A structure of a vertically movable powered headrest, in which the headrest is moved vertically relative to a seat back by means of threaded engagement mechanism arranged between the guide member and headrest stay, which mechanism is provided in the headrest and the stay is operatively connected to a motor provided in the seat back. The structure can be applied to the headrest fore-and-aft drive mechanism without complicated fittings.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a headrest of an automotive seat, and particularly to a structure of a powered headrest of a vertically movable type which is provided on the top of seat back of the seat and operable by a motor to raise or lower the headrest body.
2. Description of Prior Art
Typically, a headrest is provided via a pair of stays upon the seat back of an automotive seat or the like. Also known is a powered headrest of a vertically movable type wherein the headrest body may be moved under a motor drive control in a vertical direction relative to the seat back. Basically, its structure uses normally a DC geared motor and a motor drive control system based on a switch operation, thus enabling a user to adjust the headrest body to an optimum height for his or her head position by operation of switches.
In this sort of powered headrest, best known is the one of type wherein a motor is mounted within the headrest body. This has however involved such problem that the weight of headrest body is increased due to its having a motor therein, and the motor is not easy to be installed in the small inner space of headrest body. The outcome will be that the increased weight of headrest body means an increase of inert force in fore-and-aft direction in such a case of collision, which will deform and break the securing portion of motor and headrest stays, and that the installation of motor in the small space of headrest body makes more complicated the inside structure of the headrest body and requires troublesome steps of installing the motor therein, resulting in an obstacle for speed-up in the assemblage.
To address such problem, there has been known a headrest structure wherein the motor is installed in the seat back and operatively connected to the headrest body through a suitable mechanism which is arranged in both seat back and headrest body.
Yet, when it comes to the application of this vertically movable headrest structure to a fore-and-aft movable headrest mechanism, another problem arises in the complexity of mechanic elements in the seat back. That is, in the fore-and-aft movable headrest mechanism, a shaft is rotatably journalled within the seat back and rotated by a drive mechanism in the forward and backward directions, and upon that shaft, the headrest stays are fixed, so that the headrest body may be rotated forwardly and backwardly relative to the seat back. Its purpose is for providing a vision field widening effect; namely, when the headrest is rotated forwardly down to a headrest non-use position at the seat back, an occupant on the other seat can widen his or her vision field at the upper end of seat back where the headrest has been rotated at the non-use position. However, this ordinary conventional arrangement will make greater the scale of associated mechanic elements and make more complicated their mechanisms, thus resulting in posing a technical difficulty in materializing the forward and backward motions in the present vertically-movable powered headrest structure.

Structure of a vertically movable powered headrest


A lightweight and compact super-insulation system that is also capable of supporting a high level of compressive load. The system utilizes spacers to provide structural support and utilize controlled buckling of a thin protective outer skin supported by spacers to form strong catenary surfaces to protect insulation material underneath. The spacers may comprise an aerogel, or an aerogel may provide insulation separate from the spacer yet contained within the thin outer skin.

In deep- and ultra-deep-water oil and gas exploration, crude oil or gas is extracted from below the sea floor via a pipeline system to the water surface. It is important to maintain the temperature of the hot crude oil or gas flowing in the pipe above about 30–50° C. depending on the composition of the hydrocarbons (e.g., crude oil or natural gas). Maintaining a temperature in this range prevents flow restrictions or clogging due to formation of hydrates or wax, which can occur via cooling of the crude oil or gas by cold water as the hydrocarbons flow from the underwater well to the production plant on the surface. Also, if the well must be capped for maintenance or due to inclement weather, it is highly desired to keep the temperature of the hydrocarbon inside the pipe and other parts of the pipeline systems (e.g., a Christmas tree or subsea tree, risers, etc.) above precipitation temperature for as long as possible to minimize or avoid expensive and time-consuming de-clogging processes before resuming the pumping operation.
These are the so-called flow assurance requirements for the underwater pipe-in-pipe configuration. The pipe-in-pipe configuration has been the traditional method of choice to satisfy the flow assurance requirements of the deep-water exploration. The configuration uses two thick concentric pipes; i.e., the inner pipe (flow line or flow pipe) and the outer pipe (carrier pipe). The flow line carries the hydrocarbon coming out of the well at high temperature (e.g., 60–300° C.) and at high pressure [e.g., up to about 70 MPa (10,000 psi)]. The carrier pipe is designed (independent of the flow line) to withstand the external hydrostatic pressure that proportionately increases with depth [e.g., about 28 MPa (4000 psi) at 2800 m].
In the annulus between the two pipes, split-ring spacers (also referred to as "centralizers"), which are made of a material having relatively low conductivity (e.g., a polyamide), are installed at regular intervals (e.g., at 1.2-m intervals). The spacers act as a guide during the insertion of the inner pipe into the outer pipe; each pipe can be 1 or 2 km in length.
The spacers are also designed to help maintain the annular gap between the two concentric pipes when the pipe-in-pipe apparatus is bent for winding onto a spool or when it bends after installation. In the annular gap between the spacers, insulation material is wrapped around the flow line. The insulation material can be, e.g., a urethane foam having a thermal conductivity of 24 mW/m-K and higher or a fumed silica product packaged in vacuum with thermal conductivity of 21 mW/m-K.
In some locales, the temperature of the crude oil coming out of the well is only 60° C., which is not very hot, as is the case off the coast of Angola. As a consequence of this relatively low temperature, a much higher level of insulation is needed to prevent hydrate formation due to cool down. Also, as the recoverable oil and gas deposits in the shallow sea bottom are exhausted, the wells will be drilled in increasingly deeper waters. The current pipe-in-pipe design, while acceptable down to a depth of 1000 m, meets severe obstacles when the underwater field gets much deeper than 1000 m, as described below.
As the well depth increases, the following obstacles and technical issues have to be overcome. As a starting point, the characteristics of hydrocarbons become more prone to forming wax or hydrates. Additionally, since the distances between the deeper wells and the production plant on the surface platform are significantly increased, the overall-heat-transfer (OHT) value of the pipe-in-pipe apparatus must ordinarily be reduced to very low values, such as 0.5 W/m2-° C. with a transient cooling requirement of less than 30° C. in 16 hours, to prevent over-cooling of the recovered hydrocarbons. Providing a pipe-in-pipe apparatus with this very-low OHT value would ordinarily necessitate significantly increasing the thickness of insulation, which in turn would increase the inner diameter of the carrier pipe needed to accommodate the additional insulation contained within the carrier pipe.
As the inner diameter of the carrier pipe increases, the carrier-pipe wall thickness that is needed to withstand a fixed external pressure in this context increases as an approximately proportional function of the increase in the outer diameter of the carrier pipe. Moreover, as the depth increases, the external pressure acting upon the carrier pipe increases as a linear function of the depth. For each 10.33 m of water depth, pressure increases by 1 atm (100 kPa). At 2500 m, the hydrostatic pressure reaches about 25 Mpa (3560 psi). The thickness of the carrier pipe wall is increased approximately proportionally with an increase in the hydrostatic pressure for a given inner radius. Therefore, the carrier pipe wall is fabricated with increasing thickness as the pressure for the intended usage is increased, which causes further increase in the outer diameter of the carrier pipe as the intended usage depth increases.
As the carrier pipe gets larger in diameter and in thickness, the following disadvantages result. First, the weight of the pipe-in-pipe apparatus increases sharply, increasing approximately proportionally with the square of the wall thickness and linearly with the mean diameter. Second, the material cost increases as the amount of steel and insulation increases. Third, additional labor and heavier equipment is needed to produce the pipe-in-pipe apparatus. Fourth, heavier equipment is needed to wind the pipe-in-pipe apparatus onto a spool and also to install the pipe-in-pipe apparatus; the equipment that is currently used may need to be reinforced and strengthened (at a significant level of capital expenditure) to handle the much heavier pipes that would be required for depths of 2500 m and deeper. Fifth, the submerged weight of the pipes can become too heavy for the currently used derricks or ships to handle the load and keep it stable in rough seas; the excess weight of the pipes accordingly necessitates building larger derricks, ships and larger buoyancy tanks at increased costs and decreased stability in the rough waters. Finally, the ship must make more trips to transport the necessary pipe lengths.
The current pipe-in-pipe manufacturing operation is extremely labor intensive and therefore costly. The pipes used for flow lines and carrier pipes generally come in 12-m (40-ft) lengths from the supplier. At the factory, the 12-m long pipes are first welded together into 1- or 2-km long sections of the outer carrier pipe. Section by section, polyamide spacers (centralizers) are installed onto the inner flow-line sections and thermal insulation is wrapped around the flow-line sections between the centralizers. After each flow-line section is insulated and secured by strapping with tapes, that section will be pushed into a waiting carrier pipe. The next section of the flow line is welded to the section to be inserted into the carrier pipe. The centralizers help guide the flow line during insertion into the carrier pipe. This process continues until the full length of the 1-km or 2-km pipe-in-pipe apparatus is assembled. The processes of welding the pipes and installing the centralizer and thermal insulation occur in stop-and-start fashion and require substantial manual labor and time.
In an alternative method currently used, the entire 1- or 2-km sections of the flow line and the carrier pipe are welded separately. Then, the entire length of the flow line is fitted with centralizer rings at regular intervals and with thermal insulation between the centralizers, and covered and fastened in place with tapes. The completed insulated flow line is then carefully inserted into the waiting carrier pipe relying on the centralizers to maintain the annular gap and thus protect the insulation during the insertion operation.
For the reasons discussed above, when the depth increases significantly for the underwater pipeline, it will become more economically and logistically unacceptable to continue to use the current design of pipe-in-pipe apparatus, insulation material, and manufacturing process. Both manufacturing methods described above represent the state-of-the art pipe-in-pipe manufacturing process and are very labor intensive, costly and slow.
In one recent pipe-in-pipe design, the inner flow line is covered with non-load-bearing insulation protected by a carrier pipe made of Glass Reinforced Plastic (GRP). The GRP pipe is connected mechanically to the flow line at both ends of a 12-m long pipe section using mechanical joints comprising a load-bearing polymeric material able to guarantee the thermal and mechanical performances. A relatively high-performance, but non-load-bearing insulating material with thermal conductivity of approximately 21 mW/m-K fills the annular space between the flow line and carrier pipe and provides the required thermal performances. The authors describe how much lighter this new pipe would be compared to the current pipe-in-pipe design and how much more conveniently the pipe could be produced in an automated process. Although the submerged weight of this new configuration may be less than that of a conventional pipe-in-pipe apparatus designed for the same operating conditions, the ability of the fiberglass to withstand the seawater conditions on a long-term basis is unproven, and the outer layer remains extremely thick. Therefore, the GRP pipe may not have the necessary bending flexibility, and, as a consequence, additional trips may be needed to carry the larger diameter pipes to installation sites.
In the conventional pipe-in-pipe design and also in the GRP pipe-in-pipe design, described above, the inner pipe is designed to withstand the usually high inner pressure [e.g., 70 Mpa (10,000 psi)], and the outer pipe is designed to independently withstand the external crushing pressure [15 Mpa (2170 psi) at 1.5 km (5000 ft) and 30 Mpa (4340 psi) at 3 km (10,000 ft)].

Load-bearing, lightweight, and compact super-insulation system


A blade for a turbomachine includes a blade root portion for securing the blade to a rotatable annular outer drum rotor. The blade root portion includes one or more radial retention features for radially retaining each of the blade root portions within the rotatable annular outer drum rotor. Further, at least one of the radial retention feature(s) includes at least one sealing member integrated therewith.

Gas turbine engines generally include a turbine section downstream of a combustion section that is rotatable with a compressor section to rotate and operate the gas turbine engine to generate power, such as propulsive thrust. General gas turbine engine design criteria often include conflicting criteria that must be balanced or compromised, including increasing fuel efficiency, operational efficiency, and/or power output while maintaining or reducing weight, part count, and/or packaging (i.e. axial and/or radial dimensions of the engine).
Gas turbine engines generally include a plurality of rotating rotor blades in at least one of a compressor of the compressor section or a turbine of the turbine section. Moreover, at least certain gas turbine engines also include a plurality of counter-rotating rotor blades in at least one of the compressor of the compressor section or the turbine of the turbine section. Common rotating blades are assembled and retained internally by a disk, e.g. by means of the blade root, dovetail or fir tree shaped or with a third part as a rivet or a bolted joint. The disk is typically located internally respect to the blade row. Blades retained within the rotatable annular outer drum rotor are similarly attached to a rotating part, but externally. As such, the outer drum rotor generally includes a drum, the blades, and separate rotating shrouds.
For example, as shown in FIG. 1, a cross-sectional view of a counter-rotating blade 1 according to conventional construction is illustrated. As shown, the blade 1 includes a blade root portion 2 for securing to a drum rotor 3. In addition, as shown, a separate rotating shroud 4 may be attached to the drum rotor 3 for further securing the blade root portion within the drum rotor 3. In certain instances, a separate sealing member 5 may be attached to the rotating shroud 4 to prevent undesirable air flow purge from entering the external cavities of the gas turbine engine, thereby limiting the loss of engine performance. In addition, the sealing member 5 may act as a thermal barrier, thereby providing thermal protection to the drum rotor 3.
Notwithstanding the aforementioned, there is a continuing need for improved features associated with the blades retained within the drum rotor so as to improve operation efficiency of the gas turbine engine. Accordingly, the present disclosure is directed to an integrated sealing member for blades retained within a routable annular outer drum rotor of a turbomachine.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Integral sealing members for blades retained within a rotatable annular outer drum rotor in a turbomachine


The present invention provides a crane where a spreader retainer is disposed on a rear surface of an extreme end of the lowest boom portion used both for a tower boom and a normal boom, a distance between an upper spreader, which constitutes a boom raising/lowering apparatus, and a lower spreader at the maximum boom raise angle and the length of the lowest boom portion are set such that the upper spreader can be lowered to the position of the spreader retainer if the boom raising/lowering apparatus lays the boom on the ground, and a boom raising/lowering rope is then loosened for disassembly of either the tower or normal boom. Consequently, the upper spreader can be lowered to the position of the spreader retainer on the lowest boom portion when the boom is disassembled either for the tower crane or normal crane specification.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a crane whose lowest boom of a boom can be used both for a tower crane and a normal crane.
2. Description of the Related Art
In general, in a crane whose lowest boom portion of the boom which consists of several boom portions is used both for the tower crane and the standard crane (hereinafter usually referred to as a normal crane), the respective minimum distances between spreaders (distance between upper and lower spreaders) Sa and Sb are determined when the boom is raised maximally while the tower crane is considered as a standard, and the distances Sa and Sb are set approximately equal both for the cranes.
However, the maximum boom raise angle of the boom depends on the respective cranes, and thus, the distance is longer for the tower crane, and shorter for the normal crane when the boom is laid on the ground.
Consequently, if an upper spreader is lowered on a rear surface of the boom, the spreader is lowered on a second boom exceeding beyond the lowest boom.
As a result, when the boom is disassembled for the tower crane, it is necessary to relocate the upper spreader which has bee lowered on the second boom to a spreader retainer of the lowest boom.
In addition, when the boom is assembled, it is necessary to relocate the upper spreader from the spreader retainer to a position on the second boom where a boom guyline can be connected.
For the relocation of the upper spreader, there are required employment of another crane, maintenance of a boom raising/lowering rope at a proper tension at the same time, and the like, and this operation is thus very troublesome. Consequently, overall work efficiency of the assembly/disassembly of the boom decreases.


A system and method are disclosed for charging battery packs. A battery pack connects to an external battery charger. A processor of the battery pack recognizes that the processor is connected the external battery charger. The external battery charger provides charging parameters to the battery pack. The processor sends charging parameters to the external battery in response to recognizing that the processor is connected to the external battery charger.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a system for charging battery cells used in portable electronic equipment and, in particular, to a charging system including a charger having a simplified structure for a battery pack including a processor.
2. Description of the Related Art
Lithium-ion batteries and nickel-hydride batteries, which have high energy densities, are often used in laptop personal computers (hereinafter referred to as laptop PCs), which are typical portable electronic equipment, because the laptop PCs require higher central processing unit (CPU) operating frequencies, longer operating times in mobile environments, and smaller sizes and lighter weights. To charge and discharge these batteries, recharge and discharge currents and voltages must be precisely controlled. Therefore, rather than conventional battery packs having only battery cells in a housing, battery systems called "smart batteries" are commonly used in which a microcomputer provided in the battery pack itself communicates with a laptop PC to exchange information while controlling charge and discharge.
Smart batteries are battery systems that are compliant with specifications called the Smart Battery System (SBS) specification proposed by Intel Corporation and Duracell Inc. in the United States. The first version, version 0.9, of the SBS specification was disclosed in 1995 and the latest version is Version 1.1. The SBS specification's main aim was to unify methods for controlling charge and discharge, measuring capacities, and communicating with laptop PCs, which had been being developed by laptop PC manufacturers on their own, to enable a battery pack itself to perform control of charge and discharge suitable to the chemical composition of the battery pack, thereby relieving the laptop PC designers of recharge/discharge control design work. Battery packs compliant with the SBS specification are referred to herein intelligent batteries.
An intelligent battery includes battery cells, which are the main unit to be charged and discharged, and electric circuitry including a CPU, a current measurement circuit, a voltage measurement circuit, and sensors contained on a substrate. In addition, the intelligent battery communicates with an embedded controller provided in a laptop PC through a data line. The intelligent battery can cooperate with the laptop PC to change a power consumption mode of the laptop PC in accordance with the remaining capacity of the battery or to shut off the laptop PC after displaying a warning on a display if remaining capacity becomes small or some abnormality occurs on the battery.
Two types of intelligent battery chargers, Level 2 and Level 3, are defined in the section "4.2 Smart Battery Charger Types" of the SBS specification "Smart Battery Charger Specification" Revision 1.1, released Dec. 11, 1998. In the case of the Level 2 battery charger, the intelligent battery is a master device and the battery charger is a slave device following the directions of the intelligent battery. The intelligent battery sends information about a current and voltage required for charging to the battery charger through a data line. The battery charger outputs a current and voltage based on the information. The Level 3 battery charger has a charger master operation mode in which the battery charger is the master device and the intelligent battery is the slave device following the battery charger. The Level 3 battery charger also has the battery master mode of the Level 2 battery charger. In the charger master mode, the battery charger sends an inquiry about a current and voltage required for charging to the intelligent battery and outputs a current and voltage according to a replay to it.
While a laptop PC equipped with a battery pack is being supplied with power from an alternating current (AC) power source, the battery pack is concurrently charged through a battery charger contained in the laptop PC. The laptop PC can then be used in a mobile environment. A user using a laptop PC in a mobile environment for a long time must charge spare battery packs beforehand. This requires many external battery chargers and places an extra cost burden on the user.
FIG. 7 shows a basic configuration of a conventional charging system. FIG. 7(A) shows a conventional battery pack 10′ attached to a laptop PC 100 being supplied with power from an AC power source. An AC adapter 123 is connected to the AC power source through an AC cord 125, converts an AC voltage to a predetermined direct current (DC) voltage, and supplies power to the laptop PC 100 through a DC cable 127. Power supplied to the laptop PC 100 is used by a system load of the laptop PC 100 and also used for charging the battery pack 10′. FIG. 7(B) shows the battery pack 10′ attached to and charged by an external battery charger 50′. The same AC adapter 123 that is attached to the laptop PC 100 is connected to the battery charger 50′.
FIG. 8 shows in detail the conventional battery pack 10′ shown in FIG. 7(A) attached to the laptop PC 100. The battery pack 10′ is compliant with the SBS specifications. Provided in the battery pack 10′ are battery cells 11 and electronic components such as a microprocessor unit (MPU) 21, a depletion field effect transistor (D-FET) 17, a complementary field effect transistor (C-FET) 19, a voltage regulator 23, a thermistor 35, a current measurement circuit 13, and a voltage measurement circuit 15. The battery pack 10′ is connected to the laptop PC 100 through five terminals: a positive terminal 37, a C terminal 39, a D terminal 41, a T terminal 43, and a negative terminal 45. Power outputted from the battery cells 11 inside the battery pack 10′ is provided to the laptop PC 100 through the positive terminal 37 and the negative terminal 45. The C terminal 39 and the D terminal 41 are connected to a clock terminal and a data terminal of the MPU 21, respectively, and the T terminal is connected to the thermistor 35.
The MPU 21 is an integrated circuit that operates on a constant voltage provided through the voltage regulator 23. The MPU 21 may include a CPU of 8 to 16 bits or so, a RAM, a ROM, an analog input and output, a timer, and a digital input and output in one package. In addition, the MPU 21 may be capable of executing a program for controlling the battery pack 10′. The MPU 21 uses the current measurement circuit 13 and the voltage measurement circuit 15 to constantly monitor the current and voltage output from the battery 11 and controls the D-FET 17 for discharging of the battery 11 and the C-FET 19 for charging of the battery 11. From the MPU 21, a clock line and a data line lead to the embedded controller 115 of the laptop PC 100 through the C terminal 39 and D terminal 41, respectively, so that the MPU 21 can communicate with the embedded controller 115.
The resistance of the thermistor 35 changes in accordance with temperature. In one embodiment, the thermistor 35 is provided near the battery cells 11 and is connected to a voltage source Vcc through a pull-up resistance 121 of the laptop PC 100, thereby functioning as a temperature measurement circuit. An output from the thermistor 35 is input into the embedded controller 115 through the T terminal 43. The thermistor 35 is used for measuring the temperature of a battery.
The power management function of the laptop PC 100 is implemented by the embedded controller 115 together with a battery charger 117, a control line 119, a DC-DC converter 122, and an AC adapter 123. The embedded controller 115 is an integrated circuit that controls the power supply as well as many hardware components constituting the laptop PC 100. The embedded controller 115 obtains information about the present current value and voltage value of the battery 11 through communication with the MPU 21 and, on the basis of the information, controls the battery charger 117 through the control line 119 to control charging of the battery pack 10′.
Power supplied from the AC adapter 123 and the battery pack 10′ is provided to components in the laptop PC through the DC-DC converter 122. The embedded controller 155 is also connected onto an industry standard architecture (ISA) bus 113, from which the embedded controller 155 is interconnected with and can communicate with a CPU 101, a main memory 105, and other hardware components constituting the laptop PC 100 through connections, including a peripheral component interconnect (PCI) bus 109, a PCI-ISA bridge 111, a CPU bridge 107, and a front side (FS) bus 103. Most of the other hardware components comprising the laptop PC 100 such as a display, a magnetic disk, an optical disk, and a keyboard are well known and therefore not shown in FIG. 8.
FIG. 9 shows in detail the battery pack 10′ shown in FIG. 7(B) attached to an external battery charger 50′. The internal configuration of the battery pack 10′ is the same as that of the battery pack 10′ connected to the laptop PC 100 shown in FIG. 8. The battery charger 50′ includes an MPU 116, a switch (SW) 129, a voltage regulator 51, and a current regulator 53. The MPU 116 plays a roll equivalent to the embedded controller 115 of the laptop PC 100 during charging the battery pack 10′. The MPU 116 obtains charging information such as the present current and voltage of the battery 11 through communication with the MPU 21 and, on the basis of the information, controls the SW 129, the voltage regulator 51, and the current regulator 53 to control charging in a manner similar to that in the laptop PC 100.
The conventional external battery charger 50′ is capable of controlling charging of the battery pack 10′ in a manner similar to that used in the battery charger 117 incorporated in the laptop PC 100. However, such an external battery charger 50′ is costly because it uses an MPU 116. Therefore there is a demand for simplifying the structure of external battery chargers to reduce their costs.


The invention provides a microfabricated device for sorting cells based on a desired characteristic, for example, reporter-labeled cells can be sorted by the presence or level of reporter on the cells. The device includes a chip having a substrate into which is microfabricated at least one analysis unit. Each analysis unit includes a main channel, having a sample inlet channel, typically at one end, and a detection region along a portion of its length. Adjacent and downstream from the detection region, the main channel has a discrimination region or branch point leading to at least two branch channels. The analysis unit may further include additional inlet channels, detection points, branch points, and branch channels as desired. A stream containing cells is passed through the detection region, such that on average one cell occupies the detection region at a given time. The cells can be sorted into an appropriate branch channel based on the presence or amount of a detectable signal such as an optical signal, with or without stimulation, such as exposure to light in order to promote fluorescence.

This invention relates to a method and microfabricated device for sorting cells or particles by size, charge or other identifying characteristics, for example, characteristics that can be optically detected. The invention includes a fluorescence activated cell sorter (FACS), and methods for analyzing and sorting cells by measuring a signal produced by an optically-detectable (e.g., fluorescent, ultraviolet or color change) reporter associated with the cells. The methods and apparatus of the invention allow for high sensitivity, no cross-contamination, and lower cost than conventional FACS machines. In preferred embodiments, cell sorting is performed on a microfabricated chip with a detection volume of approximately 1 to 1,000,000 femtoliters (fl), preferably about 200 to 500 fl, and most preferably about 375 fl. Sorting occurs immediately after detection. In a particular embodiment, the inlet and collection wells are incorporated on the same chip.
Sorters of the invention can function as stand-alone devices or as components of integrated microanalytical chips, and can be disposable. Living cells with a distinguishing characteristic, such as E. coli cells expressing a fluorescent protein, can be efficiently separated from cells lacking this characteristic. Furthermore, the cells remain viable after being extracted from the sorting device. An advantage of the invention is that it can be applied to various aspects of chemical and biological studies, e.g., cell sorting, enzyme catalysis and molecular evolution (1).
The references cited herein are referred to numerically, and are appended in a Bibliography below. All of the references are incorporated herein in their entirety.
Harrison et al. (39) disclose a microfluidic device which manipulates and stops the flow of fluid through a microfabricated chip, so that a cell can be observed after it interacts with a chemical agent. The cells and the chemical agent are loaded into the device via two different inlet channels which intersect with a main flow path. The flow of the fluid is controlled by a pressure pump or by electric fields (electrophoretic or electro-osmotic) and can be stopped so that the cells can be observed, after they mix and interact with the chemical. The cells then pass through the main flow path, which terminates in a single common waste chamber. Harrison et al. do not provide a device or method for sorting cells, nor do they suggest or motivate one having ordinary skill in the art to make and use any such device. On the contrary, cells are mixed with chemicals, observed, and are discarded as waste.
Conventional flow cell sorters, such as FACS, are designed to have a flow chamber with a nozzle and use the principle of hydrodynamic focusing with sheath flow to separate or sort biological material such as cells (2–7). In addition, most sorting instruments combine the technology of ink-jet writing and the effect of gravity to achieve a high sorting rate of droplet generation and electrical charging (8–10). Despite these advances, many failures of these instruments are due to problems in the flow chamber. For example, orifice clogging, particle adsorption and contamination in the tubing may cause turbulent flow in the jet stream. These problems contribute to the great variation in illumination and detection in conventional FACS devices. Another major problem is known as sample carryover, which occurs when remnants of previous specimens left in the channel back-flush into the new sample stream during consecutive runs. A potentially more serious problem occurs when dyes remain on the tubing and the chamber, which may give false signals to the fluorescence detection or light scattering apparatus. Although such systems can be sterilized between runs, it is costly, time consuming, inefficient, and results in hours of machine down time for bleaching and sterilization procedures.
Similarly, each cell, as it passes through the orifice, may generate a different perturbation in response to droplet formation. Larger cells can possibly change the droplet size, non-spherical cells tend to align with the long axis parallel to the flow axis, and deformable cells may elongate in the direction of the flow (9, 10). This can result in some variation in the time from the analysis to the actual sorting event. Furthermore, a number of technical problems make it difficult to generate identically charged droplets, which increases deflection error. A charged droplet may cause the next droplet of the opposite polarity to have a reduced charge. On the other hand, if consecutive droplets are charged identically, then the first droplet might have a lower potential than the second droplets, and so on. Yet, charged droplets will have a defined trajectory only if they are charged identically. In addition, increasing droplet charges may cause mutual electrostatic repulsion between adjacent droplets, which also increases deflection error. Other factors, such as the very high cost for even modest conventional FACS equipment (on the order of $250,000), the high cost of maintenance, and the requirement for trained personnel to operate and maintain the equipment have been among the main considerations that hinder this technology and its widespread accessibility and use (10). Even though the field of flow cytometry has been extensively exploited in the development of cell sorting devices, significant problems persist and remain to be addressed. Thus, there is a need for improved methods and machines for cell sorting which are fast, efficient, cost-effective and disposable.


An accommodating space is formed on an end surface at a first axial end of a rear bracket so as to envelop an end portion region of a shaft, and a brush holder and a sensor unit are disposed in the accommodating space. A brush connector unit and a sensor connector unit are disposed so as to project out of the accommodating space, and electrical connection between brushes and the brush connector unit and signal connection between the sensor unit and the sensor connector unit are performed inside the accommodating space.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an automotive dynamoelectric machine having a rotor position detecting apparatus for detecting a rotation angle of a rotor.
2. Description of the Related Art
In conventional automotive dynamoelectric machines, a rotor position detecting apparatus is mounted to a tip portion of a shaft so as to be accommodated in and fixed to an accommodating portion formed on an outer peripheral surface of a rear bracket, and detects a rotation angle of a rotor. A brush apparatus is fixed to an inner wall surface of the rear bracket so as to face slip rings fixed to an outer peripheral surface of the shaft, and supplies a field current to a rotor coil in the rotor through the slip rings. (See Patent Literature 1, for example.)
Patent Literature 1: Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2003-061312 (Gazette)
In conventional automotive dynamoelectric machines, the brush apparatus, which is a resin-molded part, is disposed in the vicinity of a stator, which is a heat source, and heat degradation of the brush apparatus has been a problem.
In automotive dynamoelectric machines of this kind, a brush apparatus connector, which is a resin-molded part, is disposed so as to project radially outside the rear bracket from the brush apparatus, and a power line from an external power source is connected to the brush apparatus connector. Thus, this brush apparatus connector is disposed in the vicinity of the stator, which is a heat source, and heat degradation of the brush apparatus connector has also been a problem.


A user information management apparatus stores various types of user information on a user in a storage unit, causes a providing unit to provide a user with an access code used to access the user information on the user stored in the storage unit, and when receiving the access code from the facility device installed in a facility that provides a service, causes the transmitting unit to transmit the user information corresponding to the service provided by the facility having the facility device among the various types of the user information stored in the storage unit.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a user information management apparatus and a user information management method.
2. Description of the Related Art
In stores that provide services, in some cases, it is verified whether a user who uses the provided services is eligible to receive the services. For example, a store that sells alcohol or tobacco verifies whether a user is 20 years of age or older by checking a user's identification card, such as a driver's license, when selling the alcohol or tobacco.
As a related technology, a technology has been proposed in which certification information stored in a mobile terminal is transmitted from an in-vehicle device to a server, and if a certificate authority confirms the owner of a vehicle associated with the certification information, the lock on the vehicle is released (for example, Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 2002-96715).
However, when the user presents the identification card, unnecessary information may be leaked. For example, when the user presents the driver's license to a store staff to confirm the age, the store staff may also see the address written on the driver's license.

User information management apparatus and user information management method


A developer amount detector to detect an amount of developer inside a developer container includes a light-emitting element; a light-receiving element; a first light guide including a first end disposed to face the light-emitting element and a second end disposed inside the developer container, covered with a translucent cover including a light-emitting face; a second light guide including a first end disposed to face the light-receiving element, a second end disposed inside the developer container, covered with a translucent cover including a light-receiving face to face the light-emitting face across a gap; and a cleaner including a sliding portion to slidingly contact the light-emitting face and the light-receiving face. The cover of each of the first and second light guides includes a material lower in chargeability with the sliding portion than a material of a body of each of the first and second light guides.

1. Technical Field
Embodiments of the present invention generally relate to a developer amount detector, a developing device, a process unit, and an image forming apparatus, such as a copier, a printer, a facsimile machine, or a multifunction peripheral (i.e., a multifunction machine) including at least two of these functions.
2. Description of the Related Art
Electrophotographic image forming apparatuses, such as copiers, printers, facsimile machines, and multifunction peripherals (MFPs) having at least two of copying, printing, facsimile transmission, plotting, and scanning capabilities, include a developing device to develop latent images on a latent image bearer such as a photosensitive drum or a photoconductor drum. Typically, developing devices include a toner containing compartment to contain toner and a developing roller to supply toner contained in the toner containing compartment to the photosensitive drum. As the developing roller supplies toner from the toner containing compartment to the photosensitive drum, an electrostatic latent image on the photosensitive drum is developed.
To reduce the size and cost of developing devices, toner may be contained not only inside the developing device but also in a cartridge (i.e., a toner container) from which toner is supplied to the developing device. This configuration is becoming a mainstream at present. In this case, the amount of toner in the developing device is detected, and the developing device is replenished with toner supplied from the cartridge as the amount therein decreases. At that time, if the amount of toner supplied from the cartridge to the developing device is extremely large, there is a risk that powder pressure inside the device rises to cause toner to scatter out from a supply inlet. By contrast, if the amount of toner supplied from the cartridge to the developing device is extremely small, there is a risk that the amount of toner supplied to the developing roller, and further to the photosensitive drum, becomes insufficient. In either case, image quality degradation or leak of toner can arise, and thus the quality of printing is affected adversely. Accordingly, to secure the image quality, it is preferred to accurately detect the amount of toner inside the developing device and supply toner from the cartridge to the developing device reliably and quantitatively. Detecting the amount of toner remaining accurately and supplying toner to the developing device at proper timing are desirable particularly in compact developing devices since an inner volume of the toner containing compartment is smaller in the compact developing device.

Developer amount detector, developing device, process unit, and image forming apparatus


Combinatorial synthesis methods obtain a plurality of compositions having materially different characteristics using an apparatus having a plurality of collectors. A first quantity of fluid reactants are reacted to form a first quantity of product composition. Following completion of the collection of the first quantity of product composition, a second quantity of fluid reactants are reacted to form a second quantity of product composition, the second quantity of product composition being material different from the first quantity of product composition. An apparatus includes a nozzle connected to a reactant source and a plurality of collectors. The nozzle and plurality of collectors move relative to each other such that a collector can be selectively placed to receive a fluid stream emanating from the nozzle. The plurality of product compositions can be evaluated to determine their suitability for various applications.

Technological advances have increased the demand for advanced materials processed with strict tolerances on processing parameters. In particular, the development of new products, such as products with miniaturized components, have created a demand for many types of new materials, especially advanced inorganic materials, for use in advanced processing methods. To meet some of these demands, a variety of chemical powders can be used in many different processing contexts. Specifically, there is considerable interest in the application of ultrafine powders that are particularly advantageous for a variety of applications involving small structures or high surface area materials. This demand for ultrafine chemical powders has resulted in the development of sophisticated techniques, such as laser pyrolysis, for the production of these powders.
Ceramic powders, especially powders including metal or silicon compounds, are of interest for a range of different applications. For example, chemical powders can be used in the production of electronic devices, such as batteries, catalysts, resistors, capacitors, inductors and transistors, and optical devices, such as wave guides, optical switches and nonlinear optical devices. Other specific electronic devices include electronic displays, which often use phosphor material that emit visible light in response to interaction with electrons. Similarly, ceramic powders can be useful in the production of coatings within microelectronic devices or coatings for electromagnetic shielding. The use of chemical powders for various applications requires specific processing approaches in order to place the powders in a suitable form for the application. For many of these applications ultrafine powders can be used advantageously.
The performance of the powders in the respective applications generally depend on one or more of 1) chemical composition, 2) crystalline phase, 3) surface properties, 4) average particle size and 5) particle size distribution. For example, major functional attributes of electroactive compounds in a lithium ion battery cathode that depend on the electroactive particle properties may include, for example, voltage profile, charge and discharge capacity, charge and discharge rate, and power capability.
Rapid material synthesis or combinatorial approaches have found success in the area of organic compound evaluation. These techniques have been used for drug design. Generalization of combinatorial techniques have resulted in solid state reaction methods for producing small quantities of inorganic materials for evaluation.


A retrofitable wind screen for portable gas cookers. The device, made of sheet metal, readily adjusts to fit almost any portable gas cooker and fits around the outside of the cooker frame extending a minimum of three inches above the cooker grate. The device shields the gas flame from the effects of wind and increases the overall cooking efficiency of a gas cooker. Finally, because the device extends above the cooking surface, it provides a measure of safety by preventing the accidental movement of a cooking utensil from the cooking surface.

Modern Americana has taken to the great outdoors in droves and as a consequence tends to cook meals outside at camping sites, fishing grounds, and the like. Many of these outdoor meals are prepared in pots containing a boiling liquid (water, cooking oil, etc.). Heat for the pot is usually provided by a portable gas cooker utilizing propane (or similar gas) as the source of energy. These portable cookers are rugged, inexpensive, and assume a variety of shapes and sizes set by each manufacturer. Due to their inexpensive construction, the flame is allowed come directly from a burner or gas ring, pass over some form of pot support or grate and fall directly on the bottom of the pot. If any breeze is present, the wind tends to blow the flame away from the pot; thus wasting a majority of the energy, allowing for uneven heating and even the chance that the flame might blow onto an innocent bystander. Thus, there is a need for a universal attachment for portable gas cookers that will provide sheltering from the wind and keep a flame contained under the pot.

Wind guard attachment for portable gas cookers


A propane tank covering device includes a first end wall, a second end wall and a peripheral wall extending between and being attached to the first and second end walls. The first end wall, the second end wall and the peripheral wall each comprise a flexible material. The peripheral wall has a bottom opening therein. The bottom opening is elongated and generally extends from the first end wall to the second end wall. The peripheral wall has a top opening therein. The top opening is positioned opposite of the bottom opening. The top opening is generally centrally located between the first and second end walls. The present invention is positioned over an above ground propane storage tank to enhance the appearance thereof.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to tank coverings and more particularly pertains to a new tank covering for enhancing the appearance of an above ground propane storage tank.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The use of tank coverings is known in the prior art. While these devices fulfill their respective, particular objectives and requirements, the need remains for a device that covers propane storage tanks. These generally large items often become rusted and discolored with age even though they continue to be in good working condition. For this reason, a covering is needed that enhances the appearance of such storage tanks.


The fuel cell apparatus has a fuel cell (1), a pressurized fuel tank (2) for supplying fuel at a supply pressure and a pressure-reducing unit (4) for reducing the supply pressure to an operating pressure of the fuel cell. In order to improve the overall efficiency of the unit in comparison to the art the pressure-reducing unit (4) is constructed as a cooling apparatus for cooling at least one cooling element, preferably a condenser (5).

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a fuel cell apparatus comprising a fuel cell, a pressurized fuel tank for supplying fuel under a supply pressure and a pressure-reducing unit for reducing the supply pressure to an operating pressure.
2. Description of the Related Art
Interest in hydrogen as a fuel for the future has increased greatly in recent years. Above all fuel cells operating with hydrogen can produce electrical energy and heat in an environmentally friendly manner. The efficiency of a fuel cell is not limited by the Carnot cycle. Fossil fuel resources can, for example, be conserved with great efficiency because of the use of fuel cells in motor vehicles or in coupled heat-power cogeneration plants.
The fuel cell converts the chemical bond energy of the hydrogen directly to electrical energy, which can be converted into mechanical drive energy e.g. in motor vehicle applications with the help of an electric motor.
Furthermore to an increasing extent modern motor vehicles are equipped with a number of electrical consumers, in order to improve motor control, comfort and/or safety. The resulting higher electrical energy requirements can be met by means of a suitable fuel cell in combination with an internal combustion engine and/or its so-called dynamo or D.C. generator.
So-called PEM fuel cells (polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells) are used especially for motor vehicle applications. In PEM fuel cells proton-conducting polymer membranes are used. As pure as currently available hydrogen is required as fuel.
Generally hydrogen and/or another fuel, such as natural gas, chemical can react in an internal combustion engine, especially a piston-cylinder motor, to produce mechanical drive energy.
Above all hydrogen and/or hydrogen-containing fuels are stored in a pressurized tank in motor vehicle applications or other insulated systems. Suitable pressurized tanks are currently designed for supply pressures of about 200 to 300 bar. Currently efforts are being made to obtain pressurized tanks designed for supply pressures of up to 700 bar by means of new types of composite materials.
Besides supply of hydrogen in pressurized tanks processes for reforming or the like hydrocarbon fuel, such as gasoline or diesel fuel, are already employed "on board" in motor vehicle applications. Pressurized hydrogen tanks are used especially for improving adjustment-to load change, cold starting processes, for operating difficulties of the reforming process or the like.
For example hydrogen must be available at pressures between 20 and 40 bar during large-scale manufacture of hydrogen from hydrocarbons, e.g. by steam or auto-thermal reforming. Generally the hydrogen is supplied at a supply pressure of about 300 bar by means of a multi-stage compressor. The energy consumption of the compressor amounts to at least about five percent of the supplied energy. Also other processes for pressurizing the supplied fuel are necessary, so that the total efficiency from production to consumption of hydrogen is correspondingly reduced.

Fuel cell apparatus with pressurized fuel tank and pressure-reducing unit for supplying fuel at a reduced operating pressure


The present disclosure relates to a system for process-integrated optical analysis of flowable media, comprising a processing system for processing a flowable medium and an analytical system for analysis of the flowable medium, wherein the analytical system includes an optical measuring head, for irradiation of the medium and for receiving measuring radiation, and a reference unit. The processing system includes a measuring region, into which the medium can be introduced during the processing and which is accessible for measurement by means of the measuring head. According to the invention, a mechanism for achieving defined positions of the measuring head relative to the measuring region and/or relative to a reference unit is included, which selectively enables a measurement of the medium located in the measuring region or of the reference unit.

The optical analysis of gaseous, liquid or pasty media in processes, especially in industrial manufacturing or processing processes, is possible with immersion probes, flow-through cells and other measuring cells. In such case, the material of the utilized components must be chemically suitable for the media to be analyzed, in order to assure a high inertness, thus, to prevent that utilized components are attacked by the medium to be analyzed.
Each optical system must, however, be periodically calibrated and also, for example, readjusted as regards a zero setting, or a zero-point alignment performed. In a process-integrated system, such is only possible by replacing the process medium with a "reference medium". This procedure is very complex and time consuming, because cleaning steps are needed and the reference section must be sealed (e.g., bypassed) from the process flow.
In laboratory systems, the direct contact of observation windows is not possible, because the medium is placed in a cuvette or flow-through cuvette.

System for the process-integrated optical analysis of flowable media


A guidance section connector interface system operable with smart or guided rockets to be launched from a rocket launcher comprising a rocket connector of a rocket in electronic communication with a guidance system of a guidance head of the rocket, a connector saver, and a launcher connector of a rocket launcher. The connector saver can be configured to connect the rocket connecter to the launcher connector. The connection between the connector saver and the rocket connector is configured to release upon launching the rocket, wherein the connector saver remains connected to the launcher connector to protect the launcher connector from the extreme conditions within the rocket launcher at launch.

Rocket launchers have been widely used to transport and fire a payload of one or more rockets at a given target. These rocket launchers have been used on a variety of land and air vehicles acting as a firing platform for the rocket launcher. However, until recently the rockets used in these rocket launchers have been relatively primitive aim-and-shoot type rockets with no guidance or no intelligent or smart communication with the rocket beyond a firing mechanism triggering the launch of the rocket from the launcher. Part of the reason for this is that electrical connections between the rocket and the launcher are subjected to extreme conditions, particularly upon rocket launch. With the advancement of rockets and their ability to comprise on-board guidance and other technology, there is a need for reliable electrical communication between the rockets and rocket launchers.
Reference will now be made to the exemplary embodiments illustrated, and specific language will be used herein to describe the same. It will nevertheless be understood that no limitation of the scope of the invention is thereby intended.

Guidance section connector interface for advanced rocket launchers


A torque converter includes a plurality of blades and a core ring supporting the plurality of blades. The core ring includes at least two segments, each segment having two circumferential ends. A core ring and method are also provided.

U.S. Patent Publication No. 2004/0172936, hereby incorporated by reference herein, describes a torque converter, and shows a core ring with blades attached thereto.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,905,471 describes a blade fixing mechanism for a torque converter without using a core ring. A plurality of blades are secured to the shell and are spaced in the circumferential direction of the shell. A flange of each blade connecting the neighboring blades securing one another in a watertight manner.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,065,509, hereby incorporated by reference herein, describes a method for securing a blade for a torque converter. A plurality of blades are spaced and secured to the surface of a concave shell and a core ring along the circumferential direction of the shell. Tabs fitting through the slots of the shell and the core ring form integrally on the convex and concave periphery of the blades, respectively. Ribs are also formed on the ends of the convex and concave periphery of the blades. Both the convex and concave peripheries are brazed to the shell and the core ring respectively.
DE 39 31 427 A1, describes a pump and turbine wheel. Individual segments with blades are used to create an annular core space.

Torque converter with multi-segment core ring

LuK Lamellen und Kupplungsbau Beteiligungs KG


A waste toner transfer apparatus in an electrophotographic printer transfers waste toner removed by a cleaning unit from an image holding body where a toner image is temporarily held to a waste toner storage container. The waste toner transfer apparatus includes a duct connecting the cleaning unit and the storage container, a transfer unit installed in the duct and transferring the waste toner to the storage container, and an agitation member installed in the duct to move therein and guide the waste toner from the cleaning unit to the transfer unit.

This application claims the benefit under 35 U.S.C. §119(a) of Korean Patent Application No. 2003-45386, filed on Jul. 4, 2003, in the Korean Intellectual Property Office, the entire disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference.
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electrophotographic printer. More particularly, the present invention relates to a waste toner transfer apparatus to transfer waste toner generated during a printing process to a waste toner storage container and an electrophotographic printer using the same.
2. Description of the Related Art
In an image forming process of an electrophotographic printer, when an exposure unit scans light corresponding to image information onto a photoreceptor charged to a predetermined electric potential, an electrostatic latent image is formed on the photoreceptor. A developing unit supplies toner to the electrostatic latent image to form a toner image. Generally, four developing units containing cyan, magenta, yellow, and black toners are needed for a color electrostatic latent printer. The toner image is transferred to a recording medium directly, or via an intermediate medium, from the photoreceptor. While the recording medium passes through a fusing unit, the toner image is fused on the recording medium by heat and pressure. As a result of the above processes, a mono or color image is printed on the recording medium.
While a wet type electrophotographic printer uses a wet developer formed by dispersing toner powder in a liquid carrier, a dry type electrophotographic printer uses toner powder as a developer. In this case, waste toner remaining on a photoreceptor or on an intermediate transfer medium during the image forming process is removed therefrom and is collected in a storage container. The electrophotographic printer typically includes a waste toner transfer apparatus to transfer waste toner to the storage container.
FIG. 1 is a view illustrating a conventional waste toner transfer apparatus. Referring to FIG. 1, a cleaning apparatus 1 removes waste toner from a photoreceptor or an intermediate transfer medium (not shown). The waste toner removed by the cleaning apparatus 1 is transferred by a waste toner transfer apparatus 2 to a storage container (not shown). The waste toner enters a duct 4 through an inlet portion 3. A shaft 5 rotated by a drive motor 6 is installed in the duct 4 and a conveying coil 7 is coupled to an end portion of the shaft 5. The duct 4 and the storage container are connected by a pipe 8. The conveying coil 7 is installed to extend through the inside of the pipe 8. The waste toner entering the duct 4 through the inlet portion 3 is transferred by the conveying coil 7 to the storage container along the pipe 8. The inlet portion 3 is generally formed to be inclined downward from the cleaning apparatus 1 toward the duct 4 so that the waste toner can slide and enter the duct 4 by gravity.
In the waste toner transfer apparatus 2 configured as above, although the waste toner is supposed to slide down by gravity along the inclined inlet portion 3, waste toner particles sometimes coagulate into a waste toner lump due to an attraction force between the toner particles, and may adhere to an inner wall of the inlet portion 3, especially the lower wall. When absorbing moisture in the air, the waste toner lump is further increased so that the inlet portion 3 is narrowed or clogged. When the inlet portion 3 is narrowed or clogged, waste toner accumulates in the cleaning apparatus 1. Accordingly, the accumulated waste toner in the cleaning apparatus 1 may further harden in time. In this case, the waste toner may exert a load on the transfer unit 9 installed in the cleaning apparatus 1 to transfer the waste toner toward the inlet portion 3 so that the transfer unit 9 may be damaged. Further, the waste toner in the cleaning apparatus 1 exposed to the outside may contaminate the electrophotographic printer.

Waste toner transfer apparatus and electrophotographic printer using the same


In accordance with the invention, a surface capacitive sensor is mechanically coupled to a conventional macrostructure actuator to measure the displacement of the actuator along a measurement axis with high accuracy.

There are two common types of capacitive sensors. In the first type of capacitive sensor, the measurement axis is normal to the surfaces of the sensing capacitor plates. The available motion in this type of capacitive sensor is therefore limited to the gap between the capacitor plates. In the second type of capacitive sensor, the measurement axis is parallel to the surfaces of the sensing capacitor plates. Typically, the second type of capacitive sensor has much larger available motion and is used, for example, in digital vernier calipers.
Micromachined capacitive sensors have been proposed that use facing surfaces of two micromachined parts to provide position sensing. These capacitive sensors typically offer excellent position sensitivity over a large bandwidth. The moving part (rotor) is suspended by micromachined flexures above the stationary part (stator) so there is typically little friction involved in the motion. Because the capacitive sensor is micromachined, the gap between the moving part and the stationary part can be reduced in size, typically to the order of 1 μm. The small gap size typically increases the sensitivity of the capacitive sensor. The travel of the micromachined capacitive sensor is typically on the order of about 100 μm because the travel is parallel to the surfaces of the capacitor plates.
Because micromachined capacitive sensors and other micromachined type sensors are typically very fragile they are typically used to detect only their own motion and are not coupled to an external actuator which is typically a macrostructure. Micromachined accelerometers and pressure sensors have been used to sense the acceleration and pressure, respectively, of conventional macrostructures from the beginning of micromachining because the moving part does not need to be directly coupled to a macroscale object.

Micromachined capacitive sensor and linkage


In order to minimize the delay of the video images viewed by a network conference attendee, an intelligent buffering process (IB process) selectively discards video frames from at least one point, and in an embodiment, many network points, such as at “in” and/or “out” buffers of clients, servers, routers, etc. Packets of video frame data arrive at a buffer, which can fill to a predetermined limit if the packets cannot be forwarded due to delays or slow connections. To forward the most current video images, old frames in the buffer are discarded rather than forwarded. In a particular embodiment, when the buffer is full, the next arriving delta frame packet is discarded. To avoid distortion, each subsequent delta frame is discarded until a new key frame eventually arrives. If the buffer is still full when the key frame arrives, the buffer is purged and the new key frame is added.

Multipoint online video conferences have increased in popularity as an efficient way to conduct meetings over local area networks (LANs) or wide area networks (WANs), such as the Internet. These conferences include the exchange of audio, video and sometimes sharing drawings, documents, or other application data among multiple "attendees."
In order to provide a satisfying conference experience to the users, the conference video images must be viewed by attendees as close as possible to real time. However, streaming multimedia over the Internet is not truly "real time" because such packet-switched technology has inherent data flow inconsistencies. Network traffic variations cause packets to flow in inconsistent intervals, and buffering is needed to smooth out a multimedia stream.
Except for audio and video, Internet transmissions are commonly conducted under "lossless," verified-delivery protocols, such as Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP). Such a protocol ensures that each packet sent is actually received and sequentially reassembled by the intended destination. Unfortunately, although a verified-delivery protocol may enhance reliability of some types of Internet data, the nature of the resulting data flow is problematic for the delivery video conference data in a timely manner.
As is generally known, the sender under TCP/IP must receive a verification message that a sent batch of packets were actually received by the intended recipient within a predetermined time, otherwise lost packets must be retransmitted. TCP/IP further reassembles packets at the destination in the order originally sent, and accordingly, this reassembly is delayed until missing packets have been resent. The characteristic delay in a TCP/IP communication caused by the non-arrival and subsequent retransmission of packets is commonly referred to as a "hiccup." These TCP/IP hiccups result in unacceptable time lags for interactive video conferences. When congestion clears after each hiccup, current system buffers release a long burst of packets containing video frames already several seconds old. The video seen by the conference attendee becomes behind, and remains behind, for the remainder of the conference.
In order to keep up with the conference, it is desirable to display frames in "real time," wherein a delay between displayed frames is the same as the delay between when the frames were captured.
Studies have determined that, on average, a person can perceive a delay of about 150 ms or more. Unfortunately, delays exceeding that length are frequently unavoidable over the Internet. For example, an Internet transmission of a data packet between New York and Los Angeles typically takes about 200 ms in each direction. Even though such a lag is perceptible, a satisfactory video conference experience would still possible if delays were limited to these short transmission delays. However, a conference experience becomes significantly impaired when a verified-delivery protocol mandates verification activities that extend the delay. In a TCP/IP hiccup situation, for example, time is consumed by the initial transmission, the verification period, and the retransmission, as well as video processing time at the sending and receiving computers. It has been found that a hiccup in a coast-to-coast TCP/IP transmission results as an average total lag time of about 1.5 seconds between the time that a video frame is created and ultimately received. This causes a 1.5 second delay in the video displayed by the receiver for the duration of the conference. Furthermore, it has been found that, on average, about two percent of packets must be resent, and numerous hiccups over the course of a conference result in a significant cumulative delay in the video stream. Under such conditions, an attendee would view conference video that falls behind several seconds each minute. Such woefully late video would be of little use to a conference attendee whose ability to meaningfully participate may be diminished as a result.
Some conference transmissions have been carried out over the Internet using non-standard protocols which do not verify packet delivery or retransmit lost packets. User Datagram Protocol (UDP) is a generally known example of such a protocol. Unfortunately, firewalls are typically set up to block communications under such non-standard protocols, undesirably limiting the attendees who can access the conference. Most firewalls do, however, permit TCP/IP communications to pass. Therefore, a need exists for a conference system which minimizes video transmission delays over the Internet, yet which can be implemented with a verified-delivery protocol such as TCP/IP in order to maximize access to attendees whose network connection passes through a firewall.
A video data stream includes sequential image frames which are packetized for sending over a network. Each of these packets contains data associated with a video frame image. Most compression/decompression (codec) algorithms encode a video stream so that only some of the frames are sent in their entirety. For example, Advanced Streaming Format (ASF) and Windows Media Video (WMV) send periodic key frames, and a series of delta frames are sent between key frames at a higher frequency. Each of the key frames contains all data necessary to construct an entire frame image, but each delta frame is encrypted to contain data representing only changes in the frame image relative to the immediately preceding frame. The key frames and delta frames are then packetized for transmission over the network. Notably, if a frame is somehow dropped or lost, a subsequent delta frame would not correspond with the last-displayed delta frame or key frame, causing the subsequently displayed video image to distort or "bubble." This type of distortion would cumulatively worsen with each additional delta frame until the next key frame is displayed.
Various solutions have been contemplated to permit a conference attendee to catch up from delayed, buffered-up video. For example, it is possible to play delayed segments of old video at a faster-than-normal rate, but the resulting fast video spurts are undesirably distracting. Accordingly, a need exists for a process which helps a conference attendee to catch up from network delays to the extent possible, while optimizing image quality received by each attendee.

Intelligent buffering process for network conference video


A circuit breaker contact spring blocking arrangement is by-passed by means of a lock-out system that interacts between the circuit breaker contact spring closing shaft and the circuit breaker closing lock-out system when the circuit breaker contacts are in the OPEN condition.

Air circuit breakers as described within U.S. Pat. No. 3,095,489 entitled "Manual Charging Means for Stored Energy Closing Mechanisms of Electric Circuit Breakers" and U.S. Pat. No. 3,084,238 entitled "Ratchet Mechanism for Charging a Closing Spring in an Electric Circuit Breaker" include operating mechanisms that are mainly exposed to the environment. Since the air circuit breakers are rated to carry several thousand amperes of current continuously, the exposure to convection cooling air assists in keeping the operating components within reasonable temperature limits.
Such air circuit breakers are usually provided with a motor operator such as described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,167,988 entitled "Ratcheting Mechanism for Circuit Breaker Motor Operator" or a manual handle as described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,729,065 entitled "Means for Charging A Stored Energy Circuit Breaker Closing Device" for charging the powerful closing springs contained within the air circuit breaker operating mechanism.
When the circuit breaker closing springs are brought to their fully-charged conditions, it is important that the springs do not become inadvertently discharged while an operator has hold of the charging handle in order to avoid damage to the ratchet mechanism and the associated air circuit breaker contacts. An early arrangement of a latching means to prevent rotation of a closing springs charging handle is found in U.S. Pat. No. 4,475,021 entitled "Air Circuit Breaker".
When the circuit breaker closing springs are completely charged, the holding pawl is removed from the charging gear to allow the charging shaft to rotate in the reverse direction when the circuit breaker closing button is activated, as described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,883,351 entitled "Ratcheting Mechanism for Industrial-Rated Circuit Breaker" filed on May 27, 1997.
One arrangement for releasing charged circuit breaker closing springs to close the circuit breaker contacts is found in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08/864,165 entitled "Closing Springs Release Mechanism for industrial-Rated Circuit Breaker" filed on May 28, 1997.
Two separate arrangements for interlocking the circuit breaker closing button to prevent release of the circuit breaker closing springs to forestall closing the circuit breaker contacts are described within U.S. Pat. No. 5,889,250 entitled "Circuit Breaker Closing Springs Button Interlock Mechanism" filed on Jun. 19, 1997 and U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08/878,594 entitled "Push-button Interlock Mechanism for an Industrial-Rated Circuit Breaker" filed on Jun. 19, 1997.
In some situations, when remote circuit breaker accessory devices are employed, it is necessary to release the circuit breaker interlock to allow the circuit breaker closing spring to close the circuit breaker contacts. However, it is also required to allow the closing spring to become charged so that the contacts can be immediately re-closed following an overcurrent occurrence. To allow a remotely-operated accessory to release the circuit breaker closing spring when the contacts have already closed could result in damage both to the circuit breaker contacts as well as to the components within the circuit breaker closing spring assembly, per se.
One purpose of the invention is to provide a lock-out arrangement whereby the circuit breaker closing spring can be released to close the circuit breaker contacts from the OPEN to CLOSED condition when the circuit breaker contacts are separated and whereby the circuit breaker closing spring is prevented from becoming released after the circuit breaker contacts have closed.

Closing spring lock-out mechanism for an industrial rated circuit breaker


An electronic device includes circuitry for driving a light-emitting diode (LED) or other light-emitting semiconductor device. The circuitry includes a first switch (NM5) coupled with the light-emitting semiconductor device (LED) for switching a current (ILED) through the light-emitting semiconductor device (LED); a sensing means (RSENS) for sensing a magnitude of the current (ILED) and outputting a respective sensing signal (SEN); an error amplifier (AMP2) for receiving the sensing signal (SEN) and a target value (ISET) for the current (ILED) for providing a first control voltage (VG1) based on the deviation of the actually sensed current magnitude and the current target value (ISET); a lowpass filter coupled to the error amplifier (AMP2) for filtering the first control voltage (VG1) and providing a second control voltage (VG2); a voltage follower (NM3) coupled to the lowpass filter and the first switch for receiving the second control voltage (VG2) and providing a third control voltage (VG3) for controlling the first switch's (NM5) switching activity; and a second switch (PM1, NM4) for switching a supply current (IDS3) of the voltage follower (NM3) for switching the voltage follower (NM3) on and off.

As light projecting systems and television devices become more and more sophisticated, there is a general desire to achieve a high-power conversion efficiency. Therefore, light-emitting semiconductor devices such as, for example, light-emitting diodes (LED), are used as light sources. There are various different ways to produce grey scale or color pictures based on highly sophisticated and miniaturized optical light-guiding means that are electrically controlled. One example is the use of a digital micro mirror device (DMD) for light projection, such as that based on the DLP® technology of Texas Instruments. DMD-based technologies, and also other light projecting technologies, need very fast switching light-emitting semiconductor devices in order to display pictures according to current quality standards. However, conventional architectures and circuits used for switching LEDs fail to provide sufficiently precise and quick switching behavior.

Light-emitting semiconductor device driver and method


A method for extracting metal ions from water is provided that includes disposing two electrically conductive electrodes in water, where the water includes a target ion species in solution, where at least one of the electrically conductive electrodes is a functionalized electrode having species-specific adsorption of the target ion species, and providing electrical current to the electrically conductive electrodes such that the one or more target ion species are deposited to metallic form or metal oxides at the functionalized electrode by one or more electrochemical reactions.

Efficient extraction of metal ions from water at low ion concentrations is of interest for various applications, such as resource extraction from seawater and water treatment. However, this is often a difficult problem with conventional physiochemical adsorption. In particular, the sorbent tends to become blocked by the cation of interest and/or by other cations.
Nuclear energy is one of the massive and mature energy sources without greenhouse gas emission. It accounts for approximately 20% electricity generation in US during 2000 to 2013 and 13% worldwide. Uranium is the key element for nuclear fuel, so the mining and recovery of uranium is of critical importance. It is estimated that ˜5 million tons of uranium exists in land, while there are almost 1000 times more uranium in seawater. This huge amount of 4.5 billion tons of uranium in seawater could be supplied for nuclear energy for thousands of year. Hence there is strong motivation to develop cost and energy efficient method to extract uranium from seawater.
Although the amount of uranium in seawater is massive, the concentration of uranium is only ˜3 ppb (3 mg/L). To extract uranium from its high salinity background, seawater, is extremely challenging. The general evaluation criteria for seawater uranium extraction method are capacity, kinetics and selectivity. The current state-of-the-art sorbent materials are amidoxime-based polymers. The amidoxime polymer sorbents with the highest capacities reported showed ˜200 mg/g capacity in simulated seawater and 3.3 mg/g capacity in marine test for 56 days. To increase the capacity of sorbents, a number of researchers have focused on exploring materials with higher surface areas or better surface properties including inorganic oxides/sulfides, protein/biomass based sorbents, metal-organic frameworks and carbon-based sorbents. However, there are several intrinsic limitations of the physicochemical adsorption: (1) Due to the low uranium concentration in seawater, the diffusion of uranyl ion to the surface of the sorbents is slow. (2) The adsorbed cations is positively charged and would reject the incoming uranium ions due to Coulomb repulsion. Hence, a great portion of the surface active sites would not be accessible (FIG. 1A). (3) Other cations, such as sodium and calcium, have concentration many orders of magnitude higher than uranium, which results in strong competition for adsorption active sites. When undesirable species are adsorbed onto the sorbent surface, the active sites would be blocked and reduce the capacity of uranium (FIG. 1B).
What is needed is a device and method of extracting valuable metal ion resources from seawater or remove hazardous ions from drinking water that is based on electrochemical extraction.

Electrochemical deposition for metal ion extraction/removal from water

THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF THE LELAND STANFORD JUNIOR UNIVERSITY


A first host system directs an I/O device to transfer data directly between a requesting application program's buffers on a second host system and an I/O unit coupled to the I/O device without the need to pass through the first host system. Since the first host system retains control of the I/O request, it maintains security and protection features at the same time as realizing increases in performance gained from not having to participate in the actual data transfer. This direct movement capability supports peer-to-peer operation where a number of different I/O units, each with its own physical memory addressing domain, require access to the same I/O device. The direct movement capability is also useful in clustered systems. Clustered host systems are allowed direct access to an I/O device for data transfer without intervention by the host system owning the I/O device.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to computer systems and more specifically to the transfer of data during an input/output transaction to memory controlled by an application program.
2. Description of Related Art
Current input/output (I/O) technology for computer systems provides for a single I/O device driver program controlling an I/O device, with that I/O device driver executing as a component of operating system (OS) software solely within the OS environment on a host system. The OS directly controls I/O operations between the I/O device and its physical memory. If another host system wants access to the I/O device, it must request service from the OS on the host system owning the I/O device. Thus, the OS regulates all access to the I/O device as a single source for I/O requests to the I/O device. In simple single I/O unit or single host system operating environments this is sufficient, but in clustered environments (or even in single processor environments where the application program requesting the I/O transaction resides in an I/O channel), the I/O device driver in the OS must move the data at least twice. For an I/O write operation, the OS first copies the data from the original location in memory assigned to the requesting application program on one host system to a memory space in a second host system that controls the I/O device. This second host system then issues the I/O command to the I/O device to send the data. For an I/O read operation, the OS of the second host system causes the I/O device to move the data into a buffer controlled by the OS, and then forwards the data to the memory in the second host system. The second host system then forwards the data from its memory to the memory assigned to the requesting application program in the first host system.
FIG. 1 is a prior art diagram illustrating the double movement of I/O data when a remote process on a first host system is requesting service from an I/O device controlled by a second host system. Host System 1 10 desires to read from or write data to I/O Device 12. The I/O Device 12 is controlled by I/O Unit 14, which is coupled to Host System 2 16. In a first example where an I/O read is requested, Host System 1 10 sends a request to Host System 2 16 for I/O service from the selected I/O Device 12. The request includes the address in Host System 1 memory where the I/O data read by the I/O Device is to be written. Host System 2 then sends a request for I/O to I/O Unit 14. When the requested data is read from the I/O Device 12, the data is transferred to memory within Host System 2 16. Upon receipt, Host System 2 forwards the data to the specified location in Host System 1. In a second example where an I/O write is requested, Host System 1 sends a request including the data to be written to Host System 2. This data is thus forwarded from memory in Host System 1 to memory in Host System 2. Host System 2 forwards the data to local memory in I/O Unit 14 for transfer to I/O Device 12.
With the advent of new intelligent I/O standards, peer-to-peer I/O processing, and clustering of host systems, there is a need to securely direct I/O transactions between an I/O device and memory outside of the physical memory domain available to the I/O device, thereby avoiding the double movement of I/O data illustrated above and improving the overall efficiency of the computer system. Furthermore, directing data movement during I/O operations between an I/O unit and a first host system without requiring a second host system to forward the data would be especially advantageous in a clustered system environment.

Method for directing I/O transactions between an I/O device and a memory


An ultrasonic inspection and imaging instrument is characterized by storing reduced image examples (images by means of reduced image display data obtained by scaling down picture display data) of an ultrasonic measurement picture beforehand, together with measurement conditions at the time the measurement picture is obtained prior to a scale-down imaging process. When the measurement is started or the measurement conditions are otherwise changed, the measurement conditions are set as those obtained from the measurement picture prior to the scale-down processing with one of the reduced image examples thus selected as an index while a list of image examples is indicated on a display and read from a memory unit for ultrasonic measuring purposes. When a reduced image example or what is similar to the example desired by an operator is selected, proper measurement conditions are automatically set in the ultrasonic inspection and imaging instrument. When the operator wants to change or switch the measurement picture, moreover, he/she is able to make ultrasonic measurement on confirming what the subsequent image is like or what an image is desired to be selected by means of the reduced image example beforehand.

1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to ultrasonic inspection and imaging instruments and more particularly to an ultrasonic inspection and imaging instrument in which when parts of the same kind are inspected, proper measurement conditions can readily be set to ensure that inspection efficiency is improved.
2. Related Art
An ultrasonic inspection and imaging instrument is used for observing vertical and transverse sectional images of an object under examination by controlling a scanning unit capable of moving a focusing-type probe in X-, Y- and Z-directions while these images obtained from a predetermined location of the object are displayed on a screen. In an instrument of this sort, proper measurement conditions have to be set before ultrasonic measurement is carried out to obtain a desired image. The measurement conditions include setting values (e.g., of scanning strokes and pitches) in the scanning unit, setting values (e.g., of gains and gate positions) in a transducer circuit of an ultrasonic detection unit, and setting display forms (e.g., display in the form of binary values, density display and color display) on an imaging unit.
The respective measurement conditions to be set or altered as described above should therefore correspond to conditions of inspection in order to obtain the image desired to be observed. To facilitate the alteration of such measurement conditions, there are the following known methods: a method of indicating a list of file names relating to measurement conditions on a display so that a selector (operator) may select proper measurement conditions from the list by reference to the file names; another of indicating a list of detailed set values of measurement conditions on a screen so that an operator may read the list and select proper measurement conditions therefrom or amend some of them to set optimum ones; and the like. In the latter case where the list is relied upon, however, the operation is very troublesome as it is necessary to alter the set value in each circuit or unit under the control of a microprocessor unit (MPU). In the former case where the file names are referred to, on the other hand, a decision being made on the measurement conditions depends on only the file names.
In practice, the operator may keep a notebook or the like in which the contents have been written in detail, designate a file name and repeat the regeneration of one measurement image after another corresponding thereto until finding an image with measurement conditions to be selected. Generally, the alteration of measurement conditions is made not to drastically change the set values but to modify part of any set value step by step. The alteration above is normally made by matching minor numerical values in the detailed list of set values with the conditions under which a desired picture is obtained. This operation is not only troublesome but also susceptible to operator-induced mistakes in selecting improper conditions because of misjudgment. Apart from this, it is frequently required to switch one measurement picture over to another when an object under examination is inspected; in such a case, a measurement depth, a measurement range (thickness) and a measurement area are particularly modified. When a measurement sample is changed, moreover, the set value in each component unit needs altering and measurement conditions with different set values will otherwise have to be found.
The foregoing problems make it burdensome for beginners to operate an ultrasonic inspection and imaging instrument. Even those skilled in the operation of such an instrument may often fail to find proper measurement conditions until an image is actually displayed. It is therefore extremely difficult for those inexperienced in ultrasonic thickness measurement to alter measurement conditions, which makes them unable to decide whether the image obtained from the alteration of the measurement conditions or the switching of the measurement picture is fit for the purpose.

Ultrasonic inspection and imaging instrument

Hitachi Construction Machinery Co., Ltd.