A bone plate includes a first three-part combination hole extending through a proximal portion of the plate, a first portion configured to engage a threaded head portion of a bone fixation element, a second portion configured to receive a bone fixation element along an axis substantially perpendicular to a longitudinal axis of the bone and a third portion defining a screw axis extending toward the distal end of the elongated body at a non-perpendicular angle relative to the longitudinal axis in combination with a first two-part combination hole extending through the proximal portion, a first threaded portion configured to engage a threaded head portion of a bone fixation element and a second portion defining an elongated slot extending along a longitudinal axis of the plate for receiving a bone fixation element so that the plate may slide along its longitudinal axis relative to the bone fixation element.

An osteotomy is a surgical procedure in which a bone is cut to shorten, lengthen and/or change an alignment of the bone. In particular, an ulna shortening osteotomy cuts the ulna to treat symptoms such as wrist pain, swelling, limited range of motion and diminished grip strength, which may result from conditions such as ulnar impaction syndrome. Ulnar impaction syndrome is a degenerative condition related to excessive load bearing across the ulnar aspect of the wrist and chronic impingement of the ulnar head against the TFCC, lunate and triquetrum. By shortening the ulna, impaction is reduced preventing wrist pain, swelling, etc., such that function of the wrist joint is regained. Current ulna osteotomy systems require complex surgical techniques with complex instrumentation resulting in delayed unions or non-unions caused by inaccurate osteotomies and/or difficulty in maintaining bone alignment. In addition, the osteotomy systems often contain bulky instruments and implants, resulting in hardware irritation and often, implant removal.


An apparatus comprising at least two controllers each providing control information for controlling phase or frequency of a digital signal, a combiner for combining control information from the at least two controllers to combined control information and a phase rotator for adjusting, by using phase rotation, one or more of the phase and the frequency of the digital signal on the basis of the combined control information.

There are many commonly needed functions in a transmitter digital front-end, each requiring phase rotation of an in-phase/quadrature phase (I/Q) signal. Such functions are frequency correction of the signal, mixing of the signal to intermediate frequency, phase correction according to signal amplitude level (AM/PM) correction in pre-distortion functions, and conversion of PM signal to a constant envelope phase modulated I/Q signal in a polar transmitter, for instance.
Accurate I/Q vector rotations are computationally heavy operations and thus require a considerable amount of silicon area and power.

Apparatus and method to adjust a phase and frequency of a digital signal


A method for transporting harvested crops from a field includes the step of providing a conveyor belt disposed adjacent a plurality of crops (such as alongside a row of crops or in-between rows). The conveyor belt has a spool attached thereto about which the conveyor belt can be wound. A winder is provided and has an attachment for receiving the spool. The spool is attached to the winder and, when crops being harvested are disposed on the conveyor belt, the winder is used to wind the conveyor belt around the spool, thereby transporting crops to the winder.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to an agricultural system and method, and more specific for a system and method for more efficient harvesting of crops in the field.
2. Background
Agricultural crop harvest has historically relied on manual labor to perform the bulk of the work required. While advances in the industry have reduced the reliance on manual labor, for some crops the nature of the crop and methods of growing and harvesting makes automation of some processes difficult.
In the table grape industry, for example, the spacing of various grape plants, the necessity to handle fruit delicately, the need for selective harvesting of the fruit, and the presence of trellises, all combine to make automated harvesting difficult. Instead, workers typically move between rows, picking fruit ready for harvest and placing the fruit into containers provided by workers. When the containers are full, they are carried to the end of the row where the fruit is combined with fruit picked by other workers. More recently, specially designed wheelbarrows have been used so that workers do not have to carry individual containers by hand. Trials using a tractor/trailer combination that traveled the length of the vinerow to pick up loaded containers still required hand labor for loading and unloading the tractor/trailer, and the tractor/trailer combination disturbed the soil, which contaminated the containers of harvested fruit. Further, a large percentage of the workers' time is still spent manually moving fruit and containers along each row, rather than spent picking fruit.
Whether containers are carried by hand, transported on wheelbarrows, or moved with a tractor/trailer combination, substantial manual labor is still required to move the fruit out from under the canopy to the edge of the field for field packing or to transport to a packing facility offsite. This leads to inefficiencies in the process, potential contamination of grape bunches with dust and soil, and increases the risk of workplace injuries during the transport of heavy loads.


Described is a retail store fixture that includes an electric charge circuit. The electric charge circuit generates a positive electric charge, or voltage, in response to the motion of a moveable portion of the retail store fixture. The retail store fixture can be a shopping cart or other fixture with a moveable portion. The positive electric charge is deposited on a part of the retail store fixture that it is desired to sterilize. The positive electric charge repels bacteria, sterilizing the portion of the retail store fixture that receives the positive charge. A shopping cart, for example, equipped with the electric charge circuit can be sterilized without requiring chemicals or power to be supplied to the cart. Rotation of the shopping cart wheels can be used to generate the voltage. The voltage can be used to sterilize a shopping cart handle, and/or other parts of the shopping cart.

Technical Field
This invention relates to retail store fixtures, and, more specifically, to a retail store fixture that uses a positive electric charge to sterilize the retail store fixture.
State of the Art
Retail store fixtures such as shelves, cold storage devices, and shopping carts are used to store and deliver food stuff to consumers. It is desirable to keep retail store fixtures such as these as sterile and bacteria-free as possible. Keeping retail store fixtures bacteria-free helps prevent food from being contaminated, as well as helping to prevent from spreading bacteria from one person to another. A retail store can spend many employee hours cleaning and sanitizing retail store fixtures because there are numerous people that come into contact with the fixtures. It is desirable to have devices and methods for reducing the time and cost of sterilizing retail store fixtures.
Accordingly, what is needed is a device and method for quickly and easily sterilizing retail store fixtures at a minimum cost to the retail store.

Retail store fixture and method of sterilizing a retail store fixture


A silver halide color photographic light-sensitive material comprising a support having thereon a silver halide emulsion layer and a compound represented by the following general formula (I): ##STR1## wherein COUP represents a coupler residue capable of being subjected to a coupling reaction with an oxidation product of an aromatic primary amine developing agent; TIME represents a timing group which is released upon the coupling reaction and subsequently releases ##STR2## Z represents a monocyclic or condensed heterocyclic ring consisting of a nitrogen atom and a carbon atom; L represents a divalent linking group; R.sup.1 represents a hydrogen atom or an alkoxycarbonyl group; R.sup.2 represents a hydrogen atom, an alkyl group, an aryl group, a heterocyclic group, an acyl group, a sulfonyl group, an alkoxycarbonyl group, a carbamoyl group, a sulfamoyl group, a thioacyl group or a thiocarbamoyl group; R.sup.3 represents a hydrogen atom; R.sup.2 and R.sup.3 may be bonded each other to form a hydrazone structure; a part of L and R.sup.1 may be bonded each other to form a hydrazone structure; and n represents 0 or 1.. The silver halide color photographic light-sensitive material containing the compound capable of imagewise releasing a fogging agent represented by the general formula (I) is improved in stability during preservation and has a high contrast and sensitivity. A method of forming a color image using the silver halide color photographic light-sensitive material is also disclosed.

It is well known that color images can be obtained by exposing a silver halide color photographic light-sensitive material to light, followed by a color development during which the reaction between an oxidized aromatic primary amine developing agent and a dye forming coupler takes place. In such a process, the subtractive color process is usually utilized for color reproduction, and cyan, magenta and yellow color images, which are complementary to red, green and blue colors, respectively, are formed. The reaction between a coupler and an oxidation product of a color developing agent proceeds at an active point of the coupler. A coupler having a hydrogen atom at its active point (i.e., 4-equivalent coupler) stoichiometrically requires as an oxidizing agent 4 moles of silver halide having a development center for forming 1 mole of dye through the coupling reaction. On the contrary, a coupler having at its active point a group capable of being released in the form of an anion requires only 2 moles of silver halides having a development center for forming 1 mole of dye (i.e., 2-equivalent coupler). Accordingly, by using a 2-equivalent coupler, the amount of silver halide to be used in a light-sensitive layer can be reduced and the layer per se can be made thinner, so that the time required for the processing of such a light-sensitive material can be shortened and color images obtained therefrom can have an improved sharpness, compared with a light-sensitive material in which a 4-equivalent coupler is used. In addition, the coupling activity of a 2-equivalent coupler with a color developing agent can be widely varied, depending on the property of the releasable group contained therein.
A 2-equivalent coupler capable of releasing a group having a development-inhibiting effect is known and called a development inhibitor releasing coupler (or DIR coupler). Such couplers are capable of inhibiting development in proportion to the quantity of developed silver and, therefore, can be effective for improving graininess, controlling gradation and improving color reproducibility of the image. Couplers of this type can also be used in diffusion transfer processes, wherein their effects upon adjacent layers are utilized.
A 2-equivalent coupler can also be provided with a releasable group containing a diffusible dye portion. This class of couplers, which are referred to as diffusible dye-releasing coupler, can be utilized in a diffusion transfer process in which a dye image is formed from diffused dyes in an image receiving layer.
A certain colored 2-equivalent coupler can also be used to attain a masking effect necessary for color correction of dye images. This class of couplers are referred to as colored coupler.
As mentioned hereinbefore, 2-equivalent couplers can be provided with various functions, depending on the selection of releasable groups contained therein.
On the other hand, regarding the recent trend in the development of silver halide photographic light-sensitive materials, in particular, used for photographing, two major streams can be seen. One is the increase in sensitivity, as typically shown by ASA 400 films, etc. The other is the improvement in image quality to cope with the miniaturization of film sizes. In connection with the former, investigations have been made on a variety of techniques, including, e.g., large size silver halide grains, couplers with higher activities, acceleration of development, etc. However, the increase in sensitivity based on large size silver halide grains seems to be reaching its limit, as reported by G. C. Farnell and J. B. Chanter in J. Photogr. Sci., 9, 75 (1961). Accordingly, this technique is not expected to make much contribution in the future. In addition, the use of large size silver halide grains is accompanied by various disadvantages, such as deterioration in graininess. Couplers having higher activities have also been studied extensively. Such couplers, however, have not made much contribution to sensitivities of silver halide photographic light-sensitive materials, and proved to be disadvantageous for graininess. With regard to acceleration of development, various development accelerators, including hydrazine compounds, have hitherto been attempted in a silver halide emulsion layer or a developing solution therefor mainly with respect to black-and-white photographic light-sensitive materials. However, is most cases, the incorporation of development accelerators into an emulsion layer or a developing solution is accompanied by such disadvantages as increase in fog and deterioration in graininess and hence impractical.
Couplers which imagewise release development accelerators or fogging agents have also been proposed. For example, couplers releasing thiocyanic acid ions which accelerate the solution physical development are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,214,377 and 3,253,924, Japanese Patent Application (OPI) No. 17437/76, etc. Further, couplers releasing acyl hydrazines are described in Japanese Patent Application (OPI) No. 150845/82 and couplers releasing hydroquinone or aminophenol developing agents are described in Japanese Patent Application (OPI) No. 138636/82. However, the development accelerating function or the fogging function of these releasable groups is small and thus the effects can be obtained only when these couplers are used in a large amount. Also, the effects obtained are very small even if the couplers are employed in a large amount. Further, these couplers have the disadvantage in that color mixing occurs and the color reproducibility is degraded and in that the graininess is deteriorated since the releasable groups diffuse into other layers to cause development acceleration or to form fog due to their large diffusibility, when they are incorporated into a certain light-sensitive layer which is sensitive to light of a specific region in the spectrum. Moreover, most of these couplers have low stability and they undesirably cause several deteriorations in photographic properties, for example, increase in fog, desensitization, color contamination, etc., during preservation when they are incorporated into silver halide photographic light-sensitive materials.

Silver halide color photographic light-sensitive material


A garment-hanging station associated with a garment-treating station, such as a tunnel finisher, is located along a rail section which slopes downwardly in the advancement direction and on which a plurality of successive clothes hangers is suspended. A singularizing arrangement frees hangers accumulated upstream of the same one at a time for downward sliding on the sloping rail section. The rail section has a transverse slot in which the hook of the freed hanger is received after engaging an abutment surface and in which it is confined by a latch for the duration of a garment-hanging operation. Subsequently, a releasing member expels the hanger hook out of the transverse slot for further downward sliding on the rail section, and the next succeeding hanger is freed by the singularizing arrangement for travel toward the transverse slot.

The present invention relates to a station at which objects are placed on or removed from elements which are suspended from a conveyor in general, and more particularly to a station at which garments are placed onto hangers which are conveyed by the conveyor along a predetermined path, such as through a station in which the garments hanging on the hangers are treated.
There are already known treating stations of the latter type, which are also known as so-called tunnel finishers, in which smoothing of the garments takes place while such garments pass therethrough. It is also known to hang the garments (which are usually wet or moist) on hangers which are suspended from a conveyor which advances the hangers, and with it the garments hanging thereon, through the treating station. The conveyor may include a conveying rail on which the hooks of the hangers are supported. The rail passes through a garment-hanging station at which the garments are to be placed on the hangers. At this garment-hanging station, the a hanger whose hook freely embraces a rail section, is manually detained and the garment is placed thereon. It will be appreciated that, in this conventional arrangement, the operator can only use one hand for the placing of the garment on the hanger, inasmuch as he or she must hold the hanger with the other hand. Consequently, the garment-hanging operation is relatively cumbersome and time-consuming.


An improved ratchet wrench includes an upper plate, a lower plate, a base disposed between the upper plate and the lower plate, two ratchets, two trigger blocks, two springs and two baffle elements. Both the upper plate and the lower plate have at least a bent portion at one end thereof. The distance between a middle portion of the upper plate and a middle portion of the lower plate is smaller than the distance between an upper bent portion and a lower bent portion of the plates, such that the distance between the middle portions is equivalent to the distance between the bent portions of the upper and lower plates multiplied by a cosine of the angle of the bend. By such an arrangement, the upper plate and the lower plate are identical in shape and length, and hence manufacture of the ratchet wrench may be speeded up and costs reduced.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a ratchet wrench, and more particularly to a ratchet wrench which is simple in construction and which is faster and less costly to manufacture.
2. Description of the Prior Art
FIGS. 1 and 2 show a conventional bi-directional ratchet wrench, which mainly comprises two flat plates 11, 12, a base 13, a ratchet disposed between the plates 11, 12, a trigger block 15, a spring 16 disposed between the trigger block 15 and the base 13, and a steel ball 17. Rivets 18 are used to assemble the structural elements. The distance between the plates 11 and 12 is the same through-out.
With reference to FIG. 3, which shows another prior bi-directional ratchet wrench intended as an improvement on the above-described ratchet wrench. The ratchet wrench in FIG. 3 comprises an upper plate 41 and a lower plate 42. Each of the plates has two ends which bend in opposite directions, forming a first bent portion and a second bent portion. However, like the prior wrench illustrated in FIGS. 1 and 2, it is also necessary to maintain a uniform distance between the two plates 41 and 42. In other words, the distance between the plates 41 and 42 at the handle portion is equivalent to that between the bent portions of the respective plates 41 and 42. By this arrangement, after a base 43 is secured between the upper plate 41 and the lower plate 42 at the handle portion by rivets, the ratchets 44 pivotally provided at either ends of the base 43 may rotate within their corresponding clearances. Therefore, in order to assemble the wrench as shown in FIG. 3, it is necessary to extend a second upper bent portion 41B of the upper plate 41 so that a ratchet 44 may be pivotally provided between the second bent portion 41B and a second lower bent portion 42B of the lower plate 42, and similarly, a first upper bent portion-41A of the upper plate 41 has to be extended so that another ratchet 44 may be pivotally provided between the first upper bent portion 41A of the upper plate 41 and a first lower bent portion 42A of the lower plate 42. In order to join the two plates 41 and 42 smoothly, a length M of the first upper bent portion 41A of the upper plate 41 has to be different from a length N of the first second bent portion 42A of the lower plate 42, while a length 0 of the second upper bent portion 41B of the upper plate 41 has to be different from a length P of the second lower bent portion 42b of the lower plate 42. A ratchet wrench of such a construction requires that the plates 41 and 42 have the same overall length while the length of the bent portions of the upper plate 41 is different from that of the bent portions of the lower plate 42. Manufacture of such prior wrenches is therefore not only costly but also slow.
FIG. 4 shows another kind of ratchet wrench which consists of an upper plate and a lower plate, and a base disposed between the two plates. The base integrally extends to form a protective flange 5 to provide a better outlook. In this prior art, the length of the bent portions of the upper plate must also be configured to be different from that of the bent portions of the lower plate.

No. 21, Lane 225, Tai-Ping Road, Tai-Ping Hsiang


A load management module for disconnecting continuous loads for a predetermined amount of time when an excessive load is experienced to permit critical intermittent loads to remain energized. The load management module has a first group of relays and a second group of relays each connected to various intermittent loads (e.g., lighting branch circuits) and each controlled by a timer. The load management module activates the relays when a maximum power output of a secondary power source is exceeded. An automatic transfer switch capable of operating with larger disconnect/breaker sizes (e.g., 200 amps) for larger emergency backup systems. The automatic transfer switch comprises a plate operably connected to a drive system and a pair of breakers.

Power outages are problematic, if not potentially dangerous. The ability to have power supplied by a secondary power source (e.g., a generator) when a power outage is experienced is not only a convenience, but potentially money, or even life, saving.
Current secondary power systems have a set maximum power output. The decision of what size generator is needed is based on the amount of amp load that could possibly be drawn. Additionally, according to the 2011 National Electrical Code, Article 702.4(B) (2), an automatic transfer switch must be able to simultaneously operate all of the loads to which it is connected, unless it includes a load management system. Therefore, a system that cuts power to continuous loads for a limited time in order to allow critical intermittent loads to be activated without exceeding the amp load rating of the secondary power source allows for the use of the smallest and most efficient possible generator.
Further, there is a need for automatic transfer switches capable of handling larger disconnect/breaker sizes (e.g., 200 amps) for larger emergency backup systems.

Load management and switching devices and methods


The embodiment of the present invention discloses a method for establishing a multicast LSP and a system for transmitting multicast data. The method includes: a MSA node learns and stores multicast stream information; the egress edge node in the MPLS domain obtains the multicast stream information sent by the MSA node by sending a query request message to the MSA node; the egress edge node joins the multicast group, according to the obtained multicast stream information, and establishes a multicast LSP between the ingress edge node and the egress edge node. The technical solution of the present invention supports dynamic implementation of multicast services, and reduces the cost of maintaining a network topology.

With the maturity of the Multi-Protocol Label Switching (MPLS) related standards and the popularization of the network multimedia applications, such as IPTV and videoconference, multicast technologies are applied to support the point-to-multipoint and multipoint-to-multipoint communications in a MPLS network, which has become an effective technical method for reducing bandwidth consumption and improving the Quality of Service (QoS).
In the conventional MPLS multicast application solution, a Label Switched Path (LSP) can be established in two ways: (i) a downstream node sends a label mapping to an upstream node to establish a LSP; or (ii) an upstream node receives a request of joining a multicast group from a downstream node, and allocates a label to the downstream node to establish a LSP. The two conventional methods are elaborated below with reference to the accompanying drawings.
As shown in FIG. 1, in a MPLS domain, an egress node is directly connected with the multicast receiving user node, for example, the R6 node shown in FIG. 1; and an ingress node is directly connected with the multicast source, for example, the R0 node shown in FIG. 1. A multicast data stream enters a MPLS domain from an ingress node (R0), passes through intermediate nodes R3 and R5 along the route, and is sent by the egress node (R6) to the multicast receiving user. The method, in which a downstream node sends a label mapping message to an upstream node to establish a LSP, includes the steps as described below.
Step 1: The egress node R6 sends a local label mapping message to the upstream node R5 with respect to a multicast stream.
Step 2: The intermediate node R5 sends a local label mapping message to the upstream node R3.
Step 3: R3 sends a local label mapping message to the upstream node R0 (namely, the ingress node).
Through the previous steps, a LSP (R0->R3->R5->R6) is established for the multicast stream from an ingress node to an egress node.
As shown in FIG. 2, R6 is an egress node, and R0 is an ingress node. A multicast data stream enters a MPLS domain from an ingress node (R0), passes through intermediate nodes R3 and R5 along the route, and is sent by the egress node (R6) to the multicast receiving user. Alternatively, a multicast LSP may also be established through allocating, by the upstream node, a label to the downstream node actively, and this method includes the steps as described below.
Step 1: After receiving a request of joining a multicast stream receiving sequence from an ingress node R6, the ingress node R0 allocates a label to the downstream node R3 with respect to the multicast stream.
Step 2: The R3 allocates a label to the downstream node R5.
Step 3: The R5 allocates a label to the downstream node R6 (namely, egress node).
Through the previous steps, a LSP (R0->R3->R5->R6) is established for the multicast stream from an ingress node to an egress node.
As described above, all the conventional methods for establishing a multicast LSP in a MPLS domain require that the egress node directly connected with the multicast receiver must know the location of the ingress node before being able to establish a multicast LSP for a multicast stream. In other words, when establishing a conventional multicast LSP in a MPLS domain, a mapping relationship is statically preset between the multicast source and the multicast group on the egress node; otherwise, the egress node is unable to know the location of the ingress node or establish a multicast LSP between the ingress node and the egress node. With the application of the multicast services, such as IPTV, multi-party video conference, tele-education, and tele-consultation, it is necessary to configure every mapping relationship and maintain the network topology in order to statically configure a mapping relationship between the multicast source and the multicast group. The rapid growth of the multicast service requires maintenance of plenty of network topologies, which leads to higher and higher cost of maintenance. Meanwhile, the mapping relationship configured statically between the multicast source and the multicast group is unable to meet the requirements of on-demand dynamic development trend of multicast services.
Moreover, the mapping relationship configured statically between the multicast source and the multicast group is not conducive to multicast access control (for example, access license, bandwidth control, and priority setting). Only simple mapping is performed between the multicast source and the multicast group, without attaching the information on multicast access control policies to the mapping relationship. Therefore, the prior art is unable to control multicast access in the process of establishing a LSP.

Method for establishing a muticast LSP, system for transmitting multicast data


Refractory material is applied to the interior surface of a vessel by advancing a boom carriage on a frame positioned externally of the vessel through an opening in the vessel. The boom carriage supports a collapsed telescoping mast and a nozzle boom. The carriage supporting the mast and nozzle boom is advanced through the opening to an elevated position within the vessel. At the end of travel of the boom carriage, the telescoping mast is pivoted through approximately 90.degree. to a vertical position and the nozzle boom is pivoted to a position perpendicular to the mast. The mast is progressively extended as the nozzle boom is rotated and refractory material is sprayed from a nozzle assembly on the end of the boom onto the vessel interior surface. The nozzle boom is transversely and pivotally movable on the mast to adjust the position of the nozzle assembly to follow the irregular contour on the interior surface as the mast is telescopically advanced or retracted.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a method and apparatus for repairing the refractory lining of a refractory vessel and, more particularly, to gunning apparatus maneuverable in large and irregularly shaped refractory vessels for positioning a nozzle assembly closely adjacent to the refractory lining at all locations within the refractory vessel, particularly those locations which are conventionally difficult to spray.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The refractory vessels used in the iron and steel industry for making, carrying, holding and pouring of molten metal, such as blast furnaces, metallurgical ladles, soaking pits, cupolas and the like are exposed to evaluated temperatures over a long period of time of use. This results in deterioration of the interior refractory surface. Consequently, the surface must be either periodically replaced or repaired.
The interior surface of a refractory vessel is repaired first by removing as much of the scale and loose debris from the surface of the vessel before the vessel is relined so that the material spray will securely adhere to the interior surface. Conventional, pressurized air and water are utilized to remove the scale from the wall of the vessel and prepare it for spray relining.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 1,928,621; 3,902,670 and 4,181,258 are examples of well known apparatus for cleaning the surface of refractory vessels. A high pressure spray from a rotatable nozzle utilizes a variety of materials for dislodging loose material from the surface of the vessel. A combination of a stream of water, air, sand or other operating medium are utilized. The medium is directed over the interior surface of the vessel to dislodge the loose material and thereafter air may be blown over the surface to dry it in preparation for the refractory relining operation.
Conventionally, the refractory relining operation requires equipment separate from the equipment used to clean the interior walls of the vessel. Consequentially, the cleaning equipment and the means for mounting it in the vessel must be removed and the refractory spray equipment installed in its place. Cleaning and repairing the vessel for relining followed by relining the vessel are very cumbersome and time consuming operations. One set of equipment must be installed and thereafter removed to permit the installation of another set of equipment.
The conventionally known gunning apparatus for relining a refractory vessel includes a spray unit, such as a nozzle assembly, that is supported for rectilinear and rotational movement within the vessel. The unit is typically supported on a movable carriage either on an overhead gantry or beam within or above the vessel or on a transport car movable on rails or ground below the vessel. Exemplary gunite devices supported overhead and lowered into the vessel, such as a blast furnace or ladle, are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,797,745; 3,799,445; 4,099,708; 4,163,546; 4,167,246; 4,211,367; 4,421,275; 4,860,422; and 5,178,329. Each of these devices includes a rotatable nozzle where the dry refractory and water are mixed at or adjacent to the nozzle outlet for spraying onto the refractory surface.
To accommodate the transport of dry refractory and water to the nozzle outlet, a swivel mechanism is required for the rotatable connection of either a water line or the refractory line to the rotatable nozzle. The separate delivery of the dry refractory and water to the nozzle requires a complex arrangement for supporting and moving the nozzle assembly both vertically and rotatably. Consequentially, for irregularly configured vessels such as a blast furnace, where the interior diameter of the vessel varies along the length from top to bottom, it is difficult to closely position the nozzle relative to the surface. The nozzle must be positioned a distance from the wall so that when the refractory material is sprayed it adheres and is not deflected from the surface.
In other applications, the refractory material and water is mixed from a source outside of the vessel, such as at a swivel point supported on a gantry above the vessel. Examples of this type of arrangement for mixing the refractory material and water delivered through a conduit into the vessel where the conduit is supported for rectilinear and rotational movement relative to the interior wall are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,351,289; 4,301,998; 4,337,897; and 4,494,737.
It is also known to support a gunite device on a transport car movable on rails or on a mobile vehicle positioned below the refractory vessel. The spray nozzle is moved vertically, downwardly or upwardly, to a desired position oppositely the vessel wall. The nozzle is then rotated to apply the mixed refractory and water onto the surface. Examples of this arrangement are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,957,203; 4,085,894; 4,779,798.
One limitation of known gunite devices is the inability to position the spray nozzle at difficult positions to reach within the vessel. This is encountered in vessels having irregular shapes, such as blast furnaces and ladles where the interior circumference and diameter of the vessel varies along the length and depth of the vessel. In order to overcome these problems, gunite devices have been developed for remote control of a spray nozzle for positioning at desired locations within the vessel. Devices of this type are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,973,730; 4,251,063; 4,690,327 and 5,158,614.
While some prior art devices are effective for relining irregularly shaped vessels, they require complex support apparatus that is limited to vessels of a particular configuration. In other words, the gunite device can not be used at one sight for repairing a blast furnace and then transported to another sight for repairing a ladle or the like without making substantial modifications to the support apparatus.
Therefore, there is need for gunite apparatus that is universally adaptable to apply refractory material to the interior surface of a vessel at any point within the vessel regardless the interior configuration of the vessel. The unit must be efficiently moved into and out of position without requiring support mechanisms that must be erected specifically for the interior configuration of the vessel. The spray nozzle must compactly transported to the sight and moved into position for custom spraying. It would also be beneficial if the gunite apparatus could be used to remove scale and loose debris from the vessel wall prior to relining.

Apparatus for repairing the refractory lining of a refractory vessel


When manufacturing a sugar chain compound having an activating group, there was a problem with the ammonium carbonate method that is the conventional technology that during the process of introducing an amino group at the reducing terminal of the sugar chain, the unit sugar located at the reducing terminal of the sugar chain is subjected to ring-opening, thus causing a mixture of α and β anomers to be produced. The present invention provides a method for manufacturing a sugar chain compound having an activating group with high β selectivity using a compound having a sugar chain asparagine structure as the source material by cleaving the sugar chain from the sugar chain peptide so that the reducing terminal of the sugar chain and the nitrogen atom derived from the asparagine side chain will remain in a bound state, and introducing an activating group to said nitrogen atom while retaining not only the covalent bond between the reducing terminal of said sugar chain and said nitrogen atom but also the β configuration. A novel sugar chain compound which is a β anomer and has an activating group is also provided as a compound of the present invention.

A sugar chain is generally those where a monosaccharide and a monosaccharide are linearly bound via a bond called a glycosyl bond. It is known that various sugar chains have important roles in vivo. Sugar chains often exist in vivo as glycoconjugates bound to a peptide, a protein, a lipid, and the like.
In particular, glycopeptides or glycoproteins that exist in vivo are known to have a sugar chain having a particular structure bound thereto at a particular amino add of the peptide. These sugar chains are known to cause various influences on activity or in vivo kinetics etc. of the peptide (protein), depending on differences in their structure.
These sugar chains or glycosylated peptides are also being used as pharmaceuticals, but it is known that the sugar chain structure will be ununiform when a glycosylated peptide is prepared by a cell line. Since variability in drug effect may be caused when the sugar chain structure is ununiform, there is high necessity for adding separated and purified or chemically synthesized sugar chains with uniform structure to peptides. However, in order to bind separated and purified or chemically synthesized sugar chains to other substances such as peptides, a functional group necessary for binding must be added to the sugar chain as necessary.
As a method for adding a functional group necessary for binding with other substances (also referred to herein as an activating group) to the sugar chain, for example, a method of separating and purifying a sugar chain having an —OH group at the reducing terminal of the sugar chain from a natural egg yolk etc., introducing an amino group at the reducing terminal of the sugar chain by the ammonium carbonate method, and adding an activating group to the said amino group has been performed (see e.g. Patent Literatures 1 and 2 and Non-Patent Literatures 1 and 2). However, with such a method, there was a problem that during the process of introducing an amino group to the sugar chain, the amino group is introduced via ring-opening and ring-dosing of the unit sugar located at the reducing terminal of the sugar chain, and therefore a mixture of α and β anomers is produced even though the configuration of the binding between the sugar chain and the peptide in a naturally-occurring glycopeptide is β-form.

Method for producing activated sugar chain derivative and activated sugar chain derivative produced therefrom


A method for impregnating a metal product with a hard wear-resistant surface area comprises providing a wear-resistant layer in the form of a sintered sheet having a pattern which facilitates metallurgical bonding with a metal melt and optionally, at least one "pin" integrally attached onto a surface of the sheet. This wear-resistant layer is attached onto the sand core and a metal melt is cast so as to produce the final product. This method can be used to produce a variety of metal products although cast iron is preferred. Moreover, this process can effectively employ any of the hard phases which can be sintered, e.g., tungsten carbide, chromium carbide, and the like.

A) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a process for the impregnation of a metal product with a surface comprising a hard wear-resistant material.
B) Wear-Resistant Surface Layers in Iron
A wide variety of techniques are known for the impregnation of metals, e.g., iron, with a hard wear-resistant surface. Such techniques include flame spray coating and plasma spray coating. However, each of these spray coating techniques suffer from problems associated with the spalling of surface layers during the coating process and during service as well as the particularly large expense associated with the use of this technique.
Cast-in-carbides are also known in which carbide particulates are placed in a mold and molten iron is then cast. See, for example, the discussion within U.S. Pat. No. 4,119,459 to Eckmar et al. It is difficult, however, with such castings to accurately maintain the carbide particles in the desired location and in a regular distribution pattern during casting.
In addition, certain cast-on hard surfacing techniques for use with polystyrene patterns are also known in the art. See, for example, the discussion in Hansen et al., "Application of Cast-On Ferrochrome-Based Hard Surfacing to Polystyrene Pattern Castings," Bureau of Mines Report of Investigations 8942, U.S. Department of the Interior, 1985.
However, this process suffers from problems associated with the low reliability of the bond formed between the wear-resistant layer, e.g., tungsten carbide, and the foam pattern. Also when thick powder layers are used, the iron may not penetrate the layer before the iron solidifies. Due to these reasons, instead of impregnating the iron, the carbide spalls off the product.
The inventor of the present invention has also been involved in inventing other processes in an attempt to more effectively impregnate the surface of a metal, e.g., iron, with hard phases during the casting process. For example, attention is directed toward U.S. Pat. No. 5,027,878 to Revankar et al which relates to the carbide impregnation of cast iron using evaporative pattern castings (EPC) as well as U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,190,091 and 5,190,092, which relate to the impregnation of cast iron and aluminum alloy castings with carbides using sand cores.
However, despite their effectiveness, these methods also have certain drawbacks. For example, the EPC method may involve the installation of special equipment in a conventional foundry. Furthermore, castings produced by this process can suffer from distortion due to the distortion of the plastic foam replicas. On the other hand, the above sand core methods of casting carbides can involve the preparation of carbide spheres which adds to the cost of the process. The cost can be further increased if a substantially flat wear-resistant surface is desired because in such a case, a surface layer equal in thickness to approximately half the sphere diameter will need to be machined off.
Accordingly, the need still exists for a method of impregnating metal surfaces, and in particular iron surfaces with a hard wear-resistant material which is capable of overcoming the problems associated with known techniques.

Hard facing casting surfaces with wear-resistant sheets


A controlling unit retrieves information regarding system interconnect topology and assigns unique address to all connected units without the need for any prior configuration. An added unit with cascading ports will be able to use the address assignment that enables the controller to avoid address collisions between connected units. In short, the disclosure provides the system of interconnected units with a “plug and play” capability.

Systems of interconnected electronic units, for example wireless communication systems, typically comprise interconnected units such as transmitters, receivers, power supply units, fan control units etc. that need to communicate on the data link layer, i.e. layer 2 of the Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) model. For example, such systems, here called master-slave systems, may be characterized by one controlling and a flexible number of controlled units often connected to each other by means of a bus topology. A bus topology has a good scalability and is typically cost effective when considering larger systems.
Examples of protocols that are used in the link layer include the high-level data link control (HDLC) protocol, defined in the International Organization for Standardization (ISO)/International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) standard ISO/IEC13239 and the Ethernet protocol which also is used for other topologies (ring, star, tree and mesh).
In order to enable a controller to individually control a specific unit, an addressing mechanism is essential. Examples of this are the address assignment procedures in the Iuant interface defined by the third generation partnership project (3GPP) in TS 25.462 and the media access control (MAC) addresses used in Ethernet based systems.
One approach to assign unique addresses in HDLC based system is to differentiate between types of units. For example, a power supply unit uses one fixed address and a fan control unit another. However, such an approach does not work if the controller has to control more than one unit of the same type. Another approach is to assign a unit an address by means of, e.g., manually operated dipswitches. These approaches can also be combined. A unit knows its type and can also read the dipswitches to calculate its unique address. A control system that is aware of the addressing rules can communicate with all units in the system as long as the unit addressing is unique.
Ethernet based systems uses MAC addressing, typically in combination with transport control protocol/internet protocol (TCP/IP), which secures that all units at the time of manufacturing are assigned a worldwide unique address. These protocols were developed to implement communication ability for complex systems and are thus not cost optimized to achieve communication within a master-slave system with one controlling unit and a number of controlled units.
One drawback with these master-slave systems, i.e. systems that are less complex than the typical Ethernet/TCP/IP systems, is that there is no built in mechanism to provide information to the controller where a controlled unit is physically located. For small systems with few units placed in near proximity to each other this is not a major problem. However for larger systems where the controlled units are located at geographically different locations it may be time consuming and costly to find and replace a failing unit. For a bus oriented system it is also cumbersome to configure added units in a system extension scenario, because of address dependencies of already connected units.
Another drawback with these master-slave systems becomes apparent when a specific unit (of the same type) is providing a specific service for the controller of another system. Then the physical placement and identity is critical to provide the correct functionality. An example of this is cascaded remote electrical tilting (RET) antennas operating according to 3GPP TS 25.462 (i.e. the Iuant interface). In this case the controller must be configured to know a unique identifier for each specific unit and also to know which specific service, in another system, it is used. If this configuration is done manually, e.g. by use of dipswitches, there is a risk of entering errors with the result that the system behavior will not be the wanted one. An automated design to solve the problem can be complex in its nature and thus costly to develop and maintain. Furthermore, such a design cannot be generic because it must be based on the analyzing of whether the system works as intended, if it was correctly configured, or if it is not working as intended, how the system shall be reconfigured to perform properly.
A further drawback with systems involving dipswitches is that the manual setting of the dipswitch must match how the controller is configured, in order to enable successful communication. If two units are configured with the same dipswitch setting the controller cannot communicate with any of the two units. Another drawback is that dipswitches may be costly and take critical front space on units.
For other units than 3GPP Iuant compliant units it is possible to perform address assignment that avoids physical dipswitches. For example, each type of a controlled unit may be assigned a predefined address range, which together with a number of extra address bits supplied by a hub unit (to which each controlled unit must be connected), enables the controlled unit to calculate its unique address and thereby be able to respond to messages addressed to the unit.
A drawback with such an approach is that the controller unit software needs to be configured to know to which port in the hub a unit is connected to in order to be able to calculate the expected HDLC address the unit will respond to. Thus, if the unit is not connected to the hub in the same way as the control software is configured, the communication will fail. Moreover, it is awkward to expand such a system to more than one hub unit because, when the same type of unit is connected to the corresponding connector port with the same address bits on a second hub unit, the addresses will collide and make the communication impossible with these units.

Addressing in a system of interconnected unites


A rotary cutter for a tunnel boring machine or similar machine has a cutter ring mounted to a hub. The hub is mounted on a shaft. A sleeve bearing system is positioned between the hub and the shaft for supporting the hub on the shaft and allowing relative rotation. A duo-cone seal assembly is positioned between the hub and the shaft to seal out contaminants from the sleeve bearing system. An oil gallery with lubricating oil for lubricating the sleeve bearing system is provided in the shaft.

Tunnel boring machines construct underground tunnels having a diameter ranging between a fraction of a meter up to several meters. The tunnel boring machine and its operating crew can perform several functions simultaneously to construct the tunnel, including boring, tailings material removal, lining, and installation of utilities into the tunnel such as fresh air conduits, power and water supply, etc.
The boring function of the typical tunnel boring machine is performed by a large rotating head provided at the forward end of the machine. The head rotates around an axis generally coaxial with the tunnel geometry. The rotating head gradually removes the material in the path of the machine at the face of the advancing tunnel. As the face of the tunnel is excavated and the debris removed, the tunnel length increases and the tunnel boring machine continuously advances to maintain the engagement of the head with the face. Cutters mounted to the rotating head perform the task of excavating the material from the face so that it can be collected and removed by the head and a conveyor system into aft portions of the machine for storage and/or transport out of the tunnel. The head advances and the cutters are pushed against the face typically under power from a system of hydraulic cylinders. Hydraulic cylinders are also deployed along with means which push against the sides of the tunnel in order to react the force of the cutters against the tunnel face.
Tunnel boring machine heads have utilized a variety of cutter styles. Fixed pick style cutters may be used in soft materials. In hard materials like hard rock, rotary cutters have typically been used. A number of rotary cutters are mounted in a pre-established pattern onto the head so that as the head rotates, a cutter is able to contact each portion of the face, engaging and removing material at a roughly equal rate across the area of the face. Rotary cutters employ a cutting ring mounted via a bearing onto a shaft. The shaft is in turn secured on the cutting head. As the head rotates, the cutting ring rotates on the shaft. The cutting ring is relatively sharp. As the ring pushes against the tunnel face with great compressive force, the rock adjacent the cutter ring is crushed and sheared and falls off of the face and is collected and removed as debris.
The service life of these rotary cutters can be a significant limitation in the operating efficiency of the tunnel boring machine. The cutters are pushed against the face with very significant forces including high shock loads and work in an abrasive, high wear environment. Thus, the cutter rings can be worn at a rapid rate. The cutter rings may be replaced after they are worn. But to change the cutter rings, the machine must be stopped for several hours while the cutters are removed and new cutter rings are installed. This time intensive re-ringing activity reduces the overall efficiency or rate of excavation of the machine.
Also, the bearing system between the cutter ring and the shaft can fail and require premature replacement of the entire cutter before the cutter rings have been worn. When the bearing system fails, the cutter ring stops turning. When the cutter ring stops turning, the portion of the cutter ring in contact with the face slides, the sliding contact wearing the cutter ring rapidly into a flat, wide spot which no longer has adequate compressive forces to crush the hard rock face.
One example of a typical rotary cutter design is seen in U.S. Pat. No. 4,793,427, ("the '427 patent") issued in 1988 to Boart International Limited. Other examples of cutter designs are found in U.S. Pat. No. 6,131,676 ("the '676 patent") issued in 2000 to Excavation Engineering Associates, Inc. Many different types and styles of rotary cutters, in addition to those in the '427 patent and the '676 patent, have been proposed and tested. But today the cutter remains one of the most important wear items on a tunnel boring machine and similar equipment, and constitutes an important limiting factor on the machine's excavation speed and efficiency.


A variable focus lens comprises first and second transparent, flexible membranes (2) which are tensioned and which define a cavity (30) in which a transparent, silicone oil (4) is sealed. Adjustment of the pressure or volume of the oil in the cavity changes the focal length of the lens. To fabricate the lens, the periphery of each membrane (2) is engaged between two rings (8, 10; 10, 12) of a set of three interengaging rings (8, 10, 12). The interengaged rings are crimped together to tension the membranes (2) and seal the cavity (30).

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method of fabricating a variable focus lens and to the variable focus lens so constructed.
2. Related Art
It is known to provide a variable focus lens in which one or more transparent flexible membranes are tensioned to define a cavity therebetween in which a transparent fluid is received. Adjustment of the pressure and/or volume of the fluid in the cavity causes variations in the shape of the membranes, and the structure defines a lens of variable focal length.
However, whilst it is known to use such a construction to provide a variable focus lens, no current proposals for fabricating such a lens provide a lightweight structure which can easily be incorporated into spectacles, for example.
The present invention seeks to provide a new method of fabricating a variable focus lens and to provide a new structure for such a lens.


One aspect of the present invention is a method for detecting a class of target species containing quadrupolar nuclei in a specimen by nuclear quadrupole resonance, comprising: (a) generating a random or pseudo-random train of rf pulses; (b) irradiating the specimen with the train of rf pulses; (c) detecting an NQR signal in response to irradiating the specimen; (d) cross-correlating the NQR signal with the random or pseudo-random train of rf pulses, thereby generating a free induction decay signal; and (e) converting the free induction decay signal into a frequency domain signal. Another aspect of the present invention is an apparatus for carrying out the method of the invention.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to nuclear quadrupole resonance, and more particularly to stochastic nuclear quadrupole resonance using random or pseudo-random excitation.
2. Description of the Related Art
Nuclear quadrupole resonance (NQR) is a technique for analyzing species having quadrupolar nuclei (spin quantum number I.gtoreq.1, e.g., .sup.14 N, .sup.35,37 Cl, .sup.39 K, etc.). In a typical NQR technique, a sample is excited with radio frequency (rf) radiation, to induce a precession in nuclei by irradiating the nuclei with an excitation frequency corresponding to the resonance frequency of the nuclei. As with better-known nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), the location of a resonance frequency in a sample depends on the specific chemical environment around a resonant nucleus.
In addition to the location of resonant frequency peaks, the width of resonant frequency peaks can provide information about the material being analyzed. Accordingly, it may be desirable to monitor the widths (typically the full width at half maximum, FWHM) of NQR peaks in various materials.
As shown in FIG. 1, a typical excitation pulse used in NQR detection of a typical 1 cm.sup.3 specimen has a short duration (typically on the order of 0.01-0.1 ms) and a large amplitude (typically on the order of 200 V.sub.r.m.s, corresponding to 800 W at 50 .OMEGA.). This type of excitation pulse results in a broad excitation frequency distribution. However, the higher amplitude of this excitation pulse will dramatically increase the peak power requirement of the excitation source, since the peak power is proportional to the square of the peak voltage. Reducing the power requirements of NQR excitation has been a continuing concern in the art. See U.S. Pat. No. 5,233,300, issued Aug. 3, 1993 to Buess et al., for "DETECTION OF EXPLOSIVE AND NARCOTICS BY LOW POWER LARGE SAMPLE VOLUME NUCLEAR QUADRUPOLE RESONANCE (NQR)", incorporated by reference herein, in its entirety for all purposes.

Method and apparatus for detecting target species having quadropolar muclei by stochastic nuclear quadrupole resonance

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


Apparatus for feeding stitches of adhesive tape for binders of continuous forms for tabulating machines with a sprocket wheel for feeding each stitches so as to insert the leading end of each stitch into a corresponding hole of the perforation provided at the margins of the forms. The forms and the stitches become superimposed to each other during a binding phase and a pair of rolls engaged then for moving the forms and fixing the leading ends of every point under the lower form. A pair of rolls are provided for moving the adhesive tape in a direction perpendicular to the forms advancement, and intermittent advancement is obtained through a ratchet system associated with a "cosmodrome" cam; a head vertically rotating in the direction of the forms advancement, is provided at least with an eccentric cutting edge and a corresponding presser to operate, at every revolution. The cutting of the adhesive tape is done to obtain a binding stitch therefrom which is moved into cooperation with a facing rubber-coated roll which lifts the forms from the tail trailing end of the stitch off the upper form. A drive is provided for carrying out the rotation of the head in synchronism with the advancement of the forms to be bound, and an arrangement for carrying out the advancement of the adhesive tape in synchronism with the rotation of the head.

The present invention relates to an apparatus for feeding strips of gummed (adhesive) tape for binding to continuous interconnected paper forms for tabulating machines.
It is known that present day binder machines for binding continuous forms for tabulating machines comprise a sprocket wheel, located downstream of the apparatus for feeding binding strips in the form of adhesive tape, for the insertion of the leading end of each binding strip into a corresponding hole of perforations provided at the margin of the various forms arranged in overlapping relationship. The apparatus also includes a pair of form driving rolls, the lower roll having also the function of folding the leading end of the binding strip and fixing it to the lower page of an underlying form.
These known binders for continuous forms further provide the feeding of stitches or strips of adhesive tape perpendicularly to the forms feeding direction, and cutting the stitches from a continuous tape having a width equal to the stitch length, by means of a straight blade provided with vertical reciprocating motion.
The particular construction, operating cycle and drive means provided for these known binders for continuous forms set a limitation to the blade speed and to the regular application of strips and, therefore, a limitation to the advancement speed of the forms to be bound and thus to the machine output.
Also known, from the European patent No. 0054.009 is a binder for continuous forms wherein the adhesive tape, which is fed in a form advancement direction has a width equal to that of the stitches. The tape is cut, and then torn away, in order to form the binding stitches by means of two opposite rotating pressers; one of which is associated with a punch and the other to a notcher. However, a binder has the drawback of using an adhesive tape which is not easily available on the market.

Apparatus for feeding adhesive coated stitches to continuous forms for binding the forms


A method and apparatus is provided for generating and implementing a "smooth" schedule for forwarding of cells across a switch in a communication network, such as an AIM network. The schedule is obtained by recursively dividing bandwidth requests into nearly equal subrequests, and selectively allocating the subrequests to slots of a frame in a manner that obtains approximately uniform temporal distribution of cell forwarding over the duration of the frame. Implementation of such a schedule can eliminate clustering of cell forwarding across the switch, thereby reducing latency and space requirements for input and output buffering.

(a) ATM Networks PA0 (b) Bandwidth Requests and Cell Scheduling PA0 (c) Drawbacks in Cell Scheduling and Forwarding
"ATM" stands for asynchronous transfer mode, and is a specific type of digital packet-switching technology. Unlike other, packet-switching protocols that use variable-length packets, ATM uses short, fixed-length cells. Each cell has a standard length of 53 bytes (each byte having eight bits), and is formatted to include a 5-byte header specifying (directly or indirectly) a destination address and a 48-byte information field or "payload."
An ATM network typically incorporates a number of stations called "hosts" that can originate and transmit cells, and a number of switching systems that interconnect the hosts. Examples of possible hosts include user work stations, dedicated servers, and even computers that act as bridges to other networks. When a host originates cells, it transmits them over a dedicated communication link to one of the switching systems, which forwards the received cells over a number of communication links to a destination host, often via a number of other intermediate switching systems.
An ATM network is connection oriented in that traffic is forwarded along an end-to-end path between the source and destination of the cells, called a virtual circuit, which is established before cell transfer can start. The circuit is called "virtual" because the connections that form it are specified in forwarding tables stored in the switching systems of the network, and can be changed simply by updating the stored data. During cell forwarding, the switching systems access the forwarding tables using destination addresses contained in headers of newly arrived cells. Before sending the cells on the next legs of their journeys in accordance with the forwarding tables, the switching systems may overwrite the destination addresses contained in the cell headers with new addresses recognizable by the next switching systems along the virtual circuit as entries in their forwarding tables.
ATM switching systems typically include transceivers and high speed switches, typically based on matrix topology (such as crossbars), tree topology (such as Banyan networks), or bus topology. A point-to-point switch such as a crossbar has an internal network or fabric of conductors that interconnects multiple input ports (called "inputs") and multiple output ports (called "outputs"). The internal network can be dynamically configured to connect any of the inputs to any of the outputs, thus allowing simultaneous forwarding of cells across different input-output connections. This is sometimes called "space division switching."
Each ATM switching system performs a number of tasks which together constitute switching, namely, arbitration, switch set-up, and forwarding. ARBITRATION can be broadly defined as the process of choosing cells that are to be sent through the switch during any given time. SWITCH SET-UP is the process of generating signals for configuring the cross-bar switch, or other internal switching fabric, to connect appropriate inputs and outputs for cell forwarding thereacross. FORWARDING entails delivering cells across the established switch connections and to communication links that constitute the "next" connections in the virtual circuits for the cells. In order to improve the efficiency and/or effectiveness of arbitration, a switching system may also perform SCHEDULING, which is the process off computing, wholly or partially, the outcomes of future arbitration decisions, and storing the result of that computation (called a SCHEDULE) in memory devices. Later arbitration may be performed wholly or partially on the basis of the contents of the precomputed schedule.
ATM architecture is suited to the transmission needs of data, voice, video, graphics, and other real-time traffic. Of course, as the name implies, an ATM network does not provide a system-wide clock for providing fixed timing relationships for transmitted traffic. Nonetheless, ATM networks can provide service for multimedia applications in which video frames must be received for display at fixed intervals. Some ATM networks accomplish this by providing bounded latency for cell delivery.
Known ATM networks may achieve bounded latency by means of an admission control methodology under which switching systems accept and fulfill (or reject) advanced reservations of system bandwidth for such traffic. Traffic with reserved bandwidth requirements is described as constant bit rate (CBR), and other traffic as variable bit rate (VBR) or "datagrams." Switch systems distinguish VBR and CBR cells based on flow identifiers in the cell headers; the headers also identify the flow to which the cells belong. A flow is defined as a group of related cells having a common source and a common destination, and sharing a virtual circuit established by the ATM network. A number of different independent flows can exist from a given source to a given destination.
Typically, ATM switching systems use time-division switching, in which the same physical resources are used to handle flows at different times. To accomplish time-division switching, time during which the switch operates is divided into equal-length intervals, called slots. Each slot is of a duration sufficient to transmit a single cell from a switch input to a switch output, with switch reconfigurations occurring after every time slot, and only at slot boundaries. In known ATM systems, consecutive time slots are grouped into batches, called frames, each having the same size expressed in terms of number of slots, "N." Frame size is a characteristic parameter of a particular ATM switching system, and is internal to the switching system. For example, a frame can consist of 1024 slots. The slots of each frame have a predetermined order; in other words, the slots hold a predetermined position within a frame.
To "make" a bandwidth reservation, a host running, e.g., a multimedia application (or a communication routine thereof) requests a certain bandwidth and latency bound for a particular CBR flow. Each bandwidth request can be expressed in the form "flow f needs m.sub.-- f cells per frame of bandwidth from input port number i.sub.-- f to output port number o.sub.-- f." Accordingly, to meet the request, m.sub.-- f slots in each frame must be reserved for flow f.
If the request can be met without violating any existing service guarantees, the ATM network grants the request and reserves the required resources on a virtual circuit for that flow; otherwise, the request is rejected. If the request is granted, the host station can then transmit cells at a rate up to the requested bandwidth, and the network ensures that the transmitted cells are delivered on time.
Switch time not utilized by CBR traffic can be used for transmitting VBR traffic, such as file transfers or remote procedure calls. If the ATM network becomes too heavily loaded, i.e., the number of cells within the network exceeds the level at which network performance degrades, VBR cells may suffer delays or even loss. On the other hand, the ATM network must assure that CBR performance guarantees are met to an acceptable level no matter how high the load of VBR traffic.
Since CBR traffic bandwidth (expressed as cells per frame) and latency needs are known in advance from the bandwidth requests, suitable schedules for forwarding CBR traffic through the switching systems can be pre-computed to accommodate the requests. This is only true, however, if the number of cells to be transmitted during any frame from any particular input or to any particular output of any intermediate switching system is no more than the frame size, N.
Each schedule associates each slot position within a frame with a pre-computed set of CBR flows that will be given absolute priority for use of the switch during that slot. Each CBR flow must be scheduled into a sufficient number of slots per frame to meet its bandwidth requirements.
Table 1 shows a highly simplified example of a set of bandwidth requests, each request expressed in terms of cells per frame, where the inputs of the switch are numbered one through four, as are the outputs.
TABLE 1 ______________________________________ Output Input 1 2 3 4 ______________________________________ 1 0 1 1 1 2 2 0 0 0 3 0 2 0 1 4 1 0 1 0 ______________________________________
Thus, in the example of Table 1, input no. 3 needs to forward two cells per frame to output no. 2, a single cell per frame to output no. 4, and no cells to output nos. 1 and 3.
Table 2 depicts an example of a schedule suitable to meet the bandwidth requests represented in Table 1, where, for simplicity, the frame size is three slots, numbered one through three.
TABLE 2 ______________________________________ Slot 1: 1 .fwdarw. 3 2 .fwdarw. 1 3 .fwdarw. 2 N/S Slot 2: 1 .fwdarw. 4 2 .fwdarw. 1 3 .fwdarw. 2 4 .fwdarw. 3 Slot 3: 1 .fwdarw. 2 N/S 3 .fwdarw. 4 4 .fwdarw. 1 ______________________________________
Thus, during slot 1 of each frame during which the schedule of Table 2 is implemented, input no. 1 is connected to output no. 3, input no. 2 is connected to output no. 1, input no. 3 is connected to output no. 2, and input no. 4 is not scheduled ("N/S") and need not be connected to any output.
When a new bandwidth request is made, it may be necessary to rearrange the connections specified by the schedule. For instance, if an additional request is received of one cell per frame from input no. 2 to output no. 4, the schedule of Table 2 must be rearranged in order to accommodate the new flow because there is no slot in which both input no. 2 and output no. 4 are free. A new schedule that meets all of the flow requests including this added flow's needs is given in Table
TABLE 3 ______________________________________ Slot 1: 1 .fwdarw. 2 2 .fwdarw. 1 3 .fwdarw. 4 N/S Slot 2: 1 .fwdarw. 4 2 .fwdarw. 1 3 .fwdarw. 2 4 .fwdarw. 3 Slot 3: 1 .fwdarw. 3 2 .fwdarw. 4 3 .fwdarw. 2 4 .fwdarw. 1 ______________________________________
Often, multiple bandwidth requests seek concurrent service for more than one flow originating from or destined for the same port. In order to prevent interference, two flows that conflict because they share a common input or output may not be scheduled during the same slot. A schedule that is free of such conflicts is described as legal. Thus, the schedule of Table 3 is legal.
CBR flows are forwarded across the switch during the scheduled slots. VBR cells are forwarded during slots not used by CBR cells. For example, in the schedule of Table 2, a VBR cell can be forwarded from input no. 2 to output no. 3 during the third slot without conflicting with the other flows. In addition, VBR cells can use a scheduled slot if no cell from the scheduled flow is present at the switch for forwarding during that slot.
Further information can be had concerning prior art switch scheduling within ATM switching systems by reference to Anderson, Owicki, Saxe and Thacker, "High Speed Switch Scheduling for Local Area Networks," presented at the International Conference on Architectural Support for Programing Languages and Operating Systems ("ASPLOS"), vol. 27, no. 9, Sep. 1992, the proceedings of which were published by ACM, New York, N.Y., U.S.A. in 1992. The disclosure of that article is incorporated herein by reference.
While known methods of operating ATM switching systems are generally suitable for their intended purposes, they do not take into account, or provide solutions to, certain problems that can have adverse affects on switch design and/or switch performance.
A problem can arise when the cells of a CBR flow arrive at a switching system at an approximately constant rate, but are passed through the switch in slots clustered together in a part of the frame. Clustering may occur as a result of a systematic tendency of a scheduling method to produce clustering. For example, a scheduling method which attempted to assign each unit of requested bandwidth into the lowest earliest available slot in the frame would tend to produce severe clustering. Clustering may also be the result of statistical variability in scheduling methods that depend on random or pseudo-random events, either through the specific use of pseudo-random numbers in the generation of schedules or through the sensitivity of a scheduling method to the order in which virtual circuits happen to be created and destroyed.
Such clustering can increase cell latency in switching systems. In a highly simplified example, where the scheduled slots for a CBR flow are clustered in slot nos. 2, 3 and 5 of a 1024-slot frame, if the cells of the flow start arriving at the switching system in slot no. 6 of a frame, the cells must wait in the switching system until slot no. 2 of the next frame before forwarding across the switch can commence. It can be seen that the latency period until forwarding for the incoming cells may be on the order of a frame size, which is unacceptably long in many applications. Moreover, the system must be equipped with an input buffer having a size sufficient to hold the incoming cells pending forwarding across the switch or else cells will be lost. The size of input buffering required to avoid loss of cells must be large, e.g., on the order of the per-frame bandwidth (e.g., 1024 per port per frame) of the switch.
Another clustering problem occurs in switching systems where the switch drives communication links that run at lower bandwidths (e.g., 155 MBit/sec) than the per-port bandwidth (e.g., 800 megabits per second) of the switch fabric. In such a switching system, output buffering must be provided at the output ports of the switch fabric to store outgoing cells pending transmission over the slower output links. If the time slots reserved for cells using a particular output link are clustered into only a portion of a frame, the required output buffering at a link may be on the order of the per-frame bandwidth of the link, and the latency due to output buffering may on the order of a frame duration.

Method and apparatus for generating and implementing smooth schedules for forwarding data flows across cell-based switches


A dynamic material picking method for a warehouse system. The original materials picking list can be divided effectively and be combined or assigned as a new materials picking list. The picking operation is adjustable in response to any new order such that the loading of the picking staff is down and the job assignments are optimized.

1. Field of Invention
The invention relates to materials picking method, and more particularly a dynamic method for assigning materials picking operations instantly to achieve the optimal staff assignments.
2. Related Art
Most companies employ an Automated Storage/Retrieval System (As/RS) to manage the goods and materials in their warehouses, owing to the small area and crowded population of the world and diversified needs of small quantities of materials. The basic operation of the AS/RS is very simple. There are not many species of goods being stored. The storage and shipment form are categorized into large quantities. The shipment is based on totes. Therefore, there is no need to plan the picking mode for the shipment operation. We can almost say in this way that the main function of AS/RS is to focus on storage. But, when the AS/RS is installed in smaller distribution centers with diverse needs that must be met immediately, problems easily occur in the storing and picking operations.
Much research has been devoted to the study of automated warehouses: their design principles and architecture classifications. Only a few attempts have been made to examine materials picking together with automated warehouse systems. The operation time of materials picking occupies more than ⅓ of the whole operation time of a distribution center. Most the operation systems usually adopt fixed materials picking lists to perform picking operations. For the dynamic storage management of a warehouse, or the large variety of loading of picking operations, the job assignment is not easily optimized. Once an order is made, or the picking personnel is assigned according to the loading job at that time, the picking operation cannot be adjusted in response to new orders. This results in choosing only one order. Thus resources cannot be arranged adequately.
Therefore, a method for solving the above-mentioned problems is required such that the materials picking operations can be effectively performed and the assignments of the picking staff can be optimized to improve service quality.


The invention refers to an overload control device between two revolving machine parts having substantially semicylindrical lugs or extensions uniformly distributed over the circumference. Two lugs, pertaining to two different machine parts, form cylinders with partition areas parallel with the direction of rotation of the machine parts, surrounded by hollow power-transmitting carrier drive links connecting the machine parts, and severing the connection by breaking in case of an overload. The carrier drive links consist of hollow cylinders made of high-duty, inflexible material mounted upon and surrounding the lugs under an initial stress.

This type of device is used in order to limit torque mechanically, e.g. in drive shafts or similar structural parts next to clutches with break bolts, slide clutches, clutches with radial serrations, and others. The clutch used on which the invention is based is commonly employed as a shaft coupling, with the lugs surrounded by so-called carrier links extending in a radial direction. This is not the ideal solution for direct use in larger machine combinations as it requires two axially aligned stubs.
The present invention is an overload control device of the type mentioned initially arranged so as to make it usable for machinery which do not have opposing shaft ends. One machine part is a shaft, and the cooperating machine part is a concentric hub, so that the lugs may be arranged at the faces of the machine parts, extending axially. Thus, a control device is provided which, while using the advantages of the familiar device, is well suited to protect machinery with construction which does not permit the use of shaft couplings. Preferably three lugs, uniformly distributed over the circumference, are provided which are surrounded by hollow cylindrical carrier links or rings.
Another detail of the invention is that the lugs and, if applicable, at least a portion of the adjacent link stripper, or scraping surfaces of the machine parts are separate and replaceable. This results in an easy interchangeability of parts damaged, should this be the case, as well as simplified manufacture of the replacement parts.
According to a very favorable feature of the invention, provision is made to arrange, between the machine shaft and the machine hub, a concentric ring, centrally divided in a peripheral direction. The concentrically divided ring halves are provided with serrations at the outer and inner circumference thereof for engaging with the corresponding serrations in the machine parts. The divided ring, on both sides of the central division thereof, has one each of the two substantially semi-cylindrical lug halves. This allows for a favorable interchangeability of the parts representing the overload control. The manufacture of the overload control, and subsequent installation into existing parts is, therefore, made simple. The centrally divided ring is kept in place by means of supports attached to end faces of the machine parts, and overlapping the end faces of the divided ring. These supports prevent the ring from falling from the machine part.
In order to make it easier to install the substantially semi-cylindrical lugs in the proper position after having disconnected the overload control, the invention provides for inserting into the partition line of the divided ring spring biased cylinders which lock into corresponding recesses. Preferably, the number of cylinders matches the number of hollow cylindrical carrier links.

Overload control device between two revolving machine parts


Limiting quadratic processing and compansion in photorefractive two beam coupling is disclosed. Two-beam coupling in photorefractive barium titanate employs the imaged intensity of the signal to amplify the reference beam while maintaining the phase of the reference beam. The phase distorted signal beam is converted to that of the controlled phase of the reference beam. The high pump limit of amplification in this two-beam coupling device produces an amplitude compressed output to reduce multiplicative noise. Lost contrast of the image is thereafter restored. Beam clean-up of a non-intelligence bearing beam can be carried out by a similar process; a low pass filter consisting of a pinhole plate can be used in place of the second photorefractive crystal in the Fourier plane and only the planar wavefront portion will pass through the pinhole and may be collimated by a lens to provide a cleaned planar output beam.

Rectification of AC signals into DC signals is one of the simplest and the most important processes in electronics. In electronics it is achieved in two stages: polarity elimination followed by low-pass filtering.
In optics, spatial rectification can be achieved through similar steps: phase elimination and spatial low pass filtering. It has considerable importance in optical signal processing for such applications as beam cleanup, injection of the output of multimode fibers into single mode fibers, and amplification of the output of a single diode laser by an array of phase-locked lasers.
In contrast to the use of diodes for polarity elimination in rectification for serial electronics, we use quadratic processing to demonstrate optical phase elimination. Quadratic or square law receivers are often used in detecting signals in the presence of signal-dependent or multiplicative noise and in processing non-Gaussian signals. For detecting Gaussian signals in non-Gaussian noise, the limiting square law receiver is the optimal receiver
In accordance with the present invention we illustrate the mechanism of rectification using photorefractive two-beam coupling. We present a computer simulation of the optical rectification and its relationship to beam cleanup experiments. We also propose a new technique for dealing with multiplicative complex speckle noise on imaged amplitude objects. This method uses the limiting square law processing associated with two-beam coupling to convert complex multiplicative noise into additive noise. Experimental results are presented accompanied by computer simulations showing improvements of the signal to noise ratio (SNR) due to the associated dynamic range compression. This SNR can be further improved by subsequent nonlinear filtering in the Fourier plane. Finally, we present a general method for the reduction of multiplicative noise in optical images.
This method generalizes the homomorphic filtering technique by the principle of compansion (compression and expansion). Compansion is a well established technique in electronics for reducing noise is serial signals. We believe that this is the first time that the compansion principle has been introduced in optical signal processing.

Photorefractive limiting quadratic processor

The United States of America as represented by the Secretary of the Air Force


A thin film semiconductor transistor structure has a substrate with a dielectric surface, and an active layer made of a semiconductor thin film exhibiting a crystallinity as equivalent to the single-crystalline. To fabricate the transistor, the semiconductor thin film is formed on the substrate, which film includes a mixture of a plurality of crystals which may be columnar crystals and/or capillary crystal substantially parallel to the substrate. The resultant structure is then subject to thermal oxidation in a chosen atmosphere containing halogen, thereby removing away any metallic element as contained in the film. This may enable formation of a mono-domain region in which the individual columnar or capillary crystal is in contact with any adjacent crystals and which is capable of being substantially deemed to be a single-crystalline region without presence or inclusion of any crystal grain boundaries therein. This region is for use in forming the active layer of the transistor.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to semiconductor devices, and more particularly to semiconductor devices having a semiconductor thin film as its active layer and the manufacturing method thereof. The invention also relates to thin film semiconductor transistors with an active layer made of crystalline silicon films.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In the recent years semiconductor thin-film transistor (TFT) devices are becoming more widely used in the manufacture of electronic parts or components, particularly reduced-thickness display devices and digital integrated circuit (IC) packages, as the speed and cost advantages of these devices increase. As such electronics require higher packing density, higher speed, and lower power dissipation, TFTs become more critical in performance and reliability. Some prior known TFTs come with a silicon thin film formed on a substrate with a dielectric surface, which film typically measures several tens to several hundreds nanometers (nm) in thickness.
Typically, the TFT has an active region as defined between spaced-apart source and drain regions for selective formation of a channel region therein. The active region, namely, the channel formation region, as well as its associated source/drain junction regions may play an important role to determine the performance of TFT as a whole. This can be said because the resistance of a current path from the source to drain through the channel, or the mobility of minority charge carriers, can strictly reflect the overall electrical characteristics of TFTs.
Conventionally, amorphous silicon films have been generally employed as the semiconductor thin film constituting the active layer of TFTs. These amorphous silicon films may be fabricated by plasma chemical vapor deposition (CVD) and low pressure thermal CVD techniques.
Unfortunately, the use of such amorphous films is encountered with a problem that where TFTs are required to exhibit higher operation speeds, amorphous films are incapable of trace such trend due to its inherently lowered mobility of charge carriers. To this end, silicon thin films with enhanced crystallinity (to be referred to as the "crystalline silicon film" hereinafter) should be required.
One prior known approach to form such crystalline silicon film on a substrate has been disclosed, for example, in Published Unexamined Japanese Patent Application (PUJPA) No. 6-232059 to be assigned to the present assignee. In this prior art a chosen metallic element is employed to facilitate or accelerate crystal growth of silicon, which is subject to thermal or heat treatment at a temperature of 550° C. for four hours. With this, resultant crystalline silicon film offers enhanced crystallinity. A similar approach has also been disclosed in PUJPA No. 6-244103.
Another prior art approach has been disclosed in PUJPA No. 7-321339, wherein a similar technique is used causing silicon to grow in substantially parallel to the crystal plane of a carrier body, such as a supporting base plate, i.e., substrate. The resulting crystallized region is called the "lateral growth region" in some cases.
The lateral growth region thus formed using the above technique is improved in crystallinity due to the fact that columnar or capillary crystals are gathered with the crystal growth directions being well aligned to one another. The use of such region to form an active layer or layers may contribute to an increase in performance of TFTS.
As the semiconductor manufacturers are commercially demanded to further improve the TFT speed endlessly, even the TFTs with such lateral-growth films as the active layer thereof will be unable to catch up the strict demands due to their inherent limitations as to improvements of the crystallinity.
Advanced active-matrix liquid crystal display (LCD) devices or passive LCDs which employ thin-film transistors (TFTs) for respective picture elements or pixels are examples. The LCDs of these types incorporate peripheral circuitry which includes driver circuits for electrically driving an associative LCD pixel array, image data processor/controllers for handling video signals in a desired format, a memory array for storage of several kinds of information items, and the like. Of those circuit components, the data processor/controllers and memory array are strictly required to be equivalent in performance to presently available advanced integrated circuit (IC) chips as fabricated using single-crystalline wafers. Accordingly, where these LCD driver circuits are integrated on a substrate by use of a semiconductor thin film as formed on the substrate surface, it is required that such thin film exhibit the maximum similarity in nature to the crystallinity of single crystals. Unfortunately, none of the prior art proposed are capable of overcoming this problem. One reason for this is that the lateral growth silicon films do not come without accompanying a problem that reliability and productivity remain lowered due to the fact that the metallic element as used for acceleration of crystal growth might continue to reside within resultant silicon films, which disadvantageously serves to degrade the reproducibility. This is a serious bar to a further advance in semiconductor fabrication technology.

Semiconductor thin film and method of manufacturing the same and semiconductor device and method of manufacturing the same

Semiconductor Energy Laboratory Co., Ltd.


A method and system of detecting the presence of an electric machine attached to a solid state drive using high speed, low energy pulses. The system and method include generating a pulse signal to a selected driven phase winding; and detecting the pulse signal for the purpose of one of a signal presence and absence thereof at a non-driven phase winding as a result of the pulse signal, wherein presence of the signal at the non-driven phase winding is indicative of the motor connected to the electronic control circuit.

The present invention relates generally to electronically commutated DC motors (i.e., brushless DC motors) and, more particularly, to a system and method to detect the presence or absence of a motor connection.
Brushless direct current (BLDC) motors are well known in the art. The phase windings in these motors are sequentially energized at appropriate times so as to produce a rotating magnetic field relative to a permanent magnet rotor. The timing of such energization is a function of where the permanent magnetic rotor is relative to a phase winding that is to be energized. Various means have been heretofore used to sense the position of the permanent magnet rotor relative to the phase windings. These have included optical sensors and Hall effect devices which feed a position signal to switching logic that selectively switches power on and off to the respective phase windings. However, such sensing devices add cost and complexity to a system, and may moreover require maintenance from time to time to assure continued proper operation. In certain high flux/power applications, such as those employing 350 volt motors, the Hall sensors are a common point of failure. As a result of these drawbacks, attention has recently been focused on "sensorless" systems which are not premised on any direct sensing of the rotor position itself. These systems generally attempt to measure the effect of the back electromotive forces produced in the energized windings by a rotating rotor. These systems have achieved various degrees of success in accurately measuring the effect of this back electromotive force.
Traditionally, detection that a motor is connected to drive electronics may be detected in one of two ways. First, sensors may be employed which provide feedback of motor position and motion thereby providing information about the motor being physically connected. However, as discussed above, reliance on such sensors complicate motor design and add cost.
Second, current may be driven through motor windings at a level that is sufficient for the drive electronics to measure. If voltage is increased high enough, and there is no current, a motor is not connected. This is feasible on sensorless systems; however, it takes hundreds of milliseconds to detect the presence of a motor. Additionally, ramping up motor current to a predefined level will almost always cause the motor to move, making starting more difficult. In some applications, it may not be desirable to move the motor by performing such a test. Moreover, current sensing may impose a requirement that custom parameters be used for each motor/drive situation. In cases where a custom parameter is not used, a high power drive could damage a small rotor (e.g., demagnetize).
Current motor drive technology simply attempts to restart a motor infinite times if no motor is plugged or operably connected. This approach is undesirable since it does not provide adequate fault isolation. Instead of being able to differentiate between an unplugged motor and a true start failure (e.g., due to external disturbance), the current approach simply posts start failures until the error stack fills with start failures.
Thus, it is desired to determine if a motor is connected to a solid state motor control assembly to isolate a potential fault without requiring a sensor and significant energy to be delivered to the motor itself.

Electromagnetic coupling based motor plug detect system and method

International Business Machines Corporation


A method of installing a tubular heat exchanger into soil includes providing the tubular heat exchanger and screwing the tubular heat exchanger into the soil with an installation apparatus. The installation apparatus may be removed from the soil without removing the tubular heat exchanger from the soil.

Geothermal heat pumps have been developed that extract heat energy from soil and transfer the heat energy from the soil into a residential or commercial building and thereby heat the building in cool ambient conditions. The geothermal heat pumps can also be used to transfer heat from the building to the soil and thereby cool the building during periods of high ambient heat. A significant cost in installing such geothermal heat pumps is the cost of installation of the heat exchanger in the soil. Various methods currently in use include boring a hole in the soil and inserting a geothermal heat exchanger into the bore hole. The bore hole may further be filled in with grout. Other methods for installing such geothermal heat exchangers include digging a trench, laying the heat exchanger in the trench and then backfilling the trench.

Screw-in geothermal heat exchanger systems and methods