selection screen for selecting whether or not to perform communications with the searchee device 31. The present invention is applicable to various kinds of communications apparatuses, such as personal computers, PDAs, mobile phones and the like.

In recent years, Bluetooth (registered trademark) is gaining attention as a means for short range wireless communications, and various enabled devices are developed and sold.
In Bluetooth communications, in starting communications, a search message for detecting devices existing in the vicinity is broadcast from a device (Bluetooth device) called a master, which controls communications, and a device which responds to that message is detected as a slave that is able to communicate with the master.
FIG. 1 is a diagram showing an example of device arrangement. In addition, FIG. 2 is a flow chart illustrating a search process performed by each of the devices in FIG. 1.
A searcher device 1 is, for example, a device that is in use by a user, and searchee devices 11 through 13 are devices that exist in the vicinity (within a range reachable by signals) of the searcher device 1.
In FIG. 1, if the user instructs the searcher device 1 to search for devices capable of communications, a search for devices existing within a predetermined range, with the searcher device 1 as the center, is performed.
In other words, in step S1 in FIG. 2, an inquiry packet, which is the search message, is broadcast by the searcher device 1, and that is received by the searchee devices 11 and 12 in steps S11 and S21, respectively. In addition, in FIG. 1, the search range of the searcher device 1 (the range reached by the signals used for transmitting the inquiry packet) is indicated with a circle in broken lines with the searcher device 1 as the center, and the searchee device 13 is outside thereof. Therefore, the inquiry packet broadcast by the searcher device 1 is not received by the searchee device 13.
In steps S12 and S22, the searchee devices 11 and 12, respectively, that received the inquiry packet transmit to the searcher device 11 a response message (FHS packet) with respect to the inquiry packet. Information, such as the Bluetooth device name, a Bluetooth address that is set as something unique to each Bluetooth device, a Bluetooth clock for achieving the synchronization of time slots for frequency hopping and the like, is included in this FHS packet.
In steps S2 and S3, the searcher device 1 receives the FHS packets transmitted from the searchee devices 11 and 12, presents the Bluetooth device names or the like included therein to the user and makes him select a device with which communications is to be established.
In other words, ordinarily, the user needs to select from a list of devices presented as existing in the vicinity a device with which communications is to be established.
As such, as a technology for automatically establishing communications and having the device itself specify a communications partner without making the user make such a selection, there is something like the one disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2001-156704 (hereinafter referred to as Patent Document 1).
In Patent Document 1, there is disclosed a technology where the intensity of signals transmitted from a plurality of devices detected through a search is each detected, and the device that transmits the signal with the highest intensity is specified as a communications partner device. Since a communications establishment process that ensues is performed automatically with the device that is specified as a communications partner, the user is able to establish communications with that device by merely bringing his own device closer to the device that is to be the communications partner.
However, with the technology disclosed in Patent Document 1, there is a problem in that since the device transmitting signals of the highest intensity is selected as a communications partner device, depending on objects in the surroundings that reflect radio waves or on communications characteristics of the detected devices, communications are sometimes initiated automatically with a device other than the device with which the user is trying to initiate communications.
In other words, the range and intensity of signals of each of the devices do vary to some extent, and it is not necessarily the case that the signal with the highest intensity would be received from the device at the closest location.

Communications device and method, recording medium, and program


There is provided a novel compound of the general formula I

The present invention relates to novel compounds of use in treatment of methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) infection in conjunction with β-lactam antibiotics.
S. aureus is one of the major causes of both nosocomial and community-acquired infections worldwide. The use and overuse of β-lactam agents and other antibiotics has resulted in intense selective pressure on bacterial populations and led to the emergence of multi-drug resistant bacteria that threaten our ability to treat serious infections, particularly in hospitals. Over the last 15 years there has been a steady rise in the incidence of methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA) and the latest figures from the PHLS Communicable Disease Surveillance Centre indicate that, in England and Wales, about 45% of S. aureus isolates are now resistant to this agent. Staphylococci show a strong tendency to accumulate antibiotic resistant genes and the majority of MRSA isolates are now resistant to a range of antibiotics. Ominously, MRSA strains carrying the enterococcal vanA gene complex and expressing high-level resistance to vancomycin have recently been identified in clinical specimens from two unrelated cases. The introduction of Synercid and Linezolid and the anticipation of a third agent with activity against MRSA (Daptomycin) supplements the anti-MRSA armamentarium but there remains an urgent need for new treatments for these infections, in particular agents that suppress or abrogate the emergence of resistance. We are examining the therapeutic potential of agents that do not directly kill the target bacterial population but modify them to produce a "less fit" phenotype with reduced capacity to survive at the site of infection. There are conceptual reasons to suppose that this approach will result in less selective pressure on the bacteria and delay the emergence of resistant genotypes.
Polyphenolic components extracted from Japanese green tea (Camellia sinensis) possessed a number of activities against methicillin resistant S. aureus (MRSA) (Yam, T. S. et al 1997; Yam, T. S. et al 1998; Stapleton, P. D. et al (2002)) in addition to weak direct antibacterial activity, extracts were able to suppress the activity of staphylococcal β-lactamases. In addition, at subinhibitory concentrations they were also able to sensitise MRSA strains to methicillin and other semi-synthetic β-lactam antibiotics; this effect was marked and reduced the Minimum Inhibitory Concentration (MIC) of test strains from full resistance to below the antibiotic break point.
Initial observations were made using aqueous extracts of green tea; partition chromatography was then used to fractionate the material (Yam, T. S. et al. 1997). Activity was confined to one fraction that was enriched for the compound epigallocatechin gallate ECg, an abundant polyphenolic component of green tea, but other constituents were present in small amounts.
Unfortunately, epicatechin gallate cannot be widely administered because it is broken down by esterases in the body to the inactive products, epicatechin and gallic acid (Kohri, T. et al, 2001).
It has been observed that MRSA grown in the presence of sub-inhibitory concentrations of tea extracts have thickened cell walls and form pseudomulticellular aggregates (Hamilton-Miller, J. M. T et al (1999)). Green tea administered as a spray has been successfully used in the treatment of an MRSA infection of the trachea (windpipe) (Yamashita, S. et al (2001)).
Stapleton et al. (2004) describe some investigations into the molecular mechanism of β-lactam sensitisation to establish a basis for the rational selection of pharmacologically acceptable molecules, investigated structure-activity relationships (SAR) to identify pharmacophores within active molecules. The capacity of catechins and gallates to modulate β-lactam resistance was evaluated by testing the compound at a fixed concentration in combination with oxacillin. Modulating activity was defined as a greater than two-fold reduction in the MIC of a β-lactam when tested in combination with a fixed sub-inhibitory concentration of the test compound. ECg converted MRSA strain BB568, which has a MIC of 256 mg/L for oxacillin, to the fully drug sensitive phenotype (1 mg/L) and below the breakpoint. EGCg reduced the MIC of BB568 to 8 mg/L; epicatechin (EC) and epigallocatechin (EGC), the two most abundant non-gallyl catechins in tea, were inactive in the combination assay. These compounds were tested against a comprehensive collection of 40 MRSA strains isolated from a variety of countries; epidemic MRSA strains from the UK were included. With all strains, ECg reduced the MIC values to the susceptibility breakpoint or below.
The physical properties of ECg and EGCg suggest these molecules have the capacity to intercalate into target membrane bilayers and perturb the function of key membrane-associated proteins in peptidoglycan synthesis, such as femA, femB and mecA gene products; it is highly likely that such an interaction would also reduce or prevent the transport of proteins not essential for cell viability across the bilayer. Japanese workers have shown that catechins are able to bind to artificial lipid bilayers (Nakayama, T. et al 1998, Hashimoto, T. et al 1999) and recent work (Kajiya, K. et al 2001 and Kajiya, K. et al 2002) shows that binding affinities appear to correlate with the bioactivity of catechins in our assay. Thus, ECg has a greater propensity to intercalate into the phospholipid palisade than EGCg, catechin or EC (Cartula, N. et al 2003). Binding has been shown to be dependent upon the number of hydroxyl groups on the B-ring catechins with two hydroxyl groups, such as ECg, have a greater membrane binding capacity than those with three hydroxyl groups, such as EGCg (Kajiya, K. et al 2001). The binding of ECg to liposomes is enhanced in the presence of EC (Kajiya, K. et al 2002).
Surprisingly, it has been found that intercalation of catechin gallates into the cytoplasmic membrane interferes with the export of proteins such as—toxin and coagulase and raises the possibility that the compounds may reduce the virulence of Gram-positive bacteria such as S. aureus at the site of infection and thus significantly contribute to their removal from the body by immune processes (Taylor, P. et al. 2004).

Compounds for use in the treatment of infection

Abstract: in which each of R8 to R10 is hydrogen, aryl, C1-6 alkyl, trialkylsilyl or acyl; R1 to R5 are individually selected from hydrogen, hydroxy, C1-6 alkoxy and acyloxy; R6 and R7 are H, C1-4 alkyl, trialkylsilyl or acyl; X is O or NR, and R is H or Me; in which any of the alkyl groups including alkyl groups in alkoxy, acyl and acyloxy groups may be substituted by aryl, C1-4 alkyl, C1-4 alkoxy, hydroxyl, trialkylsiloxy or acyloxy groups; with the proviso that R2 and R3 are not both OH when R4 is H or OH, R1 and R5 are both H, and X is O. The amide compounds (X is NR) are analogues of epigallocatechin gallate or epicatechin galate, with an amide bond in place of the natural ester bond, with resistance to hydrolysis by esterase enzymes. The ester compounds (X is O) have a different hydroxylation pattern on the B ring as compared to the natural products. The compounds may be used to modulate the resistance to β-lactam antibiotics of various infections, especially methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). Pharmaceutical compositions containing the novel compounds and combinations of the novel compounds and β-lactam antibiotics are described.

The University of London, School of Pharmacy


Disclosed is an apparatus, system, and method for postage stamp generation. The apparatus includes print module configured to print a customized image or text based stamp, and a communication module for receiving verification from a server. The apparatus may include a creation module for creating an image or text based stamp, and a selection module for selecting a stamp from a pre-approved selection of stamps. In one embodiment, the apparatus may comprise a personal computer configured for postage stamp generation. Alternatively, the apparatus may include handheld electronic devices, notebooks, or the like. The system may comprise the apparatus, a verification server, and a printer operatively coupled to the apparatus. The method comprises selecting or creating a stamp, sending the stamp to the server for verification, receiving verification, previewing the stamp, purchasing the stamp, and printing the stamp.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to postage stamp generation and more particularly relates to systems and methods for remotely selecting or creating customized postage stamps.
2. Description of the Related Art
For over 150 years postage stamps have been the primary currency of the United States Postal Service. Little has changed the way in which letters are sent and received in the United States. In the 1920's metered mail was introduced for businesses. For the next seventy years there was little innovation for the stamp. However, in the late 1990's the United States Postal Service approved the first "e-stamp" or electronic stamp that enabled a user to purchase postage over the internet.
The electronic stamp appears very similar to a metered stamp, and is generally nothing more than an encrypted barcode. While this may be suitable for the business customer, individual customers desire to personalize letters and envelopes and for this reason the United States Postal Service offers a wide range of image based stamps.
However, despite the large selection of stamps available today, it has been found that there is a larger demand for variety. For example, businesses desire to use their logo as postage, and individuals would like to use their own images on a stamp. Therefore, there is a need for an apparatus, system, and/or method that enables a customer to create a customized stamp that employs a personal image, special text, or company logo. Additionally, there is a need for the apparatus, system and/or method to validate the customized stamp as a proper legal tender for the United States Postal Service.

Apparatus, system, and method for postage stamp generating


Sticky high water content gelled fire extinguisher compositions hold the antage of providing a high water content, slightly viscous (sticky) gel with flow properties similar to water. The ability of this material to stick to burning surfaces is what sets it apart from water extinguishers. Not only are fires extinguished, but also surfaces are cooled by the sticky gel as the water evaporates. The basic gelled fire extinguisher composition is comprised of about 88 weight percent water and about 12 weight percent of a 7 nanometer particle size silicon dioxide gellant. The silicon dioxide gellant is available as EH5 tradename by Cabot for this silicon dioxide gellant. Other ingredients such as dispersants, wetting agents and flame retardants can be used as additives in combination with the gelling agent. The actual gel system is inexpensive, made from readily available ingredients and easily prepared.

The Army has sticky napalm gasoline/gellant/detergent fuel for flame-throwers and fire bombs. The "napalm gasoline gel" functions as fire setting/spreading. A similar concept can be used (military/civilian use technology) for improved extinguisher material compositions based on a high water content coolant, sticky gellant, tri-sodium phosphate dispersant, wetting agent, flame retardant composition. This fire retardant material can be sprayed and would stick to burning or flammable surfaces or personnel and extinguish or retard fire spreading. This material would also be inexpensive, non-toxic, readily available and easily prepared.
A commonly assigned U.S. Pat. No. 4,008,170, titled: "Dry Water", was issued to Barry D. Allan on Feb. 15, 1977. This patent discloses a submicroscopic particulate silica having a particle size range from about 15-20 m.mu. that is prepared in a hot gaseous environment at about 1100.degree. C. by the vapor phase hydrolysis of a silicon compound. This product is reacted with liquid water in a ratio in weight percent of about 1 part water to about water to about 9 parts water to 1 part of the particulate silica to yield a powdered product which remains flowable over a wide temperature, even when cooled to an extremely low temperature of -196.degree. C. The adsorbed water is liberated on heating the powdered product. The powdered product with adsorbed water, up to 90 weight percent, has utility as a coolant by liberating water on heating. The powdered product is useful as moisture source for miscellaneous purposes over a wide temperature range. The described product, which is known as "dry water", remains flowable over a wide temperature; hence, the term "dry water" is fitting to the properties of the patented product.
An object of this invention is to provide a sticky high water content gel for extinguishers.
A further object of this invention is to provide a sticky high water content gel fire retardant material which can be sprayed and would stick to burning or flammable surfaces or personnel and extinguish or retard fire spreading.
Still another object of this invention is to provide a sticky gel system which can be made from inexpensive and readily available non-toxic materials and which is easily prepared.

Sticky high water content gels for extinguishers

The United States of America as represented by the Secretary of the Army


When download operations get started in unison in conformity to RSS metafile delivery time-and-date information, the traffic is temporarily concentrated to a server, resulting in the risk of a system failure or else. In addition, it is inevitable to periodically check whether an RSS file on Web server is updated or not; so, users must delete update-unnecessary RSS files from those objects to be monitored. In view of this, the periodical update check timing of download control information is dispersed, thereby scattering download requests to the server. The download control information is provided with the information indicating whether such download control information is put under update management and/or expire time-and-date information in case the update management is to be done, whereby an information processing apparatus performs, based on the information, erase processing of the download control information when the download processing is completed.

Regarding the above-noted technical field, Patent Document 1, for example, is aimed at a challenge for "enabling an information distributor to continuously perform information delivery to registered users" and contains a written description as to the solution means thereof, which reads as follows: "An information delivery system comprises a transmission site 30 which transmits delivery information containing therein date information that is written in a specified format, an information delivery server 20 capable of acquiring the delivery information from each transmission site 30, and an information terminal 10 which acquires delivery information from the information delivery server 20. The information terminal 10 has a display means 14 capable of displaying a calendar browser 40 that displays delivery information in a calendar-like form, a mark generation means 16 which extracts date information from the delivery information acquired from the information delivery server 20 and which displays an information mark 47 indicative of the arrival of delivery information in a corresponding data column of the calendar browser 40 corresponding to the date information, and a display changeover means 17 which is responsive to selection of the date column with the information mark 47 being displayed, for switching to a content display screen that displays the contents of the delivery information as included in such selected date column. Thus provided is a contents delivery system capable of promptly delivering only high-necessity contents by taking account of the degree of necessity of a user on a per-content basis."
Patent Document 1: JP-A-2006-350746.


A stereo signal encoding method includes obtaining indication information of an encoding mode of a residual signal of a current frame, where the indication information includes at least one of an encoding status of a residual signal of a previous frame, a value of an updating manner flag for a long-term smooth parameter of the current frame, or a value of a status change parameter of the current frame relative to a stereo signal of the previous frame, and determining the encoding mode of the residual signal of the current frame based on the indication information of the encoding mode of the residual signal of the current frame, where the encoding mode indicates whether to encode the residual signal of the current frame.

As quality of life is improved, a requirement for high-quality audio is constantly increased. Compared with mono audio, stereo audio has a sense of orientation and a sense of distribution for each acoustic source, and can improve clarity, intelligibility, and a sense of presence of information. Therefore, the stereo audio is highly favored by people.
Parameter stereo encoding and decoding technologies are usually used to encode a stereo signal. The parameter stereo encoding and decoding technologies are common stereo encoding and decoding technologies in which a stereo signal is transformed to a spatial sensing parameter and a channel of signal, or a stereo signal is transformed to a spatial sensing parameter and two channels of signals, to implement compression processing on a multi-channel signal.
However, in an existing parameter stereo encoding algorithm, generally, only a stereo parameter and a downmixed signal are encoded, but a residual signal is not encoded, or a downmixed signal is encoded, and residual signals of corresponding sub-bands in a preset bandwidth range are uniformly encoded. If the residual signal is not encoded, a spatial sense of the decoded stereo signal is relatively poor, and audio-video stability is greatly how accurately a stereo parameter is extracted. However, if the residual signals of the corresponding sub-bands in the preset bandwidth range are uniformly encoded, some signals with more abundant high-frequency information are generated. Because a sufficient quantity of bits cannot be allocated to encode a downmixed signal, high-frequency distortion of a decoded stereo signal becomes large, which reduces overall quality of the encoding.

Stereo signal encoding method and apparatus


Described is a system and methods for multiple tier distribution of task portions for distributed processing. Essentially, a task is divided into portions by a first computer and a task portion transferred to second participatory computer on the network, whereupon an allocated task portion is again portioned by the second computer into subtask portions, and a subtask portion transferred by the second computer to a third participatory computer on the network, whereby distributed processing transpires, and results collated as required.

1. Field of the Invention
The relevant technical field is computer software, specifically distributed processing in a networked environment.
2. Description of the Related Art
Including Information Disclosed Under 37 CFR 1.97 and 1.98
In what is not ironically called a "network effect", the advantage of distributed processing is positively correlated to availability of powerful computers in a networked environment. This trend is especially encouraged by always-on broadband connection to the ultimate wide-area network: the Internet.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,192,388 details "detecting available computers to participate in computationally complex distributed processing problems", and switching an allocated task portion to a different computer if the one first assigned the task portion becomes occupied. U.S. Pat. No. 6,192,388 also describes some of the resource factors involved in determining whether to allocate a task portion to a computer.
With some content overlap to the earlier-filed U.S. Pat. No. 6,192,388, U.S. Pat. No. 6,112,225 describes a "task distribution processing system and the method for subscribing computers to perform computing tasks during idle time", and goes into detail as to various ways of specifying "idle time". Both U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,192,388 and 6,112,225, incorporated herein by reference, use the same computer for allocating, monitoring and re-allocating task portions.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,263,358 describes sophisticated regimes of scheduling of distributed processing tasks using software agents. In the face of schedule slippage, such a system relies upon coordination among multiple agents to work effectively.

Distributed processing multiple tier task allocation


Excitation light is irradiated onto a GaN layer on a silicon carbide substrate constituting a layered product that is set on a stage. Then light is emitted from a defective part caused by a structural defect of the silicon carbide substrate out of the GaN layer. By using this light luminescence phenomena, a position of a defective part of the silicon carbide substrate can be detected.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a substrate inspection method and substrate inspection device that are suitable for use in a silicon carbide (SiC) substrate constituting a nitride semiconductor device, and a method of manufacturing the nitride semiconductor device and an apparatus for manufacturing for the nitride semiconductor device using the substrate inspection method and the substrate inspection device.
2. Description of Related Art
At the moment, research on nitride semiconductors is actively progressing in the fields of optical devices and electronic devices because of advantages in physical characteristics.
In particular, in the electronic device field, the development of high electron mobility transistors (hereafter called "HEMT") using nitride semiconductors is now in progress.
In the case of nitride semiconductor crystals, growing bulk single crystals is difficult because vapor pressure is high, so metal-organic chemical vapor deposition (hereafter called MOCVD) is widely used.
The MOCVD method is an epitaxial growth technology for forming a desired crystal layer on a substrate by sequentially supplying predetermined material gas onto the substrate under high temperature.
Recently in the electronic device field, a silicon carbide substrate (hereafter also called SiC substrate) is receiving attention. This is because the thermal conductivity of SiC is high, about 7-9 times the thermal conductivity of sapphire (Al2O3), which is generally used as the substrate material.
So now the technical development of HEMT, which can be obtained by growing nitride semiconductor crystals on the SiC substrate by the MOCVD method, and which has superb high frequency characteristics and high output characteristics, is on-going.
For example, according to the "Video Enhance System SMR-100" catalog from Nikon (as of August, 1994), the visual inspection of a manufactured HEMT can be performed by optical microscopic images.
However depositing a nitride semiconductor thin film on the SiC substrate by the abovementioned MOCVD method has the following problems.
First, in the SiC substrate as a crystal substrate, holes called micro-pipes, which penetrate from the front to the back of the substrate, exist as structural defects. The diameter of a micro-pipe differs depending on the growth conditions of single crystals, but is several μm to several tens μm in some cases.
Therefore if the film thickness of the nitride semiconductor thin film grown on the SiC substrate is normally 2 μm-3 μm, a part of the micro-pipes remain as defects after the thin film is grown.
In other words, the structural defects of the SiC substrate causes the generation of defects in the nitride semiconductor thin film on this substrate (this is called defect propagation).
Also in the SiC substrate, various structural defects exist in some cases, other than the abovementioned micro-pipes, such as macro defects (e.g. voids, grain boundaries), dislocations (e.g. spirals, blades, mosaics) and surface defects (surface polishing scratches, surface roughness). In these cases as well, a defect is propagated into the nitride semiconductor thin film deposited thereon.
HEMT, which has an SiC substrate with such structural defects, causes operation failures, which drops the reliability as a device.
However the inspection by the system shown in the abovementioned document is not the detection of structural defects but is merely a visual inspection for observing the surface of the device and dimensional errors, and it is impossible to inspect the quality of the device by detecting the abovementioned structural defects.
With the foregoing in view, it is an object of the present invention to provide a substrate inspection method and a substrate inspection device that can detect the structural defects generated inside the substrate, and a manufacturing method for a nitride semiconductor device and a manufacturing device for a nitride semiconductor device which use this substrate inspection method and substrate inspection device.

Method of manufacturing nitride semiconductor device including SiC substrate and apparatus for manufacturing nitride semiconductor device


This invention describes a cartridge pump and dispensing assembly for applications where cartridges containing liquid reagents are interchanged often. The cartridge pump comprises a reagent reservoir which directly empties into a metering chamber. A valve is at each end of the metering chamber. The two valves are aligned in the same direction so as to allow unidirectional liquid flow. The metering chamber is made of a compressible material, such as flexible tubing, so that when an external compression is applied to the chamber, the liquid contained therein is forcibly expelled. As the compression is removed, the metering chamber resumes its former shape and draws liquid into the chamber from the reagent reservoir. A dispensing assembly with electromechanical actuators for compression of the metering chamber and a means for sensing the amount of liquid contained within the reagent reservoir are also shown.

This invention relates to a pump mechanism for dispensing small aliquots of a fluid, such as a biological reagent. It may serve as part of an apparatus which dispenses a plurality of reagents to be dispensed in small volumes.
Current methods for dispensing reagents generally use pumps which require the priming of tubing lines leading into and out of a pump. When the pumping is finished, the tubing lines must be flushed before a different reagent can be pumped, lest cross-contamination of reagents occur. Because of the need for priming and clearing tubing lines, such types of pumps are not easily interchangeable.
Pumping systems using a syringe housing ("syringe pumps") are well known to those in the field. The syringe is first filled with a liquid. The liquid can then be accurately dispensed by applying a precise pressure on the plunger, usually by an electromechanical actuator. The distance that the plunger is depressed directly controls the amount of fluid to be dispensed. Such syringe pumps have two advantages: 1) the absence of tubing lines leading into and out of a pump which must be primed and flushed, and 2) a separation of the wetted components from the electromechanical controlling elements.
Such syringe pumps are useful in situations where repetitive dispensing of precise amounts of liquid are required. A drawback of such syringe pumps is that interchanging syringes on a single electromechanical actuator requires that the actuator mechanism be realigned with the position of the syringe plunger that is being inserted. In circumstances where the syringes need to be changed often in order to change the dispensed reagent, the need for repetitive manual intervention to align the electromechanical actuator with the position of the syringe plunger is a disadvantage. This disadvantage will be more acutely felt in a dispensing instrument with many electromechanical actuators.

Dispensing assembly with interchangeable cartridge pumps